I run.
I run, hooves pounding against cloud. My eyes are white-rimmed and my nostrils are flared, gulping at the icy high-altitude air. I can feel the blood pumping just beneath the skin of my face, and the flesh of my muzzle feels hot.
I ponder wings. I ponder flying. I dismiss the notion. My wings are not trustworthy. 988 years old, but only a pitiful fraction of that spent anywhere other than solid ground. My horn flares teal as I gather my cloak around my body. Keep running. Keep r—
Out of the dark, another one leaps. A bright light lances at my eyes. I recoil, whinny, wheel about, bolt off in a new direction. I don't know where I am anymore, completely lost in these twisting and map-defying streets. Carefully sculpted cumulus towers, dotted with windows of chilly yellow lamplight—pegasus cloudominiums—rise on either side. They carve sharp moon-shadows across my path. I do not stop to admire the sight. I run.
A meeting of alleys, a choice of direction. I pause, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar streets, glancing frantically back and forth between three dispiritingly-similar canyons of cloud. Beneath my heavy hood and cloak, I sweat, and even the cold night air of Cloudsdale cannot wick it off me. I pause—
—and then there comes the noise of wings behind me and I have no more time to hesitate. I choose the leftmost path on little more than the strength of instinct and bolt as though stung by a hornet. I run. I run.
I hope to the stars as I gallop that my choice will eventually lead me home, or rather, the closest thing to "home" I have: a private guest room in the modest manse of the Hegemony's resident minister. "Home" was supposed to be the ambassador's quarters at the Hegemonic Embassy, back when things were right and good. Things stopped being right and good the moment I set hoof in this city and they have not recovered since.
The noise of wings rises behind me again (how is it possible they are so fast how is it possible). The safety of my guest room seems so very far away right now, too lofty a goal to hope for. I whittle down my list of goals to a single entry: get free of the ponies with the cameras.
I have already lost, of course. They have already caught me on film. Tomorrow's Acta Diurna will be abuzz with news of Princess Cadance, the Canterlot Girl, muzzle-to-rump in the bread-lines with the common poor, waiting for her annona. If I'm lucky, they will call me "Canterlot Girl." Sometimes the press will snidely refer to me as "The Flamingo" because I am large and pink and ungainly and do not fly at all well; and on top of that one of them managed to discover that I sneak shrimp from the griffons whenever I can, which really hammered the metaphor home. I cannot bear to think about the look on Lt. Armor's face when he sees the Acta tomorrow, because he will look wounded and stern and resolute and above all he will blame himself for failing to prevent me from sneaking out of my private quarters after leaving me for the night, and he will vow to keep an even closer eye on me, regardless of my wishes in this matter. Things have gone very, very wrong, and it's all because I just couldn't help myself, all because I was so very hungry.
The tears do not even have a chance to form before the vicious wind whisks them away. No. That's not right. They haven't gone wrong. They were wrong from the start.
A pony flutters out of an alley of cloud to my left. There is a flash—
* * *
—I smile for the picture, just in time.
"Thanks, Princess!" says the morning-colored photographer, tipping his hat to me. My photogenic smile melts softly into something serene and genuine.
"You're very welcome," I say, in my practiced Princess Voice, and he flits away across the arcade's airspace, whistling.
I turn back to my Royal Guard retainer, sitting across from me at the little café table. My eyes are twinkling. "They like me, Lieutenant Armor," I say. "They actually like me."
"As you say, Your Highness."
I make a tut-tut noise. "Now, Lieutenant," I say. "You've got words hiding behind your words. I thought we discussed this: no secrets, no deference."
"Sorry, Ma'am."
I give him an encouraging smile. "I'm resigned to the fact that you will be shadowing me and reporting back to Canterlot on my actions and progress, but I can't stand the idea of spending every waking hour in the presence of a hall monitor. I'd rather you be a friend to me."
"Are you ordering me to be your friend, Ma'am?"
I shoot him a wry look. "You are absolutely infuriating, Lieutenant," I say. "But, if that makes you more comfortable... sure. Yes, that's an order. Not to be my friend, because I obviously can't mandate that, but at least to act like one. So, let's start this conversation over. I say, 'They actually like me, Lieutenant Armor.' And then you say...?"
I gesture, signaling his cue.
Lt. Armor bites the inside of his cheek for a moment. "They don't actually like you," he says. "They like the novelty of you. There's a difference."
"There," I say, blinking, a little stung; but I did ask for it, after all. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"
"No, Ma'am," he says, gingerly poking at the last remnants of a falafel on the glittering plate in front of him. The plate is ice, or rather, a stabilized high-altitude ice-cloud amalgam. Another proud product of the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation! Kitchen cleanup in Cloudsdale is a cinch; when you're done with your dishes, you just toss them away, and they melt into raindrops that water the ground below. It also showers the land with little bits of food, I suppose. (It's all right, I am told, because it's accepted that the cloud city will create something of a blight beneath it, so it is never stationed directly over an inhabited area.) They really do the most wonderful things with ice and cloud here, or so I have read in my preparatory research. I am anxious to see it all for myself.
I am also anxious about that falafel. Lt. Armor is just sort of playing with it, and my stomach has a gnawing feel that tells me I am coming due for yet another shameful alicorn gorging. How unprincesslike would it be for me to ask if I might finish Lt. Armor's food for him? Terribly, probably. Far more proper for me to just stay silent, stick to my own plate, now empty. Very, very empty. I probably oughtn't to have even eaten as much as I had, for propriety's sake.
However, you can't eat propriety, and my appetite is not a cooperative beast. Obviously the leftover bits of the lieutenant's lunch are not going to completely suffice, but maybe it would kill the cravings a little until I can find a suitable cake to devour in its entirety somewhere behind closed doors. I feel comfortable that I'll be able to sort something out once I'm set up in the embassy, so no sense in worrying about it now and really he's just playing with it what is he even doing doesn't he realize—
"Ma'am," says the lieutenant, "would you like to finish this?"
"Oh," I say, blinking. "Oh, certainly. I mean, it's not something I was going to ask, of course. That would have been rude of me."
