Everyone Knows It's Cady

by Skywriter

3. Monoceros

Night. The sterncastle of the Bahamoot.

It is one thing to witness the scale of this airship from without. When you are deep within it, its expanse becomes positively inconceivable. The upper decks of this ship literally comprise the foreign quarter of the city. Deep below, an endless series of converted cargo holds encloses the entire operations of the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation. The ship's sterncastle, as it turns out, contains the private apartments of some of this city's Most Important Ponies.

I am not here against my will. It would have been next to impossible for them to take me against my will. But in that parlor, I saw a situation brewing, a drama that might fracture my relationship with the Resident Minister once and for all. The red-cloaked ponies shadow us all the way through the spacious and well-appointed corridors of the sterncastle. The corridors are lined with hardwood trim and bedecked with classical art. I forget I am within a ship. I forget I am in a city thousands of yards removed from terra firma. I forget, just for a moment, that I am not in Canterlot.

We pass several checkpoints on our way. Each of them is monitored by yet another pair of red-cloaked ponies bearing ceremonial axes. It is the traditional garb of pegasus attending officers from the golden age of Pegasopolis, not terribly unusual to see in the city. Their cloaks are closed with bronze brooches in the shape of a stylized, slightly furled navigational chart. I have never seen the Duchess face-to-face, but this must be an image of her Cutie Mark.

We eventually reach an opulent private atrium somewhere deep within the ship. Outdoors, it is night, but bright, artificial light floods down from above—daystones, probably. The wood paneling gives way to cloud-colored marble, featuring cheery ornamental waterfalls trickling down from above into basins below. Was this how the furnishings looked during the ship's years at sail? It would have been decadent, impractical, but so lovely.

"You go on ahead," one of the red-clad lictors says to me, motioning with his head toward a set of engraved double doors. "Your stallion stays here."

"Like Tartarus I do," says Shining Armor, but I silence him with a nod.

Grudgingly, Shining Armor stands down. I stride over toward the door, open it, and vanish into a dream.

That's how it appears, anyway. My hooves immediately cease ringing against wood and stone and strike soft cloud instead. I look around in wonder.

The room I find myself in is lit as brightly as afternoon, with walls the color of the deep blue sky. The walls are partially obscured by the soft, fluffy clouds that fill the room, accentuating the trompe-l'œil effect of the decor. The air is filled with birdsong, and it takes me several moments to notice that it comes from captive birds in brass cages suspended from the ceiling, rather than wild avians.

"Hello?" I call out.

"Aha!" says a voice from within the bizarre chamber. "There you are, at last. I've been dying to have a good excuse to invite you over."

The clouds in front of me part. Perched before me on a delicate tuffet of cumulus is an immaculately white unicorn mare. She wears a long, flowing robin's-egg gown and a pair of cute little golden spectacles. She smiles angelically, hops off her cloud, and trots to me. The gown parts at her flank just for an instant as she walks, and I do indeed see an image of a sea-chart there, just like the pins that the soldiers outside are wearing. Duchess Portolan, then, as though there were ever any doubt.

Meanwhile, I am struggling to catch up. "I ... I see you have cloud-walking magic? Most unicorns don't..."

"No!" she exclaims. "This is all just something the colts in the weather lab whipped up for me. Not actually cloud at all, some sort of fabric and fiberglass. Perfectly solid to all ponies, not just pegasi, and they assure me the sensation is nearly identical. Oh, but I envy ponies like you, who get to have the authentic experience. You can walk on cloud yourself, can you not?"

"I'm ... an alicorn. I have the inherent magical properties of all three tribes of pony, yes. I'm sorry, what—what is all this—"

"My pegasus room. I've always considered it an absolute crime of luck that I was born a unicorn rather than a pegasus pony. I have such a pegasus spirit. Always have. Nothing wrong with a pony indulging in a little imagination from time to time. Wouldn't you agree, Your Highness?"

"N—no, of course not—rather, of course, nothing wrong with it, I agree."

"Fabulous. I sensed you were a pony of vision. Now then, here you are. Her Royal Highness, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Standing here in my pegasus room. Would you like to pull up a cloud?" She turns to look around her miraculous chamber. "I do have quite a few real ones in here."

"Thank you. Perhaps I'll stand."

"Suit yourself!" she says airily. "I just want you to be comfortable." Her voice goes portentous. "...As we discuss your actions of late."

