The perfect day begins
“Today girls… we’re going to have… the perfect day.” Shining Armor raised one eyebrow while looking at his daughters over the delightful spread of breakfast junk food that covered the table. “That is our objective as a family. Flurry isn’t sick from drinking seawater, both of you are well rested, and near as I can tell, our day started out just fine.”
Skyla gave her father a dubious look while peering over the top of her orange juice at him, while Flurry Heart ignored everything her father had said so that she could savage her poor, unfortunate, defenseless waffles. The very best kind of waffles, the sort of waffles that Flurry loved most, the sort of waffles that came frozen, in a colourful cardboard box and were heated in the toaster. Or, if you happened to be a capable unicorn, you could heat them with a toasting spell.
“First thing we’re going to do after breakfast is something your mother wants to do,” he continued, smiling from his fine mood. “I know that nopony will complain about doing something that Mommy wants to do, right? We’re going to go out on a glass-bottom boat tour.”
“A glass-bottom boat tour?” Skyla’s whiny tone was a clear indicator that something was amiss.
“What’s wrong, Skyla?” Cadance asked while she cast a disgusted glance at her other daughter, Flurry.
“That’s scary.”
“How is that scary?” Cadance levitated a paper napkin, held it over Flurry’s head, and rammed it down upon Flurry’s horn, where it remained, skewered in place.
“Boats. Deep water. Scary. The blub-blub-blub of drowning.”
“We flew here on an airship… how is the deep water scary, Skyla?” Looking at her youngest, Cadance did her level best to ignore Flurry’s oink-tastic piggy sounds.
“I have wings,” Skyla replied, shaking her head.
“You’ll be fine, I promise.” Shining Armor realised that Skyla needed swimming lessons and he decided that he would take care of that. She did fine in shallow water doing the basic pony-paddle, but it made sense that she lacked confidence in deep water.
“Promise promise?” Skyla set down her glass of orange juice and stared into her father’s eyes. “Can I stay on your back so I feel safe?”
That seemed perfectly reasonable, and Shining Armor could see no reason to refuse her, if this is what it took to have a perfect day. “Promise promise. One pony back ride for Daddy’s littlest princess.”
“You know, under most circumstances, I’d be upset with you babying me, but I did ask for this.”
“You sure did, Sproglodyte.”
“Daddy, we talked about you calling me that.” Holding her knife and fork, Skyla made ready to cut up her waffles into bite-sized bits.
“Mmm-hmm, we sure did. At length.”
Rolling her eyes, Skyla mimicked one of her big sister’s exasperated sighs.
“After the glass-bottomed boat tour, we’ll do lunch.” Shining Armor poured syrup over his own waffles and watched with horrified fascination when Flurry began licking her plate clean. “After lunch, we’re going to go ziplining down the side of Depot Mountain, then we’ll follow that up with bungee jumping. Once we’ve had all the excitement we can stand, we’ll visit the Depot Island Aquarium—”
“YES!” both fillies hollered out in unison.
Shining Armor smiled and gave himself some silent praise for being a good father. The last family trip had been to Baltimare, and visiting the city aquarium had been the highlight of the trip. He hoped that the glass-bottomed boat tour would also bring about the same sort of excitement. A father could always hope.
“I need both of you to be on your very best behaviour,” Cadance said, her tone stern. “We’re going to be on the tourist side of the island, not the military side, where there are lots of soldiers around. So the both of you are going to stay very, very close. You will not leave my side or your father’s side. If you go running off for any reason, any reason at all, our day of fun is over. I don’t care how excited you are, or what you want to go and see, no excuses. If either of you step so much as a tail’s length away, our nice day ends. Is that clear?”
“Clear as the Crystal Empire,” Skyla replied while looking as submissive as possible.
“Understood.” Flurry licked her chops, but failed to clean up the sticky mess that was her face. “Say”—looking thoughtful, she gave her mother a single nod to engage her—“do you think the tourist side of the island has a museum about the history of Depot Island?”
“Probably,” Cadance replied, nodding back to her daughter.
“Do you think the tourists get to see the exciting movie?”
“Probably not.” Cadance kept a straight face for all of about six seconds, and then she began chortling.
For once, Flurry and her mother didn’t seem to be at odds with one another, or locked in a silent contest of wills. Things had been tense—too tense—and Cadance had stayed downright peeved for quite some time after the Crystal Cotillion and the ice orc invasion. There were moments where it seemed as though every little thing that Flurry did irritated her mother to no end. It was, according to Gosling, an alicorn contest of wills: only one alicorn could be right, for such was their nature. Of course, Gosling would know; he lived with two alicorns that were constantly butting heads and he was something of a recognised authority in helping to keep the peace between two alicorns sharing living space.
