Shining Armor was not a stallion to sit by and contemplate the stars. Like most of Equestria, he barely gave them a second glance... or, at least that was the way things used to be. Ever since the First Longest Night, there was a night culture to Equestria that hadn't been there before. Astronomers, astrologers, night-painters, other artists, musers, poets, and more flocked to the quiet night hours that the day's social butterflies lacked. His days as a guard carried reminders of the cultured parties that would spring up. The light from such events seeped from buildings, only to be drowned by the shadows. Still, he wasn't one for stargazing, and he never thought to ask himself why that was. Even as a member of the royal guard, he found better distractions on night shifts than the sky, like daring a buddy to lick a lamppost on a chilly night, or whistling along with park crickets on a warm one.
There were ponies like Twily, who had always relished in the daylight tried to understand the darker times merely by drifting to different lights — the stars — with all the logic of the daytime world. She measured, charted, and squinted at the pinpoints of light that were stars. It was as though she could understand them without imagination or any thoughts beyond charts, rules, and all orderly things.
For the longest time, Shining Armor had never been like that. He didn't wonder about star-crossed things, and he didn't ponder constellations. It hadn't ever been a habit, to stay out late and just look out at the night in silence before. And now? Being a different nation entirely from Equestria, and predating it by thousands of years and more, the Empire's different culture never had an era that shunned the night. This resulted in the Crystalline subjects — even right after they were returned — to have a far more balanced culture than even modern Equestria. Crystal ponies had never lacked an active nightlife and night-culture to complement those of the day.
Somehow, Shining Armor found a little bit of himself swept up in that after all his time here. Could anything else be expected when ruling over ponies so different than those he was raised with? Now they were so familiar to him, and he knew them almost as closely as he did his wife and daughter.
Here he was, standing out on the same balcony he observed his first Crystal Fair from, quietly looking up at an indigo sky studded with stars and the tri-colored ribbons of the Northern Lights, produced from the Crystal Heart itself. Only since the Second Longest Night had the sky really been made a masterpiece truly worthy of being called the heavens. With a dark, lonesome sky like this filled with chill and isolation, maybe that's why the crystal ponies were never afraid. Sure, the coats of a true crystal pony were resistant to most of the Arctic cold in ways that even the hardiness of the pegasi of the south could not compare to. They sat here, with the stretch of space yawning above them — something the slightly earlier nights exaggerated — and they were on top of the world. How could they not revel in this? Only Yakyakistan and the odd snow dragon lived farther north than they!
As a colt helping a young Twily set up more than one Junior Astronomer telescope kit, the stars had always looked so far away from where they twinkled in the sky. Those stars hadn't grown closer to him in the years since — the Crystal Empire just gave that gift.
Lately, he'd been staring at them a lot. They were balls of fire and gas millions of miles away, if his tired mind was correct. That was what Luna and the recent scientific breakthroughs she patronized claimed. No god he knew ruled the stars, and if one did and really could, they were not of this world — his world. Luna, the Reapers, Discord, and all the other gods could not govern the stars or shape them. Every one of those stars and each possible world drifting around it was just as mortal as he was — at least compared to the divine.
Mortal.
No matter how silent the night would seem, thoughts that he previously gave no mind to had a way of roping themselves into Shining Armor's mind and staying there. That was a frequent occurence, and he felt the echoes of it often. To dwell upon mortality was to acknowledge that it was an existence defined by limitations — Luna had told him that once, on one of the many times she told him how alien and unrelatable the marriage 'his kind' had with death was.
He liked to be matter-of-fact about the whole thing, so he'd narrow it down to naught but facts. Nothing but those indisputable things were allowed to trouble him. Things were better that way.
Shining Armor knew death was natural for mortal beings. Shining Armor knew that ponies only lived two-hundred and thirty-some years maximum if they weren't demigods, thus enjoying a solid maximum lifespan. Shining Armor thought about living longer, but his ability to process that stopped eventually. Shining Armor did not want to live forever — his ability to come close to comprehending that was non-existent, except for the vaguest slice of fear built somewhere deep in him. Every time he looked at Luna, and laid eyes upon the Equestrian ruler, he would want to ask what being eternal was like, but never could. He didn't know how she could rejoice in that, and he couldn't begin to comprehend what it would be like to watch worlds wither underhoof as ages passed, remembering everything and every creature without time's perceptions playing with her immortal mind.
When it came to gods, was ten centuries was no more to bear than ten seconds, no matter how many billions of years had passed? Though, he was only assuming that the last one was correct. With Luna, he made many assumptions; she was a private mare and more.
