“Daddy, sometimes, I feel that it is impossible for us to understand one another. We’re so different, for so many reasons. Sometimes, I feel like we have nothing in common. No common ground. I get angry sometimes, frustrated, and I’m not even sure why. But there is something I keep thinking about over and over, and lately, it has almost become… well, it’s something I can’t stop thinking about, no matter how hard I try.”
Flurry it seemed, was doing her utmost to be sweet, disarming, and charming—she had called him ‘Daddy.’ Shining Armor’s guard rose to a general state of alarm and his eyebrow rose as a matching indicator. Without a doubt, Flurry was up to something. Or maybe not. Maybe, just maybe, the perfect day had relaxed her well enough so that she could talk. Still, his suspicions would not go away. His daughter, no thanks to Sumac and Dim’s tutelage, had shown a minor talent for duplicity. This was the problem with Lulamoons: they were the epitome of unscrupulous, artful sneakiness, and Sumac had proven himself worthy of the Lulamoon name. The Crystal Cotillion was only a juvenile effort; no doubt, more concerted, more practiced actions would be taken later.
“Spit it out, Fluffalump.”
“Sunburst said that for two ponies to get along, they need some kind of common ground. He called it a… what was that again? Oh, right, a ‘shared bridge.’ Sunburst used Dim as an example, he said that he and Dim were probably the greatest living arcane researchers. That was their common ground. Sunburst said that he and Dim shared mutual respect for one another because of their positions, and from this, the bonds of friendship were formed.”
“And you think we have nothing in common?” Shining Armor asked, getting right to the point.
“We do, we do—” Flurry’s growing worry overcame her and she sat panting, leaning against her father, clearly terrified by whatever it was that she was about to say. “Please don’t be angry with me. Promise.”
“No anger,” he replied while watching a miniature titanic three-headed sea serpent go swimming by.
Flurry took a deep breath, no doubt gathering her courage, and Shining Armor found himself admiring her. Even though she was scared, she was seeing this through. She was pushing onwards. He could feel her quivering, trembling, she shuddered with every gasping breath she took. When she had been younger, when she was worked up like this, the feathers of her wings would tickle her ribs and send her into fits or near hysteria.
“We only have little things in common,” Flurry said, blundering ahead into the conversation full tilt. “You like dorky eggheaded stuff. You like boring stuff. But that’s not what’s bothering me. I feel like you can’t understand me because of what you are. I’m an alicorn and you, you’re a—”
“Unicorn?” he finished. His lips pressed into a tight, thin line and his ears pivoted forwards, focusing upon the sounds of his daughter’s troubled breathing. Flurry was sweaty now, it was pouring down her face and soaking into him. It occurred to him that she wasn’t being manipulative—not unless she had figured out some means to control her physiology—and so she couldn’t be part of some subtle effort by others to get him to change his mind.
“Skyla has the same problem,” Flurry said to her father in a whisper so low that it was difficult to hear. “She’s scared that she’ll hurt your feelings and that things’ll get weird if she says anything. When things happen, when I do things, Mom kinda understands why I do stuff. We’re very different alicorns, she and I, with different instincts and wills. But she understands what drives me. You don’t. You can’t. And there are times when I really want to talk to you, but I don’t, because I know I’ll get frustrated because you can’t understand me.”
How was this any different from a unicorn understanding a pegasus or an earth pony? Shining Armor hesitated to say anything, careful as he was, and desperately tried to make sense of this. He didn’t always understand Cadance, and that was fine. Or was it? The seeds of doubt had been planted in his mind. Was he missing out? Was there some issue between he and his wife that he was oblivious to? Lifting his head, he cast a cautious glance in her direction where she stood in front of a dodecapus tank. Much to his alarm, Cadance was looking right at him while Skyla stood between her mother’s legs, peering into the tank.
Frightened, he jerked his head down and looked right at Flurry, feeling a growing paranoia. He thought of Gosling’s troubles with Celestia and Luna; trying to understand their perspectives had almost drove him insane on a couple of occasions. Gosling had long struggled and suffered, something that Shining Armor admired. Gosling never gave up, though a silly pony, he was tenacious.