"Duchess," I say. "Your Grace. Let me start by—"

"By using an honorific? For me? Child, you're free to talk down to me. You're a fully-fledged princess. Literally. I do just love your feathers, by the way. Is that amethyst dust at the tips?"

"They're naturally purple." I awkwardly stretch my left one out. "Naturally as of a few months ago, at least." Just one of the many inexplicable cosmetic improvements worked upon my body the moment I set hoof in this city. My mental state changes my biology, sometimes at random. It's really quite unnerving.

"Astonishing," says Duchess Portolan. "But, please, you were in the middle of an explanation for your behavior. Don't let me interrupt you. Haha, haha." She gestures with one hoof. "Go on."

"As ... as I was saying, I was reading stories to some fillies and colts at the public library on the Acropolis, and one of them turned out to be your son."

"Sorry about that, by the way. It wasn't an ideal solution. We're currently between governesses, and the library is an all-access building, to which I make considerable donations. Don't worry, he was being watched. Even if you didn't see anypony watching him."

"He talked with me about the protest, and I decided I had to go see for myself, and ... I got a bit carried away. I'm very sensitive to emotional climates, and there was a lot of unrest outside your airship this afternoon. It led to a ... discharge, I suppose. I am deeply sorry for any unpleasantness this lapse in control may have caused in your operations."

"So, that's it then. That's your full explanation?"

"Yes, I suppose it is."

"Your Highness. Cadance. You think I'm upset about you clearing a protest away from my door?"

"Well, I mean, under the circumstances—"

"The primary circumstance I care about is that those odd-sounding conspiracy ponies have been bothering me for weeks now, and I've been trying to figure out the most diplomatic way to get them off my doorstep. Suddenly you come along and it's done? In an hour? You think that's what I'm upset about?"

"I figured that since it was such an uncontrolled display—"

"You're worried you didn't fit into society's expectations enough? Cadance, you and I are royals! Society fits us, not the other way around! If anypony should be ashamed of their behavior, it's that erratic mob you took care of. Lighting off fireworks, indeed!"

"It ... did seem a little reckless."

"I should say so. And for what? Protesting something that doesn't even exist. You know what some of those daft ponies say? That we grind up underperforming pegasus foals to make rainbows with!"

"Grind them up? They think rainbow is made from pony bodies?"

Duchess Portolan laughs musically. "I know! Absurd! They theorize the existence of this mythical 'Pegasus Device' and then concoct all manner of ridiculous Grand Guignol stories about it. You want to know the secret of the 'Pegasus Device'?"

"I—"

"It's Obnublium. The Cloudsdale Weather Corporation's patented, hyper-efficient water processing process. It's what allowed us to outcompete that hoary old Weather Factory you can read about in the old textbooks, ushering in a whole new age of prosperity and ease for all of Cloudsdale. And I promise you it involves grinding up zero foals."

"If you're not upset about what I did at the protest, then what are you upset at me about?"

Portolan hops back on her cloud and throws her forehooves wide. "That we're meeting under these circumstances! That I practically had to foalnap you to get a meet-and-greet with you!"

"I'm so sorry, have I missed all of your invitations, or...?"

"My invitations?" Portolan smiles at me in open-mouthed wonder. "Cadance, I was expecting no less than a royal order that I meet you the moment you set hoof in this city! I've grown increasingly befuddled at its absence! It's been months! We've reached a breaking point!"

"I ... I should have ordered you to meet with me?"

"How many times must I repeat this! You're. An. Alicorn! You're better than me! You're better than literally everypony else in this grand old city!"

"But that's ... that's no reason to be rude, right?"

"You're amazing, child. Utterly amazing."

I blink, taken aback. "Well. Well. I mean. Speaking in stern terms hasn't gotten me a meeting with Ambassador Sunny Smiles."

Duchess Portolan clucks her tongue. "Rotten business, that. Equestrian social posturing, I'm certain. I can't even meet with Sunny Smiles. I just send her my ledgers so that she can verify that all the bits we get from the Tiara for the weather are being spent correctly. I guess she thinks they're fine, or I'm sure I'd hear about it! You know how fussy upper-crust Canterlot ponies can be."

I laugh a little nervously. "Yes. Yes, I do." The words feel strange in my mouth, spoken in public. I can say this sort of thing in private, in front of Lt. Armor, but to voice it right out in the open feels like a particularly delicious heresy.

