“Nobody thinks that they're evil or bad, they think that they're doing the right thing.”
-Andrew McCarthy
Celestia sat in front of the smoldering remains of a radio, small pools of tears building in the corners of her eyes. It had been a very long time since she had been this upset, and it was hard to calm herself down. Her jaw clenched hard so she wouldn’t scream and rage at the world around her.
“Does this mean we won’t have any more special lessons…?” That little voice was so sad, so full of disappointment and pain. Celestia was keeping her back to little Twilight so she wouldn’t see the ruler of Equestria, her mentor, cry. She couldn’t let Twilight see her cry.
“No, no. I-I promise our lessons will never stop, Twilight.” Celestia nodded and wiped her eyes. “I’ll take care of it, I’ll make sure I can always be there for you.” Confident that she had regained her composure, Celestia turned around and gave a strong smile to her student.
“But Captain Galea-” Celestia put a hoof to her pupil’s muzzle.
“Don’t you worry about Captain Galea, Twilight.” Princess Celestia held back her fire and rage, it was going to come in handy later. “I’ll deal with her. I just need you to stay here and…and study.” Celestia stood up. “Don’t think you can get away with not studying either, I’m going to quiz you on chapter nine when I get back.”
As soon as she was out of the room, Celestia’s hard fought smile fell into a vicious frown that poisoned her whole demeanor. She found the nearest guard, the one assigned to her personal detail whose name she didn’t care to recall at the moment.
“Guard. Fetch me Captain Galea and Princess Cadance as quick as you can move.” Celestia stood as the guard did not move and looked terrified at her raised temper. Celestia slammed her hoof on the tile, strong enough to crack several in a wide radius. “Did you hear me?!”
“I-I-I did, Your Majesty…” The guard answered sheepishly as he backed away from the raging monarch. “C-Captain Galea has requested to not be bothered today…she’s-well she’s on a press tour, and Princess Cadance…sh-she’s busy with personal matters and wishes not to be bothered.”
“You-” Celestia leaned in close to the diminutive guard, close enough that the heat she put off made the small pony start to sweat profusely. “-go and get Galea, tear her away from whatever reporter she is lying to and tell her that Princess Celestia is ordering her to come back to the Palace and wait in her office until I arrive to speak to her.” The guard opened his mouth, but no words came out. “If she refuses, put her in irons and drag her back here. Do I make myself clear, Guard?” It had been a very long time since she had been this angry and driven, and she was not going to let a moment of it go to waste.
“W-we don’t make the chains out of iron anymore, they chafe too-” Celestia flared her horn to life, causing the pony to let out a terrified yelp “Y-y-yes, Your Majesty.” The guard bowed quickly and scurried away from Celestia as fast as his legs would let them. She would let the guards get Captain Galea, she would make sure that Cadance was on her side herself. Not that she didn’t trust Cadance, but Galea was too much of a snake for somepony as young as Cadance to handle alone.
Celestia marched through the halls in a silent rage, her very stature warning anypony who might stop or talk to her to vacate the area. Hopefully they had all heard the radio interview and were keen to stay away from wherever Celestia was going, because she could not be trusted with her actions if anypony said anything to her.
It seemed like a rage-filled instant before Celestia was at her niece's apartment door. At first she raised her hoof to knock, but decided she wasn’t in the mood for that today. Instead, she pushed her way into the room without regard for privacy.
“I said I want-” Cadance froze mid sentence when she saw Celestia in her doorway. She must’ve been quite a sight for even Cadance to be scared. “A-are you okay…?” The pink Princess stood up from a scroll she had been reading and approached the much older monarch tentatively. “Is everything alright? W-what’s happened?”
“Did you listen to Galea’s interview on the radio?” Celestia tried to say the Captain’s name without burning down the palace, luckily she had a pretty good hold on her temper.
