The Other Crystal Throne
Cadance loved her bed. Large, soft, and luxurious, she could honestly say it was her favorite place in the world. All warm and peaceful, especially with her husband snuggling her from behind and cradling her with his strong forelegs around her rounding belly. Many nights Cadance fell asleep under those idyllic conditions, such as this night.
However, Cadance wasn’t in her bed.
Currently, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, Alicorn of Love, sovereign ruler of the Crystal Empire, Co-Savior of Canterlot from the Changeling Menace, and certified pretty pink pony princess, found herself in front of the toilet, sending the contents of last night’s dinner into her other crystal throne. This early in the morning, she would much rather be in her comfy bed instead of the bathroom floor.
She started panting, pangs of discomfort still resonating in her belly. It was always like this, more upheavals following the one that sent her scrambling. A few seconds passed, but the pain receded steadily. Maybe it was just – wait, no. Another was rising. Cadance straightened herself, exhaled deeply, and as regally as possible, resumed her vomiting.
As the latest heave finished, Cadance groaned and weakly fell on her side, the small bath mat cushioning her fall to the hard crystal floor. Wasn’t she forgetting something? Her eyes blearily rose to the toilet’s handle above, three feet and an insurmountable distance away. She doubted she could rise anytime soon, but she had her magic. Cadance lit her horn to cast her spell, and– suddenly gasped and ceased. As her magic started, so did her stomach, and she likely would have made a mess on the floor had she continued. Tears formed on the edges of the princess’ eyes, spurned by her feeling of helplessness and the lingering pain.
Stars, she didn’t even feel this powerless when she faced Tirek. She didn’t even possess magic then – not that it’d help much now – and she couldn’t just stay in a heap. Fighting back the fire in her gut, she cast her magic again, simply trying to pull the handle down with the two pounds of force it needed. The handle wobbled, her magic too unfocused for this simple task. More exertion, more pain, but no change. The alicorn’s struggle continued as her vision blurred more, partly from the hurting but mostly her tears escalated to sobbing.
Suddenly, a magenta aura replaced the faltering sky blue, and the reeking detritus in the bowl was finally banished from the royal lavatory. A slight nudge of the head forward, and her image of her crystal toilet and counter were replaced with Prince Shining Armor in the doorway, approaching steadily. She didn’t know why, but her sobbing increased at the sight of her husband. Why now? What would her love think at this?
“S-Shining,” she weakly called. “I’m just...”
Shining gave a knowing nod. “You holding on, honey?”
Her head fell, giving him the answer he needed. Gently, he moved to the side of his wife’s prone form and laid alongside her.
Tears continued to flow from Cadance’s eyes. Thank Celestia the dim lighting meant her husband couldn’t fully see how awful she must look. Not that her husband would love her any less. Though, she adored all the moments where he would whisper in ear how she’s the most beautiful and wonderful mare in the world; her current state was solid evidence against that claim. Was that why she was crying? Her husband seeing her like this? No, not that. Was she seriously considering her Shiny wouldn’t look past her state? Why was she doubting him?
Cadance shut her eyes, letting loose another sob. Oh, everything was so wrong.
A light touch broke through the princess’ haze, the feeling of her husband’s hoof gently rubbing her shoulder bringing her back to reality. Cadance couldn’t help but smile. At least she wasn’t alone. As if insulted by her brief moment of happiness, her nausea spiked again. Shining noticed the quick change of expression, quickly hefting Cadance over the rim of the toilet. Cadance choked and clenched, but nothing came out, and several agonizing attempts still produced the same result. Her brief respite was shattered, and the pain returned with its demise.
“Oh Celestia, Shiny, this hurts!” she whimpered. “How am I going to last like this? I’ve got five more months!” She shut her eyes, thinking of Shining Armor and ... anger? He did this to me, she thought. He gave that baby to her, and now she’s in the worst pain she can remember right now. He’s the reason why it hurts so much. It isn’t fair, why isn’t he feeling how she’s feeling right now?
Shining didn’t speak, but leaned forward and rested his muzzle against her neck. Just like that, the anger dissipated. Was she really thinking such? Stars, she was a wreck. Humming softly into her tricolored mane, he tried his best to soothe her. “Cady, honey, the best things in life are those we have to fight for.” Even in her state, Cadance knew very well what terrifying threats he was referring to; Chrysalis, Sombra, Tirek, that games inspector...
