High Table
“Thank you, for your assistance with this,” Cinder murmured as she examined her draconic reflection in the mirror. “There are certain concessions that I am prepared to make – stranger in a strange land, when in Mistral, and so on and so forth – but I am afraid that dining with a princess at her table completely naked is not one of them.”
Rarity chuckled. “Oh, you don’t need to explain yourself to me, darling; I completely understand.” She paused. “Well, perhaps I don’t fully understand your reasons or your own cultural taboos, but I understand that there can be a lot of fun in dressing up even when it might not be strictly required, don’t you think?”
“Surely,” Cinder said, “that depends upon who one is dressing up for.”
“One dresses up for oneself, darling, obviously,” Rarity declared.
Cinder smiled. “Obviously,” she conceded. She paused for a moment. “When… when my mother was alive, my parents were forever going to parties. She was an officer, a pilot in the… well, you wouldn’t understand what I meant if I told you who she served under. Do you even know what a pilot is?”
“Someone who flies airships,” Rarity replied.
Cinder had seen what passed for an Equestrian airship in the skies over Canterlot: pretty enough for what was essentially an ornate basket hanging from a gasbag, but probably rather slow and lumbering in the air and certainly nothing like what might be called an airship in Remnant. However, it would have accomplished nothing to try and educate Rarity upon the difference except to lead them very far off-topic and into the weeds, and so she said, “More or less, yes. She served on the base but lived in the city beyond with my father, a gentleman. I’m assuming that gentlemen don’t work here in Equestria?”
Sunset’s social attitudes were those of a Mistralian aristocrat in every respect bar racism – and even then, racist attitudes were dying in Mistral far quicker than they were in Atlas, for whatever reason – so Cinder felt on reasonably safe ground in assuming some degree of equivalence of social structure.
“A man,” Rarity murmured. “That’s what you call a stallion, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Then the word is gentlecolt here in Equestria,” Rarity informed her. “As to whether or not they work… no, not really, at least not in my experience. Some may choose to, but even then, like Twilight, they’re more likely to devote themselves to pursuits which, while useful-”
“Don’t necessarily put money in the purse,” Cinder finished for her. “Yes, I know what you mean. The philosopher in his study, freed from financial constraints or concerns to unravel the secrets of the universe.”
“Or the philosopher of magic in her castle, as the case may be,” Rarity replied. “But do go on, darling.”
Cinder took a moment to think about where she had been and to what point she had been aiming. “Yes, as I was saying, when my parents – when my mother, to be more specific – when my mother lived, she and my father were forever attending parties at the base: Spouses and Sweethearts Night in the Officers’ Mess, the Officers and Sergeants Ball, General Colton’s Birthday, Town and Base Night where they hosted the civic dignitaries… I was very young at the time, but I’m sure they can’t have all been compulsory for all the officers, especially since my mother wasn’t of particularly high rank. What I remember, apart from the fact that they went to all of these functions when I doubt that they had to, is that my mother was always dressing up for them. She didn’t have to do that either.”
“I thought you had a taboo against nakedness?” Rarity asked.
Cinder snorted. “I mean she could have worn her uniform,” she explained. “Or perhaps her dress uniform, which – somewhat confusingly – has nothing to do with a dress whatsoever, even for women – mares, as you say. But she didn’t wear her uniform, at least not often that I can recall. She liked to dress up, as I say; I used to watch her from the dressing room doorway sometimes, putting on this frock or that gown, blushing up her cheeks, arranging her hair… choosing a necklace out of her jewellery box.” Cinder frowned. “I wonder if she regretted it, as she died? All that wasted time.”
“'Wasted'?” Rarity repeated, sounding puzzled to hear it so described.
Cinder looked down at her. “It didn’t help her,” she pointed out. “It didn’t save her. She died, and none of the parties or the frocks could change that.”
“We all die, eventually,” Rarity said. “Unless, that is, one happens to ascend into an alicorn in close proximity to a powerful magical artefact, it seems,” she murmured dryly. “But, for the rest of us, surely the main point is to enjoy oneself before we die. Did your mother enjoy herself?”
“I think she must have,” Cinder said, “or else why keep going back?”
“Then I doubt that she regretted it at all,” Rarity said. “And why should she?”
“An attitude which, I have no doubt, helps you sell a great many more dresses than would otherwise be the case,” Cinder drawled.
“Pshaw, darling, you impugn me!” Rarity cried. She paused, her voice softening. “It is because I believe that that I sell dresses, not the other way around. There is nothing to be ashamed of in seeking beauty, never anything at all.”
“There are worse things to seek, I suppose,” Cinder murmured. “And yet…”
“Yes, dear?”
Cinder frowned. “What good is enjoying yourself, seeking pleasure, seeking beauty, when it can all be taken away from you in an instant?” Cinder asked. “Perhaps my mother did enjoy herself while she lived… but she died, before her time, because she had no power to keep herself safe in the face of danger.”
The same might even have been said of her stepmother. Lady Kommenos had not seemed to enjoy herself nearly as much as Cinder’s own mother had, but nevertheless, she had indulged her pleasures as best she could, but that indulgence had not spared her from Cinder’s wrath: all that she had had turned to ashes – quite literally – in moments. It had not even spared her from humiliation at the hands of Lady Nikos, who had the power to deny Lady Kommenos that which she sought by virtue of her stronger, swifter, infinitely more skilled-in-combat daughter.
The pursuit of pleasure over power might make you happier in the short term, but in the long term, if you did not have power, then your pleasure could be taken from you in a moment.
