The Demon of the Castle

by SigmasonicX

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Death, Romance, Rarity, Horror, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 6867

Fearing being left alone, Twilight discovered a way to keep the late Rarity's spirit around forever. It came at a cost, but the result speaks for itself.

All of Twilight's friends have passed away, but as the immortal Princess of Friendship, Twilight found she could still see their spirits. This proved not to be the boon she expected, as their spirits would move on shortly after... with the exception of her love, Rarity. Still, her time was inevitably coming, and Twilight worked to discover a way to keep her around forever.

She succeeded. It came at a cost, but Twilight found that she was more than willing to pay it.

First of two unrelated Halloween stories this year, and also part of the 2024 RariTwi Bomb.

Published 2024-10-29 00:40:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-10-29 00:40:00 UTC

Let Go

There was a dead griffon in Rarity’s room.

“Oh hello there, darling! I didn’t expect another visit so soon!”

Rarity was spread out on an elegant red cushion, dabbing her lips with a handkerchief, which did little to cover a smitten and somewhat embarrassed smile. Her coat shimmered with silky softness. Her vibrant mane and tail were shining whirlpools, but even they couldn’t draw the focus of Twilight’s attention like her deep blue eyes.

Twilight laughed lightly while her wings ruffled. “You know how hard it is to keep away from you.”

Rarity hopped to the floor and moved slowly yet fluidly to the princess, oscillating her tail like a pendulum. “Now tell me, what new exciting gossip is there in the castle?”

Twilight playfully rolled her eyes. “Rarity, it’s only been a few hours. Nothing exciting would have happened—”

Oh right.

Twilight stopped to glance over the body. She seemed to be in mid-20s. No obvious external injuries, as usual, and if it wasn’t for the relaxed muscles and lack of movement, she’d almost seem alive.

“Pish posh, dear. You’d think after all this time you’d know how active and alive the court gossip scene is. So many exciting things. Ponies falling in love. Sneaking to secret places for privacy. Moonlit trysts.”

Twilight didn’t sense how close Rarity was until she was stroking the princess’s wing with her hoof.

“Perhaps I can demonstrate for you,” she whispered into the princess’s ear.

Twilight shook her head. “I’m sorry, but can we wait a moment on that? I’d like to clean up first.”

Rarity blinked then looked where Twilight was looking. “Oh! Yes, of course, dear. I suppose that doesn’t help with the mood much.” She laughed brightly enough that Twilight couldn’t help but smirk.

With practiced concentration, Twilight coated the body with her magic, applying even pressure to every inch. In truth, calling it a body was a bit of an overstatement. Even the smallest hitch in her magic could cause the seemingly pristine form to collapse into a pile of dust. Twilight was far beyond that being a remote possibility, however, and she levitated the griffon body into the air. Waving goodbye to her love, she walked out the door, down the passageway, and to a walled garden.

Even in the dark of night, the flowers displayed a rainbow of colors. Twilight considered sitting a moment to let them wash over her, but business came first. With soft pinches in her magic field, she pulled off chunks of the griffon dust and mixed them into the soil as she walked. In time, there was nothing left. With a sigh, she now allowed herself to enjoy the garden’s beauty. But only for a minute, as an even greater beauty awaited her.

She plucked a white flower then made her way back to Rarity’s room.

For any other pony, the path was a precarious maze of illusions and magic barriers, not to mention more mundane forms of security, but this was nothing to the alicorn. That said, the griffon was able to get through all of it. She had to not only be magically inclined but determined to find something.

Rumors have swirled for a thousand years about the treasure in the hidden tower of Canterlot Castle. Was it the source of Princess Twilight’s alicorn immortality? Was it a trove of hoarded knowledge begging to be released to the world? Was it the mechanism to control the sun and moon? Twilight also recalled that a common rumor used to be that it contained a portal to another realm, but that died down once dimensional travel became more commonplace.

Now which one made the griffon bite?

Twilight returned to the sound of singing. Rarity sat at a sewing machine to the side of the room, partway through a new dress. Her melody, shared only between them, dismissed everything weighing on the princess’s mind.

Seeing that Rarity hadn’t noticed her arrival, Twilight softly moved through the room, past strewn-about fabric segments and sketches that warmed her heart with familiarity. Soon she was right next to the seamstress and, with a smirk, planted a kiss on her cheek.