“But those were matters of life and death. I’m just trying to make a new foal, not fight a war.”
“Well, looks like you’re winning a battle to me, honey. Remember that book Twily gave us?”
How could she forget? Her sister-in-law practically exploded upon learning of the future addition to the royal family, jumping around like a filly while chanting “yes” over and over and over again. Talk of how she’d be the greatest aunt ever dominated the dinner discussion of the Royal couple’s visit, about all the books she’d read to their child and the perfect foal diet she was already calculating. Twilight sent the two home the next morning, their luggage one copy of Everything You Wanted to Know About Foaling (But Were Too Afraid To Ask) heavier, which they ended up consulting frequently.
She gave a nod, so Shining continued, “Remember the part about... this?” Cadance sniffled and muttered something inaudible, but he was familiar enough with her mannerisms when emotional to know a ‘yes’ when he heard one. “Your body just thinks something you ate is going to be bad for our baby, and it's getting it out. Not having any vomiting or anything probably means something’s wrong with your system.”
He caressed his wife’s cheek as he continued. “So that just means your body is working just fine, and you’re having a healthy pregnancy. Believe me, you’re the strongest mare I know.”
She felt a slight surge of pride at that praise, even if she’s heard it before. She needed his confidence, she needed him. What she didn’t need another pang from her stomach, but she mostly ignored that one. Oh, he was making that handsome, cheesy smile of his. That look never failed to make Cadance brighten, and tonight was no exception. She sighed, lowering her eyes and relaxing, and suddenly she felt her lover’s lips on hers. No, this was just what she needed.
Cadance closed her eyes fully and deepened the kiss. Another, another on her lips, and for the first time this morning her mind went hazy from a good feeling. The next press, Cadance lowered her jaw slightly, inviting her husband’s tongue just a bit deeper. Horrible idea, since her mouth still tasted of the vomit she was expelling a few minutes ago. Shining quickly pulled away, turning and coughing, almost sending himself retching as well. “Gross!”
Once he finally got his gagging under control, he swiveled his head back to his wife. “Okay, okay, remind me to never, ever do that again.”
“Oh, Shiny,” she giggled, some confidence returning. “It’s not like you haven’t tasted other gross things...”
“Like last week when you had ice cream with celery and mustard, and convinced me to take a bite as well?”
“... Of course that’s what I meant, silly.”
“I’ll do a lot of things for love, but I won’t do that. Not the ice cream, at least.” His horn lit, the sound of the sink’s faucet springing to life reaching Cadance’s ears. Out of the corner of her eye, an orb of water scooted towards the pair, the prince’s signature shield spell forming an ethereal container. A gap opened on the shield’s bottom, and Shining took the falling water into his mouth, swished, and leaned over to spit it into the toilet. Drink, swig, spit, repeat, until the white unicorn felt clean. Nice to see the same magic that could keep an invasion at bay had a domestic application, Cadance thought to herself. Hmm, water...
Shining Armor picked up on her unconscious signal, and levitated a second glob of water so Cadance could perform the same. Her strength was returning, and she could lean on her own power to spit in the bowl. Content for now, the alicorn leaned back into her husband and closed her eyes, only to be nudged back to see a third orb of water. Before she could refuse, her husband told her, “Drink. All that vomiting means you lost a lot of liquid. I’m not having you dehydrate on my watch.”
Always looking out for her, as always. Strong and decisive, but gentle and thoughtful. How could she have doubted that, if only for a moment? The ethereal container floated to her lips, and she managed it all down with no fuss. Victory at last. Oh, she must have fallen so far, if the simple task of sipping water was worthy of celebration. A breath in, a breath out. Nothing but Cadance’s panting, steadily reducing in volume, acted as fanfare for her struggle.
A few moments later, Shining Armor broke the silence. “Honey, do you think we can head back to bed now?”
Cadance almost said yes, and nearly was able to return to the large, comfy, bed with her husband gently holding her from behind and whispering kind words into her ears.. Her stomach said no, announcing such with a loud grumble that echoed off the bathroom walls. She gave a whimper. She’s going to be hunched over this porcelain prison all night. She didn’t cry, though. Not this time. She was too tired to cry.