“No,” Cadance admitted as she tugged on Celestia’s hoof with her magic, too afraid of the heat to actually touch the Princess of the Sun. “Come in, please, calm down and talk to me.” Celestia relented from her place and trotted into Cadance’s quarters, which was just as pink as the alicorn herself.
“She threatened me,” Celestia growled out as she was pulled through the royal apartment. “Galea threatened me, she threatened Twilight.” Cadance’s jaw tightened, Celestia saw it from behind, but she kept silent for now. “She said that she was going to take Twilight away from me, that-that she is some sort of privilege I have to earn.” Now the tears were flowing in full force in front of Cadance.
“She had no right to say that.” Cadance spoke softly and quietly, to try and calm Celestia down. “C’mon, Tia.” Cadance pushed open the door to her bathroom and led Celestia into the spacious shower. It had been something that Celestia had taught her younger counterpart to do when the monarch’s temperature had flared, quite literally cool her off. As soon as Celestia sat down, Cadance turned the shower to as cold as it could go and let the water start to fall.
Steam rose up from Celestia’s coat as the chilled liquid made contact with the inferno that was her temper. It was a bad side effect of her power, heat. Usually she could control it to acceptable levels, but sometimes her temper just got the best of her and she needed to be cooled down physically.
“Now…” Cadance started out slow. “…please slow down and tell me what happened.” She could tell that Cadance was not comfortable with playing the caretaker to the senior alicorn, but she would have to get used to it for at least one day.
“Galea had an interview on the radio…” Celestia started out slow, the cool water slowing her heart and starting to calm her down. “She was pressed on how she would make sure we would be committed to the job, and….” Celestia sighed, trying not to get angry again. “She said she would enact the Articles of Power to have herself and you take away my ability to have a personal student.” Celestia shook her head, the shame of her anger finally catching up to her. “I just got so mad, and…and upset. I can’t lose another one, Cadance. Not this soon.” The thought of her failures as a teacher, her failure to save Sunset Shimmer, those feelings were all still raw and exposed.
“I would never ever allow that to happen, Aunt Tia.” Cadance reassured her to the best of her ability. “I would fight Galea over that, I know how happy Twilight makes you. I couldn’t ever see her taken away from you.” That made Celestia feel a lot better about the whole ordeal, Galea would need both of them to get something like that to pass.
“I don’t think she’ll stop.” Celestia knew Galea’s type, the architects of change who saw themselves as unstoppable, who would do anything to see their plans brought to fruition. “There’s only so much I can do, Cadance. I can’t throw her in a dungeon, I can’t fire her, I can’t punish her. Times have changed, I can’t just be a tyrant anymore and get away with it.” Celestia had to say something very uncommon on her life. “I...I don’t know what to do.” All of her experience, all of her years, they still had never prepared her for the difficulties of emotional distress. Loss and uncertainty always left her vulnerable, especially when Luna wasn’t around. Luna was supposed to be the pragmatic realist. Celestia was, ironically, supposed to be the dreamer and the one who saw the brighter side of things.
Celestia was not good at dealing with cold hard reality.
“Can we fight it somehow?” Cadance asked, sitting on the other side of the shower curtain. “Can we...can we somehow reject the diarchy if she’s so dead set on this?” Celestia sighed, she knew it wasn’t that easy.
“Not unless we can think of something better to replace the House of Nobles.” Celestia had been part of the talks to impliment the House centuries ago, and they had gone over every possibility and nothing worked except for the upper class taking some of the responsibility, well sort of… “The House…”
“What about it?” Cadance parted the curtains to look in. No more steam was coming off of Celestia’s body, so Cadance turned off the shower. “It’s the whole reason we’re in this mess, they were all corrupt.”
“We know about it now, right? We can monitor that sort if thing the way Galea had been for the last few years.” The wheels in Celestia’s head were spinning at full speed at this point. She was putting together pieces she never even knew could connect. “What’s that new form of government the Sea Ponies were working on…?” She couldn’t remember the name of it, but it was something new and exciting. Equestrians liked new and exciting.