Rarity was silent for a moment. “I think you must come from a rather cruel world where other ponies seek to take things from others simply because they can; in Equestria, only the worst sorts would dream of behaving in such a way.”
“Then I envy you,” Cinder murmured. She smiled, “But then, I already did.”
Rarity smiled up at her. “And besides,” she added, “in a kind world, there is no reason why both cannot be pursued at the same time.”
Cinder’s eyes narrowed. “This is going to be something to do with friendship, isn’t it?”
Rarity chuckled. “By pursuing my dreams, I strengthen my bonds with others, and they in turn assist me when I need them; it isn’t complicated, darling.”
“No,” Cinder conceded, “but it is belaboured, at times.”
And yet, that didn’t mean that it was wrong, simply because it was belaboured. She thought about Pyrrha and how she had nearly died fighting by Cinder’s side during the Battle of Vale. Either Amber or Cinder could have killed her, for they had been half maidens, and what power did she have by comparison? None at all, none that could stand against the Fall Maiden’s magic. Either one of them could have killed her, down there in the dark. And yet, Cinder had saved her from Amber, and then spared Pyrrha’s life when she was at Cinder’s mercy because… because Pyrrha’s life was worth living, even if she could not protect it with her own strength.
And then Sunset gave her my power the moment she had the chance.
Yes, I am still sore about that; I have the right to be!
She returned to her reflection in the mirror. “Do you have many dragon customers?”
“No,” Rarity said. “I sometimes make little suits for Spike, but of course, that’s quite a different thing than a dress. And, in any case, you and he may be temporarily of the same species, but you’re of rather a different order of size. No, this has proven to be quite a novel experience for me.”
“I’d never have guessed,” Cinder said, because Rarity had actually done rather well, considering her lack of experience with Cinder’s species – or bipeds in general, Cinder would hazard.
Since her scales were red, her habitual colour had been denied to her, but fortunately, black still suited her quite well in this new form. And so, she wore a black cocktail dress that pooled upon the floor behind her and upon her tail but which had a long slit up the front to expose her legs and allow her to move freely. A belt of golden links fastened it around her waist, and the whole dress sparkled in the candlelight with tiny moonstones stitched into the fabric, so that it looked almost as if she were wearing the night sky full of stars. Unfortunately, her form was such that ‘form-fitting’ didn’t exactly mean what it would have in Remnant, and the very low, swooping V-neck wasn’t nearly as daring or as sexy as it would have been if she’d still had breasts, but considering the physical restraints that she was working under, Rarity had done a splendid job.
“As I say,” she said, “you have my thanks.” She paused for a moment. “Will anyone else be dressing up for tonight, or will be alone and quite overdressed?”
“A lady is never embarrassed by being too well-dressed,” Rarity assured her.
“I’m not quite sure that’s true,” Cinder replied.
“I am never embarrassed by being too well-dressed,” Rarity declared, “and I am frequently too well-dressed.”
“I admire your iron sense of self that no amount of misfortune can bring down,” Cinder said dryly, “but do you think anyone else will bother to dress?”
Rarity hesitated for a moment. “Princess Celestia rarely bothers to dress,” she admitted. “Or at least, she rarely bothers to dress more than she does habitually, but Twilight has been known to pretty herself from time to time. And I rather hope she does; I made her a gorgeous gown for my birthday, but there was a most inconsiderate monster attack, and we had to cancel the party.”
Cinder frowned. “You made Twilight a dress… for your own birthday?”
“Well, naturally,” Rarity declared, as though Cinder’s confusion was completely baseless. “It would have been rude of me to have set a dress code without making sure that everypony had something suitable to wear… and besides, without wishing to name names or speak ill of any of my friends, if I didn’t make the effort with some of these ponies, they’d never wear anything at all.”
“How awful,” Cinder muttered. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“What’s it like to live so free of the fear that one day someone might take everything you have, everything that makes you happy, simply because they can?” Cinder asked. “What’s it like living free of the fear that, one day, everything that matters, every scrap of joy that you possess in the world, might simply disappear and blow away like ashes on the wind?”
Rarity was silent for a moment. “Better than the alternative, I imagine,” she said softly.
“Oh, to be sure,” Cinder agreed. She fluffed at her hair with her claws for a moment, brushing it out of her eye and then pushing it back to cover her eye up again. Yes, that was better. It wasn’t as though she’d need the peripheral vision at dinner, after all.
Dinner with Princess Celestia. Dinner with the ruler of this whole nation. Dinner with someone who could, by some magic – literally – move the sun in the sky, it was… it was incredible. It was a power that not even Salem would have dreamt of, a power that not even the gods of Remnant had possessed, and yet, this pony princess – a rather unassuming princess, in some respects – wielded it as though it were nothing at all.
Cinder still wasn’t sure that she believed it.
But even if it were not so, she was still a princess, a ruler… and Sunset’s mother in every way that mattered. Those things alone gave cause for a degree of nervousness.
In times of strain or stress or nervousness, she liked to remind herself that she was Cinder Fall, with all that implied… unfortunately, being Cinder Fall with all that implied was cause for some of her nervousness around Princess Celestia. It wasn’t as though she didn’t have a past, and it was hardly a past that the princess of so peaceful and merry a realm as this was likely to approve of.
Perhaps she will take pity on me.
What a comforting thought, that pity is the best I can hope for here.
Perhaps she will be so taken to have Sunset returned that she will not notice me at all.
What a comforting thought that that is the best I can hope for here.
But I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad; we are here for Sunset, after all.
