Alright Cadance...
I've gone backwards, there was a plan, that mostly got tossed as he tossed himself over the side of the palace.
Both him and Luna have all but confirmed that everything I thought about going about this is generally pointless...
So........
She tried to push the 'ich' around murderous dark magic and the lack of her guards' attention to the back of her mind and spoke.
"Alright then."
"Alright then?" He said, it reminded her of Celestia long ago, teaching her about her diplomatic duties. Like he was leading her to an answer, which in hindsight was not really correct, but it set her on the right path anyways.
"I... don't know what I'm doing, you're clearly not 'evil' and you keep implying that you have some better way to go about this." She added as an afterthought, "and it occurs to me that you wouldn't have unfrozen yourself if you didn't have a plan."
"So?"
The way he keeps still reminds me of Celestia's poker face
"So what is it? What do you want to do here?" She tried to keep her query as soft as possible. A request rather than an accusation, which... most of this has been accusatory.
Time to take one from Twilight's book
He looked around, eyes settling on the guards, he turned back to her, "First, we ditch Brazier and Runner the-"
"Absolutely not." She raised a hoof before he could respond, "and not because of what you think, Shining only let me come here for this if I promised to keep my guards with me at all times." She gestured at them, "Shining would be really upset with me if I just ditched them with you."
She expected some sort of rebuttal, but instead, he put his hoof under his muzzle and pondered in a very exaggerated face that she was sure was a joke.
"Fair enough I suppose," he shrugged and then his entire body flew into motion as he stepped back onto his hindquarters and forward kicked two rocks towards her guards.
"Hey!" But it was already too late, the rocks flew to slow to injure either of them, but too fast for them to avoid. The rocks hit their mark and collapsed into glittering dust on contact, both guards fell into the grass like a puppet with their strings cut. Cadance was stood over them seconds after, her heart pounding.
Oh thank everything they're okay
She wiped her head around, only to come muzzle to muzzle with Dusk. She blanched
"Rule two, never take your eyes off a mage, if the spells are flying and you lose sight of your opponent, it means you probably just lost."
"What did you do to them." She was seconds away from blasting him into the grass
"I just put them to sleep" He pulled another stone from... Somewhere, and held it up to the Princess of Love. "See? Inspect the spell work yourself."
She was no adept mage, but she new a couple of simple sleeping spells from her days of foalsitting Twilight. Cadance lifted the stone from his hoof in her magical aura-
"Careful not to squeeze it, finding us both passed out in the field tomorrow morning would be very embarrassing."
The spell work felt like a sleeping spell... Just... Runic...
"Why did you do that." She stopped inspecting the stone and hoped to glean anything from his response.
"Shining just said they had to be with you no? Not that they had to be awake?" He said like it was the simplest thing ever, gesturing to the two guards laying prostrate on the grass.
"No. Just no." She sat, sighed, and pressed a hoof to her temples. "And you couldn't've just asked first instead of dropping both of my guards?"
"Forgiveness and permission, heard that phrase before?"
"Yes I've heard that phrase before," She removed her hoof and looked him in the eye, "You're definitely not forgiven, you just committed a crime!"
"I-"
nope
"Nope!" Cadance stomped a hoof, "I know you're not going to play by any rules I know, but you will not go casting spells on anypony without clearing it with me first!" She pressed her hoof to his chest, tapping it with each word to prove her point. "Am. I. Clear."
"Crystal!" He said with a smile, he returned to a neutral expression and held a hoof up to his chest, before she could stop him, he grabbed her hoof and held them both to his chest, "I swear on the things that matter to me that not only was I not intending to hurt them or anypony else, but that I will not affect anypony else with magic unless you are aware of it; and allow it." He let her go, and then returned to a neutral stance himself.
"Okay" She said, moved by his sincerity, and the really intense eye-contact. "That's good enough for me"
This stallion is an emotional rollercoaster!
"May I shrink them?"
Roller. Coaster.
"Why?"
"So we can take them with us easily."
"Okay, beyond the reasoning behind that, where do you think we're just going to go in the middle of the night, a Princess and an unknown Stallion with two tiny passed out Royal Crystal Guards?"
How did he convince me to do this
"I can't believe you convinced me to do this"
They had moved to the cobblestone streets of middle Canterlot, surrounded by the closely packed stone and wooden structures of the residential district, they stood in front of a hole in the wall bar. It was clearly once a home itself before being turned into likely the defacto inlet for this particular street, much to the credit of the likely business savvy businesspony who owned the property. The lights were dim and warm.
