"It was... icky as hell." Umbra shook her head. "Don't go gossip-mongering, but I sent them both off to figure themselves out."
"Wow." Shifting circled her friend. "I don't mean to be rude, but..."
"But?" Umbra turned her head to keep Shifting in view. "But what? They were nuts."
"It was pretty wild," agreed Shifting. "Not good. But not that part." She gestured to the left wildly. "Rewind, um. See, Shining?"
"Yeah?" Umbra nodded as she flicked up a hind hoof, scratching herself as a dog or cat might. "What about him?"
"He's a consort too already. That word doesn't mean what you think it means." Her cheeks darkened, but she was giggling. "Your way of using it is very naughty."
Umbra started at that. "Wait, what?! Seriously?" She leaned in closer to the changeling that was also a crystal bat pony. "Then what does it mean in this pony world?"
"Anyone married to royalty who isn't royalty." Shifting nodded along with that. "Shining Armor isn't royalty. Cadance is." She lifted a hoof with each pony named, Cadance higher. "So Shining Armor is a princess consort." A hoof turned to point at Shifting. "They weren't taking you as, a... mistress. They were saying 'Congrats, you're married too!"
Umbra sank back. "Oh!" That certainly had different connotations. "That doesn't make the messing with my head better." She tapped the side of her head for emphasis. "That isn't cool!"
"No..." Shifting squirmed left and right a moment. "The... The old queen could do that."
"Old queen?" Umbra reached out to poke at Shifting. "What old queen? Cadance is a replacement?"
"No! No, sorry." Shifting laughed with some strain. "My old queen, Chrysalis. Don't bring her up! Cadance and Shining have... bad blood with her. She's the queen of the changelings, like me, except not me. I left." She bobbed her head vigorously. "I have no queen now."
"And you're doing fine." Umbra patted Shifting gently on the head, which wasn't fought against. "Though, technically, if you live here, isn't Cadance your queen?"
"Technically," agreed Shifting, drawing big quotes in the air with her hooves. "I never voted for her."
This got merry laughter out of Umbra. "You just made a cross-dimensional joke, and I love it. Tell me you meant that, though not meaning it might be even better."
Shifting rubbed at a cheek. "Which part?" She did not know the joke she had made, nor the reference. "So... what was it like?"
"Which?"
Shifting tapped at her head. "Being zapped by the love princess. Outside the... not asking for it part."
"That's a big part!" Umbra began pacing instead, leaving Shifting sitting in one spot. "But, alright, fair question." She let out her breath as she hopped onto a chair. "It was like all I could think about was Shining Armor. Like my relationship to him was... everything." She waved a hoof a bit wildly, trying to encompass those feelings. "Not that I needed to... It's hard to phrase this, but it was like I was super focused on that, not that I had to love him. Because I don't! He did me dirty."
This seemed to confuse Shifting. "He made you dirty? You didn't mention that part." She inclined her head slowly. "I thought you didn't... do anything?"
Umbra stared at Shifting a moment before she brought her hooves together with a sharp clap. "Oh! Figure of speech. When someone 'does you dirty', it means they did something wrong to you on purpose. Usually a lie, or they left you in a tight spot."
"Never heard of that one," admitted Shifting Prism without hesitation. "But did he?" Umbra squinted at that. "Hear me out! He challenged Cadance to zap him, didn't he?"
"He did?" she allowed, thinking back to that instant. "Yeah, he did that."
"He did not ask Cadance to zap you." Shifting pointed at Umbra. "Which means he didn't do it. Still kinda dumb of him, but..."
Umbra pounced at Shifting, fading to shadow, across Shifting and reforming on the other side of them. "That was cool." A new application of the powers she had. She giggled with mirth at pulling it off properly. "That didn't hurt you, did it?"
Shifting turned in place, sliding on the crystal. "Surprised me, but I'm alright. Way to change the topic!"
