The Honeymoon

by Spica

The way the wind blew (2)

“I think you should reconsider that, Princess.”

All the heads in the room turned to Twilight Sparkle, who was addressing the royal mare.

“There will be nothing good coming from breaking them up. Both of them should be coming to Ponyville.”

“Twily--” began Shining, before being interrupted by his sister.

“Hush, Shining Armor. I’m still disappointed of you and your reckless usage of magic. But you have an absolute lack of understanding when it comes to possessing a mare’s body, and Cadence has no military training at all. You both should come to a more tranquil place... relatively speaking.”

The lavender unicorn turned her gaze towards the Princesses, who looked towards each other. The unicorn doctor, Sharp Scalpel took a step forward.

“I’m afraid I do not understand the current situation, Princess. I believe you were going to cast some light upon it for us?”

“Yes, I think that shall be in order right now.”

Celestia beckoned the doctor and the vice-captain to come closer to her and she relayed the story to both ponies’ attentive ears. Once she was finished, the military pony could do naught but look at Shining Armor in Cadence’s body with his jaw wide open.

“Shut your trap, Shield,” said the captain turned Princess, seeing the gleam on the other unicorn’s eyes. Shield’s mouth formed a slight grin. Sharp Scalpel, meanwhile, had his eyes shifting from the princess’ body towards the guard captain’s body with a look of absolute interest.

“Amazing. I had read a couple of reports about a situation like this, but given how rare it is, I doubted I would ever see it with my own eyes. Who would have thought.”

The royal doctor walked around, observing the couple. He stopped in front of Shining. “Captain? How do you feel?”
Shining Armor looked towards the doctor with an expression of uncertainty in his face. “Of course I feel quite weird. I didn’t plan to come back from vacation incarnated as my pregnant wife.” He looked at his sides. “I do like having wings, though. Even though I can’t fly just yet, they’re pretty good for keeping warm...”

A chuckle came from everypony in the room except Twilight and Luna. The doctor nodded and looked at him. “Could I do a check-up on you?”

“Proceed, doctor.” Scalpel nodded, producing a stethoscope from a pocket in his robe. He put it on the princess’ chest, listening. He retired it and pointed his horn towards Shining, gleaming with a golden hue. The captain of the guard felt somewhat ticklish while the spell scanned him. When the scanning spell was over, the doctor looked curiously towards Shining.

“The scanning spell doesn’t show any trace of your pregnancy, in such an extremely early state. That body swapping spell must really have a safe mode locked in, for it to discern your uncommon circumstances. Perhaps it’d be worth it investigating it. I assume you have knowledge of its workings, Princess Cadence?” One white unicorn looked to the other. Cadence drew back a gulp.

“Yes... I have it in my personal library. I could look up the book for you if you want it.”

“That would be very helpful from you, Princess.” He then turned back to Celestia. “There’s nothing I can infer safely now, I’d like to monitor this closely if your majesty will allow it. And I am, with the due respect towards your highness, agreeing with Ms. Sparkle here. It would be most beneficial for everypony involved.”

Celestia swept the room with her gaze, stopping to look at Luna. “What do you think, Luna?”

“I suppose we could work at it from another angle. It would certainly be less effort for certain things. The sudden removal of both the third princess and the captain of the Royal Guard would arise talk on Equestria, though. We will have to broaden the circle a little more, sister.”

Celestia sighed, looking towards the couple. She then turned towards Iron Shield. “Vice-captain, please bring your most trusted Lieutenant here.”
“At haste, Princess.” Iron Shield turned tail, trotting out of the room.

“Cadence, dear, why did you go and turned this all on its head? It was pretty tough dealing with the Changeling incident. I hope nothing of the sort happens so soon.” After speaking, Celestia sat next to her sister.

“If you excuse me, Princess,” said Twilight’s mother, talking quietly towards the royal mare. “Does this mean you’ll be sending them both to Ponyville?”

Celestia smiled at her, nodding. “That is what we’re going to do, Star Gleam.”

“First Twilight, and now Shining as well?” The white coated mare approached her son and crossed her neck with him, closing her eyes. “I’m going to miss you, Shiny.”

“I’m going to miss you too, mom.” He looked at her when they disentangled. “But perhaps you and dad could now come to Ponyville sometime. You’re always going on and on how much you miss Twilight, but you’ve never taken a chance to see her new life.” Twilight moved uncomfortably in the back.

“You’re right, Shining. It’d be a good time for us to see how Twilight’s been doing. You little missy are almost always on something or other thing and rarely write to us!”

The lavender unicorn shifted awkwardly while sitting on her place. Her father walked next to her and put a hoof on her neck. “Come on, Star, you know Twilight. I’m sure it’ll be quite charming to take a stroll away from Canterlot, anyway. And we have to keep tabs on our oncoming grandfoal, you know?”

“I’ll be waiting for it, dad,” said Twilight with a half-baked smile, mentally calculating all the details of a possible travel of her parents towards Ponyville. The door of the room opened again and Iron Shield came inside again, followed by an grey coated, white haired earth pony who bowed as soon as he stopped walking.

“At your orders, Princesses.”

“Safe Step is your name, isn’t it?” asked Celestia.

“Indeed, Princess,” answered Step, after lifting his head.
“Very well, Step. I will be clear with you. We have a situation developing in our hooves, and we would require of your help. However what we will ask of you is a quite difficult mission, so you must hear carefully what I will tell you, understand?”