And it smelled.
"Why is it so odd? I've been in stone for so long, I've been craving a good drink."
"Is this, really what you want?" Before he could respond, "and I mean reeeaaally, this isn't some joke or part of some plan to get rid of me? You actually want to just... drink with me?"
Shining has made plenty of friends this way, it's definitely not that strange
"Is there a reason that it would be for any reason unreasonable?" He looked at her.
His eyes give me the creeps
"How about that I have two unwillingly sleeping royal guards on my back?" Which she indeed did, after consenting to make them small enough to carry, they were both proportionally shrunk down in a runic circle to the size of newborns.
He tossed a hoof, "details," and approached her by a couple of steps, "and before we go in, we're going to need disguises. You were right in that a Princess and some guy can't just go walking into a whole in the wall bar for a pint in the middle of the night." He gestured hoof up to her, "may I demonstrate?"
Cadance nodded
He closed his eyes, and before her his features changed. His gradient mane turned a sleek silver and straightened down his back away from his chest, his fur inverted and went from a silvery blue to a stark white, and not only that, but his legs slimmed and his muzzle shortened. His features rounded out and when he reopened his eyes she saw elongated eyelashes flutter.
"How do I look?"
well his voice is unchanged
"You look like a mare made of chalk"
"That's the idea." he struck an elegant pose, "Completely unrecognizable no?"
His cutie mark was the only thing that remained unchanged, he was right, everything else about him was completely different.
"Now you, how are you with transfiguration and illusion?"
She wasn't...
"I don't really know any spells for... that" She pointed at his everything, "I know a height spell, but usually that and a large cloak is enough for being inconspicuous"
"In that case, may I craft a disguise for you?" He said, taking another step towards her.
"You're not going to turn me inside out are you?"
"No, purely a visible transfiguration of your flesh."
"You said that in a way that makes me very nervous."
"This entire encounter with me is going to make you very nervous, are you going to roll with it? Or are you going to keep resisting like you did at the beginning?"
Cadance had learned many a time in the excitement of her life, from her childhood to her mission agaisnt the witch that gained her a horn, to her quest to protect the crystal empire, and even a point in dating Shining of moments that carried a very particular weight. In those moments she found that there was always a deceptively simple choice. She could continue, or she could not, and depending on the circumstance, it was bound to change something drastic about herself, or the world as a whole. This was one of those moments.
Buck it
"Alright, I'm in" She held out a hoof to him.
He smiled and grasped her hoof in his own. There was a soft prick right above the bone on her hoof and then she started to feel the magic and the warmth she didn't realize she knew was present all over Dusk pass into her body. Her eyeline shifted down and she felt her everything shift all over.
And just like that, it was over.
She was now an earth green unicorn mare with a crisp black and brown mane. Which was incredibly startling seeing as that she was now just about a full head shorter and
missing my wings
"What did you do to my wings"
"Relax princess, I have them right here."
Have?!
He wasn't lying, his stark white fur now sported a pair of equally stark white wings. The panic sunk down in her chest as she realized that he had just stolen her wings off her back. Her commitment to this plan vanished in an instant and a different emotion grabbed the front of her brain. She was so baffled that she just stood there stock still, her mouth gaping, her face contorting in anger.
"Now before you shout at me, I would like to posit that I can and will easily return them to you, and that to any outside observer, there are simply a pair of mares stood outside a bar having a conversation before entering."
Patience Cadance, you're getting way to angry. Discord has taken your wings and horn before too, you didn't get this mad at him
Her internal thoughts helped calm her off the edge of incoherent shouting and her face cooled. "Don't..."
"Do what I said I was going to do again?" He rolled his eyes, "No, sorry, I'm a stallion of my word."
"Not at the moment" She said
"Ha!" He tossed his head back again for a single laugh. "Nice zinger"
"Just give me a larger warning next time okay?" She said, trying to keep her tone steady and her voice soft.
"I'll keep that in mind" He said, or she Cadance pondered. He started making his way towards the entrance of the Homely Hovel and held the door open for her. She, a couple hoovelengths behind him checked the guards on her back only to find them invisible, yet still present.
