//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Rumors // by skan089 //------------------------------// Twilight wandered down the hallway. She didn’t know where she was going, she just knew she couldn’t be around other ponies right now. “Twilight, what’s wrong?” She looked up. Well maybe there was one pony that she could be around. Cadance swept Twilight against her, hugging her with her wings. “I heard that explosion, is everything all right?” “Ohh… That was me actually,” She gives an empty-hearted giggle and buries her face against Cadance’s chest. “It was an accident. Shining is taking care of it.” “I see. What happened? Are you sure you’re ok? You’ve been crying, Twilight.” She uses her magic to wipe away some tears from Twilight’s face. Twilight looks up at Cadance. “Your husband is going crazy,” She says between sniffles. Cadance laughs. “Ohh I know, haven’t you heard? They say he got his mistress pregnant!” She laughs again. “Poor little Princess Cadance, right?” She looks down when Twilight doesn’t respond and sees her with a look of disgust on her face. “Are we not laughing about this yet? Twilight I’m sor—” before she can finish apologizing Twilight screams and teleports away. “Buck me.” A Few Minutes Earlier Shining Armor quickly trotted to the stunned guards. He cast a spell that would help them wake up and shake off the aftereffects of the blast. The unicorn guard was the first to regain consciousness. “Ughh what happened?” She stood up with the help of Shining Armor. She raised a hoof to her head. “Are you all right?” Shining Armor asked while he was working on getting the pegasus guard on his own feet. “Star Lily, right? And that makes you Rapid Thunder,” As the pegasus stood up Shining Armor backed up and addressed the guards. “I tried to put a shield up around you two, but Twilight is really quick with her magic. I didn’t see it coming until it was too late. Are you two alright?” “My head feels like is splitting in half. I can’t believe that just—” She realized who she was talking to and what she had just witnessed. “Ohh buck, Captain I’m sorry we shouldn’t have seen that! I…” She falters not knowing how to react to the situation. “Forget about us, Captain, is the Princess ok?” Rapid Thunder steps in as his partner is left speechless. “Always the professional aren’t you Rapid?” Shining laughs, sounding tired. “I can always respect that. And its something I need right now. You guys have been with me for a while now, right?” “Yes, sir!” the two guards answer in unison. “So, I can trust you to keep this quiet? At least for the time being?” “Of course, sir. Whatever you say.” Rapid Thunder reports. “We’ve got your back, sir. Whatever is happening, we’re here to support you, one hundred percent.” Star Lily quickly follows up her partner, emphasizing that with a big smile and a salute. “I’m glad to hear that. I think we’re going to need everything we can get. Does all of that go for you too, Rapid?” Shining Armor turns to the pegasus. He looks at Shining, to his partner and then back to Shining Armor. “Yes, sir!” He gives his own salute. “Captain, we’ll take care of things here. I think you have more important things to attend to right now.” “I think you’re definitely right about that. Thank you.” And with that Shining Armor turned around and trotted quickly down the hallway that Twilight had run down. He hurried down the hallway, wondering if it was even worth it to try to catch up with her. She could be any where in the castle if she decided to teleport. When he heard a scream just around the corner he started running. He turned the corner to see his wife standing there alone. “Buck me.” He heard her say. “You too, huh? Is Twilight ok?” Cadance looked up when she heard her husband. “Shining! What is happening? I ran into Twilight here; she was crying and then she just teleported away.” “The rumors are getting to her, Cadance. We had an argument in the throne room. And I uhh… might have pushed her too far.” “Shining, what did you do?” Cadance didn’t ask so much as demanded the answer. “Well she was freaking out, so I started kissing her.” “And you thought that would work?” “It did! Well it did until she saw the guards that happened to be watching.” “What! No wonder she exploded. Shining Armor, how dare you!” Cadance stomped her hoof, her horn lit up, trying to find a trace of where Twilight had gone to. “This was the plan! I think its working, we just have to keep going. And what happened here, why did Twilight scream before she teleported away?” Shining’s voice rose. A blush came to Cadance’s face. “Well I mentioned the rumors. I wouldn’t have done it had I known that Twilight was worried about them.” She sighed and lowered her head. She stopped her magic; tracing Twilight was no use. She walked over to her husband and sat next to him. He sat down with her; the hallway was silent except for the hum of what was left of Twilight’s magic. “We really screwed this up, didn’t we?” “We should have told Twilight the plan when we thought of it. It might have taken some convincing, but we wouldn’t have had to go through this.” She put one of her wings around Shining Armor and pulled him close. “Yeah, well its easy to see that now.” He says and follows it with an angry snort. “This is exactly why I didn’t want her to be worried about it. She thinks that everypony is going to hate her now.” “I know you’re worried about her, Shining. She’s more than capable of taking care of herself though. What’s done is done. All we can do now is make things right.” She uses her wing to pull Shining’s face up to hers and gives him a quick kiss. “Go find her, Shiny. Make sure she knows how much you love her. We’re going to be a family now and nothing is going to change that.” She smiles and that smile warms up Shining Armor. The anger and worry from his face disappear and are replaced with determination. “I’ll find her. She probably went back to her room or ours,” Shining Armor stood up and started making his way down the hallway. He paused and turned around, “Wait, what are you going to do?” “Well I don’t know about Twilight, but the one thing guaranteed to calm me down when I was pregnant was whatever I was craving to eat. She’s been bugging us to go to that new hayburger place in town for a while now. It’s easy.” She smiled again and Shining Armor knew that everything was going to be ok.