> Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
>  by kudzuhaiku
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Sproglodyte
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of all of the worst things that could happen, this was the worst possible thing: going on vacation with a civic-minded, duty-driven alicorn. It didn’t matter that she was the Princess of Love, no… she wanted to work, and not vacation. Even now, rather than enjoy herself, Cadance was reading a casefile. She was digesting data. Rather than frolic in the sun with her husband and her daughters like a normal, sane pony, Cadance wanted to keep her nose tucked into some dusty old stack of papers.

Fed up with everything about life, Shining Armor groaned.

Flurry Heart and Skyla, they were frolicking. They knew what to do… they understood. Skyla was running through the sand and surf as fast as her stubby legs would carry her while Flurry—who had something yucky from the tidal pool held aloft in her magic—followed in hot pursuit. Ah, at least the sounds of his daughters playing was soothing and just what he needed to relax.

“Daddy! Help! Help! Help! Save me! Dad! Don’t be a jerk! Get up and make Flurry stop!”

Eh, Skyla was fine. If she had the wind to shout, then she wasn’t running very hard. If she was really in trouble, she’d be too winded to be screaming. Ah yes, everything in good fun. A little exercise was good for Skyla, and Shining Armor remembered fondly the days when he motivated his baby sister, Twilight, into physical fitness by dangling something indescribably gross behind her and threatening to touch her tail with it. Now, Twilight was sporty, athletic, and physically fit.

Flurry Heart was an excellent big sister, one so willing to motivate Skyla to be her best.

Doing his best to ignore the rustle of paper, Shining Armor focused on relaxing and thought that maybe, if it got a little hotter, he might go for a dip. The warm sand made him think of Cadance’s warm body beside him, or better still, pressed tight against him, and for the first time he wondered if there might be a way to distract his wife from her work.

“Daddy, please! It’s so icky!”

It was only yesterday that Flurry was learning to talk, or so it seemed. Where did the time go? Only the day before that, he and Cadance were still dating, sneaking around, and finding some way to fronk one another silly in every conceivable public location—some of which were a real challenge. The very best moment was beneath the wooden stage from where Princess Celestia had raised the sun; Cadance had almost torn his ear off in a desperate attempt to remain quiet because he kept hitting the right spot over and over, without mercy.

It was also the day that Cadance had announced to him that they were getting married.

Waxing nostalgic, Shining Armor rolled over onto his side and could feel the grittiness of the white sand as it worked its way deeper into his pelt. Sand would be everywhere, and later, it would be found all over the royal yacht. The cleaning staff would complain, and no matter what they did, sand would continue to be found for a long time. No doubt, sand from the last trip could still be found hiding, escaping detection somehow, because that is what sand did.

“Shiny, dear, I’m noticing a pattern,” Cadance said, her words accompanied by a rustle of papers.

Here we go, Shining Armor thought to himself. He sighed, knowing that Cadance would continue no matter what he said, and he had himself some fresh motivation to toss himself into the sparkling blue-green water. Cadance was gathering her facts and was about to unleash a doctoral dissertation upon him.

“Ponies from small towns find love early… they usually find a special somepony during their formative foalhood years, and the statistics suggest that this results in marriage—young—more often than not. However”—the pink mare drew in a deep breath, filling her lungs with all of the wind needed for an alicorn to properly deliver the facts—“in the cities, especially the big cities, foals don’t form these special bonds nearly as often. Special someponies are rare. And the data seems to suggest that for many, if they haven’t found a partner to bond with during their formative years, chances are high that they don’t form any lasting relationships at all, but go through a series of failed relationships or remain single.”

This was too intriguing to ignore, and Shining Armor found himself resenting his wife just a little tiny bit for springing this on him. It was the worst sort of bait, the kind he had trouble resisting, and even though he tried to push it out of his mind, he found himself thinking about it. For this… there would be a reckoning… later, once dinner, dancing, and drinks were finished.

“The evidence suggests that something about cities, cities that are major population centers, impairs a pony’s ability to find love and be happy. Also, the rates of divorce are much, much higher than those in the small towns. This worries me, Shining; there seems to be a major crisis and as the Princess of Love, I need to fix this somehow.”

“Cadance,” Shining said to his wife, exasperated, “too much choice is just as bad as too little choice. Ponies in podunk towns have limited selection and choose the best from what they have available. It’s easy to find a special somepony when you attend a one room schoolhouse. Freckles, more freckles, the pretty one, four-eyes, pigtails, the egghead, the gassy filly, and the giggler. That’s it. Small town values keeps them together, through whatever means are necessary. They make things work.”

“Shining Armor!” Cadance held her breath for a moment and then let everything out in a huff. “How cynical!”

“Doesn’t make it any less true. In the big cities, with schools that have thousands of students, you just end up with hundreds of variations of the same fillies I listed, and you suffer from selection fatigue.”

Blinking, Cadance pouted with a duck-lipped expression, and she kept shaking her head, though she seemed to lack a suitable rebuttal. She opened her mouth, took a deep breath, and for a few seconds, she was on the verge of saying something, but failed. Tossing her head back, she snorted, and when she did say something, it wasn’t anything that her husband expected.

“So, Shining Armor… tell me… which filly did you settle on?”

Without thinking of his rather honest reply, Shining Armor said, “The gassy one.”

“What?” Cadance’s sheaf of papers vanished with a crackling pop. “WHAT!” There was a thunderous crack when her wings snapped out from her sides. “This sand will be your grave, Shining Armor, and a sand castle your tombstone!”

His response was one of conditioned magnificence; Shining Armor was on his hooves in less time than it took to blink and he was already running before his legs were even beneath him. When he bolted, he left behind rooster tails of sand and he ran for his life with an angry pink alicorn in hot pursuit.





Steel drums and twanky mandolins failed to distract Shining Armor, who kept thinking about what his wife had said. He chewed his butter and cucumber sandwich, starving after his long, extended run, and was grateful to be sitting in the shade. When Flurry Heart belched long enough and hard enough to almost knock her glass over, poor Shining Armor missed the opportunity to point out how much little Flurry was like her mother, the gassy filly at school.

“I don’t want cucumber sandwiches—”

“Skyla, don’t whine,” Cadance said to her youngest daughter. “You like cucumbers.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want a sandwich—”

“You’re still whining,” Cadance said, helpfully pointing this fact out.

“I want something cold, like a salad.” Crossing her forelegs over her barrel, Skyla stared down at her uneaten sandwich in contempt.

“Wait for din-din—”

“I don’t want to wait for dinner!” Skyla pushed her plate away with magic, and then refused to even look at her mother. “I am hungry for salad now. My demands will be met, or else. If I can’t be happy, then nopony be will happy.”

“How about a sea cucumber sandwich—”

“Shut up, Flurry!”

Shining Armor, lost in his thoughts, responded in auto-parent mode: “Somepony needs a nap.”

“I do not need a nap! I need a salad!” Eyes narrowing behind her glasses, Skyla did her best to give her father a withering stare, but he was lost in his own headspace.

“If you eat your lunch, you can have ice cream,” Cadance offered with a hopeful expression upon her face. If she was tired from her run, she didn’t show it.

“I don’t want ice cream—”

“I want salad!” Flurry whined, mimicking her little sister. “Blah blah blah, look at me, I’m a booger-licker. Shut up and eat your sandwich, before I do.”

Skyla, left with no other options, pressed her hoof over one nostril, sucked in a deep breath through her mouth, which whistled around the gaps in her teeth, and then before her mother or Flurry could say anything, she emptied the contents of her still-open nostril upon her sandwich. Revelling in the shock that could be seen upon her mother’s and sister’s faces, little Skyla crowed to her sister, Flurry, “Eat it, you fat, farty, ice cream loving freak!”

“Yep”—the word came out in the most matter-of-fact way imaginable—“Daddy’s little booger-blaster is in need of a nap. Flurry, you should know better than to get your sister so worked up… it gets her in such an awful mood.”

“You’re blaming me?” Flurry did her best to look as incredulous as possible, while still absolutely disgusted from what her little sister had done.

“Yep.” Shining Armor nodded while Cadance made the booger-garnished sandwich vanish with a pop of magic. “Come along, Skyla.” Before his daughter could protest, he lifted her in his magic and held her aloft, mindful of the fact that a pendulous ribbon of snot still hung from her petite, adorable little nostril. “A little fun is fine, but you were relentless earlier. This is the evidence of you going too far.”

“Shining, do you want me to look after her?” Cadance asked, worried in a way that only a mother could be.

“No,” he replied, “I think I’ll be taking a nap too. Poor little Skyla could use the quiet time.”

“Have a nice nap, both of you.” Cadance waved goodbye with her wing.

Scowling, her manner reluctant, if not downright recalcitrant,  Skyla extended one wing and waved goodbye to her mother with her snotty lip curled back in a snarl.





Humming to himself, Shining Armor turned off the shower faucet and still dripping, emerged from the shower while pushing his daugher in front of him. He was almost certain that they both still had sand, but the shower, cool and refreshing, had done much to help Skyla’s insufferable mood.

“Want to talk about it?” Shining Armor asked while his daughter sat down upon the tile floor with a wet plop.

“What’s there to talk about?” Skyla’s wet mane was plastered to her face and a puddle spread out from the epicenter of where she sat.

“Are we no longer friends?” Shining Armor took no satisfaction in the defeated look upon Skyla’s face when she heard his question and using his magic, he lifted her mane away from her eyes, so that he could have himself a better look. Skyla could be a tough one to read and she took after her grandmare, Twilight Velvet.

“I didn’t want to come on this stupid trip in the first place!”

“Here we go.” Sitting down on the tile floor, Shining Armor bumped into the toilet and let out a grunt when the hard edge pressed against his spine. “Your mother, she couldn’t leave her work at home, and you, you didn’t want to leave home in the first place. Of course not. You don’t like changes in routine.”

“No I don’t.” Snorting once to make her point, little Skyla almost sounded haughty.

“So what’s bothering you?” he asked, and when his daughter made no reply, he took a few guesses. “No schoolwork? Do you miss your instructors? Is not having your bestie, little Quiet Dark around, is that giving you fits?” About mid-sentence, the filly began to sniffle and he felt a twinge of guilt.

For a moment, Shining Armor lamented his lot in life. Vacations, a time that he desperately needed, were so difficult to enjoy. With Cadance being a workaholic and Skyla a homebody that melted down when the routine changed, vacations were a time fraught with peril. He knew the risks, yet still he took them, often with the hopes that he would have a good time.

The first tears were already falling and Shining Armor knew that he would be scrubbing her face again in no time at all. He was the designated face scrubber, because he did it just right, and if Cadance tried to clean Skyla’s face, a total meltdown was sure to follow. Why? Skyla never said, other than she just didn’t like her mother washing her face.

Foals were a mystery.

Casting a simple spell, both he and Skyla became dry and the water pooling on the floor vanished. Skyla was having herself a quiet cry, the sort of too-exhausted-for-good-hollering-cry that she had when she really needed a nap. Reflecting a bit on being a father, this bit of knowledge was something that had taken him some fair amount of time to learn. Flurry cried in a much different way, if she cried at all. Having one foal didn’t necessarily prepare you for the second.

“I’m hungry,” Skyla whispered to her father while her barrel hitched from her soft sobs.

“I am too. My lunch was interrupted by somepony having a fit and thinking only of themselves.”

More tears fell, and Skyla stared down at the floor while she wept. “I’m sorry.”

“No salad,” Shining Armor said, risking a terrible tantrum. “You don’t get to have your way, no matter how sorry I feel for you right now.”

Hunched over in misery, Skyla’s ears fell, she closed her eyes, and after a moment, she plopped over onto her side. “That’s fair.”

“You know, Skyla… you’re always the one I can count on to behave. Mostly. Flurry has been so much trouble lately. But then there are moments like this and I am just baffled at how awful you can be—”

“I don’t like change!” Skyla blurted out while kicking her hind legs about. “I don’t like it at all! I hate it!”

Sighing, Shining Armor found that he couldn’t be upset by the interruption. It felt necessary. Skyla was venting—but in a good way. At least she had come out and said how she felt, which he felt was an improvement. In this moment of emotional distress, he could almost hear Princess Celestia’s patient, calm voice in his ear—A good ruler, though no matter how flexible, does well to abide by routine. Skyla had the routine part down pat, but the flexibility part? Not so much.

Flurry seemed to be the one that rolled with the punches.

“I’m going to clean your face up and when I’m done, we’ll go to the galley, just you and I, and we’ll have carrot-butter and crackers—”

“But that’s a treat, and I’ve been a snot.”

“Yes you have, but I am trying to make you feel better.”

“I can’t spread it, I keep busting the crackers.”

She did. She did keep busting the crackers, and Shining Armor found himself in a hard spot. If she never did it for herself, she would never get better. However, in her current state, any sort of frustration, or even slight provocation, it would be her undoing. Now was not the time to help Skyla with her telekinesis, now was the time to get a meal into her, followed by a nap.

“I’ll fix your crackers and carrot-butter for you,” he offered, still feeling conflicted about his choice. At some point, she would have to learn how to deal with her emotions and her magic better, but today was not that day. “But in return, you can’t whine, cry, or complain about having a nap. You can’t even tell me that you’re not sleepy.”

“Aww—”

“Surely that’s worth some carrot-butter and crackers.”

“You win.”

“We both win, my adorable little Sproglodyte.”

“Daddy… we talked about you calling me that.”

“I agreed to nothing.” Standing up, he went to his daughters side and then Shining Armor helped her to stand up. When she was on her hooves once more, he bent his neck and kissed her on the top of her head, just behind her horn, right on the spot that made her squirm. “Now, come along, my sweet little Sproglodyte, and let us have lunch in the galley.”

Scooping up his sniffling, sweet little Sproglodyte Skyla, Shining Armor tossed his daughter onto his back and left to have lunch, forgetting to wash her face.
> Fluffalump
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Realisations brought regrets, and regrets only brought further realisations, setting off a cascading series of events from which there would be no recovery. Skyla wouldn’t be little for much longer and she would become like Flurry Heart—sweet, adorable little Flurry Heart who would rather die in unspeakable agony than take a nap with her father. Standoffishy little Flurry Heart who had to be caught unawares somehow to be hugged. This was the cost of having little fillies; all too soon they ceased being little fillies and for a time, became something else, something monstrous and unmentionable, something that even the Elements of Harmony were powerless against.

His father had tried to warn him, but Shining Armor had failed to listen.

When Flurry Heart—his sweet little Fluffalump—got it into her head one day that she was done being a filly, Shining Armor’s heart had been broken. It seemed that, overnight, Flurry had decided that she was too big for snuggles, cuddles, naps, hugs, kisses, and things of this nature. As for these things happening in the public view… doing so caused Flurry to go into great bellowing tirades about how her life was over and how she could never show her face in public ever again—OH MY GOSH, DAD, STOP THAT RIGHT THIS MINUTE.

“Hey, Dad! Stop staring into space and look what I can do!”

With a turn of his head, Shining Armor saw Flurry Heart menacing herself with a coconut. A peeled coconut, with all of the green fibery husk stuff removed. Before he could say anything, before he could say stop or summon parental authority, Flurry, who held the coconut in her hoof, jam-slammed the coconut against her head with a terrific coconutastic thwack. Much to his shock and awe, the coconut cracked and Flurry rushed to catch the dripping coconut milk with her tongue.

“Flurry, darling… Fluffalump—”

“Dad, we talked about that. Don’t call me that.” Coconut milk dribbled down Flurry’s chin while she gave her father a stern look of disapproval.

“I never agreed to anything,” he replied, shaking his head to and fro, side to side. “Fluffalump… that worries me. Who taught you to do that?”

