Cadance in Eb Aeolian

by Super Trampoline

Misery Loves Company

Weird ape-like creatures in uniforms are doing dance routines in my head when a splash of cold water throws me from my dreams.

"GAH!" I yell, startled more than anything else. I dart my head around, checking for any attackers. Shining Armor continues to snore lightly. Skyla is sound asleep in her crib. The room is otherwise empty. Probably. I drop my head back onto my pillow and scan the ceiling for any flying ponies. Instead I see Discord standing on it. I groan. "Discord, what the heck! Do you know how rude that is?"

He chuckles in that annoying chuckle of his. "Oh dear me, I'm sorry Princess, I really didn't mean to wake you."

I raise my eyebrows like Applejack has taught me too, then a second later realize he probably can't see my reaction. I verbalize instead. "Alright, so the glass of water was for what then?"

"Ah, yes, I can't sleep."

Cadance in Eb Aeolian
I'm not sure why I'm doing this cold open thing since this story is so short.

I can tell I'm not going to be able to easily shoo the draconequuis away, so I get up from beneath the covers and redeposit myself on my barrel with my legs folded beside me. There ought to be a term for that position. I light a soft glow upon my horn, stiffle a yawn, and smile half-heartedly. "Alight, Discord, prince of rudeness, what can I do for you?"

That gets another chuckle out of him. He sits down besides me and smiles himself. "Cadance, you know, for a pretty pink pony princess, you're surprisingly alright," he concedes.

I blush a bit, taken aback by the rare genuine compliment. "Why, thank you," I reply. "I know I have a reputation to maintain, but believe me when I say that there's a bit of a wild, rebellious mare underneath all that decorum."

"I know there is. And as a true true friend, I think you should let go of your stuffy trappings more often. You might actually be a little fun!" He pulls a tiny "F", "U", and "N" out of his nose. They're wearing familiar tricolored manes.

I roll my eyes, which to be fair is par for the the course for dealing with his antics. "Anyway," I begin, turning his turn of phrase against him, "I'm sure such a true, true friend wouldn't interrupt the privacy of my bedroom at--" I look over at a clock "--3:47 in the morning just to bug me. Surely you have an important reason for your visit?" I'm too tired to go for much more than bluntness. Forgive me.

"Oh please, nothing so dramatic. I just can't sleep, "

Of course. "I'm sorry to hear that. How exactly did that become my problem? don't you have a wife to bug?"

"Trust me, I try to bug her, I really do! But she cast some enchantment on herself that won't let me wake her up unless it's an emergency. And apparently the spell can sniff out manufactured emergencies. Clever thing, that Sparkle."

It's my turn to laugh. At the situation and at them. You know a couple is odd when even I think their relationship is weird. Like the fact that they barely tolerate each other half the time. The other half the time they're a terrifying diplomatic team. "Goodness," I retort, "it's almost like she enjoys her beauty sleep. I can't imagine why that would be."

"I know, right?" I can't even tell if he's being earnest.

Shiny decides to wake up. Or not. It's not really his choice. "... Ughh, what is it honey?" he groggily asks, earplugs and sleep mask still in place. He's utterly adorable, but I'd rather this not become his problem too.

"Discord is being Discord. Go back to sleep."

"Oh, okay, snookums. good night." He rolls over, and I cast a gentle "Sandmare's Sifter" spell; he settles back into comfy dreams.

I turn back to the draconequus that's now suddenly spooning me.

"Hello Discord. I didn't realize we had cuddling benefits. Finding MY bed comfortable enough for your tastes?"

He nibbles on the sheets. "Yes, I certainly am. Thank you for asking."

I whinny in mild frustration. "Would you like me to cast a sleep spell on you too?"

"Where would be the fun in that?" he whines.

I carefully try to disentangle myself from his sinuous limbs. "Life isn't always fun, hon."

A bolt of lightning shoots out of nowhere into Discords body. I throw up a soundproofing spell in the nick of time. He's gotta tone down the visual puns. "Not always fun?" And you can tell that he knows how big a ham he's being. "Princess, I'm shocked! That's like saying chocolate rain is disgusting or Super Trampoline is a good author!

"Super Trampoline?" I ask, perplexed at the non sequitur. "Who's that?"

"Never mind. Your feeble pony mind wouldn't understand. The point is, I could go back to sleep, but I don't want to. I'm bored. I want to go do something. Go adventuring with me Cadance." As if to illustrate his boredom, he's hunched over my armoire playing cards with his reflection. Good. Maybe he'll go away.

I yawn again. "Sure, sure, but can't adventuring wait until morning?"

He looks miffed that I would suggest such a deplorable concept. "And waste this prime night time? Don't you know that every second is precious? Haven't you listened to that one song from Rent? sure, I existed sort of before time, and nopony actually knows how old you--"

"122," I interrupt.

"Huh?"

"I'm 122 years old."

"Oh wow, okay. Real cradle robber."

I scoff, a bit hurt. "Excuse me, hypocrite? Says the 'immortal' draconequus married to a mare in her twenties?"

That got to him. "Oh, right, well, age is just a number," he stumbles, and I'm satisfied. Shining Armor's far more mature than he'll ever be, but I keep that thought to myself. "Anyway," he continues, "the point is, why wait until morning to discover stuff tonight?"

"Because if now-Cadance doesn't get sleep now, future-Cadance will be a groggy mess-Cadance in 5 hours when she's trying to run a government."

"Can't you just cast an 'anti-grogginess' spell on yourself? You ponies are so insufferably unresourceful."

