* * *
The First Time You See Her
Part Eight
Jeffrey C. Wells
www.scrivnarium.net
* * *
"And that's when it all happens," said the griffon, blowing a long puff of air into the film of soap at the end of his expensive-looking mahogany bubble-wand and expelling a flurry of tiny iridescent bubbles. "The first time you see her. That's when it happened for me, at any rate; and that's when it happened for hundreds, thousands of little ponies before you, all across the centuries. You're going along, innocently minding your own business, and then suddenly she shows up, and everything you thought you knew about your life gets bent into tangles around that dainty little hoof. It's an inevitability, Lieutenant."
"This story is completely ridiculous," I said, watching the bubbles settle and pop against the plush crimson velvet of the airship's gentlecolts' lounge. It was a welcome distraction from the disastrous carrom board in front of me; the griffon was completely cleaning my clock. I flipped my miniature cue over and over again in my telekinetic field, looking over the arrangement of small wooden discs laid out before me and pondering my next shot.
"I'm hurt," said the creature who called himself "Auric," touching a claw to his chest. "Really, I am. I bare my soul to you, spilling my life history all over the table, and this is how I am repaid?"
"I think there's quite a lot of history you left out, if any of what you're telling me is true. How does a griffon get to be a thousand years old? Your kind doesn't even typically last as long as normal ponyfolk, let alone a millennium."
"'Your kind,'" said Auric, rolling his eyes. "Listen to the unfeeling us/them language. Wounded, Lieutenant Armor. Wounded ever deeper."
"Sorry," I said. "I haven't met all that many griffons. Most of the ones I've met have been trying pretty hard to kill me at the time. It leads to generalizations, but that doesn't change the fact that you haven't exactly given me a reason to believe you."
"Fine," said Auric. "Since you insist on making me dredge it up: once upon a time, I got into a little spat with an immortal spirit of chaos. He thought it would be funny to hex me up and tie my life to his whims, but then he went and got himself obliterated by H.R.H. Celestia, and wouldn't you know it, I guess he forgot to include any other end conditions. So now, I wait—as best as I can figure—until the end of time. Not exactly looking forward to roaming this planet when it's a cold, dead husk bereft of all life. Hard to make pastries out of dust and sand, don't you know, but, well." He yawned. "Suppose I'll be crossing that bridge for all eternity when I come to it. In the meantime, watching over your fair Equestrian princess from the shadows gives my life a vague semblance of meaning and purpose. And that's about as much detail as I care to go into at the moment, lest I collapse into a thrashing void of existential torment right here on the floor, which would probably make a mess. Upset a lamp or two, at least. Put your striker on the right circle and try for a bank shot off the wall, hm?"
I blinked. "Sorry?"
"See the disc sitting all by its lonesome on the opposite end of the board? Put your striker on the right red circle, bounce it off the right wall, and try to knock it into the left far corner pocket."
"I thought I couldn't put this striker puck thing on the red circles," I said, frowning.
"You can put your striker on a red circle so long as it's completely on the red circle. You just can't put it partially on the red circle." Auric rolled his eyes, as though the concept of a circle that could by law be completely but not partially obscured was one that even particularly stupid foals (chicks?) should have no trouble with. "Do try to keep up, Lieutenant."
"Sorry! I've never played this crazy game before." I dropped the striker on the red circle, placed my cue and gave it a hesitant flick in the direction that Auric had indicated. My shot went wide and I ended up sinking the striker into the pocket instead; a quick snort of frustration stood in for the curse I really wanted to use.
"Rotten luck," said Auric, dropping his own striker to the table and flicking it with a claw, executing an absolutely crazy-bananas multiple-impact bounce that dropped three discs at once and exposed the red "queen" for an easy follow-up shot, which he promptly took. "Don't feel bad," he continued, lounging easily against the edge of the table. "This is a griffon's game, after all. Made for claws, not hooves. I expect it's much harder with a cue. Plus, lifetimes of practice, don't you know."
"I still not sure I believe you about the whole 'lifetimes' thing."
