There were three things in life that Shining Armor knew to be true.
First, that his gorgeous wife was the most beautiful mare in the world.
Second, that his genius sister was the smartest mare in the world.
Third, that his darling daughter was the most incomprehensible mare in the world.
Parenthood was not something that came easily to him. Leading legions of troops? He'd been trained for that. Dealing with diplomats and government types? Battle by another name. But being a parent? Well, being married to the magical personification of love made it often all too easy to push the manticore's share of the job onto Cadance's shoulders.
Not that he was a bad dad or anything! By his own measure, he was a great dad. He was loving, but not smothering. Strict, but not punitive. Sure, he missed a few school recitals and birthdays due to royal duties, but he always made sure to send a cardboard cut-out in his place. It even had pre-recorded voice lines! The ones his father had sent to his buckball games hadn't done that!
That was his measuring stick: be a better father than his own dad, Night Light, had been.
Night Light, asleep all day after working nights at the observatory, often resorted to preparing cheap, frozen pizzas for meals. When Shining missed meals, he made sure the palace chefs bought Flurry the name brand frozen pizzas.
Night Light had let Twily have a dragon at ten years old. Shining had acquired Flurry a pair of eggs at nine (though his dear wife had overruled that plan before he could get very far. The Dragonland ambassadors had been surprisingly understanding once they calmed down and explained that he should have issued a formal challenge for possession first).
Night Light had slipped him the key to the liquor cabinet so he could impress his friends at school. Shining Armor had packed Flurry's lunch box with enough wine coolers to share with the whole class (though, looking back, third grade may have been a bit too early for that. His own father had waited till he was in fifth.)
Ninety percent of what he knew about fatherhood he'd learned from his own father, and by that measure he was Grade A father material, no matter what Cady (and the tabloids) said.
But ever since his little filly had turned fourteen... things had changed, and suddenly none of that meant anything anymore.
Some days it felt like a changeling had snuck in and replaced his daughter. A particularly inept one that hadn't done even the bare minimum in studying its target. He'd have suspected Chrysalis herself if she weren't currently a lawn ornament in the Ponyville Botanical Gardens.
The change seemed as abrupt as if someone had flipped a switch in her brain. Presents that she would have once squealed over were met with indifference or, in one case, returned headless. Her Sapphire Shores records gathered dust in the parlor, their place of pride in her room replaced by titles in a language he couldn't read.
Her beautiful mane... he didn't like even thinking about it.
Through his entire career as Captain of the Royal Guard, and later as the Prince Consort of the Crystal Empire, he'd always strived to build a world where his daughter and the rest of her generation could live in peace and prosperity.
A place where she could safely grow from a sweet, little foal, to a kind and considerate filly, and eventually to a wise and noble Empress.
And yet, Flurry Heart....
Flurry Heart...
"Flurry Heart?" he knocked again on her door. Strange noises came from within, a cacophony of screams and clanging metal. Once upon a time such noises would have had him breaking down the door, but now it went in one ear and out the other. Replacing crystal doors got expensive fast. "I'm respecting your boundaries by knocking three times like you asked, but asserting my authority as your father by coming in anyway."
The door opened to, unfortunately, exactly what he expected.
She was wearing the outfit. Again.
"Father. I see you have returned," she called out over the noise as she continued to thrust despite his presence. "Have you finally decided to admit that I'm right?"
He sighed at her neutral tone. None of those familiar cheerful squeals of 'Daddy!' to be found. "No, Flurry, I—"
"Then we have nothing to say to one another." She thrust again to the sound of shrieking metal.
Shining Armor rubbed his eyes. When had his little girl become so... difficult? "Flurry... it's two in the morning."
She stopped and finally lifted the helm of her ridiculous hat to look him in the eyes. "Wait, really?"
"Yes, really. If you hadn't boarded up the windows, maybe you'd have an easier time noticing the sun going down."
"Don't be ridiculous," Flurry replied, racking her spear on a set of hooks mounted on raw planks where there'd once been a stunning view of the courtyard. "Windows are a defensive weakness. But, given the hour, I guess I’ve trained enough for tonight. Give me a minute to strip and put my armor away."
