• Published 11th May 2013
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Calling You - AugieDog



Celestia is the Day, Luna is the Night, and Cadance is...?

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Eighth Century

The sky darkened quickly outside the open doors of Aunt Celestia's balcony—too quickly, Cadance thought, running through her notes one last time before leaving them on her aunt's desk and heading back out into the hallway. After all, Auntie would doubtless be winging down from the tower after getting the day wrapped up and the night begun, and Cadance had no desire to meet her here and now.

In fact, as much as Cadance didn't like to think about it, she'd been avoiding Aunt Celestia for most of the last eighty years. She did everything Auntie asked of her, of course, met with her when she couldn't find a way not to, but she kept herself so busy with her Calls—

Though even that had been giving her second thoughts the past century. Should she let Chrysalis and her changelings take more of the Calls to keep them away from living ponies? Or might it be worse if they only had the dying and the bereaved to focus their attentions on?

Not that whatever the changelings were doing was actually harming the delicate web of love that encompassed all ponies living and dead: Cadance had worked herself into a near frenzy proving that to her own satisfaction not long after her confrontation with Chrys a century ago. Yes, the web was a little more gossamer than she would've liked, but with the population of ponies now greater than it had ever been, of course the nature of the web was going to change. A little thinner, a little wispier, but it was still all love and still the strongest thing Cadance knew of.

So was she worrying too much? She didn't like Chrysalis and her lieutenants going around impersonating living ponies and inserting themselves into already existing relationships, something Cadance was pretty sure they were still doing even though she'd forbade it. But again, they weren't hurting anything as far as Cadance could tell, and they were still doing a fine job with the Calls.

Maybe she'd been too hard on them. Maybe she needed to—

"Princess?"

In the hall outside her aunt's room, Cadance started back, blinked at the graying blue unicorn smiling up at her from behind little square glasses. "Seneschal! Good...good evening!"

"And to you as well." The old pony gave a flowing bow, her voice calm and gentle and just what Cadance's ears needed right then. Dear, unflappable Seneschal had shown herself to be so good at her job over the past fifty or sixty years that Cadance had come to rely on her even more than she had most of the unicorn's predecessors in the post. She just made it much easier for Cadance to keep up with her duties in the living world without having to meet Aunt Celestia's difficult gaze. "A pleasure to see you again, your highness," Seneschal was going on. "Your rooms are, as always, prepared, and I will be happy to send word to the cooks if you're staying for supper."

Staring down at the unicorn, Cadance felt her stomach rumble. She couldn't think the last time she'd sat down for something as simple as a cooked meal, her recent life nothing but mouthfuls of whatever was handy snatched in haste as she rushed between realms. "I...yes, thank you, Seneschal. If it wouldn't be any trouble."

"None at all, your highness." She squinted over the tops of her glasses. "You of course always look as fresh as dewdrops on daisies, but if I might be so bold as to ask, are any of your current troubles something I could help with?"

A shiver crackled along Cadance's back, and she very nearly blurted that Seneschal had already helped Cadance sixty years ago by marrying the pony that Cadance had nudged in her direction and having a son and a daughter, both of whom had also married the ponies Cadance had selected for them thereby strengthening the magic inherent in their bloodline and bringing Equestria two steps closer toward possible redemption.

But she didn't say that, her cheeks burning at the concern on Seneschal's face, the face of an actual living pony and not, she had to remind herself, just some name in a ledger. "Thank you," Cadance managed to get out, "but I...I don't think...I doubt that there's..." She trailed off, the thought echoing through her that she was beyond help at this point.

"Ah." Seneschal bowed. "Then perhaps your aunt."

A lilac scent drifted across Cadance's nose, and her ears fell. "Niece!" Aunt Celestia's sweet, cheerful voice said from somewhere behind her. "So lovely to see you!"

It took some effort not to tear the air apart and leap through to the safety of the Realm Between, but then Cadance hadn't been feeling very comfortable there lately, either. So she turned, forced a smile, looked up to meet her aunt's bright eyes. "Are you able to stay a while?" Aunt Celestia asked, and the eagerness in her words, the sparkle that filled the air around her, the way the light both brightened and softened all up and down the hallway, it brushed away every last bit of Cadance's reluctance, the tension draining from her body as if she'd slipped into a warm bath after too hard a day.

Unable to hold herself back, Cadance leaped forward and pressed her face into Aunt Celestia's neck, the cooling waver of that incredible mane washing over her forehead. "Oh, Auntie! I just—! I don't—! I can't—!"

"Shhhh, now, niece." A touch of vanilla came into the lilac scent all around Cadance. "Thank you, Seneschal," Aunt Celestia said softly. "Could you please have supper sent up here for us? Something light, I should think, and we'll hopefully be able to get to the bottom of all this."

"Of course, your highness." Cadance felt a feathery touch of magic tickle through her braided mane. "Everything will be all right, princess. Your aunt shall see to it."

With an effort, Cadance pulled away from Aunt Celestia's warmth to smile at the old unicorn. "Thank you," she whispered.

