Author's Note

Warning: swearing

The Trough.

Chapter 6.
The Trough.

Sitting in the sunlight of the unbearable mid-summer’s heat and letting it soak your bare skin with its burning rays almost scrubbed this feeling off you. Dirt and grime and saw dust and gear oil was splattered all over your body and glued in place by the abundant sweat oozing from every pore. It weighed you down like a jacket of fatigue that gnashed its tiny and irritating teeth into your flakey and enraged skin. But somehow, it felt positively clean and neat compared to the weight inside. Your heart beat slow and heavy. Each moment your mind turned over the events of the night prior again and again.

This dream wasn’t discarded into the pile of forgotten fancies and delusions like the others. Whereas most of the time you could only recall fleeting glimpses of the strange world your mind created, you had the entire journey tattooed on the inside of your skull twirling round and round in a tormenting cycle. Throbbing pulses resounded through your head in time with the whimpering winds running over the rough wood of the saw mill. Carried on the breeze’s back was the sound of your hustling workplace ticking along without you, the stallions of the mill watching anxiously as their usual ring leader sat defeated and exhausted.

Most of them knew better than to take their eyes off of work and involve themselves in another man’s problems. At least once a month there was poor unfortunate dealing with marriage issues, financial struggles or a bad hangover. But if they were there, on your time, there was an expectation to suck it up and talk later. Somehow, someway, you were the one to break this rule.

“What’s up with the Boss?” One of the younger sawyers asked between the shrieking passes of spinning iron through wood.

“Dunno. He’s been sulkin’ like a filly all day.” The splitter replied, his dark metal wedge rising on a chain before dropping down to splinter a log. The crew stared for a moment or two before wisely taking their eyes back to the task at hand. The only one who remained with time enough to care was the boldest.

Timber Lane was the owner of the mill. A short, stocky and muscular stallion raised on a diet of wood chips and pure labor. Tim was a shining example of the hard backbone that made Equestria run. His was a lot that created and built and maintained the everyday life of the nation, a living blood flowing dauntlessly through Equestria’s veins with a reliability some could only dream of matching. A mindset of hard work, discipline and toughness made him perhaps the least understanding stallion alive when it came to emotional distress, but Tim had known you long enough. You hadn’t shown so much as a lifted eyebrow at work for four years. Sitting alone, still as a rock in the burning sunlight was most unusual and concerning behavior then.

“Hm…” He grunted to himself, a rare outburst of speech that surprised his staff more than the howling grind of steel teeth eating bark. The gruff, green colored stallion approached you from behind with his traditional method of comforting, his horseshoes beating on the dirt like sticks on a drum. Burgundy stubble caught so much dust from the saws and the coal fired boiler that he almost looked like a blonde, though this tiny bit of amusement totally failed to reach you. He noted how you didn’t address him when he approached and stood uncomfortably close.

“Yer’ gonna get burned up sittin’ in the sun.” He said simply, his voice rattling through your skull like nails in a tin can.

“It was shady when I sat down…” You muttered in return, thumbing a gnawed bit of lumber in your fingers. Weighty and sluggish moves infected the tiniest motions of your body, right down to the tactile and careful positions of your hands. Tim’s dark eyes watched you and interrogated every subtle sign he could for weakness. He pried for answers with little hope of understanding anything he came across.

“Dip stick. That wife of yours kick ya in the head too many times?” He huffed with no discernible change in the tone of his voice. Tim’s hoof pressed against your side to try and dislodge you from the spot you had taken, but even a muscled earth pony stood little chance of forcing your massive body to do much of anything. Tim was nothing short of mystified by your stillness, a lack of emotional education on his part making this an uncrackable case. He stared at you sitting there, still as a statue and mysterious as an unwinnable puzzle. His ears twitched and his hoof stomped the earth below frustration.

“Somethin’ like that…”

“Hot damn, Boss! Looks like someone really pissed in your cereal this mornin’!” Wood Chip abandoned his post at the pulling chain to come and speak with you, his fur dotted with so many bits of blasted hickory that his deep purple color was dirtied beyond recognition.

“What in the hell’s wrong with the boy? Git off ‘yer lazy buns and get back to workin’ like the rest of us!” The resident engineer likewise left his bubbling and burping machine behind to scold you, his greying and cracked hoof knocking you fruitlessly up the side of your head.

“Both of you stop.” Tim commanded, though his stern and uncompromising voice was useless against rough working stallions that had been shouted at a hundred thousand times before.

“Why if I ain’t seen a monkey that work less than you, I’d be rippin’ and slappin’ him a leather ass in a second!” Gear Grinder berated into your ear with a fidgety and stilted posture, his incredible age making him simultaneously unstable and fiercely aggressive in open deviance of all logic.

“What in the hay does that even mean, Gear? Anon got somethin’ wrong with him and you’re givin’ him an earful!”

“Shut up and go back to work.”

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with the colt but a little bit of the mondays! He just needs a good tannin’ on his hide to git him motivated again!”

“Anon? Hell no he don’t! The colt can’t stop workin’ when he’s at home! I’m startin’ to think he mighta’ hit his head.” Timber Lane grew more frustrated as the asinine conversation continued, both the stallions not even addressing you, but each other.

“Both of you. Shut up. Work.” He grunted, though the difficulty he had with raising his voice prevented him from making a strong impact.

“How in Celestia’s perty ass are you gon’ say somethin’ like that? That stallion’s nineteen hands tall! His head’s flyin’ with the weather team!”

“Well I’m just sayin’! He’s actin’ mighty strange this mornin’. He drank his coffee with cream AND sugar. You ain’t never seen him do that, now have ye?”

“I am going to kill you both if you do not move.” Tim tried again with more annunciation to his speech, once again unable to break the stand-off.

“He’s bein’ a fool! Ah told him! You was there when I told him! Don’t ya go marryin’ no mares if’n you can herd! Did he listen? Hell no! No look at ‘im!” After the dam finally broke in your mind you straightened your posture and turned to face them all, the movement of such a massive body begging their attention.

“Fellas? Hey.” You said with a wave of your hand, instantly commanding silence. Even when sitting, the stallion’s just barely came to eye level with you.

“Look, I appreciate the concern. But could you please… shut the hell up and get back to work?” You huffed with no meanness in your voice, but the swearing certainly set off alarm bells in your employees’ minds. All eyes widened somewhat in shock, say for Timber Lane. Who simply stood there and felt his emotions in perfect silence.

“Dang… you kiss your wife with the mouth?” Chip unwisely asked. His words furrowed your brow quite substantially, as there was almost no patience left in you.

“What’s goin’ on, son?” Tim interrupted, his tone nothing like a question but his stare somehow becoming deadly serious. Just the tiniest contraction of the muscles in his face signalling the weight of his curiosity. You couldn’t bear to hold secrets from your co-workers, the stallion’s you considered like brothers and spent so much of your time with. But this was no ordinary secret. You withheld something far worse than a bad prank, a stupid mistake or a mistep in morality. Betrayal far greater and more destructive than any other weighed on your heart.

“Nothing. Leave me alone.” The answer came far too fast and strained to be convincing in the slightest, even to the callous and gruff stallions.

“Anon, ya’ll gotta spit it out now!” Gear shouted with his distinct jawl, leaning in far too close to you so he could make his point clear as possible.

“Ain’t never done a stallion no good to hold secrets! Works better for mares, I tell ya what.” Both you and your boss scowled at the crogety old stallion as he spoke, but he refused to halt his rambling for even a moment.

“I hate to agree with an ancient, dusty old stallion… but he’s got a point.” Tim mumbled, his voice barely audible and his accusing glare falling squarely on you.

“We ain’t gon’ holler at ya, Anon. We just wanna help ya.” Chip added with an impressively warm smile, his inviting stance lessening the dark cloud in your gut. For reasons you couldn’t quite pin down, being surrounded by the burly and reliable men you worked with pulled you out of the soggy mire you found yourself stuck in since that morning. The crushing ice rolling around in your stomach lay still now, allowing you to breathe without the searing pain of awful truth stabbing through your lungs. They could see you relax, all of them presenting the most receptive faces they could.

“Go on then. Spit it out ‘fore I fire you.” That sense of brotherhood you felt only at work began to fight through the filters of pride and stoicism it took to do this job. Your friends were surrounding you, probing your strange behavior with an entirely unstandable and warm concern. There was nothing to hide, no reason to restrict yourself in their presence. All that was left was a buried fear for the truth.

And that wasn’t going anywhere until you confessed yourself to someone. Anyone.

“Ugh… supposed I oughta’ get it off my chest and be done with it.”

“Yes. You should.” Tim interrupted, his unchanging face somewhat amusing when he was attempting to be soft and therapeutic. You drew a deep breath to attempt calming yourself with the moist and scented air of the intense Equestrian summer, lighting a fire of absolute terror in your gut.

“Well. You fellas remember my second wife?” Your stallion compatriots nodded knowingly, their gazes meeting one another in a rare moment of silence. These rough and tumble stallions weren’t afraid of much. Being this close to the everfree and oftentimes dealing with its inhabitants, they were experienced with monsters. Massive bugs that lurked in logs, wandering manticores that strayed too far from home and carnivorous plants creeping through the leaf litter never fazed these hardened lumberjacks. But Umbra was a different beast entirely. Her mere presence set them off their dinners, for she was so imbued with rancid evil that the average pony could smell it on her like rotting flesh.

“The scary one, yessir.” Chip answered, his ears visibly twitching with subtle dread.

“Sure. The ‘scary one.’ Ya’ll know she’s not a fan of the royalty. Especially when they’re messin’ with me in particular.” Tim huffed and snorted indignantly, his posture becoming more defensive as the words left your mouth.

“And since the royalty has been awful busy with us for the last few years… they uhm… they… well… Luna I guess. She might’ve… sheesh.” The confession stopped itself like a cork slamming into the firm walls of a wine bottle. You nearly gagged on it as the resistance built in your throat and the pressure mounted quickly. Realization was burning inside you, the sudden knowledge that if you couldn’t even tell your friends, there was no physical way you’d ever tell Umbra. All eyes were on you, the mounting weight of scrutiny somehow far outpacing the many royal trials you had to sit through during your early days in Equestria.

“Ah shoot… ya’ll gettin’ told to send ‘em more taxes!” Gear hollered, his missing teeth accenting his flapping gums.

“Ah knew it! Ah told ya’ll when they was elected! Damn it, Timber! The damn Celestials are burning up our bank accounts!” Chip, too young and simple for politics, could only stand there in bare-faced confusion as his coworker cooked off in such an inappropriate manner. And Tim, a dyed in the wool Celestia supporter since he was born, could only stand there stock still as he always did every moment of every day.

“Shut yer saggy mouth ‘fore I throw you in the river. And you.” He snapped toward you, holding his snout mere millimeters from your nose in a desperate display of dominance.

