As The Sun Sets

by Noobblue

The one where we all assume Shining Armor is going to melt

Both Cadance and Shining stayed focused on the door as they waited. No significant glances to one another, they both knew why they were here and had the confidence to not anxiously shift about.

At least for the first thirty seconds.

After of which Shining gave Cadance the 'eyebrow raise' and Cadance knocked again. A couple of moments passed before they heard hoof steps again. In short order the door swung open to show Quick Silver stood in the doorway, their scowl turned to a frown as they looked over the two, and gestured them both inside.

"Make it quick."

Cadance and Shining entered. The front room was spartan, bare floors and doorways with no doors, though there were a vaguely nice set of curtains for the windows.

For brooding I'm guessing, but then why have them drawn?

"So" Came Shining to the side, "You're the... pony who attacked my wife"

"Yup" Quick Silver had plopped themselves onto the floor and was holding a white rag against their shoulder.

Cadance narrowed her eyes, "Except, I know you didn't attack me."

"Yup"

"Wait, so you did attack her? Or you didn't?" Shining asked

"I didn't."

Why is he doing this again?

"Why would you lie in favor of committing a crime?"

I can see where this is going

"I didn't lie, you were just wrong."

"But you agreed with me."

Silver just shrugged, "I don't care if you're wrong"

Cadance, before Shining could retort, "You're injured"

Silver tossed their mane back and smirked at Cadance, "No I'm not, I'm Quick Silver"

Cadance, annoyed, charged her horn with a simple first aid spell. Quick Silver dropped her rag and gestured placatingly at Cadance, "Whoah whoah, don't do that. Whatever it is you're doing. All jokes aside, I've been reworking my internal ward network. You could get hurt trying to cast a spell on me." Cadance frowned and slowly let the half formed spell drain away into the air.

She made for a couple of steps forwards and sat down in front of...

"What are we calling you? By the way? And let me see your hoof." Cadance

"You're calling me whatever you want, my disguise is named Quick Silver though." Quick Silver, lifted their leg up and delicately placed it in Cadance's hooves.

She began inspecting the frog as Shining began again.

"Are you a mare or a stallion?"

"You wanna check pretty boy?"

Cadance glanced between the two of them, but didn't say anything. Shining on the other hoof, was verbally stunned, and went to metaphorically tag Cadance in.

"This is... surprisingly not bad. Definitely not as bad as I thought it would be." She said, putting Silver's hoof back onto the floor.

Silver, rubbed her shoulder with her opposite hoof "I have my own healing magics. Still hurts like a bitch though." And added onto the end "I'll be fine in another couple of hours or so."

Shining brought it back, "Well, you didn't have to pull a sword through your leg."

Silver stood abruptly and locked eyes with Shining and stared him down "You didn't have to bring ponies to my house knowing they were going to attempt to assault me." She scowled and deepened her stare down.

Cadance, realizing that she was head height with Quick Silver decided not to stand to try and diffuse the situation. "We didn't have a choice, an-"

"You always have a choice." Quick Silver hadn't looked away from Shining when she had said that; and she said it with such conviction that Shining broke away from their impromptu staring contest.

"Let me finish." Cadance tried to admonish, "We didn't have a choice, and I'm sorry it happened, we didn't know they would try that."

"What did you think they were going to do." She had turned and switched to a more neutral expression towards Cadance.

Shining spoke up, "We were going to try to diffuse the situation once we had everypony together."

"That didn't work."

"I didn't think you cared"

Silver looked at Cadance. Thought for a moment.

"I guess I don't... I should honestly just stop complaining about it." Silver sat back down, "What did you two want again?"

Cadance looked towards Shining as he answered, "We wanted to know why you were here. And more specifically, how you got here."

"I'm here to help, and I'm not telling you how I got here." Silver gestured out, "Is that all? Will you two leave now? Or at least him?"

"Why just him?"

"He's annoying, and disrespectful. You could honestly do better."

"I disagree."

"He's not as smart as you."

"He's smarter in different ways."

