Shining Armor never felt more relaxed than when held tight in the embrace of the mare he loved. She held him now in their marriage bed, his muzzle buried in the fur of her chest. He could feel her heart beating, smell the strawberry shampoo she used, and knew that he was home. "So." He sighed against her. "What do you think?"
He'd just finished telling her what he'd learned in Canterlot. On the train ride back, he'd considered keeping the whole thing from her. Wasn't there safety in ignorance? But no; this was going to reach her eventually. Somehow, someway, someone was going to tell her. Better it come from him now than later on, probably from some gossipy nurse at the clinic where the path to the truth had begun.
"This is one of those things where it doesn't really matter what I think." She tilted his head up and smiled gently. "This is all you, honey."
"So... what am I supposed to do? Any suggestions?"
Cadance took a deep breath and settled back against the pillows. "The way I see it, you have to look at this two ways; personally and politically."
"Politics. Of course." He rolled away from her and stared at the wall. "My all-time favorite thing."
"It's unavoidable in this case, I'm afraid. Thorax is a king with a kingdom, a throne, and everything else that entails." She sat up and looked at him hard. "But now he's also the rightful heir to the throne of the Crystal Empire. By all rights, he's the next in line."
He looked back at her and raised an eyebrow. "But it's like you just said; he already has a kingdom. Flurry Heart is still next in line."
"But what if he..." She sighed. "What if he decides one day that it isn't enough? Wars for succession have started over much less than this."
Shining Armor rolled back over and sat up beside his wife. "We've known Thorax for almost a decade, Cadance. What has he ever done that makes you think he'd do something like that?"
"That's where the personal meets the political." She looked at him hard. "Before you decide what you're going to say to him, you have to consider how he might take it."
Shining Armor laughed uneasily. "What? You think that if I say the wrong thing, Thorax is going to gather his forces and... what? Invade?"
"He might not need to." Cadance didn't laugh. "There are always going to be those dissatisfied with how the current monarchy operates. All it would take is a few powerful individuals to start stirring up unrest, pointing out the various disasters only narrowly avoided by the two of us, and contrast those events with the relative prosperity of the changeling way of life."
"But that's them. Not Thorax. He would never..."
"The heart is a complicated thing, Shining Armor. You should never underestimate what someone is capable of when their heart's been broken."
"I'm not going to break his heart!"
"Then what are you going to say to him? Exactly?"
"I don't know!" He fell back, grabbed a pillow, and covered his face. "I don't even know what Thorax expects to come from this. What? Does he want to play catch at the next royal summit? Do I owe him for all these year's worth of birthday and Hearth's Warming gifts?" He tossed the pillow across the room and glared at it. "This would've been easier if he'd just kept it to himself."
"Easier for you, you mean."
He turned his gaze to her. "Easier for everyone."
"But you, especially."
"What do you want me to say, Cadance?! Yes, easier for me. I could've gone my entire life not knowing and been perfectly happy. But now? I feel... I feel..." The anger began to bluster and his focus began fading off. A faraway look stole into his eyes.
It was a look that Cadance knew all too well. "It's bringing it back, isn't it? The invasion?"
Shining Armor took several deep, calming breaths. It was an exercise he hadn't needed to use in years. Not since he'd finally managed to put the... incident behind him. "The last thing she said to me was that from now on, I wouldn't see him as my friend, or even my son. All I would see is a living, breathing reminder of what she'd done to me." He looked at his wife with tears filling his eyes. "What if she's right?"
Cadance pulled him to her and hugged him tight. She felt him sob into her chest and felt the old, familiar hate for the monster that had done this to him. She shushed him softly and rubbed his back. "It's alright, baby. You're past all that now."
Cadance remembered the months of therapy it had taken for Shining Armor to fully get over his ordeal. Unbidden images came to mind of the nights, few but still too many, when she'd awoken to find his horn at her throat, his sleep-addled mind convinced that she was the false image that he'd almost married. Even after coming to terms with what had happened, finally accepting that he'd been the victim and that there was nothing he could have done differently, he'd still nursed a fierce hatred for, and deep mistrust, of changelings.
Until Thorax.
The months that Thorax had spent in the Crystal Empire had been the last piece of healing Shining Armor had needed. It was through him that Shining Armor was able to learn to open his heart once more, to recognize that an entire species could not be blamed for the actions of one. Shining Armor called Thorax friend. But now? What would become of that friendship now?
"What did Thorax ask you for in the letter?"
Shining Armor pulled away and wiped his eyes. "He didn't say. He said he just wanted me to know. Told me that if I wanted to talk about it, to just write back."
