Father, Defender, Friend Here lies Shining Armor 973–1067
Twilight, a mare who always read everything, only made it to the end of the first line of the tombstone, which was the same shade of white as her late brother’s coat had been. Cadence, who sat surrounded by her four children, never made it past the first word. Cadence’s oldest two and youngest child — Radiant Dawn, Elegant Shadows, and Eventide Watch — bore expressions of military stoicism, yet when they felt nopony would see, they swallowed hard. Cadence’s second daughter, Love Song, cried into her mother’s mane, an act which was reciprocated.
Twilight wished for her friends’ presence, but her long-time group of confidants had grown old and infirm, none remaining well enough to travel to the Crystal Empire. Spike had passed into draconic adolescence — complete with the decades-long emotional outbursts that entailed. Her more recent friends had come, of course, but they lacked the same fervor.
When death had severed the bond of friendship between Shining and Twilight, it had been early in the morning while she had been sleeping. The shock had awoken her and had filled her with equal parts grief and guilt. She could only imagine what Cadence had gone through, lying beside him.
She wished to be included in the loving confines of the only group remaining at the gravesite, but she dared not intrude. She wished her brother were alive, well, and as young as she appeared to be, but the world had other plans.
Thirty minutes had passed since the majority of the mourners had left when Dawn, Shadows, and Watch stood as one. Each had silently chosen to wait that much longer with their mother, and their internal clocks were in nearly perfect synch from years of service. After whispering their goodbyes to Cadence, Song, and Twilight, they filed past the tombstone, placing a hoof or wing, in Shadows’ case, on it before leaving together.
Their departure made Cadence look over Song and, through her tears, see Twilight alone and weeping. A sound that was half a gasp and half a sob escaped her, and she bodily grabbed Twilight in her aura. As she spread her forelegs, Cadence drew Twilight into a hug alongside Song.
Twilight allowed this — she lacked the strength to resist. Her brother had always been the strong one, but that had been decades ago. She could not look at her fellow mourners without seeing Shining, vital and alive, beside them. She closed her eyes and buried her face in their embrace, and together, they cried until their tears ran out, leaving salty tracks on their cheeks.
They sat dumbly, not knowing what to say, until Song excused herself to return to her little foals, needing to surround herself with life blissfully unaware of any tragedy. Thankful for the momentary distraction, Cadence and Twilight watched her go.
They were together yet alone.
Cadence thought of returning to her castle. With the entire city-state in mourning, the Crystal Heart was lifeless. Her duties told her she needed to be strong, to rally her ponies, to raise their spirits so they might be safe, but since waking up beside Shining’s cold body three days before, she struggled to find motivation for even simple tasks.
Shining had given her motivation for half a century.
Twilight remembered how Applejack’s condolences had rung hollow despite Twilight’s conscious knowledge that it had been the most sincere utterance she had heard in her life. Envisioning the train ride home, she saw that all the sympathetic ponies who would surround her would help no more. She knew she needed to fight the instinct to believe nopony else could understand her.
Shining had taught her to have a fighting spirit.
After several minutes of sitting side by side, they looked to one another, yet the silence persisted for another minute.
Twilight coughed. “I… think my right hind leg fell asleep.”
Letting out a single laugh, Cadence shook her head. “We have been here a while…” She started turning back to Shining’s grave, but Twilight muttered something and pulled her back. “What was that, Twilight?”
“Two hours twenty-four minutes plus or minus about five minutes.” She shrugged. “I learned to tell time by the sun as a filly to impress Celestia — never really lost it.”
Another few seconds of silence passed before Cadence said, “Twilight… would you like to walk with me? To stretch out your leg, of course.”
Twilight’s ever-observant mind filed away the information that Cadence was lonely and trying to maintain appearances. Her wings, clamped to her sides, tilted back at almost the same angle as her ears. Twilight knew her fellow princess could hide her emotions if she so chose. Being so alone after years of togetherness must have overwhelmed that, she concluded.
Twilight also thought of walking to the train station and being similarly alone in the crowd. The thought was anathema to her, and she shuddered. With a meager smile, she nodded. “Of course I’ll join you.”
She found she hadn’t needed to fake the brightness in her voice. Twilight wondered, for a moment, why that had surprised her — it made complete sense. Cadence had been her friend since fillyhood, after all. Her musing ended as Cadence rose.
Each placed one of their forehooves atop the headstone.
“Goodbye, my love.”
“… F-friend forever.”
Cadence thought that Twilight looked like she’d been stabbed, and she felt the same way. Twilight stayed by her side when she turned and walked away. The palace towered before them, leading them away from the graveyard and toward the city. Only after they had passed through the gates separating the two did Cadence ask, “Is your leg better?”
“Much, thanks.” In reality, she had almost forgotten about it. Other thoughts had dominated her mind. As they walked through the city, Twilight said, “You know, I’m going to miss my train.”
“What?” Cadence cocked her head, and her eyebrows rose. “I thought there was still at least an hour before it left.”
“There is, but I’m planning to miss my train. Right now, I just want to be with my secon— my oldest friend.”
Cadence winced at the correction. “Thank you, Twilight. I… I do too.”
With a knowing smile and a nod, Twilight moved closer to her, and they walked on towards the palace.
Cold and shivering, Cadence awoke. Something was missing, but it wasn’t contact — she was holding a plush pillow against her barrel. Warmth wasn’t the issue either; though, the pillow lacked that too. Once her mental faculties began working again, she realized what was missing and buried her face between her forehooves. A few very unprincess-like phrases and more than a few sobs colored the night air before she pushed herself up and took a deep breath. As she released it, she counted to three and extended a foreleg. She had taught Twilight that little exercise so long ago because she knew it worked on herself.
As she alighted on the floor, she hoped that Twilight was having a better night’s sleep. Making her way to the kitchen, she let the rest of her tired mind go mercifully blank save for that thought. The few ponies she saw on the way she paid no heed. Before opening the door to the kitchen, the scent of tea filled her nose.
With puffy eyes, Twilight looked up as Cadence pushed open the door and searched for the scent’s source. She found it in the cup held in Twilight’s magic.
“Couldn’t sleep?” they asked simultaneously.
Twilight let out a shaky laugh. “Not a wink. I was going to cast a sleep spell, but that felt like admitting something’s wrong. You?”
“To be honest, Shining was an old stallion. He got up a few times each night to use the bathroom, and I got used to it… I especially got used to the kiss he would give me each time he left the bed. It was the most adorable thing.” She stopped talking and sighed, staring ahead as a memory took her.
Twilight extended a wing and raised one of her forehooves. The motion caught Cadence’s attention, and she took the hint. Settling into the embrace, she said, “I’d hoped you’d managed to get a good night’s sleep.”
“Heh. A good night’s sleep and I haven’t met in years — decades, even. That’s why I know sleep spells… well, aside from the whole studying-magic thing. Narcomancy has its own little field of study, you know.”
Putting a forehoof on Twilight’s chest, Cadence fixed her with a glare and pushed her back. “Twilight, you said that using sleep magic felt like admitting something was wrong. Are you saying that’s how you feel every night?”
Twilight drew back and tapped her forehooves together, looking away. “Um… tea?” She levitated another cup over. “It’s a good blend — a little salty, but that may just be my cup ah ha ha…”
“Twilight…” Cadence’s voice sounded soft, almost hurt.
“Look, I…” She sighed and set her cups on the counter beside her. “I know I’ve got everything so good. I’m a princess! So many ponies out there are less fortunate than me, and I would know; I try to help them every day.”
“But what if you don’t help everypony you can? What if you give bad advice or settle a dispute in the wrong party’s favor? What if, because you made a bad decision, thousands go hungry?”
Twilight shot to her hooves, wings flaring out. “Exactly! I mean,” she said, folding her wings at her sides, “that’s exactly what keeps me up. How do you deal with it all?”
“Shining was good at keeping away more than just monsters. He also defended me from my insecurities and self-doubts when they came up. While we were lying in bed, he would tell me how well I was doing.”
While Cadence talked, Twilight nodded slightly. After a moment, she said, “You know, I have read some studies that advocate the physical and psychological benefits of sleeping with somepony else…”
Cadence’s sleepy eyes opened wider. “My-my, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to get me into bed.”
“Hm? Oh!” Twilight’s wings flared, and she took a step back. “That’s not what I meant at all! I was just wondering if the researchers controlled for pillow talk. But…” She hung her head and looked up through her bangs. “It is late, and I think we could both use whatever beneficial psychological effects we can get, and I really don’t want to have to use a spell to get to sleep…”
Thoughts of her cold, empty room filled Cadence’s head, particularly the cold and empty spot beside hers in the bed. Then, it filled with the pony whom she loved so much.
She stared into his grey mane, only a few strands of blue left in it. She ran a forehoof through his mane, watching the moonlight shine off it and smiling at the aptness of it. He rolled over, and their lips met like they had thousands of times before, like the most natural thing in the world.
“You look ravishing in the moonlight, Cadence. If I were a young stallion again…”
“Hush. I love you just the way you are,” she whispered back.
He shuffled found a more comfortable position. “Of course you do. You have more love in that beautiful heart of yours than any normal pony would know what to do with. It’s your gift.” He brushed his hoof over her cutie mark and fixed her with a stare as his hoof came to rest directly over the cerulean heart. “You have to promise me you’ll share your gift after I’m gone.”
“Shining!”
“Promise me. I haven’t asked much of you, but I’m asking this. I want to know you’ll be able to be happy. And besides, think of your ponies. Promise me.”
“I do. I promise. Kiss on it?”
Shining laughed. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
They kissed for nearly a minute, hooves caressing one another’s face.
Twilight turned away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even considered…”
The motion pulled Cadence from her memories, and the tone of voice tugged at her heartstrings. She raised a hoof and took a half-step forward. “Twilight, wait.”
“Yes?” Twilight looked back with a little smile.