"I've half a mind to position a thunderhead right over her embassy one of these days and give her forty days of non-stop rain just for constantly snubbing me." Portolan chuckles at the thought, and I have to admit to myself that her laugh is a little infectious. "At any rate, it is an honor and privilege to finally be talking with you, even though I had to take the first step. I know it's late, but can I get you a little something to eat?"

My stomach lurches, giving a rumble. Portolan's gaze sharpens. She adjusts her gold-rimmed spectacles. When she speaks next, her tone is careful and precise.

"Can I get you," she says, "a lot of something to eat?"

"Yes," I practically squeak.

Her eyes do not leave me as she calls out to one of her lictors. "Brutus!" she sings. "Are we all provisioned for the feast tomorrow with Senator Wreath and his household?"

"We are, Your Grace."

Portolan gives a little smirk. "Send word that it's been canceled. I've just made other plans for the food."

A tiny droplet of liquid pats to the cloud-covered floor. I am barely aware that it comes from my own mouth.

---

"I've heard stories about it. Unverified, of course. But to see it in action is a little astonishing."

I attempt a half-hearted apology around my fifth dish of ova spongia ex lacte. The sweet cream and egg omelet tastes exactly as delicious on its fifth iteration as on its first. Helplessly, I drip a bunch of black pepper honey on dish number six while still stuffing myself with number five. It feels vastly important that there be no interruption in the omelet-to-mouth pipeline.

"I don't understand where the food even goes," she muses. "Is your gut just burning it wholesale?"

"Kind of," I mumble around bite after bite of egg. "Alicorns use up pretty much everything right away."

"Even roughage?"

"I cannot be thwarted by roughage!" I declare. Then I cry a little. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry about this. I'm sorry."

"For the eighth time, Cadance, there is literally nothing to apologize for. Are you starving yourself?"

"Yes," I say. "Most days, I am."

"By all the stars and planets, why, child?"

"Eating so much looks weird. It looks really weird. Aunty Celestia says it looks really weird."

"Cadance! This is Cloudsdale. Your Aunty Celestia holds no sway here. Well, some sway. She could stop funding the weather. But then we'd stop giving her rain. I think you can tell how long that state of affairs would last."

"Forget Aunty Celestia, then," I say. "It's still not acceptable behavior."

"In Canterlot, perhaps. I repeat: you're in Cloudsdale, my dear! The absolute epicenter of epicurean overindulgence."

"I have, heh, heard rumors you have special rooms where you go to throw up when you're done eating so you can eat more."

"Slander," replies Portolan. "A popular misconception. Vomitorium is a term for an outlet of a stadium or a racecourse. It has nothing whatsoever to do with bringing up dinner."

"I thought it sounded a little out there. Throwing up just to eat again?"

"Oh, that we do indeed do," says Portolan. "We just don't do it in specific rooms. We use chamber pots or flushable basins for the purpose, like civilized ponies." She gazes at me critically as I tear into dish six. "Not that you'd ever have to worry about that. Have you ever had too much to eat? Ever? In your life?"

"I ... I don't think I ever have." I pause for the briefest of seconds to consider this before sticking my face directly into the sweet omelet. Dignity has departed these shores. "Not ever once."

"Well, Cloudsdale will give you a run for your money, if you let us," she says. "I see Brutus is signaling to me that they've finished frying up the aubergines. How much parmigiana would you like?"

"Yes," I reply.

She chuckles. "Understood."

I stop after my sixth pan of ova spongia, intent on saving room for the parmigiana, and I am shocked to find that I am thinking of my dietary capacity as having a limit. I know it must have one, just as I know that the moon must have a dark side, but that does not mean I have ever seen it.

"Portolan," I say. "I need to ask you something."

"Anything. Go ahead."

"I don't know if you know this, but when I was small, I was tutored by a unicorn named Prismia. I understand you two knew one another."

"I was wondering when this would come up," says Portolan. "Yes. She and I traveled far and wide together. On this very ship, in fact! I'd show you her old quarters, but unfortunately, we had to remodel that whole area into a hotel. Quite a nice one, too. The Cloudcliff. Very exclusive."

"She met with me shortly before I came here to the city. She told me that you raided a treasure trove in the ruins of old Corazón once, a long time ago. That it was filled with cursed things that could spell a pony's ruination."

"Ah," says Portolan. "I thought I recognized that blue heart charm you wear. I mistook it for an image of your Cutie Mark at first."

"My Cutie Mark story is intimately tied up with this jewel."

