Chapter 2
Double Time arrived at Princess Cadence’s private train several hours before the princess herself. She inquired with the crystal guards as to which train car prisoners should stay in, but none of them were sure. They hadn’t expected any prisoners, and a brief argument ensued as to where she should be placed.
One officer wanted to keep her in the caboose, furthest from the princess. Another wanted to keep her in the guards’ car, where the most ponies would be watching her at all times. Double Time suggested that they chain her to the wall.
When Cadence finally arrived, she had a simple question: “What are you idiots doing?”
The senior officer in her personal guard, a pony named Flash Sentry, explained. First, they had placed Double Time in the guards’ car and chained her to the wall. But then somepony asked if she could get out of the chains by transforming into a creature with thinner ankles, and she said she could. So, Flash continued, they realized they needed restraints that bound her whole body instead of a specific part of her body.
“So you rolled her up in your bedsheets,” Cadence concluded. Double Time said nothing through the entire explanation. The guards had wrapped her up tightly in two dozen bedsheets like a cocoon, so only her eyes and the tip of her nose stuck out. “And what stops her from escaping through the hole you made for her head?”
“Ah. Well.” Flash cleared his throat. “We didn’t think of that until we were partway through and realized she’d need air. We were thinking of attaching a grate or a mesh of some kind to cover the face area, but we couldn’t figure out how to attach it to the sheets.”
“Right.” Cadence flexed her wings, drew in a deep breath, and slowly let it out. “Somepony get me a jar, please. A glass jar with a screw-on lid.”
One of the ponies further up the train used such a jar to store pens. He dumped them out, and a guard carried it back to Princess Cadence. Without a word, she took the jar and the guard’s utility knife, punched four air-holes in the lid, and then unscrewed the top.
“Get in the jar,” she ordered Double Time.
The smallest form Double Time could assume was about three inches long, making the jar a tight fit. Transforming into a snake helped her squirm in through the top, and then she turned into a tiny version of herself. She was like a figurine.
Cadence closed the lid, enchanted the jar to be unbreakable, and stalked out of the guard’s car, shoving Flash Sentry to the side as she passed. Marching through the train, she came to her personal car—a lavishly appointed bedroom on wheels, made for her and Shining Armor when they traveled. It had a king size bed, a broad oak desk, and a pile of pink pillows not unlike the one by Amaryllis’s throne. A brass cage full of coals kept it toasty even in the arctic chill.
Double Time’s jar went on the desk, in a nook meant for holding paper. For several minutes, Cadence tried to work, but her eyes wouldn’t focus on the paper in front of her. She often stopped to shut her eyes and rub her temples with her hooves.
When the train jerked into motion, she dropped her work entirely, letting pen and paper alike fall to the desk. “Forget it.” She laid a hoof flat on the desk, somewhat harder than necessary. “Forget it. I’ll deal with this later. I’ll deal with you... later.”
She took a half-step towards her bed, then she paused. Turning her head back, she eyed Double Time. From inside her glass jar, Double Time had an excellent view of the room, and of the bed.
She put Double Time’s jar in a desk drawer next to her pens. Then she went to sleep.
It was dark for a long time. Double wasn’t sure how long. Sometimes, they would pass through a tunnel, and the little sliver of light from the gap between the drawer and the desk would dim. Several times she tried to rock her jar back and forth, but it was stuck tight between the pens and a bottle of ink. The air was stale, and smelled of ink and wood shavings.
She didn’t notice when she fell asleep. One moment she was lying in the dark on the jar’s glass “floor,” and the next moment it was bright and she was rolling head over hoof. Slamming into a glass “wall” shocked her awake, and when her eyes cleared, she found she was back on the desk.
“Sorry,” Cadence said. To see more clearly, she leaned in close to the glass. Her head was bigger than Double Time’s entire body. “I tilted the jar when I pulled it out of the drawer. Are you okay?”