"In ways that aren't nearly as useful."
"He doesn't have to be intelligent in the ways I am"
"So he's just going to be lesser than you?"
"That's not what I meant"
"What did you mean?"
"He's good at what he does, and is very useful"

Through their banter, Shining was rapidly looking back and forth between them as their retorts got faster.

"Flies are good at vomiting on food, and are great for ecosystem."

Cadance got thrown off by the shock value and scrunched her muzzle, "Eew."

Silver rolled her eyes. "In any case, like I said, I'm busy. Now please leave." Silver turned while standing up, and began walking towards one of the doorways that lead deeper into the house. That is until a magical barrier sprung up where the door would have been.

Silver sighed, and looked over her shoulder at the two of them. "What."

"I'm going to need a better answer than 'here to help' and 'no' before I'm comfortable letting somepony as dangerous as you wander my kingdom; or any kingdom for that matter." Shining said, his horn lit.

"To bad." Silver sat down, and turned towards the shield.

Crap!

"Shining!" Before Cadance could give a proper warning, Silver pressed her hoof onto the shield. In the next second the shield shattered around a hole Silver had punched through it.

Shining was flabbergasted, but okay.

Phew

Silver walked away.

"What? How did he break my shield?"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, but... I thought you said Dusk was a dark mage. That wasn't dark magic, my wards would have triggered."

I doubt it

Cadance internally cringed at her mental response, but it was true, if Dusk, well Silver in this case, wanted to affect them with any of their black magics... Candance was sure they could figure it out.

"Well... Dusk... or Quick Silver, she's... they are good at a lot of kinds of magic."

"That just makes them even more dangerous."

"I think you just annoyed them."

"Great, so we have a mage more skilled than my sister wandering the empire, don't worry though, they're totally harmless unless you mildly inconvenience them."

Cadance paused for a moment.

He's right. I can't just let Dusk wander the Empire. It's not safe. But I won't get anywhere if Shin-

"I know that face honey, what are you thinking?" Shining asked, his voice gone from sarcastic and towards soft and inquisitive.

"I think you should stay here while I go talk to him."

Shining tilted his head and widened his eyes as if to say, 'No. we are not doing that.'

"Just hear me out okay?"

Shining merely intensified his 'nuh-uh' look

"Dusk did that to me too when we first talked, I think they found the conversation pointless and therefore didn't try to engage."

"and?"

"Well, I think I'd have better chances talking to him on my own."

"Cadance"

"Even if you did dial it back, there's a chance Dusk might not care anyways just because they don't like you."

"I'm not going to deny that, but I can't just let you do that on your own, we've clearly established this pony is not safe." Shining had approached Cadance fully and was talking quietly, almost gently.

He always gets like this when he's worrying about me

Cadance leaned forwards and pressed a kiss right on his snout. "You're cute when you worry about me."

Shining smiled and nodded, "True, but don't try and distract me."

"I don't think I'll be in any more or less danger than I was."

"I disagree"

"Shining, I just need you to trust me, and let me do this."

Shining looked away from Cadance. A couple of beats passed.

He sighed. "Alright."

Yes!

"But I'm standing right outside the door... or... uh entrance."

"Fine by me. Let's go get this done."

Cadance turned and walked towards doorway Quick Silver had left from. It seemed to stretch back pretty far before an opening, and Cadance could sense a glimmer of magic coming from the hallway. As she stepped into the area, she noticed the rune work covering the wall, and a small wall of magic that hung over the way forwards.

"Do you know what this is Shining?"

Shining brought himself up next to her, the hallway was tight enough that their coats pressed together. "I have no idea, but the effect looks like some sort of spatial enchantment. It's really the only way to have light ripple like that."

Cadance stepped through, and felt her experience... Widen?

whoah, funky

The hallway seemed a bit shorter now, and she could hear sounds of activity coming from beyond

She turned to see that Shining, instead of being a couple of steps behind her, was instead visually almost thirty hooves away.

Point for Shining

He followed shortly after her, after Cadance waved him forwards; and Cadance proceeded down the hall towards the sounds. She heard a burst of static followed by a clang, and a rapid string of almost curses.

"Riggen, Frackle, yellow, hifron, bickles!" and a deep sigh sounded from around the corner.