Yes. Let Sunset be the sun and draw all eyes towards her like the flowers. Let her cast a shadow over me and throw a shade over all my misdeeds that they may go unremarked upon.
There was a knock on the door of the guestroom that Cinder had been given here in the palace. Cardin’s voice issued from the other side. “Cinder? You’re in here, right?”
“Yes,” Cinder answered, “here I am.” She turned away from the mirror to face the door, but Rarity’s horn flared with a brilliant blue light, gripping the door with magic before Cinder could get any closer.
The door opened, revealing Cardin dressed in a suit that, aside from only covering his upper body and leaving his flank and hind legs bare, managed to look incredibly like Beacon’s formalwear: a black jacket, a grey waistcoat, and a white dress shirt with a red bowtie around his neck.
Cinder folded her reptilian arms. “Glad to see I’m not the only one who thought to dress.”
“I’m not an animal,” Cardin muttered as he walked inside. He blinked. “Um, no offence.”
“I shall try to avoid taking any,” Rarity murmured. “I would compliment you on your attire, but – as ironic as it may seem for a dressmaker to say so – I’ve always found that manners show finer than any glittering raiment.”
“I’m sorry,” Cardin said, “it’s just… not easy to get used to. Of all the things that I thought might happen to me in my life, turning into a talking horse was definitely not one of them.”
“Was anything that’s happened since we left Vale something you expected?” Cinder asked.
“No,” Cardin acknowledged. “But that doesn’t make this any easier to deal with.” He paused. “I’d say that you look nice, but… you know that I’m not into that kind of thing, right?”
Cinder rolled her eyes. “Yes, Cardin, I understand your meaning perfectly.” And besides, you’re not exactly my type.
“Good,” Cardin replied. “I hope you appreciate how lucky you are.”
Cinder smirked. “Certainly I appreciate my good fortune in not being you, but did you have something more specific in mind?”
Cardin scowled. “Ha ha; I meant having arms. Having hands. I have to try and figure out how to eat with these things, and I have to figure it out at a formal dinner!”
“Just watch what everyone else is doing,” Cinder suggested.
“Like the parvenu who has to wait for everyone else to start eating because he doesn’t know which fork to use with which course?” Cardin asked. “Everyone makes fun of that guy.”
“And just like that, you have reduced our entire society yet further in Rarity’s estimations,” Cinder murmured.
“Unfortunately not, darling; similar things happen here,” Rarity said with a slight trace of a sigh in her voice.
“And here I thought this place was a paradise,” Cinder said.
“By comparison with your world, perhaps,” Rarity replied. “From what I’ve heard… snobbery is our vice, here in Equestria, but it does not touch the hem of the robe of some of your vices.”
Cardin coughed into one hoof, and a frown settled on his face as he walked into the guestroom. “Are you, um, are you coming down to dinner with us, ma’am?”
“No, I’m dining with Sassy Saddles, the manager of my Canterlot Boutique,” Rarity explained. “We have some matters to discuss regarding the forthcoming Summer Collection.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Cinder observed.
Rarity looked at her, one eyebrow rising.
Cinder smiled. “It would have been a terrible sign if even the dressmaker was not bothering to dress for dinner.”
Rarity covered her mouth with one pale hoof as a chuckle escaped her mouth. “Oh, I will be changing for dinner – we are dining at the Polo Club, after all – but I have an hour yet before our reservation, so I had plenty of time to help you get ready.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “You two, on the other hoof, had best be going. Do you need me to show you the way?”
“No, thank you; we can find our way there,” Cinder assured her.
“We can?” Cardin asked.
“I only need to walk a route once to remember it perfectly,” Cinder declared. It was a skill that had come in handy in her former life.
“I’ll let you lead the way, then,” Cardin muttered.
“You do that,” Cinder instructed him, before looking at Rarity once more. “Thank you,” she said again, bowing her head. “For the dress and for your company.”
Rarity inclined her own head in return. “Have a good time. Both of you,” she added, with a sideways glance at Cardin.
The door had been left open after Cardin’s entrance, and Cinder let Cardin trail a step behind her as she made her way to the door and stepped out into the corridor beyond. The palace was tastefully decorated, with red carpets over checkerboard tiles, and walls painted in cool blues, trimmed with gold and hung about with tapestries. Occasionally, they passed a guard in gleaming armour, but none of them challenged Cinder or Cardin’s right to be there; in fact, they didn’t say anything at all, but simply stood at their posts, stock still, as though they themselves were made of metal and not just their armour.
“So,” Cinder said, as she led the way, “where did you get the suit?”
“Princess Celestia had it sent to my room,” Cardin said. “Apparently, it belongs to her nephew.”
“Really?” Cinder asked. “I’m surprised it looks so… appropriate.”
“I got lucky, I guess,” Cardin said. “Maybe they have a Beacon in this world, and the Princess’ nephew goes there.”
“I doubt that,” Cinder said. “What use would a world like this have for a school like Beacon?”
Cardin was silent for a moment. “I mean… that’s a fair point,” he admitted. “But so much else gets copied from one world to the other, why not the schools? Doesn’t it feel weird that they’re the only thing that isn’t carried over?”
“So far, the only places that we know have, as you say, carried over, are Mantle and Canterlot,” Cinder pointed out. “No Vale, no Mistral, not even an Atlas, and if no Vale, then why should there be a Beacon?”
Cardin didn’t reply directly; instead, he asked, “Why do you think it is?”
“Why do I think what is?”
“Why does some stuff get carried over and other stuff doesn’t?” Cardin explained. “Why Canterlot and Mantle but no Atlas?”
