The last thing Cheval remembered was worrying about her mother.
Cadence lay unconscious on the floor, surrounded by palace guards. Flurry Heart had just finished saying something about forgiveness that Cheval had only half-listened to. She was distracted, wondering if she got the poison dosage exactly right.
She only wanted to depose and kidnap her mother, not to hurt her.
Flurry made a sudden movement. Too late, Cheval lifted her head. Green mist filled her vision.
When the mist cleared, she was standing in her family’s living room, in the royal suite of the palace. Her lungs burned, and coughing seized her, but she retained enough awareness of her environment to notice that the palace guards were gone, as was Flurry. The only other creature in the room was standing right in front of her.
It was her adoptive mother, Princess Cadence, a soft smile on her face.
At once, Cheval tried to summon a defensive shield between the two of them. But her horn sparked, and a shooting pain raced through her temples. Still coughing, spluttering, she tried instead to turn into a fearsome dragon. But when she should have changed forms, little blue sparks crackled off her carapace, and pain erupted in her limbs.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Cadence said, so soft she was nearly whispering. “You don’t need to fight. You’re not in any danger.”
With no other options, Cheval backed away from her mother until her tail hairs touched the door to the kitchen. She looked around the room, first in a panic-fueled rush, then in more detail as the coughing subsided.
“I’m sure you’re confused,” Cadence said. “Flurry Heart turned you to stone with an alchemical grenade. We waited before restoring you. You don’t need to worry about the coup, or about me. That’s all over now.”
Cheval still didn’t speak, examining the pony before her in detail. As her eyes wandered over the room, she noticed that every way out was shut: every door closed, every window shuttered. It was like standing inside a cave.
When the silence grew too long, Cadence frowned. “I’ve… forgiven you, for poisoning me,” she said. “You made mistakes. You made a lot of mistakes. But that’s in the past. What matters is that you’re back now, and we can be a family again.”
Finally, Cheval said, “Nice try.” Her voice dripped contempt and a sneer touched her face, showing off her pointed teeth.
Cadence’s frown deepened. “Cheval, sweetie. It’s true. I know this is a lot to—”
“Okay,” Cheval snapped, “Whatever your name is, a few tips. First, Mom doesn’t call me ‘sweetie;’ she calls me ‘dear.’ Second, her coat and mane aren’t actually that shiny. She puts on a lot of makeup to make them look that good in public, but I don’t see any makeup on you, so, maybe next time don’t base your disguise on photographs of the target. Oh, and third, this isn’t my family living room.”
She pointed at an easy chair, sitting next to the couch. “That’s a nice chair. And that’s not supposed to be a nice chair. It’s supposed to be dad’s special chair, which is a stupid, threadbare, worn out bit of cloth and corkboard he brought all the way up from Canterlot because he’s convinced it’s the best chair in the universe and he refuses to throw it out.”
She let out a snort to emphasize her words, then finished: “So how about you tell Amaryllis I’d like to speak with her, and that she can go fuck herself, not necessarily in that order.”
Cadence said nothing for several seconds. She licked her lips and looked at the floor. “I called you ‘sweetie’ sometimes.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“And I switched to a new shampoo a few years ago. Some newfangled stuff with fancy chemicals in it. It works great.”
“Not buying it.” Cheval laughed a thin laugh.
“And we threw out that chair when it finally snapped in half.”
“Good improvisation. Nice technique, really. But if that chair shattered into a thousand pieces, dad would glue every one of them back together.” She slowly shook her head. “I played in that room every day when I was a nymph. I read there when I was a teenager. I had to clean every inch of it when I tried to eat solid food and vomited slime over the carpet. You think I don’t know what it looks like?”
“You were turned to stone,” Cadence said, her eyes still downcast.
“Sure,” Cheval took a moment to think. “I’ll believe that. But Flurry didn’t ice me until after I put her on the throne, and if Amaryllis is bothering with this elaborate ruse, I take it that means Flurry is holding her own. Or, maybe she’s winning?” Cheval’s tone turned mocking. “Is the hive not doing so well?”
“Amaryllis is dead,” Cadence said, her voice thickening. She licked her lips and added, “And we threw out that chair when it finally snapped in half.”