You know, I really hate arguing with annoying people at four in the morning. Why couldn't he have bothered Luna instead? "Discord," I say, slowly, "health spells like that can turn bad when you rely on them too much. I'm sure you remember what happened to Tutti Fruiti."

"Oh, poor Fruity!" Discord soliloquizes, "Robbed of life before his time!" I wait for him to bury my alarm clock or something, but he doesn't. "Right right, fair enough. well, I guess I'll go suffer the twisting torment of agonizing ennui by myself. So much for friendship." He snaps his fingers and disappears.

"Discord," I neigh after him, "that's not fair!" But he's already gone.

Oh well. I turn over, prepared to finally fall into slumber--only to see him back in my bed, facing me, eyes half lidded.

"Eek," I squeak. But I swear it was a dignified squeak.

"Miss me, baby?" he asks, under the illusion that he's actually suave.

"Oh, I just couldn't stand losing you, my love," I tease. If he thinks flirting is going to ruffle my feathers, he's sorely mistaken.

"Truly, I'm flattered. You were going to say something else, dear?"

"Yeah. Look, I'm super busy right now--Crystal Guard inspects are in half a week. But I think I've got some time I can clear on Tuesday. And it would be good for me to get out of the castle. Want to go on an old fashioned adventure?"

"Would I!?" he replies, literally puffing up. "Where to?"

"Surprise me," I suggest.

"Oh, it would be my honor to surprise you, Princess. Who needs sleep? I've got--gag--planning to do."

I smirk. "Good night, Discord."

"Goodnight, Cadance," he says, peacefully.

...

"Hey, Discord?"

"Yes, my lady?"

"You have your own bed. Please get out of mine."

"Spoilsport," he mutters, teleporting away.

I smile, at last able to resume sleep. But, you know, for a being who's chaos incarnate, he's really not half as completely insufferable as he could be. Good enough for me. I settle my head down on my pillow.

Onto a whoopie cushion.

Never change, Discord, never change.

Comments

[Pony writer]

Look at you putting out these stories! Very nice !

[Super Trampoline]

6653699 I got my writing mojo back and finished up four stories Wednesday, Thursday. Unfortunately one of them didn't pass moderation and probably won't pass moderation.

[Skywriter]

This is a cute little follow-up to ideas clearly commenced in "Three's a Crowd." You've got a pretty credible Discord and Cadance going on here; the Princess is maybe a bit too casual in her language choices from time to time ("Geez" strikes me as a particularly un-Cadancey word) but otherwise quite nice. The whole thing needs a bit of a pass-through for missing indents and misplaced and outright missing quotation marks, as there are multiple instances of each. Other nitpicks:

-"pare the course" is probably "par for the course"

-"disentangle" is a transitive verb and should probably be phrased "disentangle myself" (needs an object)

-On the topic of "nicker": usually a soft, pleasant greeting for actual living horses. I'm not saying alien pastel fairy-horses need to cohere absolutely to real horse behavior, but "nickering in... frustration" throws me, because I have a hard time figuring out how that happens, much like were you to type "smiling in anger."

Anyway, I quite enjoyed.

[Pony writer]

6653735 I'm very happy for you that you got your writing Mojo back. I know how it feels to lose it. It sucks

[Super Trampoline]

6653742 The foremost authority on Cadance writing likes my story; I'll consider that a solid win. To respond to your points:

As far as "geez" goes, I could argue that she likes to loosen up when not running a govt., but "goodness" was not present anywhere else in the text, so I swapped it out.

I originally wrote most of this on my iPad; the fold up keyboard has a broken shift key and can't tab properly. So while I went back through this on my computer later and cleaned it up and expanded it, truth be told it's been so long since I wrote a story I actually considered decent that my self-editing skills have gotten neglected and atrophied.

fixed the par the course and disentangle.

To be honest, I just choose "nicker" as a random horse sound. Would whinny or neigh work better here?

Thanks for reading!

[Skywriter]

6654342
Whinny would be a better choice, yes.

[Suika999]

Haha, funny story!

[CommisarSilver]

Rather enjoyed this one, quite cheery.

[Super Trampoline]

6668026 glad to hear!

[The Slending Angel]

26 upvotes, no downvotes. Damn good, cheerio.

[Super Trampoline]

6688597 thanks.

...what does "slending" mean?

[Super Trampoline]

6654650 yesterday I spent a large amount of time with my friend who actually has horses and she went over Horse sounds with me in greater detail. She was also gleefully eager to point out all the places in my stories where my horse anatomy was incorrect.

[The Slending Angel]

6688906 Read, and you shall see. Read it all for enlightenment.

[Super Trampoline]

6688923 I see, an amalgamation of two close friends you have lost.

[The Slending Angel]

6688939 Correct. I Iost them, sadly. But I am determined not to forget them

[Skywriter]

6688914
Possibly a resource for the future?

[Jade Nekotenshi]

Ahahahaha! I love this!

Why am I also getting a Q-meets-Commander-Ivanova vibe here, too?

[Super Trampoline]

7017249 I confess I've watched about as much Star Trek total as I have Star Trek Q episodes, that is to say not a ton overall, so I have no clue who the latter person is.

[Super Trampoline]

6688923 also, if you like Q, you should definitely check out AlaraJRogers. She does a ton of stuff with him.

[Jade Nekotenshi]

7017333

She's actually from Babylon 5, has a personality that... well, would interplay with Q in much the same way that Cadance does here with Discord. (She's a lot less loving and maternal than Cadance is, to be sure, but...)