"She's like a bad bowl of salad. The more you fight to free yourself of her tyranny, the more she manages to force her way into your life. " Twilight muttered, slinging her saddlebags to the ground without a hint of care. Plopping herself down on her plush carpet, she happily shoved her face into her fuzzy carpet. "Awwwwwww yeah, that's the stuff. Room sweet room."
Simple room, really. One decent sized purple bed smack right in the middle, a small brown cabinet with what few dresses and other odds and ends she might've had. A candle on the table in case she had an assignment she needed finish later on in the day, which never happened, a small closet for her toys and large window to let in a fair amount of light and air.
"You think there's a class for smooching? Is it something that you just learn on your own?" Smarty Pants inquired to no one in particular, his head hanging over the size of the bed lazily. "You think Cadence is also a teacher in smooching? Does she have a doctorate in smooching?"
Twilight wasn't listening though. There had to be some sort of angle that Cadence was working at to get at her and her brother. Something that she had to gain from establishing connections to both the guard and the princess herself. Assassin? No, if that were even a possibility, she would have to worst assassin to walk the face of the earth! No way does Shining Armor take an assassin out to dinner and not show up chopped into little bite sized pieces.
"You okay over there? I know you love your carpet but you haven't said anything for the past five minutes. The silence is deafening." Smarty Pants called, his eyes planted on the unmoving filly.
"I'm just trying to think of a motive." Twilight responded, finally picking up her head and resting on her little hoof. "She's ugly but there's no way she's a manticore. Definitely not a chimera or a cockatrice."
"Maybe she's gonna do that weird marriage thing to your dad was talking about. You know, the thing where getting married leaves your life devoid of adventure and joy." Smarty Pants pointed out, his gray hooves dramatically crushing the invisible "hopes and dreams" as though it were a invisible piece of paper.
Twilight simply waved that off as her dad being her dad. "Nah, he's still mad because mom wouldn't let him buy that eight thousand bit automated carriage. He was just being a big baby about it." Twilight Sparkle replied, images of her heartbroken dad passing through her mind. The fights had gotten so bad that mom of all people ended up sleeping on the couch for a few days while her dad mourned over the loss of "The single greatest thing he has seen in his entire life." Second to the birth of his beautiful daughter, of course.
"Twilight! Food's ready!
"Ugh. Mom's cooking." Twilight muttered, her nose scrunching up in disgust. Grumbling in annoyance, Twilight reached into her saddlebags and whipped out a single book titled Star Swirl's Guide to Mythical Creatures. A trusty handbook with every creature known to ponykind. It had a lot of pictures, so that was always a plus.
"Here." With a little flick of her hooves, she tossed the brown book into the awaiting hooves of Smarty, who looked at the thick book with uncertain eyes. "I'll go and eat and you can stay here and look for whatever species Cadance belongs to."
"Why do I have to read? I get hungry to, you know!" Smarty muttered, flipping open the book with his oversized hooves. "How am I supposed to know which one Cadance belongs to? It's not like Cadance is a species all on her own."
"Just look for something ugly and with hooves, you dork." Twilight replied, before trotting out of her room and kicking her door closed with a satisfying slam. "All I have to do is get through dinner and I can get back to exposing that evil witch."
And so the disgruntled little filly slow clip clopped her way down the stairs and into the kitchen where her mother and father sat patiently at a decently sized wooden table. On one end was her father, his golden eyes firmly glued to today's paper, never really noticing his daughter's arrival into the dining room. On the other end was her mother, whose cold blue eyes quickly went up from the plate in front of her typically moody daughter.
And then Twilight noticed something a little off.
"Hello, Twilight. How are you doing?"
"Cadence."
"Cadance came by and told us that she would taking over for Celestia." Her mother stated, the tiniest hint of a smile appearing on her as she the set her fork down with a little clink. "So we thought it might be best for all of us if she stayed over for dinner so you and her could get to know each other just a little bit better."
Cadance nodded in agreement, her purple eyes quickly locking with Twilight's. "Definitely! For the next three days, it's just going to be you and me and a whole lot of work! Isn't that great? You and Blueblood will be the first two students that I've ever had!"
"That's......That's just great."