"Yes, well, here's the really funny bit," said Auric, retrieving his striker disc again. "It doesn't actually matter whether or not you believe me on that point. Totally unimportant. It's true, mind you, but put it right out of your head if it's going to become a distraction. I will consider this little talk a success if I am able to hammer just two tiny little facts into that thick, self-absorbed Legionnaire's skull of yours." He held up one claw. "First, whatever else you do or don't believe about my story, you must believe that I am to be trusted and that I will not allow Princess Cadance to come to harm if it is within my power to prevent it. You'll be receiving a missive from your beloved sun-rumped goddess-horse at cloudfall that will likely be communicating this same information to you, and you'll want to double-check it, and double-check the double-checking. It'll waste a whole pile of valuable time. Faster if you just believe me now."
"I'll take it under advisement. Second fact?"
Auric held up a second claw. "You," he said, "need to realize that, whatever feelings you have for the Princess, you do not stand a hair of a chance with her."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I replied, turning away to face the vista of billowing pre-dawn clouds outside the lounge's observation window, hoping to give myself something different to look at than my suddenly-conjured mental film loop of wet-maned H.R.H. Cadance rising from the waters (with oysters). "My interactions with the Princess are at a completely professional level. That's it. No aspirations toward anything more."
"Mm. Likely story."
"Why don't you ask her?" I said, turning back around. "She's the alicorn of Love. I don't see her scheduling weird parlor-game intervention sessions to talk with me about my 'feelings.'"
"Oh, you precious little wondercolt," said Auric. "Hasn't any of this sunk in? Princess Cadance doesn't perceive your feelings for her because she smites absolutely everyone she meets, wherever she goes. You expect her to pick up on your little hormonal quivers and dreams of devotion out of the sea of everyone else's? It takes worldly creatures like me and that old unicorn witch to see what you're trying to line up."
"Lady Prismia? We hardly even talked."
"She gave you a drawing before you left."
"Yes," I said. "It was a drawing of a five-legged pony with a cowpony hat. It looked like it was written on the back of a fifty-year-old crossword puzzle."
"And what do you think that means?"
"It means she's a little crazy in the head!" I said, gesturing wildly with my cue. "Old ponies get that way, okay? Where are you going with all this?"
"You are a very little pony, Shining Armor," said Auric. "You are little. Your entire family is little. You, your parents, your siblings, your eventual children; you are all destined to lead very little lives, and then you will die, and for her it will all be over in no more than a blink."
"My father revolutionized the filing system of the Canterlot Archives. There isn't an archivist in the city who doesn't know his name. He was given an order of knighthood for his work."
Auric stabbed at the air with a claw, gesturing in the direction of the first-class staterooms. "Peanuts. That girl," he said, "personally decimated the economy of Canterlot. When she was barely out of hoofie pajamas."
I frowned. "You're kidding."
"Horus's own truth. Wasn't long after she arrived in the capital. H.R.H. Celestia, in her infinite wisdom, had decided it'd be good to give the child some exposure. Enrolled her in the Filly Scouts of Equestria. Five weeks into the program, she made absolutely everypony in Canterlot remember just how much they loved Thin Mints cookies. We actually had ponies liquidating tangible assets in order to obtain more. The city was teetering on the edge of riot before the whole thing got squared away."
"I'm not sure I believe you."
"All right, so it wasn't entirely her fault. It turned into this whole cocoa-speculation thing on the commodities market, but the point is, she was the one who touched it off. Trying to sell rutting Filly Scout cookies. Look it up! Use your father's vaunted filing system and research the so-called 'Chocolate Bubble.'"
"Why is this supposed to concern me?"
"It concerns you because she's bigger than you, Lieutenant Armor. She's bigger than any other pony you'll meet, except perhaps her beloved Aunty. You look at her and you see a normal, upper-crust girl hovering on the cusp of marehood, a girl who loves her Dan Stableberg and her Arrowsmith and her Mare Supply and who unironically owns a rabbit calendar. I look at her and I see the Princess-Goddess of Reduit, a pony who has been tearing a bright swath through history, through the lives of everyone around her, by the mere act of existing." The griffon reached into one of the net pockets of the carrom board and came up with a clawful of discs, then tossed them onto the board.