"Part of your disguise" He said from the door
She tossed her new, front laden mane out of her eyes and approached the door
alright Cadance, I can do this, just a couple of drinks and we'll both loosen up, we'll chat, and then everything will be hunky dory in the morning
"Thank you" She commented out of habit of having the door held for her as she entered. The interior was deceptively cheap. The wooden floors were polished but old, and the ceiling had plenty of hanging decor in the forms of paintings and young looking metal chandeliers lighting the room meant to disrtract the common bar goer of the dilapidated ceiling. The bar and the tables littering the open plan establishment in random order fed to the idea of a limited supply attempting to make itself look more than it was.
"You're welcome," Dusk said, entering in after her, "Cute place huh? Trying a bit hard though"
He wandered past her towards the bar where a pink mare in a tightfitting servers coat and smock shook a drink from behind the counter before passing it off towards a stallion who took it, side-glanced both Dusk and her, before leaving the counter and sitting down at a table several strides away where a plate of food waited for him.
She approached the bar counter and lifted herself onto a seat, the two guards on her back stayed in place regardless of gravity.
Apparently
"How can I help you two tonight?" The mare asked, Cadance noted her cutiemark of a cocktail glass filled with clear liquid with an olive on a toothpick.
"Do you have anything eighty proof?" Dusk asked before Cadance could think of her drink of choice.
The mare took a double take at either the choice of drink or the surprisingly stallion like voice coming from what was clearly a mare in the seat in front of her. "Absolutely, we have High Floor and a new vegetable based drink from Stalliongrad called Everspell."
"Can I buy a bottle of each?" He asked in response,
"I'm sorry, uh, sir," She looked to Cadance for help, "but we don't sell by the bottle, both Everspell and High Floor come by shots."
"That'll do, I'll take two of each please and thank you." As the countermare turned to Cadance, "and that will be for both of us by the way, thank you again."
She nodded, "I'll have those ready for you two in a moment." and got to work.
"How heavy is an eighty proof?" Cadance leaned over to Dusk before asking. He looked to her with a look she was already starting to tire of. "I'm not a drinker, as I'm sure you could've guessed."
"Really, you've never gone out on the town before?" he paused, "City in this case I guess?"
"I've not drank recreationally since college, and that was just a massive jug of red wine we found." She chuckled, "We definitely should not have drunk it, we of course assumed wine just tasted like that, turns out it had been left open for nearly a year in the teachers lounge, and a staff member tried to discretely remove it."
"But of course some kid found it and brought to you and your friends. Must've been quite the night." He chuckled, coming to rest himself on a hoof, turned to observe, and listen to her story.
"It was, and I'm not looking for a repeat, so instead of distracting me, how about you answer my question." She returned his pose and facial expression.
"Ha! Got me that time," He sat back and clapped his hooves, "eighty proof is about as hard as I'll go shot wise, it's gonna be awful, that I swear" He crossed a hoof over his chest, "best swallow as fast as possible. Speaking of!" He turned with a smile towards the countermare who levitated their drinks down in front of them. Cadance could already smell the alcohol. It smelled scarily similar to the cleaning vinegar that the palace kitchen used to sterilize the floors. One shot glass was filled with a blackish translucent liquid that looked almost like oil, the other, strikingly opposite, was a very clear liquid that she easily could've mistake for water if she was far away and nose-blind.
"Ah, hold on for a second." Dusk leaned over and reached a hoof out to her drinks, "This is important." He pressed the tip of his hoof to the edge of each of her drinks and whispered strange words, both lit up and shimmered lightly before visually returning to their original splendor.
"What spell was that." She immediately jumped on that.
"Before you get all exited, I promised to not affect a pony with magic, I was going to tell you what it did before letting you drink it, honest. It's just a small charm that'll protect you from the damage of the alcohol, while still letting you enjoy it the fun way." He explained, leaning back towards his own drinks.
That's not to bad I guess.
"And I guess there's no way for me to know for sure I won't have something terrible happen to me when I drink that?"
He laughed "Oh something terrible will happen, it just won't be on me; and if I wanted to hurt you, I would've done it outside when you let me touch you. Not with poison. That's just boring, and kinda sad."
Before anything else Dusk wrapped his mouth around the glass filled with 'high floor' and tossed the entire thing back. He leaned forward again, and dropped the glass into a waiting hoof. "Wow, that's disgusting, Verdant, you've got to try it"
Verdant? Right, disguises
He gestured her on with his hooves, excitedly, like a filly jumping around, only this was about enchanted poison, it was a dark mage, and she was a Princess.