“I…” She hesitated before taking a step forward. “It would make me happy if you spent the night with me.” Her voice hitched a little towards the end.
Twilight let out a breath that wished it could have been a laugh. “Kind of like the old days. Kind of.” She sighed and looked over to the teapot. “Should I bring that along? You must have come down for something, after all.”
“Anywhere was better than my room…” Cadence hesitated before opening a door with her magic. “And there’s comfort food in the larder.” She floated out a tied-up napkin, untied it, and revealed a few scones. “Somepony’s been leaving them here for me. They’re my favorite: crystal berries in a barley scone and topped with a dusting of rock salt and sugar. Would you like one?”
“Oh, yes please!” A scone passed from a blue aura to a purple one, and Twilight turned to go while picking up the teapot.
“Now now, Twilight, let’s not make a mess while we eat,” Cadence said, gesturing with her head for Twilight to return to the counter.
This time, Twilight genuinely laughed. “Okay, now it really does feel like the old days.”
They sat together at the counter and split the scones between themselves. Twilight poured another cup of tea. Were it not for their puffy eyes, mussed manes, and the late hour, it would have been a perfectly regal scene.
When they finished eating, Cadence passed Twilight the napkin that had held the scones. “You’ll need this,” she said, pointing to the crumbs on Twilight’s muzzle.
“How do you not?” she asked, brushing them off. “And this time, you can’t avoid the question by saying it’s because you’re a princess, because that’s demonstrably untrue.”
Cadence thought for a second then smiled. “State secret.”
“Ooh, clever. Well played.” She brought a forehoof up to her chin and frowned, humming to herself.
Tilting her head, Cadence asked, “What are you thinking about now?”
“If I should send an espionage team. I have one that’s just itching to do something.”
Cadence rolled her eyes and shook her head as she folded up the napkin. “Come on, let’s get to bed. It’s late enough already.”
Twilight nodded and followed Cadence out into the long, empty halls of the palace. She noted how her wings weren’t folded up properly. They hung more loosely at her sides than normal, but that typically happened when a pony was tired. As they walked, Cadence’s wings subtly tilted backwards, which worried her more. Of course, she reasoned, Cadence had grown even more used to Shining being around than she had — a few minutes of good cheer and some pastries couldn’t fix him being gone.
“Wait!” the Pinkie who lived in Twilight’s mind said. “Her wings didn’t start off like that. There’s still hope!”
“Thanks, Pinkie. I’ll do my best to cheer her up.”
“You’d better. I may just be a figment of your imagination, but I still don’t like seeing other ponies being sad. Say, does Cadence like figs?If she does, I’d give her one, but I can’t, so you’d have to tell her a figment of your imagination meant to gi—”
Shaking her head, Twilight shut that line of thinking down and began brainstorming what stories she could tell.
Cadence watched Twilight out of the corner of her eye, wondering what it must be like for her, who had known Shining her whole life. It had kept Twilight from getting to sleep, but Cadence had managed to drift off — she winced and hung her head. There had to be something she could do to make it better, and she knew what to do. A sidestep and a one-wing hug put Twilight perfectly into nuzzling range, which Cadence capitalized on immediately.
That further reinforced Twilight’s theory that Cadence needed comfort. Glad to give it, she stopped and wrapped both a forehoof and her wings around Cadence, nuzzling against her neck. “I’m here for you, and I will be for as long as you need me.”
The fetlock lay on Cadence’s back in a different place than where she had grown used to. It reached much farther than her children’s and farther, even, than Shining’s had. That, combined with the delicate figure and the wings encompassing her, made Cadence think of being embraced by Celestia or Luna. She felt secure.
Cadence squeezed her tighter and whispered, “Thank you.”
She contemplated complimenting Twilight’s warm and immaculately preened wings, but ultimately decided to lose herself in the embrace. They stayed like that for about a minute and finally pulled apart when Twilight yawned. “You’re warm… and make a good pillow.”
Cadence got a faraway expression. “Shining told me that sometimes.”
Twilight’s eyes, which had been drifting closed, shot open. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—” A hoof on her shoulder stopped her.
“Twilight, don’t worry. It’s… nice to hear that again. I never thought I would.” She nodded her head down the hall and rose. “Now come on. You need to rest.”
Yawning again, Twilight nodded, and the two set off again.
“You’re a lot less argumentative than when you were a foal,” Cadence said.
“Not true. I’m still very argumentative, just—” she yawned again “—not about that.”
Their soft hoofsteps finally brought them to the door to Cadence’s room, which she had left ajar. Pushing it fully open, they entered, and Twilight stared around. Moonlight shone in and illuminated paintings of Shining, Cadence, and their children, which hung all over the room. Twilight tried to avoid thinking that Shining’s white coat looked ghostly in the low light.
All the crystalline furniture gleamed, casting reflections and refracting dim rainbows across the room. Twilight thought, for a moment, of the convenience of seeing what was in one’s cabinets without needing to open them.
Cadence passed her and headed toward the bed. She hopped up onto it, barely rustling the satin sheets. Twilight approached the other side, and one question came to the fore in her mind. “Is that where he…?”
Cadence nodded once and said, “If you want, I can…”
“No, it’s okay.”
Placing a forehoof on the pillow where her brother had lain, Twilight exhaled slowly, hesitating. The disembodied voices of Shining and Rainbow chided her for letting something so silly stop her from going to a friend in need. Eyes downcast, she climbed up into Shining’s spot, more determined to comfort Cadence than ever.
“Cadence, did I ever tell you about the time Pinkie found out about laughing gas?” Twilight asked, knowing that she never had. Expectedly, Cadence shook her head. “Well, I was in one of my castle’s labs, and I was doing some amateur rocketry…”
For a few minutes, Cadence listened without comment or motion. Then, she leaned over to preen Twilight’s wing closest to her. A little hum came from Twilight, who stopped recounting her story for a second to smile. As she continued, she spread out her wing to give access to the underside. Her sentences lost coherency until, at last, she fell asleep with Cadence straightening her down feathers.
She finished tidying the wing and whispered, “Works every time. Sleep well, Twilight Sparkle.” Lying back down, she followed into sleep soon after.
When Twilight awoke, the first thing that went through her mind was how much she wanted to fall back asleep, and she rolled over, trying to get comfortable. It took her ten seconds to notice the heat below her but only one to recognize its source as Cadence’s wing. Twilight’s eyes flew open, and her heart raced at the thought of having woken her friend. The slow, steady rhythm of Cadence’ breath slowed Twilight’s pulse back to normal. Not wanting to wake her, she didn’t move other than to untense.
Lying where her brother had, seeing the pony he had seen every morning, Twilight’s mind put her in his place. How many times had he woken like this and lain there, watching over his wife, the mother of his children, his best friend? How had he coped as the years hurried by, robbing him but only ever refining her? How had he dealt with the knowledge that he would one day leave her widowed, not just for years but potentially decades or centuries?
Twilight had considered all these things soon after her ascension and concluded that putting any potential partner through that kind of mental anguish was not fair. Shortly thereafter, she had also concluded that she had created less self-centered reasons than not wanting to be widowed and heartbroken one day, but she maintained that the other reasoning was sound.
Sound and eminently depressing.
When she inevitably began crying, Twilight muffled her sobs to avoid waking Cadence. Between hiccupping gasps for breath, she alternatingly wished she could bring Shining back and mentally hit herself for being so foolish. After her parents had died, Celestia and Luna’s admonitions and several zombified amphibians had taught her better than to try.
Cadence shifted, and Twilight forced herself to calm — she hadn’t greeted the day with a smile, but she intended to greet Cadence with one. As she forced a grin, she remembered having read about how affecting an emotion could trick the body into thinking that was what it felt, and the expression became more genuine as she thought about outsmarting her body.
The wing under her tensed then relaxed as the other extended to wrap Twilight in a blanket of feathers. They tensed again, and, for an instant, Twilight wondered what was happening before they pulled her into a tight hug. For her part, Cadence barely thought, operating on decades’ worth of habit.
Their kiss was brief and magical. Twilight’s eyes shot wide open, and she froze as she tried to figure out how to react. Cadence’s eyes opened at the lack of response. For a fraction of a second, mutual confusion dominated the look that passed between them. It lasted until Cadence came fully awake and, with much flailing of limbs, shoved Twilight away and fled the room, sobbing.
Slamming the door shut behind her, she collapsed against a wall. She had been dreaming about being pregnant again, this time with their fifth foal. Shining had nuzzled her round belly while holding her hoof, and her heart could have burst with happiness.
A couple of the staff scurrying out of the hall caught her attention. Exhaling hard, she sunk to the floor and laid the side of her head against the wall, wondering if she cared about causing a scene and finding she no longer did.
The door opened behind her, making her ears swivel towards it.
“Cadence?”
Her ears flopped back down. “I’m sorry, Twilight. That was…”
“Hey.” With a flash and a pop, Twilight appeared in front of Cadence. “There’s nothing to apologize for. Given what you said last night, I should have seen that coming and gotten up.” She paused before asking, “Are you okay?”
She stayed looking down. “I will be, thanks.” Her voice came out flat.
Twilight frowned and began planning, a set of actions she had done innumerable times before. She welcomed the distraction — it replaced most of her emotions with the drive to accomplish a goal: cheering up Cadence. She didn’t know how to accomplish it, but she hoped she could figure it out in time. As the first order of business, she needed to get Cadence up and moving.
“Will you come to breakfast with me?”
Cadence knew that tone of voice well; Celestia used it when she said a command as a polite question. Twilight, too, had mastered it. Seeing no point in arguing, Cadence pushed herself to her hooves then stared down at them in all their unshod pinkness.
“I’ll need my regalia…”
Hers and Twilight’s materialized before them, deposited by a nebula of smoke the same color as the light surrounding Twilight’s horn. Cadence stared at her tiara and said, “I suppose that’s why your cutie mark is for magic and mine isn’t.”
