Calling You

by AugieDog

The Beginning

The golden-armored guards at the city gate saluted Cadance quite smartly, and so did every other group of soldiers she met between there and Canterlot Tower. They made the whole city gleam more brightly than ever under Aunt Celestia's sun, but the clatter of military horseshoes at every intersection and the lack of any other ponies on the streets got Cadance's ears twitching. After all, the last time she'd visited—

She stopped outside the palace's arched entryway, let her gaze travel from stalwart face to stalwart face among the guards stationed along the top of the wall. When had she last been to Canterlot? Years ago? Decades, more likely. But certainly it hadn't been centuries!

Had it?

Regardless, there'd been fewer soldiers, she was sure, and quite a number of citizens bustling about their brief, rich, wonderful lives. Starting forward again, Cadance couldn't keep a shiver from rustling her wings. Receiving the invitation to visit this morning, she'd thought several things odd about it: that it hadn't been signed by both her aunts, for one thing, and that the invitation had specified Canterlot Tower rather than her aunts' actual castle. And to find the city so changed?

Picking up her pace, she crossed the courtyard, nodded to the continued salutes, and entered the reception hall—no decorations anywhere, she noted, so it wasn't some local festival or civic occasion. Still, blank marble walls and archways weren't enough to base any conclusions on...

At the top of the grand staircase stood the first non-military pony she'd seen: a russet-brown earth pony mare, her deep crimson mane tied back in a tight bun, a silver chain around her neck that Cadance recalled was the badge of her aunts' castellan. She bowed as Cadance came up the steps. "Good afternoon, your Highness. I am Seneschal, and I'm honored to welcome you back to Canterlot."

"Thank you, Seneschal." The last castellan she'd met, Cadance was sure, had also been named Seneschal, but he'd been a silver-blue unicorn. And from what she remembered of court etiquette, she was fairly certain the castellan of Canterlot Tower should be here greeting her as well.... "I hope I haven't come at a bad time." She glanced down the stairs at the guards.

"Oh, not at all, your Highness." An odd note wavered behind Seneschal's words: relief, Cadance almost thought it was. "In fact, your aunt will be overjoyed to see you."

Which made Cadance shiver again. "My aunts, surely you mean."

Seneschal's ears fell, and she turned, started down the red-carpeted hallway. "Please, princess, if you'll follow me?"

It took Cadance some effort not to leap into the air and swoop past the earth pony to the throne room, but if there was one thing she'd learned in the centuries that she'd sallied forth from the Realm Between to deliver her Calls, it was the importance of protocol to living ponies, especially in tense situations. So she kept her steps measured behind the castellan, stopped at the edge of the red carpet, let Seneschal push the big double doors open and announce, "Presenting her Royal Highness, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza!"

A trumpet fanfare sounded within, very tight and very martial, and Cadance steeled herself for whatever might await her. But still, stepping through the doorway, she almost staggered back at the sight of the majestic white alicorn seated atop the towering dais at the far end of the throne room, her golden plate mail shining as brightly as the summer noontime sun, her mane and tail each a cascading pastel rainbow somehow flowing without benefit of wind, her gentle but stern expression making Cadance want to smile and apologize at the same time. "Aunt Celestia?" she asked.

"Ah, Cadance! Welcome, dearest niece!" Aunt Celestia's voice boomed, the force pushing against Cadance like a storm wind, and when she spread her wings, they seemed to span twice as much space as the last time Cadance had seen her. "Much gladdened are we that thou hast accepted our invitation!" She sprang from her dais and arched so gracefully through the air, Cadance nearly joined the quiet gasps from the soldiers lining the walls. Was this really—?

The alicorn landed beside her with a delicate tapping of her shoes, stretched her head down to rub her cheek against the side of Cadance's neck, and her scent, fresher than the dew of a spring morning, brought Cadance right back to her very first memory, blinking awake in that weather-beaten Canterlot apartment, three smaller ponies staring at her from the other side of a crooked table, their names ringing unbidden in Cadance's head—Smart Cookie was the earth pony directly across from her; the unicorn in the middle was Clover the Clever; and the pegasus Pansy was standing next to her.

The aroma, though, had come from the ponies to Cadance's right, the nearest white and pink and slightly larger than Cadance, a black and dark blue pony about Cadance's same size peering around the white one. And while Cadance had had no idea of their names—nor of her own, for that matter—the warm sunshine scent of the one and the cool moonlight scent of the other spoke to her of kinship: her aunts, she knew in the same unquestionable way that she knew what ponies were, how they thought, how they felt...and how they had brought her into being by means of a magic they themselves didn't fully understand.

