//------------------------------//
// Falling Down 
// Story: I Fell Down the Stairs 
// by Lazauya 
//------------------------------//

	“Cadence, I'm really glad we could take time off to be together tonight. I'm having such a great time, as always,” Shining Armor said, going over his gorgeous wife. She needs to be in Alicorn Monthly with the other princesses. But then again, those pictures are taken without permission. I guess I should be happy, ugh, he thought.
“As am I, Shining. The weather is just beautiful this time of year.”
“The weather is literally always the same.”
“That's not the point. The point is, the weather is gorgeous.”
“It's gorgeous because we make it gorgeous.”
“Again, completely missing the point.”
“Yes, I am missing the point. I don't understand why the weather is worth pointing out when we control it. I mean, it's almost egotistical if you ask me. It's like saying, 'Isn't this thing I did so amazing guys?'”
“Shining just... pleas-”
“No, I mean, really,” he spoke up over his wife, “What if I painted a picture one day and started bragging about how amazing it was? Wouldn't that get on everyone's nerves? It's the same-”
“Enough! Please,” she put a hoof over his mouth to shush him, “I'm sorry I mentioned the weather. Let's just enjoy this time we have together.”
“I enjoy every moment we share together, Cadence.” They both made a small, loving smile and nuzzled each other's noses.
“Oh Shining, you just know how to cheese a mare up!”
“Speaking of cheese, would you like some more champagne?”
“What? How do you correlate those two?”
“Cheese is often served with wine.”
“Okay, I can accept that.”
Shining proceeded to pour Cadence a small amount into her wine glass. He knew she was quite the light weight; too much champagne and Cadence would want to do naughty things... drunk. It's not as exciting as it sounds. Cadence grabbed her glass with magic and sipped the champagne. She said, starring into Shining's eyes while she drank, “It's a shame we can't spend Hearts and Hooves day like this... or our honeymoon... or my birthday... or Heart's Warming Eve... or-”
“I get it!” he pleaded. “I know, I know, but, most evil doers don't have a foxy wife to share those special nights with like me. Most of them are too ugly to even expect anything.”
Cadence smiled sheepishly and chuckled. “Oh, you!” She got up and kissed him then trotted over to the cabinets of the room they room room they were staying in for the night. The had an alone room built for special nights where they were allowed leave from their work, which, as you can guess, wasn't very often. “Would you like some cheese with you're wine while I'm over here?”
“Really?”
“Sure.”
“Sure!”
“What kind?”
“Do we have some of that 74 year old cheddar? It's very good.”
“I'm sorry, we only have the 35 year old stuff.” She made a fake frown.
He sighed. “It'll do... I guess. It's just not the same....”
Cadence grabbed the sealed cheese from the cabinet with her magic and walked back over to the balcony table where they were sitting. He grabbed it with his aura and broke off the wax covering. “A piece, m'dear?”
“Oh Celestia, don't call me that. And yeah, I'll have a piece.”
“As you wish, m'dear.”



And so, they continued on, late in the night, simply enjoying each other's company. It had been so long since they had been together like this. Neither of them knew how to run an up and coming empire that was completely and utterly under developed and in the past. None of the occupants could have even fathom pen that didn't need ink dipping, much less a train. They often had to ask Celestia for advice and even... the... “h” word... only sometimes though!  “Shining, I loved this time we finally had together, but I'm afraid that I need to get some rest... I'm only going to get two hours of sleep tonight.”
“Yes dear, I understand. I need to be ready to rouse the day guards in an hour myself.”
“Well, then, let's spend the rest of our time together in bed...”
“Ooh, I like where this is going.”
“You know it,” she grinned, “Follow me.”
“Lead the way.”
“Remember to put out the candles!”
“Yes dear.”
Cadence trotted to the stairs with Shining following behind; their retreat was in one of the high up loft areas that was unused. Just as Shining thought he put his hoof on the first step, he had over calculated from lack of sleep. Disaster struck. “Whoa!” His hoof slipped off and he started to tumble, crashing into Cadence on his way down. 
“Awk!” she yelled.
When they came back to their senses, it was evident that they were not all right. “Ow! Shining!”
“I'm sure it's fine, hon-oh.”
“What?! What is it?! Am I... disfigured?”
“Uhm...”
“Oh, dear! Shining! You have an awful lump on you're head.”
“You're not looking so good yourself,” he said, with a hoof over his eye. He then grabbed a mirror from some undisclosed point in space and teleported it back to them.
“My-my face! Look what you've done shining! I have a black eye! And all these bruises! This is not good!”
“I mean, you can just wear some sun glasses...”
“Now everyone is going to think you have a domestic abuse problem! I can't just go to court with sunglasses! Do you know how bad this is going to make us looked! We're doomed! I swear Shining!”
“Hey! It's not like I wanted this to happen!”
“Shining!”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, the guards that had been stationed there were woken up from the cries of their princess. Shining would tell you that she was definitely doing to loudest screeching.
“You open it,” said the guard on the right.
“Nope. I am not getting involved in this,” said the guard on the left.
“You're going to be right outside the door with me, dude.”
“Nope nope nope. You do it.”
“Fine. Wuss.”
They whispered to each other, just in case under some crazy stroke of bad luck that the prince and the princess could hear them over their fight.
The guard on right knocked on the door quietly, not loud enough for the two on the other side to hear. He had to work up to the right volume. He did it again, this time a little louder. Okay, I got this,  he thought. He knocked on it a third time so that it was clearly audible on the other side of the thick wooded door and over the ruler's domestic violence case.
Cadence and Shining went silent and their eye's wide.
“Uhm, Princess Cadenza and Prince Shining Armor, um...”
“Y-yes! Just a minute! Everything is fine! We promise!” Cadence said to the guards on the other side.
The guard moved back to his position. At the bottom of the stairs, Cadence and Shining quickly found things to cover up the evidence. A helmet and a pair of sunglasses. Dark sunglasses. And a helmet that offered a lot of protection. When they were done equipping their anti-gawk gear, they opened the door, and said as stoically as possible: “We will go back to our room now. We require no escorts. Do not get us escorts.”
Neither guard outside the nicely carved door made a peep. They firstly didn't know what to say and secondly wanted to keep their jobs.
Cadence starred at the guard for a few seconds, waiting for a response. When none came from the suit of armor, she turned around, with Shining and his single armor piece trailing behind.
They went back to bed. Cadence had some thinking to do. Oh, this is bad! Aunty is supposed to come for a visit tomorrow! No, no, no, no, no! I'll just have to call it off! Not good, not good, not good... Cadence thought as she drifted off to sleep.