“Any answer that either of us could come up with would be no more than idle speculation,” Cinder declared. “We might as well ask why anything is duplicated between the two worlds.”
“I mean, that’s not a bad question either,” Cardin muttered.
“One which, to repeat, we have no means of answering.”
Cardin was silent for a moment. “Do you think there are versions of us?”
Cinder stopped, looking back at Cardin over her shoulder. “Hmm?”
“Come on,” Cardin insisted. “You really mean to tell me that you haven’t thought about it? There’s another Twilight Sparkle, another Rainbow Dash, our Sunset is the other Sunset Shimmer, and I swear that I’ve seen a guard around here who looks a hell of a lot like Pyrrha Nikos-“
“How could you possibly tell that a pony looked like Pyrrha Nikos?”
“Because she wore her hair the same, and she had a circlet on her brow,” Cardin said, as though it was obvious.
“Hmm, I can see why you came to that conclusion,” Cinder admitted grudgingly.
“The point is, doesn’t that mean that there should be versions of us around somewhere?”
“I sincerely hope not,” said Cinder.
“Really?” Cardin asked. “You’re not curious at all.”
“Curious about what?” Cinder demanded.
“Everything,” Cardin said. “How your life might have turned out differently if-“
“If what? If we were born in a world without grimm, without monsters, without suffering?” Cinder cried. “If we were born in a world that valued us upon our merits, where life was more than just a scramble for survival? If we were born in a world that valued song and good cheer over gold and jewels and… and power?” What would that tell her? Either that, in a world without misfortune, a world where her parents lived or where stepmothers were not so wicked, she could have been a good person. Or it would tell her that she was always fated to go bad, to be a rotten apple in the barrel. Neither prospect was very inviting to Cinder. “There may be someone in this world who shares my name,” – although she hoped not, given that she had taken the name Cinder Fall for herself after murdering her stepmother and stepsister. It would be better to say that there might be someone who had the name that Cinder had once possessed, but Cardin didn’t know that particular aspect of her past, and Cinder was in no mood to share it with him. “There may be someone who physically resembles me, but she is not me, any more than the Queen of Freeport was our Sunset. I am myself, and you are you, and there is only one of each of us.”
“But-“
“If you found out that there was a Cardin Winchester who lived in the lap of luxury, who was married to Skystar, who didn’t need to risk his life fighting monsters or trying to save the world, would that knowledge make you happy?” Cinder asked. “Would it bring you any peace or joy at all?”
Cardin was silent for a moment. “No,” he admitted. “No, I guess it wouldn’t.”
“Precisely my point,” Cinder said. “Now come on, we’re almost there.”
Before the dining hall, there lay two staircases, converging from the different wings of the palace into a single staircase leading down into the hall proper. Cinder and Cardin approached from the west, and opposite them on the eastern stair, they found the princesses waiting for them with Sunset.
Princess Celestia had not bothered to dress up; she wore the golden crown upon her brow, the golden necklace adorned with its glittering amethyst around her neck, the gilded slippers on her hooves, but no more than that. She wore no dress, no cloak, nothing at all but what Cinder had always seen her wear. Twilight wore a golden coronet, with a six-pointed star of purple set proud upon it, but no other jewels set upon it that Cinder could make out.
The little dragon, Spike, was dressed much like Cardin in a suit and bowtie, although without the waistcoat. He was so small that it looked rather comical on him to Cinder’s eyes, like one of those dogs dressed up by overly indulgent owners in Atlas… although the fact that he was a dog in Remnant might be colouring her views a little bit; Cinder could concede that possibility.
Sunset was no more dressed up than either of the two princesses, which surprised Cinder somewhat, considering that Sunset was… well, Sunset. She would hardly have attended Lady Nikos’ dining table improperly dressed, and Cinder knew full well that she was not averse to dressing up when the occasion demanded. And yet, here she was, as naked as her birth.
That, more than anything else, made Cinder fear that she was overdressed.
And, contrary to anything that Rarity might say, it was a little embarrassing.
Nevertheless, she put on a strut as she walked down the stairs, grabbing onto her skirt with one hand and swishing it a little as she walked.
She had no idea how it looked when a dragon did this, but it had to be better than creeping meekly downwards and apologising for having bothered to dress.
As she reached the point where the two staircases joined, and with the princesses and Sunset – and Spike – descending the other staircase to meet them, Cinder bowed to Princess Celestia.
She bowed in the Mistralian fashion, with one hand clenched into a fist and placed upon her heart, but as a flourish – and in concession to the fact that she was a dragon now and might as well make the most of it while it was so – she spread her wings out wide as she bent her back, spreading them out like arms even while her actual arm stayed close to her side.
“Princess Celestia,” she purred, “thank you for your warm welcome, and for the gracious hospitality that we have received and are about to receive.”
“Yes,” Cardin agreed, as he too bowed, albeit with far less panache than Cinder had demonstrated – at least in her own opinion. “Thank you for receiving us.”
Princess Celestia's face was set, even, and without much expression upon it that Cinder could tell – and these ponies had rather expressive faces, so she could hardly excuse it on those grounds. No, if Princess Celestia was giving very little away, it was because she wished to give little away.
No doubt she would rather it were Pyrrha who had come home with her daughter. Someone gently born.
No, let me not excuse it either on those grounds; if she would rather it were Pyrrha standing before than myself, it is because she would rather it were someone kind.
It is a little late to prove that I am that, but perhaps I can prove to her that I am no more the villain that I was, or that she might think me to be.