“Ah…” Double Time needed a moment to take possession of herself. “I could use some water.”
Half a thimble of water sufficed, poured through the air holes. It hit the bottom of the jar and formed droplets, and Double Time lapped at them like they were water troughs. “Thank you, your Highness,” she said.
“Sure.” Cadence sighed and sat back. “I’m going to ask you some questions now. Why did you assault a member of the Royal Guard?”
Double finished her water, then stood at attention. Her hooves were evenly spaced, her back was straight, and she lifted her head to the giant before her. “I already answered that. I didn’t want myself or Light to be arrested, and I believed I could beat him in a fight and escape.”
“If I let you go, will you break the law again?”
Double Time hesitated, and set her jaw. Then she said, “Probably. A lot of Equestria’s laws are stupid. And I like impersonating ponies.”
That made Cadence snort. “‘A lot of Equestria’s laws are stupid.’ Okay. Sure.” She shook her head. “Are you the one who got Light started on graffiti then?”
“No. It was her idea. But I encouraged her.” Double set her jaw. “I thought that helping an emotionally disturbed young mare heal herself was more important than petty laws about vandalism. When we went out into the city together for the first time, I realized it was the only time I’d ever seen Light smile. Or show any happiness at all.”
Cadence frowned and said nothing. After a pause, Double spoke to fill the void. “I would have stopped her if she’d tried to do anything significantly damaging. But she’s good. No, I shouldn’t say she’s good. She’s a genius. When she graffitis a building, the building gets nicer.”
“Mmph.” Cadence leaned down so her head was level with the desk. Double found herself looking into one enormous eye, slightly obscured by the thin fog Cadence’s breath produced on the glass. “Do you know why she hates her family so much?”
“She doesn’t hate her family. She hates herself. She’s constantly in pain and she doesn’t understand why, and it seems like everyone and everything makes it hurt more. You’re just a convenient target. You’re somepony she can yell at, because she can’t yell at the whole world.” Double let out a sharp breath. “Also, you blackmailed her. That didn’t help.”
“I told her to say sorry to her sister.”
A sneer appeared on Double’s face, and her professional, military tone dipped into something more aggressive. “Told, threatened, blackmailed, why get into the specifics? You expressed your wishes that she should say sorry to Twilight.”
“I didn’t know ‘Burner’ was Light,” Cadence raised her voice, and her tone hardened. “I went looking for a criminal who outed Twilight’s deepest secrets in public. Then I discover that criminal is her sister. What am I supposed to do? Arrest her? Make Twilight feel even worse? Walk away so she can keep doing it? I told her to say sorry. It was a reasonable solution.”
“I understand. Twilight is your friend, and Light made her cry, so you don’t like Light. But Light is my friend, and you made her cry.” Double let the moment hang. “So I don’t like you.”
“That’s not what I was saying. But fine. Fine.” Cadenced reached a hoof up to her temples. “Look, I don’t want to arrest you. I understand doing something you shouldn’t to protect a friend. And you’re right: no actual harm came of it, other than a little embarrassment. But when you visit Equestria or the Crystal Empire, you’re not an infiltrator anymore. You’re a guest. You can’t break the law just because you don’t feel like following it.”
Double said nothing. “Do you want to be punished?” Cadence asked. “To be the first changeling to be sentenced for an Equestrian crime?”
“If I am ordered to die I will die. But I was not ordered to apologize. Or to beg.”
“Okay, stop acting like you’ve been sentenced to death.” Cadence pulled back her head and spread her hooves. “Equestria is a peaceful, forgiving nation. You’re in danger of a fairly short sentence in a fairly nice jail. And you’re being dramatic. For the heavens' sake, you’re not going to be drawn and quartered.”
“But you could, if you wanted.”
Cadence squinted down at the jar. “I’m not going to do that,” she said, her tone incredulous.
