Twin Suns: Heart of the Empire

I finished her thought, reaching out to that sensation she spoke of. And now that she mentioned it, I could feel it ever so slightly every time we talked with each other (or with Shadra, for that matter), focusing on it only made it more... real, I suppose. Like I could actually feel her right next to me.

I gave the connection an experimental tug, willing her presence closer to me in the hopes that that would do the trick, only for my body to stumble to the ground in the next moment as I completely lost control of my limbs. “Bwah. Oww...”

I asked, apprehensive. Did we just... swap?

“My Qwen... Qwen... Queen?” she mumbled, using my own muzzle. Or ours, I should say. “Uh... I...”

I reassured her, trying to keep her panic to a minimum as her breathing started to significantly increase.

“Ocheigh,” she... well, tried to say. I could tell she had been relying on the hive mind a bit too much, her speech was a bit sluggish.

I said, sighing.

she began, but I shushed her gently.

I told her, mind made up. It was basically the truth, anyway. She and Shadra were as much a part of me as, well... I was (Arachne’s words to Shadra were quite fitting in that regard, I had to admit). It would be cruel and selfish of me to just ‘lock them up’ in the hive mind. Besides, this ‘ability’ could become quite useful, why squander such a gift?

“Oh... Ocheigh, My Qwen,” Arachne tried again and I could tell it was frustrating her immensely. “Vhat shuuld I do?”

I instructed her, hoping it would help her get the hang of it. Her practice would also hopefully help me out since it was basically nothing more than muscle memory.

<”Leigh zhat?”> she tried and had I not ‘mentally embraced’ her again, I think she would have taken her anger out on the ground. Her perfectionism was appreciated, but I didn’t care if she was less than perfect at anything she put her mind to. I suppose that was something we had in common, wanting to do everything correctly the first time we put our minds into it.

I liked her the way she was, she didn’t need to try to exceed my expectations of her whenever she could. I told her as much, even though I suspected she only listened with half an ear as she practiced. I... probably would have done the same thing, were our positions reversed.

Thankfully, she didn’t have any difficulties getting back up on our hooves, furthering my belief that our muscle memory must have been shared. I definitely didn't enjoy the thought of other travelers stumbling upon our limp body once the sun ushered in a new day, so it was a massive relief to see her prancing around almost immediately afterward.

While my little Arachne was trying to get our tongue working in the right way (that sounded deliciously perverted, I mused), I noted that she quickly taught our body that it was indeed capable of going faster than my slow pace of taking small and steady strides.

Arachne must have practiced a few things in the hive, she had a far greater control over our body than I had. She probably got that practice in as she searched for Shadra so that she could molest our Prince(ss) to her heart’s content.

Since Arachne was still occupied with her goal of learning how to talk coherently, I decided to find out the limits of our little experiment that landed me in the backseat of our body. I was curious whether or not I could return to the mindscape of our hive while Arachne continued on in the waking world.

Suffice to say, after one short explanation to a confused (and slightly panicking) Shadra over Arachne’s limp body, I had my answers. By essentially ‘moving’ further away from Arachne’s presence, I found out I could enter our own ‘private world’ as if I was going to sleep.

Of course, I teased Shadra about his little blowjob from Arachne, and, much to his chagrin, I pointed out a very interesting fact. Since I ‘woke up’ next to them, I could tell Arachne did that right next to my sleeping body and Shadra had let her do that. 'He' really was a naughty little Prince(ss), wasn’t he? I felt so proud of Shadra, getting in touch with his own perverted side.

I tried asking him if he wanted one from me as well but was sadly unsuccessful in convincing him to let me do that to him (for now). Maybe I should try Arachne’s tactic and intimidate him enough to let me do whatever I pleased to his body, but this wasn’t the time. Besides, I’d rather give Shadra what ‘she’ truly wants when they admit that she isn’t a he at all.