Seneschal bowed, turned, and trotted past the guards stationed at the top of the stairs, and all Cadance's self-consciousness crashed back into place. "So," Aunt Celestia murmured, "shall we go inside and talk?"

In Cadance's mind, the list of things she didn't want to do—burst into tears; stand here in the hallway where everypony could see her burst into tears; keep Aunt Celestia in the dark; tell Aunt Celestia the truth about everything—just kept growing. But she didn't think she had the strength to leave now, not after being away from her aunt for so long; with a nod, she moved alongside Aunt Celestia through the doorway and back into her room.

The quiet in Auntie's room had always seemed a palpable thing to Cadance, more the presence of peacefulness than the absence of sound. This time, though, when the door slid shut behind her, even the feather-soft stroke of that peacefulness couldn't calm the swirling in Cadance's head. "Shall we sit?" Aunt Celestia asked.

"I—" Cadance began, but then her wings burst out, unfurling from her sides and flinging her into a hover in the middle of the room, the carpeting beneath her as thick and white as a snow bank. "I can't do this anymore!" she said instead of any of the things she'd thought she was going to say. "I don't have the right to interfere with these ponies' lives! I mean, yes, it'll possibly save us all from Nightmare Moon, but how am I not a monster for forcing these ponies to take on roles that I've decided they should have?? How can I take what they are and shape it to my own purposes and not be destroying them just as thoroughly as Aunt Luna might??"

The air through her pinions vibrated so quickly, she almost thought she was back home with the constant buzzing of the changelings, and a wave of exhaustion swept through her. Muscles bunched like rocks all along her back, and she dropped to the carpet with a squish. "This— It's just— It isn't—" She closed her eyes, let her head droop. "It isn't right...."

The silence in the room wasn't accusing or uncomfortable, and that surprised Cadance a little. "May I ask you, niece," Aunt Celestia's voice came drifting over her as softly as her scent, "if you remember Prince Golden?"

"Uncle Goldie?" Looking up, Cadance blinked at her aunt standing beside her dressing table in the evening twilight, that prismatic mane flowing around her like a willow tree in a summer breeze. "Of...of course I remember him!" Cadance even saw him now and again in the Groves Beyond, though she hadn't had time to stop and chat with him—or with anypony else there, she realized—in centuries...

"Then you recall the day he died."

Again, nothing accusatory, but Cadance couldn't help swallowing a bit. "Of course," she said again.

Aunt Celestia stepped forward, her every movement controlled and perfect. "That was the first time I saw your skills at work, did you know that? The first time, really, that I ever let myself contemplate your role here in Equestria and the invaluable service you provide to our little ponies."

Not knowing what to say, Cadance said nothing. Aunt Celestia folded her long, long legs and settled onto the carpet, her horn glowing briefly to pull a table to her side, her crown floating from between her ears to rest on the polished wooden surface. "To tell you honestly, I very nearly convinced myself not to attend that day. I expected the final moments of my beloved's life to be horrible, grotesque, and unbearable. And while it was indeed incredibly sad, it was also...it was beautiful, niece."

Her eyes shone, and Cadance had to blink a bit of dampness away herself. "Everything you did, Cadance, you did with such love, it was more than moving and more than special. It was empowering, invigorating in a way I'd never imagined such a moment could be."

With a nod, Aunt Celestia gestured to the spot of floor on the other side of the table, and Cadance shook herself, shuffled forward, slid into place there. "Never before," Aunt Celestia went on, "had I felt so connected to the ponies of Equestria. Yes, we are quite literally manifestations of their collective spirit, their hearts, their minds, and their souls, but...just being in that room when he passed, when you Called him over into the Groves Beyond, and seeing the figures of so many ponies waiting for him there, ponies he'd known and...and ponies I'd known going back to the very beginning of our time here..."

Cadance could hardly breathe, the deep, flawless beauty of her aunt's face seeming both fragile and strong as steel. "In that one, brief moment," Aunt Celestia said, "I understood more about the gift we three have been given, more about the joyful responsibility we bear, more about what it means to be a princess than I ever had."

She reached a hoof across the table and rested it on Cadance's shoulder. "So, no, Cadance, you are not a monster; you're a princess, and you carry out the duties of your post with admirable skill. The love you nurture is as important to life in Equestria as the turning of the sun and stars, and I trust you completely when it comes to our program for finally getting the power of the Elements properly into the hoofs of mortal ponies."

Should you trust me? Cadance almost asked, the words pushing hot and bitter against the back of her teeth. But at the same time, Aunt Celestia's praise slipped warm and wonderful across her back and into her chest, sparked a thought and a feeling that maybe she could still fix this. Maybe, if what Aunt Celestia had said was true, maybe Cadance could...could talk to Chrysalis again, get her to see how important their job was, get her to understand how important it was that they—

A tapping at the door. "Come in," Auntie called, and the aroma that wafted in with the palace staff made Cadance even gladder than before that she'd decided to stay: piping hot pumpkin soup; potato and onion pancakes; tomatoes so fresh and flavorful, Cadance could've kept popping them into her mouth all night long. She brought Aunt Celestia up-to-date on the latest few generations of pre-Element Bearers and shunted the several Calls that came to her directly to Chrysalis, the changeling silently acknowledging receipt as she always did. And as evening rolled gently on into full night, Cadance felt better and better, laughing and chatting with Aunt Celestia as if she'd never had a self-conscious thought in her life.