Twilight nodded as they donned their jewelry. “I’m starving. Those scones last night were good, but it’s been a while. Speaking of the scones, do you know who puts them there?”
They started down the hall, and Cadence shook her head.
“Maybe we should find out so you could promote them. I don’t know about you, but that’s one of my favorite parts about being a princess.”
“I do like repaying favors… but how will we find out who it is? Ponies get flustered when royalty starts asking about unusual activities. In a situation like this, I would usually ask the Guard, but it would be more than a little odd for them to go passing through the kitchen to check.”
“Well, they were still relatively fresh, so they must have been placed there towards the end of the day. I suggest we wait till later then scry the area.”
“That sounds like a good plan to me.”
“Oh, and Cadence…”
She looked over at Twilight, head tilted to the side. “Yes?”
Cadence snorted and giggled a few times. “Did you get that from the kiss?”
“Yup! Element of Magic. I knew it on touch.”
Cadence’s laughter intensified to the point where she needed to stop walking, doubled over and clutching her chest. “It took you — hahaha — eighty years to figure that out. Some Element of Magic you are!”
Twilight blushed and ducked her head, looking away. “I just thought you were really neat, not that there was any magic to find.”
As she forced herself to calm, Cadence slipped her head under Twilight’s and, nuzzling her, bought her back up to her normal stature. “I’m sorry, Twilight. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings…”
“Oh, I’m okay.”
In Twilight’s mind, a mental Applejack scowled, but she figured that keeping Cadence happy outweighed telling the truth. As much as insisting on getting breakfast had been intended to distract Cadence, it had also been motivated by simple hunger. Knowing how far they still had to go, she spread her wings. “Shall we? The air is so still in here, and there’s nopony else to use it.”
“It would be a shame to let it go to waste,” Cadence said, spreading hers too.
They flitted through the castle, skipping entire flights of stairs and arriving at the dining hall in less than a third of the time it would have taken them by walking. A herald snapped to attention as they alighted before the doors and announced their titles as they entered the room. They crossed the room towards a table for two.
Twilight knew of Cadence’s propensity to have the chefs put some kind of berry in everything, so she prepared for a berry-filled breakfast. She was not disappointed. When they took their seats, waiters brought out platters — crystalline, of course — laden with crystal berry pancakes, boysenberry-topped yogurt, blueberry muffins, and strawberry cream of wheat. For her part, Twilight applied an alliterative aura to her muzzle to keep clean.
They ate in silence — save for the occasional crunch from the sweet pancakes — with Twilight monitoring everything from the temperature of her cereal to what Cadence was doing.
That happened to be staring at the table and trying not to picture Shining across from her; they had eaten at that table every morning. Purple fur wanted to shift to white, and she kept expecting a hoof to cover hers. She wondered why she felt this way. She hadn’t the few days prior, but then, there hadn’t been another pony across from her.
Because Twilight was watching Cadence, she noticed when her wings began to angle back. She said the first thing that came to mind. “You’re a good kisser, you know.” She blushed.
Cadence did nothing so dainty — she nearly choked on a spoonful of cereal. Coughing, she said, “T-thank you? It’s my… duty as Princess of Love?”
For the first time that day and, for that matter, for the first time in a long while, her mind raced. Ideas about the reason Twilight had gone unwed for so long surfaced and combined with this most recent remark. She had long known that Twilight shared a bond of love with her and had since her filly days; such knowledge came with her alicornhood. From years of experience, she also knew that there were many types of love and that different ponies loved differently. She had always thought it to be a cool, slow sort of love of the familiar, like how some loved their homes and friends. Now, she considered an alternative — Twilight’s romantic love being slow and cerebral, which she thought fit with the rest of Twilight.
Cadence, not being Twilight, did not consider that she was likely seeing what she was used to seeing.
Seeing Twilight through this new lense, she saw her in a different light, one that painted Twilight as willing to put aside her own happiness for years for the sake of love. It reminded her of Shining. She recalled the comment she’d made about Twilight wanting to get into her bed and the reaction it had garnered. Everything became clear; Twilight had needed to be with somepony she loved, yet she had protected her from being hurt by a direct admission.
She appreciated the gesture.
“Twilight,” she asked, looking up, “would you like to stay here for a while?”
The change that had come over Cadence left Twilight smiling. Her friend’s stare had shifted from being directed downward to up and to the side, a sure sign of thinking deep thoughts. Given that she had also perked up her ears and her posture in general, they seemed to be happy thoughts.
“Of course I’d like to stay. It’s just…”
Cadence leaned closer. “Yes?”
“I don’t know if it’s feasible. It seems there’s always something that comes up and needs my attention.” She paused and looked around. “Any second now…”
Cadence’s eyebrows rose as she regarded Twilight. “‘Any second now’ what?”
Still staring up at nothing, Twilight’s brow furrowed as she waited, tapping a forehoof on the table. “Of course it wouldn’t happen when I expect it,” she eventually said, shrugging and looking back down at Cadence. “It’s just that, whenever I say something like that, the universe—”
A scroll materialized in the air above them, and Twilight snatched it.
“The universe conspires against me to make it come true. It’s probably selective perception, but it still feels like a law of nature, like gravity or Pinkie being incomprehensible.” She unrolled the scroll and glanced at it. “Sorry… I should probably respond to this as soon as possible.”
Cadence waved a hoof. “If anypony understands, I do.”
Twilight read through it, muttering under her breath. “… Well, why didn’t they…? Still, they should have… Oh, laryngitis. Oh, that’s bad.” She dropped the scroll onto the table, and her ears flopped back. “I need to go. I’m sorry.”
“Will you be back?” Cadence asked, squinting as first Twilight’s horn then her whole body shone with purple light.
She nodded, sending the already chaotic reflections dancing across the room. In a flash, she disappeared, leaving Cadence and the Crystal Empire behind.
Cadence half-listened to petitions half-daydreamed while sitting on her throne. She suspected her chamberlain of screening out all the difficult cases; all the ones she had heard so far had needed nothing more than common sense. She planned to thank him later.
As a pony argued his obviously fraudulent claim to a piece of property, she wondered when Twilight would return.
With a few stern words, she delivered a ruling. The other pony, who had been sweating throughout the ordeal, smiled, and her coat regained its luster and transparency. The stallion scowled and said nothing more, his coat becoming opaque as he left.
Few things held Cadence’s attention as well as romance, and having a prospective suitor again left her feeling as if she were soaring high above the ground. She pondered ways to subtly ply her trade, thinking of herself as the target of affection more than as herself. After a few more decisions, she had a plan for how to signal to Twilight that she would welcome a relationship. Most importantly, she had to talk more, as she suspected Twilight’s language of love to be words rather than touch. Every time she wondered if she truly wanted to foster a relationship, an inkling of how to do so occurred to her, and she fleshed it out.
Blinding light filled the room, and Cadence shielded her eyes with a wing. “Twilight! You’re back!” When the light faded, she lowered her wing. “And you look… awful.”
A blackened Twilight stomped up the few stairs to Cadence, turned around to face the doors, and sat down, fuming. Curls of smoke rose from her partially chewed mane as she ground her teeth. “I didn’t know that. Thank you very much.”
Cadence flinched. “I’m sorry. A-are you okay?”
“Fine. I’m fine,” she said, head whipping around to look at Cadence. “Is this court? Let’s make some decisions.”
With a motion a forehoof, Cadence told one of her guards to close the doors. “This is my court, and I just decided that you need my help.”
A choked gasp came from Twilight’s throat, and she crumpled against the throne. Cadence ran a hoof through Twilight’s mane and brought her experience of saying soothing nothings to bear on the situation while Twilight sobbed into her barrel. Minutes later, she pulled away and wiped her eyes. Where her mane had touched, a black smudge stained Cadence’s coat and horseshoe.
“Sorry.” Twilight sniffed. “I got parasprite soot all over you.”
Cadence’s face screwed up. “I didn’t know they made soot.”
“They do when I incinerate them.”
Cadence blanched. After taking a moment to compose herself, she asked, “Do you want to talk about it?” She expected a nod and received one immediately. “Let’s get you cleaned up, too. You’ll feel better when you’re not disheveled like this. I promise.”
At another nod from Twilight, Cadence led them back to her quarters, Twilight leaning on her for support the entire way. They removed their dirty — and in Twilight’s case, partially eaten — regalia and left it in the hall. Cadence rang a bell to let the servants know to collect it then gave Twilight a little nudge toward the other side of the room. She followed her into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Twilight stepped in first and seemed to sag under the inconsequential weight of the water pouring down.
A second later, Cadence joined her and bent to nuzzle her cheek. “Need more time to compose your thoughts?”
With a shake of her head, Twilight sighed. “They weren’t normal parasprites. They’ve been getting nastier over the years — I’m sure it’s my fault from way back. And this time, since there was a town-wide concert scheduled for tonight, all the instruments were in the same place…”
Cadence brought a hoof up to the side of her face and blinked slowly. “They didn’t…”
“Eat all the instruments? Yes, they sure did. I had to stop to commandeer The Canterlot Orchestra. The only thing I got lucky with today was that they happened to be practicing.”
“I don’t know about that,” Cadence said, and Twilight cocked her head. “Getting a kiss from the Princess of Love seems pretty lucky.” The smile that flicked across Twilight’s face filled her with the warmth of making somepony happy and the satisfaction of a plan working.
“Anyway, I teleported myself and the orchestra to Ponyville, and we were swarmed instantly. I got really scared when they started nibbling my mane, and when one took a bite out of my tiara and spit out another one the same color as the sapphire it had eaten… I lost it.”
She looked up at Cadence, the water hiding her tears but her voice betraying her. “I must have burned a hundred of them. You should have seen the looks the musicians gave me. I don’t know what’s wrong with me!” Her eyes went wide, and her voice came out shrill. “What if I snap and do that to a pony?”