“Mom!” Holding out her dripping coconut, she pointed at her mother, whose muzzle was buried in a sheaf of papers.

“Cadance, darling… Cadance… Cadance!”

“What?” The folder of papers was lowered and Cadance’s reaction was hidden by her big, oversized, white-framed sunglasses. “I was reading. I’m sorry, what’d I miss?”

“Cadance… did you teach our lovely daughter how to crack open coconuts with her skull?” As bad as the question was, Shining Armor feared the answer even more.

“Sure did!” Cadance’s square white teeth came out of hiding and the most unnerving grin could be seen. “She’s a hard-headed little cuss! It’s cool, isn’t it?”

A few yards away, Skyla sat in the sand snickering, building her sandcastle, the very same sandcastle that she insisted that she do alone, because it had to be perfect. With another mighty conk-a-bonk, Flurry rammed her coconut into her skull, and this time, it split right in half. Another in a long line of realisations, Shining Armor discovered that he was alone, a lone stallion pitted against two daughters and a wife. Mad creatures, all of them.

Grinning like mad, Cadance took off her designer sunglasses, conjured up a coconut, held it in her hoof, and with a fluid, well-practiced motion, made it collide with her skull. It cracked like an egg—the coconut, not her skull—and leaning her head back, she allowed the coconut milk to pour into her open mouth. It was somehow more magnificent when she did it, and Shining Armor could tell that Flurry’s act needed work.

But did he dare encourage her?

What sort of father would he be?

Now, Flurry was peeling out great big chunks of coconut flesh and eating them with gusto, which rather left Shining Armor with a hankering for coconut. There was only one thing that could be done in this situation, only one sane course of action left to a father at the end of his wits.

“Fluffalump… may Daddy have some of your coconut? Please?”

“Only because you said please,” was Flurry’s cheerful reply, made with her mouth full, and she tore out a massive chunk of coconut flesh for her father. “Now stop calling me Fluffalump.”

“Thank you.” Yet again, Shining Armor agreed to nothing, and would continue to acknowledge his beloved Fluffalump by her rightful and proper name.





As the afternoon began its slow shift into evening, balmy breezes blew over the island and way off in the distance, the whistle for the rum distillery blew, signaling that the workday was over. The shadows were all growing long and the first of many bright lights were turned on, preparing for what was sure to be yet another exciting night.

It was just about perfect, and Shining Armor couldn’t think of anything more relaxing.

Airships approached and departed from the skyharbour, and seafaring ships did the same from the marine harbour. This island was one big military installation, a fortress on the sea, and was one of the few places where Shining Armor felt truly safe. He could relax his guard, just a little, and have a little fun.

“Shiny… I’ve been reading…”

He didn’t even bother resisting. “Yes?”

“Incompatible backgrounds… the data seems unreasonably high for ponies who have vastly different backgrounds… divorce rates are far, far higher and from the looks of things, these marriages are doomed to fail without some means of marital counselling. The numbers are scary. While variances in background do lead to some attraction in the short term, in the long term, these differences cause conflicts and irreconcilable differences.”

While watching a massive aerial battleship floating above the water reservoir, Shining Armor thought about what his wife had said. Of course the data would show this, it seemed like the only reasonable outcome. Why would this be a surprise? Unless, of course, there was more to the data, stuff he hadn’t seen, and Cadance hadn’t told him about. Like attracts like. His parents were a good example of that. Twilight Velvet and Night Light were tireless crusaders to the cause of good; both of them were dedicated and devoted servants to the public betterment. They got along like a house on fire and the flames of their marriage burned hotter than ever.

“So then,” he said, still thinking. “A pegasus filly orphan who was raised by earth pony peasants, she would have no chance at all with a cosmopolitan, urbane unicorn that came from a life of wealth and privilege in the big city? This union would be doomed?” Even as he said it, he wondered if there might actually be some trouble in their future—a spectre of doubt now haunted the passages of his grey matter.

“Shining Armor”—Cadance’s voice was a shrill whine of protest—“be serious. I have to fix Equestria’s marriage problems somehow. We’re facing a public crisis. The data clearly shows that. This is a crisis of family values… and the core causes of this problem must be found, explored, and alleviated somehow. Twilight Velvet says that the number of foals in Crown care grows with every passing year. In our largest cities, the number of families are on decline. Divorce rates are the highest they’ve ever been. The sheer number of ponies who come to me seeking love threaten to break the system. If the numbers keep growing at their current geometric rate, the mass-weddings I do in the Crystal Empire will see over one million attendees within ten years.”

“One million attendees in total, or one million attendees all at once?”

“We’ve already had over a million attendees over the years,” Cadance replied, clarifying.

“That many? Already? Really?” Shining Armor tried to run the numbers through his mind and failed. Had the crowds been that large?

“You sound doubtful.”

“I am doubtful.”

“Shiny, the data is very thorough. Don’t you trust it?”

“Cadance, I don’t trust anything until Dim has thoroughly interrogated it, made it scream a few times, and broken its will. That I trust. Everything else, I remain a bit skeptical. Just look at the example I just used. We come from very different backgrounds, and we’re doing just fine. But now I am fearful that we might not be fine, thank you very much for bringing that up.”

“Oh, that’s positively ghastly,” Cadance retorted and she gave her head a vigourous shake. “Look, I told you, I don’t want to know what you and Dim have to do in the name of security—”

“And I didn’t want to get worked up and anxious during my vacation, but somepony just had to bring their work with them, because they lacked the self control to leave it at home.” He drew a deep breath and was about to say more, but Cadance cut him off.

“Anecdotal evidence is not necessarily evidence. Just because you and I enjoy a good, healthy, positive marriage, even with both of us coming from very different backgrounds, doesn’t mean that everypony else does. You can’t just dismiss the numbers with a hoof wave or make a joke about how it doesn’t apply because it doesn’t seem to be affecting us. That’s exactly why the problem has grown out of control, everypony is too busy offering up their own anecdotal evidence that everything is fine and nothing needs fixing!”

“If you present statistics in just the right way, you can make molehills appear as mountains. All statistics are inherently biased, especially if those statistics are calculated to support an agenda. Cadance, if there wasn’t a crisis, if there wasn’t a huge, looming crisis, then many of your social workers would be out of work—”

“Are you suggesting that they lied or fudged the numbers to create more work for themselves?”

“Well, no, I—”

“Answer me!”

A very polite throat-clearing caused both Shining Armor and Cadance to pause. Skyla stood a few yards away, covered in sand, and she had an austere, stern expression upon her adorable, foalish face. Skyla snorted and a look of supreme disgust could be seen flashing in her eyes.

“Both of you need a time out. This angry shouting has to stop. Be adults, both of you. Apologise to one another. Now.”

“This filly of mine,” Cadance said to Shining Armor in a low voice, “I can’t even sometimes.”

“She gets it from you,” he replied.

“Does not, don’t you dare pin that on me, Shiny. That’s all you, Mister Military.”

“Ahem!” Skyla stomped her hoof in the sand, but it didn’t make much of a sound and she snarled in frustrated failure. “I am a filly in dire need of din-din. Now shut up, both of you, and apologise!”

“See, Shiny, that’s you!”

“No way.” He gave his head an emphatic shake.

“Always taking ponies to task—”

“Well that’s my job, Cadance! You’re the busybody, she gets this from you.”

“I am so unbelievably disappointed with both of you right now,” Skyla interjected.

“Shining, don’t ever question the professionalism of the ponies who work for me—”

“I wasn’t trying to do that”—it was at this point that Shining Armor knew that he had done exactly that—“I was just trying to get you to view the data with a skeptical eye.”

“What good is having all of this data assembled and collated if I just dismiss it outright? Do you have any idea how monumental this project is, and how much work goes into it? What is the point of all of this work if I don’t trust the results?”

“All of this could have been avoided if you’d left that work at home and let me enjoy my vacation.” Try as he might, Shining Armor found no enjoyment in his pyrrhic victory, and seeing Cadance’s mouth hanging open in a round ‘O’ brought him no satisfaction.

“Apologise.” Skyla’s commanding tone grew more insistent.

There was no shame in raising a white flag and Shining Armor reminded himself of that. This was one of those situations where he could be right, or he could be happy. Cadance was a princess, and as such, she never truly stopped working. This was just how it was. Together, they were Emperor and Empress of the Crystal Empire, and the crowns—though not always visible—never came off.

“Look, I’m sorry.” Biting his tongue, Shining Armor held back his excuses for his outburst, most of which came from his resentment of Cadance bringing her work on vacation. That wasn’t much of an excuse, though he remained irked and knew that this bone of contention would remain.

“I can almost hear a but in that apology—”

“Mom, don’t be a jerk.” A single flap of Skyla’s wings sent sand flying in all directions.

With a sigh, Cadance took on a defeated demeanour. “Very well, I apologise.”

“Good. Now smooch and make up. Remind each other why you love one another—”

“Skyla, darling, we’re your parents. You can’t tell us what to do,” Cadance said to her daughter, her tone patient, but having a layer of consternation.

“You stick your nose into Uncle Gosling’s, Aunt Luna’s, and Aunt Celestia’s business when they bicker—”

“That’s different.” Cadance let out a dismissive sniff.

“I don’t see it that way.” Skyla’s stomach could be heard growling and a look of intense discomfort crossed over her face. “Now smooch, so we can go have din-din.”

Groaning, Shining Armor pulled himself up out of his lounge chair, and Cadance did the same. This wasn’t about admitting defeat to Skyla, this was about setting a good example, one that would stick with his daughter for the rest of her life. Flurry came bounding out of the surf, covered from hoof to ear in seaweed, tripped in the sand, and went down in a heap.

“Yeti turds!” Flurry hollered while she flailed about in the sand and seaweed.

The sudden smile on Shining Armor’s face did much to improve Cadance’s mood, and she smiled back. He waggled his eyebrows at her, and then made a come-hither gesture with his ears, the same gesture that he had used to convey his desires since they had met. Cadance’s tail flagged for a moment, but then she brought herself under control. That little slip-up told Shining Armor everything he needed to know though, and it was with great confidence that he approached his wife.

“I have an idea,” Shining Armor said to his wife, and putting on his most sophisticated expression, he leaned in closer to her, almost snoot to snoot. “How about we skip din-din and you and I get to work making another alicorn for—”

“SNAFU!” Skyla shouted and she began running around in a circle while flapping her wings. “FUBAR! SNAFU! NO!”

“Oh, I’d like that,” Cadance replied, laying on the saccharine sweetness. “How about right here, on the beach?” Batting her eyelashes, she touched noses with her husband.

“Flurry, help! Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong!”

The mound of seaweed shuddered, stood up, and spread its wings. A hard shake did nothing and Flurry the Seamonster—now covered in wet sand—shuffled about in panic. Meanwhile, Shining Armor lifted his head a little, while Cadance lowered hers, and exaggerating their actions, their every movement, they began necking.

“Cadance… it really does bother me that you brought your work with you. I can’t ignore it because it’s fascinating. It left me a little resentful and out of sorts. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Cadance replied, and she let out a pleasureable moan while necking. “Also, I was wrong about little Flurry Heart… she can be kelped.”

In response, Shining Armor groaned and shut his eyes, though he did not stop necking. “Care to go on a date with me?” he asked while he gave his wife a sniff. She smelled of coconuts and a hot beach smell that ignited the flames of desire within him. “I feel that it is only fair to warn you, I have two daughters. One of them is a spaz and the other one is an eldritch abomination that just crawled out of the ocean to try out this life on land thing we’ve got going on.”

“SNAFU!”

“I’d love to go on a date with you,” Cadance replied. “It’d be a gas.”
> The longest night ever
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shining Armor felt immense pleasure when he saw the joy upon Skyla’s face. She had her salad, an enormous one served in an oversized bowl shaped like a seashell. Even Flurry—now free of sand and seaweed—seemed happy with dinner. As for Cadance… she had put her work aside and was focused upon the meal, much to his relief. On the horizon, the sun was retreating and only the merest sliver of it was still visible. Nocturnal pegasus ponies swarmed overhead, squeaking and shrieking, finally free of the tyranny of the day.

With everypony content, Shining Armor had no pressing concerns, and this thoughts turned to those at home. “I hope Chartreuse is okay,” he said while stabbing a half of a hard-boiled egg with his fork.

“Aw, that’s so sweet of you to worry about your apprentice,” Cadance replied. Then, she paused, and a glimmer of thoughtfulness flashed in her eyes. Ears angling back, her head pushed forwards, and she leaned out over her own salad bowl. “Husband… what did you do to your poor apprentice?”

The smile that spread over Shining Armor’s face could only be described as ‘impish.’

“Before we left, I sat her down upon the throne and told her that she’s in charge until we get back.”

Whooping, Flurry Heart started to choke, and her eyes bulged in their sockets. Cadance pounded her daughter on the back with her hoof. Skyla, nonplussed, seemed to shut down and stared down into her pile of greens. Cadance smacked Flurry on the back hard enough to shatter the spine of any normal pony, and with a pained wheeze, the filly could draw breath again.

“You did what?” Cadance demanded, her eyebrows veeing.

“Oh, Chartreuse isn’t actually in charge, Sunburst and Dim are in charge—”

“But poor little Chartreuse doesn’t know that! You creep!” Cadance’s ears stood up, straight for a second, and then angled outward over her eyes. “What’s the big idea, doing this to your apprentice?”

“You sound like Gosling,” Shining Armor remarked, and then wished he hadn’t. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. Think of it as homework, Cadance. She’s getting a chance to find out what it is like to run an empire. She gets to negotiate trade agreements with Princess Celestia—”

“Auntie will do horrible things to Chartreuse!” Cadance whinnied once, twice, thrice, and then shook her head from side to side so hard that her cheeks jiggled. “I can’t believe you did this! That poor filly… Shiny, how could you?”

“Actually, I’m more concerned for Princess Celestia.” Shining Armor did his best to look serious while looking Cadance right in the eye. “If those trade agreements go sour, Chartreuse is bound to pull out that fireplace poker of hers and go into aggressive negotiations for the sake of the empire. A lot of Dim has rubbed off on her, for good or ill.”

All of Cadance’s bluster vanished with a lip-flappity huff, and then she said, “She’s got a mean streak a mile wide, that filly. Auntie… Auntie might be in some trouble. Chartreuse is so polite and unassuming, right up until the point where she isn’t, and then, at that point, it is too late. Flurry, are you okay?”

“Fine, Mom.” Flurry coughed once and then immediately began to stuff her face once more.

“I did what I did for a reason.” Shining Armor dropped the act and allowed his real feelings to show. “She’s my apprentice, and as her master, I feel that I am entitled to push her beyond the point of endurance to test her mettle. Sunburst and Dim will tell me how she did, and how often they had to step in. This is a test of responsibility, and if she passes, I will continue to keep testing until I find something that breaks her.”

“Shining Armor… that’s—”

“Necessary?” He waved his fork around and waited for Cadance to get over her initial shock. “When something breaks her, we’ll put her back together and test her again. She asked for this kind of life by coming to me. When we get done, we’ll have something exceptional.”

“Yeah, Dad can’t go easy on her just because she’s a filly—”

“Flurry, don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Rolling her eyes, Flurry swallowed and gave her mother a defiant glance. “Might I point out that Dad hasn’t even left me in charge? And I know why… I’d mess things up. I’m a disaster waiting to happen and we all know that. But Chartreuse? Father wouldn’t’ve done it unless he was confident that she was ready.”

