Liquid Crystal
Shining Armor was quite worried about his wife. This wasn’t something he did that often. Cadence was more than capable of taking care of herself. She could bench-press their bed while he was still on it, was adept enough at magic to almost rival Twilight, and had been spending a lot of her free time trying to work out how to pull off a Sonic Love-Boom. So despite his inclination to fear for the safety of all his loved ones and protect all those whom he cared for, he was more or less willing to accept that Cadence could probably do just fine all on her own against any physical threat against her person.
But this, Shining feared, was not a physical threat. In recent weeks, his beloved had started to become greyer. The bounce had gone from her step, the curl was fading from her mane. She smiled less and sighed more, and she walked as though her tiara and peytral each weighed ten times as much as they had originally. It didn’t take a genius to work out that something was very much on Cadence’s mind, and it was taking its toll on her body.
So it was that one afternoon, he informed the palace secretary that all the day’s remaining appointments were to be rescheduled, put Flurry Heart down for a nice nap, and rented a room at the Crystal Palace Spa under an assumed name. He did wind up waiting in that room for an hour before he realized he’d neglected to tell his wife any of this, but he sent a messenger to go and find her.
When Cadence did arrive, she wasn’t in the best of moods. “Shining Armor,” she said shortly, storming into the room. “What do you mean by cancelling all my meetings? I had a lot of work… planned… for today…”
She stopped in her tracks, staring at the scene set before her. Shining looked up from where he was dangling his hind hooves in the hot tub and smiled up at her. “You like it?”
“I…” she glanced around the room. Everywhere a tea light could plausibly sit, one was already there. Lilies and lotuses floated on the surface of the hot tub, and a row of her favorite scented oils were sitting open by the massage table. Shining had even set up a gramophone, which was playing soft, relaxing music. “Wow,” she said, the anger fading from her eyes. “You did all this yourself?”
“Well, some of this was already here,” her husband admitted. “But, yeah. I thought you might like a little afternoon off, y’know? A little tender,” he rose and moved closer.
“Loving,” he continued, drawing up to her side.
“Care.” He kissed her gently, and she leaned into him.
“Mm,” she said, breaking away after a few seconds. “Well, I’d have preferred it if you’d told me about this first, but I wouldn’t say no to a little bit of pampering.”
Shining smiled. “Great! What do you want to do first?”
“I’d like a massage. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been feeling pretty tense recently.”
“Yeah, that’s kinda why I did this,” Shining said, trotting over to the table. “What’s the matter, Cady?”
Cadence frowned and looked away. “I don’t know if I can explain.”
Shining patted the massage table invitingly. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he said.
Cadence sighed as she lay down on the table. “No, I do want to tell you. I just… don’t have all the right words. And…”
“And?” Shining asked, shaking lavender oil over his beloved’s back.
Cadence sighed again, but this time it was more relieved. “I’m… afraid of what you’ll think of me,” she said reluctantly.
Shining began to knead Cadence’s back, and she groaned, stretching like a cat under his touch. “Is this another thing about what you want to do in the bedroom?” he asked. “Because I think after last Wednesday, we’ve established that I’m willing to try anything once.”
“Yes,” Cadence agreed. “Did you finish writing that thank-you note to those three stallions yet?”
“Sent them off this morning. But honey, I promise. There’s nothing you can tell me that’ll make me stop loving you, not even if it’s that you’re actually another changeling queen in disguise.”
He paused in his tender ministrations, much to Cadence’s displeasure. “You aren’t, though, right?”
“Well,” Cadence hedged, “No, I’m not a changeling queen. Go back to what you were doing.”
Obediently, Shining did so. “Not a changeling queen. Fine, that’s a start. But you are in disguise.”
“Mm, mhm,” Cadence said. “Ooh, yes, that’s the spot. Y’know, ah, this should really be your prime method for getting information out of prison--OH BABY, YES!”
She wriggled happily, and Shining smiled briefly. Very briefly. “You’re in disguise?” he prompted.
