• Published 2nd Nov 2015
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Lateral Movement - Alzrius



Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.

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602 - Silent Partner

“You want me to get to know him better?”

“…yes.”

Cadance stared at her husband, bewildered. “Shining Armor, I already know Blueblood, probably better than you do. After I became an alicorn, I lived in Canterlot Castle until the Crystal Empire reappeared, remember? Blueblood wasn’t a frequent resident, with how he was constantly touring the countryside, but he still spent plenty of time there. We’re not what I’d call close, but we’re not strangers either.”

Shining Armor nodded, the look of discomfort he’d been wearing since the conversation had started growing more acute. “I know.”

“I know you know,” noted Cadance. “That’s why I’m confused about what you’re asking me to do.”

Shining Armor took a deep breath, and Cadance could almost see him tensing up. “I just think you should try and…” He pursed his lips then, and his next several words came out strained, as though he were having a particularly difficult bowel movement. “…deepen your relationship with him.”

“‘Deepen my relationship with him’?” echoed Cadance, trying to make sense of what he was asking her. “I don’t have a relationship with him. I tried befriending him before, more than once, and he was never interested. He always called me ‘the accidental princess.’ He barely even stopped by for our wedding. He only put in an appearance several hours after we were supposed to be married; if we hadn’t postponed things because of the changeling invasion, he would have missed it completely. Even then, he didn’t so much as congratulate either of us; he just took one look at the havoc that had been wreaked on the city and ran away to Trottingham.”

She paused then, not because she’d run out of examples of Blueblood behaving badly – she had more of those than she could count – but rather to give her husband a chance to explain himself. But he didn’t meet her eyes, and after several seconds it became clear that he wasn’t going to say anything, leaving Cadance more and more perplexed. Shaking her head, she tried to approach the increasingly-bizarre situation from another angle. “How exactly do you want me to get closer to him?”

“As a mare,” croaked Shining Armor weakly.

Her eyes widening at that, Cadance couldn’t help but look around, wondering if Pinkie Pie – or possibly Discord – was going to pop out at any moment and burst out laughing at the prank they’d somehow roped her husband into playing on her. But when neither made an appearance, she could only conclude that this was really happening, as baffling as that was to consider. “I’m sorry…?”

“As a mare and a stallion.” Shining Armor was clearly forcing the words out at this point. “That’s how the two of you should…get closer.”

“As in, you want me to date him?” That was the nicest way Cadance could bring herself to put it.

The question seemed to make Shining Armor’s voice fail him completely, his mouth opening only to close again a second later, pursing his lips. Squeezing his eyes shut, he nodded instead.

Cadance’s gaze traced the perimeter of the room again, this time trying to find where Luna was hiding. This had to be a dream. Clearly her adopted aunt was having some fun with her; maybe a bit of revenge for how badly the Crystal Heart had failed to remove her curse?

But once again, the object of her search failed to manifest, leaving her with no choice but to accept that this wasn’t some dreamtime delusion; her husband was, in fact, telling her to go out with somepony else. Not just anypony, either, but Blueblood, who ever since she’d known him had looked down his nose at her, treating her as a pretender despite her being an alicorn.

That thought made her turn her head in another direction, toward the balcony on the other side of the room where the stallion under discussion was seated, fussing with a middle-aged earth mare with a green coat.

Cadance let her eyes settle on the latter pony. She hadn’t recognized Grass Patch at first, only having seen her once before, at the summit that Princess Celestia had called. Soft Mane’s mother hadn’t contributed very much to the discussion, mostly being there to support her daughter, and with how chaotic things had become after Discord made his appearance – far more so than usual, with the lhaksharut’s attack – Grass Patch had slipped Cadance’s mind entirely.

But Cadance was less interested in the mare herself than she was with the glowing cord connecting her to Blueblood.

One of the gifts that Cadance had received from Lashtada after accepting the love goddess into her heart was the ability to see the relationships between people. Both of them had to be within her field of view, and in fairly close proximity, for it to work. But so long as those conditions were fulfilled, their connection manifested as a glowing rope that stretched between them, with the color indicating how they felt about each other and the luminosity representing the strength of those feelings. If the colors, or how brightly they glowed, were different at either end of the cord, then it was an expression of a difference in how each one felt about the other.

That was the case for Blueblood and Grass Patch. The end of the mystical rope connecting to the latter was a gentle blue, shining with a gentle light, indicative of enjoyment – or perhaps fun – without being too overwhelming. That wasn’t too surprising; Cadance could see the smile on Grass Patch’s face as she licked a folded napkin and dabbed at his face, causing Blueblood to squirm.

What was more surprising was that Blueblood’s end of the connection was a similar color to Grass Patch’s. For all that he looked exasperated by how the older mare was – from the look of it – mothering him, he wasn’t actually upset about the treatment at all. The intensity of the glow was still less than on her end, but the fact that it was present at all was something Cadance couldn’t help but be surprised by. Blueblood had always, as far as she knew, held “common ponies” in disdain. For him to be appreciative of being treated like a foal getting ready for his first day of school was enough to make Cadance question what she thought she knew of him.

Of course, then there were the ropes connecting Blueblood to herself and her husband.

While Grass Patch had no connections to either of them – which, Cadance knew, represented her having no real feelings about them, or at least none strong enough to register to the gift that Lashtada had given her – Blueblood’s were quite strong. The rope connecting him to Shining Armor was a mixture of green (representing envy), yellow (representing fear), and light grey (representing enmity, a color she knew would turn more and more toward black as it grew closer to true hatred). None shown very brightly, and except for the unanticipated presence of jealousy toward her husband, nothing there was unexpected.