“Twilight.” When that got no reaction other than hyperventilation, Cadence placed a forehoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Twilight. Don’t worry about that. There is a huge difference between an infestation of bugs you’re afraid could eat you and a pony, and you know that.”
With a yawn, Twilight cast her gaze away. “Yeah, I guess.”
“So, how did everything end up?”
“The music worked like it always does, so it went fine… discounting all the property damage. It’s a mess.” She said nothing for a while before shaking her head and slinging sooty water everywhere. “Sorry. I zoned out. It’s so far, and there are lots of ponies in an orchestra — I could sleep for a year.”
Cadence picked up a bottle of shampoo. “Just close your eyes, and let me take care of you. Okay?”
“I doubt I could keep them open much longer if I wanted to.”
Twilight’s neck drooped as her eyes closed, and Cadence worked a lather up in her mane and coat. Her magic contained the suds to protect Twilight’s eyes. Before the water ran clean, her breath had slowed, and her legs had locked. Cadence held a wing over Twilight’s head to shield it from the water while she cleaned herself off, which took far less time, then turned off the water. By running a magic field over Twilight’s body, she removed most of the water without disturbing her rest.
While she carried Twilight to the bed with her magic, she thought of what she could do to help. And idea occurred to her. She laid Twilight on the bed and reflexively placed a light kiss on her forehead as she had so many times when Twilight was a foal. She smiled at the memories as she left to find her chamberlain.
Twilight dozed, random neural firings bringing her to a dream world. She, Shining and Cadence, and her friends walked through the streets of a place that blended Ponyville and Canterlot. The dirt road beneath their hooves made walking pleasant, as did the flowers that sprouted up around them. They laughed and sang as they passed block after block of alabaster architecture. Clouds moved in to cover the sky, and it began raining. Twilight and Cadence raised magical umbrellas against it, while the others continued dancing in the rain, their merriment unabated.
They left bloody hoofprints where they stepped. Rivulets of blood ran down their flanks.
She and Cadence stopped and cried out, but their friends continued frolicking despite what was happening. Twilight found she could see individual drops of rain, which transformed into tiny knives as she watched. Each had a date inscribed on it. Slowly, ever so slowly, the rain of tiny blades sliced through her friends and brother, yet still they danced.
As they distanced themselves from her, Twilight expanded her shield, but it crept forward only a hair’s breadth per second. Meanwhile, her brother and friends flesh hung in ribbons, but they laughed and sang even as their muscles and tendons parted under the onslaught. Shining turned back to face her and grinned, blood trickling down his teeth, as his hind legs gave out.
With a shriek, Twilight sprang from the bed and landed on the floor. She stumbled and fell into a heap, where she curled into the fetal position. “Not real, not real, not real…” She repeated it, a mantra. The rest of the dream faded, but the grin remained, tormenting her.
Cadence entered a few minutes later and stopped halfway through the door, staring at Twilight, who rocked back and forth on the floor. A brief trip through the air brought her to Twilight’s side.
“Twilight? What happened? Are you okay?” She raised a forehoof but hesitated to extend it.
“I-I had a nightmare. Something about calendars and knives and blood and that… that awful smile.” She shuddered. “He didn’t deserve to die! If anypony deserved to become an alicorn, it was him, not me. I got lucky and figured friendship out once I’d already grown up, but he understood what it was all about since he was just a colt. You two would—”
Cadence placed her forehoof over Twilight’s mouth. “You stop that right now. You’re being irrational… and I would know. A few nights back, I considered throwing myself off the balcony, but then I just broke down into tears when that reminded me of him.”
A sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh left Twilight’s throat. “That did happen, didn’t it?”
“It did!” Cadence said with a laugh.
The two devolved into helpless laughter mixed with a few tears, and they leaned on one another for support. As the last few tremors of giggles swept through her, Twilight rose and hugged Cadence’s neck.
“Thank you. I really needed that. I feel like… like I’ve just released all the rain and lightning and wind a storm wants to let out, you know?”
Cadence’s lips pulled to the side, and she looked the other direction.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ We’ll have to do that some time. It’s a huge rush followed by relief that leaves you feeling pure and like you’ve done something right.”
“Oh, is that all?” Cadence asked with a little laugh.
Twilight tilted her head and thought, not about what else it felt like — she had long ago built a mental list and had recited only half of it — but about what leaving Cadence behind would mean, especially given the new information they had laughed about. She needed to be able to reciprocate the gesture for Cadence if something similar happened again.
“No,” Twilight said at length, “it also feels electric, too, now that I think about it. You know… Ponyville needs a lot of help, and if I remember correctly, we have a storm scheduled for late tomorrow. Maybe you should come back with me. I could teach you how to do weather work on the way!”
Cadence recognized the request as an appeal for quality time and extended conversation. She knew that, if she accepted, it would send Twilight an unmistakable signal. She did not know if it was a signal she wanted to send. With both of them in such a fragile state, the chances of something going horribly wrong were high. Cadence considered telling Twilight about how she had arranged assistance for Ponyville — giving her some good news seemed like the smart thing to do.
“I’d love to go,” she found herself saying. Her eyes widened at her unthinking response, and a rush of adrenalin shot through her, giving her tingling chills. She particularly liked the way she’d worded her response; Twilight picked up on subtle things like that.
Twilight grinned, and her wings flicked out from her sides. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Even an egghead like me ended up liking it.” A grimace crossed her face as her stomach growled. “Let’s eat before we go, though. I was too busy saving Ponyville and then napping to have eaten a lunch.”
“Sounds like something Rainbow would say,” Cadence said with a laugh, but Twilight gave her a look. “You’re right — Dash would definitely have found time for lunch.”
They put on their freshly cleaned — but still partially eaten, in the case of Twilight’s tiara — regalia and made their way to dinner. This time, they walked while Cadence informed Twilight of the relief workers she had ordered her chamberlain to organize for a same-day departure. Twilight thanked her multiple times as they ate and on the way to the train, where she gave the work crews a rousing three-minute speech about the virtues of helping their fellow ponies.
After entering the royal car, Cadence said, “Good job with that speech.”
“Oh, it was nothing; I have to give those types so often that Luna’s complained I do them in my sleep so often it’s annoying.”
“Still, it impressed me how few odd looks you got for…” Cadence inclined her head.
A glance into one of the many mirrors hanging on the walls left Twilight cringing. “Brushing isn’t going to fix that… especially the tiara.”
The noise from the train’s whistle knocked their ears flat, and the train began moving. Cadence made her way to an opulent bed in the corner of the car and lay on it. “You’ll need to visit a jeweler and a hair stylist when we arrive.”
Twilight took a seat near Cadence and nodded. “So! Let’s go over the theory behind weather production, particularly producing precipitation.” She smiled. “It’s not narcissistic to say I liked how that sounded, is it?”
“No, not nearly narcissistic,” Cadence said, and she felt another small rush of cold and tingles at Twilight’s smile widening. “You were saying?”
“You know the feeling of how to hold water in your telekinesis?” Cadence nodded, glad that she had an easy frame of reference. “It’s nothing like that at all.”
“Oh.” Cadence’s face fell.
“Instead, you should think about using your magic for gathering things” Twilight looked around and frowned. “That’s the problem with nobility… and us, too many nice things and too few objects to use for potentially destructive demonstrations.”
She concentrated and conjured a dozen blocks and touched her horn to each one. A glow remained around each one, and they hung suspended in the air, floating towards the walls.
“Now draw them all together at the center of the car,” Twilight said.
With a shrug, Cadence pictured herself at the center of the room and pulling them all to herself. She insisted to her magic that she really was there and held that thought as she sent energy through her horn. The blocks floated back together and clacked against each other in a loose ball.
“Perfect!” Twilight said. “Though, I didn’t expect anything less from you. Keep how you did that in mind for the next part. I’ll be back with a cloud.”
“Hurry back.”
Twilight smiled. “I will.”
A rush went through Cadence at the reaction and another followed when Twilight looked back at her before leaving the car. Cadence shook her head to clear it. She knew what she was doing — trying her best to let Twilight know she was loved. She knew why she was doing it — she lived to spread love. She did not know one crucial fact — if she was ready to be loved or to love again.
A gaping hole in her knowledge of love yawned before her. She had never encountered a situation quite like hers before. The widowing of young ponies happened rarely, and elderly stallions and mares had never come to her in their search for love. She had no experience in this area of her field. She wondered if she should start thinking about her specific case or the situation as a whole. Cadence wanted to figure it out for herself, but she needed to know the different ways to approach it and had no idea how to do so. It felt as if something was going to pounce on her, and her skin crawled. Feeling a panic attack coming on, she counted to three and extended a foreleg.
Twilight walked in with a tuft of cloud tucked under each wing, took one look at Cadence, and rushed to her side, leaving the clouds floating unattended. “Cadence, are you okay?”
“I… No.”
The more she thought about what she needed to say, the worse and more self-centered it sounded. When she had taken so long to respond that Twilight had sat back on her haunches, Cadence made herself continue.
“You’ve been in situations where your knowledge of friendship isn’t complete, haven’t you?” she asked, and Twilight nodded. “Well, you see,” Cadence said, tapping her forehooves together, “I was thinking about this whole… situation, and I realized something awful — I don’t know how to help ponies going through loss find love or if I even should or if there are special considerations I need to make or—”
“Cadence,” Twilight said, placing a forehoof on her shoulder and taking a few seconds to coax Cadence’s wings back to her sides. “Are you more worried about yourself or the situation right now?”
“The situation.” How Twilight could interpret that occurred to her, sending slimy tendrils of worry through her gut, and she reflexively amended herself. “Myself? I don’t know. It’s so confusing. I’m lost.” She rested her head between her forehooves.
Slipping a whisper of magic under Cadence’s chin, Twilight applied a gentle pressure to bring their gaze together. “Since you can’t change the former now, let’s focus on the latter, okay? Maybe you can find something in it you can generalize. And in the meantime, I’ll listen and think of a way to help.”