“Heh.” A stiff smile appeared on Cheval’s face. “Fuck you,” she said. Then she added, “You think I can’t tell the difference between my mother’s love and another changeling regurgitating energy back at me? You’re a bad fake.”
“I know this is a shock.” Cadence lifted her head to look at Cheval head on. “I didn’t want to leave you petrified for so long. But there is no Amaryllis. There are no changeling infiltrators anymore. The war is over. And whatever things you did, whatever mistakes you made, you’ve been punished enough. All I want is to help you and—”
Cheval lashed out with a leg, kicking over an end table and sending it flying Cadence’s way. She charged, and as the flying projectile caught Cadence’s attention, Cheval lowered her head.
With a burst of magic off her horn, Cadence deflected the table away. Moments later, Cheval wrapped a leg around Cadence’s neck and pressed her horn against her throat.
Cheval’s horn came to a point like a sword. It’s tip drew blood from beneath a thin pink coat. Cadence gasped, and froze stiff on the spot.
“You’re not my mother,” Cheval snarled. The doors to the hallway burst open, and crystal ponies in strange uniforms charged in. “Back off!” Cheval snapped. “Back off or I will kill this one.”
“It’s okay,” Cadence gasped. “It’s okay, back away.” The guards did not seem inclined to obey her, forming a circle around the two of them. “Cheval, the… the windows are unlocked. They’re unlocked. You can jump out one and fly away.”
After a moment’s hesitation, her eyes flicking back and forth, Cheval agreed. “Fine. Shuffle that way. Slowly.” It was an awkward movement. Cheval had to keep her head down, with her forehead pointed at Cadence’s throat. The guards moved around them as they moved, one tiny step at a time.
Then they came to the window. “Go ahead,” Cadence said. “It’s fine.”
“Open it,” Cheval ordered. The window glowed and the shutters lifted. Then the glass pane behind them swung outwards. A sudden blast of chill arctic air made it clear the window opened to the outside, and the sounds of city life could be faintly heard in the distance.
Cheval shivered. Then she pushed Cadence away, spread her wings, and leapt out the window. She didn’t get thirty feet.
The Crystal Empire wasn’t supposed to have skyscrapers.
She squinted into the setting sun. A strange skyline was before her, visible only in silhouette. There were buildings that dwarfed the palace, carved from massive shards of imperial crystal. Trains on elevated rails ran down every street. A cloud city held station over the ground below, home to the pegasi who flew thick as flies.
When the sun stung her eyes too much, she looked away. Eventually, a pink glow surrounded her, and Cadence’s magic pulled her back in through the window. Cadence was still there, along with all the guards.
“You’re hurt,” Cheval said. Her movements were sluggish and jerky, but she managed to turn her eyes to the trail of blood running down Cadence’s neck. “I hurt you.”
Cadence shooed the guards away. “It’s okay,” she cooed. “No harm done.”
“No. No. I…” Cheval reached out a hoof to Cadence, putting it over the wound as though to staunch the blood. It was wholly unnecessary—she’d drawn only a few drops. “I hurt you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“I know. I know.” Cadence said. “It’s okay.”
A faint shiver in Cheval’s torso built to a trembling in her limbs, until her hoof couldn’t hold steady on Cadence’s neck. Blood smeared. “No no. I hurt you. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I know. Cheval, I’m your mother.” Cadence reached out to hold her with both hooves. “I know you. I know what happened. I know who you are, I know what you are, and I love you. I’ve forgiven you for everything that happened. I want us to be a family again. I want you to be happy again. It’ll be okay.”
Cheval worked her jaw open and shut without making a sound. She flicked her tongue over her pointed teeth.
“How long?” she asked.
Cadence drew in a breath. “Fifty-two years.”
Amaryllis is gone, and Shining Armor's comfy chair is missing. Why do I think those two facts are related?
(No, I don't mean she was disguised as the chair. Sigh.)
Tracking.
Oof! Fifty-two Year’s! That’s quite a bit to be petrified for! Definitely tracking this one!
Holy Shasta! What an opener!
Fav'd and eagerly awaiting there next chapters!
Amarylis is dead and i hope this bullshit about changeling reformation is over.
Ah, no surprise that this is also going to be a tough one.
Fifty-two years.
Twilight was thirty-six when the war started. Shining must have been... I don’t know. Forty? Forty-two? Maybe even forty-six, I don’t know.
