//------------------------------//
// A Real Dumpster of a Day 
// Story: Shining Armor Saves Everyone 
// by 42Zombies 
//------------------------------//

Shining Armor was surprised by how quickly he’d gotten used to being Prince of the Crystal Empire.

It had only been a few years since Shining and Cadence had become the Empire’s rulers. A lot had happened in that time. Twilight had grown wings and become a princess. Shining and Cadence had had Flurry Heart. Twilight had apparently decided to open a school for reasons Shining still wasn’t sure of.

So much had changed in Shining Armor’s life that it was a little dizzying to think back on it all. But as Shining Armor laid in bed and stared up at the crystal ceiling of the palace’s royal bedchambers, the former Captain of the Royal Guard could only think of one thing:

His life had gotten really, really weird.

This was something that had occurred to Shining Armor during King Sombra’s return. While he and his family were held captive in the weird playpen Somra had set up in the throne room, it had suddenly struck Shining just how many crises Equestria had gone through in the last few years. Stranger than that, however, was the fact that these disasters kept getting Shiny and his family involved.

There were the two incidents with Chrysalis, for example. There was Sombra and the Crystal Empire. There was the Storm King, though Shining hadn’t actually been present for that particular disaster due to Flurry Heart having a cold. There was also that thing that had happened last Hearth’s Warming with the pudding and the giant rat-monster. And, of course, there was the time that a giant oyster had tried to take over Equestria.

When Shining Armor took a few steps back and looked back on the last few years, he couldn’t help but realize that his life had become like something out of a comic book. Implausible things just kept happening to him and his loved ones, and it was really starting to freak Shining out.

Shining couldn’t dwell on this, though. His train of thought was cut off by the sound of Cadence stirring beside him. Unlike Shining, whose thoughts were keeping him up all night, Cadence had been fast asleep. Shining looked over to watch his wife’s eyes flicker open briefly.

“You okay?” Shining whispered.

“Mmm.” Cadence looked at her husband with her face half-buried in her pillow. “You’re awake?”

Shining chuckled, trying to play off his sleeplessness. “I’m just having one of those nights, I guess. Just thinking about… y’know…”

“About how implausible things keep happening to you and your loved ones, and how it’s really starting to freak you out?” Cadence guessed.

Shining nodded. Cadence was always able to read him like an open book. If they weren’t married, it probably would have been a little creepy.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Cadence asked sleepily.

“No, no,” Shining whispered. “It’s fine. We can talk about this later.”

The middle of the night wasn’t a great time to have heart-to-heart discussions about life. On top of that, Cadence sounded so sleepy that she was probably only half aware of what they were talking about. She’d probably fall asleep halfway through whatever talk they could have.

As Shining offered his wife a small smile, the sound of Flurry Heart’s crying echoed into their room. Shining looked towards the door and sighed a little. It looked like any hope of getting a decent night’s rest had just gone out the window. Even if he’d been fast asleep, Shining couldn’t just stay in bed while his baby girl was crying.

“Could you go to her?” Cadence asked groggily.

Shining was already getting up and out of bed. He rolled off of the mattress and his hooves came down onto the crystal floor. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

Cadence likely didn’t hear him, as she had already started drifting back to sleep. Shining didn’t mind. She needed her sleep so she could do all of her princess stuff in the morning, and it wasn’t like Shining was going to be sleeping anyway.

Already wishing he could head back to bed, Shining slowly trudged out of the bedroom and into the next room over. Cadence and Shining had set up Flurry Heart’s nursery room as closely as possible. They would have moved her crib into their own room, but Flurry kept blowing things up in her sleep. It was a real hassle.

Shining opened the door to the nursery and looked in to see Flurry Heart lying in her pink crystal crib. She was crying at the top of her lungs. Shining trotted slowly into the room, used his magic to close the door behind him, and walked to the side of Flurry’s crib.

The problem became apparent as soon as Shining looked down into the crib. Flurry Heart’s Whammy wasn’t in her crib with her. The stuffed snail had definitely been in there when he and Cadence had put Flurry to bed for the night. It must have fallen out somehow.