Shining Armor swallowed a few uncharitable words regarding his daughter's choice in “armor", if you could even call it that. Instead of the beautiful Guard Standard Platemail he'd commissioned for her (which, he noted, was currently adorning a practise dummy and looking like it'd survived several dragon campaigns) she wore a combination of leather, chainmail, and lattices of burnished plates that overlapped like metal scales. She paired it with studded greaves on her legs, a round shield, and the silliest-looking conical helmet. One with no room for plumes of any kind.
She unclasped her helmet and tossed it aside, letting her dyed blonde mane spill out in complicated knots and braids. He almost wished she'd kept it on. The color was too close to the Royal Fop’s and brought back bad memories of trashy gossip magazines questioning the legitimacy of his and Cadance’s relationship.
The armor was an affront to all modern military sensibilities. So weird and antiquated that she couldn’t possibly have bought it anywhere.
Which was how he knew she'd forged it herself. Somehow. How she'd managed that, he hadn't a clue.
Alicorn magic? Probably alicorn magic.
Being closely related to three of them, Shining Armor attributed a lot of the strange occurrences in his life to alicorn magic. But one thing he couldn't blame on it was Flurry's latest obsession.
That, he could squarely blame on Sunburst for introducing her to ancient Yak culture.
She'd taken to it with... significantly more enthusiasm than anyone had expected. These days she went through phases faster than Luna's moon (and Shining Armor always seemed to be stuck a few fads behind) but this one had been going on for months.
He glanced at her bookshelf. Where there had once been a collection of young-adult dystopian romance novels, now the whole shelf was weighed down by dense academic tomes with titles like 'A Comprehensive History of Yak Culture From Pre-Unification to Modern Day', 'Visio and Ostero and You', and 'Culture and Customs of Nonpony Peoples Vol VI: Northern Races'. All so heavily bookmarked they looked like they'd sprouted feathers.
There was much he would put up with for his daughter's sake. The armor, the redecorating, the archaic fighting lessons. Even the... blondeness he could learn to live with. Eventually.
But of all her fads, all her fixations he'd gone along with, this one crossed a line that he'd never expected to encounter.
She wrapped her mane in a towel as she set the last piece of armor back on its stand. "So, have you given any further consideration to my plan?"
"No," he said, settling in for another argument retreading the same old ground. "You are not invading Equestria."
Her head snapped around like a whip. "I never said invade! Look at my plans!" Her magic snaked out and yanked on a cord, unrolling an alarmingly detailed map of the northern Equestrian border. Paper arrows of various colors were taped across it, all pointing southward. "Did you even read them?"
He had read them, every word, and been very tempted to return the manifesto covered in red pen.
His little girl was undoubtedly a chip off the old block. Her plans were good, genius even. She had a knack for wargaming that baffled him as to why she hadn't gotten a cutie mark in that instead.
He wasn't even all that against the broad-strokes idea of invading Equestria, odd as it may have seemed. Equestria in general (and his little sis specifically) had an unbeaten win-loss record against invasions. They were useful, like a vaccine. Kept the citizenry on their hooftips and made sure they practiced their evacuation drills. A nice little war would give his heir some good practical lessons in adapting pre-battle plans into live battlefield strategy.
The problem was her fixation on using antiquated gothic yak battle tactics. There was no honor in them. None of the nobility of combat that he'd spent years studying at the academy.
And even if her plans were logistically sound, they were centuries out of step with modern military doctrine. Sure, Equestrian doctrine hadn't been updated in generations either, but there was no way her cavalry charges would stand up to a spear wall. If she charged across the border, clad in her home-forged armor and fighting like a vandal, she'd be laughed off the battlefield! He remembered his own teenage traumas all too well: public humiliation and mockery were a pain that lingered as long as any physical wound, and that was a fate he'd never wish on his little filly.
Which was why he had to put his hoof down. To save her from herself because the world would not be nearly as kind.
At least until she learned to include a competent anti-air contingent in her plans.
Instead of debating merits—a losing argument—he pivoted to semantics. "Raid, pillage, skirmish, whatever you want to call it, you're not doing it."
Flurry frowned at him. "But father! Now is the time to strike! In this era of peace and prosperity, Equestria grows fat and feeble in its wealth and indolence."
"You shouldn't talk about your great-aunt that way. At least not where ponies might hear."