"Makes sense." She eyes it critically. "The chain is different, pearls instead of jet, but no doubt that's Prismia's old warding pendant, isn't it?"

"The same. She gave it over to me. She couldn't trust herself with it."

"That sounds like Lady Prismia, all right."

I press on. "She told me that you took something from the trove as well."

"Ah," says Portolan. "Now I see the concern. Yes. Yes, I also selected a prize from old Corazón. It was a stone that gave its bearer some measure of control over creatures of faerie. Useful, but dangerous in the wrong hooves. Rest assured, Princess, I gave that bauble away a long time ago."

I cannot disguise my tiny frown. Portolan is unbothered. "I see that look. Peer into my heart, then. See if I'm telling the truth."

"I can't ... I can't exactly do that."

"But you could tell if I'm anxious about deceiving you, yes?"

"Probably."

"Then do so. I'd rather you see my heart than be worried about its contents all the time. If it takes too much strength from you, I promise you, my kitchens have many more fortifying dishes on offer."

Warily, I open the eye of my heart to Duchess Portolan, and am taken aback by the sudden glare. Duchess Portolan loves this city, loves the corporation she built atop it. She loves her son, whom I now sense is asleep and dreaming not far off. She possesses a sort of fierce, intense love that I've never seen in my Aunty, not once. The only dimness I can see in her love is a little patch of smoky darkness at her core, the innermost zone of a candle flame. Portolan loves everything around her except, perhaps, herself. It is a tragedy, but a common one. Her emotions toward me are untroubled, and I feel myself relaxing again.

"Satisfied?" says Portolan.

"Yes.”

"Good. Prepare to be satisfied on a whole different level when you taste the aubergines parmigiana. My chefs have perfected the recipe. I do believe I hear the service coming, right outside the door."

Portolan and I look toward the door to the dining room at the exact moment that it literally explodes inward.

Framed by the ruins of the door and cloaked in a swirling bubble of magenta force stands Royal Guard Lieutenant Shining Armor.

He snarls, breathing hard. Two of Portolan's lictors advance on him. His telekinetic field repels them with moderate prejudice. "Duchess Portolan Blueblood! Unhoof Princess Cadance this instant!"

"Lieutenant!" I say gleefully. "Have some omelet! There's one sixteenth of one pan left!"

Lieutenant Armor looks back and forth between me and the Duchess. "What is this? What's going on?"

"Supper?" I say.

There is a dangerous pause. "Your Highness. I have been waiting for you, without word, my every effort at contact rebuffed, for over an hour."

I flush a little. "Oops. Sorry. I ... guess I got a little carried away with eating."

Lt. Armor casually bats aside a third lictor. His jaw is a hard line.

"That's ... that's fine. Good. I'm glad everything is fine. The circumstances under which this visit began were pretty irregular."

"Exactly what I was just telling your liege lady here, Lieutenant," says Portolan. "The three of us should have been dining together ages ago! Honestly, we were just having a bit of a good time. There's no need to be the Good Time Police."

"Join us! We're having eggplant soon! It'll be divine!"

"I'm fine," says the Lieutenant, dropping his force field but otherwise not relaxing one iota.

"Good Time Police," I murmur. I giggle a little.

"Oh, but who am I kidding?” says the Duchess. “You've probably just been occupied, is all. Can't go a day without reading something about you in the Acta. I expect your dance card has been far too full to spend time with a working pony like me, titled or not. I must say, it was just lovely for you to make time in your busy schedule to read adventure stories to foals."

"It was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing."

"Really! Something else canceled at the last minute, then?"

"Duchess Portolan, I don't know how to say this, but I'm not actually doing all that much here. I expected to have a job, and that didn't pan out, and I just don't know how to feel useful anymore."

"You're a princess!" Portolan protests. "A privileged class! You'd be within your rights to just feast and sleep your whole life through!"

"But I don't want to do that. I want to be doing things! I want to be spreading light and love! I want to be making the world a better place!"

"Well," says Portolan, rolling a table napkin thoughtfully with one hoof, "you could make the world a better place with us."

"With you? With the CWC?"

"Of course! Oh, I'm getting agitated just thinking about it! We're all about the continuation of a strong, independent Cloudsdale via efficient, convenient, ecologically-sourced weather, but not all ponies appreciate the work we do. Most ponies quite sensibly love us, but there's a certain slice of this city's population with whom we have an image problem. You cut straight through a P.R. disaster earlier today like the legendary Bucephalus with his famous knot. That wasn't just diplomacy, it was flat-out diplomancy! If I'm already in your debt for that, the least I could do is be paying you for it."