The unicorn closed her eyes with a pleased sigh and nuzzled her beloved. “Goodness, Twilight, such affection. This almost makes up for you leaving me like that.”

Twilight laughed. “Rarity, it’s only been ten minutes!”

“You abandoned me, I tell you!” Rarity huffed. “It’s bad enough that I’m cooped up in this tower, the least you could do is always be by my side.”

Twilight playfully rolled her eyes. “Well how about this to make it up to you?”

She presented the flower and Rarity’s eyes widened. “Hmm, yes, I suppose that is acceptable,” she said as she took it in her magic and placed it in her mane. She posed for the princess, who made no effort to hide the awe on her face.

Rarity was beautiful. She was still beautiful. And she would always be beautiful.

It was ten years since Rarity’s death, and in dedication to her life and accomplishments, Carousel Boutique had been converted into a fashion museum.

The curator offered the princess a personal guided tour before it officially opened, but Twilight dismissed her, instead walking through her friend’s old home by herself.

Well, not entirely by herself.

“Oh my goodness, the dresses from our first gala!” exclaimed Rarity, gazing at the star-patterned outfit she once designed for her love. The unicorn looked no different than the day Twilight first met her in this very building. Tentatively, she reached her hoof forward until it went straight through the dress’s glass case. There was a flash of disappointment on her face, but it quickly disappeared as she noticed another dress, with a wide skirt patterned like a carousel. “They thought that was worth displaying? Stars, if I could redo that design now…”

Twilight smiled. “Well it did lead to an entire design movement for a couple months, and you’re the one who taught me that’s an age in the fashion world. Look, there’s a big writeup next to it.”

Rarity smiled lightly. “I blame you for the fact that I’m actually interested in big writeups now.”

The unicorn floated as she read, sniffling when she reached the end and rubbing her eyes. “They really do think the world of me, don’t they?”

“Everyone does,” said Twilight. The princess paused. “Rarity… will you move on like the others?”

Rarity looked down. “I don’t know if I can control it.”

As Princess of Friendship, Twilight’s bonds with her friends were strong enough that she could continue to see and interact with their spirits after death. But that wasn’t an eternal bond, and with time, these spirits would move on to whatever comes next. Rainbow Dash was surprisingly the first spirit to go. Twilight barely had time to acknowledge her presence before the pegasus, with her youth restored, looked around and declared that she would be the best forever, then promptly faded away.

The others lingered for years, watching family and friends and accompanying Twilight at times, but they too eventually left.

Now only Rarity was left out of their old circle of friends.

The unicorn looked at Twilight with pleading eyes. “Surely there must be research into what makes spirits linger. There are so many stories, after all.”

Twilight shook her head. “As far as reliable sources are concerned, I’m the first pony in history that could see ghosts like this.”

“But maybe that just means you have to expand your definition of reliable sources. You can compare different folklore, or interview ponies that had paranormal sightings. There has to be something!” Rarity placed her hoof at Twilight’s chin. Though it phased through, the princess obligingly moved her head the way she knew Rarity wanted, looking into her eyes. “I… I don’t want to leave you.”

Twilight’s eyes glistened. “Alright. I’ll look into it. For you.”

Twilight amassed many pages of notes and sorted through them on a desk. The castle staff had long gotten used to Twilight’s lengthy research projects, so they paid little mind to her activities, even if her current subject was quite peculiar. Interviewing ponies that publicly talked about encountering spirits proved to be a dead end, but she was able to find more private creatures that provided information that reasonably matched her own observations. There was also much that they left unsaid. The Canterlot Library restricted section turned out to be surprisingly fruitful in filling those gaps, but… just what were these ancient writers trying to do?

White and purple appeared in the corner of Twilight’s eye, and with her senses heightened by the morbid reading matter, she yelped in surprise.

Rarity blinked innocently. “Ah, apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Twilight glanced at her different piles, each threatening to spill onto the ground. “It’s fine, Rarity. Honestly, I was probably just going to sort everything a different way if you didn’t interrupt me.”

“Fashion Week in Trottingham went well, if you were wondering. The changeling I was rooting for managed to win their event, and now my hooves are itching to riff on their designs. Goodness, if only I could touch fabric again.” Rarity leaned back, putting a hoof across her forehead. “How is all that going, incidentally?”