Feeling proud, Shining Armor smiled at his daughter and gave her a nod. Flurry was learning… little by little, lump by lump, bruise by bruise, stitch by stitch, his daughter was gaining wisdom and insight into the way of things. Sure, Flurry had messed up the Crystal Cotillion, then there was the debacle with the ice orcs, plus the repeated instances of Flurry acting out, but then there were moments like this one where he saw signs that Flurry just might turn out okay. His pride became a fierce sensation and he felt as though his many years of hard work were just starting to pay off.

“One day, I will rule… but I am not yet ready.” Skyla lifted her head up and did her best to look dignified, yet humble.

Shining Armor wasn’t ready either; he still wanted a buddy for naps and to play with. It occurred to him for the first time how much he needed these things, and a growing lump lodged in this throat. Absent-minded, he speared some salad with his fork and took a bite, not even looking at what he was eating, unaware of his bounty.

It was, of course, difficult to swallow this bite.





Flurry’s wing slapped Shining Armor so hard that it left his ears ringing, and he almost dropped her into the toilet. Her entire body went rigid, her legs kicked out, and with a pitiful yeowl, she retched yet again, vomiting up the contents of her stomach with enough force that it bounced up out of the toilet bowl.

Everything that alicorns did was extraordinary, from sneezing, to vomiting.

Shining Armor knew why this was happening, because this always happened. Little Flurry Heart would go swimming in the sea and without fail, she would always swallow as much seawater as equinely possible. And this—this—was the result. Somehow, this part of the trip was always forgotten about, until it happened again, and then the memories would all come back in a terrible flood, just like right now. Flurry would be a miserable mess tomorrow, and as for the fun planned for tonight?

Well, that was called off.

The stink of failure smelled a lot like vomit and Shining Armor thought about what a terrible parent he was. How could he forget? Like an idiot, he had let Flurry gorge herself at dinner, eating salad, all kinds of tropical treats, and frozen sorbet. He had even seen her coming out of the sea, covered in seaweed, and somehow, he had forgotten. This was the pinnacle of parental failure, the crowning achievement of bad daddyism.

Flurry let out a gurgling croak and hot, steaming chunks of poorly chewed food spattered everywhere but in the toilet bowl. She choked for a moment, gagged, and when she didn’t breathe, Shining Armor began to panic. But Flurry cleared her nostrils with a mighty snort and shot salad greens mixed with tropical rainbow sorbet onto the ceiling.

No doubt, amnesia would claim this moment too, because it was too horrible to remember. Soon enough, everything would come shooting out of Flurry’s other end too, and this would be a long night indeed. And of course, all of this rested on his back, because a sick Flurry was a Flurry that wanted her daddy—not her mommy.





It seemed as though the worst was over. Hours had passed, dawn was only a few hours away, and Shining Armor was bone-tired. Flurry writhed in her bed, but remained asleep. She was sweaty, sore, and tomorrow, she would be cranky. It was difficult to move away from his daughter’s bedside, because she might need him again. Shining Armor yawned and used a simple spell to silence himself, fearing that he might wake of one of his sleeping treasures. Though it pained him, he tore himself away from Flurry’s bedside, and he crept away, making not a sound.

The yacht was silent, save for a faint thrumming hum that came from below. Shining Armor liked this sound, he found it soothing, and as was often the case, he wondered why he hadn’t gone into the Royal Navy. This life suited him—living on a ship suited him. At the door, he turned around, looking one final time at his two daughters. Flurry was in the bottom bunk, still twitching a bit, and Skyla was in the upper bunk. Even though she had napped, poor little Skyla was out before her head had even hit the pillow.

Beyond the door was the narrow hallway, a passage that Cadance called claustrophobic, but Shining Armor said was cosy. Of course, he didn’t have to duck his head to keep his horn from scraping the ceiling, so Cadance might’ve had a bit of a point. Of course, she also complained about not being able to stretch her wings, but who needed to stretch their wings in a hallway? That was silly. Cadance was silly.

When he came to his own cabin, he paused. Peering into the dark room, he could make out Cadance’s faint outline. She was a heap in the bed and at some point, she had turned all of the blankets and pillows into a nest. Papers could be seen scattered about, covering the floor, the bedside tables, and the bed itself. His wife had worked herself to sleep yet again, even on vacation. Frustrated and left angry about this, Shining Armor got his second wind.

Why was he angry?

He couldn’t tell.

Standing in the doorway, he sighed. The first day of his vacation had come and gone, and now the sun was about to rise on his second. He was exhausted, though wide awake at the moment, and the chances of him enjoying today seemed bleak at best. But of course, he would put on a brave face and make the most of it.

Staring at his wife, he tried to understand what vacations were to Cadance. After giving it some consideration, he arrived at the conclusion that vacations were a time when she could focus upon one singular task—just one—and devote all of her concentration to it. Upon having this realisation, Shining Armor understood how important this must be to her, because she was currently committing all of her brainpower to it, it was the singular task she had chosen to focus on for the entirety of their vacation. As for himself, he could barely even begin to understand the enormity of the problem.

“Daddy?”

Squeaky voice. Little. Scratchy. No doubt thirsty. Maybe scared.

“I had a nightmare.”

Backing out of the doorway, Shining Armor bumped his backside against the wall and then turned about to face his daughter, Skyla. Her horn was glowing, emitting a faint luminescence that made the tears in her eyes glisten. The little filly was trembling, her lips were quivering, and her nostrils flared wide with every breath she took.

“I know I’m not s’posed to come out of my room and that I’m s’posed to call for help, but I didn’t wanna wake Flurry.”

“It’s okay, Skyla,” he whispered.

“No”—her head shook and her ears drooped, hanging limp against her temples—“no, it isn’t okay, not at all.”

A sigh escaped Shining Armor and he knew without Skyla saying anything that she had an accident—something that happened sometimes when she had nightmares, though it didn’t happen often. It took extraordinary circumstances to get poor Skyla shook up enough to reach this state, such as a drastic change in routine, or a major disruption of her life. He didn’t dare say anything about what had happened, because doing so would cause an emotional detonation, the sort of shrieking nightmare that would wake up everypony and cause a panic.

“It’s okay,” he said again, trying his best to be reassuring. “Let’s get you into the shower and while you’re cleaning up in there, I’ll clean up your bed so nopony has to know anything about it.”

“My tail is messy… I don’t like it… I don’t like the feel of it. I feel gross and it makes me wanna cry.”

Advancing, Shining Armor went to where his daughter stood and couldn’t even smell the stink of urine. Tonight, he had smelled far worse things, for far too long, and his sense of smell had not yet recovered. Reaching out, he pulled his daughter close and pressed his muzzle against one of her fuzzy, twitching ears.

Normally, Sleet handled this sort of thing and Shining Armor felt as though he might have missed out on some important parenting moments. But the nanny hadn’t come on vacation—she was getting her own much needed vacation—and so Shining Armor found himself doing parental duties, which felt strangely satisfying. Sure, it was a few more hours till dawn, he hadn’t slept a wink, and he had spent most of the night already in the bathroom with Flurry while she squirted from both ends—but it could not be denied that there was a certain appeal to all of this.

It was the natural extension of being a big brother. When he was little, Twily had earaches, awful ones that made bitter earwax trickle down into her throat. He never minded sitting up with her, holding a glass of water for her, and trying to comfort her when she was downright miserable. The memory of it filled his heart with warmth.

“Come, little one, a shower will leave you feeling as right as rain,” he whispered into her ear. “I’ll change your bedding, and when you get done in the shower, we’ll go to the galley and see about having a few cookies or something.”

“Pancakes with chocolate chunks?” she asked, hopeful.

“Sure thing, Sproglodyte—”

“Daddy, we talked about you calling me that.”

“I never agreed to anything.” Pulling her closer, he kissed her, just behind her horn, in that spot that always made her squirm. “Now come with me, little one, and don’t trip in the dark.”
> Cotton Candicorn
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was too hot for snuggles, too tropical for cuddles, and yet Shining Armor had to endure. Stuffed into a hammock, sprawled on his back, he had a daughter on either side of him. To his left was Flurry, and the sheer hardness of her spine threatened to bruise his ribs. She just had to lay in the worst way possible, with her boniest, hardest places pressing into him. On his right was Skyla, who insisted on clinging to him no matter how muggy it was, and had wrapped her forelegs around his own.

Both of his miserable offspring were napping, and Shining Armor wanted some sleep himself, but it was too hot. How hot was it? It was hot enough to melt the hinges off the gate to Tartarus. Birds needed potholders to pull out earthworms. Hot enough that fire hydrants would whistle at passing dogs. The cows only had evapourated milk to offer. Potatoes came up out of the ground baked. Chickens laid hard boiled eggs. It was just that damn hot.

At least the hammock was in the shade.

After what felt like hours, exhaustion began to overpower misery, and Shining Armor’s eyelids began to grow heavy. The only cool spot on his body was the place on his right foreleg where Skyla had been drooling—the evapourating liquid felt marvellous. Flurry snorted, her tummy rumbled, and her eyelids fluttered, but did not open. At long last, after so much suffering, Shining Armor finally succumbed to sleep.





The rain was a hot shower that suffocated the will to live. In Equestria, in the Crystal Empire, it was the dead of winter. Here on Depot Island, it was the rainy season. But this… this wasn’t rain. Shining Armor had never seen anything quite like it, it was rain that you could drown in, and when standing in it one had to breathe between one’s teeth while trying to keep the flood out, because breathing through the nose was impossible.

The grass hut was really just a facade, and beneath the wicker and grass construction was military grade concrete. It was the sort of building that Shining Armor trusted. He sat inside, dry, secure, eating a shaved ice cone flavoured with fruity syrups. It was just the sort of thing he needed after his ordeal, with the ice hydrating and the fruity syrup sugary.

Skyla seemed to be in a much better mood, but Flurry was still a miserable mess. For once, Skyla’s telekinesis was willing to cooperate, and she was able to eat her sno-cone without too much trouble. Cadance’s work was nowhere to be seen, and she kept glancing in the direction of the tiny, cramped kitchen, because she was impatient, waiting for the barbecued kebabs they had ordered.

“I took pictures,” Cadance said while staring off into space.

Flurry groaned and collapsed against the worn wooden table. “Mom… no.” In her collapsed state, she made halfhearted licks and appeared as though she might die at any moment.

“Can I get one for my album?” Skyla asked. After a moment, she remembered to be polite and added, “Please?”

“Sure thing, Sproglodyte.”

“Not you too,” the filly said to her mother, her words a huff of disappointment. “We talked about that.”

“Nothing was ever agreed upon.”

The sound and the presence of the rain came in through the open front of the hut, the open bar where customers sat outside in the front and were served. Warm humid air was all that could be had and the smell of rain was strong. Shining Armor yawned, still sleepy, and found that he was rather enjoying himself. This was just the sort of suck that he happened to like, just the right amount of misery to make everything feel right. Shining Armor was a connoisseur of fine misery and was at his best when the situation around him was at its worst.

“We need to find a suitable activity for the afternoon,” Cadance said to her family.

“The military museum has a program that showcases the history of Depot Island!” Skyla, though rather quiet, was brimming with enthusiasm, with her eyes turning bright and cheerful. “I wonder if it goes into the historic accord that Equestria made with Zebrabwe… if it did, that’d be neat.”

“Ugh, no.” Flurry let out a groan of protest, followed by another.

“But this is soldier stuff,” Skyla said to her sister, confused.

“I like fighting.” Flurry gave her sno-cone a sideways lick before she continued, “The history part of it puts me right to sleep.”

“But… but… but… Depot Island is the result of the Treaty of Zebrabwe.” Skyla was almost sputtering and stuttering with each word. “We protect their islands and their shipping lanes, and they supply us with medicines and goods. It is one of the most prosperous treaties ever signed, with economic benefits in the high millions each year—”

“Don’t care.” Flurry didn’t seem bothered that she had interrupted her sister. “Fighting pirates, that’d be fun. That’d be awesome. But learning all this other gobbledygook? What a snoozefest.”

Shining Armor, who had said nothing up to this point, became aware that Cadance was studying their daughters. In fact, her intense scrutiny left him wondering what Cadance was thinking. The differences between Skyla and Flurry were like night and day… chocolate and vanilla… salty and sweet… Shining Armor wasn’t good with comparisons, but he was clever enough to keep trying even if he sounded like a dork.

Skyla would be right at home with her Auntie Twilight in the military museum. However, if his sister was in the middle of one of her infamous scraps, Flurry Heart would have the time of her life with her Auntie Twilight. Shining Armor felt some strange emotion that he couldn’t register, a keen sort of regret, because he knew that a broad scope of interests could be found in just one pony; Twilight was a perfect example of that. But his daughters? He needed more comparisons for just how different they were.

Getting them to do something together was a challenge.

“Order up!” the cook called out.

It seemed as though lunch was ready…





The rain was gone, no doubt off to find a nice parade or a picnic, but the oppressive mugginess lingered on. Steam rose from the ground, the sand, and the cobblestone streets. Even the zebras, natives to a warm homeland with tropical temperatures, seemed beaten down by the sticky, clingy, sweaty heat.

No afternoon activity had been decided upon, not yet, though Shining Armor had a few ideas. Compromise was an ideal activity. His own parents, Night Light and Twilight Velvet, those two were big fans of compromise and looking back—even more so now that he was a parent—Shining Armor could see just how much effort his mother and father had put into teaching their foals compromise.

It worked too. Shining Armor could see it plain as day. Little Twily had grown up and was now a princess. He was the Emperor of the Crystal Empire. So clearly, his parents careful planning had paid off. The end results were undeniable. Shining Armor—with great enthusiasm and verve—had made two wonderful daughters, alicorns both of them, but now he had the responsibility of making them worthy princesses. This was no easy task and there were times when their differences almost seemed as insurmountable as Celestia and Luna’s.

Making his daughters had been fun—making them princesses was a chore.





“How about the arcade?” Flurry suggested while she pointed with her wing. “It’s indoors and has ice-cold air. The sign says so.”

Shining Armor’s eyes darted in Cadance’s direction and his ears pricked. He could sense that Cadance had glanced in his direction, and for a moment, he was certain that some kind of odd psychic twingle had just broadcasted maternal hope. Cadance loved the arcade and truth be told, he rather liked arcades himself. Something fuzzy brushed up against his right foreleg, and when he looked down, he saw Skyla peering up at him, her glasses all fogged over from the humidity.

Her pleading eyes told him everything; while she liked the arcade, she loved history even more, and her little heart was set upon the museum. Shining Armor suspected that one of two things was about to happen; Skyla would reluctantly acquiesce and into the arcade they would go; or she would hold her ground and the family would have to split up to keep the peace. If she agreed to go into the arcade for the sake of keeping the peace, he knew that he would have to do something nice for her later; it was just the right thing to do.

But a third option presented itself from a most unlikely source: Flurry Heart—who still looked a bit queasy—said, “Skyla… how about we go into the arcade, get cooled off, and I give you all of my tickets. After about an hour or so, we’ll go to the museum.”

Again, Shining Armor could feel his wife glancing at him.

“You’ll give me your tickets?” Skyla seemed dubious. Since when were big sisters nice?

“You have trouble winning and I know how frustrated you get. When you can’t win, you don’t have fun. If I give you my tickets—” Here, Flurry paused, she seemed rather winded, but then made herself better with a huge belch that scared the monkeys out of the nearby trees. Off they went, hooting and hollering, which left Flurry distracted for a few seconds. “Like I was saying… if you don’t have to worry about winning, you’ll have more fun. Right?”

“It’s not about winning,” Skyla said to her sister in response. “I just hate feeling like I’ve wasted my time. I’m no good at this stuff and I get mad when I can’t get anything done. It’s like I could be doing something better with my time.”