It was so painful for me and Arachne to watch. I wondered how Shadra could honestly live with herself like that. It was killing me on the inside to see her denying it so much, but... forcing her to admit it was proving to be a difficult endeavor. It was making her more skittish the more we brought it up, so... maybe leaving her be for now was the best course of action to take for Shadra to realize what she wanted.

From what I remember... my old family consisted of idiots, truly. Tobias’ early childhood memories indicated some sort of gender dysphoria, I just... couldn’t put my hoof on what happened for Shadra to be so fearful of coming out of her shell like that.

My faithful Princess was nearing the gates of the settlement that could generously be called a small city-kingdom as I returned to the backseat of our body. To be honest? Looking at the closed gates made me feel a little bit nervous again. I had no idea what would await us on the other side and... I might not have thought this through as much as I thought I did, I reluctantly admitted to myself.

I whispered, afraid. Of what, I couldn’t exactly say, but it felt like we were standing right next to a hive full of giant hornets and the first wrong move would end with us getting stung. Repeatedly.

“My Queen?” Arachne asked, quite proud of not having needed the crutch of communicating over the hive mind at the same time. “I don’t see any guards, do you think they are still asleep?”

I responded while wondering why the settlement was so careless in guarding their only protection against the wilds and/or invaders from other kingdoms. Either they were extremely proud and full of themselves or they were the absolute dullest idiots that I have ever come across.

“We could just fly across while it is still dark?” Arachne proposed and I felt like slapping myself in the face with my hoof for overlooking the simple solution again. “From what I remember, merchants from the more well-known merchant houses were usually the only ones that bothered with trading luxury wares because those goods were the only ones worth the hassle to pay the taxes for in order to get access to foreign markets and so on. Unless you got a permit (or multiple ones) from the nobility, it wasn’t really worth trading with common goods you could easily get at the local market anyway. For common travelers like us, well... we might be considered to be an illegal traveler without proper documents. To leave one’s own hometown, someone oftentimes had to get permission to do so and we don’t have that.”

I said, mentally shrugging.

“I’m unsure whether they would be of any help,” she said, biting her lip. “We can’t pay a healer here by offering our body to them, can we?”

I muttered, having little hope of finding someone that knows what they are doing. Arachne shrugged, buzzing her wings until she achieved liftoff.

Like me, my Princess wasn’t the best flier and it took her (only) three attempts to reach the top edge of the wall. The only things that we really had any trouble with so far were speed (due to no small fault of my own fear of ending up as a smear on the ground) and gaining altitude (I was tempted to blame our weight for that... and my newfound fear of lethal heights, as well). Landing, on the other hoof, wasn’t quite an issue anymore after we had gotten plenty of practice in (whether within the hive or outside of it). As long as we kept ourselves calm, balance wasn’t a problem, either.

Once Arachne dragged our body tiredly over the gap in between the battlements of the wall, we were quite surprised to find a snoring unicorn guard sleeping away on a rickety stool. His coat was decently clean, the only thing we really noticed was a slightly horsey smell that... actually smelled quite pleasant to our nostrils. I suppose a change in species also changed one’s perception of what type of body odors were ‘sexy’ in that primal urges sort of way. Or our sense of smell was just that different now, I guess.

I’m pretty sure the guards weren’t supposed to sleep their night shift away, but it helped us get into the city easier, so I wasn’t about to complain. The idiot didn’t even have any weapons with him (ranged or otherwise), which spoke quite highly of their idiocy to keep their city safe. It seems to me like they relied completely on their little wall to keep threats away if they were confident enough to sleep without anything to defend them (other than their armor that was pitifully lacking in protection from the looks of it).

Perhaps I was just a smidgen too hard on these guys. They did live in a mountain range, a place that provided them with quite a lot of protection against natural predators, and any invaders seeking out conquest had to traverse the rocky terrain first, leaving them with plenty of time to rally their (actual) warriors from inside the city proper. I suppose even an idiot would wake up if their gates were to be suddenly under siege.

