“Is everything alright?”
Cadance’s question caught Shining Armor by surprise, not having heard her return. She’d left a few minutes ago to check on why the guard she’d sent to Ponyville to have Spike send a letter to the princesses hadn’t come back with a response yet. “Hey, I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,” he answered with a forced smile, trotting over and giving her a nuzzle. “Did you find out anything?”
The wan smile that Cadance had adopted as she’d nuzzled him back fell from her face as she shook her head. “Spike hasn’t received a scroll from Celestia or Luna yet. The guard thought we’d be nervous if we didn’t hear anything, so he sent a telegram. It just arrived a few minutes ago.” Reaching back with one wing, she produced a folded piece of paper, opening it and reading its contents out loud. “‘No response yet.’ That’s all it says.” Sighing, she put it away. “I’m really starting to get worried, Shining Armor. What if Lex Legis has done something to them?”
As much as he wanted to reassure his wife that Celestia and Luna together would be able to handle anything this Lex character threw at them, Shining Armor couldn’t bring himself to be that cavalier. Not when the memory of how hard Cadance had needed to struggle to remove the curses that Lex had laid on Produce Aisle and Comfy Cozy was still fresh in his mind. If Lex Legis really is another King Sombra, and he has that “Night Mare” goddess backing him up the same way Cadance has Lashtada… The thought was an unsettling one, and Shining Armor had to fight down the urge to grimace. “Let’s give them a little more time,” he said at last.
A skeptical look crossed Cadance’s face at the suggestion. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“That telegram needed a little while to get here,” pointed out Shining Armor. “The guard probably sent it this morning. For all we know, he’s just now received a message from Celestia or Luna and is on his way here with it as we speak.”
“Maybe,” admitted Cadance. “But if we don’t hear something soon, I think we should have Spike send a letter to Twilight. We’ll need her help if something’s happened to the other princesses.”
Although he wasn’t happy at the prospect, Shining Armor nodded. But he didn’t have a chance to ruminate on the possibility of another disaster so soon after the elemental bleeds and Tirek, due to Cadance’s follow-up question. “What about you?”
“Huh?”
“Is there any particular reason you’re standing out here in the hallway with a frown on your face?” asked Cadance, before giving him a playful smirk. “Or were you just practicing your ‘big strong stallion’ look?”
He couldn’t help but grin at that. “Well, I do have to work hard in order to keep up with my amazing wife.” But his smile faded away a moment later. “Spearhead was just here. He got his armor back.”
Cadance’s eyes widened. “So that means…?”
Knowing she was asking if they’d caught those fugitives from last night, or at least found a clue, Shining Armor shook his head with a sigh. “He got it back because a bill was sent to the castle from a local cleaner's, letting us know that a guard uniform that was dropped off last night was ready to be picked up.” He rolled his eyes then, deciding to omit the part where Spearhead had complained to him about how high the bill had been. “When he went down there to get it, he had the presence of mind to ask for an explanation. According to the shopkeeper’s statement, five ponies that matched the descriptions of Fencer and her friends turned it in, but they apparently didn’t say anything about where they were going or what they were doing.”
Licking her lips at that, Cadance was silent for a moment. “I saw that several airships were taking off just now,” she began gently.
“Yeah…” confirmed Shining Armor with another sigh, this one seeming to come from the bottom of his hooves. “I couldn’t get everypony to hold off on launching them anymore. Too many business were complaining about how much money they were losing because of the delay, and apparently we were ‘disrupting several very important soirees,’ as Fancy Pants put it. Once zeppelins from other cities started arriving, there weren’t enough air-docks available, so a few of the shipping companies just started launching on their own to make room for them, and when that happened everyone else just started ignoring my request for them to stay grounded.”
The miserable look on his face made Cadance move alongside him, brushing her side against his. “We don’t know that Fencer and the others were on one of those aircrafts,” she offered, her voice gentle.