“But you could, if you wanted,” Double repeated. “You could have me drawn and quartered. You could have me whipped. You could pick up this jar and smash me under your hoof right now. And if you did, I couldn’t try to escape.” She set her teeth. “So while Equestria may be a peaceful, forgiving nation, I was not ordered to submit myself to Equestria. I was ordered to submit myself to you. And I don’t know you.”
Cadence gave a faint roll of her eyes: “If I try to kill you, you can run away.”
“No, I can’t.”
The two of them shared a long stare through the glass. Cadence gave a small chuckle, but as she stared, the smile slowly faded from her expression. When it was entirely gone, she bit her lip. “And…” she spoke slowly, “what happens if you do try to escape?”
“I will have broken my oath to Queen Amaryllis.”
Cadence stared for a few long seconds. “And then?”
“That’s enough.”
“Mmmhmm.” Cadence looked into the corner for a moment as she composed her thoughts. “You love your queen so much you’d die because she casually ordered it over tea and cakes?”
“Queen Amaryllis has casually had ponies killed over tea and cakes.” Double tilted her head. “Should I be more afraid to die than I am to kill?”
“That was in the old days. Before your hive reformed.” Cadence hesitated. “Right?”
“It was.”
“So that’s…” She struggled for words. “Different. It’s different. You’ve been freed from your eternal hunger. You wouldn’t murder a pony just because Queen Amaryllis told you to.” Cadence’s eyes flicked over Double’s rainbow colored exterior, as though to remind herself it was there.
“It is true that changelings now possess the magic of friendship. But all ponies are born with that magic inside them. Are you all…” She searched for the word, wiggling a hoof in the air. “Good? Are you all good?”
“We’re…” Cadence started to answer, but then she turned away. “No. You know what? No. Forget it. I’m not engaging with this. This is ridiculous. You’re a criminal; you’re detained. That’s normal, and it’s the correct way things work.”
Double Time shrugged.
Cadence’s tone turned exasperated. “Double, I’m trying to let you go free, but I need you to say the right thing before I can. You get that?” She gestured at the jar. “If I let you go, what are you going to do? You’re under orders to be honest, right? Candid? If I release you, what’s the first thing you’re going to do?”
“I would go back to Canterlot. I’m a nanny there to two children named Night Watch and Sapphire. I was thinking of adopting them.”
“Okay. See?” Cadence softened her tone. “That’s not so bad. They’re orphans? Foster foals?”
“No,” Double said. “But their parents don’t love them. Normally, when parents and children are around, I can smell it. The air is thick with it. But with them, there’s nothing. And their father uses corporal punishment too much. Night gets caned for the slightest offense. You can see the welts under his tail.”
Cadence stared at the jar for a long time. She rubbed her jaw.
“How, ah…” She finally found the words. “You can’t adopt children who have parents.”
“I mean, you can.” Double’s sneer returned. “It’s just harder.”
That made Cadence laugh—a high, strained, helpless sound. “Right. I can see why you and Light are friends. I tell you that all I need to hear is ‘I won’t go commit any more crimes’ and you say if I let you go, you’re thinking of kidnapping two foals. Is that about right?”
“I didn’t say kidnapping. I could convince their parents to disown them.”
“Right.” Cadence sat back and flicked a hoof Double’s way. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with you. No idea. I could send you to jail, but I’m not sure that would even help. You’d steal love from the inmates.”
“I don’t steal love anymore.”
“Right. Of course not.” Cadence’s horn glowed, and she pulled a cord by the door. A servant appeared moments later. “Take this jar, please,” Cadence handed Double Time over. “Make sure the changeling inside gets enough air and water. I don’t want to deal with her right now. Just… bring her to the palace. I’ll deal with her later. Later. Okay? Don’t talk to me about it now.”
The servant nodded, picked up the jar, and took Double Time away.
Cadence had business to see too as soon as her train arrived in the Crystal Empire, and so Double Time arrived at the palace several hours before her. The servants inquired with the guards as to what they should do with the changing in a jar, but none of them were sure. An argument ensued.