“Democracy? The whole voting thing?” Celestia nodded. “Some of the towns near the coasts have adopted it for selecting town leaders as well, why?” Well, technically voting for leaders wasn’t a new thing, but allowing anypony to run regardless of qualifications or social status? That was a new idea. The common pony getting represented from their peers was not something that the Nobles would allow for a long time, but that was all different now.
“We could do that,” Celestia posited. “Have the major cities elect ponies to send to Canterlot and have them take over the responsibilities of the House of Nobles.” Celestia was no master of statecraft, but she had been around long enough to read the mindset of her ponies. The hostility of the headlines, the combativeness of the public and reporters towards the corruption, it was a sign. “Ponies will trust the common folk more than they’ll trust nobles now, if they’re electing ponies they know and trust, I think they’ll go for it.”
“I’ll talk it over with some of the more reasonable nobles that are left, I’ll see what they think. I’ll deal with that while you deal with Galea, alright?” Celestia nodded, it was a good idea. A House that served as representatives to the general populace, one that they could control and elect ponies to. The problem would be convincing the Nobles to step out of the way and let it happen. They might not have a quorum to stop it, but they could give all the bad press in the world if they didn’t like the idea. Cadance got up and started to trot out, but Celestia grabbed her hoof.
“Cadance…” There had been something eating Celestia’s conscience, something she just couldn’t shake. She had been apathetic for so long, she had let things happen and deemed them okay. Celestia had, truthfully, been coasting along at the top so long that she forgot what real choices were like. Just earlier this morning she didn’t know how to phrase it, but this endangerment of what she loved and truly cared about put it into context. “…about what you asked me, about Vinyl Scratch and Shining Armor. I think that there is no right answer.” It was hard to say, but it was the truth. “If you do nothing and let it play out, Shining Armor might get hurt and lose his job. If you do something…then you might regret it and they might get hurt anyways.” Celestia sighed. “A lot of other ponies would try to proscribe their morals to your situation, try to tell you that one option is unethical and doing nothing is the right choice, but there’s just no easy way to do it. There’s no right answer that can help everypony involved.” There was nothing simple about this, and Cadance needed to know it. “I was wrong about ‘the ends justify the means’ thing I said yesterday, but I was right about one thing.” Celestia looked her niece dead in the eye. “You need to make sure you can live with yourself after you make the decision.”
----
Vinyl and Twinkle trotted through the halls of the Palace, an odd heat pervading the entirety of the structure. Vinyl hadn’t really spotted a single servant or guard since she had entered the castle, except Twinkle. It was very odd.
“I’m really hoping we don’t strike out here,” Shining lamented as they walked through the deserted halls. “I mean, I kinda figured that Uncle B was going to be a rough one, but I was hoping Intrepid would be a bit more reasonable.”
“Yeah, ditto for me.” Vinyl had wanted everything with Intrepid to go smoothly, for the mutilated pegasus to admit that there had been even a hint of something real between them. Vinyl just needed to know that Cadance hadn’t controlled them completely and that there had been some of themselves in that attraction.
“I know Cadance, and I know she’ll be sorry. We already know she wants to patch things up, so this one should be easy. All you need to do is have an open mind.” Twinkle stopped in the middle of the hall. “You know, when I say that out loud I realize how ridiculous it sounds.”
“What?” Vinyl questioned with furrowed brows. “You don’t think I can have an open mind? I became friends with you, right? That has to count for something.” Defending herself and getting a jab in on Twinkle, that was a nice little double-whammy.
“I’m just saying that you’re more liable to get mad and push her away than forgive her, and maybe…well, maybe you should try to give her the benefit of the doubt.” What the hell was that supposed to mean? From Vinyl’s point of view, Cadance was a spoiled rich filly who had never been taught right from wrong. “She’s…well, she’s lived a kind of sheltered life and her perception of what she did is a little more skewed than ours.” Yeah, exactly that problem.