Suddenly, Shining Armor stood up. “Be right back,” he stated, before hurriedly retreating out the door.
Cadance watched him go, wondering what he was planning. Her thoughts had no time to wander, corralled just as quickly as her Shining Armor returned. Behind him, two warm blankets and the largest, softest pillows of their bed setup idly tagged along, levitated in a magenta aura, “Next best thing,” the prince said with a smile.
She returned the smile. “You sure you want to stay here? I might ruin these wonderful blankets at any second.”
“I don’t care.”
“Not a bit?”
Her husband adopted the sternest look she’d seen. “I love you, honey. True love is letting somepony vomit all over you and not minding at all.”
Cadance started laughing. Wildly, obnoxiously, but above all, happily. Shutting her eyes, her chest clenching from the giggles. That joke wasn’t very funny, or even in good taste. Yet it made her forget how awful her early morning adventure proved, and when she opened her eyes, the blankets were below and above her, and the two lovers were in the same position as in their own bed. Shining Armor cradled her from behind, softly massaging her now-peaceful belly as he dug his muzzle into the back of her mane. Less comfortable, yes, but no less intimate.
“So,” she whispered, “I guess that means Luna doesn’t truly love me?”
“Nope,” he whispered back cheekily. Informing the Royal Sisters of their new foal didn’t go as smoothly as telling Twilight did, but that was another story. His breathing grew quiet and steady, a familiar metronome beckoning his wife to join him in slumber. Finally at ease, Princess Cadance snuggled closer to her husband and fell asleep once more.
Perhaps the bathroom floor wasn’t so bad after all.
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Nice, quick story about love when it matters most - through the hard times. :3
i want a squel of where the baby come and how they deal with it
mabye you aleady have
o is this incomplerte
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I'm not planning a direct sequel to this at the moment, but I still love these characters and hope to use them in future stories. So, maybe keep an eye out.
4524792 i will
D'aaaw!
That was so cute! And it's a great start for a first fic, too.
Love is patient, love is kind, love is vomit proof....
Never thought of that though, I suppose that is why parents love their kids so much.
Y'know, I hope that actually will be another story, because this one was really sweet. I'm a huge fan of Cadance and Shining Armor, and you really exalted the beauty of their relationship here. And aside from a few slip-ups with verb tense here and there, it was very well-written technically too. All in all, well done! Got my eye on you.
Congrats on taking the plunge! This probably holds the distinction of being the sweetest story about barf I can remember reading. Thanks for sharing!
Holy moly, Poptard writes?!
Edit: Ah, almost forgot to actually read it, what? Not your normal love story, and all the more real for it. Well done, mate. I'd love to see a sequel or even another story completely.
Have the dreaded follow.
Holy crap, that was cute. We need more Shining Cadence stories, thank you for filling the void. This was great for a first story!
Very cute, and very very married, if that makes sense.
I did spot a typo or two, mind, but of course nobody ever spots absolutely all of them in time.
Absolutely adorable, friend. Great job.
4525750 I agree
Very nice story, though I did find some minor things you may want to edit.
Firstly, I think the word, "be" should be in between "to" and "bad". Second, that should be "it's".
And the "I" shouldn't be capitalized. I really liked this story, and would love to read about Cadance and Shining Armor telling Celestia and Luna, it sounds like to would be a riot.
I've been reading a lot of pregnant Cadence stories. I have a feeling that it's going to be canon soon.
Wow, I'm amazed at the reception and all the praise! 55 upvotes, 32 favorites, and without a downvote so far, all about a story about puking. Maybe writing stories isn't so bad at all. Don't worry, I won't let it get to my head. Well, I'll let it a little, but not a lot.
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Thank you.
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Princess Cadance is now required to carry a bucket on her person at all times if she is within twenty meters of Princess Luna for the next six months.
Crap I didn't pre-read hard enough!
This is cute, keep writing!
Excellent work here, welcome to writing.
4524772 Totally Agree. Everything you Wanted to Know About Foaling (But Were Too Afraid to Ask) seems like a good premise.
4524792 As will I keep an eye on you.
A wonderful story about marriage and pregnancy, especially considering it's your first story. Well done sir or madam.