"More rude than hovering over it like a cat on a mouse hole?"
My eyes narrow. "Lieutenant Armor," I say. "I'm not sure I care for—"
The lieutenant nudges the remaining bit of falafel to the left. Despite my best efforts, my eyes follow it as it moves. Shoot.
Lt. Armor gives me a lopsided grin and levitates the leftover bit of falafel over to my side of the table. I pluck it out of the air with a sullen look, feeling reluctant to prove him right, but there is only so long I can hold out. I crunch down on the last remaining little ball of oil-fried chickpea. The tahini sauce is sour and garlicky and phenomenally delicious. Humility never tasted so good. In the fullness of time, a slim, mustachioed pegasus flits over and presents us with a bill. I clop my hoof down upon it before Lt. Armor can say a word, and count out an appropriate number of bits (making certain to tip generously, of course!) and the pegasus flits away.
I smile at the lieutenant. "You've got questions in your eyes again."
He nods, and takes a little breath. He's getting much better at this "lack of deference" thing. "Coin purse," he says, quietly, his steely blue eyes watching the other patrons of the little café as he speaks. "You paid in bits, but you have a literal pile of cheques to the Royal Bank of Canterlot in your saddlebag you could've signed over to him. They might be more secure."
"Secure or not, I won't be using them," I say, plucking one of the notes from my saddlebag. It flutters like a castle pennant in the strong, chilly Cloudsdale wind, and then I theatrically let it go. The wind takes it I know not where. "This is princess money, Lieutenant Armor. This is money I get for being who I am, not for actually doing anything of use. I refuse to live any more on a royal stipend. I plan to earn my way in this brave new world."
"So, the cash...?"
"Foalsitting savings!" I say perkily. "Money earned through hard work, Lieutenant."
"Right," he says, with a smirk. "Twiley can be a hoofful at times, can't she?"
"Nonsense, Lieutenant. Your sister was a pleasure and I'd have watched her for free; not so much the Lulamoon girl, or the young Countess D'Heartstrings, or that odd little Twinkleshine."
"So how long are you planning to live on foalsitting money?"
"Not long," I say. "But no need to worry. You'll obviously be supporting yourself on the Regiments' coin, but I myself will be drawing ambassador's pay very shortly. It's been a great comfort to know I have a job awaiting me."
I smile, pop the final bit of hummusy pita into my mouth and give it a polite thirty chews. This has the unintended effect of making my next sentence sound unusually portentous.
"Everything is working out perfectly," I say.
* * *
"Sorry—she's... what?"
"She's not retiring," says the prim, ice-blue pegasus stallion at the desk in front of me.
I am still smiling, because my smile hasn't gotten the message to fall over yet. "I'm not sure I understand."
"Very little not to understand, I'm afraid," says Mr. Weather Eye, Canterlot's Resident Minister to the City-State of Cloudsdale. "Her Excellency Sunny Smiles has decided she will not, in fact, be resigning her post as originally planned. As a result, the vacancy you were brought in to fill no longer exists." He plucks a decorative snow globe from his austere gray stratus desk, gives it a good shake between his hooves, and sets it down again, watching the little flakes swirl around the tiny model of Cloudsdale within it. I must assume that they are, in fact, actual snowflakes. "Ah," he says, watching them fall.
"There must be some sort of mistake," I say, feeling sweat begin to prickle the skin beneath my pink coat. "I've got paperwork and everything. Lots and lots of paperwork. My Aunty—I mean, Princess Celestia made sure everything was completely handled before I arrived. She accounted for every eventuality."
"Not the eventuality that Her Excellency Sunny Smiles would change her mind and choose to stay in her position, I'm afraid. And while I'm certain your 'Aunty' could forcibly retire her from her position if she saw fit, I'm reasonably certain your portfolio does not currently contain an ejection notice."
"No!" I say. "Of course it doesn't! This was a done deal, Mister Weather Eye."
"Apparently not." He shrugs.
"I have to meet with her. We need to speak on this."
A sharp bark of a laugh. "Best of luck with that. H.E. Smiles hasn't left the walls of the Embassy in about a month. Not that she ever was much of a trot-around mare; unicorn, don't you know. Not everypony is as blessed as your lictor."
"My what?"
"The sober-looking lieutenant parked outside, the one with the city crest that gives him pegasus hooves." He waves a hoof absently. "Pegasus term for an attendant-slash-personal guard. Status symbol. It's a cultural thing."
"She doesn't have to leave the Embassy! I'll go to her!"
"H.E. Smiles takes meetings very rarely these days. Does most of her work by mail. I should know; I've tried and failed to sit down with her and discuss the distribution of Canterlot's tax bits on a number of occasions."
I blink, trying to find words. "You're saying she'd refuse to meet me? I am an alicorn princess of Equestria, Mister Weather Eye! One of two!"
"I doubt it would matter."
I shake my head, sitting back on my cushion a bit. "This is... I'm trying to find a word for this, Mister Weather Eye. I just passed 'unbelievable' and am quickly closing in on 'outrageous.'"
Weather Eye leans forward. He locks eyes with me. "Yes," he says. "Yes, it is. Completely outrageous. To be quite frank, I've been waiting for your arrival. Somepony with Celestia's ear needs to tell her what's going on here. H.E. Smiles has been a faithful servant of the Tiara for years upon years now, and it just isn't like her to behave so erratically. I was hoping you could carry this news back to the Sun Princess when you return to Canterlot."
"'Return'?" I say. "I'm not going back there!"
The stallion nods, taking this in. When he speaks, his words are carefully measured. "Not much for you here, though, at this point?"
"I'm not going back," I repeat, more forcefully, tapping my gold-shod hoof against the desk and causing the snowflakes in the globe to billow up. "You don't know what it was like living with her! You don't know what it's like being the functional daughter of She Who Brings The Dawn! She's... she's..."
Two deep, chuffing breaths. Then, one slightly more measured one. I bring my hoof to my chest on the inhale, and let it out on the exhale. Just as the Sisters always taught me to do. "...she's testing me," I say, my voice perfectly even.
"Pardon?"