One officer wanted to put her in the dungeon, because she was a prisoner and the dungeon was where prisoners went. Another insisted that she was already in a dungeon. Her jar was a portable dungeon, and putting a dungeon inside a dungeon was absurdity. Finally, a senior officer was called. He asked what Cadence had done with the jar on the train.
The servant told them she kept the jar on her desk. So they put Double Time on Cadence’s writing desk inside the palace.
Left alone, Double Time put her hooves up against the edge of the jar, and leaned forward to more effectively peer through the glass. The Royal Suite was the finest home she’d ever seen. Everything was beautiful and made from sparkling crystal. The view of the Empire was unparalleled. Cadence’s writing desk was in a separate office, so most of the rooms of the suite were blocked from her sight, but she could hear things.
A foal was cooing somewhere nearby.
“Cadence?” a stallion’s voice echoed up the hall and through the doorway. “You here?”
Nopony answered, and the sound of hoofsteps gradually became audible. A white stallion with a blue mane walked past the open office door without stopping, and moments later, the foal giggled. “Awww,” the stallion cooed. “Who's the cutest little filly?”
An angry electrical crackle shot through the air, and Double leapt back from the glass. But the stallion was laughing. “Nuh-uh. No lasers for foals. No lasers for Flurry Heart. Uh-huh. You pout all you want. You want your toy? You want your Whammy?”
The stallion played with the foal for a good twenty minutes more, and once she was asleep, re-entered the hall. He passed by the door going the other way, but the second time, he stopped partway and turned his head to stare at the jar.
“Um…” Double Time tapped the glass with a hoof. “Hello. Are you Shining Armor?”
“Yes,” Shining answered, stepping into the office and lowering his head to stare through the glass. “And who are you?”
“I’m uh... Double Time.” She lifted her hoof as she considered adding more. She finally settled on: “I’m a changeling.”
“I can see that.” Shining considered that information for a moment. “Why are you in a jar on my wife’s desk?”
“That’s a long story, but the short version is that I’m a friend of Light Step, and sometimes being that mare’s friend is very difficult.”
“Ah. Gotcha. Yeah, she can be like that.” He chuckled. “How’s she doing?”
“Better, since Thanksgiving.” She flicked her tail behind her, and buzzed her delicate insect wings. “She still does street art, but it’s less mean-spirited. She does chalk drawings uptown, and does little portraits of the fillies and colts. It’s nice.”
“Good.” He turned his head half away, indicating the door with his muzzle. “Should I tell Light you’re here? And in a jar?”
“It might be better if you didn’t.” Double Time paused a moment. Then she cleared her throat. “Um… I’m here waiting for Cadence. But if you’re… well. There’s something I should tell you. I was in the War in the North. On the other side. The changeling side, obviously. And um…”
She drew in a tight breath. “I’m sorry. For everything we did. And for everything I did personally. I’m sorry.”
Shining’s face was neutral—his expression flat. He licked his lips. “You said, ‘what you did personally.’ What did you do?”
“I was the baker,” she replied. “I made the sugar cookies.”
“Oh.” His eyes went to his hooves. “With the little red hearts on them.”
Double Time’s wings tucked in tight against her body, and her hooves scrunched together. “Yeah.”
A humorless chuckle escaped him. “You had a mean sense of humor.”
So soft Shining could barely hear her, Double Time repeated: “Yeah.”
They stood there in silence for several seconds, until Shining said: “Well, do you wish you’d done things differently? Are you sure you’ll never do anything like that again?”
“Yes, I—” Double lifted her head and put a hoof up on the glass. “Yes, of course. I mean, no. No, I’d never do anything—”
“Shhh.” Shining tapped the outside of her jar with a hoof. “Then I forgive you.”
Double Time scrunched up her muzzle. “You can’t just say that,” she snapped. When he failed to rise to the bait, she added: “Ponies died.”
