6. Pegasus
I expect another bath, another meal in the night kitchen, another maternal lecture. It rapidly becomes clear to me, however, that there is to be significantly less comfort involved in this rescue. Celestia's aura feels rough as it tugs me along, and I am in no position to resist. I am dragged like a scruffed cat through the upper halls and high towers of Canterlot, whereafter I am finally deposited on the carpet of Aunty's smallest audience chamber, the one that leads out onto her primary sun-raising balcony.
She fixes me with a glare. I have never seen such an expression on that placid, ever-wise face. Celestia Sol Invicta is angry. With me. Part of me is delighted to have made such a mark. Part of me is terrified for my very life.
"Cadance," says Princess Celestia. "You promised me. You promised. You told me you would never run off like that again."
"Aunty, if I could just explain—"
"Explain? Explain what? Explain why you decided to leave everypony guessing as to your location and well-being, yet again?"
"It's not like that! This wasn't like the glacier incident!"
"Explain to me how."
"That was different! Back then, I was upset! I was trying to find something that's missing! Something about myself, my past, my life! Tonight, I was just trying to have a little fun for once! Yes, it went horribly wrong, but you can't blame me for—"
"For what? For lying to your retainer so he wouldn't know where you went?"
I groan. "Lieutenant Armor snitched to you?"
Celestia stares at me as though I've grown a second horn. "Of course he did! What did you expect him to do?"
"Keep it on the downlow! Not run screaming to my pretend aunt!"
Her eye twitches. I'm hurting her. I don't want to hurt her but—
—okay, I do. I do want to hurt her. I quiver inside, horrified at the realization that I have wanted to hurt this mare for decades. I am terrified of what this signifies about me. I do not even know who I am.
"Mi Amore, for all he knew at the time, you had been abducted by merchant airponies out from under his nose. You must realize what this looked like from his perspective. I did not think I would have to teach you, of all ponies in Equestria, about looking at things from another's point of view! Lieutenant Armor has been doing his job flawlessly, except for the fact that earlier this evening he was quite taken by surprise by your rather bald-faced lie, a fact that I will forgive him for because when I learned of it, I was rather surprised myself!"
"All that stallion does is fuss! He's like a miniature you, standing at my shoulder! He's an entire miniature Hegemony!"
"That is exactly what I need him to be!"
"Wonderful! Thanks, Aunty Celestia! Decide to let me be free and live my own life, and then saddle me with a constant reminder of your inescapable gaze!"
"Princess?" comes a voice from the arched doorway of the audience chamber.
“Yes?” Celestia and I say, at the same time. We look up to see a teen-aged unicorn mare, silhouetted by the light of the corridor. Her coat is a bright orange hue, and her hair is the color of fire.
Celestia breathes, centers herself. "Sunset, I am sorry if our argument disturbed your sleep."
"I was awake. What's going on?"
"Princess business, my faithful student."
The unicorn, apparently "Sunset," edges into the room. Bold little thing. "Princess Celestia, as your personal student, I'm now part of the upper court. If there's some kind of royal conflict going on, I need to know. I have a right to know."
"Sunset!" Celestia now trains her fearsome gaze on the unicorn. "This is not the time! Return to your chambers!"
There is a brief stand-off. Sunset breaks first. "Yes, Princess Celestia.” She vanishes back into the hall.
Celestia rubs her poll with one hoof, just below her horn. "I am ... teaching her to have confidence in herself. I feel like I may have taught her too far." She shakes her head. "Overcorrecting. Always overcorrecting."
"Personal protegee?"
"Yes."
"You were quick to replace me."
"You seemed eager to be replaced."
"I guess I was."
Celestia sighs. "Cadance, I'm sorry to inform you that I will be recalling you from Cloudsdale. I am not certain that city has been a good influence on you."
The bottom drops out of my stomach. "Recalling me? From what?"
"From that city! As I explained!"
"I'm an adult!"
"I gave you a post there—"
"A post I'm not currently occupying! You could eliminate the entire Embassy! It would have zero effect on me! You are looking at the new Associate Vice President for Public Relations of the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation."
"You didn't."
"I did."
"You accepted a job? Under Portolan Blueblood?"
"Yep. I work for a private corporation in a city-state completely outside the Hegemony. You have no power over me."
"Cadance," she says, "please come home."
"Home?" I shout. "Home? To Canterlot?"
Celestia turns away from me. "Yes. Of course."
"We talked about this! Canterlot isn't home, Celestia! Not anymore! I don't think it ever was!"
"I showed you every kindness—"
"Did you love me?"
Silence drops like sudden snow.