"You are welcome, of course," Princess Celestia declared. "As any friends of Sunset's would be." She turned away, and it was only as she turned away and began to sweep down the stairs that any trace of a smile appeared upon the princess' face. "Now, shall we go in?"
Princess Twilight Sparkle and the dragon Spike followed on after her, as did Cardin. Sunset lingered for a moment on the stairs with Cinder.
"I'm not sure that she likes me very much," Cinder observed.
Sunset frowned. "Why wouldn't she like you?"
"I… have not always treated you… very nicely," Cinder reminded her understatedly.
Sunset snorted. "This is Equestria; we practice forgiveness here."
"If you didn't, I doubt that I would be here," Cinder conceded, "but it may be easier to forgive one who has injured us than to forgive one who has injured one we care for."
"That's-"
"Undeniable," Cinder declared. "Would you have forgiven me if I'd killed Pyrrha?"
Sunset did not reply.
"No," Cinder said. "I didn't think you would, and would have been rather disappointed if you had, to be frank."
"You haven't killed me," Sunset pointed out.
"No," Cinder allowed. "But I have hurt you. I'm not saying this to criticise the princess – I'm not sure that I could forgive me either for what I've done to you – but nevertheless, I don't think she likes me very much."
The frown remained on Sunset's face for a moment, before her expression brightened as she changed the subject. "You look nice."
Cinder smirked. "I always look nice," she said proudly. "Now, we'd best not keep their highnesses waiting… or should I say 'their other highnesses waiting,' Your Highness."
"Stop it."
Cinder chuckled. "You're a princess now; you must allow me to tease you a little bit upon account of it."
"Very well, but you've used up your quota for the night."
"As the princess commands."
"I'm warning you."
Fresh lavender was set in the walls of the dining hall, filling the air with a sweet scent that masked any smell that might otherwise have wafted through from the kitchens. The table, set with a pristine white tablecloth and with plates and shining silver cutlery already laid out, was long – too long for the size of the dinner party. None of Princess Twilight's friends were in attendance, save for Spike, no one but Princess Celestia, Princess Twilight, Spike, Sunset, Cardin, and Cinder herself.
It meant a lot of empty spaces at the table.
Princess Celestia sat at the head of said table, with Princess Twilight upon her right and Sunset upon her left; they did not sit in chairs but simply sat down upon their haunches with their tucked up on either side of them. Chairs had been set out in the two places to the left of Princess Twilight, and Cinder took one while Spike took the other, leaving Cardin to sit awkwardly upon the floor – as the ponies did – next to Sunset.
"I hope you don't mind that I have not welcomed you with a banquet," Princess Celestia said. "I would prefer not to have to share you with too many others, and besides-"
"It would raise a lot of questions that you would prefer were not asked," Sunset finished. She smiled. "It's quite alright, Princess; I don't really want to have to share you either."
Twilight chuckled. "Formal events may be necessary," she said, "and I'm sure that some people enjoy them, but when what you really want is to spend time with a friend, a beloved teacher, or a… a mom," – a faint flush rose to her cheeks as she added that last part – "then all of the formality can be a real hindrance. I remember, more than a year ago, when my friends and I were first invited to the Grand Galloping Gala-"
Sunset leaned forward. "Did you have to stand next to the princess all night?"
"Yes!" Twilight cried eagerly. "I had spent literally months looking forward to this-"
"They all had," Spike added. "They all thought that their dreams were going to come true."
"Really?" Cinder asked. "At a gala?"
Spike nodded. "Applejack was going to make so much money that she could fix up everything on the farm, Rainbow was going to get into the Wonderbolts, Rarity was going to marry the prince-"
"Yes, thank you Spike!" Twilight squawked. "We were very naïve at the time, I admit."
Cinder folded her arms. "How was Applejack planning to make money at a gala?"
"Selling pies and stuff," Spike said.
"But surely there were-"
"Very naïve," Twilight repeated heavily. "We've all grown up a great deal since then."
"I can well believe it," Cinder murmured; it seemed hard to think of the Rarity that she had met expecting that she would fall in love and marry a prince after a single night at a ball. It wasn't immediately clear to her that the Rarity she had met would even want to. "But please, Princess, continue; I've interrupted you."
"It's fine," Princess Twilight assured her. "This is a conversation, not a monologue. But yes, as Spike reminds me, we had all spent so long looking forward to that night. I wanted to tell Princess Celestia everything that I'd learned, everything that had happened to me, everything that had happened to her; after being away in Ponyville, I just wanted to spend the night with her. But instead-"
"Instead, you got stuck standing next to the princess like a statue while an incessant parade of ponies came up the stairs to greet the princess," Sunset said.
"Happen to you too, huh?" Twilight asked.
Sunset nodded, glancing at Princess Celestia. "Princess, I'm not sure why you even have us there."
Princess Celestia sighed. "It is probably rather foolish of me to think that I might get even a few moments to snatch with my faithful student, but I live in hope."
"You did more than hope that year," Twilight muttered.
Sunset's eyebrows rose. "What's this now?"
"It turned out that Princess Celestia invited me and my friends so that we would ruin the gala," Twilight said.
"I did not invite you to ruin the gala," Princess Celestia replied. "I merely hoped that you might… liven it up a little." She paused, a smirk fleeting across her features. "Although, as awful as the gala is, would either of you blame me if I did set out to ruin it, just one time?"
Cinder glanced across the table at Cardin and found that her confusion was mirrored upon his face. "If you dislike this gala so much, then why bother to hold it at all, Your Highness?"