Cadence nodded and took a breath. “When Shining d—” She swallowed hard and tried again. “When I lost him, it hurt, and it hurt a lot.” She put her right forehoof over her chest. “But it wasn’t all from here. When the bond between us snapped… it was like getting cut.”
“I know what you mean. When Rarity’s mind broke down, it was gradual, but with Fluttershy and now Shining—” she inhaled, clicking her tongue “—gone like that. It’s disorienting in a way, and especially for us, because our destinies are so tied to being with others.”
“Exactly. I wondered if anypony else would understand, but of course you do,” Cadence said. She turned away and sighed. “Before he passed, Shining made me promise that I would find happiness. And for me…”
“Happiness is finding love.” Twilight pictured Cadence as an anion longing desperately to bond to its cation but lost. Her heart went out to Cadence, and she planned to do whatever it took to help her find her cation — even if that meant not getting a minute’s sleep.
At Twilight’s remark, Cadence felt a shift in the composition of the love between them; filaments of deeper passion stretched between them. She filled with warmth better than that from lying before a roaring fire and after a particularly cold day. Through it, she found it difficult to care that her guess about Twilight had been wrong. As if buoyed by an updraft, she felt lighter.
After waiting awhile for Cadence to respond, Twilight tipped her head. “So…?”
“Hm? Oh. I got lost in my thoughts. I think I need more time to work through this, okay? Can we do other things?” she asked, looking to the cloud that once been two distinct clouds.
“Of course we can. Take all the time you need.” She stood and went to retrieve the cloud. “Remember the way you did that unicorn magic? Well, now you need to do that but with your wings and your pegasus magic.”
“Am I allowed to touch it?” Cadence asked. “That’s how weather ponies do it, right?”
“Of course you are,” Twilight said haltingly, giving her an odd look.
In a flowing motion, Cadence rose from the bed and unfurled her wings. She stepped down and crossed to Twilight, who moved aside slightly to give her room. Picturing a miniature version of herself at the center of the barrel-sized cloud. With a twitch of her primary feathers, she sent a hint of magic through her wings and tapped the cloud with a forehoof.
Three drops fell from the cloud and into a shallow bowl of Twilight’s magic, a bowl that could contain a enough water for a pot of soup.
Twilight opened her mouth to say something but closed it soon after. A range of confused and conflicted expressions ran over her face before she settled on a carefully neutral one. “Well,” she said, “it looks like this will take a few hours.”
Once Cadence’s brain had finished processing that, she staggered, and Twilight caught her in a magical grip. Cadence barely heard Twilight’s yelp — the memory of Shining saying exactly the same thing to her when he had taught her shield spells haunted her. She didn’t know how long passed before she noticed Twilight’s embrace. Cadence knew Twilight intended the magic to do more than physically support her; it was warm on her coat, a magical equivalent of a hug.
Twilight’s lips were parted, and she had extended a forehoof halfway to Cadence before hesitating, ears tilted forward.
“Sorry, that reminded me of something. Let’s just keep working on this. Please?” Cadence asked.
“Of course. I’m happy to teach if you want to learn,” she said and gathered the cloud into her hooves. “Maybe we should work a little more hooves-on than usual.”
She hummed to herself, thinking about how much Cadence needed to improve. It impressed her how poor Cadence’s abilities were; it spoke to how well the Crystal Empire managed to do without affecting the weather. It also gave her an opportunity to spend hours teaching a friend, and she expected that to be a pleasant distraction for them both — provided Cadence didn’t have any further flashbacks.
Squeezing the cloud, Twilight pressed a mist out of it. “Now you try,” she said, passing it to Cadence.
Over the course of a few more attempts, Twilight gathered that Cadence had as much experience as she had possessed in the field of weather work in the months following her ascension. She taught her the common pegasus methods of focusing magic as well as some techniques she had developed for herself, which drew from experience with unicorn magic. Twilight grumbled at how those often went over Cadence’s head, as she knew less than half the types of magic to which Twilight compared producing rain.
It took nearly three hours for Cadence to generate a fair amount of rain. She had been using a visualization technique that used the concept of attractive things to provide direction to the magic. Magnets, the earth, and static saw widespread use, according to Twilight, and Cadence tried them each in turn. Another option occurred to her, though, as Twilight sprawled on the bed, lying on her back and watching her struggle through yet another of her seemingly endless series of failures.
Cadence pictured Twilight as being directly below the cloud then flared her wings, sending out a wave of magic. It curved through the air and passed through the cloud and accreted water to itself on its path toward Cadence’s visualization of Twilight. What precipitated was more a stream of water than droplets of rain. It splashed from Twilight’s bowl and onto Cadence and the floor.
“Whoa!” Twilight said as she rolled over. “You don’t mess around when you figure something out! You’ll have to work on spreading it out, but now that you’ve got the idea, it should be easy.” Her horn glowed as she got up and made her way to Cadence. A second later, her magic opened the door, and a towel hurried in, suspended in her aura.
As she dried Cadence, Twilight said, “It seems like you envisioned the object at a specific point below the cloud. That can be useful if you need to, say, fill a water tower, but typically, you should picture it uniformly distributed across a wide area. That’s why the earth or static are often used; one’s wide, and the other is nebulous. So you’re going to have to picture a magnet that is — instead of horseshoe- or bar-shaped — like a flat sheet,” she said, moving her forehooves horizontally to illustrate her point.
Cadence bit her lip. “Well, um…”
Twilight’s eyes lit up. It appeared that Cadence had pictured something else entirely, and that meant a learning moment now and potential teaching moments down the road. “If not a magnet, then what? Something difficult to mentally flatten, apparently.”
Cadence motioned with her head to a mirror, which Twilight looked at as well.
“A mirror? But those are already flat, and they’re not attractive. Well, I suppose they are insofar as everything with mass is, but I don’t see wh—” She dropped the towel she’d been using to dry Cadence. “Oh.” She turned back to Cadence and pointed a forehoof at herself, tilting her head.
Cadence nodded. Twilight sat quietly for a moment. She knew Cadence too well to mistake that for a joke, and she wondered if Cadence simply needed somepony, anypony, to fill the void left by Shining. She liked the other possibility far more. Her mouth felt dry as she said, “I think it’s a little more important to talk about that than improve your form.”
The lack of change in the love between them confused Cadence. In her experience, an admission of that sort had a large effect on nascent romance. She had misjudged Twilight before, and with this development, Twilight grew more interesting
“I think a nice, long talk would be a good idea, yes. Join me?” she asked as she made her way to the bed in the corner.
They lay on the bed on their bellies with their forehooves hanging off the edge, a hoof’s width separating them. To Cadence, the distance seemed like a chasm, but Twilight needed it to feel safe while navigating risky relationship waters. She also knew that Cadence would rather be in contact and must have restrained herself.
She appreciated the gesture.
To reciprocate, she moved her left forehoof to hold Cadence’s. “What you were so worried about before, was it me?”
“Mostly. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I promised Shining I would be happy. Maybe I could go out and find ponies their true loves, but I did that because of what Shining and I had. Feeling romantic love caused my cutie mark to appear. I lived with it for so long that I forgot what it’s like not having it. I need it, Twilight. I need it more than anything.”
Twilight felt like she was missing something important. To look at the situation from a psychology standpoint tempted Twilight; its cool, impersonal way to evaluate things had provided her with a fallback in other times of crisis. She knew Cadence wouldn’t appreciate it in the way she did, so she tried the opposite approach.
“Are you worried about not being loyal to Shining?”
“I suppose I am. No,” Cadence said, narrowing her eyes, “actually, I’m not. Building a relationship with you would probably be more loyal to him than not, but it seems like it devalues both relationships by jumping between them so fast.”
“So, what, waiting some arbitrary time period prevents that?” she asked, and the feeling of missing something important grew. “If you wait a year, does that fix it? What about if you only wait a year less a day? What about one day less than that? Or one less than that? Maybe I should even be asking about waiting a century and taking years off that. I mean, after all, what’s a year to us?”
The question rang in Twilight’s ears. A mental connection snapped into place. Neither of them had to worry about watching the other waste away, an opportunity she hadn’t thought to consider before. It had only required Shining’s death to become possible.
Cadence cut her response short as Twilight’s ears shot up, twitching, before they flopped back down. Cadence nuzzled under Twilight’s chin and asked, “Are you okay?”
She didn’t answer but swallowed and tried to get her mind back on track. “Can you honestly say that you would love me if the situation had been better? Do you think the good times and the laughter we’ve shared would bring us together otherwise?” Twilight knew talking herself into something when she did it.
“Yes to both, Twilight. You’re an amazing mare. A bit high-strung at times, but amazing nonetheless.”
Cadence couldn’t miss the wash of love between them as Twilight nuzzled her back. She sighed and leaned to the right until her wing and Twilight’s touched.
“From small acts like sharing your favorite scones to big ones like getting me so much assistance for Ponyville,” Twilight said, nodding towards the cars with the workers in them, “you’ve been so generous to me while I’ve been here. And you’ve shown me so much kindness, too, with all that you did after I returned. Is that devalued by… what’s happened recently?”
“No, no, of course not.” Cadence moved her head so the back of her neck crossed over the front of Twilight’s, and she rested her cheek against Twilight’s. The shallowness of Twilight’s breath contrasted her racing pulse.
“And,” Twilight whispered, “you don’t think this could ruin the magic of our friendship?”
“It could only strengthen it, Twilight.” Cadence’s worries had evaporated from the warmth flowing through her.
Twilight drew her head back, and Cadence moved hers aside, turning to look back. Twilight met her with a kiss. Cadence melted into it, her eyes closing and her head tilting to the side as her lips parted. Twilight interwove her primary feathers with Cadence’s and took Cadence’s lower lip between her own, sending tingles down her chest. The kiss lasted fully two minutes before they pulled back and disentangled their wings.