Shining looked around at the ground around Flurry’s crib while she continued her crying. Her father’s presence wasn’t doing anything to calm her down. Only Whammy could satisfy the Flurry Heart.

Unfortunately, Shining couldn’t see Whammy anywhere around Flurry Heart’s crib. That made sense—it seemed unlikely that the stuffed snail would have somehow squeezed through the bars. Flurry Heart must have done something to it with her magic.

Shining stifled a groan. The last time Flurry had used her magic on Whammy, the snail had wound up on the castle’s roof… Not their roof, though; Canterlot Castle’s. Luna had had to rush over to the Empire just to get Flurry to stop crying.

Hopefully this time, Flurry hadn’t teleported it to the moon or sent it to another dimension or something.

While Shining absent-mindedly looked around the room for the Precious Whammy, he reached a hoof down into Flurry’s crib. He rubbed his daughter’s head in an attempt to comfort her, and her crying did die down a little bit. Despite how tired he was, Shining found himself smiling.

Sometimes Shining thought about how Flurry Heart was probably powerful enough to kill him with her mind. He felt a strange mix of fear and pride at knowing that it would be super easy for his daughter to blow him up.

Shining continued looking around Flurry Heart’s spacious room to no avail. Whammy wasn’t anywhere among any of the other toys.

It was only when Shining remembered the way that Flurry had been flailing her hooves up at the ceiling that he thought to look up.

High above Flurry Heart’s crib, her stuffed snail was floating up against the ceiling like a balloon. Shining silently stared up at the Whammy, not really surprised. He was mostly just wondering why Flurry hadn’t flown up to get her Whammy herself. Maybe she’d really wanted to disturb her parents’ sleep or something.

Shining wasn’t about to start complaining, though. He instead reached out with his magic and pulled the gravity-defying Whammy down into Flurry’s crib.

Flurry Heart stopped her crying almost immediately. She flailed her hooves once the stuffed snail was within reach and tried to grab onto it. Whammy tried floating away, but Flurry Heart was able to grab onto her favorite toy and hugged it close to her.

Shining couldn’t help but smile as he watched his daughter snuggle with the stuffed snail she’d caused to float for some reason. Even though she was a hoof-full, Flurry Heart was still one of the best things in Shining’s life. It was enough to make Shining forget all about the thoughts that had been keeping him awake.

“Okay,” Shining whispered sleepily as he stroked his daughter’s mane. “You’ve got your Whammy. Now get back to sleep, huh?”

Flurry Heart stared up at her father with her huge, not-at-all-asleep eyes.

Shining frowned. “C’mon, Flurry. It’s time to sleep. Everyone else is asleep. Don’t you want to follow their lead?”

His attempts at peer pressure were incredibly ineffective on Flurry Heart. Babies generally didn’t worry about fitting in all that much. Shining would have to wait for her teenage years for that parenting strategy to work.

Shining was too tired to think about that, though. He rested his chin on the top of Flurry Heart’s crib and looked down at his daughter. She gurgled something unintelligible at him. Shining was just sleepy enough to think she was trying to say actual words. He responded by mumbling something equally unintelligible back at her.

The two of them carried on making vague noises at each other until Shining finally fell asleep five minutes later.


Shining didn’t know what time it was when he woke up. That was mostly because it didn’t make a lot of sense to put a clock in Flurry Heart’s nursery. After all, what did a baby need a clock for? What sort of schedule did a baby have to keep? What, did they need to know when it was 3 o’clock so they could start getting sick all over the place?

He’d fallen asleep standing up. Even though that was a totally normal thing for a pony to do, Shining was still a little weirded out when he realized he’d done it. Now his legs were all stiff, which was gross.

On the plus side, though, Flurry Heart had fallen asleep. She was snoring peacefully in her crib, cuddled up with her Whammy which was still trying to float away. So that was nice.

While Shining probably could have watched his daughter sleep for hours, he didn’t feel like just standing around doing nothing. He needed to head back to bed and give his aching legs a rest.

