//------------------------------// // Settling Down // Story: The Life and Times of Love and Harmony // by TheManWithTwoNames //------------------------------// Saturday, the night Cadence had waited a millenium for, had finally arrived. And she still needed an extra fifteen minutes to finish cleaning herself up. She had spent every day locked in her room, experimenting with every possible combination of make-up, wardrobe, and hairstyle at her disposal. And after countless hours of indecision and exactly three-and-a-half hours of manic depression, she had come no closer to a final choice. When Philomena entered through her window to announce Shining Armor’s arrival, Cadence dove into her closet for shelter like a rabbit fleeing from a wolf. She shouted to the bird to tell him to wait just a few minutes for her. “Of course I would,” Philomena replied as she yanked open the door with her talons, “but I’d rather not expose myself and ruin the disguise I’ve been maintaining for over fifteen hundred years just to tell your boyfriend you can’t pick an outfit.” The door slammed shut again. “Then tell a guard to tell him!” Open. “I can’t speak to anyone.” “You sure do talk an awful lot!” Slam. “Write a letter!” Open. “Brother--” Slam. “I just need another minute!” “Cadence!” The name stunned the pony like a spell. Out of patience, Philomena pulled the screws from the door hinges and they dropped to the carpet with a muted whump. Cadence held her hooves over her face and twisted her body to hide as much of herself as she could. “Don’t look at me, I’m hideous,” Cadence sniffled. Soft and warm feathers laid over her hooves and gently pulled them down. She opened an eye to see the embodiment of peace itself smiling at her. All at once, she felt calm. “Cadence,” Philomena spoke. The name soothed her like a balm. “You look beautiful. And the handsome stallion waiting for you will think so, too.” Cadence rose to her feet and inspected herself in the mirror. All she wore were two small, sky-blue ribbons tied in a bow at the base of her tail and her ponytail. Her eyes were bare of any mascara or eyeliner, and her face was clear of any blush. By any standard, she was completely exposed to the world. And she admitted that she did not look too terrible. She straightened herself up and took a deep breath. Butterflies moshed in her stomach, but her hooves still carried her straight. Her heart had either stopped or begun beating too fast to measure, but her body moved with a smooth refinement. Her mind was raging like a hurricane, but she existed at the eye of the storm in a blank tranquility. Things were going to be okay. This date was going to go fine. She just had to keep her cool and not do anything rash and she’d catch Shining’s heart for sure. ~~~ This was a romantic teen picnic fling on the beach, and all romantic teen flings needed to have shitty beer. It was a law or something. “I didn’t think there was a beach near Canterlot…” “There’s a lake down in Ponyville.” “Yeah but,” Shining Armor stared over the top of his cold one, “it seems like there’s way more water than normal.” Cadence remained quiet. She felt no need to mention that she had burst the reservoir, caused the water tower to collapse, and diverted several rivers some miles away, just to get the “ocean” she needed. No, Cadence just smiled secretly, knowing that Shining Armor would be grateful for the efforts she had put into making this date special, even if he would never know. It still counted as keeping cool as long as nobody else knew. “Hey, are those trees on an island or…” “Maybe,” Cadence breathed. Shining Armor stared at the flooded forest, brain just trying to process the sight. Eventually he just chalked it up to the side effects of two mouthfuls of beer, nervously taking another swing. Sensing the lull, Cadence pounced on the opening and grabbed the picnic basket Shining had packed. The less time they both spent talking, the less the chance of her saying something that would completely turn him off of her. Enter food: a maniacally anxious pony’s best friend. “I’m feeling a little hungry” Cadence said, flipping the basket open. “I can’t wait to see what a master chef you—!” Cadence stopped. She stared into the picnic basket. Inside were not packed sandwiches and desserts, but a frosting-coated mess, and a tiny purple filly very close to tears. “Why,” Cadence hissed. Twilight Sparkle sniffled. “I’m s-sorry, Cadence. The cake sniff innit perfect yet.” ~~~ Hours in the past, Twilight undertook a great task. Her brother was planning a picnic with Cadence, the most important pony in the world after her brother and her parents. But when she snuck into the kitchen that morning to inspect what he packed, she was mortified at how unacceptable it was! He had sandwiches, salads, a funny white box from the… ‘pasty chef’, some of daddy’s special sodas, but no desserts! Cadence had made it very clear in their lessons together that a boy should always bring girls sweets and treats, so they can play-fight if the girl or the dessert was sweeter. (A circular discussion that is repeated ad nauseum to this very day.) Her brother was going to mess up his picnic with Cadence! And she might get so upset that she refused to ever babysit again! So little Twilight immediately set to work to rescue her brother. She didn’t know exactly how to make a cake, but she knew the theory of it. And if the theory was good enough for magic kindergarten, then it was good enough for her first venture into baking. So she dragged down the biggest bowl from the top shelf, and with great