"This is a test. The mare is testing me, seeing how I'll react to having my world jerked out from underneath me. Again. The entire Hegemony's dealings with the City-State of Cloudsdale are being jeopardized by an old nag trying to teach me a life lesson." I laugh, shaking my head. "This is so her!"
"I'm sorry," says Weather Eye. "You think H.R.H. Celestia and H.E. Smiles are in collusion on this?"
"I know so. She's trying to frustrate me and stress my patience again. Just like she did with that nice Dotted Line back at Names and Standards. Except he, bless his heart, was as much a victim as I was. Oh, I'll send her a letter describing what's going on, all right, but it'll be the sunniest darn letter you ever read! I am not going to give her the satisfaction of seeing me crawl back to Canterlot. As far as I'm concerned, Mister Weather Eye, this city is my home, and I'm not giving up my home that easily."
"Your home it may be, but... where are you planning to live?"
I frown. "The embassy, I thought...?"
"The ambassador's apartments at the embassy are for the use of the ambassador. Q.E.D."
"I'll find a place."
"Places take time to find, here," says Weather Eye. "Doubly so places on the firmament."
"Do I... need one of those?" I cannot believe how out of my depth I am. I thought I researched this, I really thought I did...
"Your lictor may have pegasus hooves, but he most certainly doesn't have pegasus wings. This immediately limits your possibilities. Certainly a place in the Column is right out. Likewise the Reach or the Archipelago. Won't matter if you can't fall through the clouds if the path leading to your home is on an 80-degree incline, or simply doesn't exist at all that day. New Veneighzia might be a possibility, out by the old Weather Factory—lots of earth ponies there, lots of bridges—but it's an unsavory part of town, not suited for mares of your standing. You'd bring shame on the entire Hegemony living there. So yes, you'll want a place on the firmament. Either that, or an apartment somewhere on the Bahamoot herself, Duchess Portolan's old dry-docked flagship."
"I saw it from Point Cumulus. I'm familiar with it."
"Then you'll be familiar with how prohibitively expensive it is to live there—though, on second thought, at least that won't be a problem for you?"
I think of the cheques in my saddlebags. I set my mouth in a hard line.
"No stipends," I say. "I make it here on my own."
Weather Eye gives a heavy sigh and looks at me with a slightly frustrated expression. He picks up the snow globe and gives it another quick shake. I have breathing exercises; he has his snow globes. We are not so dissimilar.
"Well," he says, eventually, "I see that you're adamant. But you're also a princess, and I absolutely cannot stand the thought of one of Equestria's alicorns living in a wet little nimbostratus loft above a thermopolium. This is not the sort of thing that happens in my city. Ergo: you'll be a guest of my home for as long as it takes to get your hooves under you. This may take some time unless H.E. Smiles abruptly goes sane once more, but until that happens, the resources of my household are at your disposal."
I bow my head, lowering my horn until it is nearly level. I smile warmly. "Many thanks, Mister Weather Eye. I am sure we will not trouble you for long."
"There is no trouble," says Weather Eye. "My house is yours. Take whatever you need from the stores; just make certain you document it."
My smile drops just a touch. "Document... my food, for instance?"
"Food above and beyond formal meals, yes. Those are already documented by my chef. Apart from that... sundries, toiletries, whatever. You don't need to limit yourself; take whatever you need. Just make sure it's documented."
I start to say something, then stop. I start to say something else and then stop that too. Banish it. Banish it all.
"Wow," I eventually manage, stupidly. "You must be a good record-keeper!"
"One of a hoofful in this city, I'm afraid. We are prosperous and generous here in Cloudsdale, but we are also sloppy. Case in point: the annona."
I know the word. "The government's bread allotment. One loaf per citizen per day, whenever they require it." It was something I'd been particularly excited to read in my preparatory research. As though there wasn't enough to love about my new city, Cloudsdale's government believed in stability through generosity! Could they be any neater?
Well, Weather Eye seems to think so, given his theatrical snort. "Oh, yes, 'One loaf per citizen per day' is the idea. In reality, the situation's a mess. A pony could hypothetically hop from distribution point to distribution point collecting loaf after loaf and nopony would be the wiser. And the busier distribution points don't even verify a pony's citizenship before handing it over. It's a ruinous state of affairs, but whatever the Senate may think, my household is mine, and I will run it as I see fit. That means good records, Ma'am."
"Very commendable of you," I say. My stomach growls, which then causes my gut to churn with despair.
"I'll have my staff redirect your bags to my home, and when you're ready, one of my air-carriages will take you there as well. You'll doubtless wish to discuss the unfortunate news with your lictor."
"Yes," I say. "Doubtless I will."
I absently raise my hoof for the traditional kiss. It is a completely mechanical gesture. I barely even feel it when it happens.
"Please do sort this out, Your Highness," says Weather Eye.
"Of course," I say.
I am still smiling.
* * *
"I knew it," says the lieutenant. His eyes are squinted and he is looking down and to the left slightly. This is Lt. Armor's Serious Thinking face. It's sort of sweet; I wish I could be more charmed by it right now. "I knew there was a reason the sitting ambassador didn't send a welcoming delegation to Point Cumulus. You're being snubbed, Your Highness."
"It's not so bad," I say, trying to keep my voice light as I gaze at the scenery outside the window of the tiny pegasus-drawn dirigible. It is extremely strange to see so much white and so little green.
"It is, in fact, so bad. You need to meet with her. If she refuses to meet you, you need to make her meet you."
"That'd seem incredibly rude of me, Lieutenant. Wouldn't it?" I raise my chin and fold my hooves before me on the seat. "As an alicorn princess of Equestria, I must be patient with my subjects, even the mysteriously intransigent ones. I suspect H.E. Smiles is just getting a bout of cold hooves at the prospect of retirement. It's something that happens to mares of her age. I give it a week, two tops. Then she'll vacate both her post and the Embassy and we continue the plan as though none of this ever happened."
"And meanwhile?"
"Meanwhile, we are guests of Mister Weather Eye, who seems at first glance to be a very nice stallion. Strict, certainly. Controlled. But very nice."
"So why are you so worried?"
"I'm not."
"You are. Ma'am."