“Get to the point. You’re burnin’ up my day light.” Such a simple command was like ordering you to take the sun from the sky. Barriers sprung up in your gut that refused the command, beating down your will to speak with savage and endless brutality. All the more proof that you had to speak. You had to be clear with your friends, else this agonizing sensation might just eat you from the inside out. Nostrils flared to vent off your boiling exhaust, neither eye able to focus on anything but the ground. Dirt was the only one you felt kinship with.

“Princess Luna… she came to me in a dream one night.”

“Well shoot! She ain’t done that for you yet?” Tim resisted the overwhelming urge to roll his eyes at such a childish concern, the fierce battle within him manifesting as a gentle twitch in his upper lip.

“Dang, Anon! Everypony gets a visit every now and again! What’n the hay’s the big deal?” Chip interjected before your mouth could form the words, quickly frustrating you beyond comfort.

“It’s not just that, ding-a-ling!” You spat with an obvious and unusual strain in your voice.

“She- Princess Luna-... rrgh! How do I explain this?!” You hissed at the sudden cork jammed into your thoughts, the simple minds surrounding you chugging away like inefficient steam engines running on cheap fuel.

“She-... she did something. Alright? She held me down and… and…” The reactions about you were exemplary of the stallions you worked with. All of them displayed different expressions of shock in twisted, contorted shapes.

Gear’s eyes widened somewhat as his smile broadened, showing off the gaps in his teeth.

Chip only watched with bated breath and utter confusion on his face, as if you had reached up and turned your head around.

And Tim finally broke his stoicness, both his eyebrows ratcheting up and his frown deepening into a dark trench.

“Well I’ll be…” The senile old horse chattered, stepping up to his “big-man” and draping an arm about your shoulder. Clearly the confession had taken a sizable chunk out of your endurance, as the words alone left you panting and sweating bullets. Gear Grinder paid no mind to your reaction, instead cackling dryly and hacking against his own drawn-out breaths.

“Anonymous. Young stallion… ya’ll just been taught a lesson.” He huffed with a wise and knowing voice smelling powerfully of apple cider and grits. You returned his gaze with curiosity and buried hope, perhaps wishing silently that he held the true answer to this strange circumstance. A “lesson” could mean anything. Was Luna offering you wisdom, a vision of the future, a concealed answer to a question you had been silently asking for years? You wanted to believe her so mystical and mysterious, rather than anything so outwardly raunchy and practical.

“Ya walk around with nuts like that, ‘yer gonna attract attention son!” BWAAAHHAHA!” A hard and metal-shoed hoof cracked against the rear of your skull and knocked nearly all the sense from your head. Such a mighty and painful beating matched how you felt on the inside, such throttling currents of discomfort and agony suffocated for a moment until the dull throb of a concussion.

“WHEEEW! Welcome to the club, colt! Ya’ll struttin’ ‘round with them wives in a big ‘ol herd breedin’ with a queen every damn night! Now you’s gotcha an admirer!” Gear trot about the group with a high and mighty posture, each pounding hoof on the dirt below raising his head higher and higher despite his rickety and bony neck.

“Welcome to the Moon Riders, Anon! It be a high and mighty groupa’ mare-bustin’ and heart breakin’ sons a’ bitches! And now you’s in for life!” Blood rushed away from your face in a river of seething fear. Suddenly your mind was light as a feather and foggy as a winter mountain drowning in confusion.

“’Moon Riders?’ What in the hell you talkin’ about?” Chip piped in, following the older pony’s prance with his entire head in utter confusion.

“Yessir! Breeders of the high and mighty herself! Princess of the Night only comes to the biggest, baddest stallions she fancies! Just like me, colt!” Intense banter was directed right in the young stallion’s face like a cannon blast, so much hitting him at once the absurdity took several seconds to sink in. Chip’s impressed grin quickly morphed into a skeptical frown as Gear continued to praise himself.

“Wait a minute? How in the hay did ya’ll bag Miss Luna in a dream? Yer’ older than damn dirt, Grinder!” The greying pony huffed and had himself a smug laugh, one that sounded oddly similar to a screeching door hinge begging for oil.

“I wasn’t a crotchety old bastard back in the day, son! Yer’ pappy was nothin’ short of a mare-makin’ machine! Ah had all the damn fillies in ponyville on ma waitin’ list!” Had Tim ever changed his face from furious shock, he might’ve perhaps reacted to such a wild statement.

“The hell you were! And ‘sides, Miss Luna was on the damn moon up ‘til ten years ago!” Dismissing his logic immediately, Gear Grinder shook his head. Dismissively, he pushed the younger earth pony about with a hoof jabbing into his chest.

“You don’t know nothin’ Chip! You was a foal when all that happened! Ya’ll can’t prove that!”

“Ah know fer damn sure that Miss Luna didn’t come down from the moon after a million billion years and pick YOU as the first dick she was gonna get!”

“I wasn’t no first timer, son! Me and the fine purple honey was together over a hundred times ‘fore that! Maybe even a dozen!” Their words fired back and forth like the indistinct and chaotic chatter of a gunfight. Blasting lies and scathing comebacks sailed across your nose with complete neglect, your face frozen just as Tim’s was. The two of you locked eyes in that moment, a father staring down a foolish child. He pressed like a glacier rolling over a helpless landscape. Suffocating, dauntless and totally unfeeling in his natural progress forward. Suddenly the noise of the world fazed out of your senses. Only you and him were left. No buzz of saws cutting into wood, no meaningless banter between two idiotic men fighting for dominance and no whimpering wind to interrupt this sharp and driven interrogation. For the first time in many years, you felt small.

“You mean to tell me that ya’ll been runnin’ off in yer’ dreams to… do whatever you like to do with the Princess?” Tim huffed, his unmoving tone devastating when aimed at you. After so many years of being in his good graces, his golden child of the saw mill, it burned worse than fire when he scolded you.

“I didn’t choose this.” You qualified, knowing he would believe you but terrified of where this conversation would lead.

“She came to me and startin’ askin’ all these questions about my life and where I came from, all this weird mess happened and then, she’s sitting in my lap planting one on my face!” You gasped as it all came pouring out in a toxic and muddy tide. Your heart rate skipped several steps and shot straight to a racing rhythm as your boss sat there, unmoving and unfazed.

Timber Lane was one of those ponies that was so traditional, so set in his ways and confident in his lifestyle that any opposition to it was like an insult to him. While he was loyal and driven in every facet of his life, he was still a cold and stern authority. Thus, his stare was like a spear crushing through your face. He looked as if he wanted to rip your throat out with the subtlest change in his brow and lip. Tim was clearly fuming at the very idea of you possibly cheating on your herd, especially given the deep connections to his own.

“I just… don’t look at me like that, man!” You barked at him, quickly reminded that yelling at Tim was equivalent to hollering at a rock.

“I didn’t ask her to! I don’t know what was up with her! She was all over me like a pony in heat, man!” You begged forgiveness from a party totally unconcerned with the issue, perhaps practicing for when your marriage inevitably exploded and you’d fall to your knees. Tim’s face morphed subtly from his own to Derpys, then Umbra’s with alarming clarity. For but the tiniest speck of a second, you would see their reactions to your nonconsensual treachery.

“And ya’ll let her?” He huffed, taking a step forward to put your noses mere inches away.

“NO!” You snapped back, closing the gap and booping the unmoving slab of stallion with your face.

“Gettin’ mighty worked up there, Sugar. Ya’ll got somethin’ ya wanna tell me?” Sharp and ragged breaths shared between you two was an odd and proprietary means of communication. Neither of you were backing down from this discussion, meaning neither of you were lying. Tim wouldn’t humor a conversation unless it interested him. Or even worse, concerned him. With the stallion applying such undue force to you, it was clear just how deadly serious this was to him. He would not rest until the entire truth was laid bare for him to scrutinize. Whether you gave it, or he had to rip it out of your bloody chest cavity mattered little to him.

“I. Did not. Ever. Cheat on my wives.” You hissed through clenched teeth, insulted that he’d ever insinuate such a thing.

“Then what’s got you so scared, son?” He belted back without skipping a beat, never changing his voice from the usual, dull monotone.

“I don’t know what to do.” You said without thinking, losing yourself in the moment and spilling your beans. Truthfully you wanted to manage some control over the situation, rather than admitting abject failure. It felt unnatural to leave such things to vulnerability and the goodwill of others, even back in the days when you were a human in a human world. For too long, Equestria made you fly solo. You had to be on top of things since the day you arrived, else the world would’ve opened up and swallowed you whole again. To be this lost, this utterly and totally lost and clueless, felt as wrong as that kiss.

Tim knew it just from your face. You were fighting back without a real reason. You were insecure, acting impulsively and matching his masculine energy. A complete waste of energy that you fell for in this moment of clouded thoughts. The words oozed from your mouth like cold mud from a stoney crack, forcing you to decompress and back down. Now that you had lost fair and square, it was time to quit pretending and be honest.

“I… have absolutely no idea what to do about this.” You admitted, sighing in defeat as Tim softened.

“Anon… there ain’t much ya’ll can do.” He said with a clear and concise voice, unwavering as the wooden buildings you and him had constructed together.

“How am I supposed to turn down an all-powerful goddess? What’s she gonna do if I reject her?”

“Don’t suppose ya’ll thought about makin’ it work?” You shook your head in defeat, feeling as if the enormous and sloshing weight inside it would rip it straight off your neck.

“No sir. It was enough lettin’ Umbra in. And I very much doubt she’d ever approve of me and Luna.” Tim cocked an eyebrow and snorted somewhat at your response.

“Mh. They ain’t the kind to share?”

“No sir.” You answered solemnly, gripping your ratty work pants with quivering death grips.

“If Umbra found out we even talked, let alone kissed? She’d… I dunno what she would do. But it ain’t good. I can tell you that much.”

“Mh. Yessir. I can see that.” Tim contemplated in his own silent manner how to approach this issue. Soon enough he found himself in your predicament all the same, staring off into the middle distance trying to compute his options whilst rambling chaos broke out all around him.

“Honestly, I don’t even know how badly I want to turn the Princess down.” You huffed with near-silence, perhaps frightened that Umbra or Derpy would be lurking in the brush waiting for you to misspeak.

“Tsk. Can’t hardly blame ya.” Tim muttered, though with a somewhat dismissive tone to his voice.

“Gettin’ yer hooves on a second rate Celestia ain’t bad pickins. ‘Specially for a two-legged freak like you.” Such a small joke was enough to lift you an inch out of the suffocating mire of despair. Timber Lane could always be counted on to lighten the mood with his unbelievably dry humor.

“But… sheesh. Having her on one hand and them my wives on the other? How long before they start naggin’ me about ‘having favorites?’ Or dang- how long before I do have favorites?!” Your boss scuffed the ground with a hoof, demonstrating just how deep in simple and mechanical thought he was.