He couldn't ever get that; he didn't ever want that. Such an experience was truly mind-boggling, but there were some occasions, where he would stand near her — never next to her — and try to look into eyes he could never understand. Of course, he only did so for only as long was polite. He never could bear longer than that. Then, Shining Armor would have to use all his will to see as much of her as he could understand, for she kept so much hidden, and he struggled with not asking her how she wasn't the loneliest creature in all the world.
But he never did.
Maybe she could see it in his eyes. Knowing Luna, she probably already knew. She just never said anything. Thankfully, he didn't either.
Sometimes, it was impossible for Shining Armor to be around Luna, no matter how well she got along with Cadance. She was a cold mare, a mare he could never read, and when he looked at her he saw this alien equine and not a mare's body. Luna was quiet. She was more terrifying than beautiful to him, and he knew that she would outlive every star that would ever be, and Luna did too. She never hid it, and somehow that gave Luna Galaxia a power that her sister never had because Celestia never stopped feeling like a pony over an Alicorn.
Luna was the only one who ever made Shining Armor feel like a child after all his years, and she did it without even trying.
Here he was, standing out under the sky and feeling the faint chill of what was, without a doubt, Luna's night. His thoughts were on the stars. No matter how many there would be, it would always be Luna — and those like her — whose being was vaster. Looking at them made him feel young, but thinking about them made him feel old.
Maybe he was used to it, at least in the way time softened most all things.
The soft touch of feathers draped over his back and hugging his withers, pulling him toward the warm lover who he had quietly allowed to sneak up to him was something he was used to as well.
"You're going to be drained in the morning, Shiny," Cadance whispered, nuzzling him softly with her velvety muzzle.
Shining cracked a smile out of instinct. "Yes, dear, I know... I just can't sleep."
Cadance didn't reply immediately, but eventually, Shining heard her whispering gently in his ear again. "A bit for your thoughts?"
Nuzzling Cadance, Shining mulled over what his reply would be and how he would communicate everything in his mind to Cady. He knew she would understand. They often always knew when something was on the other's mind, but it was hard to guess what.
"You... Cady... I won't have much longer — with you." There was no question to it. The old stallion sighed and the night winds ran through his faded beard. "And..." He paused, trying to think of what fits best, what came next in a sequence instead of cursing how eloquent not-so-little Twily could be, and that he still fumbled so.
"And?" Cadance prompted gently. Her purple eyes gleamed in the dark, reflecting all the glimmers of the crystal around them, and starlight too.
"...I was thinking about how everypony but them—"
Cadance's quizzical stare begged for elaboration.
"—gods, that is, are going to outlast all the stars... and even though you're no goddess—"
In retaliation, the demigod mare booped her tired husband upon his muzzle suddenly.
When he laughed softly, she smiled, and for that moment, everything was certainly quite peaceful.
But Shining had to break that barrier if he wanted to get anywhere.
"...You're still going to outlast me..."
And with that, the silence resumed between them, heavily weighing upon both husband and wife.
As it rolled on, Shining's heartbeat played in his ears, a nervous repeat that he hadn't heard in a long time. Cold sweat touched his brow and he prepared to say whatever words of heartfelt consolation popped into his mind first but-
Cadance sucked in a shaky breath first and looked at Shining Armor with a shimmer of worry and melancholy bared to him in her eyes. Even in the dark, he knew that the sudden sorrow of his wife that was so plain to him was all his fault.
"Cady..." he began, his own eyes wide and his body teetering with each step backward from every guilty thought on his mind. "Cady, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it like that-"
Ugh, was that really the best he could do right now? That was the excuse of some love-addled colt, not a stallion of his station who really cared about such a noble wife, one who had been as loyal to her husband as he was to her.
"Would you wait?"
His ears pricked forward to catch the sound of that melodious, mournful whisper. Had he heard right?
The soft rustle of fabric could be heard and the next thing Shining Armor knew, Cadance's purple mantle was draped around him and that same soft muzzle was nuzzling his cheek sadly. Two long, familiar forelegs wrapped around him, pulling him into a hug that was warmer than the mantle's fabric.
"Would you wait for me?" Cadance whispered into his mane.
Wait for her...
Right then and there, Shining Armor wanted to bring a forehoof to his face. Of course, of course. How could he think about the whole thing like that, shoving everything into such a conventional box?
He would be the one to die first. He would be the one leaving her.
Shining Armor would be the waiting one.
It was Cadance who would be yearning for the after-realm of Paradise.
Finally reciprocating the embrace, Shining Armor pulls his empress, his wife, and his Cadance into a hug. All the while, he runs a forehoof through her candy-colored curls, whose colors he knew in the dark even if he could not see them.
"Of course, Cady. I'll wait just for you."
She nodded quietly, pulling him closer and they both turned their gazes to the stars in silence, waiting for morning to come.
"I always will."