“At this point, I think I’ve found out everything I can without actually testing these theories out. I have a couple promising ways to make sure you stay in this world, but… they’re risky.”

Rarity raised her eyebrow. “Risky, how?”

“Every path is based on focusing on a material attachment—like really focusing on it. That attachment has to become everything to you, and that changes how your spirit acts. The risk is… well, I’m sure you know enough scary stories to know what the possibilities are.”

Rarity’s eyes widened. “You’re saying I could become a shrieking poltergeist?”

Twilight nodded. “Or even what could be classified as a demon.”

Rarity pressed her lips together for a moment, then said, “Twilight, can you spread out your notes about attachments and what they do to spirits?”

Twilight quickly complied, pulling pages from her piles and placing them in a neat row. “Do you want me to explain them?”

“Darling, I haven’t forgotten how to read your notes. Now go, I think it’s time you got some food and let a fresh pair of eyes look at this.”

Twilight only then realized how empty her stomach was. Shaking her head, she smiled and said, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Without me, ponies would discover your skeleton halfway through a book about the history of velcro,” Rarity said with a wink.

“At least our spirits would be together then,” Twilight said lightly, only to be met by an expression from Rarity that said if she was the kind of ghost that could throw things then she’d throw the desk at the princess right at that moment. With wide eyes, Twilight said, “Alright, going to get lunch—”

“Dinner.”

“—Dinner. Be right back.”

An hour later, with a moderately full stomach, Twilight returned to find Rarity floating slowly across the room in a sitting posture, her eyebrows creased in deep thought. Without waiting for a greeting, Rarity turned to the princess and said, “I decided what I’m going to do.”

The unicorn floated back to a desk and pointed at a paper, which Twilight levitated and read. The princess’s face sank when she saw it was part of her notes about demons. “What? Rarity, you aren’t thinking of becoming one of these, are you?”

“Twilight, look at the section about succubi. Out of everything you researched, they seem to be the only ones that both resemble the original form of the spirit and remain reasonably in control of themselves. They do have to drain energy from a pony, but your own notes indicate that a pony with sufficiently high levels of magic can survive a succubus attack without much harm. If I make you my only target, then there shouldn’t be a problem.”

Twilight let her mouth hang open for a moment. “I… yes, I suppose if I kept you close, then things shouldn’t be too different than they are now.”

“Not to mention the main conditions for becoming a succubus are to be around a source of magic and to focus on my lust for you, both of which will be the easiest things in the world,” Rarity said with a wink.

Twilight shook her head. “Rarity, still, you’re talking about becoming a demon just to stay with me. I can’t believe how easily you’re committing to this.”

“Oh, there’s nothing to it. After all, a succubus has a physical form, which means…” She pressed her lips close to Twilight’s, threatening to pass through her. “We’ll be able to touch again in no time.”

Twilight flushed. “W-Well, like I said, we can’t really move forward without experimental data, and this seems like as good a test as any.”

“Splendid!” Rarity said as she pulled away.

The princess nodded. “Alright, so what you’ll have to do is—”

Twilight saw in Rarity’s eyes the memories of every intimate activity they performed together in life, plus many imagined for their future. The alicorn’s head spinning and her wings fluffed, she finished, “Well, no need to explain then.”

Over the following months, Rarity stuck close to Twilight, tracing her body with her gaze whenever she got the opportunity. The princess would often notice this in the middle of a serious conversation with other creatures, making her blush and stumble over her words.

Rarity stayed close even as Twilight slept, floating next to her in a simulacrum of sharing a bed. The princess waking up to Rarity’s lovely eyes filled her with nostalgia every time, but it just didn’t feel the same.

Until it did.

Something about the light, about minute shifts in the air, something about Rarity suddenly felt very real to Twilight, filling her waking mind with yearning. Rarity looked into her eyes as usual when the princess awoke, but her expression shifted from attraction to concern. “Darling, what is it?”

Twilight didn’t want to say anything. She couldn’t say anything. Not without breaking the spell. Slowly, slowly, she reached her hoof out. Rarity’s mane was always the same perfect style, but that wasn’t the case in their early mornings together in life, and… it wasn’t the same here. A strand of Rarity’s mane was ever so slightly out of place.

Twilight stroked a curl of Rarity’s mane… and it moved. Twilight felt it against her hoof.