Aunt Celestia stepping back returned Cadance to the present, and while her aunt's face remained placid beneath her plumed helmet, the slight rim of white around her eyes told Cadance a different story. Still more than a little awe-struck, though, instead of blurting out the questions that continued popping through her head like sudden mushrooms, Cadance just smiled and said, "Thank you for inviting me, aunt."

The dip of Aunt Celestia's ears was so fast, Cadance almost didn't notice it, and then her aunt was moving away, calling out, "Thou must be exhausted after thy journey! Seneschal! We shall escort our niece to her quarters! Should any matter arise that requires our attention, do not hesitate to summon us!"

The earth pony bowed. "Of course, your Highness."

Cadance spread her wings, started forward to catch up with Aunt Celestia, but her aunt wasn't slowing down, cantering out into the hallway, the guards, already at attention, somehow straightening even further. Practically galloping for an open double doorway Cadance hadn't noticed before, Aunt Celestia unfurled those massive wings, leaped over the railing of the little balcony outside, and rose into the blue of the early afternoon sky. Without a word, not allowing any of her concerns to appear on her face, Cadance followed, rode Aunt Celestia's backdraft like she would the winds behind a thunderstorm, and barely needed to flap her own wings to stay airborne.

To a balcony near the top of the tallest tower she slipped in Aunt Celestia's wake, Cadance not missing the quiver in her aunt's knees and slight scrabbling of her hoofs when she landed and slid from the sunlight into the shadows of the room beyond. The tiniest chill struck Cadance, but chastising herself—she had no reason to suspect Aunt Celestia of anything; no reason at all!—she went inside as well.

It wasn't any of the guest rooms Cadance had stayed in before, and looking around the neat shelves of books, the small keepsakes of glass and gold set here and there over the counters and tabletops throughout the large but somehow intimate space, the way the place swirled with light even though the gauzy curtains were drawn, she quickly realized this was her aunt's room. Aunt Celestia stood facing away in the middle of the floor, everything about her so regal, Cadance might've thought she'd been replaced by a marble statue of herself.

A quick glance, listen, and sniff told her they were alone, so she stepped forward, took a breath, and very carefully asked the question at the top of her list: "Aunt Celestia? Where's Aunt Luna?"

For a moment, nothing. Then a shiver wracked Aunt Celestia from the tips of her ears to the nebulous brush of her tail, and she dropped in place, collapsed with a clatter and a crash to the thick, cream-colored carpet, her armor bursting at the seams and tumbling in pieces around her. With a flash, Cadance was at her side, cradling her weeping aunt in her wings.

***

By mid-afternoon, Cadance had gotten the whole story, Aunt Celestia never moving from the heap she'd made of herself. "So you see," she finished, her voice as quiet and raw as the oldest and sickest pony Cadance had ever Called to the Groves Beyond, "I failed Luna more completely than anypony has ever failed another. I didn't understand what she was feeling, I didn't listen to what she was saying, and when she finally became consumed, I couldn't...even with all the Elements of Harmony, I couldn't...couldn't—"

"Shhhh...." Cadance let the love she felt for her aunt shimmer forth from her horn, stroked the jagged edges of the elder alicorn's pain and grief. "Nothing's harder than trying to help a pony who doesn't want it. Banishing Aunt Luna to the moon till we can discover what happened to her, well, I'd call that a pretty smart idea."

Aunt Celestia shivered against Cadance. "Thank you for saying that, at least." She took a deep breath and raised her head, the gossamer rainbow that had taken the place of her pink mane coursing across half her face. Chuckling, she ran a hoof through it. "Using all six Elements has changed me, Cadance, and has changed the world, too, I fear. More will have to change before we're done, but with both of us here, I think we'll be able to establish a workable set of planetary guidelines till such time as we can bring Luna back."

"Both of us?" Cadance couldn't stop a shiver of her own, and an all-too-familiar tickle, a tickle she'd been feeling on and off for nearly an hour now, ran along the base of her horn. "Aunt Celestia, I'll be more than glad to do what I can to help, of course, but I...I do have my own responsibilities, not just in this world but in the other."

When Aunt Celestia's head turned, the eye not covered by the cascade of her mane gazed down so deep and shimmery, Cadance felt like she was looking into a well. "I know, Cadance, and I'm very sorry for asking, but...please. All these centuries, it's been Luna and I together, and I...I'm not sure how to...how to—" And for all that she was now bigger than any pony Cadance had ever seen, at that moment, her aunt looked as fragile as an eggshell. "If there's any way you can see your way clear to—"

"Of course, Auntie." Ears hot and blushing, Cadance touched her cheek to her aunt's neck. Abandoning her at a time like this was not an option, and while Cadance had no idea how she was going to manage it with her other duties, she forced a smile. "Till Aunt Luna's fit to return, I'll be right here with you."

