//------------------------------// // Toll // Story: Princess Cadance and the Royal Respawn // by Skipping the pony pun //------------------------------// Flurry Heart was experimentally pressing in on Twilight's muzzle. Twilight extracted a hoof from the blankets she laid under and scratched Flurry under the chin, making the baby giggle and squirm. Cadance watched from the bedside with a sweet, sincere smile. Twilight was in the guest suite's bed. Her coat was flushed with sweat, and the sheets were a mess, but her face had been wiped clean. A cool, wet towel rested on her forehead. Twilight looked at Cadance, looked at Flurry, looked at Cadance again. ”Not right now, no,” said Cadance. "Let's just take a moment." Time passed. Cadance tickled Flurry for a little. ”So,” Cadance said. ”So,” Twilight said. ”There's a world out there, with things living it who don't have friendship. Not as we know it. They'll never know the joy of bonding with each other so tight, it fires a giant rainbow beam.” Cadance hung her head and said: ”They'll never love each other so deeply, it sets off a city-sized shock wave.” ”And they know about us.” ”Heh. Oh, they do far more than just know about us.” ”I thought so! They made those ponies' capsules as colorful as anything in Equestria, but they themselves and their own things were so muted and listless. Why would they go further for us than for themselves? What kind of items would you value more than reality? Grave goods? No, I don't think so. What were those effigies?” Cadance closed her eyes. ”Us,” she muttered. ”I know they're us.” "The real us. Did you see yourself?" Cadance said, and when Twilight shook her head she went on: "I've seen you there. You're a sweet, pretty, inanimate object. So am I! And you better believe so's Flurry. Aren't you a good little statue, darling?" "Goo!" "So. The good news is: you're real! The bad news: that's the only part of you that is. Your hopes, your fears, your aspirations? Not real. The love you feel for your friends? Zzzzip! Equestria? You know it. We're not here. We're not having this conversation. We're the effigies and we're inside an illusion, while right this moment the real you stands unmoving and smiles." "In truth, you've never had a thought. You've never moved a muscle. You never, ever will." "...Well, that's one way to ruin the moment," Twilight said. "Isn't it just?" Twilight had worked enough all-nighters to recognize what Cadance was doing: she thought the worst was out and that she didn't have to fight quite so hard to avoid collapsing on the spot. But Twilight was owed some answers. "I refute it thus," said Twilight, and waved a hoof. Flurry got a look of deep consideration and then waved back. Cadance just nodded. "Dreams feel real on the inside, too. You know that old chestnut: "And Zig Zag asked: Am I a butterfly dreaming that he's a pony?" Well, we got the short end of that stick. We're a fantasy, a dream of those things from the another world. Silhouettes on a cave wall and they're the ones making shadow puppets." When Twilight didn't answer, Cadance added, "Surprise!" "Do you really expect me to believe that?" "Of course not! That'd be ridiculous. Let's use an example. How long has Ponyville had a railroad?" ”Huh? Thirty-five years, four months. What does that have to do with anything?" "All right, here's a better one. The past isn't real." "That's why it's the past, yes." "It's dream rules. If I'm a genius detective and it's decided that I've always had a bumbling sidekick, why, there he's been all along. Shiny and I are what, three years old? That's when the things that govern this reality decided that the cute little bookworm Twilight Sparkle has always had a family, and poof! You'd never lose touch with your BBBFF, right? Bear with me." As if Twilight hadn't been downright Ursa Majoring with her. "Yes, of course," said Twilight. "I'm not gonna claim we write regularly, with how things get and how I get, but we make do. We'd never leave each other hanging like that." "I know, it's adorable." Cadance's warmhearted smile was well out of place in the conversation. "What was first time you wrote to, saw, or thought about Shiny since your move to Ponyville? Say, the time you told him about all the friends you'd made?" "I moved in the day after the Summer Sun Celebration, so it would've been after the Running of the Leaves… Winter Wrap-up… the Grand Galloping Gala… oh. Oh no. The second Hearth's Warming… and I remember the snow was gone when…" Cadance hugged Twilight, who didn't turn away, and held her until she stopped trembling. "Are we a good dream?" said Twilight. "We're a profitable one. The return of Luna, the defeat of Sombra, our loves, our friendships, were a way to make us more appealing to those in the real world. Heh. Improve our scent, perhaps - did you see their