“Changelings died. I wish I hadn’t done that either. If they’d survived the war, they’d be running around now, hugging random ponies and…” He gestured. “Forming drum circles. Whatever you do these days.”
He took in a breath. “So. I wasn’t just saying it.” He tapped the glass again. “Why does Cadence have you in a jar?”
Double Time let out a sharp snort. “I assaulted a member of the Royal Guard,” she said, adding an angry twist to her words. “And she didn’t have another prison that could hold me.”
“Mmmm. Then we better have somepony watch you.”
Without waiting for an answer, he unscrewed the lid of the jar. Then he carefully tilted it on its side so Double could get out.
Slowly, hesitantly, she stepped out of the mouth of the jar. With two hooves on the desk and two hooves on the glass, she looked up at the giant pony above her. “Um…” The anger was gone from her voice. “I don’t think Cadence wants me to leave.”
“You won’t go far.” With a nudge of his head, he indicated the next room. “I’m waiting here until she gets back anyway. Tell me about, uh…”
For a long time, they stared at each other.
“Tell me about the sugar cookies.”
Two hours later, they were sitting in the suite’s dining room together. Shining had Flurry Heart nestled in his hooves, wrapped in a forcefield so no sound would wake her. Double Time was sitting back in an excessively angular crystal chair. Every time she sat forward or back, it clicked and squeaked when her hard carapace bumped into it.
“Okay, okay,” she said, struggling to container her laughter, “right. So Light walks in, covered in mustard, and I don’t even have time to get a word in before she shouts,” Double mimicked Light’s voice, “‘I know it was you and it’s not funny!’” It was a perfect copy, complete with her voice cracking at the end.
Shining laughed. Double threw up a hoof. “Exactly!” she said. “What else was I supposed to do? I laughed. And that only makes her even more certain it was me.”
She sat back in the chair. It squeaked and clicked. “But now I want to know what the heck happened, and the more I ask, the more she thinks I’m making fun of her. So finally, she says if I ask her one more time, she’s gonna smack me. And I’m like, ‘you’d break your hoof if you tried.’ So she’s sitting there, looking at my carapace and looking at her hoof, clearly trying to figure out if smacking me will actually shatter it. And…”
Double Time trailed off as the sound of a door opening carried through the suite. Both her and Shining looked up towards the hallway entrance. The sound of a few short hoofsteps carried through the air. Then Cadence was there, looking at them.
“Hey, honey,” Shining said. “The servants put Double in a jar on your desk. If you really want to keep her restrained, we should put her in a force bubble. She could probably have gotten out of that jar if she really wanted.”
Cadence’s expression stayed flat. It flicked over Shining and Double. “She’s not in a force bubble now,” she noted.
“I… didn’t think she was going to run away.” Shining frowned and rose from the table, his eyes locked on his wife. “What’s wrong?”
“Did you sleep with this one too?”
Before either of them could answer, Cadence shook her head. “No, sorry. Forget it. I shouldn’t have said that.”
She opened her mouth to speak, thought better of it, and said nothing. Then she walked away.
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Somepony get me a jar, please.
Snerk!!
Holy hell damn, that chapter end.
Oof, so many emotions.
Fuck this ending screwed me up.
I mean, this is way more interesting than anything the show has done with her and I'm totally on board, but wow you don't like Cadance.
Cadance, what the f---?!
"She layed a hoof flat"
"She laid a hoof flat"?
"little sliver of line from the gap"
"little sliver of light from the gap"?
"obscured by the thing fog Cadence’s"
"obscured by the thin fog Cadence’s"?
"Light,” Cadence’s raised her voice, and"
"Light,” Cadence’s voice rose, and"?
"For the heaven’s sake"
That could work, but just in case, did you mean "For the heavens' sake"?
"a hoof Double’d way. “I have"
"a hoof Double’s way. “I have"?
"but it’s less mean spirited. She"
"but it’s less mean-spirited. She"?
