As The Sun Sets

by Noobblue

...to...

Luckily, the palace kitchens were mostly empty as usual, the additional wing tacked onto the suites near the top of The Spire generally remaining unstaffed unless there were visiting dignitaries. This meant Cadance had free reign to do as she wanted, that is, take as much salad seasoning from the cooling boxes that she could, turning what would have been a wedge salad into more of a wedge salad soup.

Cadance looked around the kitchen while she sat in her usual spot at the island, slowly levitating blobs of sauce obscuring the vegetables inside them into her mouth.

I wonder who manages this place

The kitchens were always stocked, so there must have been somepony who managed it.

I'll have to ask but...

The thought was spawned as she enjoyed another ball of liquid salad carbs

meh

Cadance lit her horn momentarily to check the time. A matrix keyed to some obscure spell form that simply worked told her that she still had roughly another forty minutes to burn before she could go accost her husband again.

and go to the hospital.

When she got a look over at Canterlot, it was just that, a look over. None of the normal procedures for checking and getting information on a pregnancy were done, it was only something the doctor on hoof had noticed and obviously let Cadance know about.

Okay, so maybe you're a little nervous about getting looked at for real... Nothing's going to go wrong though, you're just overthinking yourself because there's nothing in front of you.

Cadance looked at her drowned mess of salad and gave it a straight line look.

"Mmmmmmmwell then. I'll just have to busy myself." Cadance stood and looked around. "Let's see."

The next couple of minutes were spent pulling numerous items, soft pastas and pastries, vegetables and an assortment of condiments and spices from the cabinets and walk-in pantries. What followed was Cadance's attempt to combine grilled and seasoned vegetables wrapped in a thin rice like pasta sheet with red and white pepper powder and crystal berry flakes, of which somehow managed to taste like the way sweet corn smelled.

The intent was to make several little bite sized dumplings to stick into the oven to make sure they kept their shape. What Cadance didn't plan ahead for was the oblong shapes of the carrots and cucumbers not wanting to be wrapped properly, and following her failed attempts at not ripping the rice sheets, she instead defaulted to instead rolling it all into a massive burrito.

The result was a supposedly spicy-sweet gritty textured wrap full of grilled and salted vegetables. Supposedly.

After pulling the baking sheet out of the standing rapid baking oven and placing it on the cool flat top grill, Cadance debated testing to see if it was edible.

It certainly looked appetizing, the grill marks in conjunction with the way the pepper and berry powder stained the rice sheets created a nice pattern, and she could smell the warm salty smell of the grilled vegetables.

Maybe I should have added hay

She shook her head

Nah, hay is too common

Giving up on making a decision, and checking the time again she scooped up the steaming vegetable roll in her aura and decided that Shining would just have to figure out if she'd created something edible or not. She got some looks walking through the crystal hallways looking like a mare on a mission with nothing but a floating food experiment behind her, but such is life.

---

Cadance arrived at the guard post sitting in The Spire, the brain to the heart of the compound outside. Here's where all of the important organization happened. When she entered, everypony knew where she was going and thus pointed her through the throngs of open maps and ponies in heated discussions to wherever her husband was currently.

When she found him, he was sitting in a meeting room at a long table with nothing on it besides the official looking papers he was looking through, and a crystal projection device pointed at the sheet up on the far end of the room.

"Shining~"

"Hey honey" Shining took a double take at Cadance's entrance, "What's that?"

Cadance levitated her concoction for him to see. "Breakfast."

Shining raised an eyebrow, but she could see the side of his mouth twitch into a smile. "Sure, but what is it."

She levitated it to him in a unicorn way that meant 'take this with your own levitation', a kind of bob that was universally recognized by unicorns the same way one would understand the motion of being handed something. Shining Armor dutifully took the thing in his aura. As Cadance moved to sit down she elected to sarcastically answer his question, "Brek-fest."

Shining looked over his inspection of the thing, and gave Cadance an unamused look. "Uhuh, thanks."