“Allll th’ alicorns are,” Cadence slurred, flattening herself against the table. “Don’t actually look like pretty pretty pon-pons.”
“Oh,” said Shining, remembering suddenly the letter he’d gotten from Twilight about Princess Celestia being made of sunlight and giving her and all her friends ‘the Talk.’ At the time, he thought she’d just been on another week-long reading binge and had started hallucinating again. “Alright, then. So, what are you, really?”
Cadence’s brow furrowed. “Hard to explain. Words not good,” she murmured.
“Rub a little lower.”
“Can you show me?” Shining asked.
“Rub a little lower, and I will,” Cadence said.
Shining moved his hooves down her back until he was almost giving her a butt massage instead. “Is this good?”
Cadence’s response was almost inaudible, and didn’t consist of any words Shining had ever heard. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, grinning. “So, will you show me what you actually look like, now?”
Cadence groaned. “Nuuu. You’ll think it’s weird…”
“Cady. When we got married, I swore to stay with you for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, and even through kitchen remodeling. No matter what, I fell in love with you. It doesn’t matter what you look like, that’s never gonna change.”
Silence. “...Kay,” she said.
Shining’s first impression was that he’d just dipped his hooves in jelly. He looked down. His forehooves were halfway submerged in his wife. He could see them, tinted pink and somewhat refracted, through her translucent body. Hesitantly, he pushed a little, and his hooves went in further yet. He pulled both hooves out. There was a slight ‘squelch’ noise, as though he’d just pulled out of quicksand. “Uh,” said Shining Armor.
Cadence sat up. “Told you,” she said sadly.
Shining took a moment to drink it all in. Cadence’s wings and ears now resembled fishy fins. Her eyes were orbs of pure violet, set into the translucent, dripping, pink ectoplasm of her body. Her horn was now a sort of tentacle, tipped with a ball of light, like an anglerfish. At the center of it all, her heart beat. It was now a roughly spherical ball of tubes rolled around itself, blowing out a steady stream of bubbles, but it was definitely her heart. Shining was quite sure of that. “Wow,” he said quietly. “You’re-- gorgeous.”
Cadence drew back, surprised. “Really? You think so?”
“Of course!” Shining said. “Like you could ever be anything else.”
Cadence smiled. It was a little strange, given her decrease in definition, but it was absolutely a smile. “You’re so sweet,” she sighed, leaning in for a kiss.
Shining puckered up and closed his eyes. Suddenly, his muzzle was submerged in ectoplasm. His eyes shot open. His snout was shoved in his wife’s face. Literally. Cadence quickly pulled away. “Oops, sorry.”
Shining wiped the slime off his snout. It smelled like raspberries, rum, and something difficult to place. “‘S okay,” he said.
It wasn’t exactly okay. Had this happened to Twilight when she ascended? Why had Cadence kept this from him for so long? Did she not trust him? What would he tell his parents when Twilight suddenly turned into goop?
But Cadence was worried about his reaction, so he shoved all his concerns to the back of his mind. “C’mon, lie down and I’ll finish your massage.”
Cadence sighed happily and lay back down on the table. "You're so sweet," she murmured, already sinking back into sheer relaxation.
He continued to work at her back for the next ten or so minutes. It was like sculpting Jell-O, or splashing around in a lake. Her groans and sighs of pleasure grew quieter and more infrequent until they were replaced with soft snores. Shining sat back, satisfied that his efforts had been appreciated.
Now that he could safely start to panic without upsetting his wife, he did so earnestly, pacing the floor up and down and up and down. What else had Twilight said in her letter? He hadn’t paid enough attention, having assumed it had been nothing more than the product of his sister’s sleep-deprived brain. Something about cosmic energy. His brain, as it so often did, turned to comic books. Cosmic radiation, perhaps? That was what had given the Fabulous Five their powers.