"Thank you." Aunt Celestia stood, Cadance rising beside her. "I know grief counseling is something you specialize in, so I'll be following your lead a great deal in helping the ponies of Equestria adjust to Luna's absence." She glanced down at the pieces of her armor, and the fury that flashed across her face almost made Cadance leap backwards. The look vanished immediately, though, Aunt Celestia's nose wrinkling, and with a flash of her horn, the golden plate mail puffed away into a scattering of sparks. "So." Aunt Celestia blew out a breath. "First things first, I suppose."

***

Standing atop Canterlot Tower that evening, Cadance watched in awe as Aunt Celestia sent her words wafting across all of Equestria, the depths of her emotion obvious and real, her tone gentle and reassuring—"In your voice," she'd told her aunt, "not the royal Canterlot voice." Cadance had also sent Seneschal and her staff out into the city—"Find any ponies who know how to listen, to empathize, and to console. They'll already be working with their friends and neighbors, but ask them to come to the palace so we can make them available to anypony who needs to talk about all this." And since that final battle between her aunts had apparently raged through the night sky from one end of the country to the other, she would need to expand this program to—

The base of her horn tickled, the same sensation she'd been pushing aside all afternoon, and Cadance swallowed a sigh. Ponies were such hearty creatures, she rarely had more than fifteen or twenty Calls a day, but each one deserved her full attention, something she couldn't really give at the moment.

"Our beloved Luna," Aunt Celestia was saying, "is not gone, but neither is the creature she became, Nightmare Moon. So, until such time as we can return the one without the other—" Cadance felt her mane rustle, her aunt's new power flexing the very fabric of space around her, and the moon began to rise at the eastern horizon. "We will not forget our sister, our princess, our friend." The moon slowly cleared the distant mountains, its silver-white face changed, mottled with a rough but familiar silhouette that brought a lump to Cadance's throat. "We...that is, I thank you."

Aunt Celestia lowered her head, and Cadance stepped up to nuzzle her aunt's neck. "That's a perfect tribute to her."

"She is coming back." The edge in Aunt Celestia's whisper made Cadance's ears dip, but when she looked up, a gentle smile sat on her aunt's face. "Thank you again, Cadance. I can't imagine how terrible this would be without you here." Her wings unfurled. "Now, we'll have a bit of supper, then—"

"Actually, Aunt Celestia, I—" Cadance's voice failed at the immediate distress that replaced her aunt's smile. "I'll be back before sun-up, I promise, but my own duties, they...I...I need to make some arrangements." Not that she'd come up with any plan in the last few hours, but, well, necessity was the broodmare of invention, Smart Cookie often said with that inimitable snorting laugh of hers.

Nodding, Aunt Celestia sucked in a breath. "Yes, of course. This has all been so sudden, I...I understand completely." She drew herself up to her full height, Cadance again a little awe-struck at her aunt's transformation. "For my part, I must speak to Luna's staff this evening, those whom she coerced into supporting her cause. They'll need to know how much I shall be relying upon them until such time as she can retake her rightful place at Night's helm." A flap of her wings lifted her into the gathering twilight. "Until dawn, then, niece."

Cadance watched her go, then quickly let her own magic enfold her, gave in to the itch, the tug, the yearning she always felt when somepony somewhere needed her Call.

The air rustled around her like autumn leaves, and she found herself in a small but nicely furnished bedroom, a sea of love and grief swirling in the stillness. Two ponies huddled together on a sofa pulled up to the bedside, their eyes rimmed with tears, while an old earth pony stallion shivered under the blankets—Cold Press, she knew instantly, was his name, his blue face a sallow gray, his salt-and-pepper mane matted with sweat.

Reaching out with her power, Cadance nourished the love in the room, thickened it, let it spread like a nectar-scented vapor into the sharp and ragged grief surrounding it. The two younger ponies breathed it in, sighed, and relaxed against each other—she wouldn't know their names, of course, until their times came—and Cold Press opened his eyes, a light barely flickering behind them. Cadance caressed that light, felt the resonance of it, and reached through to the Groves Beyond, the love in the room guiding her directly to Press's parents, uncles, aunts, his wife Magenta whom Cadance had Called several years earlier. "Cold Press?" she Called now. "It's time."

The air shimmered open behind her, the summery breezes of the Groves adding their sweetness to the room, and the two younger ponies raised their heads, blinking as if they'd just awoken, Cold Press sitting up for the first time in months, his tired body giving one last exhale and remaining behind.

"Dad?" one of the younger ponies whispered. Press turned, smiled, nodded, drifted past Cadance, and stepped into the waiting embrace of the ponies on the other side of the divide, the younger pony staring after him. "Mom?"

Press and Magenta looked back, and Cadance shaped the love resounding silently back and forth between the worlds, wrapped it like a bow around all the ponies present, then drew the gateway between the realms closed, allowed the shadows of the living world's evening to move into the room once more.

