Celestia watched Cadence greet ponies filing past. The younger alicorn was polite, refine and very clearly bored out of her skull.
Celestia could relate. She disliked these sorts of function and had long since worked out small games to play so she could alleviate her own boredom. Tonight, however, she was more taken with the way Cadence and the white guard on duty to their left kept sneaking looks at each other. They couldn’t have signposted their burgeoning romance more if they had written it on a big sign and walked around with bullhorns.
Cadence nodded at the ambassador from the Dazzle Islands, eyes flicking left again. When she met the gaze of the guard, whose identity Celestia knew very well, she looked down and a faint blush made her cheeks a shade darker.
Celestia stepped closer and leaned in a little. “Go on.”
“Excuse me?” Cadence looked at her in surprise.
“I can take care of this. I’ve had enough practise.” A few dozen centuries’ worth, but who was counting? “Go on. Have a dance with him.”
Cadnece’s eyes widened. “But he’s …” she trailed off.
Celestia raised en eyebrow. “Just a guard?” she chuckled. “Cadence, do you really think that matters?”
“But I’m a princess.”
“Of love.” Celestia smiled kindly. “You’re the princess of love. So go and dance with the pony who has been making googly eyes at you all evening.” Celestia signalled to the Captain of the Guard, a blustery old stallion whose retirement rolled steadily towards him with every passing day. “I’ll reassign him for the evening. As if right now, his duties include dancing, drinking punch and making Princess Cadence smile and fall a little more in love with him.”
Cadence flushed scarlet. “Thank you, Celestia.”
“Think nothing of it, my dear. The world always needs more love. Go on now. Enjoy yourself and stop worrying about what other ponies think.”
Cadence trotted away and Celestia smiled at the innocence of the young – which, when you were over a thousand years old, was pretty much everypony.