"Then you need to ask him what he wants." Cadance brushed a stray gray strand back into the sea of blue. "Before anything else, before you decide anything at all, you two need to sit down and talk."
"But what if..." He cleared his throat again. "What if he wants more than I can give?"
"You have to cross that bridge when you come to it. Right now he just wants your time. And for you to know that he's a part of you. Beyond that...?" She shrugged. "We just have to trust that things will be alright in the end. This doesn't have to be anything painful, right? You two are still two of the best stallions I've ever met. I'm sure that you two can figure this out." She reached for the light. "But that's for later. Right now you need to sleep. You've had a long day."
"You're not wrong." He told her as darkness filled the room. She filled his arms as they lay back on the pillows. Before too long, her soft, rhythmic breaths filled the air... but not his. Shining Armor lay in the dark for a long, long time that night. And when he did finally manage to sleep, his dreams were filled with that terrible laughter, those horrid green eyes, and the leering face of the former queen of the changelings...
...but in his dream the face split and shifted, morphed into the face of Thorax wearing a cruel and mocking expression he'd never seen before.
The laughter of the changeling king was just as cutting as his mother's.
Trust me I hated it as well it brings the worst out of people sometimes
Looks like Shining Armor told Princess Cadence about this whole situation and what he also discovered as well she told him to talk to thorax about this whole thing but Shining Armor is worried about how this will affect their relationship but right now all he had to do is to talk to him and see how this will go hopefully for me things will get better hopefully
This one hit, man. A good friend of mine had this exact thing happen to him. He had a night terror, and woke up choking out his wife. They separated for a few months, he went to some in patient PTSD treatment place, and today they're doing fine.
No. He's not. The Crystal Empire was inherited through Cadance's line. It's matrilineal. Thorax isn't her child, so that couldn't happen.
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Yeah, Thorax would be an illegitimate child in this situation, and as such wouldn't be in line for the throne.
Um, no, Cadance is the sitting royal, Shining is the consort. So Thorax would have no claim even if he wanted it since he's Shining's kid, not Cadance's. Flurry is still next in line.
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So very sure of ourselves, are we? We don't know that Cadance inherited the Crystal Empire. In fact, most of what we see strongly suggests she didn't. She is never stated, in either FiM or in any supplementary material, to have any family connection to pre-Sombra Crystal Empire royalty. If you believe the comics and the chapter books, Amore was a unicorn (albeit of great stature) before being petrified and shattered in Sombra's coup, and Cadance was a pegasus before ascending to alicornhood. Pony tribe inheritance isn't so strict as all that, but unicorns tend to produce unicorns and pegasi tend to come from pegasi. Neither Amore nor any other Crystal Empire ruler before Cadance is ever said to have had any children. The Crystal Empire is said to have had a "first queen" who established the Crystal Faire, which implies more queens following on, but these needn't have been her descendants. She might have chosen her successor like Celestia and Luna did,* or the monarch could have been elected like the Princess of the Fall Formal. Cadance seems to have been hailed or acclaimed ruler by the Crystal Empire's people - that is to say she won the throne by dint of popularity (which she won in turn by selflessly protecting the Crystal Empire from Sombra, that is, by being good) rather than by dint of right. And against a monarch who won the throne by dint of a coup, that's more than good enough. Also, given that the Crystal Heart appears on her butt, there's more than a bit of divine providence at work too.
As for Shining Armor's status, we don't know if he's a consort or a co-monarch a la William to Cadance's Mary, or like Celestia and Luna (but see the footnote: Celestia and Luna weren't co-monarchs because they were family, but because they were both alicorns and willing and able to protect Equestria - being family may have had something to do with them both being alicorns, though). It's a perfectly reasonable and even likely guess that he's a consort - he doesn't seem to have been acclaimed by the people like Cadance was, and doesn't seem to participate in events like the Princess Summits or the Grand Equestria Pony Summit even though Cadance does - but the evidence is very thin on the ground. And whatever his status is, we know exactly nil about what it implies as far as the Crystal Empire's inheritance laws go (or again, what, if anything, those inheritance laws have to do with the monarchy). Which is to say, authors can make up whatever they like.
We do know that Flurry Heart is important enough during Twilight's reign as sole princess in Equestria to get her own stained glass window, which also features the Crystal Castle and Crystal Heart, so it stands to reason she takes over the Empire at some point, maybe even inherits it.