Rarity’s eyes widened, but she dared not to say anything either. Her own hoof shot up from under the sheets—still going through them, but that wasn’t important to her—and stopped just short of Twilight’s cheek. The princess tensed up, desperately hoping to feel something. She felt a tingle that almost felt like it was coming from just below the surface of her skin, but then she felt it. Rarity’s hoof was pressing in on her cheek.

Rarity yelped in glee. “It worked! It worked, Twilight! We’re touching!” The unicorn brought up another hoof, rubbing both of them against Twilight’s cheeks. “We’re touching!”

“We’re touching!” Twilight agreed, her exclamation muddled by Rarity squishing her.

They laughed and shook their legs, almost hopping on the bed. Twilight splayed onto her back, breathing heavily with a smile on her face, only to find Rarity sitting on top of her, placing one hoof next to the princess’s head and using the other to flip her own mane back.

Twilight flushed. “Rarity?”

Rarity smiled. “Since we can touch now, you have to know what comes next.”

“What? You want to go straight into… that?”

Rarity chuckled. “Darling, you’re forgetting what we’re trying to do. Now close your eyes.”

Still half asleep and suddenly finding herself unable to move—out of lack of desire to do so or physical incapability, she couldn’t be sure—Twilight obligingly closed her eyes. Rarity’s lips met her own and she greedily accepted them.

Rarity’s body almost felt like a large pillow on top of Twilight, but quickly she became more and more solid. Familiar hooves touched her in familiar places, with the intensity of a dream and headiness of knowing this was real. She felt Rarity’s warmth against her, she felt hot breath as teeth pinched her ears, and she could even smell her wife’s old perfume.

She was no longer dead in a way that mattered. She was right here, and all was right in the world.

Twilight sipped her coffee as she walked down the academy hall. The princess had long adjusted her diet to account for Rarity’s daily energy draining ritual, but it was hard to go without caffeine’s aid in the morning. She was certainly no stranger to it before, but it was increasingly becoming mandatory.

Rarity floated behind her as she walked, with the most innocent expression on her face. Twilight discreetly stuck her tongue out at her, then turned to speak with the pony she was walking with. “So how are you adjusting to your new lab, Moonstone?”

Moonstone was a fairly young but promising researcher straight out of Manehattan University, a brown unicorn with a scruffy orange mane, tail, and beard. He laughed nervously and said, “Well, moving to Canterlot is quite a change, but an exciting one. I’ve actually already set up several experiments, and I worked late into the night on them.”

“All before the rest of your assistants arrived? I can understand the excitement, but you really must pace yourself.”

Moonstone shook his head. “I appreciate your concern, Princess, but I…” He tilted his head. “I…” His eyes were wide, filled with wonder, looking at something just past Twilight.

A twinge of dread filling the princess, she turned to see what Moonstone was looking at and saw… Rarity.

The unicorn floated passively, seemingly unaware of the attention she was getting, with a private smile. Her mane moved as though she was in water, waving softly and ethereally. Twilight had seen her so often, but she was once again struck by how beautiful she was.

Rarity was always so beautiful.

But wait, was she always this beautiful?

Moonstone cleared his throat, making Twilight snap her attention back to him. “Oh, don’t mind me. Just thought I saw someone I knew. Anyway, I really oughta get back to my lab. The results of my stochastic ovinomancy experiment should be ready now.”

The stallion’s coat looked like it was standing on end. His eyes were wide and he had sucked his cheeks in, possibly as a nervous tick. He stumbled down the hall and nearly tripped around the corner.

Twilight stood frozen in the hall. There was no question about it. He had seen Rarity.

Even with a physical form, Rarity shouldn’t be able to be seen by any random pony. She hadn’t been seen by other ponies before. Did Moonstone have the ability to see spirits? No, this wasn’t even the first time Rarity had been in the same room as Moonstone. His field of research didn’t seem like it could produce an appropriate magical effect to cause this. Was the change with Rarity then?

Succubi can make themselves visible to… their intended victims.

“Rarity, are you—”

Twilight looked back, then wildly swung her eyes around the hall. Rarity wasn’t here.

In the year since they first started this grand experiment, Rarity had never been outside of Twilight’s immediate vicinity before.

“Rarity? Rarity!” Twilight called out, not caring what others in the building thought.

Her heart gripped in ice, Twilight trotted down the hall after Moonstone. She didn’t have to go far to find him.