He looked at his wife. Well, the Being looked more like a pile of rocks, but a puddle of goo didn’t seem wholly out of the question. But no, she’d said that all the alicorns were like this, and so had Twilight, and it seemed unlikely that cosmic rays would be able to strike on-planet anyway.
A new note of horror struck him. Was Flurry Heart secretly a gooey blob as well? He imagined his infant daughter, absorbed by her own diaper. He shuddered.
No. Speculation wouldn’t help anything. Cadence knew more about this than he ever would. He’d wait for her to wake up, they could sit together in the hot tub, and she could answer all of his questions then. It would all be fine.
It was at this point that he noticed his hooves were wet. Thinking that perhaps he’d splashed some water out of the tub earlier, or spilled some scented oils, he absently rubbed his hoof on a rug. The rug squished unpleasantly. Shining Armor looked down. The floor was covered in pink fluid.
He looked to his wife. Cadence had melted.
His first reaction, as perhaps was only natural, was Oh, what the heck? My wife has melted. Except, obviously, he didn’t think the word ‘heck’.
His second reaction was OH WHAT THE HECK, MY WIFE HAS JUST MELTED, except he really really didn’t think the work ‘heck’.
Shining forced himself to calm down. Clearly, this was some kind of side effect of whatever transformation Cadence had undergone. She had been a sort of jelly before, maybe when she went to sleep, she lost control of her form.
Some small, detached part of his brain noted that the pink liquid was rising. He ignored that for now. Cadence was all over the floor. One of her eyes drifted by lazily, like a rubber duck. He watched it circle the hot tub as the jets of water pushed the liquid in the tub-- and now all over the floor-- around and around. Shining frowned. He didn’t remember setting the hot tub to ‘whirlpool’.
He peered inside. Oh. It wasn’t the jets of water that was making Cadence swirl. The plug at the bottom of the tub had sprung open, and she was running down the drain.
SHE WAS RUNNING DOWN THE DRAIN?
His wife was slipping away. So too was his sanity, and any semblance of a grip he’d ever had on the situation. Shining struggled to keep from slipping into hysteria. What should he do? What could he do? The primary concern, of course, was to stop any more of Cadence from going down the drain. So he floundered over to the hot tub (the liquid was nearly up to his chest, now), took a deep breath, and plunged in.
He felt around for the plug, but couldn’t find it. He risked opening one eye. Surprisingly, it felt perfectly normal. He opened the other eye and searched around for the drain cover. There! He swam a few meters, snatched up the prize, and shoved it into the drain. Around him, the current began to slow. He paddled upwards toward the surface. At least, that was the plan. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of a surface anymore. He looked around, frantic. He could see above him some part of the room that was still above the pink fluid, but no matter how hard he swam, he never drew any closer. His lungs were burning. Was this how he would meet his end? Would he drown inside his wife?
His head was spinning, and his limbs felt as if they were full of stuffing. He could take it no more. He opened his mouth and closed his eyes, preparing for the sensation of death.
It didn’t come. Shining opened his eyes. He took another breath. It wasn’t quite like breathing air; it was like sucking a straw expecting water and suddenly being faced with a milkshake instead. However, like drinking a milkshake, Shining was fully capable of putting in the little extra effort required to breathe the fluid. It tasted much like it had smelled, like raspberry rum with a little something extra mixed in. He let himself sink back to the floor, deep in thought. The room seemed stretched. The walls were much higher and farther apart down here. It was as if he himself had shrunk, though if that were the case, then everything else in the room had shrunk with him.
He considered this, decided that it didn’t really matter, and made for the door as quickly as he could. It refused to open. Try as he might, Shining couldn’t convince the door to open inwards, pushing all the pink fluid out of the way. The pressure difference was just too great. He glared at the door, thinking. If it wouldn’t open inwards, he thought, maybe he could make it open outwards.
