Shining Armor sat and smiled up at the first stars in the night sky. He was on a hillside, on a blanket, with a certain pink alicorn sitting next to him. Shining sneaked a glance at the mare sitting beside him. Cadance was looking up at the sky herself, and Shining could have sworn that he could see a reflection of a star in her beautiful, purple eye. Her mane was up in it's usual ponytail, just as cute as always. A soft breeze blew by, rippling her soft pink fur, and Shining Armor could only think of how gorgeous she was. He simply could not tear his eyes away from her.
He didn't realize just how long as he had been staring, until he was snapped out of his trance when Cadance giggled and said “See something you like?”
The poor, anxious unicorn sputtered and tried to say something in response. The only thing going through his head was “Don't say something stupid!” on a quick loop.
All he managed to get out was a nervous “N-nothing, just thinking is all.”
Cadance giggled again, and Shining was sure that if he was even a little more nervous, his heart would give out.
She turned to face her date, and asked “What are you thinking about?”
Shining Armor did his best to smile charmingly, but it came out more like a grimace than a grin. When Cadance giggled at him again, Shining had to repeat in his head “Don't say something stupid!”
He rubbed the back of his head and replied, “Just thinking about how tonight has gone is all.”
It was not that their night had been bad. That was not to say that it had been perfect, either. That moment on the hill was not the first time that evening that poor Shining Armor had thought he was going to die of nervousness. Their date had been one long string of close calls and miniature panic attacks for Shining.
He had picked her up at her home when the sun was just barely beginning it's descent. Shining was only sixteen, so he hadn't taken her to some high class restaurant or anywhere like that, no matter how much he wished he could have. Instead, he took her to a small restaurant he had found that served mostly foreign foods. Shining had spent a whole day trotting all over the city, trying to find a perfect place that also fit his sorrowfully lacking budget. The humble restaurant he had decided upon was also one of the only ones that didn’t amount to a sandwich joint. He had not stopped worrying that the place would somehow turn out to be a flop, not even through his date. Later, after they had left, Cadance had told him that she loved the place, which firmly cemented it in Shining's mind as his favorite restaurant in all of Canterlot.
After that came a stop at a theater owned by the Canterlot Arts School. When Shining brought her there, he was mentally berating himself for not being able to afford something more like a grand theater that one might expect Princess Celestia to visit. This continued all the way into the middle of the play, right up until Cadance rested her head on his shoulder. After that, the butterflies in his stomach prevented any higher thought. Shining barely even noticed when the play ended and the actors all came out for their final bow. He might have sat there all night, frozen in his blissful state, had Cadance not nudged him out of his funk.
When they left, Cadance turned and asked him what was next. Shining swallowed nervously, doing his best to keep his composure just a while longer. The last part of their date was the part he was looking forward to the most, so of course it brought him closer to a wreck of nerves and anxiety than any other part of the night. Earlier that day, he had stashed a blanket in a tree on a small hill on the outskirts of Canterlot. Stargazing was something that he hadn’t always been somewhat fond of doing. It wasn't until one night when he found Cadance and his sister sitting on the front lawn, doing just that, then he really took a shine to it. Later in life, he'd always remember that first night, sitting with his sister and her foalsitter, just looking up at the stars, as the night that he first started to fall for Cadance. Despite all of the good memories, however, it wasn't until Cadance smiled and said that she loved the idea that he finally stopped fretting over it.
All of those events led up to one overly-anxious unicorn doing his best to keep his act together in front of an alicorn mare who found his anguish to be silly. She had caught him more than once with a look on his face more akin to a pony being told they have to go talk in front of a huge audience than one on a date. Every time she did, though, she'd just lightly sigh and smile, rolling her eyes at just how much her date managed to work himself up over such little things.
Cadance would have reacted just that way if she had been able to hear Shining Armor's thoughts as they sat there. Of course, just the look on his face was enough to make her at least mentally roll her eyes. When he said that he was thinking about how their night had went, she said “Don't worry about it Shining, I think tonight went great. You know how I prefer smaller places.” She reached out and placed a hoof on his shoulder, trying to make him relax.
It might have worked, too, had she not touched him. Shining's anxiety was actually starting to fade, right up until he felt that amazingly perfect hoof touch his shoulder, sending those damnable butterflies inside of him into a frenzy. “Do not say something stupid!” he said, the phrase soon becoming a mantra in his head as Cadance lightly rubbed her hoof up and down.
They both looked back up at the stars then. Shining's mantra was actually starting to slow down, when he suddenly felt Cadance's foreleg snake around his shoulders, pulling him close to her. He was pretty sure that if he were speaking his thoughts aloud at that point, nothing would have come out. Either because his speech would be at a speed incomprehensible to pony ears, or because his mind would be nonfunctioning, he was not sure. Still though, he managed to slowly lift his own foreleg up and place it around his date.
That time, he managed to both feel and hear the happy sigh come out of Cadance. It was right about then that he finally hit his breaking point. The rapid mental repetition in his head suddenly changed from “Don't say something stupid!” to “Just say it already!”
Slowly, he turned his head. “Hey, C-Cadance?”
He felt a small measure of pride when his voice only cracked slightly.
Cadance looked back at him, and Shining almost lost himself in her gorgeous violet eyes.
“Yes, Shining?” she asked, keeping him in reality.
“Uhh, well, I, uh,” Shining said, feeling about as smooth as he sounded. When Cadance giggled that adorable giggle of her’s again, he was only reminded of what he wanted to say. “I just wanted to say, that I, uhh, kinda, sort of, love you.” Shining's voice was barely audible by the end of his sentence.
“What was that, Shining?” Cadance asked.
Shining just about threw in the towel because of the sheer amount of anxiety he was feeling. Knowing that his bravery would not last, he said perhaps a bit too loudly “I love you Cadance!”
Cadance took a moment to register what her date had just said. Shining looked like he was about to go find the nearest rock and make it into his new home when her mind caught up. When she saw him eying a boulder not far from them, she decided that prompt action was necessary.
“And I could live on bugs and grass—” Shining was thinking, just before he felt a new sensation that made his thoughts swiftly leave the building. His head had been turned, and and a soft set of lips pressed against his nearly broke whatever cognitive abilities he had left. It wasn’t anything like what he’d felt before. Sure, Cadance had pecked him on the cheek after dates. And once on the lips, mostly to tease Twilight. The kiss that they were sharing at that moment though, that kiss was different. He could feel more emotion behind it, more depth. And when Cadance pulled away, it was all he could do to sit there dumbly.
It was another of Cadance's positively marvelous giggles that broke him out of his newest trance. Shining had only one question on his mind, and he quickly asked it. “Does that mean that you—“
Cadance shushed him with a hoof on his lips, and smiled. “Yes Shining, I love you too.”
If Shining Armor had died just then, it would have been a happy death. He pulled his love close again, and they looked back up to the night sky. The last thought Shining Armor could remember having that night that did not directly involve Cadance was “I suppose sometimes it pays off to say something stupid.”