Rarity grasped Moonstone tight, all four legs wrapped around him as she floated in the air, and their lips were together. His eyes were closed in intoxicated bliss, while Rarity’s were wide open, observing him closely. With every second that Twilight stood there aghast, the stallion’s cheeks sunk in a bit more and his coat lost a bit of its luster. In that empty hallway, there was the sound of an endless exhale.

Suddenly realizing what she was looking at, magic erupted from Twilight’s horn as she enveloped the two and forced them apart with a yell. With masterful control, she knitted the aether into purple bars around Rarity and knelt beside Moonstone. The researcher was breathing, thankfully, but his eyes were still closed.

Rarity gasped. “Twilight… please… don’t tell me…”

She sat in the cage with her hooves pressed to her mouth, breathing haggardly as though something would come out at any moment. Her eyes shimmered with tears.

Twilight’s brows pressed together and she stared for a moment, unsure what to say. Finally, she shook her head and said, “I’ll give him some magic and he should recover. It’ll be fine, Rarity.”

Rarity did nothing to indicate she heard that. Regardless, the princess shifted her attention back to the young researcher and coated him in her magical aura.

After a minute, Moonstone’s eyes flickered open and he tentatively got up while moaning. “Ugh… stars, what just happened?”

“You suddenly fainted,” Twilight said with a sincere smile. “After I was just warning you about pacing yourself. Perhaps you ought to rest before your assistants arrive.”

Moonstone held his head. “I…” He happened to glance in the direction of Rarity’s cage, but showed no indication he saw anything there. “I really got that tired? I worked later nights than that all the time before.”

“Sometimes that sort of thing just suddenly catches up to us. It’s just part of growing older.” Twilight chuckled lightly.

The stallion looked around the hall for half a minute while Twilight stood with an unchanging expression. “Hmm. If you say so,” he finally said. “I’ll take your suggestion to heart. Thank you for your assistance, Princess.”

Twilight nodded. “It was my pleasure.”

Moonstone walked to his room with an uneven gait, slamming the door carelessly behind him.

She looked back into the cage. Rarity looked away. In life, the tears running down her face would have caused her mascara to run. Instead, she remained the picture of perfection.

Twilight looked away too. “Let’s head home. I’ll have others fill in for today’s events.”

Rarity didn’t respond. Twilight chose to move her cage, determining that Rarity wouldn’t be moving on her own.

The entire trip back, no words were exchanged between them. Ponies and other creatures heartily greeted Twilight, and she simply nodded back.

As soon as they entered the royal chambers and Twilight dismissed the cage, Rarity said without looking, “You were good at lying to him.”

Twilight blinked a few times. “As princess, it’s good to keep a clear head and speak calmly.”

Silence permeated the room and suffocated the princess. It itched at her eyes, forcing tears to build up. “Rarity, we can—”

“I want to stop,” Rarity said.

“What?”

“It was fun for a while, staying with you for longer than what’s natural, but it’s time we stopped.” Rarity sat and gripped a table leg. “I’m going to try and move on.”

Twilight started forward. “Rarity, please wait! We just got sloppy and complacent today, that doesn’t mean we should give up! When we go out, I’ll make sure to contain you like I did just now. You might get impulses, so we’ll probably have to keep you inside a magic barrier when you’re on your own. I know you used to like traveling, but you haven’t done that lately anyway.”

“Because I’ve been focused on turning into a pony-eating demon,” Rarity interrupted.

Twilight flinched. “But you didn’t eat a pony! We stopped it, and we don’t have to make that part of what you are! We can make this work!”

Rarity turned to Twilight with a glare. “Twilight, I enjoyed wrapping myself around that stranger and forcing myself onto him. I enjoyed seducing him and drawing him to his death. When I was draining that poor pony’s life force, it felt good. It felt like that was what I was meant to be doing.” She paused as she looked into Twilight’s shimmering eyes, her expression softening for a moment before hardening again. “That’s the kind of demon I’m turning into. Even if you carry me around in a cage, I’m still going to view everyone you show me as potential prey.”

Twilight shook her head. “Rarity, there’s… Rarity, please!”

Rarity turned away, unable to look at the princess.

Twilight lit up. “Oh, of course! Rarity, we have technology now that will allow you to experience the world without having to leave your room. I showed it to you before, remember. Computers and the internet. Those weren’t around when you were alive, but it’s advancing quickly. I can work to advance it even further. You’ll be able to see and even talk to creatures without putting them in danger.”