Cadance waved behind her to signal to Shining to stay out of sight, and approached the doorway.

"Dusk?"

A deeper sigh sounded as Cadance turned the corner. This room was... maybe decorated was the wrong term, but it was filled with what looked like magical equipment, metal, desks, gemstones. Papers and charts and graphs filled the walls and desks, there were a few open and closed boxes lying in the far corner of the room. In one spot the ground had been ripped open, and several strange looking spiral tubed crystals were growing from the ground and bending into the chamber.

The centerpiece though, the thing Quick Silver was sitting in front of, looking exasperated, looked like some sort of giant telescope rotating mechanism without the telescope, that could also serve you tea. Bronze and gears and gems oh my! The thing was maybe three times as tall as she was, and was currently smoking white shimmering smoke.

"Wow... I can see why the other rooms are empty."

"Cadance, I really don't have time to play ring around the rosy with you or your husband"

Cadance looked from the strange machine over to him. Instead of the annoyed facial expression she was expecting, Silver instead looked tired, and... sad.

"I'm not here for that."

"Your boy toy is." They said, pointing at the doorway.

Cadance didn't look back, "He's just listening in to make sure I'm safe."

Quick Silver slowly turned back towards their machine while saying "riiiiight." And began tugging at a smoking component.

Cadance took a couple of steps forward, to be a little bit behind and to the side of Silver. Silver got the weird mixture of what looked like copper and a gemstone fused together to come out a little, only for Silver to push the piece back into the machine, deeper than it was before, and another piece came falling from the bottom. Silver caught it, and began visually inspecting it.

"What is this?" Cadance asked quietly.

Silver held up the what was a strip of silvery metal covered in runes smaller than her feather tips. "This is supposed to be a control mechanism for power flow, but it doesn't want to work properly. It keeps engaging the safety's."

"I mean the whole thing."

"Oh... It's a... planar stabilizer."

"A what?"

"When it's on, it makes realism and localism true, even for magic. It means that there's no back flow for advanced spells, and no reality destabilization from quantum affects."

Cadance made an 'uh' face.

"It could stop a powerful magical device from blowing itself up."

Cadance made an 'ah' face.

"But it's broken." Silver shook their head. "I was hoping not irreparably, but it seems like my storage of it wasn't exactly perfect. The chronological stasis seems to have defragged some of the sensitive spells within the main spell matrix's that actually make the thing work. I'd have to re-enchant the whole thing, and at that point, I may as well just make a new one."

"What do you need it for?"

"That... Why the sudden interest in my area of expertise?"

Cadance gave her answer actual thought before responding. Silver was still moving parts around on the... uh... Planar Stabilizer

"Do I need a reason?"

Silver turned back to look at Cadance, "I know you have one, it just tripped me up that you were asking out of curiosity rather than because you thought I was going to use it for nefarious purposes."

"You got all that from my question?"

Silver shrugged and returned to work, "Your tone, and you learn a lot about reading people when you're as old as I am."

I've definitely gotten that from Celestia a lot

"I'm planning on using it to safely start up a magnet reactor."

"Which I'm guessing I'll never understand, so instead, what does a 'magnet reactor' do?" Cadance went to sit down, but moved a stray tool off the floor where she was going to sit, and telekinetically placed it on a work table.

There's a surprisingly large amount of wood in here.

"It's really actually not that complex, it's just a perpetual energy machine. Produces a lot of magic and force."

"So it's a magic generator?"

"In principle, yeah."

The two fell into a smooth silence as Silver worked and Cadance pondered the interaction.

This is going okay, but I'm still not really getting anywhere. The question is how

Cadance looked around the room, back towards the doorway, Shining was keeping himself hidden enough. She just kind of filled her thoughts with visual information for a moment.

If he's okay with this, I guess I did get some information... So I just need to do more increments of this?

Cadance nodded to herself,

I've got it

"How can I help?"

Silver was, in that moment, shoulder deep in the machine, propped up on their stomach with half their body submerged in the innerworkings of the clockwork behemoth. There was a muffled 'one moment' and Silver began slowly pulling themselves out.

