//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Second Thoughts // by Poinger //------------------------------// Cadence opened her eyes, shaking her head, then stopped, blinking at the walls. Her mind slowly coming to grips with the wrongness of her location. She was lying on her side, but the stone beneath her was rough; not at all like the smooth tile of the throne room. It was warm here, and the air was too humid for Canterlot. She bolted up and onto her hooves as she recalled what happened to her. She was clearly not in Canterlot; the room she was in was a perfect square of russet red stone, slick with condensation. It also... pulsed, undulating slightly in time with her heartbeat, the floor writhing gently beneath her hooves with every beat. She shivered in disgust. “Eerrraggghhh! Cadence!” The shout nearly gave her a heart attack. It was Shining, she knew it, and he sounded like he was in pain. He sounded close, too, as if he were just behind the wall across from her... there was a door. It looked just like the stone around it, save for the nearly invisible doorframe  and a small, ornate handle that blended into the door perfectly. She didn’t think it had been there before... had she simply missed it, or had it only appeared when she heard Shining scream? She shook her head and galloped to the door. It didn’t matter and she didn’t have time to wonder: Shining was in trouble. She burst through the door, but he wasn’t inside. The room looked to be identical to the one she just left, save that this one was occupied. Near the left wall, Celestia and Chrysalis were locked in battle, though this time it seemed they were at a stalemate. Celestia raised her head to look up at her as she entered, a look of hope flashing across her face. She barely managed to grind out a sentence; her voice strained and tight from her magical exertion. “Cadence...help me. We can...beat her...together!” She took a step towards the Princess when the scream came again. “Caaadence!” She looked over her shoulder, where another door stood waiting, then back to the Princess. She bit her lip, looking between the battle and the door. She wouldn’t just leave, she couldn’t just leave... but she knew she had to. “I’m sorry. I... can’t. I have to help him. I’m sorry.” She took a step away from them, and she saw the line of energy slip closer to Celestia, saw Chrysalis start to smile. Celestia’s look of hope turned to one of pure abject fear as the line slipped closer yet. “Cadence, what are you saying? Help me! Help me save them! Why won’t you help me?!” She couldn’t take it. She turned a deaf ear to Celestia’s increasingly frantic pleas and fled, rushing through the door as they turned to screams of agony and Chrysalis started laughing. She let out a shuddering breath as the door closed and cut off the haunting screams and laughter both. She sagged against it and tried to compose herself. What kind of horrible place— “Cadence! Come and play!” She looked up, startled. This room could have been either of the other two, save for the patch of grass and tree growing in the center, apparently out of solid rock. There, waving at her with a hoof, was a purple filly... it couldn’t be. “Twilight?” It was, unmistakably, a young filly Twilight. Moreover, she recognized the the tree: it was in a small park they often went to when Cadence was foalsitting her. Twilight galloped over to her, gave her a swift hug, then took her by the hoof, futilely trying to pull her toward the tree. “C’mon, Cadence! I have to show you something!” They had made it halfway to the tree when she heard the scream again. She looked and there, on the right, was another door. She turned back to Twilight, and pulled her hoof away in shock; the park was the same, but Twilight was a fully grown mare, the mare Cadence had seen in Canterlot. She was still full of the same bright-eyed enthusiasm, though. “Cadence! Come and see this new spell I learned!” She started walking toward the tree again. Cadence took a half-step after her before she could stop herself. She’d missed Twilight so much. It would be so easy... She raised her hoof for another step toward the excited Twilight, then shook her head, setting it firmly back down. No. She had to keep going, had to find Shining Armor. She wrenched herself around and started plodding toward the door. The room seemed to fight her: the wall with the door looked much farther away than it had been, and the grass pulled at her hooves. But worst of all, with her first step away,Twilight was suddenly ahead of her, all happiness gone. “Cadence? Where are you going? Don’t