//------------------------------// // Two // Story: And the Music Carried On // by Broseph_Stalin //------------------------------// ~Melody; n mel-uh-dee: a rhythmical succession of single tones producing a distinct musical phrase or idea. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Two Within the grand chambers all was silent, save for the crackling fire and the ticking patter of raindrops across the long, stained glassed window. The calming din was cut straight in half as an immense sneeze bounded off the stone walls and a hum of magic was heard. “Dank you, darling,” Shining Armor said through a stuffed nose. He was wrapped not in his armor, but in crimson sheets that were wrinkled and mussed from the frantic actions of a unicorn who wanted anything in the world to not be bedridden. Next to him sat the form of his lovely wife, Cadance, who had magicked over a tissue for her beloved. “You are quite welcome, hon,” the Princess said through a beaming smile. As Shining dabbed his nose and mouth, he crumpled the tissue into a ball, and then began to merely toy with it aimlessly. Both disgusted and humored, Cadance magicked the crumpled, used tissue over into the garbage can that was already overflowing with other assortments of used toiletries. Shining humphed as his distraction was taken away and kicked at the covers he was lying tucked into. “Cadance, I can’t be here. I need to continue the ceremony training. You can’t just keep me inside here while everypony else is doing drills! This is my sister's coronation, for Celestia's sake!” Cadance merely sighed, and rolling her eyes, pulled the covers over her husband with care. “It’s not my fault you were practicing out there in the frigid rain. You’ve got a fever of a hundred, dear, and you’ve had the sniffles all day. I’m not letting you go outside, regardless of what event the training is for. The company will be fine without you. Hammer Head will lead the rest of the drills just fine. I trust him to do it right for your sister.” She smiled to give her kind words emphasis. Shining opened his mouth to retaliate, but shut it quickly instead. As he looked out the window, he sighed deeply, and then turned back to his wife. “Thank you, my love. You’re always here taking care of me. You’re so patient with me, even when I do stupid things… like…” Shining trailed off. “…Like march in frigid rain in full armor. Yes, dear, I know. I’ll always be here to make you feel better. Especially when you do the most thickheaded things.” With a tiny laugh, she leaned down and kissed her husband right behind his right ear; exactly where he liked it. “Mmm,” Shining grunted, both irritated and calmed by the two opposing feelings. After a time, though, he raised an eyebrow at his wife and spoke slowly, as if picking his words from a long list of possibilities. “Cadance…” “Hm?” “How come you never get sick? I want to take care of you sometime. As far as I can recall,” the unicorn said, scratching his chin, “I don’t think you’ve ever been sick, not in the thirty years we’ve been married.” He frowned slightly at the revelation. Oh no. Oh, Celestia, no. No, no, no... Not now, not like this… “I... guess I just have a hardy composition,” the Princess said through a tight smile. Inside her mind, she was screaming. You lied to him all these years and now it’s going to come crashing down! How dare you, Cadance! Shining just laughed and smiled. “I suppose you do. You alicorns are all rather bullet-proof, aren’t you? I’m just surprised you don’t have your aunts’ gift of such long life.” He laughed to himself again, and looked out the window as he heard the sharp whistle of the drill’s movements. “Yeah. It’s a wonder, to be honest.” Safe. Breathe, you’re safe for now. But it’s still a lie. You’ve been living this lie; will be cursed with this lie for every single damnable day you have to live when he is gone. Cadance only just barely contained the sob that sprang up her throat as she looked at her love. ₰----- A breath of wind carried a gentle voice upon it, and with the sudden change, Cadance felt her mind melt collectively back into the numb pain of the present. “Mom?” As Cadance turned about, she tried to straighten herself up. The effort was greater than what she had imagined it to be, and she stumbled to the floor, thus procuring a clop of quickly trotting hooves and a gentle but firm embrace around her trunk to help her back up. “Are you okay, Mom?” came the dulcet voice of her daughter, Melodie. Wiping away a tear as inconspicuously as possible, Cadance looked upon her daughter, clad similarly to her in a smooth, black dress, though it was missing the gentle folds where the wings would go. Her lavender fur clashed with the dark satin, and her raven mane spilled about in her mother’s gilded curls underneath her black lace hat, from which protruded a long, powerful horn. Beneath the veil was easily read a look of barely-suppressed concern and the glistening of tears that ringed her golden amber eyes. “I’m- I’m okay, dear,” Cadance said. The words almost stung her outright. They were a lie, and a very obvious one at that. With a disbelieving tsk, Melodie looked upon her mother, eyeing her like a poor dog that had been soaked in a storm, starved and left without a home to lie in. “Mom… You’re in shambles. I can tell, you know. I haven’t been your daughter for twenty-eight years to not notice every little tick and foible that makes you, you.” She cracked a smile, a small gesture, but one that held mountains of comfort in it nonetheless. “I’m just... It’s just not a good day today, Melodie,” Cadance said, varying her inflection so that she didn’t catch her breath on a choking sob. “Having your father pass was… was…” She stopped. She really didn’t know what. It was too many things to even pick one, like a river that crashed through the collective consciousness of every feeling she had ever known. “It’s sad, Mom. It’s hard. It is so many things. And I’m sorry... for your loss. I know that he meant, well, the world to you.” Cadance put a hoof up to silence her daughter from speaking further. “Don’t be sorry for me. He was your father too, Melodie. I know he