“Hrrm… Colt gets a love letter from the Princess. Next thing you’ll be weddin’ dragons and raisin’ the dead.” Shaking his head and releasing a drawn-out breath, the grumpy stallion spit on the ground. A tell-tale sign that he was done with the conversation.

“Get outta’ here ‘till ya’ll get this figured out.” He said, rather surprised that you didn’t instantly protest.

“Go on home. Go on a hike. Do whatever it is that make you humans think worth a damn. But go on. Git.” The words left his mouth and he turned on his hooves, leaving you there with a burden lifted off your shoulders. It was a miniscule and meaningless weight coming off your chest, but it regardless provided you incentive to move. Just as he left you, you left the mill. As you did every night after a hard day's work.

But this time, you left to perform more crushing labor. Physically you were fresh and ready, totally unworked and pumped full of masculine power. But inside, invisibly, you were nothing but a child curled up in the corner waiting for a spanking. No matter how you planned the conversation out, you saw nothing but dread in your very near future.

~~Meanwhile…~~

Something about this day must’ve been spreading a sickness of discomfort around Ponyville. The air was thick with the moisture of a seasonal rain yet to come. Ferocious cocktails swirled in the breeze and billowed up between the buildings.

For Umbra was indeed quite pissed.

The exact reason escaped her at the moment, but the mare knew herself well enough to put these emotions into words. Another sleepless night of thrashing about the bed in a chilling sweat, waking up to find you gone off to work and the memories of past transgressions ate the mare from the inside out. Derpy had to walk Dinky to school that morning, for the dark Sorceress of the house was simply in no mood.

An intangible but very real switch was turned in her, something was wrong. Frustratingly, attempting to meditate in the sun room brought her no answers. Umbra’s concentration could not last for more than a few seconds before she trailed off into a pounding headache. She felt as if the vessels between her brain and skull throbbed with undue pressure that crushed her thoughts back down whence they came. Every breath was exhausting, a swirling vortex that rushed into her lungs then turned to lead in her belly.

Her long career as a soldier had taught her myriad ways to deal with pain, but none prepared her for the dull, constant throb in her skull today. When she had been struck in the head with a war hammer and shattered three of her vertebrae, that was less immobilizing. After suffering a pyromancer’s warth and losing the skin on her chest, that was less irritating than the wandering thoughts. And when she had been locked in a castle’s sewer as punishment for sabotage, the swirling dervish of feces and freezing water was less suffocating than this.

All the Queen could do was sit and stew, staring out the window with a record playing and a book’s first page sitting there waiting to be read. Derpy busied herself about here and there with her usual activities, seemingly impervious to the same dreariness that threw itself unto her ebon Queen. Her mirth and giddy smile stabbed at the slouched pony and nagged her to rise, to fight off this strange depression and make herself useful. The well of ambition that had flowed unabated for thousands of years pushed her to move, pressured her to do anything at all. It had served her well for so long, guiding her through plans of domination and webs of deceit. But at the moment, it was just a candle lit under her belly that burned hotter and hotter the longer she tried to ignore it.

“Mrs. Grumpy-pants?” Derpy chirped, positioning a small cup and saucer by her herdmate’s side. Umbra’s eyes twitched toward the warm and lemon-scented brew so kindly presented to her, the swirling amber color so much like Derpy’s gorgeous eyes it functioned as an extension of her motherhood and kindness. Nostrils widened to take in the soothing scent, but such winds of calm were added to a hurricane of dread. The stirring pot in Umbra’s mind quickened its pace and rapidly rotated into madness, powering her to speak with a croaking and weak voice.

“Derpy.” She harrumphed, summoning the dutiful wife to her side with a smile.

“Did you feel something… off about the King this morning?” Derpy’s ears perked at the strange question, her smile refusing to fade when the beaming sunlight warmed her cheek.

“‘Off?’ Oh no, no.” She answered casually with no regards for Umbra’s seething tone or posture.

“Bubby got up and went to work! If he was off, Poppa wouldn’t get outta bed.” Umbra groaned at the answer, burying her face in her hooves as Derpy absentmindedly hooved her apron.

“He probably felt like that ‘cuz he was sleeping. That limp and squishy kinda sleepy.”

“No. Not like that, mare.” The sinister royal sneered, her teeth showing in a flashing display of frustration.

“I mean in his attitude. His posture. Have ye not noticed how he carries himself this week?” Derpy stared at the Queen for several seconds thinking over the proposition. Visibly her thoughts ratcheted through her mind and knocked against every wall on the way out, scrunching her nose and narrowing her eyes. The pegasus’ bad eye spun quicker and quicker in its socket as the excess pressure of consideration bled off and vented the inefficient process.

“Hmmm… hmmmmmm… nope!” She answered with a chirp, bouncing on her hooves and retreating to the living room.

“He felt fine to me! Just as big and strong and warm as he always is! Of course, I was asleep the whole time. So I guess it doesn’t really count.” If she had the strength, Umbra would’ve beat her head against the window. Her need for pain was just a distraction from the very present discomfort already running wild inside her, something Derpy could never pick up on when she couldn’t see straight.

“But… hm… now that you mention it?” Derpy hummed as she set up her latest set of decorations, all of them made by hoof in the Mares’ Club.

“He was sleepin’ really, really good last night! I woke up to take a tinkle and I thought he was dead!” Umbra’s ears flicked toward the speaking mare and drank in every word, hoping to find some answer hidden in her babbling speech.

“Laying around with his eyes all open and stuff, not breathing and not moving? I got really scared for a while!” The mare spoke gleefully and easily in the afternoon light, totally unaware of the armageddon she had just released. Umbra’s eyes widened to dinner plates as the facts washed over her and leaked their fetid, stinking waters into her heart. The pulse of her heart slowed to a bassy rhythm just barely keeping enough of a beat to sustain her life.

“But then he spazzed out like how he does when puts his finger in the light socket, gurgled a little and slept fine. I think poor Bubby’s been getting too much sun. It’s cookin’ his brain!” She said with a shrug, ignorantly fawning over her stained glass ornament and the multicolored shadow it cast on her home.

Umbra stewed. Umbra seethed. And most of all, Umbra forced a heavy, sticky and venomous bowling ball down her throat. Her ancient and cunning mind cut through the smaller thoughts and attacked the biggest issue at the moment with all her faculties, all her focus and all her learning. Thousands of years of education poured into solving this issue, exploring every avenue in hopes of discovering the one fault with it. She considered everything that could possibly induce a state like that- everything- say for the one horrible, disgusting yet obvious thing. Poisoning, fatigue, disease, drunkenness, hitherto unknown mental illness.

Infidelity.

The word alone burst something behind her eye with monstrous strain. The throbbing ring of pain swirling round and round in her sprouted barbs and caught the walls of her skull, inducing sincere agony and a vibrant ring in her ears. Umbra swore her vision doubled and unfocused, phasing in and out of reason before her snout like a film burning in the projector. The ring so honorably and proudly worn around her neck fizzled and popped, the trapped energy within pushed to its limit and nearly punching through the diamond encasing it. Even the hardest material known to Equestria feared for its safety when subjected to the molten tide moving throughout the hateful Queen.

There was no other explanation that made any sense. Only dream walkers induced that kind of state in a healthy and unassuming pony. You had not been merely visited, but yanked from your physical being and stolen in the night. Pilfered like treasure right out from under her nose. In all her years of arcane practice, Umbra couldn’t imagine a way of breaching the divide between mind and reality so brutally. Especially for a non-Equestrian unbound to the eternal flow of magic in the world. To do something like that took planning, education.

Untold power only gods could harness.

Another throb set Umbra off like a fuse finally reaching its termination. Explosive will and motivation made the sinister mare jump to her hooves and trot toward the door with a robotic motion stiff and stilted. She stomped as she went, denting the floorboards and nearly ripping the front door off its hinges with her magic. Violent bangs made Derpy jump as she followed after the mare, the curious pony watching her herdmate go.

“I am going to pick up Dinky from School.” Umbra snarled between clenched teeth, purple candle light burning in her eyes.

“But school doesn’t let out for three hours!” Derpy called back with a sudden wave of concern running over her. She knew well enough that her pudgy body wouldn’t stand the test of Umbra’s might. Something was clearly horribly wrong with Umbra if she was willing to interrupt Dinky’s schooling for it. Jiggling on her hooves and biting her lip, the overburdened wife could only make off for the mill to summon her muscle.

“Oh Jeepers…” She mumbled, unaware of just what manner of fire she had started.

Umbra’s hooves beat a war path into the rough road criss-crossing through Ponyville with an undying and concerning focus. Her lips pursed as her teeth mashed and slipped against one another in rough grinds of ferocious anger. Her mind was operating on a different level than any normal pony could comprehend, for she was thinking rashly but logically. Formulating complex schemes on a whim was her gift, one of her many talents fostered through practice and education. But when that talent was totally unrestrained, it quickly became a dreadful curse for anyone that crossed her path.

“Get Dinky home. Find Anonymous. PUNISH HIM. FIND PRINCESS LUNA. PUNISH HER. KILL HER. KILL THEM ALL. BURN DOWN THE CITY.” The words repeated in her skull again and again like the tick of a clock dangerous low on oil. The unicorn moved with purpose and little guidance, allowing the lesser parts of her mind to totally consume her stride as she gnashed her thoughts together. Ponies had to jump out of her way and mind her barging form pressing through their crowds, everyone watching her with bated breath and hushed whispers. Grass and dirt below her hooves seethed when contacting her untold wells of fierce energy, the gnawing force of her internal magika leaking out and setting fire to them.

Purple flames licked upwards from the greenish auras left in her wake, the air sizzling and squealing when it touched her unholy form. Her magic-retaining horn ring jiggled on her red spire, begging to leap free and escape the flamethrower rage bursting from her heart. She was growing stronger, so powerful that her old self would cower in honest fear of her potential. Umbra’s barely restrained fury clawed and scratched and screamed to be set free and reduce this unjust world to a flat plain of black ash.

Her protege, on the other hand, was unduly focused. Dinky sat in the shade of an elm tree outside the school house as ponies played around her and shouted in glee. Her gilded eyes focused on her paper and her floating quill, scrawled runes and ancient incantations summoning a dead god’s favor. Humming magic flowed through the bitter and rejected sigils of power, bending and twisting to Dinky’s practiced whims. Just as her Aunt had taught her, she channeled her thoughts and needs. Thinking solely on her goal, the young unicorn let the gifted strength become her will. In an instant, like gas catching the super-heated particle of a spark, a flame popped into existence. Purple fire, corrupted magic expressing its exothermic reaction with the air, danced on her parchment without burning it.

The satisfied young filly grinned and focused on keeping the simpering flame alive, feeding it a continuous trickle of energy. Experimenting with the rate however, she could make it rise and fall and leap and sparkle. It was monumentally strenuous, costing every last bit of her concentration and willpower to maintain. But there it was, sparkling for her with the shouvenism of a proud and haughty stallion.