"Ew, no, not what I meant!" she retched, briefly dropping the stern façade she put up when she wanted to be taken seriously. "The land is ours by right! As the inheritors of the North, the burden of the ages falls onto us to finish what our ancestors started centuries ago."
There was also that angle. Somehow, despite his subtle hints towards modernizing her plans, her arguments instead always circled back to this. Shining Armor took a deep breath and willed himself to be patient. "Flurry. You. Are not. A Yak. You can't inherit the will of a totally unrelated people."
"Yes, you can! Clan leadership is elected, not hereditary! Prince Rutherford and Ambassador Yona both totally agreed and everything when I mailed them my proposal." She grabbed her spear and her helmet, ripping the latter's hook off the wall in her haste. The hole it left behind allowed a beam of moonlight to spotlight her as struck a pose. "With their blessing, I am the rightful Reik of the Northern Clans, able and willing to follow in the hoofsteps of great leaders like Alaric the Conqueror and Fritigern the Bold! To bring wealth to our people! To see our oppressors driven before us! To hear the lamentations of their mares! To—"
"That's enough!" Shining Armor slammed his hoof into the floor with such force that something cracked. Whether it was his hoof or the crystal, he was too incensed to care. "I won't hear any more of this! We’ve been through this again and again and it's the middle of the night and I've had it up to here with this Yak nonsense!"
"But I—"
"No! Nothing! No more!"
He watched the fire in her eyes flare up as she opened her mouth to retort and said— nothing. She slowly closed her mouth as the fire rendered down into a poisonous glare.
"Whatever," she scoffed. "I knew you wouldn't get it. You're just an old fogey anyway." Her words pierced his heart like a ballista, the same ones he'd shouted when his own father had forbidden him from attending a Torsioned Brother concert. It couldn't be true. He couldn't be a fogey. He was still young! Still hip and with it! It would have hurt less if she'd said she hated him.
“I'm a what?” he gasped, breathless.
Flurry rolled her eyes. "What, do I have to spell it out for you in outdated fogey-speak so you can understand? Fine. You are so ponycore you're Equestria-pilled, while I am gothmaxxing like a mareboss. Now GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"
A burst of alicorn magic shoved him through the door and slammed it in his face. Any further rebuttal was cut short by the amps from her cassette player blasting out a mix of heavy drumbeats and guttural war ballads in Old Gruntish.
Shining sat down on the floor like a scolded child as annoyance gave way to sober thought. "Ah... Alicorn farts," he swore.
That... had been a mistake. He'd let his frustration get the best of him and spoken out of anger. Flurry was, as Cadence liked to put it, "at a very delicate age right now" and he didn't need his wife's divine sense of relationships to know he'd absolutely stepped in it.
He'd gone too far, and now it fell to him to extend the olive branch to try and fix things.
But how to do it?
Closing his eyes, he cleared his mind and let himself drift back to the day he'd received his most reliable guide to parenting.
The year was 1XX7: The Countess' debut hit Last Hearth’s Warming was topping the charts and Shining Armor was in his sophomore year. He and Cadence were 'on a break' at the time (due to a misunderstanding after she saw him having lunch at a popular café with his cousin), so with nothing else to do on date night he'd refunded their romcom tickets and picked a different film, one that would change his life forever.
That film was Jingle All the Hay, starring popular Minotaur actor Ironhold Quartzendigger and co-starring Simba the Abyssian. A classic tale of a well-meaning but bumbling father going to extreme lengths to get his kid a specific toy for Hearth's Warming.
It wasn't the greatest film, but it taught an important life lesson that had stuck with Shining Armor ever since: that a damaged relationship can always be repaired by making a huge, expensive, over-the-top gesture.
And that was exactly what he needed now. It'd worked a dozen times to smooth over rough patches in his courtship of Cadance, so surely it'd work on his daughter as well.
He needed something big... but an invasion was already so big, maybe something smaller? A small invasion. Yes. She could have a small invasion, as an entreatment.
He knocked on the door again, tapping out a message in Horse Code that he knew she'd hear despite the blasting music.
'Flurry, I have a proposition.'
There was an old saying passed among parents. "It takes a village to raise a child". Shining remembered, quite vividly, when his mother first conferred the generational knowledge to him. Speaking around the side of her quellazaire, from the backseat of a taxi carriage, just before she dropped him off at the YPCA to take Twilight to a week-long magic convention in Las Pegasus, and right after telling him 'And if anyone asks where I am, you tell them I'll be around in a few hours then go hide somewhere till they leave.'