As Shining Armor left the nursery and began making his way back to the castle’s bedroom, he had no sense that something was wrong. If he had been able to look outside, he might have been able to notice that something was up. But the hallways of the castle had very few windows for some reason. All Shining could see were shiny rocks.

After a short walk down the glittery hallway, Shining reached and opened the doors to the royal bedroom. He did so quietly, peeking his head in to make sure he wasn’t waking Cadence.

Luckily, Shining didn’t need to worry about waking Cadence up, as she wasn’t in bed.

Shining opened the door the rest of the way and trotted into the room. He was a bit surprised to see that Cadence had gotten out of bed so early. Out of the two of them, Shining was usually the one who’d get up first. Cadence wouldn’t get going until well after the sun had risen. Outside the window of their room, however, Shining could see that it was still mostly dark out; the sun was only starting to peek out of the horizon.

Since Cadence wasn’t in bed, Shining felt weird about going back to sleep. If his wife was already getting her day started, Shining felt as if he might as well do the same. Cadence was probably getting coffee ready, and that would be enough to shake Shining out of his sleepiness.

After giving his legs a little bit of a stretch, Shining Armor walked back out of the royal bedroom and began to make his way to the royal kitchen. The royal kitchen was a lot like a normal kitchen, but it was inside of a castle and the stove had a crown on it. The crystal ponies had made some strange decorating decisions after Sombra’s defeat.

As Shining made his way towards the kitchen, where he assumed Cadence was already enjoying some coffee, he was surprised to see that all of the palace’s servants were already up and about. With each familiar face Shining passed, it gradually began to dawn on him that it was actually much later in the morning than he’d thought. Shining had really lost track of time after falling asleep next to Flurry Heart’s crib.

But wait. When Shining had looked out the window, the sun was only just starting to rise. Was Celestia having some difficulty raising the sun? Had the responsibility fallen to Twilight again?

Shining came to a gradual stop in the middle of the hallway. A feeling of unease was starting to come over him, like a blanket made of spiders. Shining tried to shake off the feeling and continued walking to the kitchen a little faster than before.

It was silly to assume something bad had happened; Shining Armor knew that. Just because the sun was a little slow rising into the sky didn’t mean that anything had happened, right? Shining was sure that when he reached the kitchen, Cadence would be making coffee and he’d feel much better.

When Shining pushed open the doors to the kitchen and looked inside, though, he was proven wrong on both counts. Cadence wasn’t in the kitchen, and he felt much worse.

Instead of Cadence, the kitchen was occupied by one of the crystal ponies who worked in the palace. Snowberry, one of the castle’s handyponies, was fumbling awkwardly with the blender that sat on the kitchen counter. 

Shining knew for a fact that Snowberry didn’t know how the blender worked, so he really shouldn’t have been working on it. Shining was a bit too distracted to really think about that at the moment, though.

“Snowberry?” Shining tried to sound calm as he tried to get the stallion’s attention.

Snowberry quickly took his hooves off of the blender, as if he’d been caught doing something that might have gotten him into trouble. He turned to look at Shining and gave his prince a smile.

“Good morning, Prince Armor!” Snowberry exclaimed. “You’re up late today!”

Shining would have to take Snowberry’s word on that. He had absolutely no sense of what time it was, and likely wouldn’t until he saw a clock.

“Snowberry, have you seen Cadence?” Shining asked, unable to hide the anxiety in his voice.

“Yes!” Snowberry said. “Several times!”

Shining stared at Snowberry expectantly, waiting for the stallion to continue his train of thought. Snowberry just smiled back at his prince, giving no sign of actually understanding what Shining Armor had been asking. After a while, Shining got sick of waiting.

“I mean lately, Snowberry,” Shining said. “Have you seen her lately?”

Snowberry looked surprised by the clarification. Shining Armor had no idea how Snowberry was still working for them.

“Er, no,” Snowberry said. “I haven’t seen her since last night, when she helped me pull my tongue out of the whisk. Is something wrong?”

There were a couple of things wrong. For one thing, Snowberry kept getting his tongue stuck in the whisk. For another thing, it meant that nobody knew where Cadence was. Normally, Shining wouldn’t be too worried about his wife’s whereabouts… But Shining somehow couldn’t shake the feeling that something strange was going on.

