//------------------------------// // Wild by Fuzzyfurvert // Story: Magic of Love: A Twidance Prompt Collab // by ArguingPizza //------------------------------// by Fuzzyfurvert ~~~ “How are you holding up?” Cadance glanced down where Twilight was starting to huff and pant. “We’re almost there!” Cadance spread her wings in the thin air, catching the last hint of the updraft that had helped them ascend for the past few minutes. She grabbed the wind and pushed hard, one final time to push herself up and over the edge of the wispy cloud that was their destination. She settled herself and took a big gulp of cool high altitude air to get her breathing and heart rate under control. Twilight followed her a moment later and more or less collapsed next to her. Cadance grinned and wheezed. “I am so out of practice. You would think, having been born a pagasus, I’d be reasonably good at flying. But I never was a strong or fast flyer.” “Flutter...Fluttershy is...is like that.” Twilight rolled unceremoniously onto her back as her chest heaved with each breath. “By Faust, this cloud is high up!” Cadance smirked and nodded. It was good to see that Twilight had not only gotten used to flying but had easily taken to cloudwalking and the quick elevation adaptation natural to pegasi. “I like to come up here once a week. Mostly for the exercise. The Crystal Empire is almost 90% earth ponies with most of the remainder being unicorns. I don’t get the chance very often to fly with other ponies.” “There are gryphon settlements nearby.” Cadance rolled her eyes. “I can barely keep up with other pegasi! I wouldn’t even try to do the long distance flights the gryphons favor.” Twilight chuckled, her breathing having returned to somewhere near normal. She shifted around and climbed to her hooves so she could look out over the edge of the cloud at the whole of Equus spread out like a blanket far below. The Crystal Empire sat directly beneath them, the central castle glinted in the mid-day sun like a beacon that was visible for dozens of leagues in every direction. Twilight whistled to herself and turned back to Cadance. “You come up here just for exercise? This view is amazing!” “I know, right?” Cadance smiled. “The view is one of the perks of having the sky to myself here. And the silence too. Normally it’s just me and the wind whispering through my mane. Your brother tells me I look so serene and majestic when I sit and think on a cloud.” “I could see that.” Twilight sighed and settled herself comfortably so she could still see most of the view their vantage point offered. “What do you think about?” “Boring political stuff most of the time. I wonder constantly how Aunt Celestia managed to rule Equestria by herself for so long. It’s interesting, but it’s tedious too.” Cadance let her voice fade off as she watched a small patch of the pale blue sky. “When that isn’t weighing on my mind… well, I think about Shining, or you, or the new friends I’m making here. I can safely claim that my mind isn’t clouded very much these days.” Twilight nodded but kept her mouth shut. She could remember their days together back in Canterlot when they had been younger and the few times that Cadance had acted...weird. She’d never really thought much of it at the time. A younger Twilight had just assumed that was how teenaged mares acted. It certainly had seemed that way when she had first realized that her big brother and her foalsitter were in love. As she thought back on those times, Twilight couldn’t help but wonder. Sometimes Cadance had seemed almost afraid of her. She never did anything or said anything odd, but from time to time, Twilight could see it in her eyes. Sometimes that look, that hidden...whatever it was..wasn’t afraid. Sometimes it looked hungry. Like that way she had seen Cadance look at her brother. It was always quick. Blink-and-you-miss-it sort of moments. There were times when Cadance would be acting normally and then lose focus and babble for a moment and break out in a sweat. She would close her eyes and hold her breath like she was trying to hold something in. Over the years, there were less and less of those odd incidents. Cadance had remained her friend until school and conflicting schedules had simply pulled them apart. Now, they were reconnecting and Cadance was still the wonderful mare she had always known her to be. But then, a few weeks ago when they had revived the old tradition of fillies-only movie night, there had been another one of those incidents. Twilight fought to keep her face neutral. She didn’t want to show Cadance how guilty she felt inside for listening in on her in the bathroom. She didn’t want her to know that she had heard the muttering, or the sounds of what was possibly a pill case opening and closing. She didn’t want Cadance to know about the researching she had done afterwards. But all of her research had only led her to more questions. Questions and court-sealed documents. It wasn’t her business. Twilight told herself that is wasn’t, not truly. She hadn’t turned over some great conspiracy, just circumstantial evidence of a potential secret. It wasn’t her business. It was only a secret kept by her oldest friend and one that seemed to have no harm in being kept. Some things are like that. It wasn’t her business.