Finally, though, the dishes cleared away, the last few drops of tea cooling in the bottom of her cup, Cadance felt ready to carry on. "Thank you so much for this, Aunt Celestia." She leaned across the table and gave her aunt a kiss on the cheek. "You've always been here for me, and I need to remember that." She stood. "And if you ever want to visit the Groves Beyond, I know that Uncle Goldie and Clover the Clever and Princess Platinum and all our friends would love to see you."

Aunt Celestia's smile went a little bit sideways, the eye not covered by her flowing mane going unfocused. "Thank you, niece, but right now, I am the living world, the anchorstone about which all things mortal revolve. I would pass through the realm boundaries like lava through rice paper, leaving nothing but jagged, burning holes everywhere I went." She shook her head. "When Luna returns and is herself again, able to take creation's reins from my shoulders each evening, then I will gladly accept your kind offer." She stood as well, Cadance looking up to match her smile. "I've missed you these last thirty thousand dawns; will you be here for tomorrow's?"

"I will." Cadance activated her horn, her magic sweet as syrup with this wonderful infusion of love, and slipped through the crackling air into the darkness of her front yard in the Realm Between, the humming of the changeling hive that spread up the hill and into the woods somehow not as ominous to her ears as it had been recently. She gave a nod to Aunt Luna's profile on the moon—"Two hundred years, Auntie," she told it—and pushed the door to her little house open.

Darkness filled the place, but light flooded from the open door to her workroom. Peering inside, she found Chrysalis there as she'd expected, the changeling leader stretched out long, dark, and languid on the sofa, a book floating in her horn's green glow. Swallowing—she needed to do this!—Cadance stepped into the room. "Hi, Chrys."

Chrysalis shot her a narrow glance, then her eyes went wide, and she let the book drift to the floor. "Well, now. You're suffused with an incandescent glow. Finally get up the nerve to apologize to your aunt again?"

It took some effort not to grind her teeth: she could almost admire the way Chrysalis knew exactly where and how to push those needling remarks of hers in. "I did," Cadance said, forcing her voice to stay steady. "And now I'd like to apologize to you if you wouldn't mind."

That got Chrys's eyes to go even wider, and Cadance pressed on. "You have to do what you think is best for your changelings the same way I have to do what I think is best for my ponies. That's what being a princess—or a queen—is all about, right?"

She looked to Chrysalis for a nod or something, anything to show that Chrys knew what she meant, but all the changeling said was, "Go on."

Cadance barely kept herself from scowling. "I don't like what you're doing, taking ponies' places and fiddling around with the love they and their partners feel. But as near as I can tell, you're not hurting the ponies in any way; in fact, my investigations showed that the way you open each partner up to what they truly feel for the other, when you've finished and bring them back together again, the spark you've ignited in them seems to make their love burn even brighter afterwards." She sighed. "So, while I don't like it, don't understand it, and will ask you again please to stop doing it, as long as no harm continues to come to my ponies, I...I don't see that this has to interfere with our working arrangements."

"What?" Chrysalis sat forward on the sofa. "Bottom line this for me, Cady."

Heaving another sigh, Cadance moved to her chair and climbed into it. "The work we do for all ponies everywhere is too important for my personal feelings on this to get in the way. So I'm asking you to stop one last time, then letting the matter drop."

The silence that followed wasn't nearly as restful as the quiet in Aunt Celestia's room, Cadance's uncertainty turning the muscles in her back to stones again. If this didn't work, she wasn't sure what she was going to do....

After another moment, Chrysalis stirred on the sofa. "That wasn't at all what I've been expecting you to say since last we spoke on this subject." This Chrysalis was the most elegant of any Cadance had ever known, almost as regal in her own tattered way as Aunt Celestia. "It's really quite vexing, you know."

Unable to stifle a laugh, Cadance shrugged. "I'm annoying like that."

Snorting a laugh of her own, Chrysalis nodded. "I've noticed, yes. But as you're being so confoundedly fair-minded about all this, I'll make you a promise: we will be as careful as we can with the ponies we visit and do our absolute utmost to make sure our practices continue to be beneficial for all involved." She straightened her neck and raised her head. "So swears Queen Chrysalis."

Cadance rolled her eyes and exaggerated her sigh. "I s'ppose that's the best I'm gonna get, isn't it?"

"Yep." Chrysalis rubbed her hoofs together, green fire sparking at her horn. "Now, how 'bout we have an update session, huh? I've had some really amazing Calls lately."

"So have I, Chrys." Cadance powered up her own horn, reached out to touch the familiar tingle of Chrysalis's magic. "So have I."