"Go on! Try it try it!"
You definitely shouldn't do this
She did it anyway. In a smooth motion she tried to follow Dusks lead, wrapping her lips around the edge of the shot glass and holding it in her teeth, she quickly tossed the entire drink to the back of her throat.
She had an idea of what she was getting into in the moments before the liquid hit her throat by the burning sensation caused in her mouth when she grabbed it in her jaw, her idea was blown out of proportion as the liquid burned down her throat, already too late to stop swallowing, she coughed, hard. The glass fell from her mouth; and her mind recoiled in shock and her body recoiled in pain as her everything tried to catch up with what exactly just happened.
Dusk was laughing. Besides herself, Cadance began laughing too. Her cough strangled it, but she tried nonetheless. Somewhere in the depths of her mind, she knew what had just happened was unconditionally funny.
"My heavens, the look on your face!"
Cadance was still hacking her lungs out,
"Do you need help there Verdant?"
Cadance shook her head and tried to steady her breathing and stop coughing, which worked surprisingly well.
"That was terrible" She said, and it resumed his chortling anew.
"I know!" He said between giggling, "Ma'am, could you bring me another 'High Floor', but with a tablespoon of salt mixed into it?"
The pink countermare frowned, "Uhm, are you sure you want that?" Before she could finish properly, he interrupted
"Absolutely" Then he turned her head to Cadance, ignoring the countermare's frown and attempt to disuade him. "You see, Verdant, many a mare believe in the complexity of a drink, but I think differently." Cadance, mid-attempt at trying to hold onto her sanity, simply listened. "It's poison is it not? So it should taste like it. If I'm not vomiting on my first whiff of the drink in question, then it's not disgusting enough."
"Excuse me," The countermare said, laying another drink down in front of Dusk "Here is your ruined drink sir." Cadance didn't miss the ire directed towards Dusk, but his only response was tossing back the new drink and coughing the same way Cadance just had. He smacked his hoof onto the counter and wheezed. His eyes bulged and his mouth opened wide. She laughed. It was funny, it just was.
The countermare's rude barb at Dusk forgotten, Cadence turned her attention to the other drink while Dusk recovered from what was likely a harrowing experience. This one smelled just as bad as the other, but with less flavor. She, decided upon the direction the rest of this night would take right then and there.
Time to mare up Cadance
Down went the next one. This time, she was way more ready for the sensation of somepony putting an acidic spinning toilet-brush down her throat, and managed to not cough for a couple of seconds before shaking her head and exhaling hard. She shook her hoof in front of her open mouth, like it was on fire. Dusk to her side, had apparently recovered.
"Damn mare, you hit that pretty hard." He tossed back his other one in a second and coughed once. "Ugh, which one did you like more?"
It didn't take long to decide on the second she tried, it was just as awful, but at least it didn't taste like a horseshoe.
"The Everspell, definitely." She rasped, unprepared for exactly how much two drinks would smooth out her throat.
"Excuse me, Ma'am" Dusk turned toward the countermare again.
"What."
Cadance coughed again, but not because of the alcohol, Dusk seemed to take it in stride however.
"Six more shots of Everspell please-"
Six more? I can't drink three more of those!
"For both of us." He finished
Six each?! Oh no, Cadance, alarm bells, you definitely cannot handle that many drinks!
Cadance cannot answer your letter right now, please come back later.
She giggled at her internal monologue as the countermare worked to setup their twelve shots on the countertop. Her mind vaguely registered Dusk casting that drink ward spell six more times for her, and she focused intently to make sure he didn't try anything funny. He definitely didn't.
"So!" He clapped, "Now that we have our drink of choice for the night, let's play a game."
"A game." She dedpanned.
"Yes a game! Games are fun! We're here to have fun! I'll make it interesting to you," He leaned closer to Cadance, "We have six drinks each, we've got to get through all six, unless of course, you need to tap out, which is totally fine, we'll just reduce it at the end."
Sounds good so far
Two parts of Cadance's mind were at war with another despite her calm demeanor, her terror at the environment, and who exactly she was with; but on the other hoof, whatever she was doing, it was working.
"It's simple, we each drink at the same time, and if you move or cough or shake, I get one point, if the opposite, you get one point. At the end, we each ask each other questions equal to the amount of points, and you can't lie, and have to answer the question, you can of course be vague, the fun of the game is trying to have your questions make sense after eight shots." throughout his explanation, he was twirling the liquid inside a glass on the tip of his hoof, looking at her dead in the face.