“Oh.” Flurry, queasy as she was, was slow to make a connection, but a state of understanding was reached. “Oh, hey, I… you know what, we have something in common.”

“We do?”

“Uh-huh.” Flurry nodded, let out another windy belch, and pounded on her barrel with her hoof. “If I think I can’t do something, I don’t even bother trying.”

“Hmm.” Stepping away from her father, Skyla stood beside her sister and then clapped Flurry on the back with her wing. After a few good hard slaps, Flurry belched again and Skyla looked pleased with her efforts.

“Everything tastes like barbeque,” Flurry remarked, “and not in a good way. Blech!”

“I wouldn’t mind having a new doll to take home,” Skyla said to her sister.

Shining Armor had to struggle to contain his pride—little Skyla was appealing to Flurry’s mercenary nature! Sidestepping, he bumped into Cadance, and his wife let out a stifled whinny. His daughters were reaching an agreement, an accord, an understanding, and they were doing so on their own, without his coaching. He could feel Cadance trembling beside him and her feathers tickled his side.

“A doll?” Flurry belched yet again while rolling her eyes. “That’ll be easy to do even with how I’m feeling right now. Foal’s play.” She made a dismissive wave with her hoof while smacking her lips together.

“I don’t get it.” Skyla took a moment to fix her crooked glasses, but still couldn’t see out of them because they were so fogged over. “I’m getting to go to the museum and get a doll. I’m getting everything I want out of this. What are you getting?”

“A solid hour or so to wreck the arcade and show off how perfect I am.” Extending one foreleg, Flurry flexed her muscles and struck a pose. This didn’t last long however, as she was overcome by gas from her upset stomach. “Might want to stand away! Flurry, the horn of the Crystal Empire is about to blow—”

“Eew!” Flapping her wings, Skyla half-ran half-flew away from her sibling, but she didn’t flee too far, because she knew better. “Gross!”

The afternoon, it seemed, had been decided upon.





Nothing ever quite worked out as planned. Shining Armor, proud father that he was, loved his daughters a great deal. The arcade hadn’t quite turned out as expected, but rather than have a meltdown, Skyla had handled the debacle with grace, and Flurry held true to her word. This was extraordinary circumstances, to be sure.

The arcade was here for soldiers—not foals. As such, there were no dolls to be had. There were however, pipes, tobacco, matches, hoof-trimming kits, prophylactics, bottles of beer, bottles of rum, magazines of questionable content, magazines of outright pornographic content, disposable dates, and a variety of other sundries.

But Skyla did not leave empty-hoofed, no. Flurry—who dominated the arcade with her physicality—earned enough tickets to get her sister a full-colour touristy map of Depot Island, something that Skyla was so happy to receive that she had cried, which had left Flurry all embarrassed. Said map was now on the yacht, magicked away by Cadance so it wouldn’t be set down someplace and forgotten about.

With both of his daughters in such remarkable moods, in such fine spirits, Shining Armor wasn’t sure how to act. A part of him wanted to run around in the most foalish manner imaginable, bucking, kicking, and clicking his hooves together while pronking about madly. Just as Shining Armor was about to say something, a shadow passed overhead.

“Holy guacamole!” Flurry shouted while craning her head upward.

A single monstrous ship blocked out the sun. Long, terrifying, it bristled with guns and its dull matte metal plates failed to gleam impressively in the sunlight. It was an Impossible class ship and Shining Armor knew this type well, having studied the schematics sent by King Modesto, of Istanbull.

“How does it float?” Skyla asked while peering up like her sister. “It doesn’t have a floaty thing that airships are supposed to have. That’s just the boat part.”

“All of that is internal,” Shining Armor replied. “Inside of the vessel are tanks of compressed Celestium. They’re big spheres, armored, and under exceptionally high pressure.” Squinting, he took a moment to study the profile of the ship. “Electrical current flowing through the Celestium causes it to rise. This represents a new era in warfare, the Impossible Battleship. At least, I think it is a battleship. I can’t remember which type of ship was to be gifted to Equestria from Istanbull as a gesture of goodwill. If that’s a destroyer or a cruiser…”

“It’s terrifying,” Cadance whispered.

“It is,” Shining Armor agreed, “but it is also flawed.”

“How?” Cadance did nothing to appear dignified while she gawked at the ship passing above.

“The power required to keep it afloat is immense. That hull is over a foot thick in some places and the weight of the ship is like nothing else before it. It is essentially a seafaring vessel lifted and made skyworthy. Istanbull is trusting us with this new design, and hoping that our scientists can come up with a solution for the power issues.”

“Daddy, I want an airship—”

“No way, Flurry.”

“Aww.”

Others too, were watching as the impressive ship passed overhead, its airscrews thrumming. Some of the pegasus ponies on the street took to the air to have a closer look. Both Flurry and Skyla stood near to one another, little mouths agape, and their father, Shining Armor, had no doubt that his daughters were smart enough to understand the importance of this moment.

It was Flurry who tore her gaze away first. “We should go to the museum before it gets any later. Skyla has her heart set on it.”

“Right. The museum.” Cadance too, tore her gaze away and looked down at her daughter. “I’m proud of you, Flurry.”

“Don’t be, I’m just doing the right thing.”

“Come on, Shiny… we have a history program to attend.”

“Sure thing, my big fluffy Cotton Candicorn—”

“Shining Armor, we talked about this!”

“We talked, yes, but I don’t recall agreeing to anything.”

Grinning, Shining Armor led his family down the street, off to the museum.
> EXPLOSIONS?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“OH! MY! GOSH! THAT! WAS! AWESOME!” Flurry Heart exploded as she was halfway out the door and queasy as she was, she managed a few halfhearted pronks. “EXPLOSIONS! KERPOW! PIRATES! FULL-BODY EXPLODIFICATION! RAMMING SPEED! BOMBS! ADMIRAL ASSWHUP! BURNING! BEST! HISTORY! PROGRAM! EVER!”

Skyla was next out the door, and she stumbled off to one side, also queasy, but for far different reasons than her sister. She gagged, her tongue lolled out, and her eyes bulged wide in their sockets. Reaching out a wing, Cadance tried to comfort her youngest daughter, who appeared as though she might toss her cookies at any second.

“Well,” Cadance said, almost gasping, “that was most certainly… educational?”

Shining Armor allowed the door to close behind him and he let out a chuckle. “I feel inspired. Like… I want to join the guard and blow stuff up. That was no history film, that was pure, unfiltered propaganda. Oh, and explosions. Wow, that was a lot of explosions for a forty minute film.”

“Not a minute was boring!” Flurry pronked right into her father and almost bowled him over. “Why can’t my lessons at home be like that? It was like somepony made a movie about Dim—”

“Oh no, Flurry! No! Darling, if there ever is a movie about Dim and the Great War, you are not allowed to watch it!”

“AW! MOM!” When Flurry turned around to give her mother what for, she almost knocked her father over again. “I want to be an airship captain! I want to blow stuff to smithereens! Can we visit the museum again tomorrow so I can—”

“Definitely not!” Cadance hefted poor little Skyla up into the air and slung the filly over her back. “Skyla, baby, are you going to be okay?”

“URP!” Panicked, Skyla pressed a hoof over her mouth like a cork and lay sprawled upon her mother’s back, her face a distinct shade of green. She urped again, then again, and then a third time.

“The pegasus dogfighting camera was amazing! Barrel roll! Chattering guns! WHOOSH!”

“It was pretty amazing… now calm down, Flurry.” Reaching out with his foreleg, Shining Armor pulled his oldest daughter close to him. It was a struggle to contain her because Flurry was already stronger than he was by far. Little Flurry was an immense titan of strength already and the little overstimulated filly posed a danger if she didn’t calm down.

“The Firehawks, Dad! Those were amazing! I didn’t know that pegasus ponies could drink alchemical go-go juice that made them immune to fire and then they had those flamethrowers to set pirates on fire and airships too and they went around flying everywhere and WHOOSH! Everything was on fire and exploding! I want a flamethrower!”

“Most certainly not!” Cadance stomped one hoof against the cobblestones.

“The Firehawks are posted here! They call Depot Island home! Can we say hello?”

“Can you stop shouting?” Cadance asked.

“NO!” Flurry strained against her father’s restraint.

“SHUN!”

Shining Armor’s barked command caused the most peculiar calamity on the street around him. Almost everypony went still as a statue. Some ponies almost fell over and some bumped into one another. Wings snapped out in salute, or hooves, for the ground-pounders that had no wings. Flurry went absolutely rigid after snapping clumsily to attention. Everything came to a standstill.

One rather drunken guardspony struggled to remain upright.

“As you were,” Shining Armor barked, but not much happened. “Sorry about that. Little Flurry was getting too excited. You know how it goes. As you were. Stand down.”

“Shiny”—Cadance’s use of her husband’s nickname caused a few brave snickers—“I want to get the girls calmed down and showered. Back to the yacht?”

“Sure thing, Cadance.” Grinning, Shining Armor picked up Flurry, seated her astride his back, and then waved goodbye to the stunned soldiers standing on the street.





It was a blessing that the yacht had climate control, otherwise, Shining Armor feared that it would be an oven. He stood in the shower, pressed against the wall, with very little of him getting wet. Cadance took up most of the room in the shower, but she lacked the space to spread her wings or do much of anything. As cramped as it was, she insisted on taking a shower together, a few precious moments alone while Flurry and Skyla showered.

“Been thinking all day, Shiny,” Cadance said to her husband. “I got a lot of reading done while you had your nap in that hammock.”

“Is that so?” he asked in reply, and then he waited for Cadance to say what was on her mind.

“I was thinking about what you said about biased numbers, and I delved into the reports offered by the Traditionalist Conservative Family Coalition.” Cadance paused for a moment and stuck her face in front of the showerhead so that the cool water could soak her mane, but it ended up going up her nose.

Shining Armor laughed.

Cadance sputtered a bit, shook her head, let out a chuckle, and when she recovered enough to speak, she continued, “I did my very best to see if those numbers had been fudged somehow. What I saw scared me, and I was really hoping that it was somehow wrong. Shiny, I don’t think it is.”

“What did you see?” he asked.

“The population continues to rise, but the number of families continues to fall. Shiny, the numbers are very thorough, and I don’t think that the Traditionalist Conservative Family Coalition created biased statistics. In small towns across Equestria, families remain stable and the numbers remain rather constant. Ponyville stands out for having a high number of families for the population size. The number of herd families seem to be on the rise since the trouble with Mister Mariner—but not in the big cities. I think that there really is a problem, Shiny.”

“So this isn’t just hype and panic?” Shining Armor, cautious, wondered if he was willing to accept this at face value.

“This is a new era for psychology and psychiatry, Shiny,” Cadance said to her husband. “Our understanding of these sciences are minimal, really. A lot of what we thought we knew has since been discounted. Some of my best and brightest minds are suggesting that big overcrowded cities might be breaking the herd structure in some way that we don’t understand.”

“Help me understand this, Cadance.”

“Well, in small tribal groups where there aren’t many ponies, each life matters. The smaller the herd, the more fierce and tight-knit the group is. It is a well-established and accepted observation. The larger a herd gets, the more members it has, the more relaxed it becomes. Riskier behaviours are engaged in. Risk versus reward takes on skewed meaning.”

“Okay.”

“In a big overcrowded city, there are simply too many ponies and individuals become lost in the herd. Parental instincts become dulled. The need to stick together, to stay together, to bond together, it seems to go away. Married couples drift apart. Divorce rates are unfathomably high. And the number of foals dumped into city orphanariums is absolutely staggering. Lives just aren’t as precious when there are so many of them.”

“So… what I am hearing you tell me is, that our own innate herd structure is working against us. What many considered to be our greatest asset for survival in a hostile world has gone awry somehow?” Turning his head, Shining Armor did his best to look his wife in the eye.

“As the Princess of Love, it falls on me to figure this out. Shining Armor, I don’t even know where to begin. This is a monumental undertaking. After what I read this morning, it’s left me shook up all day. I tried to be skeptical about it, but that just made it worse. There’s a problem, Shiny.”

“I’m sorry, Cadance. I wish I hadn’t said what I said. I didn’t know it would make you so upset.”

“Even worse, small town Equestria doesn’t even see this problem. Their families are doing okay. Just fine. Everything appears to be okay. So from the looks of things, they refuse to believe that the problems in our big cities exist. The Traditionalist Conservative Family Coalition is trying very hard to politicise this issue and are being called reactionist crackpots. That’s the thing, Shiny. Everypony seems to respond to this issue with the old idiom, ‘lies, damned lies, and statistics.’ But the trouble is real, I assure you.”

“So where do we start?” he asked.

Her reply, after a moment of hesitation, “I don’t know.”





What comes up must also come down, and Shining Armor could see the signs that his two daughters were crashing. Skyla’s sleep schedule was off; she had slept through most of the morning, pushing her need for a nap to a much later part of the day. However, as late as it was, he worried that if she napped now, she would be up half the night. Flurry too, had her sleep schedule interrupted; she had been up barfing all night, slept for most of the morning, and she had become severely overstimulated at the museum.

Now, the two fillies approached what was sure to be an epic meltdown, should it happen. Ticking timebombs, the both of them. Cadance, now in private, had dropped her cheerful facade and was openly brooding. She lay on the floor of the common room, sprawled on her back, allowing the overhead ceiling fan to blow on her exposed stomach. Skyla was curled up in a chair, still looking disturbed. Flurry Heart seemed to vibrate and she twitched at every sound.

As for himself, Shining Armor wasn’t sure what he was feeling.

Sitting down in a chair, he scooped up Flurry and plopped her down onto the chair beside him. She squirmed for a bit, perhaps she wanted to flee—cuddling with her father was gross after all—but then much to Shining Armor’s surprise, his daughter settled against him. To have her willingly snuggle against him and not try to wiggle away left him in a rather emotional state.

“Why do foals happen?” Flurry asked in a low voice.

It took Shining Armor several seconds to register this question, and to realise that his daughter hadn’t asked how foals were made; no, she wanted to know why they happened. What did she mean by this? What a strange question. What an odd question. Flurry wanted to know why and he wasn’t sure how to respond to her question.

“Well… Flurry… I… well, your mother and I—”

“No talking about special Mommy and Daddy hugs,” Flurry said, rolling her eyes. “So gross. That’s just nasty. Ugh! I just want to know why you made me. Or Skyla for that matter.”

Taken aback, Shining Armor glanced in Cadance’s direction for support, but his wife had her eyes closed, her wings spread across the floor, and was cooling off beneath the fan. Why had he made Flurry? Because Cadance wanted to do so and he had gone along with it, because, why not? It seemed like a good idea at the time. After the suggestion of having a foal was made, they had gone at it with reckless abandon, thoroughly enjoying one another’s company in the most unlikely of places every chance they got.

Was this something that he could tell Flurry?

“I don’t understand,” Flurry said, surprising him. “You and Mom had this wonderful storybook marriage. The Princess of Love had found her Prince after defeating the evil bugs. Happy ending, blah, blah, blah. You and Mom were free to dance, to have fun, do stuff, be all romantic and gross with each other, and doing adult stuff… but then you had me… and let’s face it, I’m gross!”

Shining Armor gave his daughter a squeeze. “Flurry—”

“No, really, I’ve heard the stories. Princess Diaper Dumper. I was a lot of work. You and Mom had each other and you had your duties, and I guess somehow you had just enough time to do both somehow but then I came along and I’m not stupid, okay? I know that the two of you had to give up something. There’s only so many hours in a day and both of you have very demanding jobs. So why did you ruin your lives by having me?”