“MS. CHEEEEEEERILEEEEEE!!!” A shrill voice called from nearby, shattering Dinky’s focus and bringing her back to the real world. The young filly flinched and let her flame die, its purple body fading instantly from reality with a pathetic cough of black smoke. Dinky’s body rankled and recoiled at the burst of noise, for its irritating and high-pitched tone was both familiar and alarming.

“Dinky’s trying to burn down the school agaaaaaaaaain!!!” Straight Lace, the antsy little filly, proved herself to be a thorn in Dinky’s hoof many times in the past. And unfortunately, this recess was no different. Neurotic as she was loud and sassy, the curly-haired little bundle of azure nervousness never hesitated to tattle and to blabber out in terror whenever something was even slightly awry. Your daughter may have once been friends with the astute and studious little filly, but that was long since a faded memory. Only bitterness remained in the wide gap cut between experimental unicorn and naggy little pegasus.

“I am NOT! Ugh! You’re such an ass-head!” She spat with ample vitriol swirling in her chest. Dinky blushed whenever she was discovered doing something she shouldn't, an occurrence that was rather frequent given her devious nature.

“OOOOH! She said a bad word!” Someone else chipped in from the sidelines, the school yard pausing for a moment to watch the confrontation.

“Nuh-UH!” Dinky spat with childish guile, her own youth intoxicating her such that any proper, level-headed response was impossible.

“Yeah-HUH!” Her schoolyard rival retorted without much charisma, chewing her words and spitting them like gnarled bits of filth.

“You’re gonna burn the shcool down, ‘cuz you’re a stupid half breed and you have a witch as a momma!” Straight Lace was never good with her words, the rather biting insult she flung making Dinky puff up and snarl like she had just been smacked. The common school yard practice of mocking every aspect of a pony truly knew no bounds, as even Dinky’s heritage was considered fair game. Umbra was certainly not her mother, she wasn’t a witch and your participation in her conception didn't make her any less of a pony than any other trotting around ponyville. Yet the scathing little tongues of ignorant minds paid little mind to the facts. Watching her focused mind instantly go to pieces trying to defend herself was entertainment enough to set aside logic and kindness.

“I’m gonna rock your crap and toss you down a flight of stairs if you don’t shut up, Lace!” Dinky snapped back, tossing clods of earth in her magic toward the abusive little filly. Straight Lace jumped about and squealed to dodge the oncoming missiles, unfocused and furious magic slinging them with little care and even less accuracy.

“EEK! Staaaaahp!!! Dinky you’re being a halfbreed! STAAAAAHP!” Ever since someone’s parents let that word slip from their mouths, it was the catch-all term for anything Dinky related. Had she been a little wiser and not let it bother her so visibly, then perhaps the diatribes of scathing cruelty would’ve been less effective. But bred and raised to be proud like you and undaunting as her mother, the unicorn was entirely unequipped to handle such drivel. Afterall, it was not only an attack against her, but her family. The blood running through her veins was at stake here, the words of her schoolmates cutting down to the marrow of her most intimate insecurities.

“Dinky’s being a bully again!” One of the colts shouted from the background, tossing a banana with a coy little laugh while he was at it.

“Take one of these, half breed! That’ll calm you down!” The school yard snickered as the monkey references continued to pile on, yet another brutal mechanism to cut the nerdy and focused filly down.

“Ugh! You buttholes are so immature! I am not a monkey!” She shouted back, stomping her hooves defiantly. The natural discourse was set already, the back and forth of meaningless and mean-spirited debate in full swing by that point. Her heart was pounding and her mind putting together the pieces of insults for slinging at others, Dinky was ready to continue on this endless fight that would surely end with her forgetting it all by the next week when the kids would settle their differences and ask her for tutoring again.

But the foals simply stood there, their mouths pursed shut and their fur standing on end. Dinky marveled at her ability to silence a crowd at first, quickly finding that her own coat did the same as her hapless peers. Each fiber prickling through her skin was pulled by some strange force surrounding her like water, stimulating her into an unusual and uncomfortable alertness. The filly whipped around to lay her eyes on what brought about this feeling, her heart instantly leaping from her chest at the sight of a familiar face.

“Auntie!” She chirped, giddily trotting to her care-taker without a care in the world. Any wayward glance toward Umbra’s composure, her shivering shape and her seething eyes would clearly distinguish her as a threat. A ticking bomb ready to go off at the slightest jostle that no living, sane being should ever approach. Dinky was blinded by her trust, only stopping herself when she was behind the protective veil of her guardian’s chubby black body. Umbra’s infectious and writhing eyes drilled into Straight Lace’s face like daggers rending the skin from her cheeks. The child stood in place, hypnotized by fear, fascination and utter confusion. Umbra approached her wordlessly and silently like a predator sniffing out fresh blood spilt in the grass. Her teeth showed with a nasty snarl that let wisps of purplish smoke fall from the corner of her mouth.

“Little one…” She huffed, her voice contaminated by the leaking spirits within her. So driven by rage and furious beyond containment, Umbra’s trapped power was breaking free. Her physical mind of bits and pieces and gears and springs was consumed and washed over by the thousands of souls trapped within her. The incantations, runes, spells and curses of a thousand lifetimes piled together and forced through a crushing bottleneck to the surface all fought to control her, something that would certainly overwhelm the physical and restrained sorceress. Unrestricted, she could easily manipulate all her strength naturally as one would their limbs. But with the ring struggling valiantly on her horn, there was nothing she could do in this state.

“Have you any idea in that tiny piss-pot you call a mind, what the penalty is for using that wretched, damnable word is?” Umbra hissed with drool visibly pooling at the corners of her mouth. Her venomous and nasty swear hit Dinky with some force, scrubbing a portion of her wry grin off and replacing it with palpable angst.

“Y- yeah! You got any idea?!” She added on to further torment the shivering Straight Lace. Mysteriously, though she was terrified beyond compare simply looking into the swirling and endless eyes of this mare, her legs refused to move. Some demon within her locked every joint in place, screwed her hooves to the ground and stole the wind in her chest. The filly was caught in a savage trap of watching Umbra’s face, falling into it and drowning in her influence. Weak and inexperienced, the defenseless innocent could only cower as Umbra leaned in close enough to smell her fear.

“Say it…” She snarled, curling her tongue into a sharp hook mere millimeters from the child’s nose. Lace huffed and whimpered under the pressure forcing itself upon her, the strain crushing her bones, flesh and spirit into a dribbling pulp. Fear unlike any she had ever felt sank deep into her, not only afflicting her mind, but her body. It leeched into her muscles and shred their fibers apart, exhausting her, stealing from her. Umbra could feed on this energy for decades, the familiar and delicious delicacy of abject horror in a pony’s face.

“I- I- I’m sorry Miss Um-”

“SAY IT!” The unicorn interrupted, frothing at the mouth and spitting fire from her eyes. The rune that Dinky had struggled to make spark and fluster burst into a geyser of purple flames, scattering the crowd with its gaseous terror. Hooves skittered and clawed at the ground to get away, the volume of its sudden burst rivaling the bone-chilling call of the Queen. Dinky was sent reeling back from the motherly mare as she twisted and contorted into a fierce deity, her body smoking and burning off excess energy. She was hot to the touch and steaming in the sunlight, tendrils of purple energy clawing out of her eyes and nostrils like some leech lived within her skull. Lace could not breathe, could not react and could not comprehend the horror descending on her. In that moment, she was not a living thing, but a being of pure fear inanimate and destined to suffer what she must.

“So easy to torment the downtrodden and the scorned. The dirty lessers that’re beneath ye and thine judgemental eye! Oh what merry times you must have dreaming of their anguish while you sit prim and pretty atop a mountain of righteousness!” Umbra’s voice was mired in the bite of anger, several souls speaking at once while her lips formed the words. Voices wound together into a continuous bundle of chilling and unnatural sounds. Her teeth seemed to grow with each syllable, stretching further and further down from her jaws until they could no longer close. Tentacles of purple and green and red ripped at the flesh holding her face to her skull, pushing her eyes about until mysterious, dark fluid oozed from their sockets.

“A- Aunty?! Aunty stop! That’s enough!” Dinky piped in, stepping up to face the demonic foe her caretaker was quickly becoming. She could sense the erupting presence of evil in the air, a long-buried and obscured force Umbra carried within her. A force of destruction and hatred far more devious and horrific than she could ever be, a pure creature of malevolence she harnessed for her own means many centuries before. She was allowing it to take her, to play its role in strengthening her negative emotions. It worked with all the other powers trapped inside her to subjugate Umbra into their willing and furious thrall.

“We will enjoy this opportunity to teach respectless worms an overdue lesson in restraint. When we flay the skin from your bleeding muscles, string up it upon a standard and make war against your bottom feeding bloodline!” Mechanisms of magic ripped Umbra into pieces, shredding her appearence into a tatter mess of dripping ribbons hanging from bristling thorns. Her shape was crafted from emotions, a tormenting image created to sustain the fear pouring into her endless well. Lace could not bear to see it, collapsing in breathless terror as the onsalught deprived her brain of oxygen.

“AUNTY! AUNTY STOPPIT!” Dinky blurted and kicked against the unicorn’s side to dissuade her vicious intent. Tiny hooves smashed into real ribs and flesh, but the magic clouded about Umbra’s physical form reacted violently. Pain was fuel for this burning fire, negativety of any color was simply adding onto the ferocious and insane expression Umbra fostered. As such, blinded and unable to control her actions, the old Queen buried within her broke free and snarled at her beloved.

“Trechery! Betrayal! Spineless mortal pawn!” She barked with a chorus of husky and hateful voices. All attention snapped to Dinky as the ripping thorns continued to pierce her skin and grow like hedgehog spikes. Your daughter couldn’t bear to look into the tattered and stretching face of her caretaker, the once beautiful and feminine shapes torn and stretched over a new structure. Duofold eyes of glimmering purple stared from within this bivouac of dead vines and writhing spirits.

“Stop, Aunty! This isn’t you! You’re acting like a maniac!” Dinky barked fearlessly as unimaginable terror smashed her heart. An orb of fire gestated in her chest and weighed her down, but her unbreakable will and ignorant bravery refused to head its reasonable warnings.

“Come back, Umbra! They can’t control you! They don’t deserve to control you! You’re better than them!” She squealed into the snickering face that was no longer her Aunt, stepping back to avoid having her eyes gouged out by surging thorns. Whatever had taken Umbra laughed at such a sentiment, for it was no longer true. In this moment of extreme angst, this weak point in the chain of life, Umbra had given in. She had not only failed to stop the beast within her, but had welcomed it to exact a heated revenge. Whatever this entity within her was, whoever it was, it felt no love for Dinky. No love for anyone, say for itself corrupting and savage self.

“You are nothing but a mindless fool to this one! A useful idiot to bring her out of this miserable hole you call a home!” The demon snarled and smiled in its own crooked manner, manipulating Umbra’s lifeless body into a threatening and stiff posture.