The two living ponies let out sighs in unison, and Cadance knew more tears would follow, sorrow mixed with relief, pain mingling with love. Peace shimmered here, a peace that Cadance considered to be her greatest gift, a peace that gentled the harsher and more transitory emotions, a peace that allowed the more permanent emotions to take root and grow so that the love these ponies had all shared would remain, leading these two younger ponies to the Groves Beyond when it came time for Cadance to Call them.

Perfect. They wouldn't need her further intervention. Flicking her power then to slice into the spaces between space, Cadance headed for the Realm Between, her home both before and after Clover the Clever and her friends had summoned Cadance and her aunts...or whatever it was they'd done. For all the happy hours Cadance had spent in the Groves Beyond with Clover and her mentor Starswirl the Bearded, when they started delving into their various theories about herself and her aunts, Cadance just smiled and nodded. As far as she was concerned, being a timeless manifestation of the love and hope uniting all ponies living and dead in the past, the present, and the future was plenty: she didn't need to know the details.

Her golden shoes clattered on the stones of her front walk, and she turned to take in the afterglow of the sunset, clouds all purple and pink above the calm waters of the bay down the grassy slope from her door. Equestria was lovely, of course—she'd found her little house abandoned there, after all, had brought it through to the Realm Between when just settling to sleep under whatever tree she found herself beside at nightfall had gotten more than a little old—and she adored the infinite blue skies, green hills, and bosky valleys of the Groves Beyond. But Cadance found this spot on the border that divided the living and the dead to be the most beautiful of all.

Smiling, she turned, activated her horn to push open her front door, and had to smile at the sudden wave of relaxation that crackled along her spine, muscles she hadn't even realized she'd had clenched coming loose as she crossed the threshold into her own tidy sitting room.

Which made her smile fade. Usually, Calling a pony across into the Groves Beyond left her as light as a soap bubble, her whole body humming to the music of creation's never-ending dance, another phrase Cookie had come up with several centuries ago that Cadance had been rolling around in her mind ever since. But the way she'd had to put off poor Cold Press's Call for all those hours, it had left her itchy, as if she'd forgotten her bath that morning.

She shuffled her hoofs across the wooden floor, slid onto her favorite sofa, and rested her head on her front legs. There had to be some way she could help Aunt Celestia without neglecting her duties. Her Calls were the priority, of course, but she couldn't just pop away in the middle of whatever tasks her aunt might need to assign her. No, what she needed was—

The idea made her sit up, more ideas sparking from it, a plan springing into place and setting her wings to spreading. She needed some assistants.

***

Sailing out into the living world, she aimed for the most magical forest she knew—the one around her aunts' castle—and started marking down items on her mental checklist. She would need a group of animals, a herd or a pack or something that would know how to work together, creatures with some magic about them already that she could enhance and shape while she was enhancing and shaping their bodies and minds with her own magic, encouraging certain individuals to fall in love and have children so that the traits she was looking for would be passed on.

Those traits got their own section of her invisible list: intelligence, resilience, a work ethic, and something that bred quickly, too, since the sooner she could get these assistants on the job, the better. Maybe she could start with ants. Or beetles. Or—

A buzzing tickled her ears. Pulling into a hover, she followed the sound to a bee hive, lumpy and brown, tucked between the trunk and a large branch near the top of one of the taller trees at the edge of the forest. Big, black, and shiny, the bees darted busily around it, a green glimmer to their wings that prickled Cadance's senses and told her they'd picked up some magical ability or other living so close to her aunts.

Intrigued, she drifted closer to the hive. The world was changing, after all; hadn't Aunt Celestia said something about that? And Cadance had to change with it.

Comments

[Lurks-no-More]

Whoah. So... does this take place just before Luna declared herself Nightmare Moon, or just after Celestia has defeated her?

In either case: damn, this is good stuff.

Edit: Oh, that answers it. And... Whoah!

CADANCE
WAT R U DOIN
CADANCE
STAHP

[WindyDayz]

[Tousle-Headed Poet]

Very nice. I look forward to reading the rest!
I'd always sort of assumed the role you've assigned to Cadance would be Luna's job, but thinking about it, your idea makes perfect sense! I like it.

[AugieDog]

3762818

Thanks!

I was bound and determined to make Cadance fit in as an equal to the cosmic forces of Day and Night...even though the show itself decided to go a different way with her altogether...

Mike

[Wellwater]

Oh Cadence. No. Just no. Please no. Don't do it! Aaaaaaaah!

[AugieDog]

4210462

Kids these days:

They just never listen!

Mike

[Razzy]

Ah, Cadence is about to create the eternal greatness of Cheese Legs. :B

Cya
Raziel-chan