//------------------------------//
// PoweredByTea's "All A Dream" (Skywriter's "Martial Bliss") 
// Story: Never The Final Word (Vol. 1) 
// by horizon 
//------------------------------//

Shining Amour jerked bolt upright in his bed, his heart racing and his lungs sucking in as much air as they could take. Beside him, Cadence shifted under the blankets.

"Shining?" she asked softly into the pillow, obviously still half asleep. Even now, with no make-up on and drooling slightly onto the bedding, she was beautiful. She was also intelligent, kind and had a such zest for life that she made Shining feel more alive just by being in her presence. He was, he remarked to himself once again, an incredibly lucky colt. He wasn't quite sure what he had done to deserve her, but by the Sun and Stars he hoped whatever it was he was doing, he could keep doing it.

However, in the wake of the dream, a new thought wormed its way into his head, one that he knew would be impossible to shake. It was the kind of thought that, once considered, would return unbidden weeks or months later, probably quite randomly and at the oddest moments.

Was his beautiful, intelligent, kind wife also a suitably deadly projectile weapon?

"It's nothing dear," he said as he settled back into a comfortable sleeping position, "I just had a strange dream. Go back to sleep."

"Hummmmm," said Cadence unintelligibly, oblivious of everything. Beside her, Shining closed his eyes, yet after a few minutes he found he was unable to find sleep.

He did the only thing he could do.

He rolled over to get a better look at his wife and began to consider the question that had been thrust upon him.