meant the world to you, too.” A silence hung between the pair. A whisper of the wind’s breath pulled at the veils on their faces and brought an itch to Cadance’s nose, but she didn’t dare break the silence to bother with it. Finally, her daughter spoke up. “Mom…” That voice, the way she said it, couldn’t hold anything good. “Yes? What is it dear?” “Mom…” Melodie said again, and raising an eyebrow, shifted her weight from one hoof to another. The way she had adjusted her body, she seemed almost to have backed away from her mother. “Melodie…?” came Cadance’s reply. She hoped she had only imagined that crack in her voice… “Mom, you know he knew, right? Dad wasn’t dumb. He figured it out, the last few years.” Though her words were soft, gentle, and seemed to catch and disappear on the wind with as much resistance as a feather, they fell upon Cadance like a hot block of lead. They struck her with tendrils of searing acid that wrapped about her pained heart in a serpentine way. “I… What?” Cadance asked, shocked. She could feel the salt flowing in her eyes, threatening to break the dam for what seemed like the hundredth time today. Melodie just held fast, her hooves planted firmly on the stone floor. “He knew you have an alicorn’s life. He knew you would outlive him. He knew you lied to him, all those years.” “B-But, I,” Cadance choked, all sense of composure lost, thrown off the edge of the balcony along with the wind that now berated instead of comforted. “I just, I didn’t—!” She was blathering now, stumbling forward, but felt pulled back by the look her daughter was giving her. She collapsed once more upon the railing, feeling all strength lost in her body in the indomitable will of pure and utter emotional agony. Finally, after what seemed like nearly an hour, must certainly have been longer, she caught her breath and looked up at her daughter. From the way she was looking up, the late-noon sun shone down behind her daughter’s face, darkening her features into a black shade of inconceivable enigma. And draped in her black mourning veil, she looked the part of death, and for all intents and purposes, she may as well have been, the way Cadance uttered her single question to the dark spectre of fate that seemed to have appeared right before her. “How long did he know?” she breathed at the sun-shadowed figure as make-up oozed down her tear-filled face. “I…” the spectre stammered, something that caught Cadance by surprise. “He knew for the last ten years or so. A bit before Auntie Twilight passed away, mom.” At her daughter’s call, the shadow seemed to drip off the edges of its imposing form to reveal a concerned unicorn. Kneeling down, Melodie helped her mother up for the second time today. Cadance planted her hooves solidly on the ground, but felt her knees beginning to lock. “I… How did he know?” Cadance asked, still dazed and in shock from her ground-shaking revelation. She put a hoof up to push at the vessels that now throbbed between her eyes. Melodie just kicked her hoof awkwardly, as if not sure how to say an answer. “Mom, Dad wasn't dumb. When he eventually saw that you weren't getting aged any older, he began to have suspicions. He wasn't the captain of the guard for no reason, you know.” Melodie paused, looking out on the sun-stained horizon. Taking a deep breath, she continued on. “And then he finally went to great Aunt Luna for an answer, she told him the truth- regretfully, I'm sure- and that confirmed it in his mind. And you know, he was okay that you hadn't told him. He eventually figured out why, and, really...” She paused, sending a conciliating look towards her sniffling mother, “I understand why you wouldn't want to tell him, either. It must be so hard, living with the pain of that reality weighing you down.” She stopped again, looked onto her poor mother, and reached out a hoof to calm Cadance. “But, I can’t help but feel a bit angry at you, Mom,” Melodie admitted after a period of silence, a red blush of hot embarrassment echoing her short words. “He just waited for you to tell him the truth. He told me he would wait as long as it took until you came out and told him. He said,” Melodie stopped, catching her breath. She had realized halfway through that her voice had been rising, her pitch becoming more tense and bitter. “He said you would tell him, Mom. But you never did.” Melodie looked up at her mother, a tiny line of fire ringing her irises, “And it killed him inside. All he wanted was to hear the words out of your mouth. He told me he wouldn't even be mad, you know.” “I…” Cadance stopped short on a heavy, tear-bated breath. Melody just put up a hoof. “I just needed to tell you that, Mom. I love you, but you made a mistake. And maybe it’s just for now, but I can’t forgive you for it. I’m sorry.” The last words hung heavy in the air between the mother and daughter. “Melodie, my love, I—” “Mom, I need to go. Please. Think about what I said. Think about what you did. Please.” And with that Melodie turned about sharply and strode back towards the door. As she opened it just a crack, she stopped, and then flinched, as if remembering something. “Dorian and I, our wedding will be in the fifth, that’s eight days from now. I’m really sorry about Dad, Mom. I wish more than anything he could be here with us all to see the day.” Melodie turned her head slowly, and looked back at her mother. Her heart stung at what she saw: an alicorn, a princess shrouded in black, legs splayed out awkwardly as she tried desperately to stand, and with welling tears falling from her eyes and dripping from off the tip of her snout. Melodie had come out here to… No, she didn’t know what she had come out here to do. To tell her mother the truth, of course, but she had added something unnecessarily. Or had she forgotten something that was the most important? Or maybe it was nothing at all. Melodie just didn’t have the heart to be out here a second longer as conflicting emotions ripped at every stitch and seam in her aching heart. “I’m sorry,” Melodie whispered to her sobbing mother, and turned to go back inside. The door shut firmly, cutting out any sound that could be heard on the lone balcony.