I am now beginning to regret this candidness thing. "No, no worries whatsoever. Just... maybe a little concerned about the kitchen situation."
Lt. Armor studies me with that piercing gaze of his. "You have to tell him about the food thing."
"Absolutely not. Out of the question. We are princesses of Equestria, Lt. Armor; we cannot be seen in so undignified a position. Ponies should not know of it. You should not know of it. And you wouldn't know of it, had Aunty not forgotten to lock the door during high tea."
"If he's boarding an alicorn, he needs to know what that means. I know you don't want to look rude, or weird, but he needs to be told how much energy you burn and how it affects him as a host. Up front."
"I am perfectly capable of restraining myself for a few weeks. If I need to supplement, I can get my own food."
"Using foalsitting money?" Lt. Armor looks dubious.
"Among other things. I have a few ideas."
The balloon carriage swings around a towering cumulonimbus pillar on the power of the tireless wings of its draystallions, and the bright and shining Pegasopolian Acropolis comes into view. It is achingly white in the midday sun, and the sky rimming the soaring structures is a transfixing high-altitude indigo. There is not a cloud in the sky—or rather, there is, but we're literally on top of it. My eyes water at the glare even as my heart leaps in my breast.
"It turns out, there are all sorts of possibilities in this city."
* * *
And that brings us to tonight, when it all goes to Tartarus.
If you were to take all the pictures of me printed in the Acta and put them in a sort of flip book, you would see that, to my credit, my smile has never fallen once during the past few weeks. Your flip book would, on the other hoof, reveal a certain dimming of the sparkle of my eyes, concurrent with heavier and heavier makeup to hide the hollows and dark circles underneath. But on the surface, no change.
And that's the goal, isn't it? Cheery perfection, timeless in the face of change. Changelessness is what alicorns are about! Even as the headlines on the variety pages change from facile celebration to tongue-in-cheek mockery. Even as the editorials change from cautious wait-and-see opinion pieces to satirical near-assassinations praising H.E. Smiles for not prematurely ceding her post to a mare whose primary qualification is more than the usual number of extremities (all praise to her aunty the Dawnbringer, of course). Cloudsdale is not the Hegemony. They do not bow to me here. They do not show deference to me here. It is, in short, everything I wanted in a first posting.
I am miserable.
It is sunset when Lt. Armor and I skulk back into the shadow of the resident minister's colonnaded cloud-manse and throw off the heavy hooded cloaks that hide both our horns and his lack of wings. We are free to come and go as we please—thank the stars Weather Eye's stern control of his household does not extend to attempting to impose a curfew as well—but we keep to the shadows so that nopony knows where we've been and what we've been doing there. We slink up the back stairs down the darkened upper hall, and finally find ourselves outside my tiny guest room. I do not complain about the space of my accommodations. More was offered, but I declined. I am polite. Polite and hungry.
"Well," I whisper, in as cheery a fashion as I can manage. "Another successful mission! Two ponies, two distribution centers, four loaves. Mathematics!"
"Yeah," says Lt. Armor, levitating a fat, crusty-looking loaf of bread out of the folds of his cloak and across the threshold of my guest room. I take it and place it next to the others on the sideboard. It is all I can do to not straight-up leap upon them. The lieutenant watches me as I organize the spoils of tonight's gathering session, his mouth a hard line.
"You do realize we can't keep doing this. Right, Ma'am?"
"Of course we can't," I say. "This has always been a stop-gap, just until we get our hooves under ourselves. But I finally have a meeting scheduled with H.E. Smiles, on the books and everything. I'm certain when I finally get a chance to just sit down and talk with her I'll be able to convince her to see my side of things. Work out some sort of paid internship or something."
"You don't get it, Ma'am," says Lt. Armor, increasingly testy. "We don't need to stop it soon, we need to stop it now. We are taking bread intended for the needy just because you refuse to cash a single stipend cheque."
"Lieutenant," I say, "are you lecturing me?"
"I... guess I am!" he replies. Then, a flicker of fear in his eyes. "Is that still okay?"
I huff out through my nostrils. "Yes," I say, after a moment. "Yes. This is still better than dealing with a blank wooden puppet staring at me all the time."
I sigh, then, a bit more gently. "As for your concerns, yes. Yes, I understand that what we're doing sounds bad, but you know as well as I do that this city has bread going spare. The public granaries are overflowing, the distribution points are never exhausted. The Senate wants the ponies of this city to be happy. Why shouldn't I be included in that?"
"It looks bad, Ma'am. It looks really, really bad. This is not the image you want to present to this city."
"Hence, the cloaks," I say, hanging mine on a hook near the door. "Hence, the secrecy."
"Okay, but," says the lieutenant, "all this creeping around and wearing disguises to try and feed yourself, all this is legitimately better for your pride than spending your stipend? Or explaining the situation to our host?"
"My situation with Aunty Celestia is very complicated, Lieutenant," I say, feeling a prickle in my hackles. "As best as I can tell, she engineered this entire situation as a test of character."
"Correct me if I'm wrong," says Shining Armor, telekinetically lifting a letter from a stack on my vanity, "but doesn't this letter you shared with me earlier seem to belie that?"
"You'd think so, Lieutenant. You don't know her."
"'My dearest Mi Amore,'" says the lieutenant, reciting the first few lines. "'I hope this letter finds you well, especially under the present circumstances. I received H.E. Smiles's puzzling retraction of her resignation shortly after you departed for Cloudsdale, and I am as startled by this development as you doubtless are.'"
"Ha," I mutter. "Likely story."
"'My inquiries into the matter are ongoing, and I will keep you informed of anything that I learn. You are my duly appointed Ambassador Plenipotentiary, and I have full confidence in your ability to fill this role whenever you are able to work out a resolution with H.E. Smiles, the nature of which I leave to your more-than-capable hooves. In the meantime, you are an adult and are free to take residence wherever you wish; but if you choose to remain in Cloudsdale rather than under the aegis of the Mountain, please exercise the utmost care.'" Lt. Armor folds the letter back up and returns it to my vanity. "Sounds to me as though she's as in the dark as anypony."