"Did it work?" Umbra stuck out her tongue in a gesture unbefitting one of Sombra's ilk. "You're not entirely wrong. He didn't ask for that part, just got us both into it without thinking it through." She flopped to the side. "Which means, technically, he didn't 'do me dirty'. He was just an idiot."
"Toldja." Shifting looked way too pleased about that. "Still kinda dumb though, yeah. But that's on Cadance for doing it. She could have just zapped him. I think?" She tapped a forehoof on the floor. "I think she can? Now I'm not sure. I never saw her do that trick before. I don't know those rules!"
"Hey, count me in on the 'no idea' camp." She moved to sit down next to Shifting. "Look, I just needed to vent. That was a lot to get sprung on me all of a sudden."
"I bet!" Shifting leaned over onto Umbra. "I'm sorry that happened. Are you alright?"
"I am now." She leaned back against Shifting. "But I could be better. I want to make something big! Now tell me why I shouldn't just make a mess of crystals and shape it into a house?"
Shifting whistled at the idea. "You really are a crystal wizard... If I wanted to make one of those crystal houses, I'd need a lot of work before I even started... Alright, so..." Shifting pranced to a window and pointed down. "First, we can't do that inside. That'd be a huge mess and then they'd be angry at us, and for good reason. I will not participate in revenge schemes." She stuck out her tongue. "And you're too good for that."
"Tempting! But yeah, I don't want to hurt their castle for funsies. Let's go build, outside."
"Outside!" sang out Shifting, the two heading outside for a lesson on crystal forging when creating structures.
The train drew to a calm stop in the middle of nowhere. The city had not yet reached the end of the tracks, though was expanding that way. That was of little comfort to the pony that stepped free into the snow, each step she took sinking dangerously deep. "The things I'm called to do," she grumbled to herself.
"Active?" Shining was there, dressed more appropriately for the snow. "Thanks for coming!" He rushed towards her with a big happy smile.
Active smiled in kind. However cold it was, she remembered what a lovable doof Shining tended to be. "The one and only." She bowed with a sweep of a hoof. "Now, kindly tell me it's warmer in there." She pointed to the bubble that was the city not too far ahead.
"Way warmer." He began to walk alongside her. "Really, thanks. We know you had to come a long way."
"Just a little out of the way," joked Active Listening. "But if you called me, it's because you need me. Did Cadance catch you staring at something scary in not quite a scared way?"
Shining began to color at that. "No! Um, a little? It's more complicated than that, really."
"It always is." The counselor nodded slowly. "So start at the start, run me through it. Also congratulations."
"On?"
"You're the highest ranking pony for miles around, outside Cadance herself. That's something, hm?" Active nodded. "But I'm here to listen, so go on, tell me."
"You're nice, but first, warmth." He guided her to the edge of the bubble. "It's a lot toastier on the other side." He stepped beyond it, already taking off his hat and scarf, no longer required.
Active had no winter clothes to begin with, rushing across the barrier. "Oh, thank Celestia." The unicorn shook the snow from her fur. "That's a fair bit better. Now, as you were saying?"
"Are you sure you want to get right into that?" Shining pointed ahead at the palace in the distance. "We have a room ready for you."
"You two are the only reason I'm here." She walked as Shining did, but didn't seem to be letting up. "So, no. I want to hear. Tell me. I can't listen if you don't talk."
"That's true..." A trick of having a counselor, they wanted you to say things. "Well, it starts with the Crystal Heart, which I'll show you when we get to it." He went quiet, walking through the Crystal Empire alongside Active Listening.
"Crystal Heart? Is--" she clucked her tongue. "Like Cadance's mark?!"
"Exactly like Cadance's mark." The two were nodding together. "We found it, and a new complication."
"Now we're getting somewhere. Was it guarded by something alluring?" She could see Shining getting embarrassed. "Don't bother hiding it, just keep talking. I'm not who you need to hide from."
"First of all, no. It was guarded by a very angry and not even remotely attractive King Sombra. You ever hear of him?" Active shook her head, but was clearly still listening. It was her job. "Angry, shadowy, and extremely violent," ran down Shining. "Said one word at a time when not in the middle of hurting a pony. Not a nice pony to be around."