When they were fully removed, they had what looked like a faceted sphere of diamond covered in what looked like imbedded fractals of metal. Even to Cadance it was a beautiful piece of arcane engineering.

Silver frowned, "Dammit"

"I take it it's broken somehow?"

"It's not aligned to reality anymore, it's basically trash now."

"How can something not be aligned to reality?"

Silver gently placed the sphere on the ground. "You've teleported before right? In the non-moment that you don't exist, you're not within the confines of reality, or physics. This," They gestured to the orb, "Was submerged in that state for so long that the non-moment actually happened magically. It means that it's lost all ability to interface with magic the way it needs to."

"And I take it that is a pretty important part?"

"It's the core."

"Can I have it?"

Silver blanched for a barely a moment, if Cadance wasn't looking, she would have missed it.

"What for?"

"If it's trash, does it matter?"

"I guess not" Silver rolled the core over to Cadance, Cadance who was sitting, placed her hoof on it's top to stop it, and rolled it under her chest. Silver turned back to the machine and gave it a once over.

"What now?"

Silver continued looking over the machine, "I'm going to try and salvage as much of the advanced components on this as possible, I don't really have the tools or the infrastructure to remake a lot of these parts."

"I could send you raw materials if you want, the Empire has plenty of gems."

"If you could replace that lonsdaleite chunk, it'd save me a lot of digging."

"Lonsdaleite?"

"Uh... hexagonal diamond?"

Cadance shook her head, "What?"

"Diamonds have a cubical chemical structure, lonsdaleite has a hexagonal one"

"I'm not a science buff, I don't know what that means."

"You don't know basic chemistry?"

"That's basic chemistry?"

Silver looked up and sighed, "Celestia what did you do to Equestria."

Silver trotted towards a work bench, picked up two diamonds with their wings, and quickly walked back to Cadance and sat down in front of her. Dropping one diamond each into their front hooves, Silver began explaining. "These are diamonds, they can scratch each other," To demonstrate, Silver slammed the diamonds together like they were trying to start a fire, and held them out for Cadance to look at.

They were indeed marked.

Silver then tossed the scratched diamond out of their non-dominant hoof, and began again, "lonsdaleite, however, is harder than diamond, and wont scratch." And slammed the diamond onto the orb right in front of Cadance, she felt it shake against her fur as Silver struck it. It was not marked, and the diamond Silver struck it with broke into chunks and made tinging clattering noises as it fell apart.

"It also does that less often." Silver turned away and began fenagling parts on the machine again.

"Is this safe to pick up with magic?"

"Yeah, just don't charm or enchant it, I don't know if it still works, but it has sensors to detect if it's being fundamentally altered, and will violently remove itself it it detects that."

"Violently remove itself?"

"In short? It will explode."

"Okay." Cadance stood and carefully cast a telekinetic spell around the orb, and placed it on her back. She ruffled and unfurled her wings a little to make sure it wouldn't fall.

She turned and made her way out of the room, Shining had his nose basically to the doorway, which looked a little bit silly. Cadance turned back to Silver, "How did you beak though my husband's shield so easily?"

"I made his shield manifold try and turn itself into ravioli"

Cadance blinked several times, and then turned to leave, "Bye Dusk"

"Bye"

Shining followed Cadance back out through the spatial magic and into the home's foyer.

"So?" Shining said

Cadance turned back towards him, still trying to balance the core on her back, it was just a bit bigger than she could comfortably carry.

"What was all that? and why are we suddenly leaving?"

"Let's walk and talk, we need to be back in the palace soon."

"We're just leaving?"

"Yes"

"Cadance"

"Shining, what would we do?"

Shining gave her a look,

"What I mean is, how would we go about even doing anything to Dusk if we wanted to? Look at this," Cadance turned to show off the core, "Dusk is blunt in a very complex way, they act like a wall. We can either try and take them down directly, or accept that we're not going to get anything. We have to play the long game, and it's not worth making Dusk our direct enemy."

"You're saying we have to weather the wall down over time?"

Cadance nodded, "That fits in the analogy. This time though, I have an actual plan."

"That's good to hear."

"Come on, I'll tell you on the way."