To be honest, I doubted this particular idiot would wake up if he kept on blissfully snoring away as we flew right up the wall with wings that weren’t exactly the most silent thing in the world. A bomb could have gone off with him right next to it and I wondered whether or not that would have been enough to wake him up from his slumber. Probably. Maybe not.

He did look rather fit despite him being a bit on the lanky side. Not exactly in the nerdy type of way, just... if I had to make a comparison, he looked like he could do a marathon without too many problems. Like a mix of someone that plays basketball as a hobby and loves to go out running in the morning after sleeping the shift away on his job.

My eyes, or rather Arachne’s currently, were drawn to the... ahem, equipment... between his legs and I noticed my faithful Princess bite her lip softly. Even while (kinda) flaccid his cock was far larger than any human specimen I knew of, and, as I watched it twitch slightly, I could tell the pervy guard was having a wet dream. I wouldn’t want to be in his horseshoes if his commander ever found him like that.

I cautioned, seeing her move subtly closer to him while our marehood throbbed beautifully in eagerness.

she responded, giving the cute stallion a last forlorn glance before going over to the edge of the other side of the wall. Sunlight was already starting to lighten up the dark night sky, we had little time to get into the settlement unseen before the sun started to peek over the horizon.

I giggled, amused.

“Thank you, My Queen,” she smiled, a giddy flutter running through our body. “How many stallions do you think we should seduce? To ensure a sufficient variety to make a healthy hive with? Most virgin queens mate with about fifteen drones of different hives to collect enough sperm.”

I mused.

“I agree,” Arachne nodded. “Okay, first things first. Get water, then get money for food and other necessities.”

I said, seeing her gaze wander over to the other end of the settlement. The castle partially obstructed our view from it, but I knew that there was a waterfall further up the mountain that fed more water to the river going through the small kingdom, supplying the fields with fresh water before entering the actual part of the settlement stuffed full with crude buildings and a little market area next to a bridge connecting the ‘poor’ area with the ‘less poor’ area (they were basically the same, just that the wealthier area had larger buildings). I couldn’t exactly tell if the kingdom was well off or not, but judging by the size of the castle, it had to be. Somewhat.

Look, the castle appeared like a mess of cobblestone, it was hard to properly judge how rich they truly were. It was basically indistinguishable from the rest of the noble district were it not for the obvious size difference. Someone was probably trying to compensate for something, in my opinion.

Lastly, close to the end of the settlement where the river left the city, packed completely full of crude shacks made of what appeared to be moldy wood, were the slums. I couldn't help but feel like it kind of ruined my picture of a fantasy world a little bit. But, to be honest, that was to be expected, wasn’t it? The rich got richer, the poor got poorer. Even in a whole new world, that rule didn’t seem to change.

Earth had its downsides and upsides, and I felt a little bit ashamed looking back at the times where I thought the downsides seemed to be overwhelmingly bad. Compared to this world, though? Earth seemed like a paradise. We had long since moved past the worst of what I witnessed here (at least, where I had lived).

Slavery.

As the first... I think they are actually ponies instead of horses... Anyway, as the first rays of sunshine bathed this world in the light of a new dawn, I (and Arachne) saw unicorns drag (seemingly) regular ponies after them. And the worst thing about it? They actually put heavy chains and collars around the necks of their slaves. Even. The. Foals.

It made me ill looking at the scene before us. The poor ponies looked so frail as they reluctantly followed their masters dutifully to where they were forced to do menial tasks for them. The less fortunate slaves had to go work on the fields and the less said about that, the better.

It was a good thing I wasn’t currently in control of our body or I would have done something quite bad in my rage. I never knew what actual hatred felt like, but now I knew. I knew with such a piercing hot intensity. An intensity that was unquenchable, demanding blood at the injustice committed in front of us.

It was a mistake, coming here. The biggest mistake we could have ever made. Burning this whole damn ‘community’ down to the ground felt like it was barely enough to quench this thirst for justice. I wanted to do so much worse, but... I swore to myself to be better than I had been in my previous life.