"Hey," I muttered.
"I have used my mystical powers of prognostication to determine that you would have lost anyway. Now you need to hush, because I'm about to become all metaphorical. You see all those discs out there?"
"In that they're right in front of me, yes."
"Some of them white, some of them dark, all pretty much the same. And then in the middle of it all, you have this one." Auric tapped at the lone red queen with a single claw. "She's out there on the board with the rest of the discs. She's just about the same size, just about the same weight. But she's one of a kind. She doesn't belong to me, she doesn't belong to you, she's governed by an entirely different set of rules, and anyone who wants to win the game is going to have their eyes on her."
"You're terrible at metaphors, you know that? I don't see any 'game.'"
"That's because the sun's not up yet," said Auric, laying a claw across my shoulders and ushering me away from the carrom table and over to the observation window. "Be patient, it's coming. Any moment now."
"What am I looking for?" I asked, squinting into the gray.
Then the clouds parted and my question became, retrospectively, silly.
Cloudsdale.
On a clear day, the independent city-state of the pegasi is visible from virtually everywhere in Equestria. You know it's there, you understand its reason for being, and because its direct effect on you is limited, you eventually just sort of write it out of your mind. Approach it from the west, by air, with the sunrise behind it—as we did that day—and this will never again be an option for you.
Cloudsdale, up close and in person, is a humbling, diminishing thing. You expect it to be a mountain. You expect it to be one of the greatest mountains you have ever seen, second only to the mighty Canterhorn. You expect its dwarfing height, its vertiginous depths. All of this you can steel yourself against in advance.
The thing you cannot fully prepare for is its energy.
Here is the thing about Cloudsdale: Cloudsdale is not a mountain's worth of dull earth. It is a mountain's worth of thundering water, of scintillating ice, of lightning that blazes out like the glow of some mythical heavenly forge. It is spectrum and tumult, fire and wind, clock and riot in equal measure. Blink once and see a high cataract of cascading foam; blink twice and it becomes a thin pillar of ice, barely supporting the edge of a monolithic structure of the city's gleaming acropolis, looming ever-ready to tumble and fall in a silent catastrophe of sleet and cotton and wind. It billows and shifts like an endlessly-calving glacier, a city in full participation in the slippery, kinetic dances of its shining rainbow citizens as they turn and dive and spin in a wild and endless conflagration of watch-what-I-can-do's and bet-you-can't-beat-me's. It is eagerly, painfully, earnestly alive, and it draws you into itself, begging you to lose yourself and become nothing more than another wheeling particle of its glorious whole.
With the sunrise behind it, Cloudsdale was nothing less than an inferno.
"That," said Auric, at my shoulder, "is the game."
I was, momentarily, speechless.
"Cloudsdale is power," Auric continued. "Wild. Unchecked. It is a thing out of balance, a funfair crooked-house that its citizens gleefully traverse every day, presuming its instability to be a work of artifice rather than impending calamity. And you and I, dear boy, are going to be right there when an alicorn is dropped into the mix."
I recovered my tongue. "What does any of this have to do with me?"
"Well, you love her, that much is clear. And don't get me wrong, that's just wonderful. Hearts and flowers, etc. But realize that you are not the first, or the greatest, or the last to do so. Have a particle of perspective, Lieutenant Armor. Realize that you will always be a guard and soldier to her, never her schmoopy-woopie pudding pie, and act that way. You do your job, I'll do mine, and in a hundred years when you are rotting in your family's mausoleum, she'll still be around remembering you with distant, pleasant fondness."
"And what about you? Where are you going to be in a hundred years?"
"With her still, of course. Carrying on where you cannot."
I narrowed my eyes. "So, no aspirations toward schmoopy-woopie pudding pie-hood yourself?"
"Absolutely none." Auric paused. "...of your concern, Lieutenant."
Heat flushed in my cheeks. "But somehow, you're all about what I feel."
"I happen to be all about what the Princess feels. And I also have a longer view on this issue than you can possibly comprehend. You cannot afford to be distracted, and she cannot afford to have her emotions tangled up by falling in head over hocks with a mayfly."