"You're leaving something out."
Shining frowned even as he laughed. "You are too good at that. So, uh, while we were fighting with him, there was another shadow pony, Umbra. She was on our side. She helped us fight Sombra, and we did it."
"There she is." Active leaned closer from the side. "I had a feeling. She a looker?"
Shining redirected by pointing at the Crystal Heart that had come into view. "That's what we found, and what keeps things nice and warm in here."
"It really is just like her mark. But continue. We're just getting at the important part."
"Right... So as we fought, the heart--" He pointed at it all the more emphatically. "It tied us together. Cadie, Umbra, and me. Once all unified, we won the day, but we didn't separate after that. We're still connected."
"Like the Elements of Harmony?" She quirked a brow up. "I don't see any tiara or necklaces on you."
"That would have been easier," groaned out Shining. "It bridged our, um, senses. If you poke me, both of them would feel it."
Active came to a sudden halt. "Oh."
"Yeah... oh..." Shining sighed as he turned to face Active. "It's been a big 'oh' since then."
"Does it have a start and an end?" Active turned to him, looking at him evenly. "Are there things you don't feel, or is it like you're three ponies right now?"
"That..." Shining flicked an ear. "I never thought of it that way, but yes. It's like I'm three ponies right now. Cadance is talking to somepony." He rubbed his throat which felt like it was busy talking. "Umbra is doing magic. Talking, but not as much. She's probably taking a magic lesson."
Active hissed at the thought. "That can not be helping anything. You can tell them apart?"
"I'm getting better at that." Shining quirked a smile as he resumed the trek towards the palace. "If I focus, I can feel them, as a whole, and that gives me a clue which is which. Only one of them has wings, to start."
"What is this Umbra?" Active kept up with Shining easily. "Not a pegasus, clearly. Earth? Unicorn? Not a pony?"
That she had to ask if they weren't a pony was more a mark of her understanding of the situation, really. Shining sighed softly. "Unicorn mostly. Also shadowy. Shadow unicorn? She's very cheerful for being a shadow pony. You'll meet her, I bet." He started, recoiling his head up. "Oh! This is touch only. I can't see what they see, or hear what they hear."
"Thank the fates for small mercies." She set a hoof on his shoulder. "If you had all the senses, I can't imagine any of you even functioning. It's honestly a little surprising you're doing as well as you are. But if it were that, you wouldn't have called me. Is this about... this?" She gestured at Shining's totality. "Or is there more? Keep talking."
"You are merciless." They began to ascend the stairs into the palace. "So we tried to just 'deal with it', but that was... not working well. I will stay away from specifics on that while we're strolling through a public space."
"That bad?" she asked with a sympathetic tone. "If you want to show me a nice private place, we can get to that."
"You just got here. Don't you want some time?" He peered at the hardworking unicorn.
Active shook her head. "I am here for you and Cadance, not much else. Think of it this way, the sooner I get a grasp on this and set you two back on a good path, the sooner I can head home. Now, let me ask a question; you two. You're still a thing? You're not considering changing that?"
"I hope not!" squeaked Shining, just to color at how loudly he had said it. "We're fine... We just messed up, both of us. This way." Since Active was not taking no for an answer, he led her to a small dining room. "I have this room under control," he advised a guard on the way in, securing them true privacy. "Have a seat, have a snack. We can talk here."
Active's horn began to glow as she lifted a fluffy biscuit up to take a nip from, but her eyes were on Shining in clear active listening mode. "Go on."
"Alright, so Raven Inkwell, remember her?" Active nodded. "She mentioned we could take Umbra as a princess consort. The ponies around here wouldn't think it's even a big deal."
"Here we go." Active leaned forward, bringing her hooves together. "Did you?"
"I didn't! Um, actually, we were both alright with the idea."
Active burst into soft laughter. "That is progress. But if that just worked out, I wouldn't be here, so tell me how it didn't."