“Well,” Shining Armor began, “Fluffalump, I wouldn’t say our lives were ruined. Even with you around, we found a way to have Skyla—”

“And you made the problem even worse!” Flurry looked up at her father, baffled and confused. “Why did you do this to yourselves? I don’t understand. Look at me… I’m a mess. I burp, fart, barf, and do all kinds of gross things. Last night was a gross night, for sure. I’m needy and I’m kinda brain dead and I am constantly getting into trouble and causing you headaches and I think it is pretty safe to say that I ruined your lives. If I was you, I’d be disappointed.”

Shining Armor desperately wanted Cadance’s assistance on this, but his wife appeared to be in a coma, leaving him to face this dreadful moment alone. He looked down into Flurry’s eyes, and she looked up at him, and he found himself at a total loss for words. When he glanced over at Skyla, he found his other daughter staring at him with wide, curious eyes, and this made everything worse somehow.

“I wreck everything. I wrecked the Crystal Cotillion. I totally blew it with the ice orcs. Nopony trusts me. I keep getting into trouble and when I try to make things better I only make things worse. I’m pretty certain that I ruined Sumac’s life and future with the whole Crystal Cotillion mess. I spent all of last night barfing and I’m pretty sure that you and Mom wanted to do stuff together last night but I ruined it. So I’d like to come right out and say it, having foals is stupid.”

“Flurry… I don’t know where stuff like this comes from, but it worries me.”

“I was in the arcade today… playing skeeball. And when I zoned out so I could keep making perfects shots over and over, this is what my brain started to think about, and I had to fight to make my brain shut up, and that’s why I kept missing shots. I had trouble zoning out. All I could think about was you holding me last night and helping me barf. That’s a lot to do for a pony.”

“Flurry… I’ll be honest. I didn’t put a lot of thought into making you. It was a fun thing to do.” Shining Armor heard a grunt from Cadance, but feeling brave, he continued onward towards his own destruction. “I didn’t think much of the consequences and your mother and I, we sort of just lived in the moment. We love each other a great deal, and so making you was a natural expression of that. And to be even more honest, after you came along, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with you. How do I put this? You took me by surprise even though we’d planned to have you.”

“Huh?” Flurry pressed her front hooves together and looked up at her father while leaning against him.

“I knew you were coming, but I had no idea what to do with you when you came. You destroyed everything. You were a headache and a hassle. I had to defend the Empire and Equestria from the danger that you posed. But I must confess… I was proud.”

Cadance groaned.

“I was proud, so very proud, because I had made you. And when you started to show a little control and a little personality, I really fell in love with you. I’ll confess, I had to learn how to appreciate you and it took me some time. But you didn’t take anything away from Cadance and I… you gave us something new to do together. You brought us closer together because we had to do so much to care for you.”

“Really?” Flurry’s face was an equal mix of doubt and hope.

“Really,” he replied. “Not to mention moments like this one, where you challenge me and force me to think. You’re my friend, Flurry.”

“That’s not much of an answer,” she said, whispering to her father. “I’m still not sure why you had me. I’ve been having a lot of doubts lately.”

“That’s understandable, Fluffalump.”

“Dad.” Flurry closed her eyes and her ears fell back into her mane. “You really, really need to stop saying that. It’s super-embarrassing and every time you call me that I want to crawl into a hole and die.”

“Okay, I’ve listened to what you’ve said,” was his ambiguous reply, though he committed to nothing and no promises were made. “Look, Flurry… I was so happy about having you that I also made Skyla—”

“But you haven’t made any more since,” Skyla said to her father, and this caused Cadance to start chuckling.

“Two was perfect.” Shining Armor pulled Flurry closer and gave her a hard squeeze. “So, girls, what are we going to do for dinner? What would you like to do? Now don’t say ice cream and make me regret asking you this. Any suggestions, girls?”

Hugging Flurry even tighter, he awaited a reply…
> Alicorn of steel, little pony of tissue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

While many might view Cadance as an alicorn or a goddess figure worthy of worship, Shining Armor knew her as a mare. His odd views were further reinforced by his daughters, alicorns both of them, alicorns that he had fathered. A sense of reverence and being a good parent were incompatible, which left him with the most peculiar view of alicorns; they were ponies. At some point, Shining Armor had become completely detached from the natural reverence that most ponies had for alicorns. He had changed alicorn diapers, wiped snotty alicorn noses, cleaned poopy alicorn behinds, he had scrubbed up alicorn puke puddles—Shining Armor was a pony assailed by the evidence that alicorns were just ponies and was now unphased by their resplendent majesty.

Alicorns were ponies, but everything about them was simply better. Bigger. Stronger. Anything a normal pony did an alicorn pony did better by a magnitude, and there were a great many things that a normal pony did in their life that nopony gave much thought about that an alicorn also did—but in a far more impressive manner. Normal ponies sneezed; alicorn ponies leveled small hamlets and caused construction crises with their facial explosions. Regular ponies orgasmed; alicorns caused seismic anomalies and tectonic upheaval while making ridiculous faces. A common pony broke wind; an alicorn caused indoor hurricanes and unsecured furniture might be thrown about the room.

Shining Armor had seen it all, borne witness to it, and watched the sheer existential horror of it. Things had to be made alicorn proofed. Furniture had to be bigger, stronger, and reinforced. Toilets had to be made to a ridiculous standard so they wouldn’t shatter into ceramic dust from thunderous blasts of flatulence. Beds had to be constructed in the same manner as bunkers, otherwise they wouldn’t endure even a moment of enthusiastic alicorn lovemaking. The world at large was simply not durable enough for alicorns, which constituted a crisis of sorts; alicorn numbers were on the rise and were only expected to grow.

The world was ill-prepared for this eventuality.

Only the bravest, most foolhardy of ponies attempted to woo alicorns, an act which most psychiatrists treated as evidence of a mental disorder. Why, initiating genital-to-genital contact was a textbook act of madness, an act fraught with danger, a potential act of destructive self-harm. Little ponies were just that—little ponies—and even the bravest, boldest, and most foolhardy among them were still little ponies.

Shining Armor had sent the psychiatrists scrambling away from him with but one bellow.





With his daughters in bed at a reasonable hour, Shining Armor was a pony almost beside himself with glee. Flurry didn’t even put up a fight about going to bed at the same time as her younger sister and might’ve fallen asleep before her head even hit the pillow. Skyla had to be carried to bed; she yawned, stumbled, and had trouble keeping her eyes open. It had been quite a day… but day had given way to night.

Grinning, Shining Armor threw open the doors to the liquor cabinet and had himself a look around. With his precious daughters tucked away in their beds, it was time for a delightful adult beverage—maybe several. The cabinet was stocked with everything that he and Cadance liked, and between the two of them, they had wide and varied tastes.

“Oh, hey, I’ll take a Celestia’s Massacre,” Cadance said to her husband while she reclined upon the sofa.

“One Celestia’s Massacre coming right up,” he replied with supreme giddiness. Cadance was going right for the heavy stuff with no time wasted.

From the cabinet, Shining Armor pulled out a bottle of pomegranate liqueur, a bottle of lemon syrup, a bottle of orange liqueur, and a bottle of dark spiced rum. He set these out on a little fold-out counter, pulled out a stainless steel shaker, and conjured up some ice cubes from the freezer. The ice went into the shaker, and then, while making sexy faces at his wife, Shining Armor poured in the booze in all the right amounts. When everything was in the shaker, he capped it off and began shaking, all while making himself absolutely irresistible.

Cadance was forced to turn away and bite her lip, lest she begin laughing.

The cocktail was shaken until a heavy layer of frost appeared upon the shaker, and then he gave it a few more shakes for good measure. Pulling out two highball glasses, he conjured up a bit more ice, filled the glasses, and popped the cap on the shaker. After a bit of careful pouring, he had himself two Celestia’s Massacres, a decidedly red and rather bloody looking drink that had an eye-wateringly citrusy appeal.

It was said that Princess Celestia had fixed herself one of these to celebrate her victory over some group of pirates that had vexed her, and Shining Armor had no doubt of this origin story; he knew the mare and her hidden quirks better than most. Smirking at his wife, cocky, knowing what pleasures awaited, he held up both glasses and waggled his eyebrows.

“You’re such a dork!” Cadance blurted out and then she was forced to stifle her giggles.

Swaggering, he crossed the room, bowed his head, and passed his wife one of the glasses. She scooted over a bit to make room for him, and he sat down upon the sofa beside her. Suddenly, they were teenagers once more, giggly obnoxious teenagers that had broken into the liquor cabinet yet again. Horny, hormonal adolescents free to grope one another and get into all manner of clumsy sexual mischief.

Cadance took a sip of her cocktail, made a face, shuddered, squirmed, and in a subdued voice said, “Woo…”

Following her lead, Shining Armor also took a sip, and was almost overcome by the sheer sourness of it all. Celestia’s Massacre was a favourite of the Royal Navy, and was clinically proven to keep scurvy away, probably because it was too sour for scurvy to stand. All of his senses awakened from the sour drink and he gazed into the eyes of the most perfect, most beautiful mare in all of existence.

Cadance’s lips were stained crimson from her drink, a deep, dark, ominous, foreboding red that almost appeared bloody. Her eyes twinkled in a merry way and in their depths he saw mischief. For a moment, Shining Armor was almost stricken by her beauty, and was left wondering how a stallion could be so lucky. She had been a wonderful wife to him, a companion, his best friend, and she had given him two daughters.

For the moment, he was content to simply stare at this most perfect creature.

“Shiny…”

“Yes, dear?”

“Does it ever bother you that you can’t get your daughters to play Oubliettes and Ogres with you?”

Sipping his drink, Shining Armor took a moment to think about his reply, and after swallowing, he smiled. “Flurry says I’m a huge mega-dork and she finds the whole thing boring. I suppose that Flurry would rather be out fighting ogres and trolls for real. As for Skyla… she just doesn’t get it. I suppose I have some regrets.”

“I feel bad that I couldn’t make you a playmate,” said Cadance, her tone teasing. “But I did try to make somepony that you could act your age with.”

Chuckling, Shining Armor settled in against his wife, thankful for climate control. It was only through the miracle of cool air that snuggles were made possible, and he rubbed his fuzzy body against hers. “I wish that you and I could play a bit more often, but that seems almost impossible now.”

“I know.” Cadance sounded almost wistful. “Time becomes a precious thing when one has an empire to rule.”

“Daughters to raise,” he added.

She nodded. “A world to save.”

“Apprentices to teach… and sometimes torment.”

“I bet that you could get Chartreuse to play Oubliettes and Ogres with you.”

This made Shining Armor pause. “Do you really think so?”

“Shiny, that poor filly… your apprentice, she would do anything to get your approval.”

Taking a sip, he nodded, then swallowed. “I know, Cadance, and that scares me. After some of the… incidents… I try to be mindful of what I ask her to do. She is so single minded and purpose driven. That filly’s ambition scares me a little, Cadance. Really, it does. That night when she was with Dim and everything went wrong… she took it all in stride. Most fillies… most ponies for that matter, they would have been left shivering wrecks after that. But not her. She’s made of the same iron as that fireplace poker she keeps.”

“It is the nature of who we are, Shiny,” Cadance said to her husband while leaning closer to him. “The very best and the brightest come to us seeking direction. Everything has snowballed. One moment, I’m the Empress of a fractured, broken empire, and I have no idea what I’m doing, and the next, I find myself surrounded by the best and the brightest that the world has to offer. It’s been… it’s been—”

“Humbling?” Holding his drink close to his muzzle, Shining Armor gazed into the glimmering depths of his wife’s eyes. “It’s all been so humbling, Cadance. I only had ambition to become the Captain of the Guard. That was my horizon. Everything else… everything else that has happened, I…” His words trailed off and he shook his head.

“Neither one of us had any idea what we were getting into, Shiny. You fell in love with me, I fell in love with you, and I think everything we’ve done since is just reacting to things as they happen.”

“Queen Chrysalis.”

“Our marriage.”

“King Sombra.”

“Becoming Emperor and Empress.” Cadance took another drink, more of a swallow this time, and she shuddered from the sour tartness. “Becoming parents… Shiny…”

“Yes?”

“How would you feel about a third?”

“Uh, did you fail a saving throw against unicorn sperm?” he asked. Shivering at the very thought, he failed to make his own saving throw against panic.

“You really are a dork, you know that?”

Shining did not—could not—relax.

“I am only asking, Shiny. Sometimes, I think about it.”

“Cadance, we can barely keep up with the two that we have. If it wasn’t for Sleet and the palace staff… I daresay there’d be grounds for neglect charges.” Feeling ashamed by his own admission, he averted his eyes and took a big gulp from his drink, which left him breathless, gasping for air.

“I know… I know… but I keep having crazy thoughts. I feel like I’ve made mistakes with Flurry and Skyla. Sometimes I tell myself that with a third one, I’d do a better job and maybe get things right.”

“Cadance, honey, if there was a third one, that would only take more time away from Flurry and Skyla. I feel that would be a mistake. We’re stretched thin as it is and—”

“I know, I know,” Cadance huffed, her eyes darkening. For a second, her lips contorted into a pout and she pulled her legs in tighter against her body. “You’re right, of course, and I hate you just a little teeny, tiny bit for being right. Actually, I hate you more than a teeny, tiny bit, because usually I’m the sane voice of reason and you’re the impetuous one and this role reversal stinks.”

Reaching out with one foreleg, Cadance pressed her right hoof against Shining Armor’s chest scruffle and began making slow, clockwise circles. She drank her drink, taking large, desperate gulps, and the sound of her swallowing caused Shining Armor’s ears to prick each time. He found himself in a weird place, a stallion with so many responsibilities, he was the Emperor, but he felt as though he had just done something incredibly grown up, something accomplished and meaningful.

It was a strange place to be.

“Love is so tricky and complicated,” he said to his wife, whispering. “I’d love to have more, but not at the cost of what I already have. I hardly get to spend time with my daughters as it is. There’s only so much of me to go around. Now, I don’t want to badmouth Celestia, Luna, and Gosling, but there is a cautionary tale that could be told about them. There’s not enough hours in the day to keep up with their workload, and they have foals.”

“What a terrible thing to say, Shiny—”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, it’s true. But nonetheless, it is still a terrible thing to say. I worry for those three. At some point, something has to give. You’re right though. We barely manage as it is. If we had another foal, or if our responsibilities increased, or if something changed, we’d be pushed to our breaking point, I think. Things do change, Shiny. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worst. Sticking with two is a good idea, for now.”

Her lips—stained scarlet by drink—were mere inches away and he was tempted to kiss them. It occurred to him that this is what love was; the ability to discuss such deep, dangerous topics but still be free to grope and kiss one another at the same time. A dangerous part of him was still tempted, still wanted to seize her and subject her to a saving throw versus unicorn sperm. Another part of him never wanted this moment to end. Still yet a different part of him suggested that having more young would make moments like this one impossible.

“I love you madly,” he breathed while leaning in a little more.

“Love me like an angry yak, Shiny.”

“The things you say, Mon Chéri.”

Cadance giggled, a sound that held the suggestion of eternal youth. Though Cadance had matured from her adolescent years, her body filling out in the most amazing way imaginable, there were parts of her that hadn’t changed at all. Her eyes—and most of all her giggle—would remain forever young. She finished off her drink with one last gulp, and then her glass vanished. Shining Armor did the same, but he needed a second to recover from Celestia’s Massacre.

She vanished his glass and it disappeared with a pop.

Making a bold move, Shining Armor leaned in, allowing all of his weight to come to rest upon Cadance, and he pressed his lips against hers. The sour tartness from the drink lingered upon her lips and her scent—everything about it—overwhelmed him, it inflamed his senses and put him in a mood. Her forelegs slipped around him and then formed a constrictive embrace, while her fuzzy, silken body rubbed against his, generating a crackling electrical excitement.