“Are you defending her, Twinkle?” Last time Vinyl had checked, he wasn’t exactly happy with Cadance himself. So why the sudden change of heart? Vinyl sincerely hoped he was just playing Discord’s Advocate and nothing more.
“I’m trying to understand the situation from her perspective, Vinyl.” Twinkle started trotting again and motioned for Vinyl to follow him. “This one isn’t just for you, after you’re done talking to her I have to make my peace. I’m just trying to get into the mindset.”
“If we both fail?” Vinyl had to ask, it was a scenario that was entirely possible. They could both break and yell at the Princess, just go off and ruin everything. It was unlikely for Twinkle, but it was still possible.
“Then this entire day has just been a wash and we’ll call it good.” The guard almost sounded as fed up as she was, which seemed a little unfair. She had been the one to go through all of the blatant bullshit today, not him. He just had to deal with the disappointment. “I won’t make you go through Glory as well, not today.”
“Well, thanks for that.” Vinyl would be grateful for the small things, like not having to bother with tearing both herself and her sister’s hearts to shreds. If the talk with Cadance didn’t get fucked up, then at least that would give her a little more hope to have yanked away when Glory’s time came.
The door to Cadance’s apartment opened before they could even get to it. Out of it came one of the most surreal things that Vinyl had ever seen: Princess Celestia herself, coat still dripping slightly and mane tied up in a fresh towel. The monarch looked surprisingly normal and relaxed, almost as if some great weight had been lifted from her back.
“Shining Armor and Vinyl Scratch, hello!” The same jovial monarch that Vinyl knew and loved came out, despite the too-normal appearance. “I’m sorry you have to see me this way, I’m afraid I’ve had quite a day and needed to calm down with some quality time with family.”
“Let me tell you, Princess-” Vinyl’s eyes maybe wandered a little too fondly across Celestia’s slightly damp body. “-if I were an alicorn and a few hundred years older…” Vinyl ended her sentence in a whistle. “Seriously.” She felt Twinkle smack her, but she ignored it. Even princesses needed to be complimented every once in awhile.
“Well, thank you very much, Vinyl Scratch.” Celestia responded with a smile. “You sure know how to make a mare feel young again.” There was a slight joking tone to the words that the monarch said. Vinyl knew the tone a little too well, it was covering up some bad emotions.
“It’s my pleasure, Princess.” Vinyl gave a little mock salute. “You have a good day, alright?” Vinyl dropped her own happy tone and became kind and serious. She felt like maybe Celestia needed it today.
“I will, thank you.” Celestia moved on, leaving Twinkle and Vinyl standing in front of Cadance’s door, just waiting. Vinyl was left hoping that whatever international incident or diplomatic hoopla was bothering Celestia would be sorted out soon. Depressed was not a good look on the Sun Princess.
“Who’s going first, Twinkle? You or me?” Vinyl didn’t want to dwell on one Princess’ mood, and decided to focus on the other’s. She nudged the guard beside her to pull him out of whatever stupor he was in.
“I-I was hoping that you would go first.” Shining caught whatever words had been failing him and tried to inject sarcasm into the situation. “That way, once you piss her off I can swoop in and calm her down. Y’know, be the knight in shining armor.” Vinyl laughed at that very, very dumb joke.
“How long you been waiting to use that one, Twinkle?” Vinyl asked, jabbing the guard in the metal plate that covered his ribs.
“My whole life, really. The timing’s just never been right.” Shining sighed and shook his head. “But really? I think you should go first, it’ll just be a lot more simple. I know she won’t get as upset with you, and I think I need time to prepare.” Well, how nice of him.
“Always the chivalrous one, Twinkle.” Vinyl pushed him out of the way. “Now go wait around the corner while I do this, alright? No listening in or anything, because I know you will barge in on this one.” Shining threw up his hooves in surrender then went around the corner when all four were firmly back on the floor.