“That’s not true! She’s told me about you!” Dinky shouted back, despite the creeping worm in her heart telling her it might be true. Umbra had warned of this nameless being, this liar incarnate. Equestria was full of demons like this, those that would say anything to get their way and destroy in the most sadistic, enjoyable manner for them.

“She has already abandoned you! You are not hers to love! Now step aside, ignorant child! I have been restrained long enough and an idiotic, weak child will not hault my plans!” Dinky refused, pushing into the apparition to find her beloved Aunty in the fog. Through stabbing bristles of writhing and burning thorns, she knew Umbra was there. All of this was a spectacle, a false conjuration that couldn’t truly hurt her. Even if the pain of driving thorns into her face was immense, unbearable, it was the proper thing to do. Umbra’s warmth, her motherly softness was inside this place. All she had to do was get a hold of her and bring her back into control.

“Get off me, you filthy babe!” The beast hissed as a massive and overwhelming force crushed both it and Dinky. A siesmic wave of power crashed through both their bodies and sent them spiraling back in shock, especially Umbra’s rather unimpressive and chubby form. The smog of deceit instantly vanished and left the scene peaceful again- at least as peaceful as a thrashing human and a screaming mare could be. Dinky’s vision blurred and struggled to draw the lines of reality again as her head spun and her ears rang, as contact with such powerful magic was quite exhausting for any unicorn unprepared for it.

“DMHNK! MMBEE!” A voice hollered to her from the confusion, a closing and tight embrace shaking the foal back to her senses. In an instant the sun was blotted out from the sky, a reassuring scent was flooding her nostrils and a sweet weight protected her. Arms strapped about her body like pillars of soft fur and squeezing security, a force powerful enough to squish the breath from her lungs.

“My baby! Oh Celestia my poor little Dinky!” Derpy whimpered into her ear and buried her face into the abundant grey of her chest, shocking her child into a state of awareness. Out of pure reflex the filly clung to her mother, a lingering fear still very present in her heart. Though her thoughts rapidly cleared and her racing mind calmed in the embrace of her mother, her body couldn’t possibly respond. A pounding heart, soaring blood pressure and quivering muscles were useless to her now, a slow process of medicating affection soaking into her drop by drop out of Derpy’s infinite supply. All she could do was hide herself away in the folding wings of her adoring parent, watching as you savagely wrestled the monster to the ground.

Tackling a beast made of thorns was certainly not the reason you had taken off of work. But the instant Derpy came sprinting to you half way between home and the mill, you knew something awful had to be happening. She was panting and sucking for breath, but fighting through her lack of physical fitness to summon you. Something about Umbra. Something about the school house. And most concerning of all, something about Dinky. Instincts kicked in the very moment you spotted something dark and freakish looming over your daughter, driving any sense of pain out of the muscles currently skewered on magic thorns.

“RRGH! Agh! Son of a- GHK!” You wrapped arms about the beast’s neck and squeezed tightly, fighting hard to kill it before it could do yet more damage. Pain fed into the ferocious entity’s strength, but the scent of your body, the power of your presence and the ring wrapped about your sweating hand countered every last particle of strength it derived. Crystals worked in tandem between Umbra’s necklace and your band, sparking with the overwhelming force of love between husband and wife destined for one another. Royally gifted strength overwhelmed the demon… for now. Flashes of positive force jostled Umbra back in control and extinguished her conjured form like water suffocating a fire. The blood racing from your cuts and the pain crashing through you was eliminated, restoring all strength to subduing this strange force.

“NYAGH! RRRRGH! RRRARRGH! GUAAAAAAAAH- AAAUNGH!” Free of its influence and forced back into the proverbial driver’s seat, all that was left was a thrashing and kicking Umbra. She wiggled and screamed and hollered for the entire town to watch, your sweaty arms unwavering and refusing to give under her. She was helpless, perfectly weakened into a normal mare that could never even try to hurt you. Scraping hooves and bruising strikes were nothing as you sucked for breath and regained your thoughts, a super-charged rush of adrenaline tempered into a boiling and furious rage.

“Umbra…” You hissed in revelation, panting as she tuckered herself out fighting against you. She was blinded by her rage and completely overwhelmed by her own outburst, simply running on instinctual spasms until there wasn’t an ounce of energy left in her. No magic, no calories, no fire. Just a limp and whining mare in a deep state of need.

All eyes were on you, staring aghast and unsure how to react to this wild turn of events. Ponyville watched with bated breath for your reaction from every nook and cranny of the village, their fixed eyes hoping you had truly defeated this latest threat. With considerable effort you stood up with Umbra braced in your arms like a wad of rubber caught in a steam engine. The mare was uncomfortable and contorted into a stiff posture, but even this humiliating fate was better than falling to her old vices again. Her ring glowed on the end of its sweat-drenched chain, ensuring that your presence would keep her tethered to the real world.

Regardless, you made a silent and wordless leave. Derpy would care for Dinky now, but your duty was centered around Umbra. Just as it had from the very moment she came into your life.

The short walk home felt like an eternity with her writhing and twitching in your arms. Much like holding a monstrous fish ripped from the ocean bleeding profusely from the hook jammed in its jaw. No matter what, Umbra would not settle. She wouldn’t calm herself and make anything easier for either one of you. Frustration built until you nearly kicked the door down to your own house just to get in, settling the Queen roughly on the couch like the mare had transformed into a ticking bomb in your hands.

She landed gracelessly, all at once going limp before stiffening back up into a hunched and wiry position on the cushions. The dark bundle of fluff and angst didn’t dare look you in the eye, but the seething tone and panicked rate of her breathing indicated just how furious she was. If you weren’t just as betrayed as Umbra, perhaps your manner of address would’ve been more cognizant.

“You… need to start talking.” You growled with an accusing finger jabbing toward her. Umbra recoiled like it were a sharp blade slicing into her flesh, scowling like a scolded child.

“Tell me what in the hell is going on with you. Right now.” You didn’t raise the volume of your voice beyond an authoritative hiss, a deep bellow that rattled the timbers of the house. The land itself quaked under the fiery emotions swirling in that living room, every second of silence raising the heat by several degrees.

“NOW!” You snapped when Umbra kept her lips sealed, the bubbling and senseless anger inside bursting free as you flipped the coffee table. A single hand was all that was needed to catapult the heavy hunk of mahogany and everything on it, shattering tea cups and clattering silverware screaming loudly to make your point clear.

“Don’t you dare raise your voice at me!” Umbra finally retorted with an equally strained snap to her voice. Her posture instantly morphed into a hostile and upright stance aimed toward you with wisps of purple frothing from the corner of her lips.

“I am your wife, you perverted, lying ape! What in Equestria has compelled you, Anonymous?! Have you simply lost your morals?! Has your tiny mind disappeared up your own ass when I wasn’t looking?!” Your screaming wife’s words crashed against a barrier of utter confusion and foggy rage that couldn’t hope to parse them through. Given your less than reasonable state at the moment, anything but a straight answer to your question might as well have been another language.

“Wha- what the- the fuck are you talking about?!” You shouted into her face with an expression of desperate confusion.

“You’re out here attacking kids and threatening my daughter, and you’re sitting here in my house acting like I’m the one that’s out to get you?!” Veins visibly pulsed in your neck as the blood flushed your face with a ripe redness, Umbra’s lips curled into a vicious and deeply frightened snarl.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?! Are you trying to ruin everything we built?! Are you trying to get those god damned Princesses sniffing around here even more?!”

“I’ve done nothing against this family! You’ve already destroyed what we have, Anonymous! The moment you coveted that rotten Princess, you chose the end of this marriage!!!” Umbra’s voice was cracking and reaching new heights of strain. Squeals of utter agony were combined with the overwhelming anger within her, a dual poison that made yet more fire erupt from her eyes.

“WHAT?!!” You hollered in return as every muscle turned taught in your body. The blood ran cold in your veins as it raced to your heart and left your extremities. Numbness consumed your body in an instant.

“Don’t you dare deny your lechery! All these sleepness nights! All these troubled evenings you’ve complained about! Taking another mare as I slept next to you?!” Umbra pressed tears from her eyes in stinging and puffy expressions of pure despair, sobs of anguish interrupting her screaming fits.

“I know what’ve you done! I know it, you filthy, damnable animal!” A moment’s thought gripped as you stared down at the simpering mare before you, a wash of emotions hitting you. All of them funneled into an incredibly tight space, the first one to break free being the most potent and concentrated frustration.

“THAT’S what this is about?! You’re turning into a damned demon in town square because you think I cheated on you?!” Your nose was now so closed to hers that the tiny little hairs on either end touched, a imperceivable spark of static electricity between overwhelmed minds.

“Think?! I know, damn you!” She barked back with spit splashing across your face. A racing heart and flustered mind blocked any attempt at rational thought. All those years spent talking with Umbra, learning her intricacies and quirks faded away and left you speaking to a misbehaving coworker. The passion was reduced until it was a barely visible smear against a throbbing red background.

“Why didn’t you talk to me?! Why didn’t you say anything?! Why are you walking through town, trying to bring the entire fucking country down on us?!” You barked louder and louder until your throat burned from the sheer volume you put out, both of you showing your teeth in feral snarls of inconsolable rage.

“Poppy?” A tiny and meek little voice cut through the racket of panting and growling and sweating between you and your wife, drawing your eyes to the front door. The littlest shape inhabited the frame with the background of a sweltering summer behind her, tears welling in her eyes. Dinky sniffed and quivered whiped at her bubbling nose, for she had never in all her young life heard you raise your voice like that.

To see you two in such turmoil, to wittness such a ferocious exchange in her own home, was more than shocking. Her foundation was challenged, the one place in all the world she felt safe was transformed into a battleground. It was alien to her, so wrong and twisted and strange. The surreal feeling of falling into a bad dream whislt awake prickled the fur on her back.

“Dinky… go outside and wait for me to call you.” You ordered with a husky voice, jabbing at the door with a finger.

“But… Poppy-”

“Outside! GO!” Immediately the little filly skittered on her hooves to retreat from the thundering boom of a furious man’s voice, the sting of such cruelty stabbing your heart. It was entirely warranted however, as you wished not to have anything complicate this until it was resolved. Your wife stared as if nothing had happened, her eyes stewing with a purplish haze oozing out of them like pus from an infected wound. The momentary interruption gave you just enough time to catch your breath after unleashing on Umbra like that, a shaking pair of fists clenching hard enough to squeeze the blood from your knuckles.

“You need to get a handle on yourself.” You hissed toward Umbra, her sneering indignance written across her face. She could barely stand to look at you, that old sense of disgust boiling back up from the bottom of her stomach. She scraped at the couch with her hooves, readying them to stomp your face into the dirt and return you to the filth you spread throughout this family.