"And yet," I say. "And yet, isn't that exactly what she'd want me to believe?"
"It would... depend on what her goal actually is, I suppose."
"Exactly!" I cry. "You have no idea how deep her game is. I have no idea how deep her game is. The only sure thing is that the only reason she can do what she does is that she's reading your field reports, which does, honestly, make you part of the problem. So please do not test my patience on this. Please."
Lt. Armor nods. He is Serious Thinking again.
"Okay," he says, at last. "Sleep well, Ma'am. I'll be right downstairs if you need anything, and I do mean 'anything.'"
"Thank you, Lieutenant," I say, making a conscious effort to smooth my composure. The lieutenant turns and goes, presumably to his bed in the servant's quarters. Lt. Armor does not like this house any better than I do; he wants desperately to hover closer, but he obviously can't sleep in my room, and short of having him curled up in front of my door like a dog, this is the best we can do. I smile, briefly, despite myself, at the thought.
Then, I shut the door and get to work on the bread, first retrieving a quarter-pound of butter from the little elemental cold-box underneath the cloud-amalgam sideboard, purchased with literally the very last bit of foalsitting money, and my meeting with Her Excellency Smiles (which I am convinced will sort this whole thing out) seems a lifetime away. The bread is... not wonderful, less good than it looks on the outside. Far too much oat flour, not enough durum. I am pretty sure I can taste mill-grit. I have absolutely no right to complain. The first loaf is gone practically before I am even aware that I am eating it. I make an effort to take my time with the second, and more-or-less fail at that. Similarly the third. My stomach burns through them like tissue paper, thrown on the all-consuming fire of alicorn metabolism, and I cannot make it stop.
I stare at the fourth loaf for a long time. I actually whine a bit.
Then I turn away sharply, disrobe, and step into to my private shower-bath, hooves clicking against amalgam tile, hoping the distraction will kill the cravings. It does help a bit, because bathrooms in Cloudsdale are wonderful. Back in Canterlot, we thought hot water and indoor plumbing were pretty fancy, but they're nothing on even an average shower-bath in Cloudsdale. Ablution in this city is a sensory miracle, accomplished via an in-room cubicle of weather delivered to your exact specification by the 'ducts (another proud product of the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation!) Feel like a fog bath? Touch a control, and it's done. Fancy sitting in a gentle snow shower for a time? Touch a control, and it's done. Want to steep yourself in an invigorating summer storm, to the rumble of distant thunder? Same thing. I dial up a setting that has quickly become my favorite, a many-jetted pool accompanied with drizzles of hot rainbow and the smell of spring wind, and let it transport me for a short time.
Okay, a long time. The frogs of my hooves are getting a little pruney by the time I am able to pull myself away. I towel myself off, dry my mane with a sustained gust of hot Leveche from the 'ducts, put on a fresh robe, and... set up camp before tonight's last loaf of bread again. Banish it to Tartarus.
I hold out for longer than I expect to, but pretty soon, it follows the other three down my gullet. Not even crumbs remain. With the tiniest snarl of frustration I step out onto the cold little private balcony adjoining my room and look out over Cloudsdale. Its blazing white has gone to night-blue in the sharp moonlight, and the stars above glitter like razors. I stand for a moment watching the city's peripheral clouds undulate and break against its more solid and structural central masses like waves crashing against a beach, as hot plumes of stray lightning crackle overhead. Laughter and music begin to drift up from the public fora and gathering-places, as the bright pegasi of the greatest city in the sky prepare for another night of play.
Their happiness seems so close to me right now. Just barely, but forever, out of reach. In one desperate moment I am seized with the overwhelming urge to run sobbing back to Canterlot, to just grab the lieutenant, cash a stipend cheque, hop a redeye at the sky-docks and be back to the easy, predictable comfort of the Hegemony by morning. The thought of a private Equuish breakfast with Aunty, complete with piles of mushrooms and stewed tomatoes and stacks upon stacks of fried bread, is enough to make me literally cry right now, so I do.
Then, I gather myself. I force my weakness behind me. I'm staying in this city if it kills me. I just need a little more to eat.
And, conveniently enough, I know of a distribution point for the annona I have not visited today, one that may well be open late into the night. It's a bit far down the cloud-mass, and I hate the thought of venturing back out into the frigid streets especially after my nice warm bath, but given a choice between that and documenting an uncommonly large midnight snack with Mr. Weather Eye's pantry police (and all the unbearable Polite Understanding I'd have to face in doing so) I know what I have to do. And I know that Lt. Armor would not understand, which is why I'm doing it all aloney on my owny.
I duck back into my room and grab my cloak; then leap from my balcony into the shadows and join the pulse of the city. I do not make a sound.
I look forward to witness the adventures of Mi Amore Cadenza in the upcoming weeks!
Andy Price for cover art? I am supremely jealous.
And I would be willing to bet there are more than a few Very Important Pegasi who would break a wing (not theirs, of course) to have the Princess over for dinner. Or lunch. Or brunch. Or a late-afternoon snack. Or a mid-late-afternoon cheese plate. Perhaps a midnight appetizer or twenty. The real danger here would be the physical fitness of Shining Armor, her dining companion. The enchanted gizmo that gives him pegasus hooves probably has a weight limit.
Your story exceeds my expectations for anything I've read on this site for about a year. I want to see more, and I want to know your writing process (lol mine doesn't work).
Oh man, this is great. I had forgotten how funny your stories can be. I'm loving this next installment of the Cadence in Cloudsdale cycle.
This is fascinating already. I find myself caught up in
CadenceCadance's paranoia. I am totally uncertain whether or not Celestia is playing at something here, what Sunny Smiles is up to, or even if H.E. Smiles is even presently alive. I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing where you go with this.Despite being on the pre-reader list, calling this here so I can be publicly very clever indeed or very wrong:
Sunny Smiles? Changeling. Hella Changeling.
I love the way you Cadance's narrative voice. She's regal, proper and articulate and yet still uses childish expressions without seeming to care at all ('aloney on my owny'). It gives this neat impression that even though she's nearly a thousand years old, she's still not all grown up yet.
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Don't be silly. It's clearly Celestia.