Vinyl took her own deep breath and knocked on the door. This wasn’t going to be the most difficult talk today, but it was going to be the most interesting. It was going to be the one time that Vinyl was on the attack instead of defense, and the one time she had to worry about her approach.
“Aunt Tia, did you-” Cadance’s eyes widened in surprise when instead of Celestia, she saw a disgruntled white unicorn. “Vinyl? W-what are you doing here?” Cadance seemed a little too excited for Vinyl’s comfort, but she would let it slide for now.
“Do you want your truth with a healthy dose of sarcasm or would you prefer it straight?” Vinyl’s protective layer of snark and wit came up in full force. It wasn’t really something she could control, it was her nature at this point.
“It wouldn’t be you if it wasn’t sarcastic, Vinyl.” Cadance replied with a smile that made the unicorn uneasy. She was right, though. Who was Vinyl without sarcasm? One mopey pony with abandonment issues and a receding alcohol problem.
“Well, Twinkle and I are going on an apology tour across Canterlot.” Vinyl started. “First we hit Uncle B and that went terrible, then we went to Intrepid and it turns out he’s skipping town soon, so now here I am talking to you and trying not to yell at you for being so blatantly stupid.” Vinyl shrugged. “That about covers it really.”
“Come inside, sit and we’ll talk.” Cadance held the door to her apartment open and allowed Vinyl to pass. Sadly, Vinyl was not prepared for the visual onslaught that was the alicorn’s personal quarters. It was very very pink, and very very hard on the eyes. Everything from the bedposts to the door hinges were colored some shade of the color. It looked like a foal would imagine a Princess’ bedroom would look like, but worse.
“You…sure do like pink, huh?” Vinyl’s ears twitched when she heard the faint sound of a lock clicking into place. Usually that would set off several alarms, but she justified it with the idea that Cadance was busy and a lot of ponies would like to barge in on her to get her attention for some royal duty.
“Not really, but I haven’t gotten around to ordering it to be redecorated yet.” Cadance trotted by Vinyl to a set of scrolls that sat open on the floor and began gathering them up. “When I was little I loved it, but it takes time to plan a whole redecoration and I haven’t really had the free time.” Vinyl didn’t know if that was true or just a clever excuse. After all, Cadance had plenty of time to hang around Twinkle and do things with him. “What do you want to talk about, Vinyl?”
“Well…” Vinyl trotted over to where the Princess was gathering scrolls and sat on the floor. “…you, me, what you did and how we both feel about it.” Vinyl didn’t really know how to do this one. With Uncle B it had been about a decision she had made and the ensuing argument, with Intrepid it had been as easy as ‘talking about them’. Without getting angry, how was she supposed to get this one done?
“I regret not talking to you both about it before I did anything.” Cadance nodded as her horn flared with brilliant blue light and she lifted her bundle of scrolls into the air. At the same time, a knock came from the door that echoed across the room. “Give me one moment, Vinyl, I have to deal with this.” Vinyl nodded and just looked around the room as the Princess went behind her to answer the door. “Oh, and Vinyl?”
“Hmm?” The unicorn turned around to address Cadance, but before she could react her lips were captured in those of royalty’s. Vinyl’s shock wore off too late, as a sense of calm and peace washed over her in intense waves. Everything unfocused as she felt her lips part and Cadance’s tongue mingle with her own. There was something in the kiss that she could not identify, a taste of distant lovers and better memories.
The kiss broke, but Vinyl was left in her haze of bliss. She couldn’t really think past it all, it was every time her parents hugged her and every tender moment she shared with another pony. It was mom’s fresh baked, and burnt, cookies, and everything she ever wanted. It was impenetrable, and Vinyl didn’t want it to ever go away.
----
Cadance smiled at the dopey look on Vinyl’s face. The half-lidded eyes and genuine smile were a form of peace that Cadance had never seen on the mare. It was a nice change of pace that Cadance thought everypony could get used to.