Rarity said nothing, and Twilight sank to the ground.

Twilight could have come up with more appealing ways to work around the risks with Rarity’s behavior.

“Rarity, please!” Twilight shouted.

She could have told her it wasn’t too late to work through this.

“You can’t go!”

Twilight could have accepted that Rarity no longer wanted to be a monster, now that she knew it was real and not just theoretical.

“You’re the only one left, Rarity! The only friend left! The only pony I can ever love!”

Instead, Twilight said, “You can’t leave me alone! There’ll be nothing else left! Nothing else left in the world for me!”

Rarity’s head sank.

Twilight breathed heavily, her eyes wide and clouded by thought. She smiled lopsidedly. “Maybe that’s it. All our friends are waiting for us on the other side. Rarity—”

“I can try it out,” Rarity said.

Twilight blinked, her neck crooked.

“That computer thing you mentioned. It doesn’t sound too bad now that I think about it. We can try it out for a year or two and I’ll see how it feels.”

Twilight stood up slowly, as though moving too quickly would scare the unicorn out of her decision. “OK,” she said with a broken voice. “I-I’ll get right to work figuring out the details. I’ll design a great room for you, I promise.”

The princess walked over to her table, squeezing her eyes closed as she reflected on how she behaved. “Rarity, I’m so sorry.”

Rarity hummed. “It’s fine, darling,” she said dispassionately.

Twilight opened her mouth to follow up, but decided against it. Instead, she pulled out some paper and started writing.

Rarity never complained again in the decades that passed.

Twilight fulfilled her promise and created a grand room for her beloved. Not just a room, but an extravagant tower constructed by gathering space from unused corners and spaces all across Equestria into a single area that was there yet not there. When Rarity heard this explanation, she shook her head and said, “Well now I know we’ve been spending too much time together, because I actually understand that.”

The tower was filled with books, fabrics, and the promised computers. It took some effort to get Rarity used to computers, but soon she indulged herself in the various trivialities of the outside.

Twilight visited her daily. They would talk for a while, Twilight sharing the day’s events and then Rarity sharing what she had been up to alone in her room. Then they would together maintain Rarity’s connection to this world and rest in bed together. Then Twilight would raise the sun, go out to do her princess duties, then return.

They had good times together.

As long as Twilight ignored the way Rarity’s expression would suddenly shift when she entered her tower.

Twilight ignored that it had been who knows how many years since Rarity touched the fabrics the princess provided her. She ignored that most every joke Rarity made revolved around how Twilight was the only pony she spent time with. She ignored that Rarity hadn’t called her “darling” ever since that day.

Times were good, because even if Rarity was no longer the outgoing and undeniable and oh so Rarity mare she used to be, looking at her brought back the good times, and Twilight was more than smart enough to fill in the blanks.

For a time, Twilight even ignored the fact that during their nightly sessions, Rarity’s legs were starting to phase through her just a bit more often.

Not even demons are eternal. While the process of becoming a monstrous entity seems to corrupt the soul, it’s more accurate to say it creates a shell around it. Just as all living things die, eventually all souls move on, slowly chipping away at the shell until it escapes. This happens regardless of the soul’s intentions, and the best they can do is to build up that shell again.

This is what the readings Twilight had taken seemed to indicate at least.

They were doing something wrong and Rarity’s shell couldn’t outpace her soul’s dissipation. At this rate, she would move on within a week.

Twilight checked the data every day to see if there was another interpretation, but that was the inevitable conclusion. If only she had more time, then she could have investigated this and found a way to fix this. She had ignored it for too long and now there was little she could do. She looked at the calendar. It had been a bit more than forty years since they had begun this endeavor. She couldn’t complain about how long they had together, she supposed.

Still, maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked, and maybe things would recover tomorrow. She decided to act like normal when she visited Rarity. Actually, she spotted some interesting fabrics while visiting the market incognito and bought them just for her. Surely that would make it all better.

As soon as Twilight walked into Rarity’s room, she saw a dead pony. Twilight froze, fabric unspooling onto the floor.

The body was that of a brown unicorn stallion with a faded orange mane, beard, and tail. Laying on his side, his face was the picture of peace.

“Oh thank goodness! Twilight, I was so frightened!” Rarity exclaimed.