“Thank you, Snowberry,” Shining said, rubbing the side of his head. “I should probably go wake Flurry Heart… Cadence probably just went out to fly for a bit; I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”

“Yeah, sure,” Snowberry said as he searched through the cutlery drawer for a whisk to lick.

Shining Armor left before he could stop Snowberry from doing something really dumb. The prince had a lot on his mind, but he couldn’t let that distract him from his baby daughter. Flurry Heart needed to be taken care of, after all. Shining could figure out where Cadence had gone to afterwards.

Shining walked back down the hall, back to the nursery, doing his best to put aside his anxieties. It was a little difficult to dismiss all of this, though. Shining’s thoughts from the previous night came back to him—bad things just kept on happening. It was hard not to assume they had happened yet again.

And before Shining could even make it to the nursery, his suspicions were confirmed. 

Out of nowhere, the scent of smoke tickled Shining Armor’s nostrils. He knew immediately where the smell was coming from. Right before his eyes, the air before Shining ignited in a spark of green flame. The fire quickly dispersed into nothingness, and in place of the flame was a single scroll. Shining caught the scroll in his hooves as it began to fall to the floor.

It was a message from Spike. Either that, or the young dragon had sneezed on a scroll again. Shining still didn’t know why Spike’s fire could send messages. Could other dragons do that? Was Spike some sort of mutant because of the way Twily had hatched him?

Shining wasn’t thinking about all of that, though. He opened up the scroll and took a look at it. The parchment had been covered in symbols arranged into patterns that formed words, and those words had been arranged into sentences. 

Yes; this was definitely a message. No doubt about it. It would probably be a good idea to read it. Shining started doing that.

Dear Shining Armor and Princess Cadence,

Help! Twilight’s disappeared! I was talking to her and she just vanished! The girls think this might have something to do with how the sun and the moon are stuck in the sky! We’re heading to Canterlot to talk to the Princesses and try to figure out how to find Twilight!

Anyway, how are you doing? I’m doing okay, aside from Twilight vanishing. Write back soon!

Love, Spike

It was always nice to hear from Spike. Shining felt like he needed to spend more time with the little guy some time. The part about Twilight disappearing right before Spike’s eyes was pretty worrying, though. It made Cadence’s absence a lot more concerning.

Shining set the letter aside and tried to put all of the pieces together. Cadence was nowhere to be seen. Twilight had apparently disappeared right in front of Spike. And finally, the sun was stuck in the sky, casting a perpetual dawn.

After Shining had finished adding it all up, a pang of terror suddenly hit him. He galloped down the hall, towards the nursery where he’d left a sleeping Flurry Heart. When Shining flung open the nursery door and saw that Flurry was still sound asleep in her crib, he let loose a sigh of relief.

Still, even if Flurry Heart was apparently okay, something was definitely going on with the princesses. As the former Captain of the Equestrian Guard, Shining had a good sense for when things were wrong. He knew that something was up based on several subtle clues, like Twilight disappearing and the sky being all messed up.

Speculating would only make Shining feel worse, though. He was completely in the dark as to what was going on, and there was no point in trying to guess. If Shining let his imagination go wild, he’d wind up going Twily Nanners. He needed to take a deep breath and calm himself down.

Standing over his daughter’s crib, Shining closed his eyes and took a deep breath in.

Then a huge magical portal opened up behind him.

That wasn’t a part of the breathing process.

Shining turned away from Flurry’s crib to look at the swirling portal that had opened behind him. Almost instinctively, he tried to position himself to try and guard the sleeping Flurry Heart from whatever might emerge from the portal. Thankfully, it soon became apparent that such measures weren’t necessary.

The most sinister-looking unicorn stallion that Shining Armor had ever seen stepped out of the portal. He had sharp features, a robe, and the world’s most evil goatee. Despite the fact that he looked like a Dracula, though, the stallion had a concerned expression on his face.

The unicorn looked around the nursery for a moment, trying to figure out where he was, and then looked at Shining Armor. His worry turned into determination once he got his bearings.