"Why bother with any of the palace social functions?" Princess Celestia asked. "Other ponies get something from it, and for the most part, I am not inclined to curb their pleasures, for all that they are not mine. But I think that after a thousand years, I'm allowed to kick against the tedium just once."
Sunset grinned. Her green eyes gleamed mischievously as she asked, "So, Twilight, how did you and your friends ruin the gala?"
Twilight was spared the need to answer that – at least right away – when the food was brought in, ponies wheeling trolleys laden with covered platters out into the dining halls. The wheels of the trolleys barely squeaked at all as they were pushed into position.
The ponies, dressed in waistcoats and bowties, used their forehooves – these were all earth ponies, like Cardin – to lift the platters off the trolleys and set them down deftly before the diners.
The lids were lifted off the platters. Sunset, Twilight, Princess Celestia, and Cardin all had a plate of salad set before them.
Cinder had a platter of jewels and gems.
She stared down at the stones that had been set before her. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, amethysts, all gleamed up at her, sparkling in the light of the candles set in their sconces on the wall.
Cinder glanced across the table at Cardin, but he was too engrossed in staring at his own hooves to notice her predicament. She glanced at the princesses and Sunset, but they too had failed to notice – or at least none of them seemed inclined to comment upon it.
Cinder looked down at the jewels once more. In the same way that Cardin didn't want to be the person who clearly doesn't know how to conduct themselves at a high table dinner, Cinder didn't want to be the one who berated the chef for serving the gazpacho soup cold. But equally… well, she would have liked to have had something to eat for dinner.
And so she kept her voice quiet, and her tone soft and courteous as she said, "Excuse me, but I think someone has mixed up dinner with the crown jewels."
Sunset's eyebrows rose. "Ah! Sorry, I should have explained-"
"And I should have remembered that you did not know," Princess Celestia added. "In this world, gems and jewels are the favoured food of dragons."
Cinder blinked. "Dragons… eat treasure?"
"Yeah!" Spike declared enthusiastically, and when she looked at him, Cinder saw that he had a bowl of gemstones in front of him. He plucked an emerald out of the bowl and stuck it into his mouth. There was a very audible crunching sound before he swallowed. "They're delicious!"
"Hmm," Cinder murmured sceptically, looking down at her own meal. "In the stories of my world, dragons hoard treasure."
"They do that here too, some of them," Princess Twilight said. "But as food for hibernation, the same way bears do."
"I see," Cinder said quietly.
"If you don't want them, I'll take 'em," Spike said.
"Spike!" Princess Twilight rebuked him. "Don't be greedy."
"I'm sorry, Cinder," Princess Celestia said. "It was a mistake to treat you like a dragon when you only have the appearance of one. I will have the chefs make you something else."
"There is no need, Princess, for either you or your chefs to exert yourself on my account," Cinder assured her. "You say that I only wear the appearance of a dragon; I say no: I have always been a dragon; now my outer form reflects my inner self. That being the case, it behooves me to act like it, without pretence." She plucked a particularly large diamond up from the plate and briefly held it up to the light. It was a deep ocean blue and brilliantly cut, verging upon heart-shaped. It was such a gem as the likes of Jacques Schnee would buy for his wife, such as ladies in Mistral would pay small fortunes for to dazzle in at the Steward's Palace or their boxes in the colosseum. And yet, here it was, being served up to her for dinner as part of a king's ransom in such jewels, a moment's pleasure to devour and then gone.
Hopefully, that sound I heard from Spike wasn't his teeth breaking, Cinder thought. Ah, well, I have bitten off more than I can chew before. She tossed the diamond into her mouth and bit down hard.
There was a surprisingly satisfying crunch and then… who knew that diamond could taste so good? It wasn't like eating rock ought to taste, it wasn't hard or cold or sharp, it didn't feel as though it was about to tear apart her tongue, it felt… it felt good. It felt sweet, bizarrely, like a chocolate egg with rich and creamy caramel inside just waiting once you cracked the shell. It was wet and warm and nothing like what it ought to have felt like and yet it did.
And it was incredible.
Cinder looked down at Spike.
"Told you," Spike said smugly.
Cinder couldn't restrain a laugh. "Yes," she agreed. "Yes, you did."
She tucked in. Each gem, she discovered, had its own distinctive taste: spicy rubies that took a moment for the taste to hit you, sour emeralds that landed hard upon the tongue, soft and velvety amethysts, delicate and refreshing sapphires. Each were different, each in their own way quite delicious. Cinder found that the tastes were so surprising, and intoxicating in how surprising, that she often found herself carried away by them, far from the conversation going on at the dinner table.
Nobody at the table seemed to mind that she was eating with her hands; spooning the gems up seemed redundant, and using a knife or fork pointless in the extreme. Cardin was not so lucky; he struggled with using the cutlery with his hooves, which everyone affected not to notice until he knocked both knife and fork down onto the floor.
All conversation at the dining table ceased as the clatter of silverware on the floor echoed about the dining hall like the firing of a cannon.
Princess Celestia looked upwards towards the ceiling. Princess Twilight looked as if she didn't know where to look.
Cardin huffed loudly, and by the reddening of his face, he seemed to be biting back a desire to curse.
Sunset glanced at him, and after a moment, she set her own cutlery – the knife and fork she had been manipulating via telekinesis – aside, and bent her head down to plate to start grabbing and chewing on it directly with her mouth, like a far less intelligent animal might have done whilst grazing in the fields.
Princess Celestia looked at her for a moment, and then with a faint smile playing about her face, she too bent her head down to her plate and commenced grazing.
Princess Twilight followed suit almost immediately after.