Twilight’s eyes shot to Rarity, who pressed against a nearby wall, standing on her hind legs. She had one hoof across her forehead, a picture of cinematic torment. “I was all alone in here, minding my own business, when this ruffian just waltzed in like this was an ancient ruin and not somepony’s home.”

“I’m so sorry, Rarity, I don’t know how this happened. And after all my promises that you’d never be put in this position again.” She turned her attention back to the body. “Wait, I know this pony. This is Moonstone! How in Equestria did he get in here?”

“Enough of that, darling, come let me rest in your lap.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “What did you say?”

Rarity pushed up her mane. “It’s times like these that a mare needs her pampering, and I only accept it from the best, darling.” She winked.

Twilight’s mouth hanged open. “Uhh… hold on, let me deal with Moonstone first.”

Twilight grabbed onto his legs with magic to lift him up, only for them to tear off and collapse into dust. Not expecting this, the alicorn’s magic flung the dust high into the air, where it scattered.

The princess looked up aghast and, to her absolute horror, breathed in some of the pony dust. She desperately coughed and coughed until her nose ran and then she vomited onto the carpet.

Rarity gasped, floating over and putting her hoof on Twilight’s back. “Shh shh, it’s fine. You can do anything when you calm yourself, my darling. Just relax.” She started humming a soft melody that the alicorn could feel through her whole body.

Her hoof brushed Twilight’s coat just like when she was alive, with unmistakable gentleness and warmth. Yearning washed over the alicorn and she nuzzled into Rarity’s chest. She could even hear a heartbeat.

Even with the remains of a dead pony all around them, Twilight sighed and let herself sink into the bliss of Rarity.

Twilight carefully sorted through what she found in Moonstone’s room. With the researcher having grown into a solitary pony in his later years, she didn’t have to act immediately to address his death. Still, Twilight’s guts twisted at having to work alone to investigate his actions preceding the… incident. This wasn’t something she could let anyone else know about. Only the stars could say what would happen if the general public knew her wife was…

Twilight shook her head. What was the point of denying it? A demon. Her wife was a demon and she just ate a pony.

The princess logged into Moonstone’s computer, having found his password written down, then perused through his web history.

He was quite the user of conspiracy sites and talked frequently about his encounter all those decades ago. Surprisingly, he connected the spirit he saw not with Rarity but with a youthful Mistmane. He was convinced that the spirit was in love with him and not trying to kill him, and that Twilight was keeping her imprisoned. While no other users opposed his claims, Moonstone didn’t seem particularly popular either. The thread about Twilight actually being a human from another dimension had a thousand times as many posts as Moonstone’s threads combined.

These conspiracy ponies probably wouldn’t be looking for him, then.

Moonstone had written fairly accurate information about how Twilight kept Rarity hidden, though it seemed to fall into the white noise of other outlandish claims about Canterlot Castle. Removing it would draw more attention than leaving it, and in any case, there was little the average pony could do with that information.

Twilight shut down the computer and sighed. To think Rarity could so thoroughly take over a pony’s life after just one encounter like this. The princess smirked. Actually, with Rarity, that wasn’t strange at all.

With her thoughts on Rarity, Twilight was forced to confront how she acted. For so many years, Rarity felt like barely more than a wisp of memories. But that night, Rarity was excitable, she was demanding, she was comforting. Rarity felt like Twilight’s best memories come to life.

Sure, Rarity when she was alive wouldn’t have acted like that when she had just killed a pony, but… everything else was like how she used to be.

Twilight smiled. She had morbid work to do, but knowing she’d be able to see that Rarity again when she was done made everything worth it.

Next time Twilight visited Rarity, the unicorn remained warm and loving. To the princess’s surprise, she had gotten back to making dresses and proudly displayed a lovely ensemble fitted for Twilight’s precise measurements.

Over the following months, Rarity had become more active online and even requested Twilight’s help in making a computer-animated model that she could use to interact with others. Once it was made, Rarity quickly grew in popularity and became a major fashion influencer once again. It warmed Twilight’s heart, seeing Rarity spread her wings in a way she knew she could have if she was born in this time period.

Every day she visited Rarity was new and exciting. Rarity would rush over to the princess as soon as she entered and regale her with the latest stories. Twilight would listen with a big smile on her face, teasing her love about her exaggerations, which Rarity would then insist were one hundred percent accurate.