She just teleports back and forth between the city and Canterlot and handles everything by mail.
This was a joy and a pleasure to pre-read, and I am envious of all of you about to see it for the first time.
This is a side of Cadance (and a period in her life, for that matter) that I really wish we got to see more of in both the show and fanfiction. Good start so far, I look forward to seeing where it goes.
I'm curious whether Cadance and Shining Armor will be in Cloudsdale or not when a certain pegasus filly challenges a couple of bullies to a race…
Oh, this was just as fun as I could hope for. I think Cadence is probably being paranoid here, and too
stubbornproudly independent for her own good... but I can't quite be sure. It's going to be interesting, seeing what's up with Sunny Smiles and all of Cloudsdale!Rather tangentially, now I also know exactly what Flash Sentry's special talent is, and why he was one of the guardsponies Shining Armor and Cadence took from Canterlot to Crystal Empire. He's a close protection specialist, whose job is to thwart the ponyrazzi and block their attempts to photograph the pony he's protecting.
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That's... rather brilliant, actually. Fasttracked to the personal headcanon evaluation committee.
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"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT SHE'S CAPABLE OF!"
I've always had it in my head that Cloudsdale is an autonomous protectorate, with Celestia as the head of state. It fits in with their segregation from the rest of Equestria. Having a foreign power control the bulk of your weather is just bad politics.
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Yes, it is. And that's all I'm going to say about that, other than to note that this is twelve years "ago."
Oh Cadance... you are simply incapable of taking good advice.
Probably because you hardly ever get any. But still!
Well, this is a brilliant start, and as always my heart breaks at Cadance's troubles and her complete inability to cope with them.
Poor flamingo princess. She really needs to start taking advice from Shining (or at least someone with her best interests in mind, this Weather Eye might count).
She also really needs to stop being so paranoid about Celestia, it's come to the point where it's starting to be self-harmful.
I love seeing this story continued!
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It might be, but autarky is even worse politics.
I've talked about this before, but I've always figured that Equestria could get by without Cloudsdale if it wanted to. Equestria is an enormous Hegemony (hence the name) and Cloudsdale is a mere city-state. Equestria probably has a higher total pegasus population even if it isn't a center of traditional pegasus culture, and they could almost certainly build a rainbow-industrial complex from scratch if they needed to; the basic infrastructure is already there in the form of local weather teams, they'd just need to add the industrial base for manufacturing weather on a mass scale.
The problem with doing that is it would involve a mammoth economic dislocation and trade war. Equestria would probably take years to spin up to doing weather as well as Cloudsdale does, and in the interim there'd be massive hardship on both sides. And that's assuming that a hypothetical trade war didn't turn into an actual war, which Equestria would also likely win but which would also cause a hell of a lot of pain and suffering. Equestria would eventually triumph, but that's a lot of pain to go through just to bring the weather industry under your control.
And why bother? Cloudsdale is happy to sell you all the weather you want, and Equestria is a lot more capable of producing bits than it is of producing weather. They give Cloudsdale money, Cloudsdale gives them weather. Everyone wins.
Problems, however, begin to emerge if the Weather Corporation starts playing diplomatic hardball. Someone who is intelligent, studious, and less than ethical might come to the same conclusions I have, and carry it one step further: "Celestia is generally unwilling to inflict suffering on the populace without a very good reason. This gives us a powerful source of leverage; we can disrespect the Mountain and extort more bits from it than we otherwise would be able to, with the implicit threat of weather dislocations at our disposal. Celestia is likely to shrug and simply stuff our mouths with gold rather than allow a bunch of filthy mud ponies to go without their weather."
Portolan, who I'm looking forward to meeting (and her son is probably around somewhere; I'm assuming that the future Prince Blueblood is somehow to related to the current Duchess Blueblood, at any rater) is probably very, very smart indeed.
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I'm guessing, what, two years of Sunset Shimmer, then a decade of Twilight? That gives the Cadance of Cloudsdale cycle a lot of time to hang out here in the city in the sky before needing to deal with sonic rainbooms and little sisters getting cutie marks.
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A lot of that is Celestia's fault. She spent a great deal of time miseducating Cadance and it really fucked the filly up.
Case in point: Cadance is ashamed and embarrassed about needing to eat. Indeed, this entire chapter hangs on that as a critical plot element. Cadance is so ashamed about a basic biological function of her body, a function shared by literally every other pony, that she's willing to lie and steal to not have to tell anyone about it.
And that's messed up. She's not a glutton. She needs calories in order to live. And Celestia has taught her that this is shameful, and needs to be concealed. Indeed, it is my suspicion that the alicorn gorgings are, in fact, completely unnecessary; if Cadance were to simply eat until she was full at every meal, like a normal person, she wouldn't slowly build up a gnawing, burning sense of hunger as her body cried out for sustenance until she needed to eat an entire tables worth of food in one go.
Cadance is paranoid and resentful of Princess Aunt, but a lot of that can be laid at the hooves of said Princess Aunt.
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Oh, nice.
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Equestria wouldn't have to literally take over every aspect of Cloudsdale weather production. Under Equestrian rule, Cloudsdale has certain laws and guidlines it has to abide by, same as any corporation, and without an independent state to back it up, the corporate interests are less able to get away with doing outrageous things like you're positing. Except the prospect of diplomatic hardball is worse than even how you make it out to be.
Think of it like the oil crises in 1973 and 1979 caused by the Arab and Islamic OPEC members, where changes in government and policies of government drastically affected the countries reliant on their oil. Here it's a hundred times more precarious because one state - Cloudsdale - controls the freakin' weather of another state. Any kind of vindictiveness, greed, ambition or ideological goal on part of the Cloudsdale rulers could lead to an embargo (unlikely, since Equestria is the sole buyer of its weather, unless it wants to go through all the effort of moving elsewhere and drumming up new business and contracts) or, much more likely, an increase in price.
