The next several days were quiet and Sunset realized for the first time what it felt like to be alone. She had been on her own before, sure, but not alone. Not in a place where she wanted company but was denied it. Her solitude had always been by choice and she had commanded companionship when ever she had felt like it.
Now? Cadance was off-limits and it made Sunset ache.
Timing made it even worse. Sunset had two lonely days in the hospital without visitors before being released into the care of Raven Inkwell. The rising star of Canterlot's administrative corps made apologies for Princess Celestia's absence - some thin excuse about a diplomatic emergency to the south with the hippogriffs - and escorted Sunset back to her rooms. The doctors still had her under strict orders to rest and recover for at least another week, so she was left there on her own.
That had been three days before Hearts and Hooves Day (and thus before today) - a fact that every member of Palace staff was abuzz about and there was no escape from. Love hung in the air like a stench, and Sunset Shimmer was alone.
She isolated herself. Part of it was the ordered rest - her voice was still scratchy and she found herself easily winded - but most of it was because Sunset was in no mood to deal with the current of romance that flowed under everything. Exempted from lessons, Sunset closed herself in her room with a pile of books and only opened the door for the twice daily delivery of her meals. That was why she even bothered responding to the evening knock after days of solitude.
It was not a plate of stuffed peppers with a side of cauliflower bites. It was Raven Inkwell, who looked about as comfortable as a dragon in a dress.
Connecting the dots was easy: Princess Celestia was back from her 'diplomatic mission' and wanted to talk. Cadance had probably told her everything and now they were going to have a tense discussion full of implied warnings and words that meant something else entirely. And Sunset was, bluntly, too damn tired for it. But she couldn't refuse, so she just sighed and sagged. "The Princess is summoning me?"
Raven nodded, eyes betraying a small amount of fear.
Wordlessly, Sunset stepped out and allowed herself to be escorted to the inevitable confrontation. She followed Raven through the upper portrait gallery, across the gatehouse causeway, past the diplomat's quarters, and to the Ruby Dinette. (Which, while it was a dinette was actually named for Lady Ruby Dinette, who had been ennobled by Princess Celestia approximately three generations earlier for Ruby's work in feeding the hungry of the then newly urbanized Manehatten.) The room was the crosspoint between cozy and fancy: broad windows overlooking the statue garden; ruby red drapes to match the room's name; rich cream carpet; a potted fiddle-leaf fig tree in each corner; and a walnut dining set made for four but set for two. But most importantly, there was the Princess.
A Princess. Cadance, to be precise.
Having the wrong alicorn waiting for her threw Sunset off her game and she froze in the doorway.
This, in turn, froze Cadance in place - she looked up to smile and was met with wide, shocked eyes that caused her to stop dead.
Raven Inkwell coughed awkwardly. "Miss Shimmer, your Highness."
Over the next minute, the two watched each other with anticipation, fear, and rising tension. Raven, meanwhile, stood around with growing unease, unable to leave because Sunset was standing in the doorway.
Cadance finally gave, coughing to clear her throat. "Can we talk, Sunset? Please?"
Spell broken, Sunset managed a nod and entered - allowing Raven to escape and close the door behind her.
Sunset approached the other place set at the table: Cadance hadn't used the normal Palace china for this. She'd opted instead for beige earthenware plates and unadorned flatware. It all had the tone of what a servant's place setting would be rather than one before a princess.
She sat and Cadance's horn lit. Far more stable than it had been months ago when lessons had started, Cadance lifted a bottle and poured them both a glass of sparkling water that smelled very slightly of berries. "Can we talk," she asked.
"You already said that," was Sunset's slightly too snappy retort.
Cadance flinched. "I--I did, didn't I."
A moment of unease.
"You can talk," Sunset said, guessing what was truly meant. "And I'll listen."
Cadance sighed. "Thank you." She shifted in her chair, trying to find physical comfort when she had none emotionally. "Dinner's going to be delivered in a little while - I asked them to give us some time first. But, um, there's bread," she noted with a point of her wing. The little basket off to the side did have some nice looking crusty bread with a small pot of butter beside it - but Sunset's attention was elsewhere. And so was Cadance's. "Maybe it's presuming, but it is Hearts and Hooves Day, so it didn't feel really right to not have dinner. And--"
"You're stalling." Sunset did her best to emulate that impassive Celestia voice and mostly succeeded.