I am a sucker for a good slice of life fics. And this is a good one.
Nice work. You actually managed to get me to stop writing long enough to read something. A rare feat.
So much feels man.
I love it!
Such a wonderful story. Shining Armor is truly the best husband anyone could ask for.
4526037 It better be! I'm kinda surprised they haven't done it yet. I mean, come on, let's make another pretty pink pony princess to promote the shit out of while giving the Royal Couple some love!
4526321 Well, I dunno if they're ready to show pregnant mares in the show, but I can say that the fics with the Cake twins birth and their debut episode seems to lean toward that way. However, if it's going to be canon, they should at the very least feature one more episode in the Crystal Empire. At this point in time, Spike is essentially Twilight's
fax machinebutler/son.Which means, that he is Shining and Cadence's nephew... sorta. I think I've had enough of pink ponies. *coughCadenceandPinkiecough* Maybe Cadence can have twin foals like the Cakes... or she can have one foal at a time. I don't think it's possible to have male alicorns in canon, and with the convulted concept that is pony genetics, the law of probability is in effect. An example of this would be Rarity's family. While her mother is a bonafide unicorn, we can't tell what species her father is, because of that straw hat. In addition, mares outnumber stallions 3 to 1, so increasing the probability of a filly.
Therefore, we can apply that logic to Cadence and her future foal(s). But then again... the gender inequality ratio would be reversed in R63 Equestria.
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I'm surprised we haven't seen a royal baby yet, considering Cadance and Shining Armor were originally conceived to capitalize on the then-recent British Royal Wedding. We have a real-world baby, now where's the Equestrian baby?
There's a lot of headcanon in there. I don't mind at all though. In my own mind, I was thinking it's going to be Princess Skyla, but that's flexible, really. Just seems that we have a baby alicorn princess with a whole lot of pink, and we have a Royal couple with a pink alicorn princess mare, so... that's what I figured. In the end, I tried to keep my own story's fanon open, only using what we know in the show and what might logically happen, hopefully so this can please anyone with whatever theories about the royal babies they have (72 upvotes and no downvotes says it might have worked).
Also, we do know what species Magnum, Rarity's dad, belongs to. Unicorn. The skewed gender ratio seems to gone down over the courses of the season, as the animation quality rose as well, so I believe it was just a lot of duplicate female BGP to save production costs earlier on. And what makes you think that only females can be alicorns? That seems like a "white swan" fallacy.
How'd I get pulled into this?
4526712 Dunno, but you got my upvote for expanding on such a beautiful moment. Unfortunately, I won't get married or be in a relationship whatsoever, but this is as close as can be for me.
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I don't think Cadance would consider this experience "beautiful", but thank you for your compliment. As someone who was crossing his fingers that his story wouldn't be summarily ignored, having someone read my story and feel a positive emotional reaction is one of the best achievements I could hope for.
4526735 Have I mentioned how I'm a sucker for non-pornographic food fics or food-themed authors?
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Well, look no further, for you have found the tastiest one. Ever.
Beautifully, wonderfully, appropriately done.
As someone who has wanted kids all their life and is just starting to realize it's not going to happen, this story hit pretty hard - but that's not a bad thing. While I did wish it was me laying on the floor puking (how often will you hear that?
) the whole scene was so lovely that I didn't mind crying so much.
Thanks for taking a chance and putting this out there. You deserve all the kudos you are receiving.
Light and laughter,
SongCoyote
Quick thing: Thoughts are usually italicized. I noticed at least one paragraph were you surfaced Cadance's surface thoughts. Wouldn't be bad idea to go through and get some formatting up in that.
Other than that, this was very sweet and well written. I enjoyed it. I can't wait to see more writing from you.
Always enjoy a bit of Shiny and Cadence fluff.
4527168
A common convention of writing, but not totally necessary. In most of the story, the thoughts are halfway-narrator, halfway-Cadence, and it would be a bit odd to italicize for emphasis as well as for the thoughts directly from Cadence.
A short but sweet story. Though ' but that was another story' feels like a cop-out.
4527305
Not quite. This is actually written in what's called 3rd-person omniscient, where the narrator knows what's going on inside every character's head and has complete knowledge of what's going on. However, even in 3rd-person omni, anything which is a direct quote of a character's thoughts -- an inner line of unspoken dialogue -- must still be italicized.
please more? add on to this story or a sequel!!