"of the fillies and foals. It’s"
"of the fillies and colts. It’s"?
"He turns his head half away"
"He turned his head half away"?
"her hard carapice bumped"
"her hard carapace bumped"?
I wonder just what happened with the sugar cookies. Could be a number of things...
"“Did you sleep with this one too?”"
...Well. Sounds like Cadance is perhaps finding she's less happy with the open marriage than she'd expected.
9358966
Ah-hahaha, so Cadance looks at all changelings as sluts, and somehow also blames Shining for what happened?
9358888
"Get in the jar."
'Is this jar going to be a narrative justification for the author to show an extreme size difference between us, emphasizing the power you have over me?'
"Yes! Now get in!"
9358890
9358915
9358927
The feels. The feels!
Cadence's job is really stressful. Sometimes she says things she shouldn't.
9358912
Yeah, no, this isn't the last we've seen of Sapphire and Night Watch in this story. They'll come up again!
9358929
Her job is really stressful okay?
9358929 Or Cadance is simply a good subject for a (or the) central conflict of the story. Clearly Cadance, Princess of Love, has serious issues with her hubby having intimate relations with bug-horses (or maybe anyone), and there's little she feels she can do about it. We can presume it happened with Chrysalis, and we know it happened with Amaryllis.
It's an interesting combination: the Princess of Love and her issues with jealousy...
9358999
I love a good zinger at the end of a chapter.
9358970
memegenerator.net/img/instances/73210870/whose-awesome-youre-awesome.jpg
We'll find out before the end.
What happened with the sugar cookies, Double?
What did you bake?
Oh no, she's so happy with it. So happy.
She's the Princess of Love! How could she not be happy?
9358982
I mean the main event that halted the war was that literally the entire hive boinked her husband by psychic proxy.
That said, Cadance has managed to come off in the prequel as rather extreme and vindictive even to other ponies, so...yeah. Like, she just shrugged off a report of child abuse without even thinking to inform any child services the country has.
Well now.. not so sunny in paradise it seems. I hope we get to see a scene in which Cadance begins to fully understand exactly how much control she has over Double, and what she is capable of doing with such power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
9358993 "Well, ok. Just don't shake it."
"Good. Now make your butt glow. I want to read a book."
9359006
Curiously, I don't believe that Cadence is exactly jealous for Shining. She is jealous about Shining's ability to make Double Time open up and laugh with him.
9359057
Now I really want to write a story about a comically evil version of Cadence.
Ah, I see.
Shining was probably drugged by Amaryllis, which implies the whole thing was a Changeling scheme. It would explain how 'sugar cookies with red hearts on them' could be a mean joke, as that was how he got drugged.
And man, Double Time really, really doesn't like Cadence.
9358970
It depends if the "Sugar Cookies," incident and "killed ponies," are one and the same or separate. If its one and the same I wonder if which adjectives (agonizing, humiliating, painless, quick, slow, etc.) describe the poison she used.
9359025
"memegenerator.net/img/instances/73210870/whose-awesome-youre-awesome.jpg"
Heh, thanks. :)
"We'll find out before the end.
What happened with the sugar cookies, Double?
What did you bake?"
...I can't tell how serious you are, but I like it either way. :D
(Though I do suspect you're serious enough that we more likely then not will find out before the end... but I'm still not sure.)
"Oh no, she's so happy with it. So happy.
She's the Princess of Love! How could she not be happy?"
Ah, right, of course, how silly of me. I mean, what sort of proper Princess of Love could possibly be unhappy with that?
In surely unrelated news, I hear that she's been finding her job as Princess a bit stressful recently...
9358912
Eh... I'm not too keen on Cadance in this fic at the momment.
9359128
Give her a chance.
Things are complicated right now.
9359042
We don't if she shrugged it off. Maybe Cadance took a mental note of it in her mind.