“You know,” Twilight said, looking into Cadence’s eyes, “I always thought friends made for the best lovers — though I’m admittedly a little biased in that respect.” She giggled. “And now look at us, Friendship and Love… together?”
“As an expert on the subject, I believe I’m qualified to say… yes. But you can’t dangle something like that in front of me — what did you mean by friends making the best lovers?”
“Oh. Well, that is…” Twilight blushed. “Rainbow was quite attractive back in the day. So a few times with her. Pinkie was insatiable.” She hissed in a breath, remembering. “I had to get out of that after a month. I couldn’t keep up, and that was after I ascended.”
“Whoa. You’re kidding, right?”
Twilight shook her head and mouthed a drawn-out “No.”
“Wow. That mare… Still,” she said, “I feel like there’s an ‘and’ waiting.”
Twilight stared at her hooves. “Ardent Overwatch. I watched him rise to Major, and he caught my, well, my ear more than my eye. He took a multifaceted approach to his field, and he was so passionate about everything he did. I figured that, since I was the Princess of Friendship, I should be able to befriend my guards. He was amazing in so many ways.”
She stopped talking, and Cadence put a hoof on her withers while she waited for Twilight to continue.
“I found myself wondering what color our foals would be, and I couldn’t… All this,” she said, gesturing vaguely with a hoof. “I couldn’t. You’re the braver mare, Cadence.”
“Nonsense,” Cadence said as she pulled Twilight into a hug with her wing. “I’m truly sorry for that. You loved him.” It wasn’t a question. “How long ago?”
Twilight sighed. “Thirty-three and a half years in… four weeks.” She shuffled around to roll to her side and wrapped her forelegs around Cadence. “I can get behind this, though.”
“I’m glad,” Cadence said, smiling. “Is there anything you’d like me to do for you?”
“Mmm, no, not really. I would like to finish telling you the story about Pinkie and the laughing gas. Where did I stop, again?”
“It turned mostly to mumbling after the drag race.”
Twilight tossed back her head and laughed. “Oh, you’re going to love what happened next.”
Surrounded by a weather team and a few guards, Cadence and Twilight soared over a cloud bank outside the edge of town. They rode the thermals over the farm that had belonged to Carrot Top, preparing themselves to release the water to the thirsty soil below. Earlier in the day, they had paid a visit to Rainbow Dash, who had given further pointers to Cadence — along with boasting that she could do weather work better than either of them.
Twilight, sporting a new, streamlined mane cut, directed the operation; the normal weather team hierarchy gained a new top position with a princess around, particularly when that princess valued precision.
She called out directions that the others followed exactly until the cloud conformed to the shape of the farm below them. Cadence hovered over a section of cloud above a pond, as Twilight had told her to do. Moving the massive cloud had taken both a gentle touch to avoid ripping it and raw power to move the many pools’ worth of water. Stopping it had been an equally delicate procedure, one that they had begun at the halfway point of the trip and only finished at their destination.
In a way, it reminded her of using the heart — both were huge, primal forces over which she had mastery. Given where Twilight had been forced to position her, she accepted that her level of expertise for this didn’t match her other abilities. She already wanted to improve it, not just because she had made a helpful impact in a pony’s life but also because of how Twilight had talked about it.
The storm began under Twilight’s watch. In a pattern designed to minimize runoff, the pony and her wingmate in the first of ten sections sent a pulse of magic down through the cloud. Seconds later, the sound of rain reached first that team then Cadence. They used that interval to gauge how long to wait between pulses. After the ponies in the first section had sent out a dozen pulses, the ponies in the second area followed the same procedure, while those in the first section pulled back their output to a drizzle. By the third pair, Cadence decided it was not unlike a musical round.
She fell in love with the idea. With her turn approaching, she mentally prepared, not wanting the song of the rain to be ruined. She imagined that Twilight was not beside her but at some unknown point below her. If her magic wanted to reach Twilight, it would have to spread out.
She counted down until she needed to begin, and when the time came, she flicked her wings up and sent a wave of magic skyward. She fell a short span toward the cloud’s surface, and as she fell, the magic curved out and down — almost umbrella-shaped, Cadence thought. She touched down on the cloud at the same time as her magic, but she sprang back up to repeat the process. Twilight, smiling beside her, put only minor effort into her portion of the work. One of the monitors signaled her that Cadence’s efforts were producing torrential downpours.
After the second time through the sequence, the monitors took on a second role: producing lightning. Each time they dove through the cloud, they accumulated a charge and directed it to the ground with an ear-flattening crash. When they resurfaced, a mixture of smoke and steam rose from them, and they grinned with feral delight that permeated the whole group.
Time became something measured in beats on the drum of the cloud, in strikes of lightning, in cycles of light and hard rain. The cloud’s density also measured time, and when it fell too low, time ran out. It had given all the rain they had designed it to produce.
As the others divided up the spent cloud and brought the pieces away to other projects, Cadence turned to Twilight. Though the work had not been physically demanding, their breath came rapidly. Cadence looked around for more clouds and, finding none, asked, “May we do that again soon? Please?”
“Pegasi usually store excess clouds over Froggy Bottom Bog, and I’m sure nopony will mind if that gets a little more wet.” She grinned wide. “Let’s do it.”
They took off like a couple of arrows and left bursts of light in their wake. At the speed they traveled, the trip took only minutes. They angled to the largest cloud in the area, one that could support a few cloud homes.
Floating above its surface, Cadence waited for Twilight’s signal and, at her nod, began the rhythm again. At the apex of Cadence’s leap, Twilight impacted the cloud, creating a one-two beat not unlike a heart’s. Their magic suffused the air as they continued, building up a charge that begged for release.
Twilight gained altitude and rolled over backwards in the air to point herself at the ground. Throwing herself into a spin and closing her eyes, she tucked in her wings and pierced the cloud, which parted easily around her. Her inner ear let her feel her altitude, and as she neared the ground, her eyes and wings snapped open, pulling lightning from the cloud and arching it off her feathers.
She gained altitude through the rain and punched back through the cloud to settle back into the rhythm. Cadence couldn’t take her eyes off her as steam rose from her coat and wings, couldn’t help but stare at the elated smile on Twilight’s face.
Under their hooves, the cloud grew whiter, fluffier, and more charged as they worked it over. They both felt that it wouldn’t reach the perfect level of saturation it had for Twilight, so they pushed it to the limits of what it could sustain before Cadence slammed through it and fragmented the cloud. Spreading her wings to arrest her fall, she used them to provide a path for the lightning to jump between clouds.
A flap brought her up to the section on which Twilight stood. She stood there, steaming slightly and trembling, for a moment as her jaw hung open. “That was amazing. Just like you are,” she said, brushing a primary under Twilight’s chin.
Twilight giggled at the touch before extending her opposite wing and lacing her feathers between Cadence’s. Their wings subconsciously made slightly different adjustments to the eddies in the air between them.
Cadence shook. “I feel giddy!”
“Oh, oh yes, it’s like a runner’s high but even better,” Twilight said, nodding.
Lifting her forehooves and draping them over Twilight’s neck, Cadence said, “Twilight, I’m going to take a risk and ask if I may proposition you.”
“About wh—?”
The kiss silenced her, and Cadence fell to the side, dragging Twilight with her. She pulled back and waited.
Twilight stood over her and blinked twice. “Um… yes. Definitely yes.” She bent to give Cadence another kiss, this one deeper and longer. Cadence’s lips parted, and Twilight took the invitation, slipping her tongue between them.
Cadence drew her wing back from Twilight’s and ran her largest primary up and down Twilight’s side, slightly lower each time. As she did, Twilight’s breath came shorter and faster, and when she stretched to trace down the curve of Twilight’s haunch to her inner thigh, Twilight broke from the kiss with a gasp. Cadence reached down with her other wing and brushed both of Twilight’s inner thighs.
Closing her eyes, Twilight squirmed and felt her pussy lips sliding over one another. She realized she had grown incredibly wet at the light touches deliberately avoiding her vulva. She found where Cadence’s neck met her chest and nibbled her way across it, the short hair tickling her. Cadence twisted her head from side to side, and Twilight felt muscles and tendons shift under her ministrations. She let them lead her lips up Cadence’s neck and to her jaw, where she nuzzled under her chin. Cadence saw Twilight’s horn bobbing at the tip of her snout as too tempting a target to resist, so she laid her tongue on it and began to lick.
Twilight squeaked at the touch. A mewling sound escaped her, arousing her all the more. Cadence worked her way down Twilight’s horn, wrapping her tongue halfway around it, and drew a series of whimpers from her. With the hard shaft moist, Cadence pressed her lips up against it and rubbed up and down a few of the spirals. The tingling from her lips built and built until she couldn’t stop herself from shivering in anticipation. To tease Twilight, Cadence tickled a feather over her swollen lower lips.
Twilight moaned at the touch and sank to her front knees, bringing their chests into contact and leaving her mouth beside one of Cadence’s ears. “Please, I need more. Pleee—” Her plea cut off in a squeal when Cadence granted it by bringing up a forehoof to grind lightly against Twilight’s pubic mound.
The cry made Cadence’s ear twitch towards it — it sounded high and loud and, above all, beautifully feminine. Cadence had only heard sounds like that come from her own mouth before; to make somepony else do that excited her with its newness. She did it again. Twilight screamed over and over until she bit down on Cadence’s mane to stifle herself. Cadence pouted and stopped grinding.
Breathing heavily, Twilight unclenched her jaw and said, “Y-you’ve got to let me do you, too. This isn’t fair!”
Cadence laughed and lowered her hoof. “Don’t let me stop you.”
After kissing Cadence on the cheek, Twilight pushed herself up and turned to face Cadence’s slit. Lips parted slightly, it glistened with moisture that she knew she wanted to taste. She lay down on Cadence’s belly and slid back, rubbing her nipples through soft fur, until Cadence’s tongue pressed into her. She, in turn, licked down Cadence’s slit and spread her apart.