"You're jealous."
"Preposterous," said Auric. "I watch over the Princess, Shining Armor. Every part of her. Including her heart. She needs to be safe, and strong, and undamaged, forever. But especially for now. Because now is when everything starts to change."
We locked eyes for a moment, and then I gave a little nod and broke away. We had achieved peace, however tenuous; and at that very moment, I needed all the peace I could get. The two of us, griffon and unicorn, stood side by side, looking out at the glorious pegasus city as the airship—running lights all agleam—banked smoothly into an approach vector and wove itself into the great pattern of life and motion that was, and is, Cloudsdale.
"No guarantees," said Auric, "but I get the sense H.R.H. Cadance is going to rip into this city like a comet."
"Seems likely," I said.
And then there was nothing left to say.
Cloudfall was coming.
NEW CHAPTER OF ONE OF MY FAVORITE STORIES HERE?!?!?
My Reaction:
img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140321232216/wingsoffire/images/7/70/Twilight_sparkle_yes.gif
I love this story. Very happy to see when it updates. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Are you serious? I have three unread chapters of this?
Tonight is going to be a lot of fun.
Seriously, we're getting into the meat of this cycle aren't we? So great to see Auric again, even if he is a lovable ass (as opposed to an unlovable ass like Blueblood). Any chance he'll ever get a stand-alone spinoff in all your immense free time?
Also, you should feel bad for the Mare Supply joke. Interesting but clever choice to leave Arrowsmith unchanged considering it would be a likely occupation in their world.
I think Shining was on to something when he called Auric jealous. But then again he was probably also jealous of the nuns.
I guess one way to make a city-state join your dominion is to make everyone there fall in love with one of your princesses. Really looking forward to finally seeing Cadance in Cloudsdale.
Really awesome description of Cloudsdale, I hope we get to see more locales in the city and whatever strange quirks the pegasi have in this setting.
Thanks for a great chapter.
The way you craft the imagery in this story is nothing short of incredible. That description of Cloudsdale is gonna stay with me for a while I think.
5252555
Except that it's "Aerosmith", which in Pegasus society probably ALSO is an occupation. :)
"Your entire family is little"
Don't know if that's true Auric :P
5252661 Derp. I knew it looked off. Nice catch on the fact the name still works unaltered though.
It strikes me that part of Discord's curse on the griffon is to guarantee that, given time, he'll be terribly wrong because you can't just play the odds forever.
I love the character of Auric, but I will enjoy it so very much when Prince Shining Armor forces those words down Auric's throat, after Princess Twilight Sparkle has saved the world a few times.
The story feels like it barely started, should I hope to see this universe deal with Twilight butting her purple behind in on the royal action? I would especially love to see Auric's reaction then, having declared Shining's family as unimportant
5252717
Yes, that plot point has been written out (which is to say removed) in advance. In the early drafts of the timeline it was going to become something but it ended up being redundant to another plot point and it just seemed like a distraction after that. Better not to mention it.
Yeah, Auric is in for a number of surprises.
5253056 Find the order here:
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/74205/1/cadance-of-cloudsdale/master-story-index
A new chapter of one of my favourite stories that calls back to several previous chapters? Guess it's time for the arduous task of re-reading them to refresh my memory.
I'm kidding, of course: I already re-read them before I wrote this comment.
I love how the one thing they can agree on is "This is gonna suck..."
5252813
True. Auric's been around for a while, but he clearly hasn't developed the ability to play chess at the level of Princess Celestia—one will learn certain things when forced to rule a country alone for a thousand years, after all. And in chess, pawns can become very powerful indeed, if they're protected, their advancement nurtured, and not all sacrificed when it appears expedient. Auric seems to more of a gambler, playing the odds rather than defining and executing a strategy.
Cadance of Cloudsdale has arrived.
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i.imgur.com/erkVRri.jpg?1
5252864
I think Princess Starbutt is beyond the scope of this story. Not to mention this is an alternate universe kindda thing so she could just remain a unicorn.