"You don't have to answer. I know what you feel. I can see it. All the times I've looked at you with my heart, I never saw the tiniest flicker of real, genuine love for me there. Not for anyone."
In the ensuing quiet, I hear a noise. I do not recognize it at first. It is like trying to discern the call of a bird species that dwells on the far side of the globe. It is restrained, almost inaudible, and I finally realize that it is a sob.
"It's happening again," whispers Celestia. "It's happening again."
"What? What's happening again?"
Celestia does not look up at me. "You should go, Cadance. For everyone's good."
"Tell me what you're—"
Celestia does not respond, or at least, does not respond with words. In a flurry of feathers, she hauls me out to her private balcony. A commanding view of the night-shrouded Heartland stretches out before us. The moon is bright overhead.
"All those times you searched my heart for love. Found me wanting. Did you ever, even once, do it outdoors? At night, specifically?"
I am momentarily taken aback. I search my memory. "N—no, I don't think—"
"Do it now," says Celestia, with fearful intensity. I swallow, gather my focus, and see with my second sight...
...I am blinded. It is how things were in the town square of Ponyville an hour ago, facing down limelights and angry sun-alicorns, but ten times worse. A hundred times.
The glare is coming from the moon itself.
"Aunty," I breathe.
"You see it, I trust," says Celestia. "The love that edges out all else." For the first time in our lives together, Celestia looks old to me. Beaten, frail.
"This doesn't make sense. Even if the object of my sight isn't in view, there's always a line, or a trail, or—"
"That cord was cut a long time ago, Cadance. Long, long ago. I have no desire to have such a thing happen again. That is why you need to leave, as soon as possible."
"I ... I don't—"
"You've said what you wanted. I've said what I wanted. One of my capital ships can ferry you back to Cloudsdale. Or you could fly, as much as it matters to me."
"Aunty, I'm s—"
"Just go, Cadance."
She turns away from me again, and this time, it feels like a gesture of final punctuation. I stand there for a moment, helplessly, and then I turn to go. My departing hoofbeats are muffled by the carpet.
I return to Cloudsdale, under my own power.
"I'll be terminating their contract immediately, of course," says Duchess Portolan, as she shuffles a few papers into place on the surface of her enormous rosewood desk. "Captain Sungrazer and crew have submitted their report and have apologized for the incident, but we hold contractors to a certain standard here at the CWC. Engaging in outright foolishness that endangers the life of one of our senior executives is clearly beyond the pale."
"I'm asking you to reconsider, Duchess Portolan."
She waves a hoof. "They're contractors. Contractors can be replaced."
"Please," I say. "It was an accident. Plain and simple. Yes, the Comet was engaged in unscheduled extreme water-gathering, but I was the one who asked to go with them. After I went overboard, I'm told they immediately started combing the Everfree at great personal risk to themselves, and were still at it by the time the Royal Navy showed up. I only think they didn't find me because I, um, didn't exactly look like myself while they were searching. Overall, they went above and beyond the call of duty after I disregarded a couple of very basic safety protocols. The crew of the Comet doesn't deserve to be punished over that."
Portolan eyes me up. "Oh, very well. Because I like you, and I think you'll be a tremendous asset to us, I'll overlook their indiscretion on this one occasion."
"Thank you."
"But! They had better be on their best behavior from here on in. The last thing I need is for us to suddenly lose critical personnel. We're entering an interesting time in the history of the Weather Corporation, and my vision for our future can't come about if I don't know whom I can count upon. Can I count on you, Princess Cadance?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good. All yesterday's unpleasantness aside, I think it's a great thing that you're taking such an active interest in the nuts and bolts of Weather Corporation business."
"Yes, ma'am. Er, on that topic."
"Mm hm?"
I take a deep breath. "Do you know anything about a form of matter called 'archonium'? Or perhaps 'denebium'?"
"No. Should I?"
"A contact of mine identified some strange substances I've been seeing in and around the city. Showing up in odd, out-of-the-way places. I think maybe they're some sort of impurity that the water is picking up during its time on the surface, that then gets ferried back here. Is there any possibility that your, what was it called, Obnublium system isn't fully processing some waste products that it's filtering out?"
"I'm not aware of anything like that going on, but I'll admit that sometimes I have my head stuck up in the clouds of high-level administration. There may be some trivial day-to-day details that I'm not aware of." She trots out from behind her desk. "Tell you what, I'll have a chat with some of the boffins in the weather labs. I will make sure to ask them about this 'archonium' substance."
"Thank you."
"Of course! We've got wild protesters constantly at our doorstep. The last thing we want to do is give the slightest bit of credence to their weird beliefs. They'd be on us like jackals. We'd never hear the end of it. Better safe than sorry! If the bulk water we use is picking up any surface contamination, we'll get to the bottom of it."