And that also meant not becoming an even worse monster. If I let my anger control me now, I could almost guarantee that I would commit the worst sin humanity could ever conceive. Genocide. Committing such an atrocious act was the very last thing I wanted to do. I don’t want my first act in society to be colored by so much hatred that I become the monster instead of them. There were other ways to make them pay than killing all of them ruthlessly in a fit of rage.

Besides... not all of them were at fault for this, were they? While a lot of them were just going along with it, few of them actually had the power to enforce the status quo. Those few... Well, there was one thing that came to mind that would create a better tomorrow for all of them (aside from the unfortunate idiots at fault for this, that is), wasn’t there?

Rebellion. Revolution. Down with the crown! Chop, chop, let the head roll and all that. Only then would true change be possible.

As we continued down the streets, I could tell that we were the only buggy horse in this settlement. The little ponies around us were staring quite blatantly at us, and, as I tried to listen more closely to what they were whispering so hushedly about, I knew they didn’t look too kindly on us by not being a ‘pure’ unicorn. In their eyes, we must be nothing better than a ‘monster bug pony hybrid’ (I had absolutely no doubts that that is what they thought of us, even though I understood not a damn word from their muttered words).

Then, the first guards arrived in order to deal with us, the big bad ‘threat’ to their perceived purity (or some other bullshit, I'm sure), and I was quickly corrected of my notion that these unicorns carried no weapons with them. No, they were anything but defenseless. The horns on their foreheads were their weapons. Not in the way like claws and fangs were, though.

They lit up with what could only be magic. This world had fucking magic. Genuine magic! As in, ‘a mystical force that could annihilate me at a moment’s notice’ magic and not ‘smoke and mirrors’ magic. Judging by how many guards appeared, they were quite willing to use it, too. On top of that, I was reasonably sure they weren’t here to pet the exotic ‘beast’ with their magic.

Death by aggressive petting... that’s one way to go out, huh? Too bad they weren’t into the type of petting that I was into.

And, like the stupid idiot that I was, the first thing I did in my new life was to mangle up my own magic stick on my noggin so much so that I probably couldn’t defend myself anymore. At least, as long as it wasn’t fully healed, I assumed. I lamented the fact that I (most likely) wouldn’t ever get to find out what using magic felt like. Not because of the state of my horn, but... well, angry mob out for our life and all that.

Not that it would have done us any good being able to use magic right now, anyway. I doubt we could have screwed up the necessary focus to do anything in that regard, not with these xenophobic fucktards shouting at us in a completely foreign language that I had next to no analog for. It sounded like it could have been English if you were heavily drunk and only had less than half of your teeth left. And had a sock stuffed into your muzzle, for good measure.

Arachne tried to turn around, only to be cut off by another group of guards. My faithful Princess was starting to panic, overwhelmed with trying to think of a solution to our plight as she tried to dodge the literal barrage of spellfire. Tried being the keyword here.

Our natural armor seemed resistant enough to avoid the worst of it, but it still stung quite nastily as more and more of those spells started to hit us. Arachne was like a caged animal, trying to find a way out only to hesitate every time another unicorn cut off her attempt to escape.

Nothing she did worked, so I did something. I didn't even need to nudge Arachne for me to gain back control of our body, and, being the fucking genius that I was, I did perhaps the stupidest thing that I could think of.

I charged.

It was a natural reaction to jump out of the way of an object approaching at fast speeds, even more so if that object was an angry bug horse. It was only a small gamble on my part, hoping they would react like any human would if something threatened to impact them like a mad bull intent to skewer them on their horns.

My gamble thankfully paid off, though. The guard’s eyes widened comically as he screamed like a little girl as I was about to ram horn first into him, desperately jumping away so that I could dash past him and the frightened civilians with their confused slaves.