Morning came and Cadence had some writing to do:

	Dearest Aunty Celestia,

I regret to inform you that I must call off your visit. You see, I have yoga practice. That's right, yoga! So I don't think you should come!

Sincerely,
Cadence

She sent the letter of with the magic green flame and waited. Celestia wrote back in a timely fashion:

Dearest Cadence,

Nonsense! I'll bring a mat. I've been known to try new things from time to time, you know!

Your lovely aunt,
Celestia

This was bad; Cadence had to correct this:

Dearest Aunt Celestia,

Wait! That was a lie! I hate yoga! What it actually is, is, I hate you. Don't come. I like REALLY hate you. A lot. Don't come today.

Love,
Cadence

Oh Cadence, that joker! Celestia thought as she read the most recent letter.

	Dearest Cadence,

Oh, you joker, you! I'll see you at 2.

Yours truly,
Aunt Celestia

Oh, this is not good... thought Cadence.



She was seriously dreading two o'clock, and it was almost time. All day she had been getting starred at by the  ponies in court.
But now, she would have to explain this to her aunt. The clock seemed to tick at the pace of grass itself growing. I just want to get this over with, she thought. 



It's time, Cadence thought as she witnessed Celestias golden chariot descend. “Announcing the arrival of Princess Celestia!” an announcer spoke.
Princess Celestia walked into the throne room and bowed to her niece. She also noticed something peculiar about Cadence. Sunglasses? she thought. “Uhm, Cadence, why are you wearing shades?” Celestia asked her niece.
“You know, the... sun. Of course. Glare. It's... crystal and it's bright,” she said, speaking faster than she could make up the words. “Obviously,” she said as she nodded, happy with her answer.
“Cadence, something's wrong with your eye, isn't it?”
“No!” she yelled. “I mean, no, of course not aunty! It's just bright, like I was saying.”
“Cadence, it's obvious you're hiding something. I've known you long enough. Just take off the glasses,” she said, looking up the Cadence, pleading in a motherly way.
“Uhm...”
“You can do it.”
“Haha... how about no?”
“How about yes.”
“No?”
“Yes.”
“Please?”
“No. Take them off. This a demand as you're aunt.”
“...No.”
Celestia smiled and teleported the glasses away instead, revealing Cadences black eye. Cadences eye's went wide. “Oh, honey!” Celestia called out. She dislocated herself to atop the steps where Cadence was standing. “What happened?!”
“I... I... I....”
“You can tell me anything, remember that Cadence.”
“I... I... I...” she stuttered again.
“It's okay, Cadence. You can tell me.”
“I... I... fell down the stairs with Shining.” Cadence pouted.
“Shining did what?! You 'fell down the stairs'?! Is that what you are calling it?! That's sickening! I never even knew shining was capable of such... such... brutality!”
“No! It's not what you think! He fell down the stairs too!”
“Cadence! Violence is never the answer! Even if it is towards someone like him!”
“No, no! It's not what it sounds like! I mean, we actually fell down the stairs!”
“What do you mean 'actually'? He hit you extra hard?!” Celestia was appalled.
“No, aunty, you have this all wrong! We literally fell down some stairs, in one of the lofts on the top floor of the castle!”
“Cadence... I....” Celestia was silent and looked at the tiled floor. “I... Just tell me what happened.... I know every marriage has problems. And I realized that I'm rushing to assumptions. After all, you could have been the first to strike.”
“Aunty! Nopony hit anypony! For the last time, we fell down some stairs!”
“I understand that you don't want to take about it yet, when I lost Luna, I too didn't want to remember those awful memories...” she made a glum expression, “But I did, for the good of Luna.”
“Aunty, please, stop. I'm telling you we literally, not metaphorically, fell down some stairs. I can show you the stairs.”
“It's okay Cadence, again, I understand if you don't want to talk about it.”



“Sir, why are you wearing a full suit of armor today?” asked the scribe.
“I fell down the stairs, obviously.”