“Vinyl, how do you feel?” The subject of the spell was supposed to be very easy to talk to, very easy to coax things out of and easily suggestible. Cadance needed to make sure that her spell was working properly.
“Pretty…pretty good,” The white pony responded lazily.
“Good, I’m glad.” Cadance sat in front of the enthralled unicorn and tried to think of what to do. One particular question rested on her mind that needed to be answered first, it was something that had been eating away at her for some time. “Do you hate me, Vinyl?”
“No…no…” Cadance’s thrall shook her head back and forth in slow motion. “Shining, he wouldn’t ever forgive me if I hated you…” Well that was a load off of her mind, but it raised more questions that Cadance needed to be answered.
“You and Shining, are you…are you a couple?” This was a difficult thing to ask, because the most likely answer was going to be the one to wound her the most.
“I don’t…I don’t think so.” Vinyl responded. “We want to be, but there’s a lot holding us back, I think.”
“Like what?” Cadance prodded.
“He still loves you, I know it…” Where there should be pain in the answer, there was still the same dazed bliss. Part of Cadance felt relieved that all of the tough feelings weren’t coming out, it made the whole thing much easier to swallow. “I don’t think he’ll ever stop…and I don’t know if I’m ready…”
“Why wouldn’t you be ready?” Now Cadance was just being nosy. If you had somepony’s entire brain to pick without them fighting you, you wouldn’t pass that up. It was a very rare opportunity.
“I’m…I’m afraid.” Cadance was going to ask a follow up, but Vinyl kept talking. “I don’t want to hurt him. Everypony I’ve been close to, I’ve disappointed and hurt them…” Vinyl’s tone started to shift, so Cadance fired up her horn and put an extra layer of the spell over top of everything else. It wasn’t as strong as the kiss, but it would keep her subdued.
“It’s alright, it’s all okay.” Cadance reached out and traced her hoof along Vinyl’s jawline. “Tell me what would make you happy, Vinyl. Getting together with Shining or just moving on after all of this is done?” She was curious just what Vinyl wanted. Tia’s words still rang in her head, about living with the decision. Maybe if Vinyl’s desires lined up with her own, then it wouldn’t be so bad.
“I don’t know…” Vinyl responded in the same loving tone.
Cadance stood up and sighed. That helped nothing and nopony, especially her. Now that she was actually face to face with Vinyl, within striking distance of her goals, Cadance just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t tell Vinyl to just forgive Glory and leave Shining alone, she couldn’t tell the mare how to live her life. There was a difference between making an attraction and actually forcing somepony to do something. Even getting Shining to forgive her was just a simple love spell, not something that left the very free will of a pony in her hooves.
This was different and terrifying. There was no going back, though. Cadance couldn’t just kill the spell, it would leave Vinyl with memories of the experience. She needed to issue an order, something final and decisive. She couldn’t just tell Vinyl to forget this ever happened, she needed to have Vinyl think their conversation had amounted to something, a conclusion she could reach reasonably. That’s how this spell worked, an order was given and the brain of the enthralled filled in the blanks to make it seem like it was their idea. False memories were created to explain something that should be unexplainable.
“What do you want, Vinyl?” Cadance was out of ideas, now. She didn’t want to do something that would hurt somepony, she didn’t want to be responsible for that anymore. “What do you want the most in your life?”
“I want to be happy…” Vinyl responded, much to Cadance’s chagrin. This was just going to go around in circles if she didn’t think of some way to end this, some way they both would be okay with, or at least in a way the Cadance could live with after she said it.
“Then…” Cadance just had to say it, she just had to tell Vinyl how to live her life. “...be happy. Whatever it is that’s keeping you from doing what you need to be happy, don’t let it. Forget whatever it is that’s holding you back and just do what you need to be happy.” Cadance let out a deep breath that she had been holding. That would be her order, just for Vinyl to make herself happy. Cadance had given Vinyl true free will, free from inhibitions and fear, free from doubt and hesitation.
