That night was quiet. Quiet save for the sound of Shining Armor’s gentle breathing as he slept. He was sleeping soundly, at least. Luna must have been watching over him. Any stallion would otherwise be tossing and turning and sweating after the day he had.
Cadance…Crypsis was not sleeping so soundly. She wasn’t at all, in fact. Sleep kept tugging at her eyelids, its pull growing stronger and stronger by the second. She refused its siren call, drowning it in cup after cup of the blackest coffee available that far north. She didn’t bother with any of the niceties like cream or sugar. The strong, cringe-worthy taste helped her stay awake.
She kept her eyes on the doors and windows of their bedroom; or rather, one of their guest rooms. Shining Armor had insisted she not be allowed to see their normal bedroom. She could only guess what happened, and no reasonable guess was anything good. Still, the room was nice, though with two beds instead of one. Shining slept in one, and the other was untouched.
The clock ticked in the dark as she sat in its embrace. Her changeling eyes flitted from door, to window, to door again, to another window, and so on and so on. No movement, save for the faint shimmering and twinkling of the stars in the night sky. She risked looking at the clock. It was morning, though she hadn’t noticed midnight passing by. The night was still young and she still had plenty of coffee. Hopefully she had enough.
There was a knock on the door. It was a certain rhythm, a certain signal, though nobody would guess it was unless they’d been raised on such codes.
Crypsis’ horn glowed, grabbing hold of the door and pulling it open. In stepped a crystal mare dressed in full royal guard armor, her black coat glittering in the light behind her and her blue eyes piercing in the dark.
“Princess Cadance,” she greeted with a bow. “I do hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“You aren’t, Black Ice,” she said, trying to keep the sleepy slurring to a minimum. She magically closed the door again, leaving them both in the dark. “But you can drop the act, Camea. Unless you have someone eavesdropping, nobody is listening.”
Black Ice blinked, and Camea opened her glowing blue changeling eyes with a burst of green fire. “Are you sure Shining is asleep?”
“I know when he’s faking sleep and when he’s really sleeping,” she chuckled. “He’s asleep.”
“And why aren’t you?” she asked back.
Crypsis lowered her gaze and took another long sip of coffee. “Mostly so I’m ready if Mother has you or our siblings kidnap me tonight.” She cast her eyes over to Shining Armor. “But to be honest, it’s partly because I don’t want to face Luna. She’s no doubt read Shining’s letter by now, and is tapping her hoof in the dream world waiting for me. I haven’t known her as long as I have Celestia or Twilight, but… I still don’t want to see her mad at me. I don’t want to see her hate me.”
“You’ll have to, eventually. There has never been a changeling who lived happily ever after once discovered,” Camea said.
“I know,” Crypsis muttered. “I hope that I’ll be the first, though.”
“If they don’t make your life miserable, Mother will,” Camea said with a sigh. “One way or another, every traitor to the family pays.”
Crypsis scoffed and shook her head, her eyes still on the sleeping Shining. “A traitor… yeah, I guess I am. I have been for years, but to them, not to the family.”
“You are now. You betrayed us, Princess,” Camea said softly. “You may be high born, but you were still our sister. You were still my sister…”
Crypsis tore her gaze from Shining to see Camea’s eyes downcast. Seconds ticked by before Crypsis asked, “What did you come here for? To take me away?”
Camea shook her head. “I ordered all prior instructions from Mother to be on hold until we hear back from her. The situation has changed, after all, and you’re no longer our commander, so that puts me in charge. That’ll buy you some time to get out of the city, but you won’t be safe here for long.”
Crypsis bowed her head. “Thank you, but… why? You already stuck your neck out for me when you told me Mother was going to kill Shining.”
“To return the favor,” she said simply. “I had an operative eavesdrop on your conversation with Shining earlier, when you woke up. You lied for us, told him that you had no idea who in the palace is a changeling.” She sighed and sat down. “I came to ask why you did that. You’ve been so kind to all of us under your command for so long, but you’re a traitor now. You’ve turned your back on your family, we’re your biggest threat, and yet you don’t have us thrown in the dungeon and interrogated. Why? What are you planning?”
“Shining might not have believed me,” Crypsis muttered.
“He believed you enough to let you sleep with him again,” she observed, looking over to Shining.
“In the same room,” Crypsis corrected, following her sister’s gaze. “He doesn’t trust me enough to sleep in the same bed. I don’t think I deserve that right, anyway.” She looked away and took another sip. “Besides… his heart is so broken and desperate to believe that I’m the Cadance he knew and loved that he’s completely ignoring his head. I think some part of him knows that.”
“But he can be a thorough, cautious stallion when he wants to be. He would’ve taken us in for questioning all the same, and if he’s half as desperate as you claim, he would’ve authorized more… advanced methods of interrogation,” Camea reasoned. “At least one of us would’ve cracked.”
The clock ticked and the clock tocked, and Shining breathed in and breathed out. Both went uninterrupted for a while before Crypsis said anything more. “You said it yourself, didn’t you? You’re still my sister. You’re all still my family,” she admitted. “I didn’t want to ‘turn my back’ on anyone, but… I can’t let Mother get her way.” She looked her sister square in the eye. “I can’t let her enslave this continent, hypnotize everyone on it, rule it as its shadow queen. She's grown more cruel and vicious over the past few centuries, and her hate for them will eclipse her love for us sooner or later.”
“She wants to give us a home, Princess,” Camea said softly, pleadingly.
“She wants to make these ponies suffer,” Crypsis shot back. “We can have a home, but it doesn’t have to be like this. It never had to be like this.”
“And what do you suggest?” Camea snapped. “You’ve already ruined your chances at any sort of diplomacy from the inside. Nobody trusts you anymore, Princess. Not changeling, not pony, nobody. The public only trusts you because they don’t know yet, and it will get leaked eventually and throw you into doubt. You’ve lost all the support that really mattered, and now you’ve barred us from living safely for the first time in countless years, all for this one stallion! What could you possibly do to fix this?”
“I… I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know. I was so sick and tired of the lie I was living I thought I could expose her plans, lay down, and die. I was going to be happy with that. Now I’m not so sure. Shining wants to look for the real Cadance like I asked him to, but I don’t know what to do about our family and I don’t know what to do about Mother.” She wiped away a few fledgling tears. “I don’t know what I’m going to do anymore. I’m not even sure what I was thinking to begin with. I want our family, Shining, Equestria, everyone, to be happy, but I don’t know how to do it.”
Camea shook her head and stood up. “Don’t look to me for help. It was a mistake to tell you what Mother was planning for Shining in the first place. It’s probably a mistake to buy you time to leave in the next few days. I’m not doing you any more favors, Crypsis; my loyalty to you has run out. Once the orders come down to drag you away, you’re not getting any slack from me.” She turned her back on her princess and trotted to the door, every step a restrained stomp.
She flinched, steadying herself as she gulped down the last of her cup of coffee. As she refilled it from the pot, she said with a small sigh, “I guess I shouldn’t expect anything else. Tell your wife I said hello; I hope you’ll still be happy together.”
Camea hesitated, but only for an instant. When she opened the door and left, she was Captain Black Ice once more. When the door closed, Crypsis was left alone in the dark, with only a sleeping Shining and her coffee for company.