you want to see my...” She took another heavy step past her and Twilight reappeared ahead of her. “Don’t you care? I know we haven’t been close, but I still want to be friends! Don’t you want to be my friend, Cadence?” Another step, another Twilight. This one was different. This one was angry. “Fine, then. You outgrew me, is that it? I was just another filly to you? Well, I don’t need you anymore, either.” She started to break, felt her eyes water, Twilight’s words hitting too close to home. Another step. She was almost to the door, but it was getting harder and harder to keep going. Twilight was surrounded by five other mares, and she was smiling. She looked so happy with them. “Oh, girls, I’m so happy I met you. I know you’d never leave me. You’re my real friends.” As she said it, she shot Cadence a look of pure poison. One more step and she was at the door. This Twilight looked older, but no less angry. “You used me to get to him! Played nice so he’d like you! I was just a tool. You never cared! Well, I hope you’re happy with him, because I never want to see you again!” But she was so close now. She opened the door and tried to walk through, but there was one last Twilight in her way. She was an old mare, sitting in a rocking chair. “I’m sorry, dear, should I know you? I don’t remember anypony named ‘Cadence.’ Are you sure you aren’t looking for somepony else?” Though this last Twilight wasn’t angry, she was the worst. She dove through the door, eyes stinging. She wiped at them with a hasty hoof. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t...  Her train of thought was broken as somepony grunted in exertion and a heart-shaped blue glass sculpture smashed into the wall next to her head, shattering into pieces. She recognized it from the shards on the floor: it was a gift she’d given to Shining. She looked back along its path to see who would throw such a thing. “Caaadence!”  He was here. She’d finally reached him. She only hoped she wasn’t too late, that he wasn’t too badly hurt by whatever had caused his screams. She galloped toward him. “Shining! Shining, I’m here. Everything—” She stopped. He was standing by a table laden with gifts they’d given each other on anniversaries, birthdays and the like. Many were smashed to pieces, broken, or twisted beyond repair. He didn’t look wounded, he looked... angry. “You cast your spell on me? How could you, Cadence?” Not this, she thought. Anything else. Bring back the spiteful Twilights, the terrified Celestia, anything else. She hesitantly approached, tried to lay a hoof on his face.“W-what are you talking—” He shoved her away roughly. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. You made me love you! Laid your love magics on me so strongly you forced me to follow along after you like a pet!” She started to tremble. She tried to reassure him. “Shining, please, I was—” “I don’t want to hear it!” He stormed closer, and she shrank back in fear. “You twisted me. You lied to me, and for what? Some phony wedding?” He loaded the word with such scorn she flinched. She drew a shaky breath. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Not after all she’d done, how hard she’d tried to try and make things right. “Shining, dear, I love—” He slapped her in the face, hard. The blow, backed by his guardpony build, sent her staggering. “Don’t you say that. You don’t get to say that to me anymore. I’m done with your lies.” “Don’t say it. Please, don’t.” She reached out for him , but he moved back out of reach. “I don’t love you, Cadence. And I doubt I ever did.” She sagged. It couldn’t be over. It couldn’t. But it was. He didn’t love her, and she didn’t deserve his love. She started crying, but hardly noticed the tears. She felt numb. She couldn’t manage to look him in the eye when he walked up in front of her. “I just want to know why, Cadence. Why’d you do it? You owe me that much, at least.” “I...I don’t know,” she barely whispered. He picked her up with his magic, slamming her into the wall. “Not good enough! Why, Cadence? Why?” She finally broke, the words slipping free on their own accord. “Beacause!... Because I didn’t want to lose you. Because I was afraid!” As she said it, she realized that it was true: she really had been afraid. She had loved him. He dropped her in shock as some of the rage in his eyes gave way to surprise. He opened his mouth to speak, but now that she had gotten started, it all seemed to come pouring out of her. “I’d lost Twilight when she became Celestia’s protege, and you’d been so distant since she left. Then you said you were going to join the