He lit his horn. An energy lance harpooned the door, blasting a huge hole in it. That would be a check he’d have to write later, he thought as he was quickly and unceremoniously pushed through the hole and down the corridor on a wild wave. He struggled to keep control in the raging torrent; just because he couldn’t drown in this didn’t mean he couldn’t be swept into a wall and get a concussion, for example, and oh look, the main doors.
He washed up, coughing and sputtering, on the street, surrounded by soaking spa workers and perplexes passers by. He smiled. “Sorry, folks. Nothing to see here. Just some problems with the plumbing.”
There was a long moment of muttering. “What is this stuff?” somepony asked.
“Why’s it pink?” another wanted to know.
“Smells like rum,” a third observed.
“Don’t drink it!” Shining shouted.
“Why not?”
“Is it poison?”
“Is there poison in the water supply?”
“No, no,” Shining said, waving a hoof quickly. “It’s uh, just been on the ground. You don’t want to drink something off the ground, right?”
Murmurs of agreement. “And, and there’s probably a lot of shampoo and stuff in there now,” Shining continued. “Not safe, my friends. Certainly not tasty. If you could all just move off the streets, the Sanitation Department will see to it that this is tidied away.”
More mutters of assent, and the street began to clear. The spa workers buggered off as well, thought Shining suspected that a repair bill would be sent winging toward the castle in a few days. He pushed that thought away. Money was hardly an issue. He was much more worried about his wife, pouring out over the streets. Continuing, actually, to pour out all over the streets. There was a sound, a great creaking groan, and Shining turned to see that all the windows were straining under immense pressure. Waves of pink lapped at his hooves, and he could feel himself sinking, almost imperceptibly, back into that vast pink ocean. He waded away, quickly as he could. To an outside observer, it would seem that Shining had sunk into the street itself, given that he was knee deep in a puddle that seemed too shallow to cover the top of his hooves.
Finally, he struggled back onto dry crystal and galloped away from the ever-growing pool of water. Then, he slipped. His wet hooves had no purchase on the glass-smooth sidewalk. Behind him, he heard the sound of shattering glass, followed by the roar of rushing fluid. Desperate now, he scrambled to his hooves and tried again to gallop away. No good! He fell tail over snout once again. He couldn’t get any traction. The rushing noise was getting ever closer.
He threw dignity to the winds. Lying flat on his stomach, he stretched out his forehooves and kicked the nearest building. He skimmed along the ground like a penguin. A wet, furry, screaming penguin. When he slowed, he kicked out his hind legs again, and again, and again, racing the rushing river down the streets of the Empire toward the castle. He knew he wouldn’t make it. The noise was growing louder and louder, and it was coming from all sides now. He was surrounded.
Above him, he heard the flap of wings and the clatter of metal. He knew who it was before the stallion even spoke. There was only one pegasus in the guard who never tied on his armor right. “Sir! Sir, I’ve got reports of flooding in--”
“Lieutenant Sentry,” Shining said neutrally, “I believe I’m already aware of the situation.”
“Yes, sir.” A pause. “Would you like an air lift, sir?”
“That would be most appreciated, Lieutenant, yes.”
A moment later, a pair of orange hooves grabbed him round the middle and hauled him bodily into the air. “We’ve got emergency evacuation protocols going on for this entire district, sir, and a wall of sandbags--”
“Won’t do us any good against this,” Shining sighed. “On the upside, it’s breathable. Found that out the hard way.”
“...What is this stuff, Commander Armor?”
Shining shook his head. “Trust me, you don’t want to know. I know it’s a long flight, Lieutenant, but can you carry me to my bedroom?”
“Well, I’m flattered, sir, but in the middle of an emergency?”
“Not for that!” Shining said. “Not until next Tuesday, anyway, remember to wear the cat ears. Cady loved that. No, I need to write a letter.”
“...In the middle of an emergency?”