He took a bite, and Cadance tried to keep the anticipation off of her face. His chew was slow, and it was clear he was savoring the act of making Cadance wait for some kind of response.

After dragging the moment to the point of Cadance rolling her eyes, he swallowed and gave her an answer, "I've no idea what I just put in my mouth, even after tasting it."

Cadance gave him a look

"I don't even know if it was good or not; that's how confused I am."

"Lemme try."

Shining handed the wrap over to her, and she took a bite.

In short? Shining was right, even with it under her more direct senses, she had no idea what she'd created. The flavour was all over the place, the taste of what should have been in a spicy gumbo mixing with salted vegetables and the sweet and half sweet of crystal berry seeds and rice sheets made for a truly stunning mix of flavors that somehow managed to not combine at all. That's before even talking about the texture, which was essentially, 'yes'. Everything from gritty rice sheets and gooey cucumber cores.

She swallowed. Way too much salt.

"This is gross." She glared at the offending food item

"Eh, pass it back here."

She did, and cringed as he took another bite out of it and shrugged. "I'm hungry enough."

"That's something Discord would refer to as fine cuisine."

"It's not too bad."

"I'll take that win."

Shining gave the rest of his paper a quick skim before sticking it into his mane. "Shall we?"

"We shall." Cadance stood with him as he used his magic to gather the rest of the papers and sticking them into non-space, "Who'd you end up sending a letter to?"

"Just the hospital in general, figured it would be easier for them to just sort out the details when we get there." Shining lacked an expression as he spoke, clearly in 'work mode'.

This bothered Cadance, so she came up with a complex solution: apply kisses directly to the problem.

"Ach!" Shining tried to resist her assault at first. Though Cadance continued undaunted, "Cadance!"

"mwah, mwah-"

"Alright alright!"

Cadance put on a haughty tone as she slowly peeled back her lips from Shining, "You're gonna pay the proper amount of attention to me now?"

Shining waited to speak until his laughter tapered off, "Of course Princess."

"And don't you ever forget it." She punctuated the snark by poking him in the nose with her wing.

"The express way?" He asked

"If you please" Cadance moved the wing she poked him with into an 'after you' gesture, to which he responded by lighting his horn and teleporting the two of them out into the space under The Spire.

I Love you

Cadance turned towards the Crystal Heart, the thing spinning in place, radiating it's magic into The Spire and throughout the nearby air. It occurred to her how similar the premise was for the Crystal Heart to the crown. Even though they were...

Wait, is the heart more powerful than the crown?

It made sense that the Heart would be more powerful, but was that because it had access to a larger field of power? Hundreds of ponies, rather than a hoof full? How powerful could that crown have become, exactly?

And you broke it

"Cadance?"

"Yeah?"

Shining smiled at her, but she could see the vague concern written on his face, "What's with the thousand hoof stare?"

She mentally shook the cobwebs loose, "I've just had a lot on my mind recently, you know?"

"Mhm, we should get moving, talk to me about it while we walk."

He set the pace, as usually, her additional leg length made her slightly faster, so they had an unspoken agreement that whenever they were out together, that Shining would be the 'speed setting'.

Cadance thought about how to phrase what she was going to say.

"I'm all ears honey." Shining reassured her, the brush of positive emotions from him gave her the verbal solution she was looking for.

"I think... I think I want to learn dark magic?" She questioned, both as an answer and a leading question.

Shining gave a half chuckle, "Oh, here we go."

"Don't be like that."

He shook his head, "I mean it in a good way."

"How so?"

Shining looked like he had a proper answer to give her, but instead he said, "I don't want to pull away from you, just ignore it for now."

"Nu-uh, spill."

Shining mulled over answering for a moment as they walked, "I-" He stopped, "I've always known you'd... do more than I would, break bigger boundaries; just like Twily." He smiled, "I know it sounds a whole lot like a call of 'oh woe is me' cursed to be left behind by the achievements of everypony I know, but the truth is I couldn't be more proud of you all."

"Oh Shining-"

"Now I'm not going to pretend like I don't feel inadequate sometime-"

"You've never been anything close to that."