Guards, and I was afraid that... that that was the end of us. That I’d lose you, too.” She managed to stand back up and slowly started to walk back over to him. “So I panicked, and did something so foalish, so... stupid. I was so scared, I couldn’t just trust that everything would be all right. I loved you and I couldn’t let you leave, so I made the worst mistake of my life.” She leaned in to kiss him, and he didn’t try to stop her. But her lips barely brushed his as he froze and crumbled to dust. The ground began to rumble and shake. The stone room began to crack, the walls and ceiling breaking apart in chunks. Over the rumble of the destruction a familiar voice slowly grew louder. “No no no no no no no!” The room around her, which had been slowly dissolving, exploded in a cloud of dust which vanished before it could hit the floor. She was back in the grand hall, back at her wedding, as if she’d never left. She looked around. Everything still looked the same, but it felt different. Like there was more there than there was before. Everypony was still frozen, except for her and a now-screaming Chrysalis. “You don’t love him, Cadence! We both know it. Why do you keep living the lie? Why don’t you admit it to yourself?!” “You’re right.” She felt strangely calm. She’d made her peace, admitted the truth to Shining Armor. Now she saw the truth around her. Now she had to accept the truth, and fully admit it to herself. “It’s time to stop lying. It’s time to see the truth. And none of this,” she waved a hoof at their surroundings. “Is real, is it?” She walked to the window, where Canterlot stood in ruins, its subjects frozen in flight from the changeling invaders. “Canterlot, capital of Equestria. I told myself it was my duty, my royal duty, to love him. To provide a prince, as a Princess is supposed to do.” She threw Chrysalis a casual glance over her shoulder. “But you destroyed it, didn’t you? And even after the city fell, it didn’t change anything. Even after royal duty was taken from the equation, I still didn’t know whether I loved him or not.” Outside, Canterlot and its subjects splintered into shards and disappeared; outside the window was a void, the nothingness which the reality had been composed of. She ignored the changeling queen and walked over to Celestia, still trapped in the cocoon. “Celestia, paragon of magic, ruler of the realm. I suppose Luna is too, but I’d never been as familiar with her, else she would be her too, wouldn’t she?” She tapped the cocoon idly. “If there were any magic, any mortal means capable of overpowering love, she would know it. She could perform it." "But you beat her. More importantly, you beat her with his love. Love was stronger than even Celestia, and there was no magic that could remove love for me, whether it was real or coerced by a spell. I had to choose.” The cocoon and Celestia shattered into nothingness. Chrysalis’s wings shot out, and she raised herself up defiantly. “Stop. Stop! Stop it now!” She walked over to one of the four ponies left and smiled down at her. “Twilight. She was the best memory, and so she was the  most dangerous trap. I never wanted to admit it, but I tried to love him for her. So we could be best friends again. So we could be close again. But you defeated her as well." "The one thing that could be stronger than Celestia: an Element of Harmony. But even she failed. You showed me—” She choked a little, bracing herself for what she still didn’t want to say. “...I couldn’t let Twilight couldn’t be the deciding factor. She could pull me from that empty cavern of my indecision, my inaction, but she couldn’t be another excuse for marrying him, as much as I wanted her to be more than anything else.” She reached out to touch Twilight, and with a gentle push, she shattered. Chrysalis broke into a gallop, charging straight at Cadence. Cadence whirled and fixed the charging queen with a glare and she was trapped in mid-stride, her legs frozen. She walked up to the captive queen, looking over her almost lazily. Though Chrysalis’s legs were frozen, she still struggled to move, but now attempted to lean away. “Oh, no. No, you don’t even think about it.” Cadence stopped just out of Chrysalis’s reach. “Then there was you. You, who tricked Shining Armor into loving you. You, who removed all my escapes and excuses, all the things I used to hide behind, besting them one by one. You, who could only be beaten by, who only feared, true love.” She reached out and gently brushed a hoof across Chrysalis’s face, the black, shining carapace coming off in her hoof to reveal a pink coat underneath. “You’re