Cadance had given Vinyl an incredible gift.
----
Shining Armor was not having a very fun time. He hadn’t exactly hoped for a shouting match between Vinyl and Cadance, but he had expected it. Instead there was silence, just a sense of peace coming from the royal apartment. That alone made Shining want to barge in.
He was giving them time, though. If spells weren’t going off and voices weren’t raised, he was going to give them all the time in the world. Both he and Scratch could use a good moment of the day that wasn’t contentious or just plain bad.
The door to Cadance’s quarters opened and Vinyl walked out, shaking her head. Shining had been looking around the corner the whole time, just in case, so when his charge reappeared he quickly intercepted her.
“Vinyl, how’d it go?” Shining couldn’t tell, but something was off. There was a trace of something, very strong magic if he wasn’t mistaken. It unsettled him, he shouldn’t have let Vinyl go in there alone with Cadance.
“It went good.” Vinyl nodded. “Really, I didn’t expect it to go that well. I mean, I still don’t forgive her or anything but I think we’re good now.” Shining was skeptical, but he would let it slide. “We had a good talk, and I think we both kinda needed it.” Vinyl patted Shining on the back. “Your turn, Twinkle.”
Shining really did not want to go through with this. Something was up with Vinyl, something that hadn’t been there before she went to talk with Cadance. He was going to have to question Cadance about this, about whatever she might’ve done to Vinyl.
“Yeah, wish me luck,” the stallion said as he trotted through the open door and into Cadance’s apartment. His former love was laying on her bed in a luxurious pose. “Cadance, it’s nice to see you again.”
“Hi Shiny.” She sat up and smiled. “How are you doing?”
“I’m going to guess Vinyl already told you about our day, so I won’t recap it. Needless to say it’s been very rough today.” Shining nodded as he sat on the floor. He wasn’t going to get closer to her until he knew exactly what she did alone with Vinyl.
“Yes, I didn’t expect for Intrepid to leave Equestria so soon.” Cadance held her ground on her bed, not moving an inch. “He told me he wasn’t staying in the city, but I never really expected him to leave the country again.”
“Can we stop this, Cadance?” Shining was not in the mood for this right now. “The small talk, the nonsense?” Shining stood up. “The last time we talked I told you I thought we had a chance to be something, I told you that I hoped we could work through all of this and be a couple again.” Cadance was paying very close attention to him now, her eyes hopeful and bright. “I still want that someday, but I need you to tell me what you did to Vinyl.”
“W-what?” Cadance got up from her bed. “I-I didn’t do anything to Vinyl, we just talked.” Shining sighed again and rolled his eyes. He couldn’t believe what she was saying.
“Do you expect me to just ignore the amount of magic she’s drenched in?” Shining pointed towards the door. “Did you expect somepony not to notice a spell that strong?” Cadance’s eyes drifted down to her hooves. “Do you think I’m stupid, Cadance?”
“I didn’t-”
“Don’t lie to me, Cadance. I swear, if you insist on lying to me I will go to Captain Galea right now and tell her what you did. I don’t know the punishment for hexes or enchantments on ponies, but I know that not even you’re immune to it.” Shining could feel his heart racing and his blood pressure rising. He had zero patience for this today, and he wasn’t going to give her an inch to take or use to her advantage. “Just tell me what you did.”
“I-” Cadance bit her lip, tears forming in the corners of her violet eyes. “I didn’t go through with it Shining. I-I cast the spell, but I didn’t go through with it!” Like that made it any better? Like that was supposed to make it go away?
“What didn’t you go through with?” He needed to know, if he didn’t then his imagination would run wild with possibilities. None of them good.
“I…I was going to tell her to forgive Glory. I was going to make her…I was going to make her finally move on.” Shining threw his head in the air and started to pace. Why didn’t Cadance learn her lesson last time? Why did she insist on messing with ponies’ heads. “I didn’t though! I-I couldn’t go through with it, I couldn’t do it again.”