Her posture shifted when she fell back upon the couch, which left her open to him; she welcomed his advances, and rewarded his boldness with a clear invitation to come a little bit closer. A whole lot closer. Everything about Cadance’s demeanour suggested that she wanted their bodies to overlap in the same space.

And Shining Armor, her beloved servant, was only too happy to oblige her…
> The perfect day begins
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Today girls… we’re going to have… the perfect day.” Shining Armor raised one eyebrow while looking at his daughters over the delightful spread of breakfast junk food that covered the table. “That is our objective as a family. Flurry isn’t sick from drinking seawater, both of you are well rested, and near as I can tell, our day started out just fine.”

Skyla gave her father a dubious look while peering over the top of her orange juice at him, while Flurry Heart ignored everything her father had said so that she could savage her poor, unfortunate, defenseless waffles. The very best kind of waffles, the sort of waffles that Flurry loved most, the sort of waffles that came frozen, in a colourful cardboard box and were heated in the toaster. Or, if you happened to be a capable unicorn, you could heat them with a toasting spell.

“First thing we’re going to do after breakfast is something your mother wants to do,” he continued, smiling from his fine mood. “I know that nopony will complain about doing something that Mommy wants to do, right? We’re going to go out on a glass-bottom boat tour.”

“A glass-bottom boat tour?” Skyla’s whiny tone was a clear indicator that something was amiss.

“What’s wrong, Skyla?” Cadance asked while she cast a disgusted glance at her other daughter, Flurry.

“That’s scary.”

“How is that scary?” Cadance levitated a paper napkin, held it over Flurry’s head, and rammed it down upon Flurry’s horn, where it remained, skewered in place.

“Boats. Deep water. Scary. The blub-blub-blub of drowning.”

“We flew here on an airship… how is the deep water scary, Skyla?” Looking at her youngest, Cadance did her level best to ignore Flurry’s oink-tastic piggy sounds.

“I have wings,” Skyla replied, shaking her head.

“You’ll be fine, I promise.” Shining Armor realised that Skyla needed swimming lessons and he decided that he would take care of that. She did fine in shallow water doing the basic pony-paddle, but it made sense that she lacked confidence in deep water.

“Promise promise?” Skyla set down her glass of orange juice and stared into her father’s eyes. “Can I stay on your back so I feel safe?”

That seemed perfectly reasonable, and Shining Armor could see no reason to refuse her, if this is what it took to have a perfect day. “Promise promise. One pony back ride for Daddy’s littlest princess.”

“You know, under most circumstances, I’d be upset with you babying me, but I did ask for this.”

“You sure did, Sproglodyte.”

“Daddy, we talked about you calling me that.” Holding her knife and fork, Skyla made ready to cut up her waffles into bite-sized bits.

“Mmm-hmm, we sure did. At length.”

Rolling her eyes, Skyla mimicked one of her big sister’s exasperated sighs.

“After the glass-bottomed boat tour, we’ll do lunch.” Shining Armor poured syrup over his own waffles and watched with horrified fascination when Flurry began licking her plate clean. “After lunch, we’re going to go ziplining down the side of Depot Mountain, then we’ll follow that up with bungee jumping. Once we’ve had all the excitement we can stand, we’ll visit the Depot Island Aquarium—”

“YES!” both fillies hollered out in unison.

Shining Armor smiled and gave himself some silent praise for being a good father. The last family trip had been to Baltimare, and visiting the city aquarium had been the highlight of the trip. He hoped that the glass-bottomed boat tour would also bring about the same sort of excitement. A father could always hope.

“I need both of you to be on your very best behaviour,” Cadance said, her tone stern. “We’re going to be on the tourist side of the island, not the military side, where there are lots of soldiers around. So the both of you are going to stay very, very close. You will not leave my side or your father’s side. If you go running off for any reason, any reason at all, our day of fun is over. I don’t care how excited you are, or what you want to go and see, no excuses. If either of you step so much as a tail’s length away, our nice day ends. Is that clear?”

“Clear as the Crystal Empire,” Skyla replied while looking as submissive as possible.

“Understood.” Flurry licked her chops, but failed to clean up the sticky mess that was her face. “Say”—looking thoughtful, she gave her mother a single nod to engage her—“do you think the tourist side of the island has a museum about the history of Depot Island?”

“Probably,” Cadance replied, nodding back to her daughter.

“Do you think the tourists get to see the exciting movie?”

“Probably not.” Cadance kept a straight face for all of about six seconds, and then she began chortling.

For once, Flurry and her mother didn’t seem to be at odds with one another, or locked in a silent contest of wills. Things had been tense—too tense—and Cadance had stayed downright peeved for quite some time after the Crystal Cotillion and the ice orc invasion. There were moments where it seemed as though every little thing that Flurry did irritated her mother to no end. It was, according to Gosling, an alicorn contest of wills: only one alicorn could be right, for such was their nature. Of course, Gosling would know; he lived with two alicorns that were constantly butting heads and he was something of a recognised authority in helping to keep the peace between two alicorns sharing living space.

Cadance wanted what she felt was best for Flurry; of course, this was at odds with what Flurry believed to be best for herself, which naturally led to unmitigated disaster. Flurry wanted a million things; to be an airship captain, to join the Underwatch, to go on world-spanning adventures, to lead a company of explorer-adventurers like Daring Do—Flurry was at the age where she thought it was possible to do all of these things at once, somehow.

By focusing so much on these things, Flurry couldn’t focus on what she needed to do now to make these things possible. Her schooling suffered. She had dreadful outbursts of outright atrocious behaviour. She was growing far more arrogant and becoming disrespectful. Oh yes, Shining Armor saw signs of trouble ahead. But at least for today, Flurry Heart seemed to be in a good mood. The animosity between Flurry and her mother had departed, perhaps on vacation.

Shining Armor couldn’t wait to be out at sea.





A briny spray washed over Shining Armor’s face and the glass-bottomed boat skimmed over the waves like a stone skipping over the surface of a pond. Skyla sat on his back and clung tight to his neck, terrified, whimpering each time the craft made a hard bounce. Minor regrets played in the back of his mind, and some foalish part of him wished that he had become a sea captain.

“What about sea monsters?” Skyla shouted in alarm.

“What about them?” Cadance replied, laughing. “That’d be exciting!”

So far, neither foal had figured out that the glass-bottomed boat was similar to the aquarium they both so loved, and that something similar was the best way to try something new. Flurry seemed to be having the time of her life and she trotted from one side of the boat to the other, trying to see everything.

“Dolphins!” Flurry cried and she began waving in the direction she saw them.

Turning, Shining Armor scanned the water, and then he saw them too. They glistened in the water, sleek, playful, matching the boat’s speed with no real effort on their part. Skyla squeezed his neck even tighter, and then he heard her squeal, a sound that he was pretty sure was excitement mixed with a little bit of terror.

The dolphins came to play in the boat’s wake, they lept out of the water and did magnificent dolphin things that caused Cadance to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah.’ Shining Armor watched them, his daughter clinging to his neck, and for a time, he admired the dolphins’ simple existence. He found himself longing for a return to a simpler time, a time when his proud neck hadn’t been bowed by the weight of the crown or fatherhood hadn’t skewed his worldview.

“T’won’t be long until we reach the shoals,” the captain said around the pipe tucked into the corner of his mouth. “When we get there, I’ll open up the bottom of the boat and you lot can have a nice look down into yonder fishy depths. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll catch two kraken canoodling with one another. Lots o’ tentacles, yar.”

Overcome with excitement, Cadance pranced in place, squealing and flapping her wings.





Overhead, the tropical sun was merciless and the captain raised a canvas canopy over the deck. Once the canopy was in place, a deck plate squealed and squeaked as it slid out of the way, revealing the glass windows that allowed one to see into the sea below. A short railing popped up into place to prevent anypony from stepping on the glass, and below the ship, two protective covers slid out of the way, revealing the ocean floor below them.

Shining Armor heard a gasp from Skyla and her grip on his neck doubled.

“There’s so much life down there,” Flurry said to her mother, who stood beside her. “I think I can see the bottom.”

“Aye, the shoals are shallow and there’s a great many sandbars around this spot. Shipwrecks abound here, but not to worry, we’re safe. My vessel has a shallow draft. There’s a reef over yonder and we’ll be heading over that way. Also some wrecks that are nice to gawk at.

Pushing his head between the supports for the rail, Shining Armor almost touched his nose to the glass, like so many other ponies had done before him. The blue-green water was so clean and clear, that, like Flurry, he could see the bottom. Crustaceans could be seen, along with many fish, and an octopus went squirting past.

“Daddy, I can’t see.”

“Want to get down, Sproglodyte?”

“No!”

“It’s safe, Skyla—”

“The water is deep!”

There was a grunt as Skyla slid along his neck a bit, and her slender, delicate forelegs wrapped tight just beneath his jaw as her chin butted into his right ear. She was shaking, trembling, and breathing hard. When she finally had a better view of the ocean below, he felt her go rigid. Flurry too, had her head between the supports for the rail, but unlike her father, her nose was smooshed against the glass.

Cadance, giving up all pretence of dignity, joined her family and pushed her regal head between the bars. There was a thump as Skyla squirmed against the bars around his neck and Shining Armor could feel her hot breath against his ear while she peered down into the depths. A sea skate went gliding past, which caused Skyla to snuffle in excitement while she clung for dear life to her father’s neck.

“This… this is different than the aquarium.”

“How so, Flurry?” Cadance asked.

“It just is.”

“Here, Flurry, we’re seeing these creatures in their natural environment.” Cadance squinted, trying to get a better look. “Oh look, scintillating beholder anemones. Look at the lights, Flurry. You can’t see these in an aquarium because of the magic they need to survive. The lights lure in other fish and anything that touches the anemone is paralysed by poison and swallowed.”

“So the ocean has its own magic?” Skyla’s words tickled Shining Armor’s ear.

“Yes, Skyla, and we know hardly anything about it. Aquariums allow us to study some of the wondrous sea creatures so that we can understand their magic better, but not all of them can be removed from their habitats.”

“Mom, how do you know all of this stuff?” Flurry lifted her head and looked at her mother for a moment.

“Well,” Cadance began, chuckling, “there was a time during my teenage years when I was absolutely certain that I was going to be the Princess of Love and a marine biologist. I gave Princess Celestia fits. Nopony was going to tell me what to do. I was also going to be a Wonderbolt, circumnavigate the globe, and for a time, I wanted to write Oubliettes and Ogres modules because I felt that it needed better female heroes that were free of damaging fantasy stereotypes. I accused Princess Celestia of trying to hold me back when she told me that trying to focus on so many things at once would hold me back from the one thing that I was best at.”

If Flurry had listened, it was hard to tell, because her nose was pressed against the glass once more and she watched with rapt attention. For a moment, Shining Armor’s eyes met with his wife’s, and he was proud of her for trying—she was always trying to do right in her own gentle way.

“Are you sad that you couldn’t do that stuff?” Skyla asked, still clinging for dear life to her father’s neck.

“A little.”

Cadance’s honesty left Shining Armor in a rather surprised state.

“But Auntie Celestia was right. Little did I know just how much work being the Princess of Love would be. Then I became a wife, and that is a special career all its own when you’re royalty. It’s… it is a full time job, Skyla. Even more so when you are the Princess of Love. After becoming a wife, motherhood was next—after all, that is the logical progression for the Princess of Love. So, much to my dismay, I find that I don’t have the time to be a marine biologist, or a Wonderbolt, or a writer for a fantasy game. It’s called ‘growing up’ and it is very difficult to do, Skyla.”

A queer silence settled upon the moment and Shining Armor found his attention drawn to the myriad of life going about its business down below him. Little silver fishes swam to and fro, avoiding bigger fishes. The sea floor changed and bits of old, rotten wood could be seen, covered in silt and debris. Parts of a ship were scattered about, shattered by some wreck.

The age of tall wooden ships would soon be at an end.

Soon, Flurry would enter adolescence, and this age, this time, whatever this was, would end. A prickly sadness came over Shining Armor when he thought about his daughter, Flurry. All of her friends were somewhat older than she was, so she was in a big darn hurry to grow up, to mature, to be like her peers. She was in a rush to move past these awkward years, but she had no idea that even more awkward years were soon to come.

Little Flurry Heart, the Heart of Winter, Princess of Storms.

With a sigh, Shining Armor knew that a storm was coming, yon ill wind already blew, and he wondered how his family would survive it. Flurry would enter her adolescent years and these little squalls of misbehaviour would become full-fledged hurricanes of temper. Shining Armor feared what was to come, he was terrified that his own relationship with his daughter was in jeopardy. How many more family holidays did he have before the coming storm ruined everything?

He wasn’t sure—he had no way of knowing—so he resolved to enjoy this perfect day as much as possible.
> The perfect day continues
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Depot Island grew ever-larger upon the horizon as they returned to port. Shining Armor, who had a sleeping filly on his back, took in the sights and the sounds, everything this experience had to offer. In the middle of the island was a shattered volcano, a caldera, a massive crater that formed a natural secure, fortified harbour for Equestria’s Royal Navy. The volcano of course, was long extinct. Two long spits of land protruded from both sides of it, with one half being for soldiers and the other for tourists.

There were other islands, keys as they were called, including one that was a bird sanctuary. Brave, enduring pegasus ponies made the long voyage to lead birds there to spend the winter, and they brought them home again come spring. Shining Armor knew a few pegasus ponies that had made the trip, a perilous journey where the only places to rest were islands hundreds of miles apart. One had to be an endurance flier of the highest calibre.

Cadance stood at the prow with Flurry just beside her, and Shining Armor turned his attention to them. They had been talking, a rare occurrence. Actual talking; not just Cadance speaking and expecting Flurry to listen; or Flurry shouting about how everything was unfair. He didn’t dare intrude, because peaceful discussion was so precious and rare these days. More and more, Flurry and her mother were at odds with one another, with him being trapped in the middle. It was awful, being expected to take a side. It seemed that no matter what he did, or how he tried to play the neutral intermediary, their ire was frequently turned on him.

When Dim chose the middle ground, ponies hemmed and hawed and nodded their heads, because it was expected of him. His neutrality was an asset. But when Shining Armor tried to take a neutral approach, it was typically unmitigated catastrophe. Everypony had something to say about how they were disappointed with him and expected better from him. Life just wasn’t fair—but he already knew that.

Shining Armor maintained his stoic silence as the port drew ever-closer.





The Bawdy Barsop was one of the oldest continuously operating publican houses and they had been in business for two-hundred and ninety-two years. They brewed their own beer, sold rum from the local distillery, and had a bronze statue of Princess Celestia in her resplendent admiralty regalia that dominated the common room. Upon seeing Princess Celestia in a tricorn hat, little Skyla shut down and froze in place, her eyes wide and almost unblinking.

Flurry on the other hoof, began reading the plaque that adorned the base of the statue, which told the tale of Admiral Celestia and her fleet of one-thousand ships. Cadance snapped a picture, because that's what tourists did. A brace of matchlock pistols butted out from beneath Celestia’s wings, and Shining Armor snorted at the ridiculous accoutrements. What need did Celestia have of pistols?

One hoof rested graciously upon a battered, beaten pegasus pony’s head, a pose that made Shining Armor wonder if Celestia regretted some of her past bloody conquests. She had since cleaned up her image; she now presented herself as the gentle, benevolent, kindly ruler—and not the blood-drenched admiral that was about to crush the head of her subdued enemy.

“Table for four,” Shining Armor said to the hostess.

“Right, we’ve got a table fit for royalty,” the hostess replied, winking. “Come with me.”