The problem arises from the sheer monopoly this foreign power has on an utterly vital part of another power. Equestria has no choice but to pay whatever Cloudsdale asks for its weather, since as far as I can tell it's the only industrial weather-production place in Equestria needed for management of weather on a national level. The only advantage Equestria has is its diplomatic push (though given their ambassadors, that is currently fairly weak unless Celestia gets personally involved), its military might and its monopsony on Cloudsdale's industry, though even then desperate municipalities might circumvent any restriction the Mountain might enact in a crisis in order to get the weather control they desperately need.
Honestly, Celestia should have tried weaning ponies off of controlled weather centuries ago. Its only use is in giving pegasi a field to be employed in and keep those unemployment figures down (oh and preventing droughts and floods, but in politics that's only a secondary concern).
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So that's why we never heard of Canance before her wedding! Every picture taken of her for the last decade or so came out as just a surly looking orange pegasus holding a hoof close to the camera.
Ponies have very short memories when it comes to remembering Princesses so they soon started doubting she existed at all.
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Well, yes, but in order to reach that happy state, Equestria would have to either conquer Cloudsdale or Cloudsdale itself would have to petition for membership in the Hegemony. The former seems not smart, because the pegasi seem like they'd fight a long and vicious resistance against Equestria and if worst comes to worst they can move the city away and live life as a rogue state, raiding settlements beyond the Equestrian border (we know they exist; Reduit was one until recently) or even the outlying parts of the Hegemony proper for food and supplies. It would be a brutal, ruinous existence but it could be done.
We know that the latter (peaceful amalgamation) is going to happen eventually, although we don't yet know how. My guess is that the CWC is up to something so horrible with their mysterious new labor-free weathermaking process, and the Senate is so deep in it with them, that the populace as a whole is going to reject them utterly. That's just a guess, tho.
It's not nearly as precarious as you make it out to be, because Cloudsdale isn't run by insane ponies and Equestria, as you point out, is the sole buyer of its weather.
The powers that be in Cloudsdale have every incentive to play hardball with the Mountain, but they have zero incentive to ever place Celestia in a position where she says "No, go fuck yourselves." Because if that ever happens? They're ruined. They have all this weather they can't sell! The very wealthiest amongst them might have sufficient personal worth to be insulated for a time, but that personal wealth might not do much when the unemployment rate in Cloudsdale hits 40% and there's no more money for the bread dole and your company has been shuttered.
Now, a lot of ponies in the Hegemony would be ruined as well, which gives Celestia, for moral rather than pragmatic reasons, incentive to never tell them to go fuck themselves. So you're in a situation in which neither side wants the comfortable financial arrangement they've reached to end, because the consequences are terrifying. That doesn't sound precarious. That sounds stable.
Equestria could presumable go through a very long and very painful where they built up their own weather infrastructure. It would suck but it could be done. That means there is a choice, it's just a really difficult one. They don't have to pay Cloudsdale, but why shouldn't they? They have the bits for it.
You're making a very big assumption about this setting in specific and the show in general, which is that it is actually possible for there to be uncontrolled weather.
Equestria is a world in which the sun and moon won't move without external intervention. Without someone reaching out and taking hold of them and forcing them into motion they'll just sit there, and disaster will, presumably, soon follow.
Why should we assume weather is any different? Uncontrolled weather happens in the Everfree but the Everfree is, I think, not representative of the environment as a whole. It seems very likely that without ponies making weather happen, weather actually doesn't happen. Stuff like Winter Wrap-Up and the Running of the Leaves aren't quaint customs, but things that actually need to happen or the seasons literally will not change. If Cloudsdale doesn't come by and bring winter, winter won't actually happen. If Winter Wrap-Up doesn't take place, spring won't come.
I mean, we don't have definitive word on that either way, but it doesn't seem like ponies control the weather just because it is convenient, although they certainly would do that anyway (a third of the populace has weather-control powers, after all); they do it for the same reason Celestia raises and lowers the sun, as a precondition of their world actually existing and being fit for life.
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I have nothing to add at the moment other than that I love my readers dearly.
Oh, dear...
I'm going to liken Cadance staring down the lack of bread in her room to the feeling of waiting for a resolution to her predicament in another chapter. So far away.
I'm glad I was sorta kinda part of this in a small way. I see you've opted against using the shiny little border thing.
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I like the shiny border in Andy Price's original in theory but in practice it distracts, especially for a cover.
Thank you for the coloring job. This was originally going to be for like story #10 and I'm like, man, what if I never get there? No one will see this picture! So I bumped it up.
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YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES BEST EARLY CHRISTMAS GIFT EVAR!!!!
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So, just to clarify, you approve. Right? I need to ask, because your comment can be interpreted a couple different ways and I just want to make sure.
My week is super busy and I need to find particularly fulfilling and relaxing things to read to during my limited free time to keep my stress levels down?
Que Skywriter delivering the next installment in one of my favorite series and gracing the internet once more with his beautiful words!
Hallelujah!
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Also what this guy said.
Yay!
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Dayum son am I the only one jealous of cloudsdale's personal shower systems?
Poor Cadance, stuck between satisfying the metabolism of a 300lb male body builder and satisfying social norms. Mare needs a saddle bag full of high calorie snacks so she won't act like Alexandrite at dinner.I'M HUNGRY!!
This is all well and good, but don't you think it's time you wrote another story about Twilight?
(innocent bystanders see this comment exchange for an explanation)
Oh Cadence, your sin is pride!
Huh, does something happen to the fortunes of this particular house in the next dozen years or is Lyra slumming it in Ponyville, is BonBon her 'bit of rough'
https://youtu.be/yuTMWgOduFM
I wanna live like common ponies?
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The latter, I think; her family is still pretty well-heeled (hocked?) Anyway, I forget what fic introduced Lyra as a Duchess--I can't find it now--but I really fell in love with the idea of Lyra as "eccentric middling royal daughter." This is all presuming one is sold on the 'ship, of course. I realize that canon keeps winking at it.
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Nope! More Cadance stories! My next one is entitled "Princess Cadance Narrates a Wholly Mundane Happening in Her Life For the Sole Purpose of Spiting Bad Horse," followed by its sequel, "Princess Cadance Smacks Bad Horse Around Until He Admits Her Canonicity." Spoiler alert: It ends with him admitting her canonicity, so it is a happy ending.