Never get into a spat with an immortal spirit of chaos when death is on the line (and when you're dealing with an immortal, when isn't it?).
Also, it's risky getting into a game of anything with an immortal who knows the rules and you don't. On the other hand, it's probably very useful to suddenly have as a backup bodyguard someone who has been alive for centuries and isn't really feeling the years other than as the sum of the experiences involved.
Hahaha, on the third, er, hoof, centuries of experience don't count for everything.
Oh lordy, and now I'm really hoping Auric keeps on being immortal long enough to find out just how wrong he was.
My god, that visual of Cloudsdale.
Fun for everybody!
I'm sure this probably just means they're about to arrive at the city, but as the last line of the chapter it feels incredibly portentous.
5252813 Yeah I love how wrong Auric is, even though it's also rather infuriating.
i.imgur.com/0YmUhbd.jpg
There is something very satisfying about being more in-the-know than a millennia old immortal trying to lay down some (somewhat smug) wisdom. There is something almost giddy about the sheer amount of change and chaos (some quite literal) that is awaiting just around the bend of history.
As with others, I loved the description of Cloudsdale and the suggestion of what throwing an Alicorn into such a ball of potential energy could result in. I can't wait.
5253291
Auric has fallen into a classic mental trap for an immortal: thinking that he's seen it all, and therefore, nothing that happens will surprise him again. He thinks he's got Cadence and Shining Armor and whole of Equestria pegged.
Princess Celestia, of course, knows better than to assume this - and therefore, she will not be surprised when something comes up and surprises her.
This is highly amusingly wrong. Mainly because Auric has no way of knowing just how wrong he is.
Well, I have to admit I needed a bit of a refresher with this one. I'm sure it'll be fine for anyone reading straight through, but having Shining and Auric thrown together in the beginning felt weird to me, because I couldn't remember if Shining and Auric even knew about each other—and as much as I love The Gambler, this train ain't bound for nowhere.[1] But it turns out Shining was talking about him back a few chapters ago, and had noticed him following Cadance, and so Shining talking with him winds up being much more sensible, if one doesn't have a whole four-month gap between chapter readings.
I just realized I already relegated the one comment I really wanted to make to a footnote. Hrm.
Okay, well. To be honest, I feel like this chapter's a bit weaker than the others. It loses some of the strength-through-worldbuilding I feel like you've been able to take advantage of elsewhere, and I didn't think the humor carried me along quite as well either. Still good work, and I think Auric and Shining having "the talk" is important enough to bear with a little less excitement. Especially because I'm starting to get the feeling that Auric might know the answer to Cadance's question, or at least that the previous chapter will play into that thread.
Anyway, enjoyable but not dazzling. Still happy I'm here. On to the last one!
[1] Oh, and speaking of musical references, Dan Stableberg? Can I follow you, like, five more times please? I don't even care that it's a throwaway line. I don't even care that I'm probably the only person on this site who saw him in concert twice before he died of cancer and those were two of the only three concerts I've ever been to. I love you, Skywriter! Can I please come live with you and learn how to write awesome stories and make better puns? Oh God, why do I have to be such a lame fanboy?
After the hearth warming story i am suprprised that there is independent city. I am surprised that Celestia and Luna let them. Didn't the pegasi from Cloudsdale learn from the mistakes of their ancestors? Independent city that is centrum of wether control? They could hurt Equestria pretty badly if they wanted. It's like in the past. If you don't give us food and other stuff bad weather happens. Such important thing like weather control should be under Equestrian government.
I wanted to ask. Will Twilight ascend to alicorn in your universe? Because it would be funny to see the look on Auric face when it happens.
I know everyone else is crowing about Auric being wrong, but
He's basically right, except for the level of fondess.
5253602
Okay, maybe I'm just slow, but what's with the drawing on the crossword puzzle?
Auric: "My Love is about to destroy everything."
I see what you did there, even if you may not have meant to do it.
Aight. Let's do this thing.
Okay, now Auric has a voice for me. He's Phil Hartman as Bill McNeal.
"I'm hurt, Lieutenant. Deep down inside, where I'm soft, like a mare."