“I believe there’s only one mare who can help us now, Lieutenant. Just pray that she’s awake…”
***
It was a weary Lieutenant Sentry who crashed through the windows into the Royal Bedchamber five minutes later. The chaos in the city below was terrific. As Shining had predicted, the sandbags had done nothing, and they had been swallowed up along with two platoons of guards. On the outskirts of the spreading floodwaters, ponies screamed and ran and were ultimately consumed. On the bright side, ponies who had been in the pink fluid for a while had come to more or less the same conclusions Shining had earlier, and were even now swimming around cheerfully; in the pink, as it were. Some few had even made it to the surface, and were playing a sort of volleyball game with-- where had they found a beach ball this far north? All the water in the city was icemelt off the mountains!
Well, never mind that now. “Flash,” he said, digging in his stationery cupboard, “there’s a box under the bed.”
“Thought you said we weren’t doing that.”
“No, that’s the box in the wardrobe. Look for a sort of laminated box, with a green sticker on it.”
“Right you are, sir.”
Shining sat down at his desk and stared at the parchment. How to write a letter like this? He set his jaw. Years upon years of writing reports of incursions and alarums in Canterlot had prepared him for this very letter. He would stick to the frank, matter-of-fact style that had served him throughout his career.
Dear Princess Luna,
My wife has turned into a pond lake flood. She has currently swallowed approx. ½ the population of the empire. 0 fatalities, intermediate property damage, is causing a breach of peace. Please advise as quickly as possible.
He looked over the letter and frowned.
Hope all well your end.
-Prince Consort and Commander of Equestrian Armed Forces Sir Shining Armor
Luna always responded well to formality. He hadn’t put in all of his titles, admittedly. He couldn’t remember half of them. Under the circumstances, though, he felt he had done his best.
“What exactly is in the box, sir?”
“Open it up and you’ll find out,” Shining said, rolling up the scroll.
Flash did as he was told, and was bathed in green light. “...Whoa,” he said.
“Bottled dragonfire,” Shining said, picking up a glowing jar marked with a little blue moon. “Provided by none other than the brave and glorious hero of the empire, my little brother. Bottoms up!”
He opened the top of the container and threw the scroll into the gout of green flame, which swirled away into nothing. “And now we wait for a reply,” Shining said, satisfied.
Flash glanced out the window. “If that’s all, Commander, I need to get back to my duties out there. There’s a lot of panicked ponies out on the streets.”
“Yes, of course--” Shining paused. “Did you hear that?”
“What, sir?”
Shining circled a hoof. “Sort of a… ker-chunk. Like a water hammer in an old faucet. There it is again!”
Flash frowned. “Sounds like it’s coming from the bathroom, sir.”
“Explains the old faucet part, I suppose. We really have to get that plumbing refit.” He froze. “Plumbing.”
“Sir?”
“It’s in the pipes. It’s gotten into the plumbing!” Shining said, racing for the bathroom.
Sure enough, there was a steady drip of pink coming out of the shower nozzle, the sink, the tub, everywhere. The pipes were bulging and starting to shudder. Shining reached out and turned on all the faucets, and pink fluid poured out. “Lieutenant, spread the word. Turn on all the faucets you can find.”
“Yes, sir. What will you be doing?”
Shining’s horn glowed, and a scroll popped into being right in front of him. “I suspect I’m about to find out. Go, before any serious damage is done to the empire’s infrastructure.”
Lieutenant Sentry nodded once and was gone. Shining unrolled the scroll.
To his Highness Prince Consort and Commander of Equestrian Armed Forces Sir Shining Armor, Lord Crystal, Lawful Good Knight of Incancunabula and Hall Monitor,
Well, now that was just petty. How did she even know about his O&O games?
In response to thy earlier inquiry as concerns the flooding of your city by your wife, We consulted Our personal copy of ‘the Alicron’. We would advise thou to peruse it as soon as thee acquire the safety equipment that such an undertaking should require (example gratis, polarized sunglasses, oven mitts, and a protective rune circle). The ritual for containing thy wife when she is unable to control her form is relatively simple. Thou must take a bowl, vase, goblet, any sort of container so long as it is empty. Then, it is necessary to locate her. If she has grown to the size you say, this should prove simple.