“We don’t know that they weren’t, either,” muttered Shining Armor. But his upset expression faded into a look of defeat a moment later. “I just ordered the guards patrolling the train station to come back. If we can’t keep the skies under control, then it’s pointless to keep watch on the ground routes out of the city.” He gave her an apologetic look then. “I’m sorry, Cadance. They’ve escaped.”
One of her wings went around him then, pulling him against her gently. “Don’t be sorry. I would’ve liked to apologize to them for making them think that they needed to run away in order to protect themselves, but I’m glad that they had a chance to reconcile with Cozy and Pillowcase.” She smiled as she looked at the door further down the hallway, which led to the room where she’d recently married Cozy and Aisle with Pillow’s blessing. “Maybe things were supposed to happen this way. If Fencer and her friends hadn’t escaped, they never would have run into Cozy and Pillow, and they wouldn’t have been able to forgive them for what happened.” The thought that last night’s craziness had been part of something beautiful, something that led to forgiveness and healing, eased Cadance’s worries and brought a smile to her face. “Maybe this was all because of Lashtada’s love.”
“Maybe,” murmured Shining Armor, his voice making it clear that he wasn’t convinced. “I’m just glad that they didn’t hurt anypony else when they escaped.” That we know of, he added silently. Spearhead’s injury had turned out to be his own fault, but that had comforted Shining Armor only a little.
But Cadance seemed determined not to let him brood anymore. “C’mon,” she nodded toward the door leading back to where Cozy and her husbands were. “Let’s get back in there.”
“Actually, I have a better idea,” interjected Shining Armor. “How about I go back and talk to them some more about what happened, and you go to our room and take a nap?”
The suggestion made one of Cadance’s eyebrows rise. “A nap?”
Shining Armor nodded. After marrying Cozy and Aisle, five of them had settled in for an early lunch, during which Cadance and Shining Armor had asked them for more information about what had happened last night, as well as in Vanhoover. The description of what had happened to the city, as well as the fearsome demeanor of the pony who now ruled it, had been what had unnerved Cadance enough that she’d gone to check for any word from Celestia and Luna. Given how peaceful she looked right now, contemplating how Fencer and Cozy had made up, the last thing Shining Armor wanted was for her to lose that tranquility again by hearing more about how ominous Lex Legis was.
But as much as he wanted to protect Cadance, he knew she wouldn’t let him keep her away from something just because it was unpleasant. Fortunately, he had a plan. “Hear me out. We were both up pretty late last night, and it only takes one of us to ask those three about everything that they went through. Besides,” this was his trump card, “what if Luna’s trying to contact one of us in our dreams right now?”
This time both of Cadance’s eyebrows rose, and Shining Armor mentally cheered, knowing that she hadn’t thought of that. Sure enough, she was quiet for a long moment, before glancing at the door back into the room where Cozy and her stallions were. Finally, she turned back to him, a suspicious look crossing her face. “You’re sure this isn’t some plan of yours to keep me away from something upsetting?”
Unable to fight down a chuckle at how well his wife knew him, Shining Armor gave her a roguish grin. “Would I do that?”
The corners of Cadance’s lips turned up, even as her eyes became hooded. “Yes,” she smiled, “you would. It’s one of the things I love about you.”
She nuzzled him again, which halfway through somehow turned into a kiss. Which became a second, longer kiss. When their lips parted, Cadance gave him another smile. “You’ll wake me up if you hear anything from Celestia or Luna?” she whispered.
“I promise.”
Cadance’s response was another kiss, one that left Shining Armor’s knees feeling weak as she finally pulled away from him and headed down the hallway back to their room. Unable to help himself, Shining Armor watched her go, his eyes tracing over her curves as he contemplated the feasibility of blowing everything else off and just following her back to bed. It was a pleasant fantasy…one that was interrupted as Cadance reached the end of the hallway and glanced back over her shoulder, smirking at him as she caught him eyeing her. Flushing, Shining Armor could only give her a guilty grin in response, causing her to giggle and wink at him before she finally turned the corner and disappeared from view.