Fifty-two years.
Reading this today was a terrible idea.
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I swear on all that's holy this one has a completely 100% happy ending. Not bittersweet, not dark happy, 100% happy.
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I’ll be fine. There’s just a lot that happened in the last 24 hours.
I’m holding you to that claim, though. You’d better not be lying.
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This story is the reason I kept saying all the other stories end well (when I know others didn't feel the same way). This doesn't just wrap up Cheval's arc -- it concludes Light Step's story, Double Time's, Twilight's, and all the others. It's the true capstone of the series.
And it's happy.
Ah, well, this arrives. :D And you're welcome. :)
Though any particular reason for calling it the Third Wheel series rather than the Sparkle Family Series?
On to the chapter...
(Oh, though nice-looking cover art. I wonder if it means the time period of the story is earlier than I'd been expecting?)
Hm. Cadence and Cheval, together somewhere that looks like the Crystal Empire's palace? Curious. Before Cadence's banishment, after it's lifted, during an exception... or somewhere that just looks like that room?
"First, mom doesn’t call me"
"First, Mom doesn’t call me"?
"day when I was kid"
"day when I was a kid"?
"the window opened the outside"
"the window opened to the outside"?
Well, interesting start, unsurprisingly. :D
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...Oo. Aye, sorry, if you're thinking of what I think you are. And if not, too, really, since clearly it's bothering you through some vector.
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...See. I'm not saying I expect it to not have a good ending, nor that I'm not looking forward to enjoying the story. But "happy" is somewhat in the eye of the beholder, and with this series's track record, I'm afraid I'm kind of skeptical just how widely accepted the interpretation of a happy ending will be. Though I hope at least the majority of the readership finds it satisfying one way or another, of course. :)
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Oh, interesting, though. :)
Well, we'll see how things develop!
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Not everybody follows my blog. If I ever put these into a book (Bronycon Bookstore maybe), it'll be called the Sparkle Family Series, but for this description I wanted to make sure nobody got confused.
Not so early as that, but the cover art will become specifically relevant! I was quite lucky to find cover art that fight so well.
TOGETHER TO VICTORY
In fairness to Cheval, this isn't quite the room she grew up in anymore.
And the typos are corrected, again with my thanks!
Ok, but why 52 years? Why Cheval was a stone so many years?
52 years? Shining is gone. He was an alright pony :(
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I thought only mimics were allowed to be furniture, like chests and gazebos. Unwritten Law and all that.
52 years as a statue. I'm curious as to Flurry's reasoning as to why such a long time was necessary.
9614524
Ah, thanks. :)
Oh, interesting. :) Though you say you just found it? Also interesting; I wonder what it was from originally, or if someone just thought it was a neat idea. Maybe the HoIIV pony mod...
And aye, I typed the text into Google Translate. :) (Which was fortunately able to inform me that those leading letters were Zs in English transcription.)
Aye.
And you're quite welcome. :)
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I would expect it was not due to strictly rational reasoning, but emotional reasons.
Oh...what the Hell, I was suckered into reading Virgin Princess, may as well finish this whole thing out.
Fifty-two years? Clever. Such a huge time skip allows you to gloss over the impossible situation you left for everyone at the end of the last two stories; you can summarize and show biased perspectives from people without complete knowledge and without going into too much detail, which is where A Foreign Education and Virgin Princess faltered on the world building front. Functionally we’re in a whole new world now, which is the only reason why I’m giving this a shot. You built a compelling world once, lets see if you can do it again.
Though the cover art does have me worried that instead we’re going to get a lot of flashbacks. Which may or may not be problematic given your Doolittle analogy from the last story plus your promise that the other changeling grubs from Courtesans would be relevant here.
Don’t put in a Stauffenberg expy. That’s all I’m asking. The world you built doesn’t have room for one.
The title has also worried me since the moment you revealed it. I want to know what happened to Thorax, Chrysalis, and the Badlands Hive. Because I want to be wrong about where I think you’re going.
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You said that about both your previous stories when nothing could have been further from the truth for either of them, so I’ll just be over here handing out grains of salt to passers-by. Which reminds me, Dzamie had a post where he laid out basically all my problems with Virgin Princess now that I’ve given it a full read-through, and you said there was a lot to unpack there...but never did, in fact, unpack anything, vis-a-vis what you say about what being an alicorn does to Twilight verses what you actually showed her doing in the fic.