He'd never quite understood what it meant, but now it felt obvious that he must have misheard her.
His child needed a village, so, a village he'd get her.
Much to Shining Armor's surprise, everything came together a lot more neatly (and cheaply) than he'd expected. It didn't even break his top ten most expensive Grand Gestures.
A few old friends in the Canterlot Guard had pulled some strings to “loan" him a few companies of cocky young cadets and junior guards in need of some “practical training exercises”. A quick letter to his sister-in-law Rarity had put him in contact with the Manehattan Actors Guild, and with their help (and a few hastily worked out contracts) he had a population of "villagers" and "civilian bystanders", all working the union day rate. Best of all, thanks to Sunburst, he even had a village! It was an old ghost town in the foothills of the mountains that his Court Wizard assured him hadn't been inhabited in years. Something about it being the former headquarters of some kind of failed anti-cutie mark cult. The buildings were in disrepair after a decade of abandonment, but some plywood and a paint job was cheaper than fresh construction (and more importantly: there would be no one to complain about property damage).
It was a perfect plan. Flurry would be able to vent her teenage wrath, he'd get back in her good graces, and when her antiquated offensives crumbled against the superiority of modern military might, there'd be no rumors spread about her capabilities since, after all, as far as they knew she was acting just as much as they were.
A win for everyone. A foolproof plan where nothing could possibly go wrong!
Method Actor was reconsidering his choice of talent agent.
It wasn't the first time he'd done a job like this (there was a lot of overlap between the theater and reenactment communities). Usually it involved pretending to be a butler or an adoring citizen for some old money noble who wanted their daughter’s birthday to include a full "day in the life of a princess" experience. Once he'd been a minion for a Power Ponies “LARP in the Park” interactive show. That had been a good gig.
This one was a bit different from the norm. His money was on some military brat who wanted to roleplay as the Noble Hero who "saves a village from the invading savages" without actually having to risk his hooficure. Method's role was "frightened villager" and his script was "play along and improv". Not exactly a complex role, but he'd worked with less.
He stage-screamed as another house exploded and he ducked the "burning rubble." He had to hand it to the effects crew, it was top notch work. Everything felt very real, especially the mare they'd cast as the lead raider. Evil faux-alicorns were all the rage as stage villains, so he’d seen a lot of hammy actresses, but this one really had the charisma and skill to pull it off.
He watched from a safe distance as she coated herself in a bubble shield then charged straight through the Guard's frontline fighters, their defensive line, and the building behind them. An unstoppable living juggernaut. They hadn’t stood a chance, poor sods. Method knew he’d never have the guts for stunt work.
He did think it was a little weird that the kid playing the Hero hadn’t shown up yet. He was running out of village to save.
“You there!”
Method practically jumped out of his fur as the mare herself was suddenly right there; braids flying, eyes gleaming, close enough that he could see the steam coming off her in the chill air.
She bore down on him like a freight train, all spikes and smoke and a wild smile. “Hails, good sir! Hails, brother of fate! Can you hear the bells ringing? Can you hear the wind turning? Change is upon us, and I am its standard-bearer!” She stamped the butt of her spear against the ground as magic flared from its tip like a beacon. “Tell me, do you chafe under the shackles of Equestrian rule? Do you yearn for glory? Then rise! Rise against your masters! Carpe fatum! Will you join me, and seize the reins of your own destiny?”
Method knew a scripted scene when he heard one, but given his lack of prepared response, he had a choice to make. Considering if he said 'no' he'd probably 'die' and not get paid full rate for the second half of the day, there was really only one answer. "Aye!" He grabbed her hoof and pulled himself up. "Give me a weapon, and I shall fight by your side. Glory to..."
"The North and the Reik!"
"To the North and the Reik!" He did always love a chance to play the villain.
Shining Armor stood atop a hill and watched the carnage from a distance.
Metaphorical carnage. Flurry wasn't going nearly all out and Guard armor was a lot more magically robust than it had been a decade ago. Still, the air was thick with smoke and ash and the terrified screams of off-off-Bridleway actors. But beneath the chaos… there was laughter. The sweet laughter of his little girl having the time of her life.