“You are gonna bring the hammer down on all of us in a heartbeat if you do this shit again! We just got them off our backs and you wanna bring them right back!” Umbra was so repulsed she could barely speak. her lips curled and twitched and pulled into horrific shapes as she attempted to parse out her vitriol, but such efforts failed her again and again. Nothing could emerge from her efforts, leaving her to simply growl and grunt at you like a ferocious puppy.

“How am I supposed to turn my back on you, if one little thing is gonna blow you up?! Why didn’t you just come talk to me?! Why can’t you calm the fuck down and think about what you’re doing?! What’s gotten into you, Umbra?!” The ratcheting volume of your voice threatened to return to the blistering howl of before, but forces outside of your control conspired to halt this gnarly process. Just as another layer of sweat began to pour down your forehead, a speedy weight collapsed against your skull with a rigid motion and an ear-splitting noise.

“BWANG!” Umbra cringed as your neck crumbled in on itself and your skull flexed beneath Derpy’s quick moving frying pan, the sstamped steel coming down with such force that it nearly knocked your eyeballs out.

“GHK… WAAAAUGH!” You hollered in agony and gripped your head with both shaking hands, your skyrocketing blood pressure forcing out a hearty dose of red life between your fingers. The dark unicorn sat before you was ready to spit something equally as punishing whilst you stumbled about in pain, but she could only squeal when the portly housewife brandsihing such a fierce weapon came for her as well.

“Wh- Derpy!”

“BWANG!”

“EEEEAAAGH!” The pony saw the same fate as you as both your bodies collasped to the floor with ringing ears and tiny rivulets of blood running down your arms. Derpy hovered over you both with her weapon slightly bent and her eyes holding a unique darkness. You cowered and huffed and grit your teeth beneath waves of advacing pain throbbing your skull, totally unprepared for the sudden and violent attack.

“Augh- OW!!! DERPY!” You shouted at your wife for the first time, earning another bonk on the back of your head.

“GAH! STOP! I’m not a cartoon character!” She simply raised the cookware above her head to make you quiver and squeeze in on yourself, a reflex compelling you to hunker over Umbra as well to protect her. Despite having just hollering about how much she hated you, how ready she was to leave you, the sorceress quickly ducked under the embrace of her King. Her legs wrapped about your arms and her face folded beneath your body, burying her nose in a soft and familiar place. Neither of you were willing to say another word to the punishing goddess slowly descending to the floor, her crossed eyes focused difectly on your face.

“This is a place of happiness.” She started, her low and authoritative voice so shockingly real and different you wondered who had taken over your wife’s body. She was scolding you, punsihing you, speaking with a personality you had never encountered before. The presence of this mature, angry, destroyer mare made you simply sit there and listen like a child who had misbehaved. Derpy stood there, unmoving and unnerved like a statue of bronze.

“This is a place of family… this my daughters home.” She continued, stepping forward to burn a hole right through your sweating, red face.

“You will never, ever, ever raise your voice to my baby again. And you will never talk like that in this home so long as I live.” Derpy didn’t snarl or hiss or growl. Instead, she commanded. Her long-ignored authority stood front and center, looking down on you and your Queen. For the first time in many years, you felt positively small.

“I love you. Both of you. You’re my herd and nothing will ever change that. But so help me Celestia, the Father of my foal will not bring tears to her eyes!” The sentiment made you come to a fullstop wtih Umbra in your arms, a shame descending over your mind like radiactive ash burning your flesh. The heated spires of humiliation and regret stabbed through your guts as Umbra sucked for breath against you, clearly suffering the same fate as her legs twitched and her voice cracked.

“Get out… get out of my home until you’re ready to be parents again.” Derpy commanded quietly, though you were unable to move. Everything spun about so violently in your mind that standing and carting your dark wife out was simply impossible. Derpy however, was more than happy to help.

“Out! Out, out, out!” She yipped and smacked you on the back with her flat instriment, forcing you to jitter to your feet and rush for the back door. Umbra came with you with her hooves slipping and sliding against the floor boards, Derpy giving you both chase and smacking your backsides with her untensil.

“And don’t come back until you can be a Father again!” You and Umbra tripped down the slight stoop and tangled together in the mess of panicked steps and squealing terror, a rather hilarious scene if it weren’t for the mild concussion banging through your brain. The screen door and the backdoor slammed shut behind your twisting and twirling bodies like a vault sealing itself off from the world, a clicking murmur signalling just how thoroughly stuck you both were. Derpy not only locked door, but went about the house locking every window, the basement and the front. The entire house became a fortress against you and your dark wife, a huffy and aggravated pegasus pulling the curtains just as one last measure.

After all was secure and tightly locked, there was only one last thing to do. The doting mother returned to the foyer where Dinky huttled against a wall with her face covered by her mane, the hard clop of hooves against the floor bringing her attention up to the soft, warm expression of her parent. The filly’s face was frozen in a mask of terror and betrayal that Derpy despised, such an unfitting visage for a child. Her wing tip floated toward the contorted mess of shaking muscles and confusion, bringing her chin up to face her properly and restore some meager confidence.

“Dinky… come here. Momma’s got you.” She whispered deeply, her child rushing forward to embrace her. Dinky sniffled and buried her face in Derpy’s chest, the wings of soft feathers and warm security closing around her. She was veiled in a plush realm of safety and soothing heat, free to cry and vent however much she needed to feel like herself again. Her mother squeezed the Filly on and off to knead her overwhelmed body like dough, slowly molding her back down into a little lump of childish energy. Her horn sputtered and sparked with angst against Derpy’s cheek, but even the slight tingles and burns of the energetic release couldn’t stop the loyal wife. She hummed and pulled her sweet daughter into the living room, setting them on the plush couch.

“That’s it… just let it all out. It’s okay.” Derpy spoke a constant stream of reassuring and soothing remarks to her child, cooling the fire raging in her. An all too familiar feeling that Derpy had known herself. A complete shattering of the world beneath one’s hooves. An utter debasement of everything a child knew. Mommy and Daddy acting like soldiers in opposing trenches, hatefully gritting their teeth and wringing their hands to kill the other. Instead of being mother and father, they were just people again. Foreign and hostile people in a helpless child’s home. Dinky concealed herself in her Mother’s bosom like the Earth itself had split open and swallowed the village.

“Momma…” She squeaked, sucking for breath and fighting just to get her words out. Derpy hummed and curled around her child, protecting her from the hostility forcing itself into her life. She knew all too well that a child had no avenue of escape, no strength to fight. The cruelty of adult anger far surpassed the will of a child, no matter how strong, intelligent or mature they were. Even if Dinky could understand why you were acting this way, she could never truly comprehend it. All she knew was that her place of sanctuary was now a violent no-man’s land.

Derpy worked to reverse this terrible effect, nuzzling and kissing and cradling her baby in the center of the house until she calmed. She would force herself back into the fold and reassure her child that this was indeed her home. This building, this place, this room was safe for her. And it always would be. The infallible sentinal would always be here to watch over her, nurture her and support her.

Momma would always rule the roost, even if the King and Queen proved they couldn’t.

“Ugh… Jesus…” You groaned as you sat in the grass next to the sprawled Umbra, both of you swooning in the sunlight as passerby cast weary glances over the fench. The knot forming atop you skull was bloody and passively sore, just the whimper of the wind enough to make it sting and throb like a heartbeat.

“My wife seriously just beat me in the head with a frying pan. Oh my God…” Umbra was not fairing much better with her similarly pounding skull and swirling thoughts. She nursed the wound with a hoof pawing at her hair, though you reflexively covered it with your soothing hand. Though accepting of it initially, it took but half a breath for the mare to duck away and sneer at you. She attempted to force a growl from her enraged through, but the dry and ragged tunnel could only produce a weak mewl of disatisfaction. Your hand fell to the stoop in a defeated slump of lifelessness, neither your nor the fuming wife below able to look the other in the eye. Umbra cast her gaze shamefully to the grass below, you the painted fence surrounding Derpy’s garden.

A sullen silence blanketed you two, pin-holes in the suffocating sheet punctured by the lively chirp of insects, the songs of birds and the far-off bustle of Ponyville. It occurred to you just how quiet Ponyville was, the low din of life clearer and more harmonious in this place than anywhere you’d ever been. Umbra drank in the beautiful humor of it, as if the world was so indifferent to this earth-shattering afternoon that it didn’t dare lay quiet. Nature, reality, all things turned on their axises regardless of the household’s conflict. The Queen felt small once again, sucking a shakey breath and coming dangerously close to a sob.

“They’re gonna come lookin’ for us.” You finally said with beads of sweat rolling down your face.

“Yes…” Umbra mumbled as her ribs pulled in tight against her chest and forced every breath from within.

“I think we should take a walk.” Your wife cast a weary glance toward you and flashed her teeth in a growl.

“Give us some time to talk.” The dirty expression written across her face died somewhat when your forcibly calmed tone of voice shook her. A subtle begging for her to calm and be herself once again.

“Hrrm… I agree.” As if connected by steel rods, you both stood up and whined at the discomfort in your bodies. Umbra’s stiff and bruised muscles could barely carry the burden of her weight and your exhausted, battered body protested each and every step. Steering away from town center, you and Umbra made for the shrubbery of the forest. Down a small deer path where the brambles grew shoulder-height and the sun could just barely beam through, there was a lovely dell carved out of slight hills. Umbra could see the subtle and muddled signs of ancient construction here, old Ponyville perhaps digging out a reservoir for irrigation many generations before. To your simpler mind however, it was just a depression between two hills that collected cool and refreshing water.

Gentle currents pulled it out of the Everfree and into Ponyville at a trickle that filtered the crystalline water. A murmuring creek on one end and an impenetrable thicket on the other, the disturbed earth had long dissolved into a sandy bank that subtly faded into the greenish coolness. It was a popular place for the summer-time crowd afflicted with fatigue and heated fur, but in the middle of a work day it was entirely abandoned. Not a soul disturbed the slowly moving water, not even a fish breaking the surface to snap at occasional horse flies.

Umbra wordlessly moved into the water and soaked her hooves in the wet sand, letting the lapping disturbinences splash up her legs like kisses of cool wind. You peeled your sodden boots off and rolled your socks off your tired feet, setting them up on a dead pine’s limb to air-out however much they could in the moist summer haze. Pulling a smoothed river rock with you and setting it in the sand, you sat down next to her. Again the roar of nature consumed you two as the words and thoughts tumbled in your minds. Neither could filter them out properly to find the right thing to say, Umbra in particular soared through so many options trying to figure out the right balance.

Accusation, affection, demanding, desire, betrayal, forgiveness. How could so many conflicting and diametrically opposed emotions make a single thought? There was no coherence in this state, no manual to create a focused sentiment from these disparate pieces. Silently, peacefully, you gave your battered wife a chance to speak.

“Anonymous?” She started, refusing to look you in the eye.