But really, the question is moot, because having a claim is not the same thing as pressing one - and pressing a claim against a rival claimant to a throne implies war. But Thorax is notoriously conflict-averse. He needed Ember to help him assert himself against Pharynx and his followers, who were fairly numerous at the time of Triple Threat (they're described as "this renegade group of changelings who still feed off of love") but who were won over between Triple Threat and To Change a Changeling. Pharynx's ideological beef was with his brother's anti-militarism. When all the other world leaders were spoiling for a fight in School Daze, Thorax, Celestia, and Luna were the only ones who held themselves aloof. He's not going to lead the changelings in a march on the Crystal Empire. He got enough of that shit when he was bred for cannon fodder against Canterlot. And because of how changeling reproduction and descent work in this story (no male genetic material is necessary to father children, and descent of all changelings is reckoned through the queen), Thorax's claim would die with him.
* Actually, that's not quite accurate, because Twilight wasn't Celestia's and Luna's successor so much as she was their co-monarch until they abdicated and left her alone in the position, but sussing out the distinction requires examining Equestria's constitution, which is a bit of a mess. That is not a criticism of the worldbuilding, merely a description that can apply to several real-world countries, including, for instance, the United Kingdom, a highly successful state. The Realm of Equestria is, as far as can be determined, the union of Unicornia, Pegasopolis, and Earth, with additional territories annexed after the union, or split off from the original states but remaining under the union. Each state under the union has its own government, with those forms of government being quite eclectic. The princesses incarnate the union of the [major] pony tribes in their persons, and their constitutional role is protection of the realm - government of the realm is something Celestia aggregated to herself over time as a capable statesmare and permanent political fixture, not something inherent to the position. You can see the distinction between Celestia on the one hand and Luna and Twilight on the other between seasons 4 and 7, where only Celestia seems to spend much time on government (Twilight starts taking a bigger role in government beginning in Season 8, and Celestia gives her the reins of government at the end of Season 9). You can think of there being senior and junior princesses, but the distinction is personal rather than constitutional. So is the division of labor with respect to the celestial bodies. The princesses have it because they can handle it (protecting the realm's resource of powerful unicorns from being burnt out on sun-raising duty and freeing those powerful unicorns to devote their talents to other pursuits from which the nation can benefit) and divide the work among themselves based on talent. Celestia could handle the moon, she did so for a thousand years, but Luna has a personal connection to it and is better at it, so she gets it. There can be as many or as few princesses as there are alicorns willing to devote their time to incarnating the union and protecting the realm, and if one is predominant, they are merely the first among equals - the princeps if you will (etymology is fun).
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Please. It's five paragraphs.
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Well, Zimmerwald1915 is correct in that we don't know for absolute certain how inheritance is regulated in the Empire. Much as we don't know if Sombra's backstory from the comics is adopted here. He might've been the rightful heir before going off the deep end.
However, I also agree that it's not at all likely, and even if it used to be patrilineal inheritance in the Empire, the Crystal Ponies probably have no desire to keep that system. Heck, their crown princess is the first ever natural-born Alicorn in Equestria. They probably take some pride in that.
To be fair, this is indeed how politics work in our world, but it seems less so in this one, given magic and such exists, and the thrones seem to need particular types on them. That said, it is something to consider, but I would dismiss it. Their own land blooms, their people thrive, and their numbers might grow soon, but I doubt it would grow larger than need be. Chrissie seemed to be able to control the numbers of her subjects, so I'd assume Thorax and whoever turns into his mate would do much the same.
Wait, it’s Cadance who’s technically the rightful air and Thorax was born out of wedlock and didn’t even involve cadance at all. So wouldn’t Flurry still be next in line
In most monarchies i am aware of that have laid down any sort of formalized rules of succession, Thorax' status as a 'bastard son' would entirely negate any legal claim he has to the throne so long as a single legitimate heir is known to be alive and has not abdicated their own claims. So Flurry Heart should still be first in line to the throne.
But then Cadence does have a point in so far that the truth in matters of royal succession can become very malleable if a perceived majority of the population is in favour of looking the other way.
So I know this is all super serious, and Shining's perfectly within right to be stressing out so much over it...but knowing Thorax, I could totally see him just responding "oh, okay, cool" and that's literally the end of it as far as the changeling king is concerned.
I expect the fic's going to be a bit more in-depth about it than that, though.
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Not that ever stopped some from trying to stake a claim to the throne anyway, by force, if need be. In medieval Britain, this became so bad that ruling kings were in the habit of having such heirs executed regardless of age just so to ensure they wouldn't ever be in position to try and take the throne from them once of age. Plus, rules of succession are basically meaningless if the public at large all choose to support the illegitimate heir over the one currently on the throne, especially if they're willing to fight over it. Otherwise, yes, Thorax would be considered illegitimate and thus ineligible, traditionally speaking.
But like Cadance said--that's where the personal side of the matter comes into play.
Cadance is right, and only Shining can work out what he will say to Thorax.