Part of Me

by Maple Sugar

Interlude

Celestia’s School For Gifted Unicorns: A place where every foal can learn to shine!

My father had already left when I woke up the next morning. However, Shining Armor and Fleur de Lis were already at the door before I had even finished breakfast. They had heard there was a secret passageway into Canterlot Castle and I just had to, had to, had to come look for it with them.

So I did. We didn’t find anything of course, but that didn’t stop us from looking the next day, or the day after that. By the time we’d given up entirely, Shining Armor had found some new adventure to try.

The envelope and canister stayed out of sight in the back of my closet, hidden with the one purple feather. But I couldn’t spend time trying to find answers, not when I had so little time left to be with my friends. At the end of the summer, Fleur would be sent to finishing school and Shining Armor would be enrolling in an elite military academy. I think the filly understood. She remained my ever present shadow, but she never spoke to me, never pressed me to find what the pictures were.

But all too soon, the summer was gone. Fleur was leaving the next day, and Shining the day after that. For one last time, we decided to pitch our tent in Fleur’s backyard. Saddlebags full of supplies, I trotted over to Fleur’s small but meticulously maintained house.

It was Fleur who answered the door. “Cadance!” Beaming, she hugged me tightly. “Come on in, Shining is already out back putting up the tent.”

“Great! I brought my sleeping bag and marshmallows and...” but before I could finish, Fleur’s mother came trotting down the stairs.

“Cadance? Is that you?” The sound of a grown mare squealing like a filly set my teeth on edge, but I smiled as nicely as I could.

“Oh, hello Mrs. Lily.” I said uncomfortably. Fleur’s mother, Gilded Llly, always went out of her way to make me feel welcome, but I always felt anything but comfortable once she started cooing over me.

“You look so lovely dear! I do wish Fleur had half your grace. I swear, she was born with four left hooves. Would you like a cookie dear?” She offered me a tray of cookies. I looked over to Fleur for help, but she was pointedly looking away.

“Thank you Mrs. Lilly.” I took one to be polite. “Mmm, smells delicious.“

“Oh really? Then take the tray! Oh, and don’t call me Mrs. Lilly, that’s so stuffy! Call me Mom.” Before I had the chance to react she had levitated the tray in my face. I took it awkwardly, wanting nothing more than to shove them right back in her face, but not wanting to make trouble for Fleur.

“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly...”

“Oh, silly me, of course not!’ She giggled like a filly half her age, and then gave the tray to Fleur instead. “Fleur, be a good hostess and take the tray outside. But for Celestia’s sake don’t take a cookie yourself! You could stand to eat less sweets.”

“Yes mama,” Fleur said quietly. I wanted to melt into the floor.

“Fleur, do try to be more refined! At finishing school, you will always say ma’am!”

“Yes ma’am.” But Mrs. Lilly wasn’t paying attention to her anymore.

“Do tell me if you need anything, won’t you dear?”

“Yesma’amofcoursema’amthankyouverymuchma’am!” I said as quickly as I could and then made a break for the door, Fleur close behind.

“Have fun dear! Fleur de Lis, do not run in this house! Try to act like a lady!”

Safely outside, Fleur didn’t meet my eyes, but I could tell she wanted to cry. I took the tray of cookies back from Fleur. “I’ll give them to Shining Armor. I couldn’t eat them.” She smiled at that, but only a little.

Shining Armor had already set up the tent and a pile of firewood taller than he was. When he saw us, he gave a serious salute and then started doing a stiff legged march towards us.

“Halt! Who dares to approach Canterlot Castle?” he said in the deepest voice he could manage. I giggled, but Fleur scoffed.

“Princess Fleur and Princess Cadance of course! You must be new here,” she said in her most pompous Canterlot accent.

Shining Armor gave a deep bow. “My apologies madames. Please, let me escort you to your chambers.” I started laughing louder, but Fleur kept her game face on.

“See that it doesn’t happen again. Now, take Princess Cadance’s royal saddlebags,” she ordered, and placed them on his back, “my sleeping bag,” she said while draping it over him like a cape, “and the royal cookies while you’re at it,” and with a final flourish she balanced the tray on the tip of his horn. For a moment, everything stood still, the tray slowly shifting from side as Shining tried to stay on his hooves and walk back to the tent.

He lasted about five seconds before he slipped on his sleeping bag cape and everything came crashing down. It was beautiful, cookies raining down from the tray while Shining went head over hooves, slipping backwards onto his flank while the sleeping bag flared up like wings.

It happened too suddenly for me to react, but Fleur gracefully caught the cookie tray and trotted into the tent with a smug smile, leaving me dying from laughter and Shining slightly confused.

“What... what just happened?”