Course, it's also entirely possible that Cadance is actually both the parents and abuses the foals. As such, she would obviously not act on the report.
Queen Amaryllis is a real bitch. Nice way to illustrate that having the magic of friendship doesn't change the core of who a changeling is, GaP. :)
9359196
Thorax was a big snuggly cinnamon roll even back when he had holes in his legs and hissed a lot.
Double was a serious, stern minded person before, and she was a serious stern minded person after.
Amaryllis was Queen before and f*** all if she's giving up that power and privilege just because suddenly she's the color of rainbow Skittles.
9359221
To be a queen is not necessarily to be a bitch, but Amaryllis is a bitch. She knows very well that the 'old guard' will obey to a frankly irrational degree and so effectively makes Double into a slave because it amuses her. And according to Double, she was always like that.
So yeah, Amaryllis is a real bitch, and friendship doesn't change anything. :P
9359066 You could be right. I am looking forward to finding out.
9359196
Really, I think that’s the point, and maybe more importantly, it explains so much.
Light Step doesn’t/didn’t struggle to get along with her family. Her struggle is/was getting along with ponies. Double Time is not a pony.
Cadance is the Princess of Love. If it’s about love, she can understand it. She is the pony Princess of Love. Amaryllis is not a pony, and neither is Double Time.
A core theme of this story appears to be a simple one: Changelings are not ponies, and no matter how reformed they are, they never will be. They will forever be alien to ponies, even if only just so.
Cadance is jealous of Amaryllis because of Shining, but feels she shouldn’t be, can’t be because no matter how you slice it, Shining probably saved hundreds or thousands of lives, pony and changeling both. She also clearly feels inadequate because she can’t figure out the dynamic between herself, Shining, and Amaryllis because of what happened, because she is a pony and Amaryllis is not; what happened carries fundamentally different meanings for both of them.
9358912
Not necessarily. Cadance simply stated that Double Time can’t adopt those goals because they aren’t orphans. It ties in with her also trying to figure out a way to let Double go by getting a guarantee that she won’t break anymore laws. Whether she realizes it or not, she’s a legalist; you obey the law because it’s the law, and not for any other reason. She clearly unnerved with the treatment those foals receive, but her first reaction is to paraphrase what the law says and leave it at that. Or look at the last story; in Cadance’s mind, Light should have apologized to Twilight because she told her to, she is a Princess, and you do whatever the Princess tells you to do because fuck you, obey the law. If she’s going to grow in this regard, it’s only going to happen if she gets over the idea that laws should be obeyed because they provide a framework in which conflict can be meaningfully resolved, not just because they are laws.
Or maybe I’m reading too deeply into this and just wasted everyone’s time with navel gazing. We May never know.
9359042
You assume there are some kind of child services to report anything too. Equestria is a weird late medieval/early industrial hybrid society; the concept of child welfare is a post-industrial idea, and may not exist in the sub-idyllic Equestria this story is set in.
I feel like I have missed a little backstorry at the end.
Does somebody have a list of Shining-Changeling encounters?
Those last lines - right in the feels.
Clearly you just need to put the jar in another larger jar, and everyone wins.
This was the highlight of the chapter and you take a complete cop out for the punchline. I am just going to assume she picked up a conveniently placed hard thing, such as a lamp, and smacked Double with it, but
please complete the mini story next time, I am dying.
It's really interesting how you have Shining be the reasonable one. Subverting that fandom cliche, eh?
Cadance needs to de-stress. Good grief!
Keep going! ;)
Wow, what a bitch~
9359417
They were arguing over and coming up with absurdly ineffectual ways to imprison a Changeling. Plus, one of them was Flash, so that goes without saying.
Poor Cadence. I don't think she'll ever quite get a handle on changelings. And she's really not in the mood for Double making the situation even more complex than it already is.