"You're ... you're offering me a job?"

"Why not? Oh, Cadance, can you imagine? You could be our Public Relations mare! The very face of the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation!"

I start to feel swimmy in my head, like falling at too great a speed. "I could do that!"

"Absolutely! We could even work you into our branding initiatives! Quick, what's your favorite type of weather?"

"I rather like snowflakes."

"Excellent choice! Imagine: Snowfall, by Cadance!"

Lt. Armor clears his throat. "With all respect, Your Grace. Her Royal Highness Princess Cadance isn't a brand."

Portolan gives me a sly little grin. "You let your lictor speak to you like that?"

"I value his input. Even if he is the Fun Police sometimes. Nearly all the time, in fact. But, yes, let's ... maybe rein this in for the moment."

"Of course! Let's not get ahead of ourselves. At the very least, though, I'm over the moon at the idea of having you onboard in any capacity. If nothing else, you can spend time tutoring little Windrose. I think it'd do him a world of good to spend time with true royalty. The last thing we want is him growing up with common tastes. Do you have any experience caring for foals?"

"Do I ever!" I say.

"Excellent! Oh, to think that this morning I was in such a state, and now, suddenly, everything's falling into place! It's kismet, for certain!"

Proving her point, this is the moment that the parmigiana comes through the broken door, and my world goes away again for a while.

---

The daystones in Duchess Portolan's pegasus room have been dimmed to a tasteful dusky hue. Portolan and I relax on clouds, I on one of the natural ones, she on her artificial. The room is filled with warm evening breezes which have literally been brought here through ducts. Lt. Armor is presumably somewhere. I've a bit lost track of him. I suppose it might be too much to hope that he's lost track of me, too. Just for a few more minutes.

I am satisfied.

I can't say how long it's been since I've been able to say that honestly. It took about an acre of tiramisu to push me over the line. Portolan politely tapped out early, continuing to watch me with a sort of curious fascination. Apparently, she hasn't gone so native as to purge her dinner in a vain attempt to keep up with me. For my part, I wouldn't get rid of this meal for all the crystals in Canterlot. You would have to fight me.

I roll over on my cloud and look over at the Duchess.

"Duchess Portolan, may I ask you something a bit silly?"

"Nonsense. You won't be able to think of a thing to say that I would judge as such."

"What is the nature of love? One word please."

"Oh, a fun question. And a big one. Lots of room for interpretation."

"Just answer in the way that feels right to you."

Portolan draws a pattern in the air with one lazy hoof. "When I think of what I love, I think of the things I've made for myself. My home. My company. My child. They are all things of such beauty and quality. I feel my heart come near to bursting when I think about them. I am unspeakably proud of them all."

"So, it's pride?"

"Something like that, yes. Let's say pride."

I roll this around in my head for a moment.

"I feel like this was a test, and I've let you down."

"No!" I say hastily. "No, it's not like that. You're fine, Duchess. It's just ... not what I'm looking for."

"Well, there's a great diversity of opinion in the Weather Corporation. If you're looking for answers to a philosophical question, I'm sure you'll find someone here in our family who'll give you the answers you need."

"Yeah," I say. "I'm sure, too." The birds sleep in their cages above us. There is nothing but the noise of gentle wind. I feel like a filly in a crib, completely without care. It is a moment I wish could last forever.

---

And then, Shining Armor and I are back on the streets, hurrying through the cold and the dark. Duchess P. offered us temporary lodging with her, so we wouldn't have to go back out into the chill. Predictably, Lieutenant Armor frowned at the idea. She offered us chariots, an escort, anything to make it a little more tolerable. Again, the Lieutenant bristled. It was my call to make, of course, but against my better judgment, I acquiesced to him. So, here we are. The wind slices at me, shaving off bits of my postprandial contentment, but thank the stars it is still holding.

"I have a job, Lieutenant." I give him an impish smile.

He harrumphs, the enormous killjoy.

"Be happy for me!"

"Is that an order, ma'am?"

"No. And I'll thank you to keep your attitude in slightly better check."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't take that tone."

Lt. Armor ceases breaking a path through the wind and turns to face me. "I don't know what you want, ma'am. I honestly cannot tell. Do you want me to keep silent? Or say what I'm thinking? Because what I'm hearing is 'tell me what you’re thinking but it has to be good,' and I cannot do that."