Skyla yawned, a sleepy sound, and then smacked her lips together a few times while having a look around. The wooden table had a map of Depot Island with highlights of all the touristy destinations. Flurry almost looked as though she needed a nap, but Shining Armor knew that she would get her second wind after a little downtime and a lot of food. Though it was cool in here, Cadance was fanning her face with her wing and Shining Armor thought that maybe, just maybe, his wife seemed a little pinker after being out at sea.

Hopefully sunburn would not be a problem.

Flurry Heart, her expression sleepy, turned to look at her mother to ask, “Why do we call it wheat meat?”

“Huh?” Cadance was caught off guard by the out-of-the-blue question posed by her daughter.

“Wheat meat.” Flurry made a waving gesture with her hoof and looked up at her mother. “Meat. Most ponies are vegetarians. We have a thing about eating meat. Sunburst calls it a taboo, a selective element of social shaming that society engages in to enforce established societal mores. If eating meat is shameful and wrong, then why do we have so many products that emulate it and are called meat?”

Cadance blinked, her eyelashes clinging to one another in worried panic. “Out of all the things you fail to pay attention to in school, this is what sticks in your mind?”

The filly considered her mother’s words for a time, took a deep breath, and shrugged. “Most of that stuff is boring as all get out. This seemed interesting. I don’t know why.”

Eyes darting from one to the other, Shining Armor listened, glad that Flurry and Cadance were speaking to one another as friends, a welcome return to their old relationship. Skyla seemed thoughtful and was now rubbing her chin. Cadance was still trying to recover from Flurry’s query. Seeing his wife in such a state after being caught off guard caused Shining Armor to chuckle, and he did nothing to hide his mirth.

“We have wheat meat burgers and wheat meat chicken and wheat meat chops and wheat meat chili con carne and all of these wheat meat versions of foods that other meat eating creatures eat. But if we’re supposed to be repulsed by meat eating and our society condemns it as a practice, then why do we have so many pretend meat products?” Flurry, looking rather lawyerly, pressed her front hooves together and appeared to rest her case while looking up at her mother.

“Well… I don’t know.” Cadance shrugged and then just sat there with a blank stare that was pointed in her daughter’s general direction.

“You just ordered a wheat meat fried chicken sandwich, Mom, with a side order of chili cheese fries—which also has wheat meat chunks as well as textured vegetable protein. Shouldn’t we be disgusted by all this meat?” Flurry was now more lawyerly than ever, appearing cool and calm.

“Daddy eats meat,” Skyla said to her sister. “For realsies. He’s a cannibal.”

“What?” Flurry’s head whipped around and she cast a doubtful look upon her smaller sibling.

Shining Armor felt a prickle of fear, already guessing what Skyla was about to say. “Skyla, darling, we shouldn’t talk about that.”

“One time, I walked in on Mommy and Daddy”—when Cadance groaned, Skyla continued, oblivious—“and Daddy was eating Mommy. He was chewing and biting her between her legs and she was crying and kicking and moaning and I thought he was hurting her. Turns out, she likes being eaten by cannibals.”

Cadance’s face was definitely a whole lot pinker now and so was Flurry’s. With a slow turn of her head, Flurry faced her mother and with her right eyelid twitching, she raised one eyebrow in a silent, shocked expression. Shining Armor took a moment to appreciate the bric-a-brac on the walls, old nets, anchors, seashells, the bones of sea monsters and the like.

A category four silence arrived, a deafening maelstrom that smothered all sound. Skyla was staring down at the table now, her hoof tracing over some touristy point of interest upon the map. Flurry Heart too, had discovered the fine assortment of bric-a-brac on the walls and was now studying it with keen interest. Cadance was fanning herself a little harder, a little faster, and from the looks of things, her ears were almost glowing from some kind mysterious burst of heat. As for Shining Armor, he was powerless against the storm of silence.





Gondolas carried ponies up the sides of the shattered mountain and near the broken peak, there was a lookout platform where one could see the entire island. It was also the place where one could ride the zipline. Said zipline terminated in Gallow’s Inlet, a place where the Royal Navy had once hung pirates and left them for the birds to pick clean. Now, Gallow’s Inlet was an ideal bungee jumping location and it was great fun to ‘get hung from the gallows.’ They even had souvenir shirts for the brave souls who took the plunge.

Shining Armor had insisted that he and his family wait in line like normal ponies, and now, tourists were busy snapping pictures while keeping a respectful distance. Cadance seemed a bit nervous, but was coping well, though she herded her daughters close and kept them near her long legs.

Due to safety concerns though, they would be getting their own gondola. As inconvenient as it might be, there was no sense in openly inviting trouble. Wary, Shining Armor stood watch, his eyes darting about, trying to spot potential ‘feather-seekers’ or those who believed themselves important enough to be owed a moment with the Royal Family. Shining Armor, though a dutiful guard himself, wished that Dim was here, because ponies naturally avoided Dim and gave him a wide berth. Sometimes, a contemptuous sneer was more advantageous than a legion of loyal guards.

The gondolas seemed to be moving at a glacial pace this day.





A steady, dragging wind tugged at Shining Armor’s mane and he gazed upon the tourist trap below him. Though distant, this was Equestria. As was the tradition, Equestrian soil had been brought here to be mixed with the island’s native volcanic soil. Beside him, Skyla appeared to be enjoying the breeze and her eyes were skyward. She seemed littler somehow at this moment, more foalish in some vague, incomprehensible way. On the other hoof, Flurry seemed older, more mature, but this could be because she hovered protectively near her younger sibling, looking anxious.

The platform was crowded. There were telescopes here that cost a copper bit for a peek. Vast sweeping panoramas could be seen at every turn, and Cadance was busy photographing them, wearing a pouty smirk while she tried to find perfect angles. Shining Armor’s senses were attuned to the crowd around him and his family; at least for the moment they were giving him some space, which was good.

“Daddy” —Skyla’s voice was little more than a whisper and quite difficult to make out— “there are a lot of pegasus ponies waiting for the zipline.”

“Does that surprise you, Sproglodyte?” Eyebrow arching, he glanced down at his daughter while she moved from the shelter of her mother’s legs to his own.

“Yes it does,” she replied as she brushed up against her father’s foreleg. “They’re pegasus ponies. They can fly. Why would they ride the zipline?”

“Not every pegasus pony can fly fast.” Shining Armor, feeling a tickle, paused for a moment when Skyla’s feathers grazed his leg. Smiling, he lowered his head and place his muzzle near his daughter’s ear. “Some pegasus ponies can hardly fly at all. Be careful with your assumptions, Skyla. As a ruler, ponies and other creatures will remember the sort of assumptions that you make.”

“So… some pegasus ponies can’t fly well, or not at all, but they still want to go fast, because pegasus ponies like going fast?” Sunlight glinted upon Skyla’s glasses and her face became solemn, thoughtful.

“That’s a pretty safe assumption,” Shining Armor said to his daughter, his words gentle. He gestured at the ponies gawking at them with his hoof and then gave his filly a soft nudge. “Those ponies waiting for a turn, those are ponies who want to go fast. Unicorn ponies, earth ponies, pegasus ponies, they all share something in common. Something that has brought them together. When one day you rule, you would be wise to search out the things that bring ponies together, and unites them with a common cause.”

“Oh.” Skyla’s soft gasp was almost lost in the sound of the crowd. “So I should find things that are good enough to stand in line for? They’re standing together and they all want the same thing.”

For now, Shining Armor decided to humour his daughter, because he felt this was a pretty good conclusion to reach. “Yes, Sproglodyte. If ponies will stand in line for it, there is unity to be had.”

“Dad, look,” Flurry said, pointing down into the caldera with her hoof. “Battleships. Floaty boats that go on the water.”

“Yes, Flurry. It takes a lot to keep an airship in the air. Sometimes, it is better to have a seafaring vessel.” Shining Armor glanced in the direction that Flurry was pointing and noticed that there were a lot of ships berthed, far more than he expected during wartime. Maybe they just needed maintenance and general upkeep, he didn’t know.

“I want one.” Flurry gazed with intense longing down at the floating fortresses and her eyes had the same ravenous, greedy look that appeared when Flurry saw ice cream. “I’d like to be a battleship commander. Dad, how long would you say that one really big ship is? It’s huge.”

“That one is about six hundred or so feet in length,” he replied. “And no, you can’t have one.”

“Aww.”

“Daddy, can I have a battleship?” Skyla asked.

“Sure thing, Sproglodyte.”

“Really?” Skyla looked both confused and hopeful, while her big sister stood fuming.

“You’ll look so cute playing with it in the tub,” he continued, delighting in Flurry’s seeming anguish.

“HAH!” Having crowed in triumph, Flurry fluffed out and then laughed at her sister.

“Since I can’t have a battleship, can I be with you when we finally get a ride on the zipline?” Tilting her head up, Skyla looked up at her father with pleading, filly eyes, which were dangerous things indeed.

“You bet, Sproglodyte.”

Now it was Skyla’s turn, and she stuck her tongue out at her sister. In response, Flurry frowned for a moment, but then the frown vanished and she started laughing again. For now, the two sisters—as different as night and day—were getting along. So long as the peace held, so long as the two sisters continued to abide by this seeming truce, the perfect day would remain perfect.

Shining Armor had high hopes.
> Is it still a perfect day?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cadance was speaking with the zipline manager, discussing the peculiarities of alicorn density and weight. Shining Armor watched, distracted, as a family was strapped into place, a father and his excited colt on one line, and a rather timid looking mare on the second. While the mare hadn’t exactly said no, or refused, it was clear that she was a bit worried about this whole experience—but she was trying it and Shining Armor admired her courage in the face of danger.

Of course, his own mother would do it without so much as a blink of hesitation.

The breeze picked up, causing the tandem ziplines to rock a bit and Shining Armor turned his face into the gust so that it could wash over him. Unbeknownst to him, his daughters did the same, mimicking his behaviour, having learned from him, they were just teenier, tinier versions of him. His windswept mane tickled his ears and for a brief moment, he had the perfect wild look about him.

While the wind sculpted him into the perfect, hunky stallion with a wavy mane, Shining Armor came to a worrisome realisation that he had spent pretty much the entire morning with Skyla and was about to spend even more time with her on the zipline. Fearful of what Flurry might be feeling, his head swiveled upon his neck so that he might have a better look at his oldest daughter.

“Fluffalump”—his words caused his daughter to jolt to attention—“I just realised that I might’ve been accidently neglecting you this morning. Are you okay with Skyla going with me on the zipline? I mean, Skyla’s been practically glued to me all morning and I just thought you might want some time with me too.”

A look of awkward vulnerability crossed over Flurry’s face and for a second, she became a yearling once more—a yearling with wide, wild, fearful eyes, afraid of what the dark unknown might bring. “It’s been nice catching up with Mom, actually.” She shuffled on her hooves, squirming, and gave her sister a nod. “Skyla is little and scared. She needs you more than I do. Mom and I aren’t fighting. Now that I think about it, you and I aren’t fighting either. It feels nice.”

Skyla said nothing about her big sister’s comment, but stood blinking with an owlish expression behind her eyeglasses. After a moment, she leaned up against Flurry and Shining Armor studied the both of them while thinking about how precious this moment was. Everypony seemed to be at peace with one another and he couldn’t recall when things had felt this… good. All of the tension was gone, all of the pent up frustration, the anxiety, the suspicion, and all of the antagonism that went with those feelings.

“Sometimes it feels like I am trying so hard to be a princess and prove myself that I don’t have time for much else. It feels like everypony is out to get me, like they’re all watching and waiting for my next big screw up so they can laugh and point and say, ‘I told you so.’ To be honest, this vacation has been great. No need to prove myself. No need to be a bigger, better alicorn. It feels good to be a big sister and a daughter again. It’s like… as alicorns, Mom and I don’t get along, but as mother and daughter, we’re fine.” Turning her head around, Flurry cast a glance over her withers back at her mother, who stood behind her.

“This is part of why I chose to remain as a unicorn,” Shining Armor said to his daughters, both of them. He sighed, a heavy huff, and shook his head from side to side. “For the moment, I have life figured out. I have a plan that I am following. Everything is mostly going according to plan. As things currently are, they’re working. But if I became an alicorn… I’m scared that everything would fly out of order. See, girls, even Daddy gets scared.”

“But you say you’re staying a unicorn for other reasons,” Skyla replied to her father. “Are you lying?”

“No.” Shining Armor looked into Skyla’s eyes. “I have many reasons and I just don’t share all of them. I’m allowed to keep some things private. Yet another reason to stay as a unicorn, I suppose. Too bad that all of Equestria is gripped with alicorn fever.”

“Yeah, the pressure, Dad. I feel it too.”

“I know you do, Fluffalump. That’s why the Crystal Cotillion became a debacle.”

Flurry did not become angry, but rather, she slumped and sighed in agreement: “Yeah.”

Shining Armor was about to respond, but Flurry it seemed, had more to say: “You know, if the commoners had their way, Mom would just stay pregnant at all times and shoot out foals. I’d be married to Sumac the moment I had my first heat. I’m pretty sure that Skyla would too. I have really good hearing, you know. These amazing ears of mine, I hear everything that gets said around me. When I hear these whispers, when I hear all of this talk, it drives me crazy, Dad. I can’t not hear it. Nopony cares about who I am, or what I am, or what I want to do. To them, I’m just the means to make more alicorns and I am nothing else.”

At a loss for words, left aching by what his daughter had said, Shining Armor stood in silence, his mind racing with an untold number of thoughts. What did this do to poor Flurry’s self esteem? How did she cope with it? What was this doing to her long term growth and development? How could he protect her? As Emperor, how was he supposed to serve these ponies that threatened his daughter’s well-being? This was quite a predicament and one with no easy answers.

“Sometimes, I wear earplugs to block it all out,” Flurry confessed, her gaze falling down to the platform they all stood upon.

Well that explained a lot of things. Flurry wasn’t just ignoring ponies, or zoning out, or not paying attention, she was intentionally deafening herself so she could cope with the pressure. Suddenly, a great many things made a whole lot of sense. He felt his heart clench, but had no idea what to do. Clearly, Flurry needed help and something needed to be done about this.

“Ready to go?” Cadance called out. “Get ready already. It’s go time!”





The attendant tugged the straps tight and said, “Keep your wings in, young Miss.”

Shining Armor was slung from the line with Skyla below him in a special parent-foal harness. Her head poked out from between his forelegs and her stubby horn seemed dangerously close to his neck. Beside them, Cadance and Flurry were also trussed up in a similar rig, and an attendant was double checking their straps.

“The line is a little over three-thousand feet in length and at its highest point is just a little over one-thousand feet off of the ground. Depending on your weight and how you hold yourself, you might exceed speeds of eighty miles per hour, but most ponies reach speeds of forty to sixty. You’ll be flying right over the city and the line ends at Gallow’s Inlet. Now, Gallow, I’ve done heard it said that he was a fine pony, and he had a noose for a cutie mark. You can’t fault a pony for doing what they were born to do, says me. I have a stevedore knot cutie mark and somehow, that put me here, in this place. Having a knot cutie mark really restricts your life choices, says me. It really ties one down.”

“It’s knot so bad,” Skyla said to the attendant. “It’s a real cinch figuring out what to do.”

Shining Armor groaned while the attendant chuckled.

“Okay, I’m gonna pop the brake and you’re going to soar like the wind. Are you ready?”

Shining Armor barely had a chance to nod before he started moving.





Below, ponies looked like tiny toys and the buildings were dollhouses. Skyla was shrieking, not with fear, but with excitement. The wind tore at Shining Armor’s face and his eyes blurred over with tears. The sound of the pulleys on the metal cable joined the wind to create a dull roar in his ears and all of his senses screamed at him that he was in danger.