I was lucky that I didn’t slip as I galloped through the narrow back-alleys in order to get as far away from the main path of this damn backwater town that deserved to be lit on fire for the despicable things they did to their poor fellow (hornless) ponies. I suppressed the pained yelps from the pursuing guard’s spellfire, running on adrenaline alone. I was in for a world of hurt once that pain-suppressant wore off, wasn’t I?

Fuck, I needed to hide somewhere where those fucktards won’t find me so easily. The roofs were an obvious choice... if I was confident enough to fly right now. Not to mention, I think some of those spells had hit my wings as well. I didn't 'feel' anything of the sort, but... considering everything was kinda fucked up at the moment and I didn't want to chance a look behind me for obvious reasons of me not wanting to get shot in the face, it probably was safe to assume they most certainly were not a pretty sight to behold right now.

I shouted over the hive mind, hearing a whimper as I might have been a bit too loud.

she responded, a sob leaving her.

I roared back, frantically trying to not trip as I crashed around a corner, surprising a unicorn as he was... well... desecrating a poor slave.

The little mare let out a shriek as I pounced on them, fangs bared viciously. Not on my watch, I growled to myself, biting quite deeply and savagely into the neck of the fucking fucktard of a monster that dared to do that to a defenseless and unwilling 'servant'.

I flung the disgusting excuse for a living being back behind me against the first guard that rounded the corner and gave the girl a glance as she was a sniffling crying mess that would no doubt go right back to enslavement if I didn’t do something right now to stop that. I had to do something, anything, to put an end to this madness. I couldn’t just let this shit go on.

I nodded my head towards the only available escape route and raised a brow inquisitively, breathing quite heavily as I waited for a few precious seconds that I could just barely spare for her to decide whether to follow a total stranger clearly on the run from the 'law' or go back to her forced servitude. Which most likely meant going back to her master or another similar one to serve as nothing more than a hole to be fucked.

It was disgusting. Simply disgusting.

The decision was made for her as I went back on the run as the guards got their shit together earlier than I would have liked. I hissed as the one in charge shot my hind leg with a rather vicious-looking spell that almost made me tumble to the ground if I hadn’t been on such a big adrenalin high right now.

The mare, despite having just gone through a vicious fucking from her tormentor, was able to quickly catch up with me and I led us through this fucking maze of a hellhole without having a single clue as to where to go in order to hide.

Although, to be honest, it was rather easy to lose our pursuers due to the help of my little damsel in distress. She guided me to a secluded and hard-to-find spot that was easily missed if you didn’t know that it was there in the first place.

Shadra asked, hesitantly.

Instead of answering, I decided to try something else I wanted to find out if it was possible for us to do. I focused on the connection I had with my Prince(ss), and, while thinking of the last couple of minutes, I pushed the memories of our hectic chase through this godforsaken place over to him and was promptly rewarded by a horrified gasp. I silently sent my apologies to Shadra for showing him... well... that. No one had to see something like that, ever. Least of all go through it.

The pony in front of me gave me a wary glance, watching me as I slumped against the crates and dirty rags in exhaustion and, even more worryingly, agony. Despite my best efforts, my wings kept buzzing every once in a while as I tried to keep my tears contained and breathing steady. A look back told me everything I needed to know: the damage was far worse than I initially assumed. There was a noticeable piece of my right wing missing almost like something had viciously torn it off halfway and they both looked tattered beyond belief. And, as I gave my hindlegs a glance, I whimpered at the burn marks all over my chitin. That wasn't the reason why I whimpered, though.

No, the true reason was the fucking hole in my leg. It looked like they almost melted a piece out of me, leaving me with a circular indent near my left hoof and one going fully through the whole limb a bit further up on my right hind leg. My forelegs were thankfully spared any horrific disfigurement, as was the rest of my body. My chitin looked blackened all over, though. More black than it already was naturally. Nothing a bath or two couldn’t fix, I’m sure. My mane was thankfully the only thing that was completely unscathed, still as silky and soft as ever.