teeth? I think they're predators." "We're… symbols of happiness? In a world like theirs?" "Symbols that cost money of happiness. I'm sorry to be so strict on this, Twilight, but to understand all this it's crucial to keep those in the right order. We exist in order to be sold at a decent profit. If being a reminder of happiness helps with that, so much the better, but never mistake it for generosity. I saw it in your expression as you began the rite - harmony or law, right? The answer is greed." "I'll need to see your notes. And your research materials on things beyond this world," Twilight said. "Of course. You should probably be aware some of them are a thousand years old and bound in griffon skin." "But…" "Easy. Just get it out." "What do we do?" "Do? Silly filly." Cadance patted Twilight on the head. "Stay in our packaging and smile. If we want, wait for Flurry to bring the end." Twilight looked at Flurry, who was sitting on the bed next to her trying resolutely to chew on her own hind leg, and said: "Bwah?" "Take it from me, Twilight: There's a difference between knowing this world is ruled by grim forces from beyond, and knowing those things paid a personal visit to your womb. I don't think marketing bothers with everypony, but Flurry? It was marketing that made her be born like this, it's marketing alone that keeps her alive." Cadance's words were speeding up; Twilight had a feeling she'd been wanting to get this off her chest. "Nopony can survive having the immaturity of a baby and the sheer power of an alicorn! My daughter was born non-viable! Every day she survives anyway it's because of how deeply she's in marketing's control. She couldn't even be alive except by being exactly as marketing wants her to be! What part of her came from my and Shiny's love, my desire to have a child I could love and cherish? None! She's not mine!" The fire seemed to go out of Cadance; she slumped, lowered her head, and squeezed her eyes shut. They brimmed with tears. "She's not mine…" Twilight's head spun. She had to do something to help, but she'd completely lost track of the factors involved, the situation was clearly volatile, and she was unfamiliar with half of the topics. "And yet… I love my little cuckoo-child more than I hate her. How could I not? I carried her for eleven months, dreamed so many times of getting to see her… but what claim do I have to her, anyway? What have I done for her? Feed her, raise her, what's that compared to writing it into the cosmos that fire's hot, water flows downhill, and Flurry Heart must exist? I..." Cadance trailed off, and began to sob in earnest. That was it; Twilight had to do something. Her friendship with Cadance and her position as Princess demanded it. "Um. Don't cry, it's not so bad?" Candance looked at Twilight as if she'd grown a second head, and started laughing like she'd just heard the best joke in her life. Partial success? "Do you realize - ahahahaha, thank you, that was great, Twilight - do you realize what I've done? I've given marketing a body! I was the caregiver for an empire, but I just had to have one more pony, one more that I could favor over all others! What harm could just one more do? Pfffffthahahaha. It was already so powerful from afar, now it's here among us! Any constraints it had are GONE! Why did it want this? What will it do now? I get to ponder that as I watch it grow and strengthen by the day, this little horror who I STILL love and who I still want to succeed! There's your bwah, Twilight! Bwah! What year is it?" "Er..." "What year is it, Twilight?" "1005 ACA, but you should-" "NO! The year is one, Twilight!" Flurry gave a yip as cyan magic pulled her into the air in front of Cadance. "The year." Cadance's horn glowed brighter, and her head rattled and shook as magic washed over it. "IS." Cadance lowered her front, raised her hindquarters, and opened her mouth from ear to ear, revealing rows of sharp teeth. "ONE!" Quick as a lightning bolt, Cadance slammed forward and upward, and with a RUNCH, wrenched Flurry Heart's head clean off her shoulders. She slammed her jaws together, chewed, and swallowed. After Cadance had turned her head back to normal, she said: "Whoof! Thank you so much, Twilight. I've had to tell somepony for ages." Cadance said: "I tried to sustain myself on Flurry once. You know, cloister myself together with what I'd done? But it doesn't count once she comes back." Cadance said: "Now then. Crêpes? I know this is hard for you, but here's my best tip for existential terror: whether anything matters or not, a good meal still makes it far less annoying." Cadance said: "Meet you there, ok? Come on, Flurry!" "Gdee!" Flurry said as she took flight and followed her mom out the door. Twilight began laughing, a wild, desperate, whooping laugh. She didn't know if she was ever going to stop.