“So what did you tell her to do?” Shining didn’t need to know the specifics of the spell, he gathered from context it was some form of mind-control. Cadance administered it then gave orders or commands for her thrall to carry out.
“I just told her to make herself happy, to forget everything holding her back and just do whatever makes her happy.” It was a lot less dangerous than he had thought, but that didn’t change anything. “I-I didn’t make the same mistake twice.”
“YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT A MISTAKE IS!” Shining Armor released all of his rage in one therapeutic scream. “A mistake is-is putting too much cream in your coffee, or accidentally bumping into somepony on the street! A mistake is not…it’s not a mind-control spell, Cadance!” Shining threw his helmet off and ran a hoof through his mane. He was beyond frustrated at the moment, he was mad and pissed off. “What you did to me, to Intrepid, to Vinyl twice now, it’s not a mistake. It was WRONG! You did something wrong, ethically, morally, just wrong!” He was tired of defending ponies that were wrong, he was tired of all of the ponies around him being so immune to their own stupidity that nothing was their fault but the fault of the world around them for misunderstanding them and their intentions.
“Fine, I did something wrong. I-I’m sorry, Shiny. I was just trying to help. Galea said that i-if Vinyl doesn’t forgive Glory then she’ll fail rehabilitation a-and if you two go through with your relationship you’ll be fired.” Shining’s jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. Those conversations did not have reports filed on them, each of them were held in private.
“Am I being spied on?” Cadance nodded. “For-for Celestia’s sake, really?” He couldn’t believe any of this, not a word. Why did today of all the days possible have to be the one where ponies just had to be stupid? Any other would’ve been fine, but not today. “Whatever, I’ll deal with Galea later.” He grumbled. “You.” He pointed his hoof at Cadance. “You have no business interfering with me and Vinyl. No business at all. If anything happens, we’ll deal with it.”
“You were making a mistake, Shining! You were going to lose your job!” Cadance pleaded, but Shining was fed up with her at this point.
“Then let me make them!” Shining advanced on Cadance, each hoof impacting the tile angrily. “If you don’t let ponies do things of their own accord, they’ll never learn! You can’t just take away their free will and expect them to like you when you say you saved them from something they never saw! How-how do you know Vinyl would fail rehab if she never forgives Glory? How do you know? Both Galea and Celestia have a say in it, and I know that Celestia wouldn’t fail her if Vinyl had a good reason for her actions. Did you ever think about that? Did you ever think that Vinyl might just have a change of heart herself and forgive Glory?” Shining threw a hoof up in exasperation. “You don’t know the outcome of anything until it happens, so don’t act like you were saving me from something that might not even happen!”
“Shiny-”
“Shut up, Cadance.” Shining was done, beyond done right now. “Just…stop trying to justify and tell me how to fix Vinyl.” He wanted to know how to disenchant or dispel the charm that Cadance had made. There had to be a way, there was always a way.
“We have to wait it out.” Cadance said ashamedly. “Th-there’s nothing we can do except wait it out.” Okay, so a spell on a timer. That wasn’t so bad, the only problem was it couldn’t be taken away by other magic.
“Okay, how long do we have?” He could wait a day or two before continuing the, as Vinyl put it, apology tour. Glory could wait a few days, maybe in that time he could convince Vinyl to change her mind somehow.
“I don’t know…” Shining Armor closed his eyes and held back yet another sigh. He was so mad that he didn’t even feel mad anymore. He had transcended his rage into a kind of silence. “The books said that the stronger the unicorn, the stronger the spell and the longer it lasts.” That helped absolutely nopony, considering Cadance was an alicorn and therefore one of the strongest ponies in existence. “S-somewhere between a week to ten years. I don’t know.”
“Ten years? Are you serious? Ten years?” Shining Armor was officially lost. In just five minutes his entire life had been turned upside down and the one pony who he wanted to give a chance had thrown it in his face. “What the hell am I going to do?”