This was such a sweet story, I liked it, good job.
4527059
Wow, I... wow. I had no idea what people would think of what I wrote once I published it, and seeing it out here, and inspiring emotions like a real writer, if only for a moment... I don't think you know how happy it makes me to hear your praise. I wish you luck and happiness in your life, my friend. Thank you so much.
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The writing style I used is specifically Third Person Subjective, as in third-person narration detailing events as Character X experiences them. It's more of an over-the-shoulder style; the narration follows either Cadance's thoughts or gives flowery descriptions to what she sees. However, you're right, I'm supposed to italicize her actual thoughts, and I was just confused because I thought it bad form to also italicize for emphasis. Luckily, my Narrative Storytelling professor isn't here, or else I'd be in for an earful. It's not like he reads fanfics about childrens' show's magical ponies puking into toilets for fun.
4528641
By the way there's over 101 upvotes with no downvotes, in addition to several more upvotes and favorites coming up as I'm typing this comment, I'm guessing my little experiment was a success. I would be pretty dumb not to follow this up with something, although I'm not sure what or how. Nothing too obvious, though.
4528813
As far as I know, there's no rule that says you can't use italics for both purposes whenever called for -- I've seen it done in professionally-published novels by fairly big-name authors; if it's good enough for Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Joseph Delaney, it's good enough for us.
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4528626
Maybe I was just raised on older books and stories, where the thoughts were usually separated by nothing other than commas and a "[character] thought" at one end or the other. I still never really got confused at any point between whether the narration or Cadence was 'thinking'
I do know the names of some writing perspectives, I just tend to speak in terms of how something feels.
4528961
It might depend on where the novel was published, too -- I've noticed that novels originally published in the UK, for example, frequently use single quotes ' ' to set off spoken dialogue, while the convention in the USA is double quotes " ", so maybe the use of italicized-thoughts varies similarly by country?
Short, simple, sweet.
Well done, mate.
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~Skeeter The Lurker
This is absolutely fantastic and puts the vast majority of fanfiction on this site, including my own, to shame.
That's a solid freshman effort that puts a lot of regular submissions to FiM to shame. Easily faved, even if it's about
and 
(even if not :piesick: )
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I love how much you love my story.
4524792 This is an AWESOME, INCREDIBLE and TOUCHING story. I had no problem understanding any of it. Thumbs up. Makes up for the whole thing about falling under the Changeling Queen's spell, IMHO. I love Twilight's eagerness and unbridled joy about Cadance's and her big brother's first foal. I just don't get the comment about Luna not caring. Why is that?
<--- Wah! There's no LUNA emoticons! What's up with THAT?!
Perhaps it's personal choice, but I have certain characters speaking certain ways to help identify who they are without having to say.
"Fer example, ah like ta use BOLD text when Big Macintosh speaks an all," he said.
"The Princesses Celestia and Luna speak in ITALICS because they tend to speak in a different style. We also prefer to use the Royal Voice and the Royal We whenever we can," said Luna.
"While most ponies like Princess Twilight and Princess Cadance speak more normally," observed Cadance. *HURK* "Oh, not again! Come to me oh crystalline throne!" *DASH*
'We also think in single quotes and ITALICS,' thought Twilight thoughtfully. Ah, the joys of redundant redundancy.
Perhaps those tips might help and maybe not.
4530018
As for the Luna thing:
Get it now?
Aim for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.
Nice suggestion, but I tend to use my italics and boldings sparingly. I just like how it brings more emphasis to the parts that are special, and I feel like using them in that fashion might dilute it, although I am going to use italics for thoughts from now on.
Sequel please? With a rating of 133 upvotes and 0 downvotes (as of my vote), I think a continuation will be well received.
D'aww... Such a sweet story.
I love slice of life stories and this one was very good. I loved the simple concept and how you managed to fill such a short story with all that love, a bit of humour and things at least some of us can relate to.
As for being your first fic, you did really well and I will be looking forward to see what you might come up with in the future. Keep it up.
Did like, want moar.
That was amazing! I would love to read more! This was cute and funny at the same time. Have a fave and a like!