Okay, so maybe it was closer to cackling than the giggles he remembered, but that just meant Flurry took after her Aunt Twilight when her blood started boiling.
He twisted his spyglass to refocus on her as she charged through one of the last hasty barricades, shouting war cries that were lost in the cacophony with quite a regiment following in her wake. Had he put that many ponies under her command? It certainly looked like more than she'd started with.
Another building crumbled as Shining considered the crow he’d be eating soon. He’d underestimated his daughter. He hadn't considered how alicorn magic and durability would enhance yak tactics. The combination was... overwhelmingly effective.
But it looked like things were winding down. She’d looted all the jewelry he planted and there was very little left in the way of standing structures. In fact, it looked like all the fighting had stopped and Flurry was addressing the crowd. How polite she was to thank them for their efforts. He’d really raised her right.
Yes, this was the perfect plan. His daughter was happy and no longer mad at him, and he technically hadn’t invaded a friendly foreign power. Win-win all around. He really was a good dad. A great dad. Night Light would never have staged a whole village for him to burn and conquer.
The crowd of actors and cadets gave her a cheer, signaling the end of her speech. But before Shining could head down to the battlefield—or even lower the spyglass—the entire congregation was covered in the sky-blue aura of Flurry’s magic. The teleport spell went off with an implosive bang, loud enough that the concussive blast of vacuum-filling air managed to snuff out all the remaining fires and topple the final house.
The devastated village was eerily silent for the sudden absence of life.
“Ah,” he said, once the initial shock passed. “Well. That's probably not good, is it?” The rubble did not deign to favor him with a response. “Guess it’s time to pull out the old emergency contingency plan.” Reaching in his saddlebags, he pulled out a scroll and quill and began to write.
Calling it a "Princess Conference" was really something of a misnomer, seeing how there was only one acting princess in attendance (along with two retired princesses and one Empress-by-technicality). But it was a very official-sounding name, which made it easier to justify working the get-together into their busy schedules without devising elaborate excuses.
Of course, Twilight had never been very good at relaxing, so when "a small issue requiring her attention" had come up, she'd apologized and called for a recess so she could promptly deal with it.
Which was why the conference was currently on an unscheduled cake break.
Taking a bite of a delectable strawberry shortcake, Cadance had to admit she could see how Aunt Celestia had become addicted to the stuff. Retirement had let her hone her centuries of tasting experience into devastating skill. She could easily give the royal bakers a run for their bits!
Unfortunately, no peace was ever eternal, and her blissful snack time was soon interrupted. A rapid knocking on the door heralded the arrival of a castle runner. "Message for the princess!" he announced, before properly realizing the room's occupants and awkwardly amending, "Princess Twilight, that is."
Seeing how the princess in question was absent, Celestia was taking an open-eyes catnap, and her own mouth was currently full of cake, it was Luna who acknowledged the courier. "I shall receive it and pass it along upon her return." Even retired, no one questioned the trustworthiness of a princess, and the runner passed over a scroll. As he left, Luna broke the seal and unrolled it, reading in silence.
"Oh," she remarked with the sort of tone one uses upon discovering a new species of telemarketer.
Cadence caught the side-eye sent her way. "Yes? What is it?"
"It seems that a raiding force has attacked and sacked several villages and towns along the Northern border." She unrolled more of the scroll. "As of this missive, they've captured Rainbow Falls and are demanding the Crown pay tribute lest they continue their campaign deeper into the heartland."
"That sounds terrible." Invasions came and went, but one so close to the Crystal Empire meant she'd almost certainly catch some diplomatic shrapnel. More paperwork upon her return home. What joy.
"Indeed. It seems to be a combined force of yaks and ponies, many of the latter sourced from the former citizenry of the villages in question, swayed to the enemy's side by their leader's charm and rhetoric."
"The Yaks?" Cadance asked. "But why? We've been at peace for centuries. Why would Rutherford do this?" It didn't make sense. The Yak leader had mellowed considerably as he'd matured. This didn't sound like him at all.
"Their leader is not a yak."
The yaks were following a pony? That was even stranger.
Luna held up the scroll as though reading, but her eyes remained locked with Cadance's. "Reports describe her as a young mare, noble in bearing and fair of face, clad in antiquated Yak-esque armor."
