Missing Pages & Scrawled Footnotes

by Ice Star

Silent Steps [Minific]

Author's Note:

No spoilers here, just a bit based on a horse picture and music. The only super in-universe thing in here is the mention of Opal Charm, the queen who ruled before Sombra.

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Silent Steps

Everyone|Drama

Cadance recalls a dance she has never been to when she hears mysterious music in the castle one day.

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It doesn't matter what time it is or where she was originally walking to. The rhythm of her hoofsteps stops and is replaced by something else. Cadance can feel it in her heartbeat, it whispers in her ears and drifts in the soft, chilly air that lingers in the castle today.

There is music, the faint echo of a melody she has never heard before. A few notes of a haunting waltz drift by, like a phantom.

She pauses by the staircase, at first the princess is unsure of what she hears. The sound repeats itself and the notes ring in the air. Cadance's eyes grow wide. There isn't any instrument in the castle to play music such as this, which makes the waltz even more mysterious.

The sounds and style do not strike her as something one would find in an Equestrian ballroom. It sounds too pure, to clear like the faint cling of smooth, pristine wine glasses when tapped together and the hum that comes afterward. Even if one grips their glass in magic, the hum is still present.

Her hoof taps on the crystal floor, will the music stop when presented with a sound that seems much more physical? It does not.

Slowly and with caution Cadance begins to descend the staircase. Was this once a ballroom? Before Sombra's reign did the crystal ponies dance among Queen Opal Charm after Crystal Faire? Perhaps there was a special holiday that she would re-discover with a quick peek through the history books that survived.

Cadance's eyes fluttered and she thinks she knows what the beautiful sight would look like. Crystalline subjects would whirl about elegantly, their coats gleaming with the light and love they possessed more than any jewels could. The manes of mares would be swept up in jewels and beads and the castle would be spotless. Tapestries would hang just right, undisturbed by the more conservative atmosphere some Equestrian celebrations lacked.

Would anypony remember that sort of ball? Not all the archives had survived and after eight years of Sombra's reign and 1,100 sealed within the ice even Cadance was sure her Crystalline subjects could forgot parts of their own history after all that.

The princess strolled off, the music still in her ears. Even if no such celebration existed, she would start one.