"... I'm sorry I hurt you, Sir Auric. Deep down inside."
"Where..."
"Where you're soft. Like a mare."
"Don't mock me, Lieutenant. Don't be a hurter."
Anyway, let's talk some about Auric. Actually, really, let's talk about nothing but Auric.
A lot of people have talked about how funny it is just how wrong Auric is about how important House Shine is. And yeah, that's pretty hilarious... but something that seems to have sailed right past is that Auric is probably (and in my case, devoutly hopefully) wrong about a bunch of other stuff as well.
Auric is an unreliable narrator. Much like Ladybird in the previous chapter, Auric has a lot of baggage when it comes to the weird cosmic shit the world has subjected him to, and has formed certain opinions about them that reality may not bear out. To wit:
I think that Auric has forgotten something important; namely, that Cadance can be both of those things at the same time.
In fact, that's kind of the point of alicorns, isn't it? To be more than one thing at the same time. Everyone focuses so much on their portfolio that they forget the fact that alicorns aren't just cosmically potent unicorns who also have wings. They're all three kinds of pony at once. They're holistic like that. They're holistic like everything. Cadance is perfectly capable of being a teenager and a goddess at the same time. The one doesn't overrule the other, and her socialized interests and personality aren't a mask she wears over some deeper, secret being. They're her.
Auric seems to think being an alicorn makes Cadance some kind of alien creature to other ponies. That really doesn't seem like it could possibly be right. Part of being an alicorn is being a pony. I've seen a fair number of stories where it was posited that alicorns are sort of... weird cosmic forces that just wear ponyform like a kind of skin to make everyone more comfortable with them. That's never seemed right. It seems like it misses the point.
Auric also has an overblown sense of how much a swathe Cadance was tearing when she was locked up in her fortress. Just saying.
This is strictly and completely untrue. Auric is projecting strongly here. I can even point to a concrete example: Dotted Line. He certainly wasn't smitten to the ground with devotion towards Cadance the instant he laid eyes on her, and his subsequent interactions with her probably did not do anything to change that. He's not Kale or Treasure. Auric's truth isn't necessarily a universal truth. (I wonder if this is some sort of griffin thing.)
At least, I very much hope it's strictly and completely untrue. If it isn't, then Cadance is some kind of walking love-bomb who reaches into the minds of everyone she meets and jacks up their emotions without even meaning to. That's very, very different from the occasional pony like Kale or Treasure being drawn into her orbit by the ineffable workings of fate, or Prismia and her forging a genuine emotional bond.
You could write a pretty interesting story about Cadance have some kind of uncontrollable love-aura, but I don't think this is that story, because it doesn't seem like we're due for an in-depth examination of the emotional, political, and logistical consequences of being a walking love-bomb, and not examining them would be messed up.
So I'm basically going to decide Auric doesn't know what the hell he's talking about until proven otherwise. The Thin Mints thing can probably be chalked up to 1) Cadance is goddamn adorable even without being a goddess, and probably three times as adorable in her darling little Filly Scouts outfit who wouldn't buy Thin Mints from her? and 2) Cadance is God 2: Niece of God. If she wants you to buy some Filly Scout cookies you empty your purse and buy all of the cookies. All of them. Even if you don't necessarily like them. Even if you have a lactose allergy and the chocolate will make you swell up and die.
So that's how I figure that went down.
(Also, in my headcanon, Lovingcup Harshwhinny and Cadance were in Canterlot Troop #1 together. They were cookie buddies! Because even at that tender age, Lovingcup knew a winning team when she saw one.)
(Also also: Thin Mints? I stand by my prior assertion that every single part of Cadance of Cloudsdale is in fact about food.)
Shining Armor did about as well with Auric as could be expected, really. It helps that he's naturally stoic and unflappable. (The family was saving all the neuroses for the second, crazier child.) Auric is super old and super smart and super damaged and is doing a pretty good job of emotional manipulation.