Cadance wanted what she felt was best for Flurry; of course, this was at odds with what Flurry believed to be best for herself, which naturally led to unmitigated disaster. Flurry wanted a million things; to be an airship captain, to join the Underwatch, to go on world-spanning adventures, to lead a company of explorer-adventurers like Daring Do—Flurry was at the age where she thought it was possible to do all of these things at once, somehow.
By focusing so much on these things, Flurry couldn’t focus on what she needed to do now to make these things possible. Her schooling suffered. She had dreadful outbursts of outright atrocious behaviour. She was growing far more arrogant and becoming disrespectful. Oh yes, Shining Armor saw signs of trouble ahead. But at least for today, Flurry Heart seemed to be in a good mood. The animosity between Flurry and her mother had departed, perhaps on vacation.
Shining Armor couldn’t wait to be out at sea.
A briny spray washed over Shining Armor’s face and the glass-bottomed boat skimmed over the waves like a stone skipping over the surface of a pond. Skyla sat on his back and clung tight to his neck, terrified, whimpering each time the craft made a hard bounce. Minor regrets played in the back of his mind, and some foalish part of him wished that he had become a sea captain.
“What about sea monsters?” Skyla shouted in alarm.
“What about them?” Cadance replied, laughing. “That’d be exciting!”
So far, neither foal had figured out that the glass-bottomed boat was similar to the aquarium they both so loved, and that something similar was the best way to try something new. Flurry seemed to be having the time of her life and she trotted from one side of the boat to the other, trying to see everything.
“Dolphins!” Flurry cried and she began waving in the direction she saw them.
Turning, Shining Armor scanned the water, and then he saw them too. They glistened in the water, sleek, playful, matching the boat’s speed with no real effort on their part. Skyla squeezed his neck even tighter, and then he heard her squeal, a sound that he was pretty sure was excitement mixed with a little bit of terror.
The dolphins came to play in the boat’s wake, they lept out of the water and did magnificent dolphin things that caused Cadance to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah.’ Shining Armor watched them, his daughter clinging to his neck, and for a time, he admired the dolphins’ simple existence. He found himself longing for a return to a simpler time, a time when his proud neck hadn’t been bowed by the weight of the crown or fatherhood hadn’t skewed his worldview.
“T’won’t be long until we reach the shoals,” the captain said around the pipe tucked into the corner of his mouth. “When we get there, I’ll open up the bottom of the boat and you lot can have a nice look down into yonder fishy depths. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll catch two kraken canoodling with one another. Lots o’ tentacles, yar.”
Overcome with excitement, Cadance pranced in place, squealing and flapping her wings.
Overhead, the tropical sun was merciless and the captain raised a canvas canopy over the deck. Once the canopy was in place, a deck plate squealed and squeaked as it slid out of the way, revealing the glass windows that allowed one to see into the sea below. A short railing popped up into place to prevent anypony from stepping on the glass, and below the ship, two protective covers slid out of the way, revealing the ocean floor below them.
Shining Armor heard a gasp from Skyla and her grip on his neck doubled.
“There’s so much life down there,” Flurry said to her mother, who stood beside her. “I think I can see the bottom.”
“Aye, the shoals are shallow and there’s a great many sandbars around this spot. Shipwrecks abound here, but not to worry, we’re safe. My vessel has a shallow draft. There’s a reef over yonder and we’ll be heading over that way. Also some wrecks that are nice to gawk at.
Pushing his head between the supports for the rail, Shining Armor almost touched his nose to the glass, like so many other ponies had done before him. The blue-green water was so clean and clear, that, like Flurry, he could see the bottom. Crustaceans could be seen, along with many fish, and an octopus went squirting past.
“Daddy, I can’t see.”
“Want to get down, Sproglodyte?”
“No!”
“It’s safe, Skyla—”
“The water is deep!”
There was a grunt as Skyla slid along his neck a bit, and her slender, delicate forelegs wrapped tight just beneath his jaw as her chin butted into his right ear. She was shaking, trembling, and breathing hard. When she finally had a better view of the ocean below, he felt her go rigid. Flurry too, had her head between the supports for the rail, but unlike her father, her nose was smooshed against the glass.
Cadance, giving up all pretence of dignity, joined her family and pushed her regal head between the bars. There was a thump as Skyla squirmed against the bars around his neck and Shining Armor could feel her hot breath against his ear while she peered down into the depths. A sea skate went gliding past, which caused Skyla to snuffle in excitement while she clung for dear life to her father’s neck.