Taking a moment to calm himself down, Shining Armor turned his thoughts back toward less amorous subjects. Even so, he needed several seconds to make sure he wasn’t still flushed and grinning like a lovesick colt. It was only when he was certain that he had himself under control that he went back toward the room where Pillow, Aisle, and Cozy were waiting.
“Sorry about that,” announced Shining Armor as he walked inside. “I just had to take a quick report.”
“Is everything alright?” asked Aisle, one foreleg curled around Cozy, who was leaning against him, her muzzle pressed against the side of his neck. It didn’t escape Shining Armor’s notice how Pillowcase – sitting on Cozy’s other side – seemed completely at ease with how his wife was nuzzling the other stallion, glancing at the two of them with a relaxed smile.
The sight was enough to completely dispel Shining Armor’s good mood, making his stomach tense. How can you act like that? he thought to himself as he glanced at the recently-resurrected crystal pony. How can you be so comfortable while your wife is all over another stallion? Even if she was also the wife of that other stallion now, the way Pillowcase seemed so undisturbed by Cozy taking a second husband bothered Shining Armor to no end. Despite – or perhaps because of – the tender moment that he’d just shared with Cadance, he could see himself in Pillowcase’s place all too easily, shuffled off to the side while Cadance nuzzled somepony else…
But he knew better than to let those thoughts show, keeping a neutral expression on his face. “We think that those ponies from before, Fencer and her friends, have made it out of Canterlot.”
Cozy looked up at that, smiling. “I’m glad for them. I mean, I know that they’re technically still fugitives, but I don’t want anything bad to happen to them anymore. If going back to Vanhoover is what they need to find fulfillment, then they should go there.”
Pillowcase’s eyes flickered to the door behind Shining Armor, noting how no one else came through it. “Is Princess Cadance alright?”
“She’s just a little tired,” replied Shining Armor. “She’s going to get some r-”
“SHINING ARMOR!”
The sound of Cadance’s voice raised in distress immediately sent him into fight-or-flight mode, causing Shining Armor to fling himself back out into the hallway where her voice had come from, scanning for possible threats to his wife even as he saw her come rushing around the corner. “Cadance! What’s wrong?!”
She thrust an unrolled scroll toward him, and he belatedly realized she’d been holding it in her telekinesis. “I just got this from Spike!” She pointed to the back of the scroll, which had a line of hasty instructions scrawled across it. “Celestia sent it to him with instructions for him to immediately send it to me!”
Dimly recognizing that whatever was going on was probably something other ponies shouldn’t hear, Shining Armor’s legs were already moving as he took the scroll, turning it over to read what Celestia had written even as he went back into the room, barely noticing as Cozy, Aisle, and Pillow were looking on in nervous tension. Cadance followed him inside, and she must have read his intentions because she shut the door behind her even as she kept talking. “She and Luna confronted Lex Legis and a fight broke out!”
Shining Armor was listening even as he read the scroll, knowing that it would be bad even before he got to the end. Celestia’s normally-impeccable hornwriting was sloppy, as though hastily scrawled, and the lines of text weren’t perfectly parallel. Words were crossed out and replaced with other words, and there were blotches from where she’d used too much ink before continuing to write. It was the letter of someone who was extremely upset when they wrote it, a state of mind that Shining Armor couldn’t imagine applying to Princess Celestia, and yet the proof of it was undeniable even without looking at what she’d actually written.
As he read the words and listened to Cadance’s summary, Shining Armor could feel his blood run cold. One pony dead. Celestia injured. And Luna…
Despite his coat being as white as snow, Shining Armor knew that he’d turned pale by the time he reached the end of the scroll. Nor was he alone, with Cadance, Aisle, Cozy, and Pillowcase all looking the same. In the wake of such catastrophic news, there was only one thing that Shining Armor could think to do.
“We have to call Twilight.”