Like Cadance, I am left hungry for more.
Somewhat perversely, I am kind of glad that the secret test of character from previous chapters is not being portrayed in a positive light. That kind of "for your own good" deceit is in some ways worse than just trying to hide something from someone. Cadance reads Celestia's letter, and wonders "But what did she really mean?"
I anticipate the morning edition of the Acta will have the following headline: PRINCESS CADANCE STOLE 40 LOAVES.
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AND THAT'S TERRIBLE.
If said in the right context and with a dirty mind, this could be clop
"Lieutenant, is there anything in this city besides these damnable broadsheets?"
"The minister has a wireless set, ma'am."
"How modern! Switch it on."
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A charming city where the sky is blue... but not blue enough. We asked for Pantone #298, and this is, clearly, Pantone #291. Clean out your cloud! You're fired.
The Weather Corporation apologizes for this shocking oversight.
Welcome... to Cloudsdale.
Listeners, there have been a lot of wild and crazy stories floating around about alicorns lately, likely due to the arrival of the new Ambassador Plenipotentiary from the Hegemony, and we here at Cloudsdale Community Radio consider it our civic duty to set the record straight. So we're here today to separate myth from fact when it comes to our terrifyingly many-limbed brethren. Because it's about service.
Myth: "Alicorns don't exist! They're made up, like Santa Hooves, or the Easter Bunny, or caves. It's all just a unicorn conspiracy and you're a fool for believing in them, you foolish fool; they do it with prosthetic horns and trickery."
Fact: Ho ho! I've been hearing this one since I was a schoolcolt, dear listeners, and I can assure you it is vicious, racist slander from a more prejudiced time. Alicorns do exist. I myself have been to the Mountain and seen the Sun Princess with my own eyes. She is very real.
So is Santa Hooves.
So very, extremely real.
Myth: "Alicorns can steal your soul from you while you sleep."
Fact: Now, see, this is another hoary old racist saw. I'm shocked it keeps getting repeated, even just as hearsay, in the society pages; the gossipmongers should know better. And it isn't even original; it's a corruption of the story about cats stealing the souls of infants.
Alicorns, much like photographers, require you to be wide awake and aware of what's happening in order to steal your soul. Your fear forms a transmission medium through the luminiferous aether. That's just science, friends.
Myth: "Alicorns are omnivorous and consume flesh."
Fact: This one is actually true. So... watch out, I guess? Princess Celestia is pretty big, I bet she could eat a whole griffin.
Myth: Oh! This is a new one. And... very specific! "The coat of Princess Cadenza is the legendary and heretofore undiscovered Seventh Forbidden Color, hottest pink. The circle is closed! The last sign is come! Soon Shadow Cloudsdale will emerge from the terrible black hole sun to supplant us, and then we will be Shadow Cloudsdale and they will be Cloudsdale Prime."
Fact: Cloudsdale Community Radio would like to remind its listeners that the seven forbidden colors do not exist, and that their import, export, or manufacture is strictly prohibited by city ordinance. An official press release from the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation that has just been thrust into my hoof by a piezoelectric sky golem also urges me to remind our listeners that "attempts to discover hottest pink, which does not exist, only doom the poor souls involved to penury, public scorn, and inevitable ruin."
Then there's a long series of ellipses, and it continues on the other side of the paper, "... one way or another."
Well! Wasn't that helpful information from our good friends at the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation.
That's all for today, dear listeners. I hope we've been of some help to you in the futile struggle to discern some manner of objective truth about the world. Remember; your senses will lie to you, but we never will!
Coming up next, we rate the seven sexiest kinds of clouds. Watch out, stratocumulus! Stratocirrus is younger, thinner, and hungrier than you are this year.
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"... this is a very strange city, Lieutenant."
"You'll get no argument from me, ma'am."
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This is part two of Welcome to Cloudsdale. The previous part may be found here.
The next part may be found here.
The Welcome to Cloudsdale masterpost may be found here.
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I think that might be a "Yes" in there somewhere, hidden under that pile of YES.
I think Cadance wants to speak like Celestia, but she just can't help being a bit whimsical.
I think Celestia wishes sometimes she could speak a bit more like Cadance.
Also, YEAH! Best Princess is back!
Wonderful, as always. My only question: Isn't skipping the calderium and tepidarium bad for you?
Obscure bathing references for the win!
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Does she look like she's doing things right?
Also, you have correctly predicted some of the words that wil appear in future chapter titles. But I suspect you knew that.
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I'm trying and failing to put together a coherent Glow Cloud reference heALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD
6690547 That's a Hegemony slur against our high-quality and completely safe products! All Cloudsdale Weather Corporation Clouds are thoroughly tested for luminosity before leaving the factory floor. We haven't had a glow cloud outbreak since 955, thank you very much, and we don't anticipate any in the future.
The Cloudsdale Weather Corporation. Because air is too important to leave to chance.
I can't believe a new Skywriter story has been out for twenty-four hours without me finding chnace to read it...!
Superlative, as usual.
Poor Caddy. She just can't catch a break, can she?
(On the other hand, Sunny Smile had BETTER have a reason more than pride and/or bigotry (ageism, tribalism, classism etc etc) for her behavior[1], or else she might be recieving a personal visitation to recieve an... education.. on why that is... inappropriate[2].)
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That... That is *brilliant.*
[1] Assuming she is, as CinnamonSwirltheBreaded has suggest, not Celestia (which would not, at this point, surprise me), because Celestia is alloweda free pass to be as much of a troll as she likes, given she otherwise always has to be the Mentor all the time...
[2]No, it doesnt matter, given that she's supposed to be getting on a bit, if she's popped her clogs in the twelve years since... Correct... education... has no statute of limitations. Or mortality...
This is actually a knock against Celestia, when you think about it. When you give your students secret, surprise tests, they either become unreasonably paranoid (Cadance, Sunset) or just power through it with blind hero worship (Twilight). Either way, not a good method of teaching.
Something that came to me while reading the TV Tropes page: Shining Armor compares his magic to a child using crayons. What would Cadance's magic be like? Watercolor? Acrilic? Oil? Statue carving?