Now, Shining Armor found himself sweating; the briny air of the aquarium and the salty smell of his own sweat was an unpleasant tang in his own nose. His composure felt dangerously close to broken and he hadn’t been this scared since… he didn’t know when. Even when Flurry had been captured by ice orcs, he wasn’t as scared as he was now. Flurry had yanked the rug out from beneath him and now everything in his life as he understood it was in question.
“Dad, you got quiet.”
“Sure did, Fluffalump.” He didn’t like the creak in his voice and felt ashamed of it.
“I’m in trouble, Dad.”
“Why’s that, Fluffalump?”
“I broke a promise,” she replied, her voice a thin, scared whisper.
“Tell me about it, Fluffalump.”
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you this,” she confessed, her words shrill and squeaky. “A whole bunch of alicorns cornered me in a room and made me promise and I wanted to keep that promise and Mom is probably going to kill me but I really needed to talk to somepony and I wanted to talk to you and today has been so nice and it felt so good to be able to talk to you again and for us not to be fighting and it was nice to be your daughter again and not feel like you are my subject that I have to humour because you’re a little pony and you couldn’t possibly understand my perspective.” When the last word came out, Flurry sucked in wind, held it, let it out in a huff, gulped more air, and gasped.
There it was—Shining Armor felt something dreadful go lancing through his heart. If Flurry felt that way, did Cadance? He wanted to look at her, but found that he couldn’t, his neck wouldn’t let him. For now though, Cadance was keeping her distance. She had to know. She had to hear. She most certainly knew because she could most certainly hear every word being said.
“Daddy, I’m so sorry… I had to get this out of me. It was killing me. It hurt so much to keep all this bottled up. Mom is looking right us and I’m pretty certain that I’m dead meat. Later, or maybe when we get home, Mom is gonna yell at me and it is going to be awful. Dad, there’s so much you don’t know because you’re not one of us.”
One of us.
“Keeping this secret is driving me crazy, Dad. It does. It makes me hate life. It makes me mad at Mom. Everypony else, too, I guess. Even Sumac got the talk, because he’s one of us. The importance of keeping secrets and making sure that certain things are known only to us alicorns. I’m not a good secret keeper. It’s ripping me apart and it leaves me angry all the time. I always feel ashamed and dirty because it feels like I am lying, and you taught me not to lie, so I’m conflicted and confused all the time.”
Knowing that his daughter was terrified, Shining Armor gave her a fatherly squeeze. He could feel Cadance’s eyes on him, some psychic twingle told him that her piercing gaze was boring a hole right through him, and maybe Flurry as well. A part of him wanted to promise Flurry that he would protect her, but who was he to poke his nose into the business and inner-workings of alicorns? What right did he—a lowly unicorn—have to tell an alicorn what to do? A part of him wanted to be angry, but he held that part in check. Anger would be dangerous now, potentially disastrous. No, anger was not his friend. Calm composure was his friend, and he fought to restore it.
“Fluffalump… Daddy needs you to be really, really honest right now.” He drew in a deep breath, steeled his nerves, and gazed into Flurry’s eyes. “Would it make me a better father for you and Skyla if I was an alicorn?”
“Yes,” Flurry blurted out. Her eyes flooded with hurt and she blinked away a few tears. “Maybe? I don’t know. We’re not supposed to mess with your mind to make your decision. We were told not to interfere and here I am interfering and everything hurts right now and I need to pee and I really don’t want to go into the bathroom with Mom because that’s just asking for trouble to start right now.”
Foals had such simple, foalish needs. Shining Armor was almost relieved, but he was also troubled, because now he faced the prospect of going into the mare’s restroom with Flurry. This was the cherry on top of a really, really awkward sundae. Shining Armor was torn between his protective fatherly instincts and separate societal mores that demanded that he stay as far away from the mare’s restroom as equinely possible. But Flurry was also at an age where she probably didn’t want her father listening while she was having a tinkle—and everything in his mind took a tumble.
Shining Armor understood Flurry’s position right now, because he floundered through his own ever-increasing awkwardness. He couldn’t just let Flurry go in there alone; it wasn’t like Flurry was in any real danger, no. He had to protect other ponies from Flurry if any of them tried anything funny with her. The aquarium and the surrounding environs just were not built to angry-alicorn standards and Flurry was a single pony wrecking crew.