"You could do it, if you tried a little harder to have a better mindset. What's bothering you?"

"I am here to protect you, ma'am. Not just your corpus. Your entire well-being."

"And you're doing an excellent job. Well beyond what you need to. Are you still upset at those guards of Duchess Portolan's?"

"I'm upset at Duchess Portolan. She worries me."

"Lieutenant! That mare has shown me more kindness than anypony in this city so far!"

"I see." The wretched cold of the wind has nothing on the Lieutenant's voice at this moment. He turns away and continues trudging toward home.

"Anyone from this city!" I hurry to follow. "You know full well what I meant. You're searching for reasons to be offended."

He whips back around. "All I know is that there is something off about that mare. The world is full of strange creeps from whom I need to defend you, and by this point, I have a pretty good idea when there's one around."

There is a whump immediately behind Lieutenant Armor as a massive, gray-feathered shape makes a hard cloudfall behind him.

"Oh, hello," says Auric Turncoat. "I didn't see you there. Total lie. I've actually been seeing you for the past several minutes, on account of the fact that I've been intently watching you. The two actions are inextricably linked, I'm afraid."

"You," says Lt. Armor.

"Correct! Very perceptive!" Auric replies. "Of course, you'd be equally correct if you said that to anyone at all."

"Auric, we're cold and, well, I'm hungry, even if my charge isn't."

"We offered you dinner, you goof. You're the one who turned it down." I turn to the big griffon. "It's lovely to see you again, Auric."

Auric looks back and forth between us. He points at me. "The feeling is mutual when it comes to you, Your Highness, and honestly, the feelings between me and the crabby white one are also somewhat mutual in a different way. Mutualism all around!"

Lt. Armor snorts. "Why are you bothering the princess?"

"My business is with you, boy," says Auric. "Tangentially related to Her Highness there, but with you primarily. I seem to recall a conversation we shared during the Festival of Venus Verticordia where you accused me of being malignantly overprotective of our mutual pink lady-friend."

I bark out a laugh. "Pot! Kettle!" I say. I am a bit silly right now. I blame the tiramisu.

"I stand by that," says Lt. Armor.

"As well you should," Auric replies. "That's the crux of my little impromptu alleyway visit tonight." Auric gives a ludicrously formal bow. "Lieutenant Shining Armor, I am here to tell you that you were correct. Spot-on. I have been terrible. Hovering around like an airship, pouncing on you whenever you step the slightest bit out of line. I am making a decision to trust you for a number of days."

Lt. Armor raises an eyebrow. "What brought this on?"

"Nothing! This job I've assigned myself is wearing on me, and it's clearly wearing on the two of you. So, I'm going to take a vacation. Cloudsdale will be at its closest approach to Canterlot in a day or two more, and I thought I would use the opportunity to visit the Mountain, take in a few restaurants, enter a baking contest, that sort of thing."

"You're being silly," I say.

"Madam, I am not," he says, with an uncommonly warm and genuine expression. "You've both earned a little bit of trust. It seems like you've got a job and everything! Based on what I heard as I skulked around eavesdropping on your conversation. That certainly seems like a grand decision and not one that you'll come to regret."

"You confuse me, Auric. I don't know how I'm supposed to take this."

"Then take me at my word.” He lifts my booted hoof and gives it the daintiest of pecks with his ridiculous yellow axe-blade of a beak. "So glad I was able to meticulously stalk you to this location and then have this little chance encounter. I wanted to let you know that I hold you in the highest esteem, and I trust that you'll behave yourself in my absence. Are there any further questions?"

The Lieutenant starts. "I—"

"No questions! Excellent! Ta-ta, both of you!" With that, he spins up into the night with a few powerful beats of his great white wings and is gone.

"Ha!" I say, in his wake. "Even Auric doesn't want to be the Fun Police anymore!"

"Fewer officers on the beat," mutters the Lieutenant.

"Pish tosh," I say in a sort of blanket dismissal of anything and everything at all, and we make our way back home, my excellent mood holding all the way there.

One relentless nighttime beauty and dental hygiene ritual later, I am lying in a soft, becomfortered bed, a little smile on my face.

"I have a job," I whisper to myself. And then, after an astonishingly long day, I finally sleep.