I’d also like to add that you made Twilight impossibly arrogant, but that was a whole fic ago so let’s move on past that.
Mainly I still want to know how you square Cadance being caught at one moment in time with the fact that the very first thing we ever saw her do was be emotionally abusive towards Light Step in snap retaliation for her mouthing off to Shining Armor, and then spent much of the next fic doing the same to Double Time, but more methodically over the course of days rather than in a single moment of anger, using Double as a proxy for her obvious hatred of Amaryllis.
They don’t jive well and it’s the reason why I said I didn’t assassinate Cadance’s character in Another Road. You can’t kill something that’s already dead.
Which also reminds me, something that’s been bothering me about Twilight since Third Wheel...why sixteen?
Ponies don’t age like humans (or real ponies for that matter); Pinkie’s “Monthiversary” song is proof positive of that. Plus the show has been notoriously vague on age, with the only concrete thing known for sure about our main characters is that Fluttershy is a year older than Pinkie. But in spite of that, we do know that the Mane-6 were intended to be adults. Rainbow Dash manages weather for an entire town, Rarity owns her own business, Fluttershy and Twilight live by themselves with no parental supervision, Pinkie lives far from her home, and Applejack is obviously the “lead” mare of her farm. Sure, the ponies may act childish sometimes, but that’s because it’s a show made for children, so the intent is to make them relatable to children
But “sixteen” in the context of your series (presumably not written with the 8-12 year-old target audience of the show in mind) was pretty obviously supposed to equate to the human age of sixteen. Fair enough...but why did you do it? Why did you make Twilight younger than she is in the show?
“I felt like it” is a fine answer, by the way, if that’s the case, though it does raise some questions about why a teenager was hanging out with adults...unless the Mane-6 were aged back as well, but that raises a lot of questions too. Like, how did a teenager like Rarity open her own business.
Still, I am interested in the logic behind it. And not in a vitriolic way.
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Of course Shining is gone, he’s a pointless character at this point. His major character trait from Courtesans, that he looks for the good in people and finds it, was given to Cadance instead; he didn’t even have a single spoken line in A Foreign Education, being about as essential to the plot as Flash Sentry was to the third Equestria Girls movie, and the only real thing left for him to do, avenge himself on Amaryllis, happened some fifty years ago.
Cheval didn’t even think about him or imply that she missed him or cared about him in Education. If she thinks about him or really does anything regarding him now at all it’d be extremely out of left field. Shock at his age if he’s alive, or a dull sense of loss if he’s dead. Maybe start to finally build a relationship with him at the end of his life. But that’s it.
We might get flashbacks with him, I guess, but Jaxie made it pretty clear that he’s not really part of Cheval’s arc, and I retain enough faith in him as a writer that he wouldn’t try and clumsily weld him into place now.
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That’d depend on Flurry’s emotional state when she got her cutie mark and whether or not getting it froze her in that moment.
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If I had to guess, she wasn't released until some specific event happened recently to get the ball rolling. Probably a death. Probably the reason for the story title, if there is a reason that would happen with the reformed changelings (assuming it wasn't a deception all along).
My guess is some kind of Red Dwarf scenario where it wasn't possible to release her without her dying from some lingering spell effect that removed all other changelings.
Wait... is this an Equestria at War story or not?
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If it’s supposed to be happy, then why does it have a “Sad” tag on it?
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This is the same guy that thought Twilight being emotionally trapped as a sixteen year old arrogant enough to believe that only she can be a good enough friend to others to help them through their trying times and unable to grow past that point, with a sister who decides to leave her trapped in that state because I guess happiness is happiness even if you lose your ability to be a person, was a happy ending. Jaxie did say that he processes happiness different from most people (“differently” in this case being “you know, the Toclafane in Doctor Who were on to something”). It’s why, like I said, I’m gonna be standing off to the side handing out free grains of salt to passers-by.