For a moment, Cardin looked rather chagrined at being condescended to in this way, but once that moment passed, he clearly – and rightly, in Cinder's view – decided to take what was being offered to him and started to devour the salad on his plate with great gusto.
Dessert, when it came, was pancakes, with silly faces picked out in the fruit and cream.
A fond smile appeared on Sunset's face. "You're still doing the decorations yourself, I see, Princess."
Princess Celestia chuckled. "A little amusement at the start of the day – or at the end of it – never hurt anypony."
She really was a very unusual monarch.
And yet, she was, nevertheless, a monarch, as Cinder was reminded at the end of the night when Princess Celestia said, "Cinder, may I speak with you alone for a moment."
Ah. I suppose something like this was always likely, Cinder thought. She bowed her head. "Of course, Your Majesty."
Sunset frowned. "Princess-"
"Sunset," Cinder said softly. "It's fine."
Princess Celestia's gaze was fixed on Cinder, but it was nevertheless to Sunset that she said, "It will only be for a little while, Sunset, I promise."
Nevertheless, Sunset did not look entirely easy as she, Princess Twilight, Cardin, and Spike all took their leave out of the dining hall, leaving Celestia and Cinder alone.
Well, not quite alone, not at first: the servants moved silently throughout the room, clearing everything away, and while they were about their work, Celestia too was silent, so that the only sound in the great hall was the clinking of cups and plates and cutlery being cleared away.
Then the servants departed, the doors closed behind them for the final time, and they really were alone. And the room really was silent.
Princess Celestia got to her feet, turning away from Cinder as she walked to the latticed windows that looked out over the city. It was dark outside; it had been dark without ere they sat down to dinner – clearly, she who raised and lowered the sun had lowered it before coming down – and the moonlight shone in through the windows to send a long shadow trailing out behind her. Her mane and tail rippled softly, as though a wind that Cinder could not feel passed through them.
Cinder stood up, regretting the noise that her chair made scraping along the floor as she pushed it back, but somehow, it felt improper to be sitting when the ruling princess was about to have some words for you from upon her feet – or hooves.
She hesitated. "Princess-"
"Tell me about Amber," Princess Celestia said, her voice sharper than it had been at dinner and lacking all its warmth.
Cinder did not respond.
"Well?" Princess Celestia asked, her back to Cinder still.
"I doubt that you'd be asking if Sunset hadn't told you everything," Cinder replied.
"You attacked her," Princess Celestia declared.
Cinder glanced down at the floor beneath her claws. "Yes, I did."
"An innocent girl," Princess Celestia said. "One who had done you no wrong."
"That… is correct."
"You stole her magic."
"Some of it."
"And left her in a sleep like death," Princess Celestia said, "dying, and left Professor Ozpin so desperate that he was willing to sacrifice another innocent girl to keep yet more power out of your hands."
"That is upon him, not me," Cinder replied.
"You drove him to it!" Princess Celestia snapped, rounding upon Cinder with fire burning in her magenta eyes. She took a deep breath. "You drove him to it," she repeated. "You put the fear in him and made him so desperate that he would do almost anything, no matter how cruel."
"It did not come to pass," Cinder murmured. "Sunset… saved them both, Amber and Pyrrha."
"And yet, Amber was so damaged, so broken by what you had done to her that she forsook and betrayed he who had always loved her best and lost her life in the process."
"Are all things to be laid at my door?" Cinder demanded.
"Where you began them, yes," Princess Celestia declared. She paused for a moment. "Tell me about Mountain Glenn."
"What upsets Your Highness more, that I threatened a city with destruction or that I made Sunset complicit in it?" Cinder asked. "What would you have of me, Princess? You know my crimes as well as any, it seems; you would not bring them up if Sunset had not given you the details. So what would you have of me? An admission of guilt for things you already know that I am guilty of?"
"Perhaps some remorse," Princess Celestia suggested. "We are a forgiving race, here in Equestria, but nevertheless, even we believe that there are some things which are beyond forgiveness. Sunset has found it in her heart to forgive you, but when I think of what you have done, I must confess… if you were one of my subjects, I would be tempted to have you bound in Tartarus in penalty for your actions."
Cinder didn't know what or where Tartarus was, but the context was clear enough that she felt no need to ask. She licked the scales that surrounded her mouth. "In truth," she said quietly, "you might be right to do so. More right than Sunset is in forgiving me so easily."
Princess Celestia approached closer, walking away from the window and back towards the dining table.
The princess said nothing, but Cinder took it as an invitation to go on. "All that you accuse me of, I have done, and more. I murdered my stepmother and, eventually, both my stepsisters; I killed men, I pledged myself to the service of a monster and made myself an enemy of the world; I attacked Amber, who was no enemy to me, who did not know me, who had, as you say, done me no harm, and I subjected her to monstrous torment. I deceived Sunset as to who I was and what my intentions were. I hated those who had given me no cause to hate them and sought their deaths. I threatened Vale with destruction and made Sunset a party to the act so that she would become as vile as I was, as vile as I wished her to be. And I only turned away from that path because I was betrayed by my mistress, who thought little of me and sought to throw me aside. I am Cinder Fall, who sought to bring about the end of all things in fire and blood, and in your place, Princess Celestia, I don't think I'd give me the benefit of the doubt either."
"Why did you do it?"
"Does it matter?" Cinder asked. "Would any reason I might give make my actions less monstrous?"
"Nevertheless, I would hear them," Princess Celestia said.
Cinder stepped away from the table, swishing her tale behind her as she did so. "I had been hurt," she said, "and wished to make sure that none could ever hurt me again."