Shining let out a miserable sigh. "We went to her to put the idea out there. We're not going to make a pony do that."
"That would be bad," gently agreed Active, rolling a hoof for Shining to continue.
"And she liked the idea, kinda sorta... She thought bringing her in would make her a wedge between Cadance and me."
Active's brows fell, a smirk growing with it. "Sounds like a mature pony."
Shining put a hoof to his face. "Who we scared and hurt."
"Go on. What did you do?" She was watching him like a hawk.
Shining sighed with fresh suffering. "Cadance might have mentioned Umbra was a monstrous mare, which she is, but also really nice, which she might have hinted was exactly the kind of thing I liked."
Active nodded softly. "And what is it you like?"
Trick with active listeners, they loved to make the other person explain and expand on what they said. "You know what I like, um, besides Cadance." He rubbed his hooves awkwardly. "She's wildly dangerous, but she also likes us, a lot. She's also fragile and needs our help. She... really does hit all the checkmarks. Did I mention she's nice?"
"A few times," allowed Active with a smile. "So you have this mare that you like, at least on a surface level, and Cadance is aware of this and is teasing you about it. Do I have that right?"
Summarizing, another active listening skill. "Right, right. So... I do something dumb and get annoyed and bristly... Sorry... but I defended myself against what wasn't an attack in the first place." He buried his face in both hooves. "And it only got worse."
"We've talked about that. You two love to tease each other." She poked Shining lightly in the side. "But when the other doesn't see a tease as a tease, hurt feelings happen, don't they?"
"Yes," he admitted with a groan. "So I told her, Cadie, to zap me."
Active narrowed her eyes. "You... You really lost control of yourself, didn't you?"
Shining thumped, flopping against the table bonelessly. "Yes... So there was poor Umbra, zapped too, running away from me."
"And what happened?" prompted Active. "Did you do anything?"
"Other than making a total foal of myself... Thankfully not." He sat up with a grunt. "She's angry, and she has every right to be angry right now... Cadance feels bad. I feel bad. We botched that right up!"
"You mentioned she's nice?"
"Hm? Yeah." Shining bobbed his head, recovering from the low point of the story. "Look, let's be honest."
"I like honest." She turned a hoof on herself. "I can't help you three without you being honest with me. So what do you want to share? I'm listening."
That she was listening was a safe bet one could make. "Alright." Shining adjusted the shirt he wasn't wearing. "I like her. She's nice and chipper. In normal situations, that'd be enough to want to be her friend, and that would be the end of that. She's like a less... Pinkie kind of Pinkie Pie?" That got a brow raise from Active. "A friend of Twilight's. She's... extra... and that's not even an insult."
"Sounds interesting, but she's not here. Tell me more about this Umbra. You say she's 'nice' but 'nice' can mean a lot of things. Tell me about the nice of this Umbra."
"Right to the point..." It was one of Active's skills. "Umbra cares about the ponies around her. She's keenly aware of identity." He tapped at his head. "If she thinks a pony is hiding who they really are, she'll encourage them to open up and share that part of themselves and celebrate whatever she found. I can appreciate that."
Active smiled gently at that. "It sounds like I may have competition. Should I be worried?"
Shining laughed at that. "I doubt it. Related, but shifting topic a little... I think she's not entirely... comfortable..." He rubbed his hooves, struggling to find the right word. "When it comes to sex. We've had some very heavy conversations about that."
"Comes with the territory." Active Listening inclined her head. "Do you think a marriage counselor that avoided talking about sex could do their job very well?"
"That could be tricky..." Shining sat up. "Just to be clear, we haven't done anything with Umbra."
"But the way you said that, and that you said it at all... What did happen between you?"
Shining grunted, caught in a lie he wasn't even trying to do. "We can feel everything. She... noticed when we tried to do what married ponies do."
Active shook her head at that. "That must have been... Did you finish?" Shining stared at her with wide eyes. "Did you finish?" she repeated. "Or did you stop?"