"I appreciate your extra attention." It's my first week on the job, and I've already got a lot on my plate. "I also think we need to look more closely into the Sunny Smiles situation."
"Cadance," says Portolan, "if you could crack that particular nut, I'd be forever in your debt."
"Something tells me that things aren't right with her. More specifically, something told me that things aren't right, and that something was me, during last night's altered mental state. I told myself that Sunny Smiles 'isn't' something, but I don't know what it is that she isn't."
"Well, Sunny Smiles isn't very professional, for one thing. Your subconscious just cut off like that, mid-sentence?"
"I was on powerful magical drugs at the time."
"That might explain it." She gets a slightly silly look. "Had my share of such things, back in my callow days. In any case, whenever I had a particularly bad trip, I'd want to take a while to bounce back from it, and I expect you're in a parallel situation. Why don't you take a few days off to recover, and we'll start tackling both these problems next week? You'll want time to get settled into your new place, anyway."
"My new place?"
Duchess Portolan gasps. "Oh! In all the commotion, I must have forgotten! The Board has decided that it's not becoming for you to be staying under the same roof as the Hegemony's Resident Minister. At best, it might look like a conflict of interest, and at worst, well, there's always the possibility that certain trade secrets might slip out along the edges. Not that I'm accusing anypony of corporate espionage, but, again, better safe than sorry."
"Really? You're rescuing me from R.M. Weather-Eye's house? This is amazing!"
"If you want to take such a dramatic tone, certainly. We've cleared the penthouse of the Cloudcliff for your personal use. It's yours to come and go as you please. Should be plenty of room for you and whatever lictors you wish to start gathering. I know you have the one already."
"Lieutenant Armor."
"Big white unicorn. Blue hair. Broke my door. Good initiative, if unpleasant. You really should have some more, by the way. You can have some of mine."
"I've already got other ponies and griffons and whatever else taking a personal interest in my life."
"Offer remains open. Think it over."
I smile. My lip quivers a little. "Duchess Portolan, it's been a really long sixteen hours. It is a treasure to me to have someone to lean on during times like this. I am overwhelmed with your generosity, and I promise you that I'll find a way to pay you back for it someday.”
She chucks me on the chin.
"I know you will," she says.
About ten minutes after leaving Duchess Portolan's office, I am striding across the upper deck of the foreign quarter, hounded by photographers. Suddenly I don't mind so much. I have a job. I am respectable again.
I am startled by a rustle of wings, and a heavy thud in front of me scatters some of the pesky journalists. Auric Turncoat stares at me. His eyes are molten.
"I," he says with remarkable calmness, "am never leaving you unwatched again. Ever, ever again."
He does not wait for me to respond as he beats his wings and vanishes into the heavens.
So, that much has returned to normal.
And finally, there is nothing left to do but to go back to the Resident Minister's house for what may be the last time. I say hello to Sabre and Spurs and explain the situation, and they are nothing but happy for me. I never had a problem with the R.M.'s guards. I mean, they're not very good guards, so there's that, but otherwise, no complaints.
Humming a little tune, I approach the door of our private apartments, open it, and—
Shining Armor is upon me. I barely have time to react as he clutches me in his hooves, holding me tightly.
"Cadance," he says. His voice is muffled by my coat.
It takes me a few seconds to gather my wits. "Lieutenant!" I eventually blurt out.
He realizes his catastrophic social misstep and quickly backs away. "Sorry. Sorry, Your Highness. Sorry, ma'am. I'm ... I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what had happened to you. I checked with the harbormaster and he told me that the vessel you were on left without registering a flight plan, and the eyewitnesses weren't reliable enough to get a read, so I hopped ship to Canterlot and contacted my commanding officer. I guess it made its way all the way up to Princess Celestia. I'm sorry, I know you probably hate having your aunt meddling in your affairs, but I thought you might be in danger and..."
"Lieutenant, it's ... all right. I was upset, but you did the correct thing."
He nods. Then he offers me a glass full of a bright, sunny liquid.
"I made you some orange juice," he says.
"Give." I seize the glass and down it like an alcohol shot. It is marvelous. Juice has no right being this good. I should have left the juice-making to the lieutenant all along.
"Lieutenant," I say. "Two things. One: that is some truly excellent juice. Thank you. Two: on reflection, I apparently need ponies around at all times to keep me from becoming a monster. Can you be such a pony for me?"
"I am your servant, ma'am. We are simpatico."
"Good," I say. "As long as that is clear, I have some wonderful news."