"Exactly, I have you to knock that out of me." He smiled warmly, but switched his tone back to 'explaining', "My point is, I know there will be things you'll do, things you'll see that I'll never be able to understand."

Ah... I see...

"Doesn't mean I'm not going to tell you to stay the hay away from dark magic." He smirked

Cadance frowned, "I haven't just decided to stuff my muzzle into it ya goof. I've just had it proven over and over again that it's not nearly as dangerous, and just as useful ponies say."

"I'm sure that's how a lot of ponies got started."

"Take the crown, sure I didn't want to dispel the enchantment on it, but I did. Dangerous magical artefact, cleanly contained and destroyed" She argued.

Shining's muzzle twisted into disapproval, "You used dark magic? This morning? That's how you broke the crown?"

Woops, uh, crudcrudcr-

"No?"

Shining just shook his head. "I'm not going to berate you, you already know how I feel about it, and I trust you to be careful. You've not hurt yourself yet, so I've no reason to not believe you're careful."

"That's a lot of logic there, soldier."

Shining smirked, "Don't push it." His face shifted to be more genuine, "Just please take it seriously? Next time have somepony with you? Even if it's not me?"

"I promise I will. No more unsupervised magic practice."

"Thank you." He turned his gaze back out into the street, "Now go on with what you were saying, now that that's out of the way."

"I think learning dark magic would be a good idea. Not even being a practitioner, but just learning it could be useful." She thought to herself, also taking the moment to examine her surroundings, "Emotion casting, as Silver called it."

"Sounds right up your alley."

She nodded to herself, "Exactly what I was thinking. What if it's so dangerous just because it hasn't been researched properly?"

"That's kinda hopeful, isn't it?"

She nodded again, "Yes but, who's to say that there's not some unique way to channel that just completely bypasses the danger?"

They approached one of the only non-crystal structures in The Empire, the Righteous Community Hospital. The construction was a diplomatic gift from Equestria once Sombra had been defeated, the Righteous family in Canterlot having donated the majority of the bits required for its construction and initial staffing.

Shining pulled open the door. "Let's table this for now."

Cadance simply nodded and entered through the half painted wood, half glass swinging door.

The interior of the foyer was a small space. There weren't any other medical facilities in The Empire, so half the hospital had to double as a makeshift lab, there being nowhere else to test or store samples or take care of particular patients. That being said, most of Righteous CH was cramped, aside from the actual parts that were important. It was an extraordinarily compact and efficient design, made for productivity, rather than the mental well being of its patients and staff. Something Cadance mentally put in the 'maybe do something about that' folder in the back of her head.

Cadance and Shining walked past the seating and up to the reception desk where three mares were in the midst of a conversation, one, a white crystal mare with a grey mane and a nurse's cap and smock was talking to the two seated receptionists. She was the one who noticed the two royals' arrival. The other two, a pair of reverse coloured earth pony mares, the left one had a blue coat and a dull orange mane, the other had an orange coat, blue mane.

"bpRincess Cadance!" She stuttered

The two receptionists spun around in their seats, the second of the two spinning too far, and accidentally spinning around all the way.

"Hello Princess! Prince Shining Armor," The other mare started, while the other turned her chair slower, to make sure she didn't spin around again, "We got your letter, I'll be right with you in a moment." She leaned down and started ruffling through some paper.

"Having a nice day Princess?" Said the other mare.

"mhm, had a bit of a rough morning, and I'm a little nervous, but I'm still feeling great."

"Oh there's nothing to be worried about at all Princess, Mrs. Treatment is very good at what she does." Said the nurse

Shining spoke up, "Fair Treatment? I thought she was going to transfer back to Canterlot general?"

The nurse nodded, "Yup, but she decided to stay."

"It's good to know she wants be here." Cadance quipped

"Uh- Yeah." Came the odd response from the 'spinning chair' mare.

Her twin finished piling up the papers and tossed them onto her back. She walked past the nurse and called out to the royals from next to the desk, "Right this way Princess."