His eyes are so scary
"You're on." This time, Cadance lifted her drink with her magic, and poured it straight into the back of her throat, at the same time Dusk tipped back the drink in his hoof.
She dropped the glass on the counter and tried not to shake, this time she managed to swallow all of the drink at once, and in turn, the warmth hit her core all at once. She was so focused that she didn't feel her neck tense, and her breathing remained even. Dusk on the other hoof, shook his head to be rid himself of the flavor.
"One point for you" He said, leaning forwards and almost tapping her on the shoulder while pointing at her before leaning back and grabbing his next drink. "Cheers Little Princess" he waved his glass at her and downed it before she could grab her next one.
"Why Little Princess? I'm definitely taller than you" She said, scooping up her next drink in her magic.
He smirked and grabbed his next glass, "Save the questions till the end Little Princess"
They tossed their respective drinks back together again.
"I have never had a day like this before in my life" She said, "It feels like I've been through an entire day of Princessing, only I'm smiling, and I'm at a bar with a dark mage, drinking until I'm blind."
"Stuff like that happens all the time around me" Came his response, "Don't worry about the details, just smile and keep rolling." a beat passed, "and that's a point for both of us, I didn't see; and I'm pretty sure you weren't looking either."
"No I wasn't, and I got clenchy"
"Next?"
Her response was to grab her drink and toss it back. She's never done shots before, and now she was five into a night that was something she'd remember forever as her first time really drinking. Or was she four in...
She looked to Dusk the same time he looked to her, and he shook his head.
"That's a point for me."
is that three to one? is he letting me beat him?
At this point, her first two shots had set in fully curtesy of her alicorn metabolism, and she was buzzing lightly, she wasn't sure
I guess that's the point
The next couple of minutes included her drinking whatever was left in front of her, and she only realized she had spaced out when Dusk shook her by the shoulder, "Hey Little Princess, you need to tap out?"
She nodded, and he turned and looked over the counter, "Excuse me mylady, would you mind taking this glass back, it's untouched." The countermare however, was not interested.
"No you can't return a used drink mr. tablespoon of salt." It was something about her tone, Cadance couldn't describe it, but it drove her to speak up.
"Hey, sto-" She burped, and it was the strangest most awful experience to barely feel, "No... N- No, being rude, Dusk is being an exquis-ert... exquisit gentle stallion, and he deserves more respecth."
The countermare just walked away. She wasn't sure where, but at least she was gone.
"That's three points for you Cadance, and two points for me, you played a mean game, go ahead and ask away, I think I'll cache mine for next time."
Next time? Questions? What time is it?
"Hey, you okay? did you drink to much?"
She shook her head. She just wasn't used to it was all. She had questions to ask, and she was going to make them count.
"Why did Luna want you redeemed" She barely managed not to slur, after she said it, she was impressed
A very distinct and very precise question there Princess, very good work
"I don't know" He flippantly responded.
"Buck" She said aloud.
He snorted, "Not what you wanted out of that question huh?"
Did I say that out loud?
"Did I say that out loud?"
At this point, the only things that existed for Cadance were the sway of the lights, Dusk, and her body, which felt really off, like she wasn't even inside of it.
inside of my own body?
"Yes Little Princess, you said that out loud" He smirked at her.
She rushed, "Wait no, that's not one of my-" She burped again. This time it was loud, not just a bubble in the back of her throat.
"Don't worry, I'm not charging you for that one, ask away"
This one better be good
"Have you ever loved somepony? Like, really loved them, not like, not loved them."
Dammit Cadance! That barely made...
Oh... Oh wow.
He responded at some point, she wasn't sure what he said, but she knew what it meant. Her addled mind tried to pull in the information so she could understand, and basically came up with 'he said yes and meant it'
"One more question Little Princess" He was looking at her now, same intensity as always. His eyes boring into her mind like he knew everything that was in there already, and was just sifting around to make sure she hadn't disorganized her own thoughts.
This time, she was quick on the draw,
"What's your real name?"
"That's the two of them! Right there at the counter still!"
Cadance turned to see the countermare stood next to two royal guard stallions at the doorway pointing at her with a snarl on her face. That was also the point in which she fell off her chair and passed out.