“I understand, your majesty.”

“Very well.” Celestia breathed, closing her eyes. She then opened them and turned to her sister. “Luna, tell him the story. I’m rather tired of talking so much...”

General silence invaded the room as they all looked at the Princess of the Sun, gawking. Luna facehoofed.

“I’m a Princess, not your messenger, Celestia! But ‘tis all just fine. Come over here, gentlecolt.”

The lieutenant followed Luna’s instructions, standing in front of her. Clearing her throat, the Princess of the Night pointed towards Cadence’s body.

“Your Captain, Shining Armor and the third Princess, Cadence, had a little magical accident, and are now trapped in each other’s body. That one is Shining Armor.”

Safe Step blinked, looking towards Shining Armor in Cadence’s body and then towards the princess inhabiting her husband’s body. He turned back towards Luna.

“Pardon me, Princess, but this is not any sort of joke, is it?”

“I’m afraid it is not, lieutenant. The happy couple decided that a certain... experiment was a safe bet for them while in their honeymoon. It turned out not to be the case, and the Princess wound up pregnant while Shining Armor inhabited her body. Now they cannot turn back.”

His mouth was closer to the ground with every word Luna said. He trotted over to the Captain and looked at him, almost piercing him with his eyes. Shining snorted.

“Lieutenant, you’re making me uncomfortable. Piss off,” said Shining, with a shadow of a smirk in his lips. “You could end up with a whole month’s worth of training regime. Twice a day.”
“It is you!” shrieked Safe Step, letting a myriad of loud laughter come out of his mouth. When he recovered he looked around him, to find all the occupants of the room looking at him. Shining had a murderous look on him, Iron Shield facehoofed, Twilight, Star Gleam and Luna glared at him while Celestia, Night Shade -Twilight’s father- and the doctor simply looked away.

“I am deeply sorry, everypony,” said Step, while clearing his throat. “I had never heard of such a thing happening though.”

“The last recorded incident of this happened decades ago, lieutenant, and in a small town near Fillydelphia. It wasn’t very well recorded,” explained Luna.

“I understand that, Princess. But what has that got to do with me?”

“It’s been decided that Cadence and Shining Armor will go to Ponyville to stay while the pregnancy lasts. But he cannot simply leave his post unattended for almost a whole year. And that is where we need someone to fill his shoes. You’re going to take Shining Armor’s place and appearance while he gets yours. He’ll go to Ponyville in the capacity of Cadence’s escort while you’ll support Vice-captain Iron Shield in leading the Royal Guard.”

Safe Step didn’t even feel his jaw hitting the ground once more as he processed Luna’s words. His wasn’t the only one, though. Shining looked at Luna in open disbelief.

“Is that for real?!”

“Of course it is, Shining. Would you or Cadence like to say something?” answered Celestia, gazing down to him. He could feel the full weight of Celestia’s might falling down upon him. “This is the least you can do for the tight spot you’ve gotten yourselves in.”

Meanwhile, Luna faced the stricken Lieutenant. “I know there are a lot of things to take into consideration for you, Lieutenant, but this is needed in order not to make a mess out of the statu quo for the kingdom. You’ll be given a day to think it over. However, no single word of this shall get outside, do you understand?”

After some more moments of looking at the Princess in disbelief, he nodded. “Yes, Princess, I understand. I will think it over. If you all excuse me.”

Safe Step exited the room as fast as he could without turning it into a trot, closing the door behind him. Luna watched him go, and let out a sigh when he disappeared. She looked at Celestia. The elder sister saw into her gleaming blue eyes.

“I bet you didn’t miss anything about court intricacies, did you, Luna?”

“I can’t say that I didn’t, but now that I relive them...”

“Well, everypony,” said Celestia, “I think it’s time to call this meeting off. We’re all quite tired and a good night of resting will do marvels upon us. Night Shade, Star Gleam, would you like to be our guests today at palace?”

Night Shade shook his head, smiling to the Princess. “I thank you for the invitation, Princess, but we will head home. We will be back tomorrow.”

“That is fine, as well. Twilight, why don’t you go with your parents? They obviously miss you very much.”

“Yes, I’m going home with them. Thank you, Princess. Good night to you all.”

The three unicorns said goodbye to the ones left in the room and parted from the castle. Iron Shield and Sharp Scalpel parted as well. Celestia turned to Shining and Cadence.

“Well, I think it’s best if we head to our rooms now as well. Good night, Shining, Cadence. Good night, Luna.”

“Good night, sister. Good night to you as well.”

Celestia, Shining and Cadence left the room and headed towards their own quarters. While Shining followed the two mares, seeing his own blue tail swishing, he let out a big sigh.

Comments

[SuperPinkBrony12]

“If you excuse me, Princess,”

In other words:

[GloomyFace]

Well well well
Go on, go on. I wonder what shenanigans will happen once they get to Ponyville.

[Tyek]

Much better.

Ninja edit: I just felt like you were taking the story in the wrong direction last chapter, and that Celestia and Luna's judgements were fairly stupid. But now it seems weird, because Celestia plainly stated "This is not open to discussion or complaint of any kind. This is a royal decree and a family order that you will obey," and then she so easily accepts Twilight's logic. As much as I don't like retcon, maybe you should go back and change the last chapter at least a little bit.

[jakol]

wugr.biz/Benny614tv/Main/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/this-is-gonna-be-good.gif
If it wasn't already!