"Thank you." Cadance responded, making her way in that direction.

"Thank you ladies," Shining said, directed at the other two.

The mare led her and Shining down a barely three pony width hallway into an open space with another desk and asked the crystal stallion, "Hey Lith, do you know when Treatment will be done with her current patient?"

The green toned stallion, apparently named Lith, looked up and glanced over Shining and Cadance, the latter who waved when he met her eyes.

"She should be out soon, I'll send her over as soon as she stops by..." The stallion shifted a leaflet on his desk, "Room five eighteen?"

"Gotcha, thanks Lithy!" The mare ignored Lith's annoyance at the mangling of his name and turned back to Cadance, "This way please."

The mare led them down the stacked hall filled with carts and such, lit by crystal lamps embedded in the ceiling. She opened the door to what looked like a medical bedroom.

Cadance trotted in with mild confusion stirring in the back of her mind.

Shining voiced the same confusion, "Uh, are you sure this is the right room?"

"Yup!" The mare cheerily responded, "Since we assume you'll be coming several times during your pregnancy, hospital management deemed that we should set aside a specific room for you to get used to. It looks like this because this is supposedly where we'd want to have you give birth, when you get to that point of course."

As far as what the room looked like, the walls were covered in a soft tannish sandy paper and a crystal window took up the far end of the wider wall. In the center of the room there was a low table that looked comfy as far as tables go. Scattered around, besides the dresser tucked away in the corner, were medical tools and a series of charts and posters relating to pregnancy terms.

"Cozy." Cadance monotoned

"I know it's not perfect, we didn't have enough time to really set up anything for you."

"I'm only joking, miss?"

"Citrus Sun ma'am." The mare responded

"Thank you Ms. Sun, this will do fine; and I'm sure it will only get better."

"Of course, I'll leave you two, Treatment should be by shortly."

Then she left.

Cadance and Shining shared a glance.

"You're nervous too?"

"I already said I was nervous, what's your excuse?" The phrase was toned as a literal question, rather than a rhetorical one.

"Guess I didn't realize how nervous I was until just now." Shining looked down at the floor, deep in thought.

"It's okay Shining, we'll be great parents." She rested a wing over his shoulder

His response was to break out of his thoughts and give her a smirk, "Oh, I know" His smirk shifted back to neutral after Cadance's mouthless chuckle, "I'm just worried about... everything... I guess."

"Everything? Dear?"

"Well. There's a lot we haven't thought of, a lot of things we don't know we haven't thought of. I just feel... unprepared."

Cadance tried to keep her tone mellow, "It's okay, I know it's a lot of stress, but we've got plenty of time."

Shining's face and emotions twisted into hurt

What?

Cadance's concern was cut off by the knock and the subsequent door opening, "Your Highnesses?" Followed by an "Oh for goodness sake."

Fair Treatment, a brown unicorn mare with a straw like mane both in colour and style entered the room with half a scowl. "Many apologies for the accommodations, I tol-"

"It's okay, Doctor, I care far more about the quality of my care then the instruments." Cadance tried to deflect the 'royal' treatment.

Treatment rolled her eyes and magic'd a clipboard off her back and onto the stand she rolled in behind her, "All do respect Princess, the staff pulled the legs of an exam table and then covered it in pillows and blankets. Then dumped it in the recovery ward. This wouldn't do for a normal mare."

Shining gained an approving look to Treatment from behind her. Cadance let out a low hum.

"Nonetheless, you're only here for a checkup, and I can get this mess sorted out after." The mare waved her hoof in the general direction of everything in the room when referring to 'this mess'.

"Now, just a bit of information..." She spread the word 'information' into being two or three seconds long as she flipped through the clipboard, "How long have you been pregnant? If you're uncertain, just an estimate will do."

Cadance responded with, "A little over a month, probably."

"O-kay'' She jotted several things down on the flipped over paper. Cadance thought Treatment was just annoyed with her terse tone, but apparently that's just how she talked.

"Any pregnancy symptoms? Aches? Magical feedback?"