My tail wasn’t quite so fortunate, on the other... hoof, I suppose. I have no idea how, but... it looked almost like moths had taken a few bites out of it, making it appear torn and slightly less voluminous. It was still silky, but not as much as my glorious mane anymore. It would (hopefully) grow back to its majestic appearance in no time. That didn't mean I was any less mad about it, though.

The mare I saved came slowly over to me, fidgeting uncomfortably as she had no idea what to make out of me. I kept the snarl away from my muzzle as my body was in no mood to be further injured. I knew she would (probably) not hurt her savior, so I simply watched her approach (while preparing myself to flee in my paranoid state).

Her mane was a dirty green and could definitely use a thorough bath (as could her muddy greyish-white coat, for that matter). Her hoof slowly reached out to me, giving me a glance as if asking for permission to touch me. Her brown eyes were seeking out my magenta ones and looked almost... was that kindness? I think it was...

How strange... it was almost like...

“Why save me?” she asked suddenly and I was a bit surprised that she spoke perfect English after not having understood one word from those fucktards with toothpicks on their heads. Her hoof, I noticed, was over my shoulder. Before I could answer, I felt her hoof slowly trace my chitin over to where my deep magenta shell began on my back. “And what are you? You... you probably don’t understand a word I’m saying, huh?”

“I do understand you,” I whispered back, fidgeting slightly as her hoof went over my abdominal shell next. It was starting to make my heart race, I noticed with a tiny blush. “I... I don’t know what I am. I-I think... I think I’m the only one of my kind around here.”

“Why did you save me, then?” she asked again and I bit back a hiss as her touch hurt a particularly sensitive spot of my injuries. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...”

“It’s okay,” I grunted, panting through the pain with gritted teeth. “You’re just... curious...”

“Still...” she mumbled, looking guilty and... I could kind of sense it in a weird way. So, that meant that I hadn’t imagined having felt her kindness, after all. Her guilt... it tasted(?) incredibly bitter to my senses and I didn’t like it one bit. Not a single one. Her kindness had felt a lot better, to be honest (not that much of a surprise, duh).

“Really, it’s okay,” I reassured her. “You said you didn’t mean to and I... I believe you.”

It was... weird. I could tell she was honest with me just like I could tell she felt guilty. A part of me tried to make some sense out of it while the other was desperately trying to shut out these foreign emotions as they threatened to overwhelm me. It was almost like... her sadness was infectious, making me feel sad as well. Not as strongly as I suspected she must have felt like for making me hurt even more, but I wasn’t entirely unaffected by it.

A partially broken memory of Tobias came to mind, one of a particularly powerful cortexiphan child: Nick Lane. After the trials with the highly experimental drug, he had also been able to influence others with his emotions in a way that was not unlike a contagion. Was she like him? Did she know what she was doing? There was no way that she was not aware of it, was there?

I let out a sigh as I had no idea what to do with the guilt from the mare in front of me. I wasn't sure what it was that allowed me to sense these feelings from her, so.... maybe it was me and not her? Could it actually be an empathic ability of mine? Or could all these ponies feel this... whatever this was? If I had access to my lab at Massive Dynamic, I could have easily found out. I, uh... I mean, Tobias’ lab, damnit. It was still hard to figure out which memories were mine and which weren’t. Where one began, the other blurred into it, and, even more worryingly, most of those broken memories were so subtle, it was hard to differentiate to whom they even belonged to in the first place. It was an absolute mess to sort through and it was no wonder that, after having wasted centuries on this task, I wasn't anywhere near finished with it yet. I doubt I ever would be, to be honest.

I said over the hive mind, wary. Broken memories aside, we still were in the middle of a hostile city-kingdom here and I needed to find a solution for that and my little empathy problem. Not that I couldn't already think of a dozen ways to take advantage of something like that, but... it could just as easily become a disadvantage to me if I couldn't keep those foreign emotions out. Nick Lane was the perfect example of what could happen to a person with absolutely no control over it. I was in no way going to commit suicide just because I got a little bit too close to a particularly depressed pony, damnit.