no changeling. The changeling is the illusion. You’re a reflection, the embodiment of all my doubts and fears over the spell I cast on Shining. Chrysalis’s shell shattered, her carapace and insect-like wings vanishing into splinters. All that remained was a vengeful Cadence staring daggers at her. That was all that had ever been. All of the unloving Cadence’s fear was gone. “And you don’t love him. You don’t! You can’t! I am the stronger! I am Cadence, how we truly are! How we really She turned her back on it, the hateful piece of her, and started toward the only other pony left: the still-frozen Shining Armor. Her voice came as a whisper, but it was firm, and  she knew the other Cadence would hear it. “Not anymore. Not ever again. I love him.” The other Cadence tried to follow her, but she couldn’t move forward, was now incapable of stopping the loving Cadence, who was nearly to Shining. “This isn’t over! You can’t kill me, just like I couldn’t kill you! Everytime you two argue and fight, everytime you’re depressed or upset at him; everytime your foals annoy you and everytime you lie awake at night and you doubt your choice, I’ll be back!.” She had reached him, and paused to look back at the captive, raging Cadence. “Maybe I can’t kill you.” She leaned in toward Shining, her voice hard. “But I can make sure you go away for a long, long time!” She touched her horn to Shining’s, and everything snapped back into existence. Their horns glowed and she felt Shining Armor’s shield spell wash over her and expel Chrysalis and the rest of the changelings. She was distantly aware of Twilight helping Celestia up, but for the most part, there was only him. They stood together, supporting each other and simply enjoying the feeling of being together again. They broke apart as Celestia approached, clearing her throat gently. “As I was just telling Twilight... I believe you have a real wedding to plan?” Cadence tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid fiddling with her veil as she waited for the wedding march. It was perfectly ridiculous that, after all that had happened, she was still nervous over her wedding. Right, she thought, because my emotions are so rational.  She’d already proven that one wrong. The birds started to sing, the doors opened, and the three flower-fillies made their way down the aisle. She took a deep breath and followed after them, affecting an air of royal serenity and dignity which belied the butterflies in her stomach. She walked up to altar and waited for Celestia to begin. “Mares and Gentlecolts, we are gathered here today to celebrate the union of the real Princess Mi Amore Cadenza-” “Princess Cadence is fine.” She didn’t want ponies fumbling over ‘Princess Mi Amore Cadenza’ all night. Besides, she liked Cadence better. “Hmmm. The union of Princess Cadence, and Shining Armor. The strength of their commitment is clear, the power of their love undeniable. May we have the rings, please?” Spike held out the rings, and her breath caught as Celestia slipped them on their horns. “I now pronounce you mare and colt.” As they walked out onto the balcony to wave at the ponies massed below, she heard Celestia speak from behind. “This is your victory as much as theirs. You persisted in the face of doubt. And your actions led to your being able to bring the real Princess Cadence back to us. Learning to trust your instincts is a valuable lesson to learn.” She looked back over her shoulder incredulously. How did Celestia know—Oh. She turned back around to wave at the crowd. She’d been speaking to Twilight. Cadence chuckled, shaking her head ruefully. If they only knew... She laughed as she piled into the carriage after Shining Armor. She smoothed out her gown as he called out the window to the driver and the carriage took off, speeding them toward their honeymoon suite. She leaned to rest her head on his chest as soon as he sat back down. “I think this was the perfect night.” He gave a dry laugh. “Yeah, invasion of Canterlot, insanely powerful love leech taking over my mind, violent, nearly-successful takeover of Equestria... It’s a good thing nothing went wrong!” She couldn’t help but laugh, slapping him on the shoulder in a playful reproach. “All that doesn’t matter. Everything turned out perfectly.” He put his foreleg around her and pulled her in tight. “I know how we could make tonight even better.” She snuggled up against him. “Oh? How?” She asked coyly. He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “You could wake up.” “What?” She pulled away from him, then there was a loud thump as the carriage lurched.