9359230
I think you're onto something with the Law Cannot Comprehend Chaos angle. (Or, at least, Law Cannot Comprehend Different Law. Amaryllis's word is as unquestionable for Double as Equestrian legislature is for Cadence, and each sees the other's code of law as ultimately arbitrary.) Meanwhile, Shining approaches Double as a person to talk to rather than a problem to be solved, and look at that! She's open to him. It makes me wonder how Twilight would handle her. Theoretically, the Princess of Friendship might friend her way into whatever organ powers the changeling circulatory system. In practice... well, we saw how she handled Light getting arrested.
This is excellent so far! Looking forward to more chapters!
People who are perfectly comfortable with polyamory in the abstract are often less so with the ding an sich.
9359006
Repeatedly with bug horses. She is the Princess of love. He was with Amaryllis and Chrysalis, and he scrumped an entire hive of bug horses into submission. She probably feels like she shouldn’t even have competition and here it is left right and centre.
From her perspective Shining is a better lover, husband and ruler than the freaking alicorn of love is.
So yeah she’s jealous.
Plus there is the hall love eating bug monster thing. And training is apparently okay with them even after the wedding and war and whatnot.
“I didn’t say kidnapping. I could convince their parents to disown them.”
I was thinking she was considering MAKING them orphans, possibly by podding the parents, but perhaps that is more Chryssy than Double Time.
Double your pleasure double your fun. Hey look, two sources of love, two jerkfaces to pod, its a win win, win win. Four love sources for the price of one.
9359042
Going to child services on the word of a criminal changeling who committed a crime to facilitate sedition? Maybe she will _eventually_ look into it. Cadance is more concerned about the possibly traitorous attitude of Light. Plus maybe she is a fan of corporeal punishment for raising kids and doubts Double Time’s motivations.
9359221
Yeah. it's like in Achewood when Pat realized he was gay. He's still Pat. Just gay.
I love how you turned a one off line in the first story into a compelling piece on marriage drama.
Cadence is portrayed very negatively in both stories so far but I think that's understandable in context.
I like to think Cadence is projecting her frustration and despair onto Double Time and others around her to reflect her own impotent rage at her husband's infidelity. After all how can you blame Shining for cheating to save thousands of lives?
You can't and that is what is killing Cadence.
Look forward to seeing more
9359006
I did say I was on board with it...
I actually think it's more along the lines of what 9359230 and 9359558 were saying. Cadance has always tried to do the right thing. Of course, she's okay with an open marriage, she's the Princess of Love and she could never be insecure! By extension, she's always used to knowing what the right thing to do is. Double Time wants to break the law: Criminal. She knows that it's a little more complicated than that, but she can't see it properly yet and when she does she won't have the mental framework to deal with it.
9359000
So, it's not a deconstruction fic? Cool.
WHOAAAAAA.
9359706
When you really get down to it, pretty much everything in this line of stories is a deconstruction fic. The main character, in order to survive and grow, has to allow themselves to be deconstructed so they can figure out how to put themselves together in a better way.
9359069
Comically evil and inept. The inept part makes it better. She keeps trying to be evil, but good happens instead, so she gets more and more upset until the world is a paradise, everyone loves her forever, she has supreme power and got everything her evil self wanted BUT NOT THE RIGHT WAY so it means nothing
At first I thought that the "bug in a jar" thing was a throwback to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, but then I realized it actually was in one of Rowling's books. It even had the same enchantment.
Okay, that's power. I am no longer surprised with changeling military prowess. And this was also one of the themes of HPMoR
Oh god this is exactly what they'd do, wouldn't they? This so obvious in hindsight.
Hmm, ya know now that I think about it. We never actually knew just how Cadence really felt about Shining's diplomatic skills from that previous conflict. Whether she boasted about it or not at a dinner table, seeing as it's clear she has many masks. Guess it left a few doubts in her head, let alone Shining being such a relatable and relaxing pony to be around.
Still though, Sheesh Cadance.
I swear man, everyone always stresses her out in the serious stories.
Also, what exactly about Sugar cookies?