"And I'm stalling." Cadance closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath. "I've been thinking, Sunset. I've been talking to ponies and thinking about everything, and I don't like a lot of it. You have a... a reputation."
An understatement. Sunset had no illusions about how she was regarded. The staff didn't like her, her classmates wanted to ride her tail to higher status, and while the nobility had sided with her against Blueblood, she knew they hated her because she would never be one of Them.
"But I already knew that. I got warned about you so many times..." She laughed, mostly to herself. "Everypony told me you were trouble and I ignored them."
Sunset tensed up. It didn't take a genius to see where things were going.
And Cadance soldiered on, barely looking at Sunset. "Then we met your father and you told him you had betrayed him. It wasn't just anger, either, Sunset. You enjoyed doing that. You liked hurting him." Sunset opened her mouth to respond - but Cadance raised a hoof to cut her off. "But after you told me about your father, I understood why you wanted to. I didn't approve, but it made sense. Then everything with Blueblood happened and I saw it repeat. You used the ponies around you to hurt him. Not just to have Blueblood leave us alone, but to destroy him as much as you could - even if it hurt others along the way." Cadance snorted. "And I'm almost okay with it, too, because I know what kind of a pony Blueblood is. That's the sad part. If you hadn't hurt Gliding Moth, I might have been able to justify what you did."
"I didn't mean to hurt Gliding." Sunset tried to get into the monologue to defend herself, but a brief and uncharacteristic glare from Cadance silenced the attempt.
"You still hurt her." Cadance's tone briefly turned ice cold - and then the moment of chill anger passed. "I talked with Princess Celestia about everything, including what you told me about your plan. She..." Cadance hesitated. "She agreed with you that sometimes a pony has to take unsavory actions to accomplish nobler goals. But she didn't think that what Blueblood did justified your actions to him."
Sunset wanted to roll her eyes. Of course Celestia would take Blueblood's side instead of hers.
Cadance paused, taking a sip of the fizzing water. "But I guess none of that matters because it isn't the question. It's if I can trust you anymore, Sunset. How do I know I'm not just some other plan of yours? How can I believe anything you say?"
Silently, inside her head, Sunset Shimmer was panicking. This was very close to the worst case scenario. Everything she had worked for over the last few months was hanging on her next few words - Cadance, being an alicorn, proving herself to Celestia... Her mind leapt into action, careening down a dozen different possible paths. Every one had pitfalls - a question that would end everything if Cadance asked it. Each one, Sunset tried to find branches that would avoid those traps and see her through.
And as her mind worked, her heart acted. "You can't."
Internally, she screamed at her own stupidity.
The answer, at least, seemed to throw Cadance off. "I can't?" There was an odd note of hope mixed in the confusion.
Sunset knew she was committed now - the response had been impulsive and foolish, but there were no take-backs. She could only go forward and hope. "No matter what I say to you, you're not going to be able to trust it. I could tell you the absolute truth and you'd still have good reason to doubt me."
"I don't want to doubt you, Sunset." Desperation edged into Cadance's tone. "Can't you... isn't there something?"
Sunset shook her head. "You believing me is up to you, Cadance, not me."
So she thought - and gave Sunset the chance to do some thinking of her own, trying to find a way out.
She didn't get very far before Cadance clapped her hooves once. "Alright. Sunset, I'm going to ask you a question. Tell me the truth when you answer, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt going forward."
It was a critical lifeline. Sunset didn't point out the obvious flaw in Cadance's plan. "Just the benefit of the doubt." She snorted once, pulling the attention away from the fact that she could just lie. "I guess that's the best deal I can hope for."
Cadance's eyes locked with Sunset's - purple to teal. "Was being in a relationship with me part of a larger plan of yours."
The internal screaming started again. And once more, the heart acted and the truth slipped out where the mind flailed. "Yes and no."
Once more, Cadance was caught off guard. "What?"