Cadance shook her head

Shining spoke up, "She's been a bit more stressed lately."

"It's hard to tell if it's the baby, or just being a Princess." Cadance added on to the end.

"Well from a Doctor's standpoint, I'll tell you right now that there isn't a difference. The baby will affect your brain chemistry just as much as any outside factor." Treatment said indifferently, "Meter out your stress even while ruling, it will help with any hormonal imbalances," She pointed the back end of her quill at Shining while she quickly peaked over her clipboard, "And put your back into making sure she's comfortable. Husbands are a pregnant mare's best outlet for stress."

She's... abrasive.

"Alright, we have the rest of your old measurements on hand, so we're just going to take your weight, check your blood pressure, and draw a blood sample. Then I'll run a couple of magical scans of your uterine lining to check for development." The mare set the clipboard on her back again and lit her horn, "If you could... ugh, step onto the exam table Princess?"

Cadance chuckled to herself and stepped away from Shining and up onto the blanketed exam table. After a making sure she was centered and situated, she folded her legs and lowered herself into a pony-loaf

Treatment levitated a tool that looked like a magnifying glass, without the glass, over top of Cadance's horn like a horn ring and began casting a few spells. Cadance felt the effects coasting over her form.

Tingly

Treatment scribbled down a few things on her clipboard, "Well you're definitely pregnant, the weight difference is substantial enough for it. And..." Treatment verbally led as she levitated the magnifying glass tool off of Cadance's horn and glanced over its hilt, "Hmmm."

She tilted her head to the side slightly, and continued inspecting the tool.

"Is something wrong with it?" Shining said from outside of Cadance's field of view

"No no, these thaumic gauges tend to output the wrong reading from time to time." Treatment levitated it back on to Cadance's horn, "That's what I get for casting spells while trying to take a reading."

Throughout the encounter, Fair Treatment was focused, to the point where Cadance would call it dedication. Her professional coldness was, however, not a product of her work, and was instead clearly either a mood or some kind of personality trait.

I wonder why? So many doctors are...

Wait...

Cadance tentatively opened her mouth, "Say, where are you from? Fair Treatment?"

"Canterlot." Came her clipped reply.

Hmmm

Treatment levitated the gauge off of Cadance's horn again and looked it over before frowning. She lifted a hoof to press a button on its side, and then continued to stare at the tool in dissatisfaction.

"Must be broken." Treatment placed the offending tool on her rolling desk and made for the door, "Please excuse me your highnesses."

After the door shut, Cadance looked over her door at Shining, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Shining responded with, "Why does she still have a job here when she seems so..."

"Sarcastically cold?" Cadance offered

"I've never heard any complaints about the staff."

"It probably just didn't get to us."

Shining put a hoof to his chin, "Should we do something about it?"

No.

"Nah, it's honestly a little refreshing."

The door opened again, Treatment on her way in with a new thaumic gauge. "Sorry about that, sometimes we miss the maintenance for our equipment." Treatment levitated the new gauge over Cadance's horn while mumbling 'here we go'.

After a couple of seconds, Treatment removed the tool again and glared at the reading. "That's not..." She glanced up at Cadance, "Have you been experiencing any exaggerated magical sensations recently?"

Uhhh... well, there was the flying through the air thing, the crown, and that time I lifted a building

"Yes?"

Treatment levitated her clipboard over and flipped it open to a fresh page, "Can you describe them?"

"To reiterate, is there something wrong?" Shining said again.

"The Princess has a relative thaumic discrepancy of four and a quarter thaums." Treatment explained concisely.

Shining blanched, "How?"

Uhhh

"What exactly does that mean?" Cadance asked slowly

"Normally thaums are measured in decimal places, generally two or three places back. I for instance have a passive capacity of two or so thaums total, which increases to around two point zero nine at my peak. Your average was somewhere around..." She trailed off as she flipped the papers on her clipboard, "Five, but the thaumic gauges are saying that your passive yield has jumped to around five point two five. Which is a relative twenty five percent increase."