“Yes?” You replied gently, locking your fingers together in a brace of readiness. Whatever may come your way, you let yourself believe that it was earned. For this moment, no matter your justification, you were prepared to accept whatever punishment was intended for you. Umbra turned to face you, her face smeared with the proverbial mud of conflicting emotions cutting through her. Deep strife slashed into her soft and rounded flesh, her cheeks made puffy with tears and aggravated redness.

“I wish for your most honest answer… because whatever it may be… even if it the most devastating blow you may deal… I will accept it.” Sitting seemed too pitiable a position for this ordeal. With visible difficulty you moved to kneel before your wife, soaking your pants carelessly with the rejuvenating waters of the dell. Umbra was at your eyes’ level when you came to this posture, but a lowered head put it in perfect striking range if she felt the need.

“Yes…” You answered solemnly. Your wife sucked in a ragged breath through her bruised throat, the dry tone rasping against her quivering teeth.

“Have you desired another? Well and truly… felt an emptiness in thine heart?” The silence weighed so greatly on you both it was a wonder that bone and flesh could withstand it. She was so vulnerable to you, sacrificing her indignant rage once more for an opportunity to be humiliated. A righteous thing to do, but uncalled for. The throbbing lobe of insult pulsating deep within you at the very suggestion that you’d ever forsake your wives for pleasure stung. It burned and wormed its way deeper with every razor-like second that the words danced in your mind. Umbra watched your expression twist into a snarl of ferocious denial.

“Never.” You grunted, begging to a higher power that she would follow her word and accept your answer. The Queen didn’t want to. Her nostrils flared and her heart ached in the same manner they had whenever someone spoke lies to her. Umbra’s instincts had so rarely failed her that she considered it nothing short of blasphemy to doubt them.

“Then these visitations from the Princess in the Night…”

“Uninvited.” You retorted sternly, gripping your hands into bloodless fists.

“On this, you swear?” The authority in her voice fueled you. The call of a husband’s duty rang deep within you. Without doubt, fear or conflict you brought your gaze to hers and answered.

“I swear on my daughter that I would never go behind your back. I’d rather have nothing than risk what we’ve got.” Tension built between you two as she digested your answer. The sentiment tossed and turned in her mind as she felt the relief of her acceptance, all the while swallowing a bitter tang of doubt. Umbra could deconstruct every word, every inflection and the tiniest details of your speech until it was all meaningless. Her analytical and precise mind could turn this heartfelt moment into a rhetorical study that she would doubtlessly control and dominate. Just as the devious mare had done so many times before in politics, she could turn your right into a wrong with flicks of her tongue.

Not for an instant however, did she consider it. The Queen had neither the stamina nor the vitriol to oppose this agony within. Her heart swelled and pushed forward a tide of tears and blood into her face the moment a crack showed. Her entire expression fell apart and turned into a puffy, simpering mess of whimpers and whines. Umbra’s muscles shook as the oxygen rushed out of her lungs in gasps of melancholy, their strength fading away.

“Oh… oh my King!” Your dark wife fell into your arms and melted into a watery slag against your heart. Glowing diamonds hummed with unified energy once again as harmony was partially restored in that sweaty and suffocating pond. The water splashed around you both and cooled the infernos of doubt welling within, heightening your need to hold her close and keep her secure. Your Queen sobbed into your neck and bit on to your flesh to keep you close, praying that you would never slip away from her grasp.

“C’mere you… that’s it…” You huffed into her thick bundle of sweltering mane and kissed her gently, peppering her skull with reaffirming and sweet affection. Umbra sniffled and whined continuously as the burning rot of doubt and regret receded inside.

“What has come over me? Why was I so quick to believe you betrayed me?” She whimpered between throaty coughs and snotty hiccups, her hooves desperately pawing and pulling at your belly to keep their manic grip.

“Have I fallen so low? Am I coming apart?” You refused her punishing talk, insisting that bringing her in closer and smothering the doubt from her mind would do the trick. Wrapped in such a secure and powerful cage of human muscle, the mare naturally relaxed her continuous trembling.

“Babygirl… I don’t know what’s up with you.” The whisper into her ear made it twitch and tune towards you to absorb every word.

“But I don’t care. I wanna help you. I wanna get to the bottom of this and make it all better.” The ebon pony pulled in against you until she was a compressed bundle. Her limbs and tail tucked against her pudgy body as you carelessly relaxed into the water and soaked your trousers. Sweat poured from the both of you and mingled with the humid atmosphere until steam danced about your heart-felt, devastating embrace.

“My King…” She murmured weakly, her face naturally molding to your hands as they encircled her cheeks. Staring into your eyes with a breathless mouth hanging open, your thumbs pushed away the salty and stinging tears. She looked entirely unlike herself, for the strength was drained from the mare. Your Queen was nothing more than a helpless commoner overwhelmed by her vices. Instincts fired up inside your chest to protect and hold and nurture. Your natural inclination to keep what was yours safe aggravated your muscles into locked braces armoring your petite little bride.

“But you have to be honest with me.” The tone was serious enough to betray exactly how you felt. A dark and stoic voice made Umbra pinch her eyes shut once more, silently rejecting his fact.

“You have to tell me everything, Babygirl. I can’t help you unless you let me in.” She struggled visibly to swallow your words. Each one smacked her like bitter dust thrown in her face. Umbra burrowed deeper into your hands to hide her shameful denial, as if she could perhaps just dig inside you and let her agony be understood. Not a single word could form between her lips, for they refused to stay still long enough to make a sound. Jaw bones chattered and locked when she attempted to force something out, anything that might help push this along.

“I-... I can’t… Anonymous…” Your wife confessed, covering her face with her hooves like a humiliated school girl.

“Everything you know of me- HIC! All that I have built with you… the truth would… drive it all away.”

“Babygirl, nothing you could ever say would make me stop loving you! Don’t think like that!” You begged, holding her face in both hands to try and comfort the shattered mare.

“I am unworthy of your love! I always have been!” She gagged and whimpered around her words as the clank of plate armor shattered the peaceful atmosphere. Hooves beat on the earth and signaled the arrival of your awaited entourage, unwelcome and unwanted as they might’ve been. A pit formed for your heart to plummet into, the stormy cloud forming over you made all the thicker when that normally non-threatening and girly voice snapped like a whip across your back.

“Anonymous!” Twilight called out, her authority bolstered by flared wings, a glimmering crown and a duo of her personal guards. Spear-wielding stallions far more muscular than you could ever be flanked the Princess with sharp tips directed at you, ready to put you down should they be commanded. The punishing stare burned through you and commanded you to answer no matter how much you wanted to deny it. Umbra let you go reluctantly, standing on her own weak hooves as your dripping body rose to full height. No matter how long you had walked these lands, ponies still stepped back when you towered over them. Hardened soldiers doubtlessly facing much greater monsters still mindfully pulled back from your relatively leviathan figure.

“I don’t want this to be any uglier than it’s already been. Give us Umbra and we will take care of the rest.” Twilight didn’t request, or even command. She ordered you. The divine authority handed down a proclamation that could compel any creature in Equestria to legally submit. There was no higher office than this, no greater being to appeal to if one disagreed. She was sure you would understand, for her stance was that of regal pompousness, rather than readied attack. You stood and waited for her to say something further, perhaps to justify this obscene desire so you could speak in defense of your wife. But against your wishes, Umbra was already trudging forward with her head lowered and her tail tucked against her rear.

“Hold it.” You huffed, overriding the supreme ruler of the land. Twilight recoiled with widened eyes as Umbra obeyed you, her own expression likewise befuddled.

“Anonymous-”

“Shush. I’ll handle this.” You chided your wife with quick and quiet words. Words that utterly enflamed the neurotic Princess.

“Anonymous! I’m not giving you a choice!” Twilight snapped with visible frustration painted across her face.

“An incident has been reported by several townsfolk. We must restrain her and keep her under surveillance until we understand what triggered it.” You scowled at the presumptive little pony, your human sensibilities refusing to feel intimidated by the diminutive and mouthy beast.

“I understand the concern but it’s really not necessary.” You answered calmly as you could, but the tremble of fear was indeed there. Umbra could taste it like ash on the tongue. It rocked her confidence like the shiny spear points rocked yours.

“This mare’s my jurisdiction and I’ve got everything under control. No need for an intervention.” Twilight could not look more offended if she tried. That spark of righteous anger and challenged authority erupted across her face clear as a summer afternoon.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Anon.” Twilight harshly retorted with a nod toward her guard, who in turn moved with a mechanical and trained step forward.

“But I won’t hesitate to apprehend you both if it means keeping Ponyville safe.” Insult was the only emotion you could feel when the squat and powerful stallion brought a weapon within inches of your gut. With the slightest lean forward he could gut you like a fish and completely disable you. Twilight was no innocent either, her incomprehensible magic restrained just to give you a choice in the matter. If she wished, the unicorn could no doubt have you and your wife suspended above the air and rushed wherever she pleased. Refusing to flinch, blood running cold as a tundra river, you bat the spear away with the flat of your palm.

“Umbra is under my care. And I was given this mission to watch over her by the Celestia Sisters in the contract we signed. You don’t have any say in what I do with her.” If the purple unicorn could turn entirely red, the rage building in her would’ve obliged instantly. She fumed and stomped her hoof as you carried on refusing her. Pulling out the details of a contract was the perfect way to incense the academic young mare, for the mind-numbing and scrawling fine print of a contract was exactly the kind of thing she prided herself in understanding. Challenging her interpretation at the book club was a recipe for an angry alicorn, let alone a legally binding document

“I am the Princess, Anon! As a subject of Equestria you are bound by my word!” She hissed and pulled at you with wisps of magic to make her point all the more clear. The weightlessness of lifting wards made you uneasy and struggle to stand, the water around your legs rising upwards in reverse teardrops. The guard likewise never let his stance down, ready and willing for potential violence.

“I answer to Celestia! She gave me this job, she has the final word!” You barked before hovering several inches out of the water, helplessly kicking and struggling for gravity to save you.

“Guh! Hey! Damn it- put me down! If you take that mare away from me, I’m calling that fat white blowhard down here tomorrow to lay you out, Twilight!” Her guard flinched at such harsh language and prodded at you with the blunt ends of their weapons.

“Speaking ill of Her Majesty won’t help you, human!” They belted as Twilight scowled and approached you with narrowed eyes.

“My Darling, it’s okay…” Umbra groaned in exhausted defeat. She limply hung in the embrace of Twilight's brightly colored magic, completely opposite to your stiff flailing.

“The hell it is! I wanna talk to Celestia!”

“This isn’t about you, Anon!” Twilight snapped back, jabbing you in the nose with her hoof.

“This is about the safety of Ponyville and everypony in it.”

“Then let me watch the crazy woman like I’m supposed to and get out of my business!” The stubbornness that Twilight often showed others was shockingly annoying to be on the receiving end of. Her teeth ground together as she fought and whittled at your ridiculous resolve, quickly discovering that it was rapidly worsening the situation.