effort, set it at her feet. “Item one! Bowl!” She said to no one. “Check! Item two. Flour…” She dragged over the heavy burlap sack and carefully poured the flour in, stopping once the flour seemed the correct size of a cake. Then she hastily scooped out several hoof-fulls and poured in an equal amount of sugar. Cakes were flour and sugar, most of all! “Item four. Eggs!” She sloppily crumpled two eggs in her aura, giggling as everything fell in. She made sure to pick out the biggest shell fragments, but didn’t mind to hunt for them all. I mean, those would crumble and burn while making, wouldn’t they? It made sense to her! She slopped in the milk, making sure everything was just soggy enough, but then she stopped. She stared into the soupy yellow contents and wondered. What exactly make red velvet cake particularly red or velvety? She certainly wasn’t silly enough to put cloth in a cake! That just made her giggle. Maybe a stupider pony would have done that, but not Twilight Sparkle! She was a smart pony. She poured in half a jar’s worth of strawberry jam, and was darned proud about it. Finally, she upended a bag of chocolate chips into the mix, stirred, and dropped the bowl into the cold maw of the barely-heated oven. She licked the mixing spoon idly, wondering how long it would take to cook. Ten minutes? Maybe twenty? She’d need more mix before she could wait that long. She popped open the oven and dunked her spoon in for another lick. She did everything to distract herself, but she was very impatient, and very worried about the cake burning. Burning was literally the worst thing that could happen for a cake. Constantly, she would pop open the oven, shift the bowl around with the tippy tip of her nail, and see if it had stopped being liquid yet. Finally, she could wait no longer. It seemed solid enough, so she went to grab a towel from the bathroom and dragged the bowl out, swaddled up like a ceramic baby. It wobbled when she upturned it onto the nice silver platter, and oozed a little in the middle too. But Twilight proudly resisted tasting! But not the frosting. She ate about half a can of frosting as she spread the sugar up and down the sides of the pinkish ‘cake.’ It was then that Cadence returned with her picnic basket, luckily retreating far into the house and coming nowhere near the kitchen. It was the perfect time to sneak the ‘surprise’ right under Cadence’s nose! Man, she would act for real surprised, not the fake kind! Twilight looked in the basket bigger than a child’s dinghy, and saw there was a ton of stuff in it. Blanket, umbrella, drinks… It all looked important, except for the white box from the Pasty Chef. Twilight took it out, and found plenty of room to slip her own cake inside. She looked down on the pink and white blob with such pride and joy, it felt like her breath was making her a balloon. Yet… proud as she was, it wasn’t good enough for Cadence. She didn’t have the white chocolate decorations for one. And the frosting didn’t curl just right, like it should be doing. So Twilight fetched the tube of frosting, and decided to tweak it. Maybe another glob here. That made the cake tear, so she needed to fix and cover the spot. Oh, why was frosting so hard to glob on?! She even had magic to help her, and it was still looking slightly less than perfect. How the heck did those dumb old Earth Ponies down at the cake shop do it? Did they have secret unknowable cake magic?! It was so important that the cake be just right, when Shining Armor came running down the hall to meet Cadence, Twilight did the only logical thing. She hopped in the basket and kept working, determined to make the stupid thing perfect. And there she worked, fixed, and so thoroughly destroyed the mushy mess that she was reduced to tears. And that’s exactly when Cadence discovered her. ~~~ ‘I have to kill her.’ Back in Canterlot, Philomena nearly fell off her perch. ‘What? No! Who?!’ ‘Twilight Sparkle.’ ‘Absolutely not!’ ‘But she’s ruining everything!’ Cadence wailed. ‘Cadence...’ Once again, the name had an enchanting effect on the pony. ‘Calm down. Think. Keep your temper. Turn this situation around. Show him how compassionate you are.’ In any other circumstance, she would have privately thought up a quip about another type of ‘passion’ and another type of ‘com’, but this wasn’t the time or place. ‘Alright... Alright, I think I’ve calmed down. Thank you, Sister.’ ‘It was my pleasure.’ Philomena inflated her chest in pride, partly for herself but mostly for Cadence. She had spent centuries trying to get through to the pony without success. But all at once, Cadence had discovered what Philomena had hoped she’d find: a reason to care. A tether between herself and the mortals of Equestria beyond the desire to harvest more power. A personal attachment that humbled and taught true love. The Spirit that had seized the Crystal Empire, destroyed the Minotaur and Griffin kingdoms, and sowed a path of selfish destruction was fading from sight. And it would not take long before Cadence the Pony took her place as a defender of Equestria. ‘Oh and by the way I flooded Ponyville.’ ‘WHAT’ ‘Click.’ ~~~ Following her sister’s advice, Cadence resisted the urge to throttle Twilight and instead invited her to join them both for the rest of the evening. And when Shining Armor smiled at her, she made out just the faintest wisp of pink trailing from him. There was neither hanky nor panky on the date. There was no kissing, or even hoof holding. And yet, it was still the best date she ever had. And the first of many to come. Eeeeuch, gag.