Twilight licked at the inner lips, tracing them with her tongue. The heady aroma intoxicated her, pulling her to delve deeper, which she readily did, wiggling her tongue farther into Cadence’s vagina. Waves of pleasure from her hindquarters drove her to ever greater depths.
Cadence made sure to brush her chin against Twilight’s clit with every lick, starting at the top and working her way down. She stopped briefly at the bottom to stimulate Twilight’s perineum by rubbing her teeth over it. Cadence’s forehoof dug into the cloud as Twilight used her magic to spread her wider apart, and she moaned. The tingling field covering her loins left her writhing and her eyes rolling back.
Her turn to squeal came when Twilight began to suck her clit, flicking it with her tongue as she did. Cadence’s wings flicked open and closed as her self-control vanished under waves of ecstasy. She reached up and put her forehooves on Twilight’s cutie mark then pulled down. Shivers, a sure sign that Cadence was close, coursed through her as she nuzzled Twilight’s slit with her soft nose.
Cadence’s breath caught in her throat as Twilight rolled her clit between her lips. Her insides clenched and relaxed as her moans turned to giggles. Her grip on Twilight loosened as the orgasm swept through her, leaving her head lolling to the side and her chest heaving. All her tension flowed out of her, as did a trickle of vaginal fluid that Twilight lapped up.
Twilight rose and turned, grinning down at Cadence and licking her lips. “You taste so good, Cadence.” She drank in the sight of her spent lover. “And you’re so beautiful, too.”
“You didn’t finish,” Cadence said, touching one of Twilight’s forelegs.
“That’s okay. I knew how much you needed this. I’m just glad I got to be here for you.”
“No,” Cadence said, propping herself up, “I need to see you climax. I need to hear you scream my name. Now… lie back and let me work my magic.”
Twilight did as she was told and reclined on the fluffy cloud as Cadence rose, a blue glow surrounding her horn. A matching one enveloped Twilight’s clitoris, swathing in it an sea of heat and coolness, tingles and numbness. Twilight threw back her head and moaned, overwhelmed instantly. In Cadence’s mind, a phallic shape grew, and Twilight’s clit began growing, widening, lengthening to fill her fantasy. All Twilight knew through the fog of pleasure coming from her crotch was how much she wanted it to continue and how much she needed more. She threw her own magic behind the spell.
Cadence gasped at the excess magic — it more than doubled the growth of Twilight’s cock, and before she managed to end the spell, it reached all the way up Twilight’s barrel to her chest. When Cadence cut the spell, the energy Twilight had given it fed back into her body, leaving her a trembling, shuddering mess of pent-up need.
She looked to see why Cadence had stopped, but a thick, dark purple penis blocked part of her view. Her mouth hung open, and her pupils dilated.
She hesitantly brought up a forehoof to brush it then groaned at how sensitive the new flesh was. “I-I think I like this spell.”
Cadence kissed Twilight’s moist slit and gathered the fluid onto her tongue. Licking up Twilight’s shaft, she lubricated the entire length with her saliva and Twilight’s juices. It required several trips, each leaving Twilight arching her back and squirming. On the final one, Cadence licked up to the tip before looking up and pulling Twilight’s lips to hers for a kiss. She tasted herself, and she liked it.
She realized, as Cadence pulled away, that by stretching just a little more, she could reach the head of her penis with her mouth. Tentatively, she leaned more, licking her lips.
“You know you want to,” Cadence said.
Twilight opened her mouth wide and sank onto the glans of her penis, and she let out a muffled groan. Cadence wrapped her lips sideways around Twilight’s shaft and slid up and down it while grinding a forehoof against Twilight’s slit.
Rocking her hips, Twilight forced more of her cock into her mouth. Her nostrils flared as Cadence lay heavily on her, and she continued thrusting, now with soft fur to provide more friction. Twilight’s pulse thundered against Cadence’s belly, and knew Twilight must be close.
“Come for me, Twilight,” she said, drawing her gaze. Cadence caressed Twilight’s cheek. “Come for me.”
Twilight’s eyes and wings fluttered as she finished, thick, sticky juices spilling into her mouth and down her chin. She pulled off of it, gasping, and stared at Cadence, who kissed her. They shared Twilight’s bitter yet sweet load and took turns licking off the rest that oozed from Twilight’s cock.
With a sigh, Twilight sprawled on the cloud, stretching out all her limbs as far as they could go. Cadence rolled off her barrel onto a wing, and she nuzzled Twilight’s neck.
Trying to get her breath back, Twilight asked, “Is thank you the right thing to say after something like that? Because… wow…”
Cadence smiled. “I don’t see why not. After all,” she said, “I’ve always thought that love is the greatest gift. So thank you, Twilight Sparkle. I love you.”
Twilight placed a kiss on Cadence’s nose. “I love you too, Cadence.”
“We should probably get cleaned up and head back,” Cadence said with a frown.
Twilight hugged Cadence to herself and shook her head. “If there’s anything I’ve learned over the years, it’s that spending times with friends is valuable. I’m not going to lose this until I absolutely have to. That can wait. Now… now is for us.”
They lay on the bed on their bellies with their forehooves hanging off the edge, a hoof’s width separating them. To Cadence, the distance seemed like a chasm, but Twilight needed it to feel safe while navigating risky relationship waters. She also knew that Cadence would rather be in contact and must have restrained herself.
She appreciated the gesture.
To reciprocate, she moved her left forehoof to hold Cadence’s. “What you were so worried about before, was it me?”
“Mostly. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I promised Shining I would be happy. Maybe I could go out and find ponies their true loves, but I did that because of what Shining and I had. Feeling romantic love caused my cutie mark to appear. I lived with it for so long that I forgot what it’s like not having it. I need it, Twilight. I need it more than anything.”
Twilight felt like she was missing something important. To look at the situation from a psychology standpoint tempted Twilight; its cool, impersonal way to evaluate things had provided her with a fallback in other times of crisis. She knew Cadence wouldn’t appreciate it in the way she did, so she tried the opposite approach.
“Are you worried about not being loyal to Shining?”
“I suppose I am. No,” Cadence said, narrowing her eyes, “actually, I’m not. Building a relationship with you would probably be more loyal to him than not, but it seems like it devalues both relationships by jumping between them so fast.”
“So, what, waiting some arbitrary time period prevents that?” she asked, and the feeling of missing something important grew. “If you wait a year, does that fix it? What about if you only wait a year less a day? What about one day less than that? Or one less than that? Maybe I should even be asking about waiting a century and taking years off that. I mean, after all, what’s a year to us?”
The question rang in Twilight’s ears. A mental connection snapped into place. Neither of them had to worry about watching the other waste away, an opportunity she hadn’t thought to consider before. It had only required Shining’s death to become possible.
Cadence cut her response short as Twilight’s ears shot up, twitching, before they flopped back down. Cadence nuzzled under Twilight’s chin and asked, “Are you okay?”
She didn’t answer but swallowed and tried to get her mind back on track. “Can you honestly say that you would love me if the situation had been better? Do you think the good times and the laughter we’ve shared would bring us together otherwise?” Twilight knew talking herself into something when she did it.
“Yes to both, Twilight. You’re an amazing mare. A bit high-strung at times, but amazing nonetheless.”
Cadence couldn’t miss the wash of love between them as Twilight nuzzled her back. She sighed and leaned to the right until her wing and Twilight’s touched.
“From small acts like sharing your favorite scones to big ones like getting me so much assistance for Ponyville,” Twilight said, nodding towards the cars with the workers in them, “you’ve been so generous to me while I’ve been here. And you’ve shown me so much kindness, too, with all that you did after I returned. Is that devalued by… what’s happened recently?”
“No, no, of course not.” Cadence moved her head so the back of her neck crossed over the front of Twilight’s, and she rested her cheek against Twilight’s. The shallowness of Twilight’s breath contrasted her racing pulse.
“And,” Twilight whispered, “you don’t think this could ruin the magic of our friendship?”
“It could only strengthen it, Twilight.” Cadence’s worries had evaporated from the warmth flowing through her.
Twilight drew her head back, and Cadence moved hers aside, turning to look back. Twilight met her with a kiss. Cadence melted into it, her eyes closing and her head tilting to the side as her lips parted. Twilight interwove her primary feathers with Cadence’s and took Cadence’s lower lip between her own, sending tingles down her chest. The kiss lasted fully two minutes before they pulled back and disentangled their wings.
“You know,” Twilight said, looking into Cadence’s eyes, “I always thought friends made for the best lovers — though I’m admittedly a little biased in that respect.” She giggled. “And now look at us, Friendship and Love… together?”
“As an expert on the subject, I believe I’m qualified to say… yes. But you can’t dangle something like that in front of me — what did you mean by friends making the best lovers?”
“Oh. Well, that is…” Twilight blushed. “Rainbow was quite attractive back in the day. So a few times with her. Pinkie was insatiable.” She hissed in a breath, remembering. “I had to get out of that after a month. I couldn’t keep up, and that was after I ascended.”
“Whoa. You’re kidding, right?”
Twilight shook her head and mouthed a drawn-out “No.”
“Wow. That mare… Still,” she said, “I feel like there’s an ‘and’ waiting.”
Twilight stared at her hooves. “Ardent Overwatch. I watched him rise to Major, and he caught my, well, my ear more than my eye. He took a multifaceted approach to his field, and he was so passionate about everything he did. I figured that, since I was the Princess of Friendship, I should be able to befriend my guards. He was amazing in so many ways.”
She stopped talking, and Cadence put a hoof on her withers while she waited for Twilight to continue.
“I found myself wondering what color our foals would be, and I couldn’t… All this,” she said, gesturing vaguely with a hoof. “I couldn’t. You’re the braver mare, Cadence.”