"We finished," he barely got out in a half-mumble. "We forgot she was part of it. She told us later."
"How do you think she felt about that?"
Shining's cheeks lit up. "Embarrassed? Violated?" He shrank in place. "I don't really know. I can only imagine. I... She touched herself before, twice. Before we knew we were connected, and afterwards once. The first time was mostly relieved pain. She was hurt, cut up, and she was washing herself. The... intimate stuff... was a side effect at best."
Active quirked an ear. "So you know what a mare feels like then? That is a skill very few stallions can claim to have. How do you feel, having it?"
"Odd." Shining laughed awkwardly. "Knowing those feels for parts I never had. The different bumps, the... wet?"
"The wet?" Active quirked a brow. "I'll remember that one. When you were with Cadance, could you feel what she was feeling as you were... doing things?"
Shining's blush only grew worse rapidly. "Yes! It was one of our best sessions. We knew what the other was feeling, so we just... without asking, did what made it best, since it made us feel good too, so..." He rolled a hoof. "If it was just the two of us, we'd probably be happy about it in the end, even with the awkward bits."
"Color me curious." She rested her head against an upturned set of hooves. "But that doesn't seem to be something you can control, so it won't be something I'll be experiencing. Just as well, the hubby's at home." She lifted an ear. "And feeling what he was up to from here sounds like it could be bothersome. So you had a nice time, then...?"
"Then we found out we put Umbra in a... bad spot. There she was, doing her own thing, and suddenly she was right in the middle of that. She could feel us both."
Active colored just a little at that. "That must have been interesting. What did she say?"
"She was mostly annoyed, but Cadance was the one that put her hoof down. She wanted to fix it, so she called Princess Celestia."
"Who called Inkwell," concluded Active. "Right?"
"Right," sighed out Shining. "Who brought up just bringing Umbra into the family."
"If my husband, right now." She sat up. "If he decided, in the privacy of his own home, with me away, to... relieve himself. Would that be improper of him?"
Shining proved he could color far better than the trained counselor. "N-no, I wouldn't... think so?"
"Nor would I," Active agreed. "But if I could feel him doing it, that would change things, don't you think? He's not just enjoying himself in quiet privacy. He's having a shared moment with me." She leveled a hoof at Shining. "Which sounds like it may be the real culprit here. None of you have private moments. Being married would make the loss of privacy less of... If a family member arrives at an awkward time, you deal with it, hm?"
"Yeah." Shining nodded at that. "It happens."
"It happens, but..." She rolled a hoof slowly. "Usually they leave, eventually, and you can be private. What if they never left. Your family, loved and loving, stayed forever. I don't care how tight your family is, that will eventually drive a pony mad, I think."
"I'd put them in their own--"
"--Nope," cut in Active. "There are no other rooms to put them. They will always be just over your shoulder. Even smiling and encouraging, that isn't a situation you can accept forever, is it?"
Shining imagined his own father leaning over his shoulder as Shining tried to have quality time with Cadance. "That's the way." He would consult a spreadsheet. "You're overdue for--"
Shining started and shuddered, ending that imagination. "No! No... No... That would be awful."
"But that is where you are." Active tapped the ends of her hooves together. "The three of you are warm and friendly, but you're also mashed together, always looking over each other's shoulders. And there are no other rooms to put each other. Getting married solves the external problem, which is what Inkwell was likely focused on. That is like her. She sees royal problems, and she makes them not royal problems. You three married? No more royal problems."
"But we'd still have problems," sighed out Shining, finishing the thought. "What do we do?!" He put his hooves on Active's shoulders. "It's not her fault. It's not our fault. It's not anypony's fault, which means there's nopony to yell at."
Active pantomimed closing a door with a slow sweep of a hoof. "You've been shown a wondrous gift, a door thrown open. But just because a door is opened doesn't mean it can't be closed. It's not a door we usually even think about, seeing as it's normally more of a wall than a door, so it's hanging there, ajar."