Something about that tickled Cadance's memory. 'Wait...'
"With rosy coat and golden ringlets..."
'Oh no, Flurry you didn't...'
"...bearing both a horn and wings."
Luna released the scroll, allowing it to snap shut. The room was silent, save for Celestia's gentle snores. "Is there something you wish to tell us, Cadenza, our dear niece?"
Cadance's mind raced a league a minute. She knew of Flurry's current obsession—she'd have to be blind not to—but something didn't add up. Flurry had her... quirks, and her phases, but at the end of the day she was an obedient daughter. Despite talking a big game, she'd never actually launch one of her planned campaigns.
Not without parental permission.
The splat of a forkful of cake falling to the floor broke the silence, followed by a screech of tortured metal as Cadance's fork was crushed into a ball bearing by her magical grip.
"I believe my husband has some serious explaining to do." If he thought he could get away with this kind of shenanigans just because she was on vacation, then they were going to have words when she got back. Sharp, pointy words, exchanged quite vigorously and possibly at range if he got the foolish idea to try and outrun her. After all the effort she’d taken to dissuade Flurry since she thought Shining would never approve, and then he’d gone and allowed it behind her back?! Without even inviting her to join the family bonding with them?! "When I get my wings on him, I'll—"
"Message for the princess!" another castle runner, nearly identical to the first, announced as they knocked and entered the solarium, thoroughly throwing off Cadance's vengeful groove.
"Another missive for Twilight?" Luna asked, looking alarmingly eager at the prospect of battlefield updates.
"Oh, um, no, actually," the messenger mare said. "Message for Empress Cadance. Sorry about the title mix-up. Old habits."
Cadance accepted the scroll, broke the seal, and unfurled it. A whiff of cologne tickled her senses. Suave Stallion No. 42, the one Shining saved for date nights and other special occasions.
'My dear darling wife,' Her breath caught in her throat. It was one of those letters. No. No, she would be strong. She would not fall for his corny love letter apologies again. 'Light of my light, dawn of my morning, my endless serenade.' She tried to keep a grip on her anger, but his sweet honeyed words made it so slippery. 'Every day we are apart makes my heart ache. Every second without you is an arrow to my soul. I know I am not the perfect stallion, for a perfect stallion would never crave your presence so ravenously, so jealously, as I.’
Cadance shuddered. She knew she shouldn't fall for it—he pulled the same card whenever he monumentally goofed up—but stars if he didn't know exactly how to pluck her heartstrings.
'But before I lose myself in exaltations of your beauty, know that this message comes with a small gift to let you know I am always thinking of you, even when making foolish decisions.'
"It says there's a gift attached?"
The messenger nodded. "If you mean the line out in the hall, then yes." She leaned back and gestured to someone out of sight. "Bring them in!"
At her call, an endless parade of couriers marched into the room, each laden with as many flowers as they could carry (and some slightly more than that). The first dozen’s bouquets filled the table, leaving the rest to try and make room on either the unoccupied chairs or an increasingly unbalanced flower tower.
'I remember how much you loved the flowers from Primrose's Bouquet Emporium, so I bought out their entire stock. Though I fear this meager token cannot compare to even a fraction of your loveliness.' As much as she tried to stop it, Cadence felt her anger slip away, replaced with a warm, sparkling, bubbliness in her heart. She took a delicate bite of the nearest bouquet. The roses were as decadently delicious as they were beautiful.
Perhaps... she'd overreacted. After all, wasn't it a good thing that Shiny and Flurry were having some father-daughter bonding time? Especially with how distant they'd been starting to grow recently. She could probably wipe away any fallout from their activities with a bit of charm and diplomacy (though they still should have invited her first), and wasn't that a worthwhile price for a happy family?
It was about this time that Twilight returned, her mane slightly frazzled, but in good spirits. At the sight of the flowers, she grew an amused smile. "Seems like something interesting happened while I was gone. Or did I take so long you had to order takeout?"
"Feel free to help yourself." Cadence gestured to the floor buffet. "There's more than enough to share."
"Thanks," Twilight said as she munched on a purple hyacinth.
After a few moments, Cadence seized the initiative. "So, Twilight... apropos of nothing: how attached are you to the town of Rainbow Falls?"