Before, Rarity absolutely refused to leave the tower, but now she would give suggestions about where to go and Twilight would take her, as long as there weren’t any other creatures around. They spent relaxing days out camping, they would visit museums, they would go through fashion collections. One time they went to an amusement park: it caused a bit of a stir for a princess to reserve the whole park seemingly just for herself, but it was worth it for the two of them.

Twilight loved Rarity no matter what form she took. But Twilight couldn’t lie.

She loved this Rarity more than any she could remember.

The thirty years after Moonstone’s death were the most blissful of Twilight’s life, but it all came crashing down when Twilight examined her readings of Rarity’s stability.

Rarity’s shell was becoming undone once again. It would take another twenty years, perhaps, but inevitably she’d fall into the same state as before. Weary, uninspired, unloving. All too aware that she was a killer.

As a succubus, Rarity could persist on the energy she took from Twilight, but just as a pony can’t subsist off of one meal all their life, Rarity needed variety. More than that, she specifically needed that last bit of energy that keeps a pony alive.

It didn’t need to happen often, perhaps once every fifty years, but eventually, Rarity would have to kill again.

Twilight pressed her face into her desk. Why did it have to be like this? Why couldn’t her own energy have been enough? She couldn’t keep feeding creatures to Rarity just to keep her around. Even with everything she had done, that was beyond what her morals could allow. And Rarity would never want that either… at least, the Rarity deep down under that shell.

Twilight rubbed her eyes. Rarity.

How could she weigh her own morality against her?

From that thought, Twilight realized something. She couldn’t select victims for Rarity, but Moonstone came to her without any action on their parts, after all. Perhaps there was some way to recreate that…

Twilight cuddled with Rarity in bed, stroking her mane and making special effort not to dislodge the white flower in it.

Was Rarity always like this? In the thousand years since her death, it was harder and harder to remember what their relationship was like in life. Twilight still had her records of that time, of course, but she had seen no reason to revisit them when she had a vibrant and captivating Rarity right in front of her.

This Rarity was always there for her, always there to comfort her, and would never argue with her except in that charming way Rarity does that always ends with them kissing.

She was a mare that loved life and loved to share her creative gifts with the world. She loved Twilight with all her heart, and Twilight loved her the same. The princess drifted off to a peaceful sleep, knowing her beloved would always be with her.

Unfortunately, the time came for them to separate, as Twilight’s royal duties called to her. Twilight looked through that morning’s report and noticed a filing from the royal guards. A griffon named Garner had turned himself in, claiming that his sister, Goldy, had ventured into the hidden tower but hadn’t returned. He admitted to a conspiracy to infiltrate the castle on the condition that he learn what happened to his sister.

Twilight stroked her chin. A sibling definitely meant they couldn’t just pretend they didn't know what happened to her. It’s a good thing she opted that night to have one of her automatons dress in a cloak and draw the attention of the guards, then jump down into the waterfall with a visibly injured wing. The guards would tell Garner that Goldy was just another creature looking for something that doesn’t exist, and even with modern technology, it would be nearly impossible to determine where the falls would take someone.

There was no reason for her to interfere in that. Instead, she focused on determining what exactly drew Goldy’s attention to the tower. Mentally, she searched for the various magic sensors she had placed and… aha! So Goldy had gotten into forbidden section C of Canterlot Library. As Twilight recalled, that particular forbidden section had a loose page in one of the books that claimed the forbidden tower contained a shard of eternity—how interesting that someone got drawn in by a concept as esoteric as that.

The sensors there confirmed that the page was gone, so Twilight pulled out a piece of paper and tapped her pen. What to write this time? Perhaps she’d include something close to the truth, just as a change of pace. She wrote from the perspective of… what was his name? Lunarstone? She decided to go with that.

Her writing done, she used her magic to artificially age the paper. She’d have to visit Canterlot Library later. There was still decades before Rarity would need to feed again, but the seeds needed to be planted early.

Clues were scattered all across Equestria, from Canterlot to the deepest wilderness ruins, ready to draw the daring and inventive to the embrace of Rarity. It was a shame that the subtlety of this method meant that minds that could benefit society greatly were the ones victimized, but it was a mere twenty five sacrifices over the course of a millennium with no blood on Twilight’s hooves. It was a bargain, really!

When Twilight thought about her darling’s smile, she knew it was worth it.