Magic of Love: A Twidance Prompt Collab

by ArguingPizza

Slapdash by Fuzzyfurvert

by Fuzzyfurvert

My Little Dynamite:Book One
Part 6

~~~

Twilight froze again for what seemed the hundredth time since Princess Cadance had waltzed back into her life. The pink alicorn was going to get them both killed if she kept causing her protector to lock up at crucial moments. It wasn’t even with anything so much as a Hold Pony enchantment. It was just a kiss. A kiss! A kiss from the prettiest filly in the world - sweet alicorns above, did she have the softest lips and a long tongue!

She could feel her blush flaring up her neck as Cadance hauled herself out onto the cobblestone alleyway. Her Princess was exposed and this was no time to get lost in her scent or her silky mane.. Twilight shook her head and lit her horn to throw back her cloak so she could draw her short gnarled staff from it’s holster at her side.

“Stay by me, Princess. We only need to make it to the end of the alley.” Twilight tipped the staff toward one end. “There is a recessed door there that is enchanted to only open for an alicorn. I want you in front while I cover the rear. Walk briskly. Running will draw attention from the side streets.”

Cadance nodded. “I understand. What do you suggest I do if we are attacked?”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “You’re taking this seriously?”

“This isn’t my first time to the rodeo, Twily. You aren’t the only one that has learned some new tricks these last five years. Now that we’re out in the open, this is your show.” Cadance smiled and did a small curtsey. “I shall follow your lead, my little dynamite.”

“Um...thanks. Really, Prin...er, Cadance. That means a lot.” Twilight grinned for a moment before she steeled her expression into something resembling professional. “Ok, if something happens, I want you to hit the deck and shut your eyes. A lot of my spells are flashy and if you can’t see afterwards I’ll have to carry you to safety.”

“What if I wanted you to carry me?”

“Do you ever plan to stop teasing me?”

Candance smirked and remained silent. Twilight sighed and looked back down the alleyway toward the busy crowds that passed along the cross street into the open air market on the next block. No one seemed to have noticed them yet so she scanned the rooftops quickly before signaling Cadance to start moving.

Twilight kept her staff leveled at the street as they cantered toward the door. She had a few choice evocations ready in her mind should anything happen. With her staff ready she should easily be able to unleash any of them and limit any possible damages to the public or the nearby buildings. Any battlemage of sufficient talent could fling a fireball into her enemies, but add a warstaff and she could focus all that destructive power into a single point only a hoof wide. Then -if the battlemage happened to be Twilight Sparkle - she could take the temperature inversion caused from pulling all the ambient heat from the area and push the cascading thermal collapse with a nudge of her will and create slabs of ice to block or slow any pursuers. Attack and defense, fire and ice, all with one spell in perfect harmony.

She was almost disappointed when they reached the door with zero complications. It opened with a quiet creak of the hinges and allowed them into a small enclosed patio garden lined with berry bushes and dwarf fruit trees. The safehouse itself loomed above them like a small, squat fortress with narrow windows and iron bar lattice. Twilight closed the door and dropped the crossbar to lock it. She could feel the air near it ionize as the enchantments it held reactivated.

“You made it!”

Twilight whipped around and yanked her staff up at the last moment when she recognized Spike’s smaller bipedal form in the safehouse’s door. She let out a sigh and smiled at her assistant. “Glad to see you made it.”

“I’ve been here for almost an hour already. Princess Celestia told me something was up and had plainclothes guards escort me here.”

Spike set his clawed fists on his hips. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”

Candance smiled sheepishly. “I seem to have an assassin after me. The Royal Sisters worked out a plan to set up a decoy while we got away. You, Twilight and myself are supposed to lay low here until they know the assassin has been dealt with. Sorry.”

“Hey, don’t worry, Princess! My day just got a whole lot more interesting.” Spike grinned like the shark that ate the albatross. “Besides, you should check this place out! The Royal Sisters didn’t spare a bit when they had this place built and stocked. There are even gems in the basement!”