"And so you hurt others," Princess Celestia said softly.
"Yes," Cinder murmured hoarsely. I passed my pain on, to those unfortunate enough to cross my path.
“Do you regret it?”
Cinder replied, “You know, Sunset’s never asked me that. I hope… I hope she’s not afraid of what the answer might be.”
“I would like to know the answer,” Celestia said, firmly if not forcefully.
Cinder was silent for a moment. Did she regret? Well, that depended on what, in specific, she was being asked to regret. Her actions were like rolling hills, undulating in severity. “I do not regret what I did to my stepfamily,” she said. “They deserved worse than I, or the law of Mistral, could have done to them… and it was clear to me even as a child that the law could not be relied upon to do aught to them. As I say, I do not regret it; I did… it was just, what I did to them, though it was perhaps not legal. I was a fury in those moments, an avenger, an upholder of the ancient laws, and I do not regret it.” That was easily said and sincerely meant; it was not hard to say that she had been right to burn down the house of Lady Kommenos, to kill Phoebe, but for the rest? “For what I did to Sunset, for what I plotted to do to Pyrrha, for what I schemed and worked towards, I… yes, I do regret… but you may be disappointed – or affirmed in your prejudices; I do not know just how low your opinion of me is – that I regret as much for myself as for Sunset. I am sorry that I put Sunset through so much anguish, that I manipulated her down a dark path, that I made her feel responsible for several deaths… but I regret that not only for Sunset’s own sake but for own. When I think of that semester at Beacon, when I think of that time we spent in lies and deceptions… with hindsight, it all seems wasted. If… if we had both been able to see one another as we were right from the start… how much closer could we have been? If I hadn’t wasted so much time on fruitless envy of Pyrrha Nikos, if I had taken the scales out of my eyes and seen her as she really was, seen the world for what it really was, if I had seen her true good fortune for what it was and not what I wished it to be, then… again, I might have spared myself much agony and heartache. The only defence I can offer for the selfishness of what I have said is that… well, I wasn’t much of a villain, was I? Vale survived, Pyrrha yet lives and is yet ensconced in happiness with Jaune Arc, Sunset… Sunset, I… I am sorry, for Sunset. I’m sorry that my actions, my desire to make her what I wished… I’m sorry for everything it did to her.”
“Have you told her that?” Princess Celestia asked.
Cinder scowled. “No.”
“Then perhaps you should.”
“I am… I’m afraid to remind her that it was all my fault.”
“Has she not forgiven you already?” Princess Celestia replied. “And what of Amber?”
“Amber,” Cinder began. “Amber is… of all of my actions, Amber I regret the most. I told you that I had become a fury when I avenged myself upon my stepfamily, but when I struck down Amber… I became someone who deserved to be hunted by the furies, if such things existed. I wounded her, I stole her power, I… she was terrified of me, before I took her magic and left her… I was as cruel to her as ever the world had been to me, or worse. What justice in my cause, once I had made a victim in Amber as pitiable as ever I had been?”
Princess Celestia took pause a moment. “And now?”
“And now, Your Highness?” Cinder asked.
“Why are you here?” Princess Celestia asked her.
“I… I am here because Sunset wishes me here,” Cinder answered. “And because I wish to be.”
“With her?”
“By her side, Your Highness, yes.”
“And for no other reason?”
“What would the princess have me say?” Cinder demanded, spreading out her arms and wings alike. “That I fight now for a better world? That I fight because I have a great destiny that bids me save the world and all who live in it? Do you wish me to say that I have now no desires but to help others? I suspect you would find such answers as false out of my lips as you find my current answers unsatisfactory.”
“Do not be so quick to judge what answers I find unsatisfactory,” Princess Celestia said.
Cinder had not expected to hear that, and so, she said nothing in response to it, waiting to hear more.
Princess Celestia turned away from her. “When Sunset began to write to me again, in the diary, she described the characters of her friends,” she said. “They seemed kind, caring, warm, and generous individuals. I was delighted that my… that my daughter had found herself in such good company. I little expected that she would bring any of them here to Equestria, but if she did-“
“You hoped that she might bring Ruby or Pyrrha, or even Jaune?” Cinder asked.
Princess Celestia looked at her. “You are not surprised?”
“It is not surprising,” Cinder answered. “You would prefer Pyrrha for a houseguest than myself? Who wouldn’t? I half-suspect that Lady Nikos would prefer Sunset for an in-law rather than Jaune. Life is full of disappointments for the parents of Team Sapphire. I make no claims to virtue, Princess, or to heroism. I do not claim to have the stuff of greatness. I gave up on destiny along with my stolen magic. But I am loyal, to those who have given me cause for loyalty, and I fancy that I am brave and not without skill in arms for all that I now lack some of the extraordinary abilities that others have.
“I know that I am not the companion that a mother would choose for her daughter, but I swear to you, Princess Celestia, upon whatever tattered shreds of honour yet are mine, I will never let her down. Others of greater virtue cannot say as much.”
Princess Celestia stared down at her, silent and inscrutable. “You speak truly; you are not the companion I would choose.” A sigh escaped her. “But then, Starlight Glimmer is not the student that I would have chosen for Twilight, and when it comes to Sunset… nothing about this situation or her circumstances are what I would have chosen for her. She, who knows her own life better than anyone, has chosen you… who am I to presume to know better?” She closed her eyes for a moment and sighed once more. “Take care of her, I beg of you; she is… she is as dear to me as you can imagine.”
“I will,” Cinder vowed, and once more placed her hand upon her heart. “With life and heart and with my very soul, I will.”