"That's bad I take it?"

"Generally?" Treatment pressed the feather of her quill to her chin, "The symptoms of mana poisoning begin to show at around eleven percent. The fact that you are seemingly stable bodes well, and implies that it's your own magical capacities that have increased, rather than some supplemental effect being placed on you."

Shining spoke up, "What she means is that your mana well has spontaneously expanded a lot"

"I feel fine. Aside from a little rising anxiety." Cadance gave a smirk at her sideways, but still honest joke, "Will I be okay?"

Treatment looked at Cadance and frowned, only after seemingly deliberating her response for nearly ten seconds did she respond, "I don't know." She lifted her clipboard up to her nose, to use as an excuse to look away from Cadance, "Alicorn biology isn't a studied thing, even a little. All I have are your baselines." Treatment had the decency to look just a little upset, but even so, Cadance wasn't sure if it was because of the doctors care for her patient, or if it was because there was currently an unsolved problem in front of her. "I can't give you any answers. I'm sorry. It may just be an innocuous change, it might be a sign of something bad; there's just no way for me to tell for sure."

Treatment glanced at Shining before continuing, "It is absolutely my professional opinion that it has something to do with being pregnant, massive changes like that are par for the course for even a normal mare, not the thaumic jump, but other similar things, like hearing. That being said though, nopony is going to know anything about alicorns besides the Princesses, and alicorn pregnancies?" Treatment just shook her head.

Cadance and Shining exchanged glances, and a short visual conversation before Cadance turned back to Treatment, "I have a specialist available, for now, you mentioned a blood test?"

"Already done." Treatment levitated a tiny vial of...

"Wait, is that my blood?"

Treatment nodded, and Shining asked the question in her mind, "Why is it... fluorescent?"

"This," Treatment started, holding up the little lightly shimmering vial of blood, "is something I expected. Alicorn blood carries a kind of magic, the light glimmer is just a side effect of it being removed from your body."

"When did you draw blood?" Cadance asked while mentally feeling out her fur for any pricked skin

Shining raised an eyebrow, "Micro-Telescopic teleportation." To which Treatment nodded, as she put the vial back on her cart.

Shining Armor straightened up in that way that said to Cadance, 'this mare knows her deal'

"Micro-Telescopic teleportation?" Cadance, once again not in the know, asked.

Treatment responded, "Tubular manifolds to bypass a body's natural resistance in conjunction with a strung teleportation vortex."

"A kind of pathway teleportation shrunk to microscopic levels." Shining added onto the end of her explanation.

Oh. So that's why you work here, you're a genius.

"I'll go over all of this and send you a missive for anything important. As it stands, I'll want you back in two weeks for another series of tests, now that I know what I'm looking for." Treatment pulled her desk behind her with her telekinesis, "Normally I'd tell you both to wait for a nurse to bring you the paperwork, but I'll just send it to your office with the missive, you two are free to go." Treatment then left without another word, leaving the door cracked open.

"She's a bit prickly."

"A specialist?" Shining monotoned

Cadance rolled her eyes, "Feel free to come with, but it's a good idea."

"Not disagreeing, just..." Shining lit his horn, and a little non-physical alarm clock appeared in front of him, made up of his magic, "We don't really have the time." He flipped the clock around for her to see.

"Crud, you're right. I need to get ready for open court with Amber, and you have that thing."

'Getting ready' for open court was generally unnecessary, but it helped Cadance's mind not leak out of her ears from the little prep work it provided.

"Fast way back?"

"Probably for the best."

Shining lit his horn-

*pop*

And they were back under The Spire.

"Love you." Shining kissed her and then bolted

"Hey! Get back here!" Cadance gave chase, intending on snogging the poor stallion for his transgression

Author's Note:

Just as a note, in case anyone didn't see it coming, Cadance's pregnancy is going to be a big plot point in the story, (since Cadance is the MC) and as it stands, I don't plan on doing any time skips longer than three or four days; so we'll be seeing Ms. Treatment a bunch more times.

Hopefully they fix the room