I search around under my wing and emerge with the shining brass key of the penthouse suite of the Hotel Cloudcliff. I suspend it between us. It glitters in the light. It is the most precious of precious metals, not because of what it is, but because of what it represents.
"We've got a home.”
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If firefighters in Cloudsdale are needed, I imagine fluorine is involved. Maybe Director (not director yet) Dotted Line got drunk and was in an experimental mood.
Or was recently promoted and celebrating at the pub and doing a chemistry demonstration to impress a mare and things got out of hoof. (Brainiac Dr. Bunhead reference)
Gah! How can you hurt Celestia! You monster! 😁
The story feels like it wrapped up too soon, but only because it left wanting more and more. Thank you for this little nugget.
See you at the next one!
Whoo hoo! Can hardly wait!
(Lot of dangling plot threads here. The fact that Cloudsdale is back to public Weather Factory mode by the time of MLPFIM indicates there's something fundamentally wrong with the Dutchess' operation, but whether it's entirely her fault - evil corporate head cliche' notwithstanding- remains to be seen. She may love Cloudsdale, but does she love the individual ponies in it? And Sunny Smiles isn't - what ? Real? Celestia? A Pony? The Final Boss?)
Not sure I like the "Celestia loves nobody but her sister" bit - I'd like to believe she loves her Little Ponies a bit, and that she will have some love for Twilight! Seems a bit too "darkquestria" for my tastes.
11816278
I'm.so tempted to author's note the Celestia thing, since it won't come up for a while again, but it's probably best to let the narrative handle it. I hope the eventual resolution feels authentic to you. We're not done with this plot thread, is enough to say fir now.
11816278
I don't think its quite like that.
Maybe its just me, but I can love someone, I can love a lot of people! But guilt can outshine everything else, especially if it was my fault in te first place.
Especially if I know that they still hate my existence.
Oh, that time with Sunbutt was painful. I mean, necessary clear the air pain, but ooouchies
A home at last. Well, I don't think it will last, but it's still a home.
11817596
Cady does not have the benefit of knowing G4 canon!
...
Celestia is a putz.
11817838
Heh.
11818220
The definition of insanity is performing the same actions and expecting different results
What does that tell you you glitter brained ditz
11818493
The thing is, she does try different things every time. And they are always the wrong thing.
11818709
Because she's doing it largely for her own reasons, albeit perhaps not entirely selfish ones, and never from a position of actual love. And when anyone gets close, the mask is back on.
But that just the rub, isn't it. She's really not
The only one, if we're keeping with the themes in this story, who gets close is Twilight, and thats horrifying in its own right. That means she'd exploit another ponies mental failings (Twilights OCPD and boundary issues) towards her ego.
Im not saying she's being evil, or even consciously mean. But it really doesn't speak well to her character shes not merely missing the forest for the trees, she's not even in the right biome
Exquisite work... even if I did let it fall by the wayside for a bit.
And yes, at this point, I'm convinced that Sunny Smiles really isn't. Best case scenario, that office is empty. Worst, there's a skeleton in there killed by the motionless cogs of bureaucracy.
And Celestia... Always fighting the last emotional war, that one. It's no wonder she'll try to apologize just before the wedding. At least with Twilight she did a decent enough job that Ponyville could perform repairs on the raw materials.
Outstanding work, and some fascinating hints at days to come. Given the sheer mutability of alicorns in this world, I really do have to wonder just what Twilight will go through when she gets her own wings. But first there's a corporate monopoly to dismantle from the inside, and before that, Cadance needs to understand why. So much still to do...
I got a bit behind on this, but I've finished it now and, as expected, quite enjoyed it! Thank you for writing. :)
Excellent work yet again and I very much look forward to what happens next.
So many little mysteries...
11826683
Thanks! I'm glad you liked. Celestia is indeed dealing with some damage!
11826709
No problem! Thanks for reading and responding!
11828488
Oh, dear, having Cadance be the cause of the Apples' death would be...yow, that's dark. I don't think that's something you bounce back from.
11828609
I hope the upcoming stories end up being satisfying!
11841626
Eager bookhorse noises
I love this series ❤️
Cadance has definitely grown. That Celestia conversation was an infected wound which had needed lancing for a while. The good kind of pain to see it cleared up.
I have a feeling that the kind of firefighting they're going to need to do is the Cuyahoga River sort.
Thrilling to see you shake the dust off this series, and that it's going to continue!
11851821
I love this so much, thank you.
11851828
Yeah, this was a fight long in coming, honestly.
11851544
And yet, there are notes! Thankfully, they are all very complimentary.
God I love the depth and emotion you gave Celestia here. I greatly look forward to seeing this get more explored, as well as the overall story progress.
11860078
Thank you!