Given the title, as well, there’s a pretty good chance that Thorax’s entire Hive is dead, either through violence (which depending on the circumstances I may be able to tolerate) or else because without a Queen they couldn’t reproduce (which means Jaxie didn’t have Chrysalis reform, which...fair enough, but I’d bet my life savings that’s not how the show will play out). I am REALLY hoping that calling Cheval the last changeling is a metaphor here. Like, she’s the last “classic” changeling and the reformed ones are fine.
But, more broadly, you can have a sad story with a happy ending. Schindler’s List has a happy ending, but there’s not a whole lot of happiness on the way there.
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Incorrect, Twilight was 16... Twilight IS 16... Twilight will forever be 16... Oh god, that still hurts.
Well now. Great-Aunt Luna may have a few words for Cheval when it comes to adapting to this kind of temporal displacement (inasmuch as an alicorn can adapt to anything in this setting.) It will definitely be interesting to see how you bring it all home. Looking forward to seeing where you go with this, and precisely what you have in mind when you say it has a truly, unequivocally happy ending.
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Don't take this the wrong way, but...
i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/023/021/e02e5ffb5f980cd8262cf7f0ae00a4a9_press-x-to-doubt-memes-memesuper-la-noire-doubt-meme_419-238.png
I'm probably going to be proven wrong (and I hope I am), but at this point I can't help but feel a bit suspicious.
Well let's see how this train wreck unfolds.
Oh, also, just noticed a minor thing.
Cadance’s magic is actually blue; just double-checked it against the Tatzelwurm episode, among others.
Quick way to remember: Since Season 2, magic color almost always matches the major color in the cutie mark (and usually but not always eye color), since that creates a nice color balance. The only major exceptions I know of are Trixie (pink magic, blue cutie mark, but then her mark is often obscured by her cape and so the magic is intended to compliment that instead, plus it does match the eyes) and Sweetie Belle (green magic, weird cutie mark, but then it again matches her eyes and the magic color was solidified by the show well before the cutie mark was granted).
Of course another way to remember specifically with Cadance is that Shining Armor has the same pink glow as Twilight, and Cadance’s color is the opposite of his to form a nice contrast.
Unless the intent is to hint that this isn’t actually Cadance. The original Season 2 finale did this with Chrysalis’ green magic while in Cadance’s form, and in my own Crisis on Two Equestrias it was a major hint to Applejack that the Trixie she was talking to, who’s magic was blue instead of pink, wasn’t the Trixie she knew.
I hope Shining's alive. Old, but alive. Losing her father like that would hurt, even if she still has a mother and sister.
Light Step has something close to 90 now. Probably alive (Twilight would find a way to extend her life if she wanted and that's even remotely possible). But the grandparents are certainly dead
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Ain't Flurry's magic pink?
9615000
Gold, actually.
9615007
Then dunno, to make Shining live forever they turned him into an Alicorn, but he came out as a copy of Cadence? Did Shining call her sweetie, I can't remember.
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I’m pretty sure it’s just a typo.
More please
Good job on the paranoia and cheval pointing out what she thought were flaws.
9614919
Fun fact, Sunset Shimmer's magic actually changed color. It was originally teal to match her eyes, but in more recent specials it's red.
Aaaand instantly put on the list of stories to track. Definitely looking forward to this one.
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Which matches her cutie mark. Pottery. Plus they probably wanted to give her a totally distinct magical color from the other girls, none of whom use red (usually Dash’s color, though).
In my own writings it’s possible for a unicorn to change the natural, reflexive color of his or her magic, but it’s described as being kind of like training yourself to be a lefty instead of a righty. Lunaverse Trixie originally had pink magic just like her Maneverse counterpart, but worked to make it blue so that it’d be more like Luna’s.
But the main thrust of the matter is that Cadance’s magic is supposed to be blue going by canon, so either there’s a typo up there, or something fishy is going on.
Oh, also, it’s canonically spelled “Cadance”, not “Cadence”, but I’ve decided to let that one go.
Another entry in the Contagious Depression Saga. BRING IT.
Seeing this on the front page, I really, really need to read the first one. And then the rest in order.
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It's a really good series! You would enjoy it.
One thing to say:
OOF.
I have just one thing to say.
https://youtu.be/BDhJU_cNCZE
Oh wow, I'm loving this updated setting. And how emotionally raw this story is right from the get-go.
Can someone or somepony tell me if Twilight's friends are dead?
9774567
They are most certainly all dead, or really old