“RRGH! ANONYMOUS!” She snarled, nearly losing control over herself. The veins in her neck bulged with a masculine rage as you refused her again and again, challenging her authority time and time again. Royal training kicked on in the back of her mind, whispering silently for a calm approach. She indeed had the will and the legal authority to order your arrest. The mare was no minor princess or wealthy noble, thus there wasn’t much you or any other pony could do about her.

However, diplomacy begged for an alternative. Surely you would follow up on your word if she were to subdue you and Umbra, no matter how reasonable it might’ve been. The most reasonable thing to do somehow seemed the less ethical option in her grinding and articulating mind. Twilight huffed and regained her composure with deep, thoughtful breaths. Steam puffed from her ears and her cheeks quickly lost the flushed red coloring they had. Just as the royals had taught her, if one approach didn’t work, there was always another. A disagreement was simply a compromise in the making.

“Ugh… you want an audience with the Princess?” You nodded sharply, attempting to reach for your wife when she was suspended in a separate sphere from you.

“Yes Ma’am.” You answered simply. Twilight never softened her icy look, but neither did you.

“She’s handled this longer than you, no offence.” Twilight very clearly took offence.

“I can’t let her just walk around like this, Anonymous. You know that would be irresponsible of me.” A flurry of words wanted to come out of your mouth. They halted at the very last moment when your better judgement decided to make itself known.

“But… if you’re so driven to resolve this yourself? I can make an offer.” Umbra cocked an eyebrow in surprise, but still hung limp as a cooked noodle in the Princess’ grasp. Her ears tuned toward the mouthy and purple Princess to hear her out, the terms you agreed too surprisingly relaxed for the circumstances. Though she never dropped you two during the negotiations, the power you exerted over Twilight drove Umbra mad.

Dauntless will, a clear and concise intent that would not be defied. A singular objective and a will to see it through no matter what hell came before it. Initially trying to focus on Twilight and address her, Umbra’s attention split rapidly into falling stars of hazy focus. She felt no compulsion to show respect and give her attention to the intervening Princess. The distrust and vitriol reserved for the Royalty fell away, the overwhelming security she felt in you trickling in its stead.

You defended her, stood tall and rebuffed attacks that might spirit her away from her new home. The feelings of abandonment, of utter and total loneliness creeping in once again burned off into toxic smoke harmlessly streaming into the atmosphere as you talked Twilight down. She scowled in frustration, whined and complained as you made your terms clear. You bent the Princess into pretzels and refused to compromise on Umbra’s safety.

She wouldn’t be taken away and she most certainly wouldn’t be examined by anyone, for now. Twilight only allowed you to walk back home one your own feet after you consented to Umbra’s house arrest. She would be confined in the home until the Celestial Sisters could decide how to proceed, just how you wanted it.

In a rare moment of total contrast, Umbra felt utter dread upon seeing the modest home you called your own. A deep, cold and fermented fear snapped upwards from her belly and drove a spear through her gut. The ancient sorceress’ heart skipped beats and groaned behind her ribs, pressing outwards like it wanted to rip free and shirk the consequences of its actions. You felt much the same and couldn’t hide it. Twilight stood at the precipice between fence and yard, watching callously for your next move.

“Well? Go on then.” She commanded, her wings twitching in aggravation against her back.

“You wanted to go home so bad? Then go.” Umbra and you both looked back at the mouthy alicorn skittishly as the color drained from your faces. You swallowed hard, tossing over the words you would try and present to Derpy. Should she not forgive you, should she deem Umbra unfit to be around Dinky now, there wasn’t much justification for Umbra remaining in your care. Twilight would have every reason in the world to whisk her off to the Friendship Castle and never let her go. Exchanging glances with your sullen wife, the weakness in the air sat thick as concrete between the two of you. A monotonous droning groaned in Umbra’s mind, blocking out reasonable thought when such uncertainty dominated the air.

It was on you, then.

Stepping forward and rapping your knuckles against the rattling screen door you meant to fix felt like dipping your hand into boiling oil. You very bones hurt thinking about this apology. Every breath you drew to talk burned like smoke in your lungs. And kneeling down in front of the stoop was like exploding every joint in your back. Twilight stared in utter confusion as you and Umbra both knelt for the door, as such practice was normally reserved for addressing those of higher birth. Thus, it was jarring when a mare of no special status and a child lorded over you both with puffy eyes and deep frowns.

Derpy looked down on you two expectantly. She was a punishing goddess in need of pleasing after such heinous transgressions against her household. Dinky appeared to have aged several years in your absence, for the lines of crushing betrayal and fear were etched into her tear-soaked fur. Your little girl quivered at the sight of you. Umbra’s darling pupil gasped in genuine fear. It was enough to kill the Queen. The agony was stacked high enough to crush her into paste that might never rise again.

“Baby…” You started by swallowing the thick lump of mud in your throat. It had been quite a long time since you felt this small in Equestria.

“I… I’m sorry I raised my voice at you. It was wrong of me to treat you so harshly when you were just trying to help…” Derpy cocked an eyebrow at you and lifted her snout. For a moment you tasted rejection like iron on your tongue. Every muscle cramped up and locked in place within your body, for the very idea was poisonous to you.

“I- I don’t ever wanna scare you like that again, Dinky. I was being a rotten old man when I yelled at you. Your poppy should never ever speak to you like that and I know it…” Dinky whimpered and looked to her Mother. Wordlessly Derpy directed her attention to the huffing Queen. The pathetic lump of coal you called a wife fell to her belly and cowered like a dog, half out of respect and half fear. The top Mare would judge her every move and perhaps- perhaps- show mercy. Dinky waited on Umbra’s words with baited breath and stood anxiously at the edge of the stoop.

“Darling Gem… My precious and most cherished student… I am… I have shown myself quite foolish today.” The words had to fight through a thick and heavy filter of pride that still rested within her.

“In my haste I have endangered this family. My ignorance nearly cost me all that I value! Snf-! A stupid old mare I am… hardly worthy of the whealth I’ve been given!” Your wife buried her face in her hooves and choked down ragged breaths through a hitching and sobbing throat.

“My Darling I have so thoughtlessly destroyed your trust! I cannot believe my own ignorance and impulsiveness! If there was a hope in all the heavens that I could take this day back, I would give anything to have it!” She pressed to the ground like a puddle, averting her eyes to the itchy grass.

“If they took this demon away for a thousand years more, the punishment would be too lenient. This old fool is too rotten to beg for an apology. But she can only you hope you will not judge too quickly. Dinky… with all my heart I apologize to you.” Suddenly it was like you two had been buried up to your chins in sand. The burning air scalded your flesh and pulled at Umbra’s fur like a million hooks on wings. You scorned low-lifes peered hopefully up at the goddess of your forgiveness, silently pleading for levity.

Derpy glowered down at you. You had stood under unkind divinity, dismissive nobles and ignorant townsfolk. But never in your life had they affected you like this. Celestia’s holy light could intimidate, but only your pudgy wife’s scorn could completely dismantle you. Dinky on the other hand, seemed to be completely rattled. Her tiny and delicate mind was racing into territory she was ill-prepared for. The dark heft of adult agony, of prolonged and inescapable suffering. The destruction of the pure by forces hardly considered evil, yet hardly welcomed. In her panicked fear she wanted Umbra to stay away, she wanted the infiltrator gone and banished forever.

But those green eyes were much too genuine. The sickly color of putrefaction, humid spring leaves and shiny beetles. How could little Dinky ever punish a face that had raised her? How could she ever turn her back on a genuine compassion? Nothing in all existence could compel her young heart to that truest form of hatred. The very idea was a million miles away.

“Auntie!” She finally whined, skittering on her hooves and flying into her fluffy care-taker. The sopping wet, sweaty and tangled embrace they shared made all in attendance step back in surprise, but quickly gravitate closer. You embraced both Umbra and you daughter as they fell into tears and tight hugs. Just as your arms braced around them and held them close like eternal chains, their painful cries and sobs flaked off the heavy layers of masculine stoicism from your heart. It was difficult not to cry when your beloved were so moved by emotion, especially when your treasure of a wife gently folded her wings about you and kissed your forehead.

“Oh my Gem! My precious, brilliant Dinky! I won’t ever harm ye again! Never again so long as this body lives!” Umbra belted into the young one’s cheek as she kissed it again and again, peppering her with affection compressed into a lethal bolt. Dinky returned it with an unbreakable deathgrip around the dark unicorn that securely tethered her to home. Never again would her absence darken her life. Derpy nuzzled between your eyes as the blood rushed your face and nearly shoved tears from your eyes, her expression of warming relief like heaven splitting itself open for you.

“Welcome home, Bubby.” She cooed softly, kissing you once again to soothe the fires of fear in you. It worked brilliantly, taking all the strength and stamina out of your muscles.

“Now… come inside. You need a tubby and some dinner.” With her wings she guided the huddled mass of emotions back into the house, calmly directing things just as she always had. Twilight watched in somewhat confused awe as the entire scene unfolded before her, both eyes wide open to catch every detail of the emotional exchange. She watched as Derpy turned about to address her and disengaged from her simpering entourage.

“I must say Derpy. I’ve never seen anything quite like that.” The Princess congratulated with a small smile toward the housewife, watching as the pride glowed across her face.

“Thank you for bringing her back.” She replied, tucking her wings nearly against her back as loose strands of gilded mane hung in her eyes.

“Anonymous insisted she could handle house arrest… I hope you know that you’re in charge of that.” Derpy snickered and perked her ears in interest.

“I’ll do what I can… but you won’t take my baby’s Auntie away without a fight.” Derpy said with startling clarity, enough to make even the all-powerful Princess retract.

“So long as she doesn’t make me take her away, then it won’t be an issue.” Derpy held her rather threatening smile for a moment before softening once again.

“I will send something in the mail when I hear back from the Sisters.” Twilight state simply and made for her castle once, leaving the area in relative peace again.

You, meanwhile, drew a bath with Umbra upstairs. Dinky had to be pried off her so she could be made somewhat presentable again, your poor pretty wife splattered with mud and dirt and river water. You weren’t much better, still speckled by the filth of the saw mill and stained with burning sweat. Settling into the hot water with her was very much like taking a soggy pillow into the tub, for your limp and lifeless Umbra simply folded against you. The mare sighed and breathed deep with her head against your chest, dripping and soaking silently whilst your heartbeat soothed her racing mind. You chewed on your cheek and let the relaxing heat percolate through your body, staring down at the dark pony clinging to you and refusing to look you in the eye.

She might’ve been a sassy handful, a secretive little demon and a wild pain in your ass at times. But you could never imagine how on Earth she could consider herself “unworthy” of your love. The very notion burned your mind with questions. Umbra, however, was in no state to provide answers. For the time being, you would simply have to wonder to yourself how she could be so low.