“Nonsense,” Cadence said as she pulled Twilight into a hug with her wing. “I’m truly sorry for that. You loved him.” It wasn’t a question. “How long ago?”
Twilight sighed. “Thirty-three and a half years in… four weeks.” She shuffled around to roll to her side and wrapped her forelegs around Cadence. “I can get behind this, though.”
“I’m glad,” Cadence said, smiling. “Is there anything you’d like me to do for you?”
“Mmm, no, not really. I would like to finish telling you the story about Pinkie and the laughing gas. Where did I stop, again?”
“It turned mostly to mumbling after the drag race.”
Twilight tossed back her head and laughed. “Oh, you’re going to love what happened next.”
Surrounded by a weather team and a few guards, Cadence and Twilight soared over a cloud bank outside the edge of town. They rode the thermals over the farm that had belonged to Carrot Top, preparing themselves to release the water to the thirsty soil below. Earlier in the day, they had paid a visit to Rainbow Dash, who had given further pointers to Cadence — along with boasting that she could do weather work better than either of them.
Twilight, sporting a new, streamlined mane cut, directed the operation; the normal weather team hierarchy gained a new top position with a princess around, particularly when that princess valued precision.
She called out directions that the others followed exactly until the cloud conformed to the shape of the farm below them. Cadence hovered over a section of cloud above a pond, as Twilight had told her to do. Moving the massive cloud had taken both a gentle touch to avoid ripping it and raw power to move the many pools’ worth of water. Stopping it had been an equally delicate procedure, one that they had begun at the halfway point of the trip and only finished at their destination.
In a way, it reminded her of using the heart — both were huge, primal forces over which she had mastery. Given where Twilight had been forced to position her, she accepted that her level of expertise for this didn’t match her other abilities. She already wanted to improve it, not just because she had made a helpful impact in a pony’s life but also because of how Twilight had talked about it.
The storm began under Twilight’s watch. In a pattern designed to minimize runoff, the pony and her wingmate in the first of ten sections sent a pulse of magic down through the cloud. Seconds later, the sound of rain reached first that team then Cadence. They used that interval to gauge how long to wait between pulses. After the ponies in the first section had sent out a dozen pulses, the ponies in the second area followed the same procedure, while those in the first section pulled back their output to a drizzle. By the third pair, Cadence decided it was not unlike a musical round.
She fell in love with the idea. With her turn approaching, she mentally prepared, not wanting the song of the rain to be ruined. She imagined that Twilight was not beside her but at some unknown point below her. If her magic wanted to reach Twilight, it would have to spread out.
She counted down until she needed to begin, and when the time came, she flicked her wings up and sent a wave of magic skyward. She fell a short span toward the cloud’s surface, and as she fell, the magic curved out and down — almost umbrella-shaped, Cadence thought. She touched down on the cloud at the same time as her magic, but she sprang back up to repeat the process. Twilight, smiling beside her, put only minor effort into her portion of the work. One of the monitors signaled her that Cadence’s efforts were producing torrential downpours.
After the second time through the sequence, the monitors took on a second role: producing lightning. Each time they dove through the cloud, they accumulated a charge and directed it to the ground with an ear-flattening crash. When they resurfaced, a mixture of smoke and steam rose from them, and they grinned with feral delight that permeated the whole group.
Time became something measured in beats on the drum of the cloud, in strikes of lightning, in cycles of light and hard rain. The cloud’s density also measured time, and when it fell too low, time ran out. It had given all the rain they had designed it to produce.
As the others divided up the spent cloud and brought the pieces away to other projects, Cadence turned to Twilight. Though the work had not been physically demanding, their breath came rapidly. Cadence looked around for more clouds and, finding none, asked, “May we do that again soon? Please?”
As the others divided up the spent cloud and brought the pieces away to other projects, Cadence turned to Twilight. “That was amazing, energizing, and somehow therapeutic — I loved it!” she said and did a loop.
“I’m not surprised. I’ve enjoyed it for years. It’s a great way to relieve tension, isn’t it?”
Cadence nodded. “I feel light.”
“I’m glad!” She turned and motioned with her head for Cadence to follow. “I’ve got one more thing I’d like to show you, actually.”
“Oh? What is it?”
“That’s a surprise.”
“Did somepony say ‘surprise’?” a voice yelled.
Twilight was just about to shush her inner Pinkie when she realized that she had actually heard the voice come from below her. There was Pinkie, surrounded by a herd of her grandfoals, who all jumped about and splashed through the puddles.
“I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, Pinkie!” Twilight called down.
“Okie dokie lokie! Bye bye, love-birdy ponies!”
“How did she…? Never mind. I know better than that.” She waved to Pinkie then followed Twilight away.
A minute later, they arrived at Twilight’s palace and alighted on the balcony of Twilight’s room. The balcony held only one of them at a time, and Twilight smiled as she entered. Cadence came into the rustic, homey room a moment later. It was a little bit of normalcy in the otherwise opulent castle.
“I forgot how reasonable your room is, Twilight. Not a bit of gold or silver in sight.”
“Actually, there’s some of the latter in the mirror over there. But otherwise, I like it this way. It keeps me grounded at the end of the day. But the surprise is down below, in what I like to call ‘the roots.’” She winked. “’Basement’ is just too boring for what goes on down there,” Twilight said as she led on.
As they went through the wings of the palace and descended, the servants sketched bows and welcomed them back. Once they passed below ground level, the temperature dropped, and Cadence stuck closer to Twilight. She didn’t need the extra warmth — she had grown accustomed to coldness long ago — but it made for a convenient excuse.
They came, at last, to a vault door emblazoned with Twilight’s cutie mark. At its center, a single hole waited for Twilight’s horn to unlock it. She slid it into the keyway and sent out a burst of magic to activate the door. Cadence thought that the lock might not even need to recognize if the magic belonged to Twilight or not; the amount of power Twilight had used precluded almost anypony else from using it.
Spider web-thin lines of violet light raced from the keyway out to the tips of the star, which glowed in turn. Seams appeared on the door, and it irised open soundlessly. Cadence noticed that it was as thick as she was tall.
“A little paranoid, are we?”
“Yes, and rightly so, I think,” Twilight said as they entered.
Crystals, calculations, displays, and runes covered every available surface save for in a circle in the middle of the room. At its center, connected to a multitude of devices by scores of wires, stood a horseshoe-shaped mirror. A single solid sapphire made up its frame, which had other gemstones studded on its surface and a pair of dragon claws somehow embedded inside it. The viewing section coruscated, and though it wasn’t overly bright, it made Cadence’s head hurt to look at it for long.
“T-Twilight… what is that thing?”
“The culmination of decades of study, collection of materials, and crafting. I based the design on the mirror that brought me to the other world, but its design is far too limited. It was a specific solution to a specific problem. I wanted to generalize it, and I have — this portal will allow travel between any two points in any two universes at any time somepony, or somebody, could want. But I’ve found that there’s one thing even I can’t design around or avoid.”
Twilight paused, and Cadence took the hint. “And what might that be?”
“It can only ever link two places. After that, it becomes locked in, never able to provide travel to anywhere else in the multiverse. This thing has sat in here for five years because I could never decide where to make it go. You’re the first other pony who’s ever seen it, too.”
“I’m honored, but… the claws?”
Twilight sighed. “They broke off in a fight, and I rushed in to collect them. Like I told Spike a hundred times, I need them to provide a focus for the magic that’s required to punch through the very essence of space, but did he ever even let me have his clippings? No!” She shook her head and groaned. “Teenagers!”
“Teenagers,” Cadence agreed. “Twilight, that you’d put me on the same level as Spike… I really am honored. I… I don’t know what else to say.” She nuzzled Twilight’s neck.
Twilight returned the gesture. “There’s one more thing I’d like to show you, too.”
“Oh?” Cadence looked up at her, eyebrows raised.
“Watch.”
She sent magic from her horn into a device to their right, and it lit up, row after row of lights blinking on and off. The glow traveled from it down several wires and into similar devices until the room shone with magic. Each of them had a single unlit wire, which ran to the portal.
Twilight walked to what Cadence correctly assumed to be the master control box and pressed a button on it. As she did, the wires connected to the portal blazed to life, and the frame glowed with unearthly light.
Cadence backed up a couple of steps when the claws began to rotate, moving through the emerald as if it were water. The gemstones along the frame lit up two at a time, starting at the top, as the claws spun ever faster. When they became nothing more than a solid blur, the final two at the bottom lit up, and the claws sank through the frame. A high-pitched whine filled the air, and Twilight’s and Cadence’s ears flattened against their heads. Lines of energy tied the gemstones to the claws, which began to glow. Cadence shielded her face with a wing to watch it as the glow grew too intense.
The claws exploded, taking the surface of the mirror with them and leaving behind a cold wind blew against the alicorns. Their inner ears told them the air pressure in the room had shot up.
Lowering her wing, Cadence looked through the portal and looked down upon a familiar square and familiar crystalline homes. She looked to Twilight. “You didn’t…”
Twilight smiled. “I can’t teleport there and back regularly, flying would take too long, there’s no way I’m taking the train — no matter how nice yours is.”
A single leap took Cadence to Twilight, and she tackled her with a hug. “I can barely believe it! Can we…?”
Twilight laughed and straightened Cadence’s mane. “Of course we can! But first,” she said, affecting an air of refinement, “we must do the official scientific tests required.”
She looked around and found a piece of chalk wedged into a crevice between instruments. Picking it up, she asked, “Will somepony give me a countdown?”
Cadence counted down from ten, and Twilight threw the piece of chalk. It sailed through the air and fell out of sight.
“Perfect!” Twilight hugged Cadence around the neck. “Really, that was just a formality. The air made it through just fine, after all. Shall we?”
“Twilight… thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you,” Cadence whispered, nuzzling her. “A gift like this is one of true love, and love… love is the greatest gift.”
