Cadence and Crystal Clarity were inside of Cadence's 'War Chamber' built inside a small wing of the tower. The room had been remade to look like a circular tower similar to the ones of Canterlot Castle. However, unlike the ones at Canterlot Castle, this one did not have a huge hole going through the center of several different floors. Instead, it had many pictures of a wide variety of ponies that Crystal had both seen and never seen in her with a wide assortment. The pictures were all taped to the walls and various different colors interconnecting several of them to each other. Several tables were placed in a fashion that they followed the shape of the room. These pieces of furniture were covered with various notes of tiny squares of paper as well as several stacks of neatly organized sheets of white paper. Many sat in trays holding stacks of paper labeled 'refused', 'possibility', 'certainty', 'unsure' and various other things.
Cadence walked towards a giant wood cupboard whose contents could be seen through the windows placed in its plain doors. Crystal was already disturbed by all of this, but when Cadence took one of the several overfull folders; a green one in particular, then slammed it on the table, Crystal threw her head back with an appalled expression. The mare started to flap eagerly through the folder hoping not to attract the ire of the dragoness, but she already saw herself on one of the pages.
"Hey! What was that?" she demanded.
"I don't know what you're talking about?" Cadence lied with a smile.
"I saw myself on one of the pages. Let me see."
Crystal and Cadence were now vying for control over the contents of the folder. It ended up looking like a comedic scenario from a comic book. The folder was tossed, turned, flipped, spun, and given fancy clothing. The two mares performed some sort of aggressive ballet dance involving pulling each other back, dodging, pushing the other into a various assortment of objects. The guards waiting outside of the room were worried about what was going on inside and were stressing quite heavily, but they knew the princess all too well and kept their instincts in check, no matter how painful it was. When the Olympian competition was finally over, Crystal was standing atop a pile of books, the folder held in her hoof high above her head. She was panting from exhaustion and her mane was a mess, but she had the folder.
"Ha! I got it. Now, let's see what you were trying to hide from me."
Crystal eagerly licked her lips and slowly pried the container open, letting her success come as a revelry to her eyes. Cadence was on the floor and suffering the same physical ills as the dragoness, but she did not falter.
"Wait. Why am I letting her get away with this? I'm an alicorn," Cadence thought to herself.
Her horn glowed a bright pink and surrounded Crystal and the folder, separating them after a bit of force was applied. Cadence skipped 'delicately' back towards the table and glanced at the floating dragoness with a smirk. Clarity pouted and bared her teeth. Flames began to spark out from the sides of her mouth like a rising wave.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
"And why not?"
"Because we're surrounded by flammable objects. What would happen were you to light them and we couldn't put them out in time?"
Crystal looked around a bit, then let her ears droop onto her head. She was pouting and had her forelegs crossed in disapproval.
"Fine, but I want to know why I'm in that book."
"I'll tell you soon enough," Cadence said while lowering Crystal to the floor.
The dragoness wiped the debris off of her and straightened her mane as she asked Cadence:
"So, what is all this? Your stalker collection?"
Cadence sarcastically laughed in response. "You're lucky I have a sense of humor, but you are right...in a way."
"What do you mean?"
"My sister gave me a census of all ponies that have been accounted for in her kingdom, allowing me to take into account what I know about them and form eventual perfect couples with each other. I am the alicorn of love, after all." Cadence put a hoof to her chest and raised her head with pride.
Crystal just looked at the pink pony with irritation and some apathy.
"So why are we here?"
"Well, I'm here to see if Life and Stellar are truly fit for each other, and since you know a bit more about Stellar's mind than most of us do--"
"Woah! I never said anything like that. We've just known each other for, perhaps, a week's time in total over the years. I don't know anything about her."
Cadence started to levitate several sheets of paper, quills, and ink pots towards the desk while taking off two pictures from the wall with her magic. "But your subconsciousness does. You've seen her enough times in emotion driven moments so you have certainly been able to analyze at least a few of her traits and physical movements when under duress."
"And what about you? You've known her and Life far longer than I do."
Cadence coughed a little at the remark. "Well while I do know about her past, I don't actually have much free time to talk to her." The alicorn rubbed the back of her in regret. "Our talks have been...spastic, at best."
"Okay." Crystal looked around then grabbed a pile of books and pulled the construct down onto a flatter pile of them. The dragoness climbed the pile, flattened it out, then nuzzled herself comfortably on the books. "So, what do you want to know?"
"Oh, the little things. Her quirks. Her personality. Her likes and dislikes. I have my own little group of guards that will take care of discovering what Life likes." Cadence stuck her tongue out in a bid to look cute, but Crystal wouldn't have it.
"Well, we both know they already had a very traumatizing past and no longer have a family. Both are very secluded and aren't very sociable, but Stellar seems to be more open than Life. It's like she's trying to prevent others from going through what she did, but she can't help but be passive-aggressive with everypony who isn't a shadow pony."
"I see. When I think about it, during our few meetings together, I've noticed Life getting positioned closer and closer to Stellar, as if predicting where she'll sit next. While he is very closed to most everypony and pushes them out of his 'zone', he seems to become more lighthearted near Stellar."
"He's becoming gentle around her?! The stallion known as the most ruthless of ponies in the Crystal Kingdom?!"
Cadence nodded.
"Heheheh. I should call him 'Little Lamb' just to tease him."
Cadence bopped the dragoness on the nose with her magic and shook her head.
"No. I just need to start planning the encounters and how to get them to admit their feelings for each other if it's not only physical."
"S...Seriously? Really? Not just physical? Have you seen Life? He looks like the Kimbabwe volcano in Zebrika after three consecutive eruptions. And Stellar? She looks like Sombra after a gender changing spell. I mean, she might have a bizarrely feminine figure that could attract most males, but I think her clear resemblance to Sombra scares them off." Crystal thought pensively to herself.
Cadence twisted herself to look at Crystal with a lifted eyebrow but still have the rest of her body facing the table.
"What?"
"Are you jealous?"
"No. I'm just stating the obvious. She has the physical appearance that many of the stupid stallions always go for without looking for the personality."
Cadence's lips slowly lowered down and she nodded in disheartened agreement. "That's pretty true. I noticed that too."
"So, what's the plan?"
"I'm thinking."
"I still find this all to be completely ridiculous."
"It's still my job. I've gotten several couples together, after all."
"Riiiiiight."
It was night time now, and a mare and her husband were sleeping in their bed together. All seemed quiet and rather tame until the sounds of a frightening, whispering gale flew through their house. The two immediately awoke and looked around to find the source, but there was nothing.
"Foalish crystal ponies. They shine but are not bright. They think that I have not returned, yet I walk amongst them every day now. I will feast upon your fears and turn you into my ripe slaves, as you once were."
The two ponies screamed in terror and ran out of their house onto the streets. Their first instinct was to scream, obviously, but their second was to flee for the guards. The grinning shadow rose from behind the bed's wooden plate head and just looked into the void with a stunned expression.
"Huh. I didn't think it would be that easy. They are really stupid, these ones, but they gave me a good trickle of fear. Maybe I should impersonate more. Causing a coma through fear would be an excellent way to obtain energy, and I could probably instill enough for them to all turn against Stellar just to reenact my plans.
Hmmm. There is the hospital of sick foals and ponies that I could attack. They are all in one place and will be so easy to corrupt. Perhaps they will die as well, but there are always more to replace them. Oh, it might seem 'easy' and cliché, but easy is always the most amusing method. Soon, little Stellar, my 'foalhood friend'. Soon."