Once this has been achieved, thou must recite the Poem of Containment (reverse) and hold aloft the container. Once she is contained, thou must on no account spill her, lest the cycle begin anew. She will awaken anon and recover her usual form.
As for thy other concern, all is not well at Canterlot Castle! Only this morning, mine sister put a bucket of water above mine chamber door! Effrontery! Fear not, however, for We shall have Our revenge when We fill her life with SPIDERS! HAHA! Who then will be the Pranking Queen?
Yours faithfully,
Her Royal Highness the Guardian of the Night and Dreams, Protectorate of Childishness, Raiser of the Moon, the Real Pranking Queen, Bearer of Laughter, Loyalty, and Generosity, the Dark Planet Lit by No Sun, Lucifer Nox…
Shining flipped over the page.
… of the Chocolate Bunnies, Chaotic Neutral Sorceress, Princess Luna.
Below that was printed a short poem. Shining stared. Surely it couldn’t be that easy, could it?
Well, it was worth a shot. He re-entered the bathroom, shaking the toothbrushes out of their cup as he did so. He held it right next to the flow from the sink faucet and read aloud,
“I know you little, I love you lots;
My love for you would fill ten pots,
Fifteen buckets, sixteen cans,
Three teacups and four dishpans.”
Then, he stuck the cup under the faucet and pulled it out quickly when it was about halfway full. Before his eyes, the liquid continued to rise as he set it on the bathroom counter, until it was full to brimming. A purple orb appeared, then a second. Then a tangle of tubes composed roughly in the shape of a sphere.
The sink was running clear again, as was the shower. His fur, to his surprise, was dirty, but dry. He ran out of the room to look down on the streets below. They were shined clean and full of confused, complaining crystal ponies, many holding boogie boards and wearing swimsuits. One or two sadly took their bathing-machines to be returned to storage. He smiled down at them all and waved. Then he remembered that he was near the top of the castle, and that probably nopony could see him wave unless they were actually looking for it.
He sighed and went back to the bathroom, where he found a figure rising slowly from the toothbrush cup. “Hello, love.”
The tiny figure of his wife smiled up at him. “Hello, Shiny. Did I drift off in the middle of your lovely massage?”
He thought about that. “In a manner of speaking,” he replied.
“Sorry,” she said, sitting on the counter and growing. Already she was the size of a toddler. “Sometimes, it’s just nice to spread out a little, you know? Just go with the flow.”
Shining stifled a snort of laughter. “Sorry, did I say something funny?” Cadence asked.
“No, sorry,” Shining said.
She hopped off the counter, landing on all fours with a gooey ‘splat’. “Then what?”
“Y’know, I see what you mean,” Shining said casually. “Sometimes it’s nice to let somepony wash away your stresses, like water off a duck’s back.”
Cadence’s eyes went wide as she took in Shining’s filthy coat, the fact that all the taps were on, and the fact that she’d just come out of the toothbrush holder. “Shiny?”
“Cady?”
“Dry up.”
He smirked. “Cry me a river, my sweet.”
"Shining Armor!"
"Water you talking about? Whoa, Cady, no. Cady, no, that-- haha-- that tickles! Cadence, Cady, haha, stop! Uncle, uncle!"
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Okay, this is highly amusing! More!
Always suspected Shel knew something about eldritch abominations.
Hehehehe, this is really crazy what can happen with Alicorns. I wonder what Flurry Heart will look like when she hits Alicorn Puberty...
Just curious, but will this ever get another installment?
9564912
Eventually, yes. Right now I'm on a pretty tight publishing schedule for my Doctor Whooves series, but as soon as this first series is through, I intend to publish some more in this, Friendship 101, and maybe The Lost Crusades. Also I might try and get something up for Halloween.
9565417
Nice
Oh my.
Aphrodite came from the sea, and brings it with her wherever she goes.