"Yes and no," Sunset repeated, once more committed to her impulsive path. "Look, this is going to take a bit to explain. And it starts with telling you about something that only Princess Celestia and I know about." She took a deep drink of the water, preparing for what would be her longest period of speaking since the injury. "A few years ago, Princess Celestia took me deep into one of the castle's vaults. She was teaching me about artifacts and we went hooves-on with some of them. One that she showed me was a crystalline mirror made by Starswirl the Bearded. She said he had built it to serve as a dimensional portal, but that it hadn't worked right - it could only connect to a single alternate dimension and would only open when certain stellar configurations matched on both sides." Sunset chuckled a little. "He gave up on that and instead recycled the mirror for other functions, including using it as a divination aid. Princess Celestia meant for it to be a lesson in why not every experiment will succeed, but I found something more interesting when I looked into the mirror. It showed me my future self: as an alicorn and a princess." Another quick sip of water as her throat started to protest. "It wasn't just me, either - Princess Celestia saw it and she can verify the story. So I know that some day I'll get my wings, because Starswirl predicted it. Everything I've done since that day has been to make my vision come true. So yes, you were part of a larger plan. Everything I do is part of that plan."
There was a pause as Cadance waited to be sure Sunset was finished. Then the pink princess sucked in a breath through her teeth. "And what part do I play in that plan?"
Brain and heart fought inside Sunset for what her answer would be. She could tell Cadance everything - detail the plan and ask her to guide Sunset through the process to becoming an alicorn. But with the tension between them, it was just as likely - probably even more likely - that Cadance would refuse. And that would be the end of everything. Sunset would be back to where she started and even if it didn't turn Cadance into an enemy, she would never help Sunset again.
So there was only one way to answer. Thankfully, it was at least partially truth.
"Back on your second day here, when I apologized to you I said that we were going to have to learn to deal with each other." Sunset let a second pass, allowing Cadance to remember back those months ago. "That was true. The part I didn't say was that we need to learn to deal with each other because we're both going to live forever. The plan was to get to know the pony I'm going to be around for the next several centuries."
Cadance mulled those words over for a good minute before asking her follow-up. "And that was it?"
Sunset lamely shrugged and skirted the edge of a lie. "I won't deny that I wanted to evaluate if you would be a good ally. Princess Celestia and I don't always get along and I needed to know if you were going to parrot whatever she told you or think on your own."
And then she held her breath, because everything relied on Cadance's reaction.
It took another minute.
"I believe you." Cadance spoke slowly, choosing her words with thoughtful care as she looked at her water. "If what you're saying about that mirror is true, then getting to know me would make sense. You already know Princess Celestia but I would have been an unknown." She glanced at Sunset. "You're not really a fan of unknowns."
"I'm not," Sunset admitted with no shame.
The hint of brash confidence in Sunset's voice made Cadance smile a tiny bit. "I don't know if I can trust you, Sunset. But I said I'd give you the benefit of the doubt, and I will." She reached across the table, holding a hoof out to Sunset. "I want to get things back to how they were before this. I want to be normal again."
It took considerable restraint for Sunset to merely reach out and take Cadance's hoof rather than lunge for it.
They held on tight to one another. "Can we please be normal again?"
That pleading tone melted Sunset's heart and she couldn't suppress a smile. "I'd like that."
Then the trap snapped shut. Cadance still smiled wistfully at her, still had a voice soft and caring. But her words? "Then please don't do something like that again? We're supposed to be together and that means helping each other. We can't help if we don't communicate. That means no elaborate secret plans. We have to start talking to each other."
And Sunset was caught. She couldn't refuse Cadance - not without touching off an entirely new argument that would only go worse. But going along set up an entirely new set of complications and an extra layer of danger. Sunset didn't like that.
It wasn't often Sunset Shimmer could feel she'd lost.
"No more secret plans," Sunset agreed, even if she could taste a little bile. "I'll keep you in the loop with any new plans that I cook up." Again, a half-dodge. She said nothing of those already in play.
Cadance smiled, probably because she had won. "Thank you." She gave Sunset's hoof another pat before straightening up. "Now! Because I'm an optimist, our Hearts & Hooves Day dinner should be arriving any minute. We can get back to normal with a quiet romantic meal on a special holiday - just the two of us. Right, Sunny?"
It did sound really nice. But the devil often wore a pleasant face.
"Right, Caddy," Sunset said with a smile of her own.