It was time to nut up or shut up; it was time to be a father.
Shining Armor couldn’t help but think that the delicate pink alicorn standing just outside of the restroom area was not his wife; not at the moment, no. A different creature awaited he and Flurry, and this pink stranger stood tapping her hoof. An awkward gulf manifested and Shining Armor felt that his novelty shirt was a bit too tight right now. Well hung? Indeed. He’d been strung from the emotional gallows.
Flurry sprung from the corner of his vision, puffed out, stiff-legged, she moved in open, downright defiance of her mother. When she stood in front of him, Shining Armor understood that Flurry was protecting him from Cadance. The sudden contest of wills filled the air with electric tension and though Flurry was rather tiny compared to Cadance, his little pink filly was fearless, full of resolve. Skyla, blinking, uncertain, stepped away from her mother with an apologetic glance, and with her head held low, her ears limp in submission, she moved to stand with Flurry.
Something alicornish was going on here, and Shining Armor understood none of it.
“You heard everything.” Shining Armor’s spoken words were not a question.
“I hear mouse farts when they happen, Shining Armor. Farting shrews are shrill and quite annoying. It’s been quite the struggle to learn to tune everything out. I wasn’t born this way, so there was a long battle just to feel normal again. I had to learn how to adapt to the world. It was difficult.” Cadance cast her eyes downwards at her two daughters for a second, and then she looked at her husband once more. “It is a struggle that the three of us share. I’ve been an alicorn just long enough to have some helpful advice for my little fillies.”
“And I, of course, utterly lack in this department.”
“I wish you wouldn’t feel this way, Shining Armor.”
Shining Armor. Not Shiny. No, he was almost Mister Armor, or Emperor Armor. The sheer formality of the moment made him choke and he had trouble meeting his wife’s gaze. His eyes had been opened; he had seen beyond the veil of normalcy and there was no going back. This could not be undone. There was no return to how things had been when the sun had dawned this morning.
“This was done to protect you. Princess Celestia made it very clear that you were off limits. No meddling. No influence. No subtle manipulation. You had to reach the decision on your own. Twilight wanted to nudge you in what she felt was the right direction, as did I, of course. Luna wanted to take matters into her own hooves and do what she felt was necessary. She said that you would understand and forgive after your ascension. She’s right, of course… you would. You probably wouldn’t even be mad after it happened. It changes you, Shining Armor, in more ways than you could possibly comprehend. Celestia stood alone against all of us, really. She insisted that you would come around on your own.”
“You think I wouldn’t be mad if this was just done against my will?”
“You wouldn’t, Shining Armor. You would understand. You would have clarity and then you would be angry at the rest of us for not doing it sooner. You would lecture and chide. Perhaps accuse of us being weak-willed, and of being lax in our duties. We would suffer your wrath and endure it, because that is our nature.”
This gave Shining Armor pause and he didn’t know how to respond.
“You are one of Luna’s stars, Shining Armor. Just like Twilight and all of the others. The stars will aid in her escape. It is the fulfillment of a promise. Luna recovers, she is restored. With each day that passes she becomes more of what she was meant to be. You have a role to play in that.”
His mouth went dry and he found that he couldn’t swallow. This was stuff he could barely comprehend. Once, he had made an effort to understand it, to learn a little about it, but the topic was too broad and his time was far too limited. It was through Luna’s bloodline that more alicorns had been born—but not through Luna’s bloodline alone, no. A piece of Celestia’s soul rested within Cadance. Was this the fulfillment of some ancient promise? Prophesy?
Cadance was the only creature known to birth alicorns.
“We shouldn’t talk about this here.” Shining Armor glanced around, nervous, and then returned his gaze to Cadance. “I’m fine with talking about this, but we should go somewhere more private. Okay?”
“I’m fine with that, but only if the girls are okay with leaving early.”
“This is more important,” Skyla said.
“It is,” Flurry added.
“It is in our nature to convene. To gather. To strive towards an accord. It is impossible to resist.”
“Sproglodyte, stop that. You’re freaking Daddy out.”
Cadance’s smile radiated gentle compassion and she gave her family a nod. “We should be going…”