More surprising were Blueblood’s feelings toward her. She’d expected it would be grey, and possibly the pink tinge of lust, but it was neither of those things. Instead, it was a brilliant mixture of yellow and white, the latter being the color of hopefulness. But for what, she couldn’t tell, since he apparently had almost nothing in the way of carnal desire for her.

“Cadance?”

Shining Armor’s voice brought her eyes back toward him.

Still looking like he was going to be sick to his stomach, Shining Armor vaguely gestured in Blueblood’s direction. “I know this is an unusual request, but whether we like it or not, Blueblood is an icon of Equestria. After how Lex Legis stole his birthright, I think…” He faltered then, only to visibly rally a second later. “What I’m saying is, unity is important, even if it’s only symbolic. For the sake of the ponies who count on us…”

Cadance nodded as he kept going, saying something about patriotic solidarity, but she wasn’t listening. Instead, she examined Shining Armor’s end of his connection to Blueblood. It was a darker grey than the other stallion’s, tinged with yellow. So a great deal of resentment, along with a touch of anxiety; it was enough to concern Cadance quite a bit.

But not nearly as much as Shining Armor’s end of his connection to her, which blazed a brilliant yellow, the color so bright it blotted out the red light of love that should have been there.

That was the one flaw in the gift Lashtada had given her. The emotional connections she saw represented each person’s current feelings toward the individuals in their lives. So if a loving couple was having a terrible fight, the dark grey would obscure the red. Two people that hated each other but were intensely attracted to each other would, if their passions soared high enough, see pink overwrite black, at least for a little while. And now, Shining Armor’s request was terrifying him to the point that it was submerging everything else he felt for her.

What Cadance couldn’t figure out was why. What was he so afraid of? That she’d be angry with him for asking her to date Blueblood? Or that she’d agree to do so? Why was he even asking her in the first place? It clearly had nothing to do with political unity – he wouldn’t have suggested that he wanted her to become intimately acquainted with Blueblood if it was – so what was going on?

Stepping closer to her husband, Cadance lowered her voice just above a whisper. “Is Blueblood blackmailing you?”

Shining Armor flinched at that, the color of his cords unchanging. “N-no, of course not. Why would you ask that?”

She was silent for a moment as she considered his answer. Based on how Shining Armor was acting, that seemed like the most obvious explanation, except she couldn’t imagine what her husband could have done that he was this desperate to hide from her. Their marriage was a partnership, and she was sure he knew that he could tell her anything without her judging him for it, so there was no need for him to keep secrets.

Unless…

Cocking her head, Cadance raised a brow, still keeping her voice lowered. “Is this…something you’re into?”

“Wh-what?! No!”

The vehement denial made Cadance frown, trying to parse if he was protesting too much.

As much as she loved what a wholesome stallion her husband was, she’d always been a little suspicious of how that extended to the bedroom. It wasn’t that Shining Armor lacked a libido – far from it; they still had sex almost every night of the week – but that he was always so, for lack of a better word, considerate when they did it.

For him, her pleasure was always the top priority, with his own being an afterthought. As much as Cadance appreciated that, she couldn’t help but wonder if that was the extent of Shining Armor’s passion. Wasn’t there something that would drive him completely wild, to the point where he’d lose all self-control? It was a mystery that she’d had fun exploring, particularly during their honeymoon, but if her husband had a particular kink, he either didn’t know it himself, or was keeping it very well hidden.

Except now here he was, all but telling her that he wanted her to start a relationship with another stallion. True, doing so was terrifying him, but wasn’t that the normal response to confessing something so incredibly personal? Or rather, trying to make headway on a deeply-held fantasy without actually admitting it was a fantasy?

If that’s what this is about, decided Cadance, then it’s one of two things. Either he wants to see me with another stallion, or he wants to be with a stallion himself and this is an excuse for making that happen. Either were plausible; living in Canterlot Castle, she’d heard titillating fantasies from several of the maids (and a few of the butlers) regarding the all-male nature of the Royal Guard in ways that didn’t involve either of her aunts.

Likewise, Cadance had spoken to Comfy Cozy just a few days ago, since she liked to keep in regular contact with the rest of Lashtada’s clergy. While most of their discussion had been her reassuring the crystal mare of the power of love in the wake of the Crystal Heart’s failure to restore Luna, toward the end she’d inquired into how she was settling in with Pillowcase and Produce Aisle. Cozy’s response had been to admit, red-faced and giggling, that her two husbands were – slowly and awkwardly – learning what it meant to share a wife.

If either of those were what Shining Armor needed in order to feel romantically fulfilled, then she had a moral obligation, both as his wife and as Lashtada’s representative on Equestria, to find a way to make that work within the bond of their marriage.

And besides, if that wasn’t that case, and Blueblood did have some sort of hold over Shining Armor, letting him court her would be the quickest way to find out what it was.

Saying a quick prayer of thanks to Lashtada for giving her the wisdom to decide what to do next, Cadance smiled, giving Shining Armor a nod. “Alright then.”

He gave her a disbelieving look, clearly not able to believe what he was hearing. “Alright…what?”

“I’ll give Blueblood a chance.”

Shining Armor blinked. Several times. Finally, he swallowed, his eyes darting between her and the stallion on the balcony. “R-really? Just because I asked you to?”

Stepping forward, Cadance gave her husband a gentle nuzzle. “Precisely because you asked me to.”

The yellow color in the cord connecting him to her began to fade then, darkening back toward red. “Cadance…”

“Save it for later,” she teased. “I’ve got a stallion to take out to dinner.”

Pressing her side to his for just a moment, she turned and headed toward the balcony, seeing Grass Patch and Blueblood rise as they saw her approaching them, the latter grinning in a self-satisfied manner that made Cadance sigh inwardly.

The things she did for love.

Author's Note:

Shining Armor manages to pair Cadance up with Blueblood!

Is the former prince on the fast track to getting his royal title back?

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