Comments

[Daedalus Aegle]

It's wonderful to see Cady get to not be existentially tormented enjoy herself for a change, yet this only makes me worry that she's being set up for greater troubles down the line. Don't become a stooge for corporate PR, Cady, nothing good can come of it.

[TCC56]

There is, of course, absolutely no way this can go wrong.

[Skywriter]

11798521
How did you guess that next week's chapter reads "And then everything was good forever, the end"?

[Dan]

Getting White Witch corrupting with food vibes here, but I'm sure Cadance's heart scan is accurate and there's no ill intentions.

But corruption might lie deeper in the corporation.

[Cerulean Blue]

Cadance is going to have to learn that starving herself because it might look bad to somepony somewhere is not a good idea.

"Can I get you," she says, "a lot of something to eat?"

Yes to everything

"I don't know what you want, ma'am. I honestly cannot tell. Do you want me to keep silent? Or say what I'm thinking? Because what I'm hearing is 'tell me what you’re thinking but it has to be good,' and I cannot do that."

Don't ever stop doing that.

All I know is that there is something off about that mare

There definitely is.

[Cold in Gardez]

...like the legendary Bucephalus with his famous knot

I got that reference! Loving the story even more.

[Lurks-no-More]

Oh, wow. What an interesting, satisfying, and yet subtly worrisome chapter. Portolan is almost effusively polite and pleasant towards Cady, but her enormous wealth and power, and her association of love with pride, make me concerned, much like Shining Armor. (Who gets to be badass here; nice!) For all of her talk about how, as an alicorn, Cadance is her superior, Portolan seems to consider herself an equal to Celestia. And I'm still slightly worried about what she did with that magical artifact she got from Corazón, and what kind of an influence it may have had on her and the whole CWC.

On another subject, Portolan's "pegasus room" is a wonderful idea. Brilliantly imaginative, so sophisticated it almost reaches the tipping point into decadence, and excellent for putting your guests at ease... or keeping them off balance, as happens with Cadance here.

11798624
Even if Duchess Portolan has absolutely no ill intentions towards Cadance, her influence and the things she offer to Cady can still be bad for her, and put our favorite pink pony princess on a very wrong path. (Now I'm wondering if there's some symbolism about her map cutiemark, and Windrose's, well, windrose...)

[Snowliasion]

Now we play "Who has the backstabbing knife".

[Sunny]

Congrats on your job, Cady!!!

[Dan]

11798957
Certainly not Brutus.

[Reese]

11797582
Yeeep. Typos can be very sneaky.

"Not ever once."
"Not even once."?

And I'm sick at the moment, but I enjoyed the chapter; thank you for writing. :)

[Skywriter]

11801151
I know it looks weird, but that one was intentional.

Feel better soon!

[Reese]

11801510
Ah, roger; thanks.

And thanks! :)
Already doing better than I was, though not entirely well yet.

[Rune Soldier Dan]

The "I exist for more than selling toys" line destroyed me. I'm thrilled to see more of this AU.

[KwirkyJ]

My mental state changes my biology, sometimes at random. It's really quite unnerving.

I am entirely confident that this is merely a throwaway line of no narrative consequence for the story at hand... wink

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

"Don't take that tone."

"Don't take that tone of silence with ME!"
Samuel Goldwyn (the G in MGM)

[horizon]

Ah, yes: the story of Bucephalus, cutter of the Phrigidian Knot. Legend had it that the pony who could untie it would rule over all the lands which the Crystal Empire's light touched.

Then he marched into the capital and slashed it in half with shadow magic.

---

I have a feeling that I need to compliment you on your sleight of hand here. There are some pretty clear signals (not least of which is Shining Armor's reaction) that there's something going on with Portolan -- and, if I don't miss my guess, that Auric both sees it and wants it to happen and wants to be far enough away for plausible deniability. But the scene with her makes her out so purely and sympathetically that right now all of me except the metatextual parser is agreeing with Cady. That part is pretty sure there is a backstab coming -- but unless she's a full-blown psychopath who deliberately set up Cady's love-reading to fail on a technicality (she's free of guilt over lying, interesting), she sure does come across as giving Cady exactly what she wants and needs.

Maybe that's the problem? Maybe she really does want the best for Cady, except that that best happens to be waking her up and turning her directly against Canterlot/Celestia for her own political gain.

I'm also not going to let it go unremarked that Cady is apparently tutoring a young Blueblood, except I don't quite know what to make of that yet. It's definitely fascinating headcanon and I have a feeling its full significance is going to be more directly illuminated later.