“This… this is different than the aquarium.”
“How so, Flurry?” Cadance asked.
“It just is.”
“Here, Flurry, we’re seeing these creatures in their natural environment.” Cadance squinted, trying to get a better look. “Oh look, scintillating beholder anemones. Look at the lights, Flurry. You can’t see these in an aquarium because of the magic they need to survive. The lights lure in other fish and anything that touches the anemone is paralysed by poison and swallowed.”
“So the ocean has its own magic?” Skyla’s words tickled Shining Armor’s ear.
“Yes, Skyla, and we know hardly anything about it. Aquariums allow us to study some of the wondrous sea creatures so that we can understand their magic better, but not all of them can be removed from their habitats.”
“Mom, how do you know all of this stuff?” Flurry lifted her head and looked at her mother for a moment.
“Well,” Cadance began, chuckling, “there was a time during my teenage years when I was absolutely certain that I was going to be the Princess of Love and a marine biologist. I gave Princess Celestia fits. Nopony was going to tell me what to do. I was also going to be a Wonderbolt, circumnavigate the globe, and for a time, I wanted to write Oubliettes and Ogres modules because I felt that it needed better female heroes that were free of damaging fantasy stereotypes. I accused Princess Celestia of trying to hold me back when she told me that trying to focus on so many things at once would hold me back from the one thing that I was best at.”
If Flurry had listened, it was hard to tell, because her nose was pressed against the glass once more and she watched with rapt attention. For a moment, Shining Armor’s eyes met with his wife’s, and he was proud of her for trying—she was always trying to do right in her own gentle way.
“Are you sad that you couldn’t do that stuff?” Skyla asked, still clinging for dear life to her father’s neck.
“A little.”
Cadance’s honesty left Shining Armor in a rather surprised state.
“But Auntie Celestia was right. Little did I know just how much work being the Princess of Love would be. Then I became a wife, and that is a special career all its own when you’re royalty. It’s… it is a full time job, Skyla. Even more so when you are the Princess of Love. After becoming a wife, motherhood was next—after all, that is the logical progression for the Princess of Love. So, much to my dismay, I find that I don’t have the time to be a marine biologist, or a Wonderbolt, or a writer for a fantasy game. It’s called ‘growing up’ and it is very difficult to do, Skyla.”
A queer silence settled upon the moment and Shining Armor found his attention drawn to the myriad of life going about its business down below him. Little silver fishes swam to and fro, avoiding bigger fishes. The sea floor changed and bits of old, rotten wood could be seen, covered in silt and debris. Parts of a ship were scattered about, shattered by some wreck.
The age of tall wooden ships would soon be at an end.
Soon, Flurry would enter adolescence, and this age, this time, whatever this was, would end. A prickly sadness came over Shining Armor when he thought about his daughter, Flurry. All of her friends were somewhat older than she was, so she was in a big darn hurry to grow up, to mature, to be like her peers. She was in a rush to move past these awkward years, but she had no idea that even more awkward years were soon to come.
Little Flurry Heart, the Heart of Winter, Princess of Storms.
With a sigh, Shining Armor knew that a storm was coming, yon ill wind already blew, and he wondered how his family would survive it. Flurry would enter her adolescent years and these little squalls of misbehaviour would become full-fledged hurricanes of temper. Shining Armor feared what was to come, he was terrified that his own relationship with his daughter was in jeopardy. How many more family holidays did he have before the coming storm ruined everything?
He wasn’t sure—he had no way of knowing—so he resolved to enjoy this perfect day as much as possible.
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sometimes, it seems like Flurry is itching to ask how she can cease to exist without the messiness of dying or the reversibility of sleep, so as to avoid encountering the pains of living.
Hopefully she never figures out how to retreat into her Divine Essence state until she is done growing up.
Enjoy that day Shiny. Life will do everything it can to make it hard to get more of them.
Someday all of these alicorns are going to be adults, and that may be even more scary.
The scariest monsters out on this ocean are already aboard the boat.
IMO Cadance should still pursue the Oubliettes and Ogres modules thing as a hobby, it sounds like a great idea.
8920964
I'd read them, but then, I'm a dragonish hoarder of RPGs.
Hmm...
That’s a completely way of living for an IMMORTAL being...
It’s Cadance that has rushed to a single driven life... Flurry HAS all the time in the world to be a pirate, a marine biologist, an astronaut and whatever she decides...
Cadance is showing a decidedly MORTAL and short lived attitude... I guess it may be understandable... as she is young and the only other immortal has followed the same path...
8960954
Flurry is mortal.