“Probably provisions so no one would need to leave for a while.” Twilight sighed and tucked her staff away under her cloak. “I believe you were saying something about a shower, Cadance?”

---

Cadance hummed to herself as the hot water spray of the shower soaked her coat and mane. She watched the runoff take the dirt and sweat back into the drainage pipes she and Twily had slogged through earlier. It felt like heaven to be clean again after so long. Hardly anyone would understand what a wonder it was to simply be in an Equestrian shower again. Hot water and indoor plumbing was not as common as some thought.

She groaned as her shoulders and back started to unclench in the heat and steady beating of the water. She might have yet another assassin after her, but she wasn’t about to let that get her down. Cadance had dodged them in Staliongrad and behind the Iron Barding. She had a close call in the Republic of the Camule when someone had bombed the building she was in. Even in the walled and relatively safe Minotauran Collective she’d had a few run ins.

“It doesn’t matter,” Cadance whispered to herself, “I’m in good hooves now.”

“Huh?”

Cadance wiped her mane from her eyes and looked at Twilight. Without her robe and harness for her staff and gear, Twilight looked surprisingly vulnerable. Even in the dim lighting of the setting sun coming in through the window Cadance could see Twilight had become quite the mare since she’d left. She was taller and her body looked strong with sleek lines that hinted at more than a little muscle under her purple coat.

“What did you say?” Twilight blinked at Cadance, flicking her own wet mane out of her eyes.

“Um...I was just mentioning our water reserves and it’s lucky that the shower is big enough for the both of us. Otherwise it looks like you’d have to wait ‘til tomorrow to have a hot shower. I’m sure neither of us wants you to smell for that long.”

Twilight shuffled in place nervously, her eyes darting around the room, desperate to look at anything other than the wet alicorn that shared the shower with her. “I-I’ll just be here for a minute. In and out really quick so you can enjoy the shower by yourself.”

Cadance chuckled and turned so that they were facing each other, nose to nose and chest to chest as they balanced on their rear hooves to stay under the single showerhead. Twilight started to turn away but she grabbed the bashful unicorn and pinned the mage to the tile wall. “No. I want to enjoy the shower with you. I’ve waited five years to be with you, Twily. Can’t you let the whole ‘professional bodyguard’ drop for a moment and just be cute, dorky Twilight?”

“I-I…” Twilight swallowed and twitched under Cadance’s hooves. The battle mage blushed looked like she was trying to figure out a spell that would allow her to melt and escape down the drain. Cadance pushed more of her body against Twilight’s until she could feel the short breaths Twilight was taking.

Twilight fought for a moment more and then the tenseness left her and she slumped limply. Twilight looked into Cadance’s eyes and that vulnerableness returned to the mighty mage ten fold. “Ok… we can be just Twilight and Cadance? Is that alright?”

“I would like that.” Cadance sighed happily and pulled Twilight into a hug which the unicorn returned a moment later. “I would like that very much.”

---

The sunset painted Canterlot in hues of orange, red and gold though the haze of dust and smoke coming up from the powered carriages and airship exhaust. Across the city ponies were calling in their foals for dinner, diamond dog merchants were closing shop or calling in the markets for one last sell. Overhead, airships, pegasi and drakes jostled for perches along the walls and towers as they came to roost for the evening.

As the sun sank at last Canterlot became a landlocked copy of the sky above with thousands of tiny lights peeking out through the dark with the castle at the center as the largest, brightest point with it’s glowing dome of pure force sealed like a closed flower. In the dark places, between those points of light, people slept and a monster moved.

Eyes that glowed a pale green searched the night, hunting it’s prey.

The Royal Sisters thought their distraction would work. They thought they could capture her. Her silently prowling hooves proved them wrong. That little trollop was still in the city. She would find her target and she would claim her reward. Once her lord was free, it would be her name on his lips, not Cadance’s. Her spells and poisons would make sure of that.

Author's Note:

The complete chapter list for the My Little Dynamite series can be found here.