I have to assume, by the way, that Auric is trying on a subconscious level to be found out. Dumping the information he did on Shining Armor is basically a guarantee he's going to tell Cadance at some point, and Cadance is going to make a concerted effort to have a face-to-face with him because of that, and because Auric keeps stooging around in the background of her life in a rather unstealthy way she's going to succeed at it. At which point she'll have lots of questions.
That's an incredibly convoluted way of doing things when, if Auric has decided the time for hiding from Cadance is at an end, he could probably have simply booked an appointment with Cadance and introduced himself as her immortal griffin bodyguard. Celestia could verify the "immortal griffin" part, and then you go from there. There's no reason I can see for Auric to do this weird end-run through Shining Armor...
... unless Auric isn't doing it deliberately and he thinks on some level he can keep maintaining the subterfuge. And Auric isn't that dumb, I don't think, unless he's willing himself to be that dumb.
I really wish I knew how much Auric remembers about the Empire. I know we'll find out sometime, but it is hard to get a bead on him without knowing that. Which I guess is the point.
Random last thought:
You often construct Celestia and Cadance's name like that; people refer to them as "H.R.H <Name>". It seems... awkward. Try saying it out loud. If the characters are meant to be saying "Her Royal Highness" in full (like we assume the full pronunciation of "Mister" when we see "Mr.") then it's okay, but 1) that's entirely unclear from the text, which makes it look like they're sounding out the letters, and 2) if they're sounding out the letters it sounds really silly when they could just be saying "Princess Celestia" or "Princess Cadance."
It's been bugging me for awhile.
5263576
That drawing, Zerbin, was the one Cadance drew of her knight in shining armor that she is going to marry someday. This took place in the previous story in the cycle. Cadance gave that drawing to Prismia, which is why Prismia had it to give to Shiny.
NO LONGER ARE WE WAITING FOR GODOT HALLELUJAH ABOUT FREAKIN' TIME
5289654
And that, in turn, is kind of the point of stories like this, isn't it?
I think you hit the nail on the head on that one.
The way I'm reading it, at some subconscious level, Auric does want to be found out, and is sabotaging himself here. So a little from column A, a little from column B with regard to your theories.
Why do I get the feeling that Auric is less romantically into Cadance and loves her more in that "father polishing his shotgun by the door, waiting for his daughter to get back from her date" sort of way?
He's not jealous of Shiney; Shiney's just not good enough for his little girl!
6662069 Exactly what I thought as well.
6662069 exactly this.
I find myself laughing a little at Auric's predictions at this moment. If this story follows canon in any way, Twilight Sparkle will have a much, much larger impact than he expects, though he is probably right about poor Shining Armor.
5289654
I find myself agreeing, but in a way he's right about the alicorns. There are certain things that they are somewhat incapable of. They cannot be less than what they are and what they are is a great deal more than just a pony. It is not possible for them to merely be someone's partner. In that sense, even a marriage is to them a one-sided relationship of sorts.
Funny. Auric's little speech is something the villains usually get. In fact, it's very close to the things General Eiling had to say in Pactriot Act:
A little part of me wonders whether Auric just wants to make absolutely certain that Shining Armour is thinking of Cadance as a potential match, which was why he gave that little speech about how Shining "doesn't stand a chance".
8535303
He's a bit of a puzzle, that one.
I can see Shiny and Auric having a conversation, twenty-odd years later, going a little like this...
"Hay, Auric, you remember that conversation we had, back when we first met, on that airship?"
"Shut up, little pony, or I'll slip some gravlax into your supper, sometime. Just the way my mother used to make it."
Maybe it's playful, or maybe it's not. Shining's probably a little bit drunk.
Then maybe later, Auric gets drunk, too, and actually goes through with it. And Cadance tries it, and gets all nostalgic, for reasons she can't understand.
BTW, that was supposed to be hey, but the typo worked anyways, so I left it in.
9433952
Hee hee.
Isn’t that kind of the point, though? Shining Armor sees the pony, while everybody else sees the Princess. I have a feeling that will be key going forward.
10875498
It may be!
IDK if that's the wrongest you've ever been in your life but IMO, it's a contender.
11848255
Auric is confident that he is 100% right all of the time and this is not correct.