“Well,” I said with a giggle, “we all learned that you would probably make a better guard then you would a waiter.” I tugged the sleeping bag out from under him and turned it into my own cape. “And that Fleur and I would be excellent princesses!”

Fleur stuck her head out of the tent. “Well of course we would! But if you ask nicely Shining, we might let you in the castle.” She stuck her tongue out at the both of us, but stuck it back in quickly, remembering that she had to be refined now. “Now, Princess Cadance, enter the palace and leave the guard to pick up the bags.”

“But of course, Princess Fleur!” I said in my own terrible Canterlot accent. I zipped into the tent and zipped up the door behind me.

“Very funny girls,” Shining grumbled as he tried to untangle himself from my bags, only to fall back on his flank. “If you’re going to be princesses, I guess you’ll be too refined to eat marshmallows!”

Fleur stuck her head out the flap, and gave him her haughtiest look. “No one is ever too refined for marshmallows.” And with that, she deftly levitated the marshmallows out of the saddlebags and into the tent. I stuck my tongue out at him, more for her benefit than mine, and retreated back into the tent.

We opened the door a little bit, just enough to watch as Shining Armor finally freed himself and came marching up to the tent. When he came close, we zipped the door back up and giggled into our hooves as we watched his silhouette. He moved to knock on the door and hit me squarely on the head. “Ouch! Shining, that hurt!”

“You can’t knock on a tent!” Fleur said, unzipping the door long enough to give him a glare. “Oh right. Sorry Cadance.” he said sheepishly, and stomped on the ground instead.

I stuck my head out this time, with the haughtiest face I had. “May I help you?”

“Permission to enter?” Shining said, his mock serious face on again, but I could tell he wanted to giggle at my own failure of a face.

“Well, I don’t know,” I said, already starting to crack, but I couldn’t help it. He looked so cute!

“No, of course not!” Fleur pulled me back in and stuck her head out. “This is a castle, not a pirate ship. But here, have a marshmallow!” Before he could react, she stuck a marshmallow in his mouth and retreated back into the tent, where I was busying splitting my sides. It was hard to be a princess, dang it! I had no idea how Celestia managed to stay so serious all the time.

Eventually, we relented and let Shining into the tent. Impatient for night to fall, we played tag and sardines, which wasn’t very hard with only three foals. We had fun anyway, so much fun that we didn’t realized how dark it had gotten until we couldn’t see the hooves in front of our face.

By the light of my and Fleur’s horn, Shining Armor set his woodpile on fire, as well as his tail. Too impatient to wait for it to die down, Shining Armor went ahead and burnt his marshmallows in the fire. Neither Fleur or I touched the cookies, but Shining did his best to eat them on his own.

In time, Fleur gave up waiting and charred her marshmallows, but I continued to carefully toast my own marshmallow over a single ember while Shining told scary stories. They were rather silly, as far as ghost stories go, but they seemed scary enough to me, who was keeping an eye out for suspiciously pegasus shaped smoke clouds.

By the time the fire finally died, Shining had run out of ghost stories and Fleur had a tummy ache from all the marshmallows. Shining gave us a sleepy “good night” and stumbled into the tent. Fleur was too nervous to sleep, I suppose, and stayed by the fire, watching the embers. After failing to fall asleep myself, I rejoined her, nuzzling up close to fight the nip in the night. She cuddled back, and then sighed.

“Cadance, do you think mama will love me when I come back from finishing school?”

“She loves you now Fleur!” I said, but more emphatically than I really felt.

“Not like she loves you, Cadance.” she said sadly. “It's not your fault... but sometimes she tells me that she wishes I was you.”

“At least you have a mother,” I said, wistfully.

Fleur laughed, almost bitterly. “Well, sometimes I wish I didn’t. Maybe then I wouldn’t always be disappointing her.” What could I say to something like that? I kept quiet.

Finally, Fleur broke the silence. “I wanted to go to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, for art school. I applied, all on my own. But when the letter came, Mama got to it before I did. She ripped it up before I ever got to see whether I got in or not.”

I gasped. “Fleur, why didn’t you tell me? Papa could have...”

She shushed me with a hoof on my snout. “It doesn’t matter now. Finishing school will make Ma... Mother happy. Who cares about art school anyway?” She smiled, tears in her eyes, but her voice stayed clear. “Maybe... maybe later, when she’s proud of me for me, I’ll try again.”

Unable to do anything else, I awkwardly draped on of my wings over her and did my best to pull a blanket towards us. Fleur gave a real smile, though small, and floated it over us. Nestled like two birds of a feather, we fell asleep under the stars, while a filly made of smoke played a melody on a violin only I could hear.

Comments

[Longshot]

I'm for waiting to read this, I was busy. This chapter was a interesting interlude to the main story. This chapter was important because it characterized Shining Armor and the other characters. I finally know where this story is on the timeline. Keep up the good work.