“Prince Armor,” he said. “Is Princess Cadence here? Has she vanished as well?”

“Why did you open up a portal into my daughter’s nursery?” Shining Armor asked. “Why is the nursery the first place you decided to go looking for us?”

“I don’t have time to explain my search process,” the unicorn who was probably a supervillain said. “Is Princess Cadence here or isn’t she?”

Shining shook his head. “No. She’s gone… I’m guessing Celestia and Luna are gone too?”

The stallion nodded, a dire expression on his face. Great; this meant all of Shining’s worries hadn’t been unfounded. And that also meant that something had happened to Cadence. She wasn’t just out for a flight. Whatever had happened to Twily, Celestia, and Luna had happened to her, too.

“What about your daughter?” The unicorn asked, snapping Shining out of his train of thought. “Is Flurry Heart missing as well?”

Shining looked over his shoulder at his daughter’s crib, as if he needed to double-check. Sure enough, Flurry Heart was still fast asleep, snoring lightly. Somehow the giant magical portal hadn’t woken her up. Babies were weird.

“Flurry Heart’s okay,” Shining said as he turned back to the robed stallion. “Who are you, anyway? Why are you even here?”

The unicorn looked annoyed, as if he didn’t see what the point in making introductions even was. “My name is Chancellor Neighsay of the EEA. I came here to bring you and Princess Cadence to Canterlot… Obviously, though, that won’t be happening.”

Shining blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“With the princesses gone, Equestria is entering a state of emergency,” Neighsay said. “We need to gather our kingdom’s leaders in order to decide what—”

“No, I mean I don’t understand why a member of the EEA is the one doing this,” Shining clarified. “Isn’t this the job of a messenger, or a royal guard, or… Literally anypony else?”

“Nopony else had portal magic.” Neighsay tapped the golden badge on his robe. It shined a bit, and then the portal he had stepped out of flickered out of existence.

“Okay,” Shining said. “That just raises questions about why you even have that.”

Neighsay narrowed his eyes irritably at Shining Armor. It would have been intimidating if Shining hadn’t just found out that this scary-looking guy was basically just Equestria’s most powerful school superintendent. Now that Shining knew Neighsay worked for Equestria. though, he wasn’t anywhere near as anxious about the unicorn with a face like a funeral parlor.

“We can discuss why I have an incredibly powerful portal-opening badge later,” Neighsay said. “Right now, you and your daughter must are needed in Canterlot. We need you at this meeting, Shining Armor.”

He was right, of course. Shining knew that. If the princesses really were missing, this meeting in Canterlot absolutely needed to happen. And, as someone who was connected to pretty much all of the princesses in one way or another, Shining Armor would need to be there. It was all just a lot to take in.

Today was turning out to be a real dumpster of a day.

Shining looked over his shoulder once again. Flurry Heart was starting to wake up. Just seeing her made Shining feel better. If she’d gone missing too, he had no idea what he’d do.

“Right, right,” Shining said apologetically. “Give me a moment to talk to the palace staff. It won’t take long.”

Neighsay stamped his hoof impatiently.

“I still have to contact Equestria’s other leaders,” he said. “Make it quick.”

Shining nodded solemnly. He trotted towards the nursery door and opened it out into the hallway. Shining stuck his head out and looked both ways. There were no servants nearby to tell that he was leaving. Luckily, the acoustics in the palace were really good.

“HEY!” Shining Armor yelled as loudly as he could. “I’M GOING TO CANTERLOT! SUNBURST’S IN CHARGE ‘TILL I GET BACK!”

Shining’s voice echoed down the crystal hallways until it gradually faded into silence. He waited a moment for some kind of response.

“… ‘kay,” a quiet voice called out from somewhere in the distance.

Satisfied, Shining went back into the nursery and closed the door behind him. Flurry was peeking out of her crib. She was staring at Neighsay in confusion, clearly not knowing who this scary weirdo in her room was. Neighsay, meanwhile, was giving Shining the same look that Flurry was giving him.

“Okay,” Shining said. “We can get going.”