Danger was fun, except for all those times when it wasn’t.

Ears flapping like windsocks, Shining Armor reveled in the sensation of flight and thought to himself that maybe, just maybe, being an alicorn might not be so bad. The offer was still on the table—it would always be on the table—and whilst he soared a thousand feet over the city below, he couldn’t help but think about it. Thoughts happened, wanted or not, and they could not be stopped, only entertained.

Cadance, riding on the tandem cable, was truly majestic. Her mane and tail whipped about in the wind and Shining Armor couldn’t help but think that she looked at home here, hurtling through the sky at breakneck speeds. She was still a pegasus pony where it mattered, it was her nature, it shaped her thoughts and her worldview.

It occured to Shining Armor that his daughters were truly strange to him; they were alicorns, three tribes in one pony, and having been born as such, they had known nothing else. They had never known being a unicorn, or a pegasus pony, or an earth pony. They only had an alicorn’s perspective and existed with three distinct natures within them.

Were alicorns three tribes in one body or four?

As Shining Armor zoomed towards Gallow’s Inlet, his mind thought about a great many things all at once.





The expression on Cadance’s face was priceless and totally worth the cost of a tacky, tourist shirt emblazoned with a witty slogan. One ear twitched, as did her left eye and the left corner of her mouth. Using his magic, Shining Armor smoothed out some of the wrinkles in his bright blue shirt and grinned at his wife. When a nearby tourist snapped a photograph, Cadance’s facial tics ratcheted up to something almost epic.

“Shining Armor.” Cadance’s words were monotonous, calm, the utterance of an Empress schooled in diplomacy and statecraft. “Shining Armor, Shining Armor. What am I to do with you, Shining Armor?”

“I don’t know, my big fluffy Cotton Candicorn—”

“Shiny, we talked about you calling me that.”

“I don’t recall agreeing to anything,” he said. Smirking, his voice filled with the suggestion of lurking laughter, he resumed his previous sentence: “My big fluffy Cotton Candicorn, I think my brilliant shirt suggests what can be done with me.”

“Yes,” the big fluffy Cotton Candicorn replied, “your shirt suggests that I go bungee jumping.”

Flurry Heart, her eyebrow raised, eyeballed her father’s shirt and the bright green letters. “I don’t get it. Something is funny and I don’t understand it. Dad’s shirt says—”

“Flurry, hush!” Cadance stomped her hoof for emphasis.

“Well hung.” Flurry shook her head. “What’s the big deal? Let’s go bungee jumping. I want to be well hung too.”

At this, Cadance facewinged and let out a pained groan.

“We’ll be a well hung family!” Skyla’s chirpy exclamation caused her mother to groan again. “I’m excited. And thirsty. And hungry. But mostly thirsty. I need a drink. Can I get a drink? Why is Mom groaning and looking at me like that? What’d I say?”

Another pony took a photograph and then Shining Armor struck a pose that was irresistible to the shutterbugs present. Flashbulbs popped and many pictures were taken while he celebrated this moment of mischief. No doubt, the ponies back home would end up hearing about this, and he wondered what his parents might think. His father would get a good laugh out of it, of this he was certain. There’d be a lot of raised eyebrows later, for sure.





A disappointed and dejected Skyla sat on a wooden bench, drinking a bottle of Cadance~Cola while making the glummest face possible. Shining Armor sat beside her on the wooden bench, unsure of what to say to console her. His daughter clutched her bottle of pop in her fetlocks because she was too upset to use her telekinesis.

“I’m big enough to ride the zipline, but not big enough to go bungee jumping. That’s just stupid.”

Shining Armor half-shrugged and watched the glistening condensation run down the bottle of Cadance~Cola. Skyla’s brokenheartedness made him ache and there wasn’t much he could do about it, except for try to console her. At least the aquarium visit would cheer her up, but she was bound to be downright moody until she could see the fishies.

“Can’t you do something?” Skyla demanded.

“Sproglodyte, I’m sorry. You’re too little and too slight for the body harnesses. You’d slip right out and splash right into the ocean.” He didn’t say anything about how the water was rather deep and he couldn’t understand how bungee jumping over deep water was okay but boating was scary. His daughter remained a mystery to him.

“This isn’t fair.” Skyla was dangerously close to whining. Eyes dark, she wrapped her pouty lips around the top of the bottle and took a careful drink, lifting it with both forelegs. She drank a little more, and then took a few brave gulps of the ice cold refreshing liquid.

Looking down at his daughter, Shining Armor recalled vivid memories of his little sister being upset because she wasn’t big enough to join him. She had bawled her eyes out when she couldn’t go with him on the roller coaster or the log flume known as ‘The Lumberjack’s Lament.’ At the time, he hadn’t thought too much about Twilight’s suffering, only acknowledging that she was upset and feeling sympathetic for her. Now, as an adult, he had quite a different view of the matter and a part of him wished that he had done more to comfort her. When next he saw her, maybe he’d talk to her about it. That day at the amusement park had to be a pretty miserable experience for little Twily, and he had made it worse by refusing to go on the yearling rides because he was a big strapping colt.

“You look sad.”

The words jolted him from his thoughts and he glanced down at his daughter, who was staring up at him. She had dribbled some soda down her chin, but not too much, not enough that Cadance would get upset about her daughter’s face being sticky in public—or so he hoped. Even during her own moment of suffering, Skyla was attentive to the pain of others.

“Daddy was thinking about the time he let his baby sister down,” he said, explaining where his mind had gone. “She wasn’t big enough for the really fun rides, you see, but I was. So she was stuck on the yearling rides while I went on the big exciting rides… and uh… well… looking back on it, I think my sister wanted to spend the day with me. The real fun was spending time with me and I was too busy doing fun big colt stuff while she was stuck crying on the Kiddie Carousel. Daddy was reminiscing and made himself feel guilty, Sproglodyte.”

“Did you have a nickname for Auntie Twilight?” Skyla asked.

“Sure did,” he replied, a broad grin revealing his gleaming white teeth.

“Well, what was it?” Skyla sniffled a bit but some of her good cheer seemed to be returning.

“I called her Twily, of course. I still do. She hated it at first, and complained that when I said it, it made her sound like a yearling baby. Little Twily always got so huffy-puffy. But as the years rolled on, it stuck. Now, if I don’t call her Twily, she wonders what’s wrong and if I’m a changeling.”

“Huh.” Skyla, her glasses a little crooked, clutched her half-full soda bottle and gazed up at her father with unabashed adoration. “I love you.”

“Why thank you, Sproglodyte, I love me too.” Shining Armor gave his daughter a nudge and then added, “I love you too.”

Then, in silence, Skyla continued to sip her soda.
> It's a perfect day to let go
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A warm, moist, briny smell assailed Shining Armor’s nose and for some reason it reminded him of a maternity ward in a hospital, though he couldn’t say why. The air was cool here, so much so that he almost shivered from the sudden contrast of hot and cold. His fillies were already squealing and whinnying with excitement… all three of them. Quivering with excitement, Cadance went off to pay the entrance fee.

Shining Armor knew of this building, its stories, its history. Before it was an aquarium, it was a sanitarium and a distillery—though why the original owner thought this was a good idea was now forever lost in the past. Some ponies sold quills and sofas, other ponies combined sanitariums and liquor distilleries. He was distracted from his thoughts by the sound of Flurry sniffing with her sniffle-snorter.

“They have a shark and ray petting tank,” Skyla said, squinting at a nearby sign. “I wonder if they are slimy and gross? Don’t sharks bite? Are rays dangerous? Is it safe to pet them?”

“We’ll find out, Sproglodyte.”

“We saw cownose rays today on the boat.”

“We sure did, Fluffalump.” Arching an eyebrow, Shining Armor was a bit surprised that Flurry could name a ray. For a time, he thoroughly enjoyed feeling shocked by this development, but then he settled into a comfortable sense of pride.

“We’re paid for,” Cadance said from where she stood near the counter. “Let’s go see some fishies!”





Shining Armor watched as Skyla squirmed, hesitant to stick her hoof into the ray tank, fearful that a shark would come along and bite it off, no doubt. Meanwhile, Flurry was just waiting for something to get close enough to touch. Just as he was about to come to his daughter’s rescue, Cadance beat him to it, and poor little Skyla almost jumped out of her skin when her mother touched her.

“Dad.” Flurry seemed curious, but calm. “What would a shark-wrangling cutie mark look like?”

“I have no idea,” he replied, and he was left wondering how a pony would get such a mark in the first place. For a moment, he entertained the mental image of a pony lassoing a shark, but that was just too silly. “Let me guess, Fluffalump… you want to be a shark-wrangler?”

“Maybe just a little,” she replied, shrugging with her wings. “Might be fun as a hobby. Something to do so I can relax when I’m not saving the world.”

Two paths presented themselves; one was nurturing, gentle, and kind; the other hard, but potentially something Flurry needed to hear. Flurry had failed to save herself from the ice orcs, so he doubted that she was ready to save the world, so to speak. More and more, Flurry was becoming deaf to kind words and gentle encouragement, and only responded to blunt force trauma. He agonised over what to say, what to do, how to turn this into a moment where something might be learned, and while he struggled, a third option presented itself.

He failed to say anything at all, and as such, the opportunity was lost.

Now a little fearful, Shining Armor wondered how wide the gap would become. Flurry would grow up, she would become distant, edgy, and resentful. At some point, he wouldn’t even be allowed to be near her. She would take every opportunity available to shout at him how much she hated him. His father, Night Light, had warned him of a great many things, each of them worse and far more terrifying than the last. But, Night Light had also said that this insanity would pass… someday. Enduring it was a trial… the trial of Fatherhood.

Shining Armor had not one, but two daughters.

“Look, Fluffalump… a dogfish shark. He seems pretty docile.”

Flurry scooted a little closer, moving along the raised edge of the tank, until she bumped into her father. Resting her barrel upon the raised edge, she reached into the tank with her right front hoof and after stretching a bit, she was able to pet the rather serene shark, which, Shining Armor noted, seemed to enjoy being petted.

“It’s smooth,” she whispered, “I can feel it with my frog. I thought it’d be grosser.”

One day, Shining Armor realised with some alarm, Flurry would stop thinking colts were so gross. She’d already been kissing Sumac, something that was every bit as awkward and disturbing as it sounded. Practice kisses, so she’d have a better idea of what she was doing so she wouldn’t look stupid. Unaware that he was doing so, he frowned, uncomfortable with the fact that all of Flurry’s closest and most trusted friends were all older than she was.

Perhaps it was time to lock Flurry away in a tower.

“Dad, you’re acting weird. Stop that.”

“Daddy has anxieties, Fluffalump.”

“What is it about parenting that makes a pony speak of themselves in the third pony?”

“Oh… that’s an indicator that your foals have made you crazy.”

“Success,” Flurry said with Twilight-levels of snark.

The frown on Shining Armor’s face vanished and he chuckled. Flurry showed signs of being funny, but in a subtle way, very much like Twilight was. Shining Armor was more in your face funny, and Cadance had a gentle humour that sometimes bordered on sarcastic. Brushing up against his daughter, he marvelled at how things turned out, how certain traits manifested. His mother, Twilight Velvet, she had a sense of humour that was like a cinder block wrapped in the softest velvet, and she wielded snark like a wrecking ball. She could do with words what most unicorns did with spells, that is to say, she caused widespread, unchecked devastation.

And then there was that time when Twilight Velvet and Dim had tried to out snark one another at that fancy supper for the aristocracy. He shivered at the memory, balked at the unpleasantness of it, and was thankful that Flurry, for all of her developing snark, didn’t seem to be mean spirited. His mother and Dim had vented their bile and their resentment upon the ruling class, no holds barred, no mercy, nothing held back.

And just when things couldn’t’ve possibly gotten any worse, Maud Pie had joined in…





“Dad, ponies and fish have a lot in common,” Flurry said to her father while she stood staring into a tank full of fish swimming to and fro.

“How so, Fluffalump?” he replied while watching the moonyfishes swim back and forth.

“Fish have schools, ponies have herds.” Flurry’s nose bumped up against the glass with a soft, muffled sound and when she breathed, the glass fogged around her nostrils. “Everypony and everyfishie have to stick together for survival, and if somepony or somefishie breaks off from the others, they run the risk of being gobbled up. Look at them, Dad. They just swim together, moving as one. What makes them do that? How do they know when to change direction all at once? What makes us stick together as a herd? Why is this so… so… so—”

“Ingrained?” he said, being helpful.

“Yeah. Ingrained. Why is this so ingrained in us? Like, what if being in a herd wasn’t good for us any longer but we’re still stuck with that thinking? What if it became detrimental to us and—”

“Detrimental, Fluffalump?” Shining Armor couldn’t help but think of Cadance’s big study.

“I pay attention to Sunburst… sometimes… when I feel like it.” Flurry pulled her nose away from the glass, shuffled her hooves against the tile floor, and her tail flicked from side to side. “Like, everypony around me thinks they know what is best for me and there is this big problem about me doing what is best for all of us, with nopony stopping to think what is best for me. Now, I don’t meant to sound selfish, and I really do feel bad for having my own wants… and I… well… all those ponies… all that peer pressure… I can always hear them talking…” Flurry’s words died with a soft, muted whimper of pain.

“First off, Fluffalump, never, ever feel bad about having your own wants.” Shining Armor failed to realise just how stern his voice was, or that he was even speaking as the Captain of the Guard. “For a time, Princess Celestia completely sacrificed her own wants for the good of others and it very nearly shattered her mental health. She is still recovering, still learning how to establish healthy boundaries and say when she wants something. I don’t want this happening to you.”

“Dad?”

“You listen to me, Flurry.” Shining Armor tore his gaze away from the fish, looked down into his daughter’s eyes, and he observed her every squirm, her every fidget. “We’re not like other ponies, Flurry. We’re Royals. That doesn’t make us better than them, just different. We have duties and obligations and things that are expected of us. The hardest part of our existence is learning how to balance what we want versus the needs of others. It is a situation fraught with peril and it is so easy to make mistakes. Cadance and I make them all the time. Your mother made a mistake with the Crystal Cotillion and thinking that you could just ignore what the aristocracy was saying.”

At this, Flurry seemed stunned and her maturity melted away, leaving her foalish.

“Cadance thought she could have her cake and eat it too. She thought she could satisfy the aristocracy and make you happy at the same time. It’s a mistake that she won’t make a second time. And dangit, Fluffalump, if you’d just listen to your mother and stop trying to bang heads with her, you’d know this already, because she’s tried to tell you a few times. But every time she even mentions the words ‘Crystal Cotillion’—”

“I start screaming and shouting,” Flurry whispered, interrupting her father.

Now silent, Shining Armor waited for his words to sink in, and he watched Flurry’s eyes, hoping for some signs of intelligence, of recognition, some indication that she understood what he was saying. Flurry was looking back at him though, maintaining eye contact, and even in her current foalish state, she was brave, so brave. It made his heart swell with pride.

“I… didn’t know that about Auntie Celestia,” Flurry said to her father. “She made herself sick?”

He nodded, but remained silent.

“So me having my own wants and needs, that’s normal? It’s not bad?” Flurry seemed more confused than anything, and her ears splayed straight out on either side of her head. “Dad, it seems like everypony knows what’s best for me and I still haven’t figured out what is best for myself. I hate it. It’s like, I can’t figure out what it is that I even want, but it feels like everypony has my life already planned out for me. Even you, sometimes. And I… just… get… a bad case of the angries.”

“Me?” Shining Armor’s eyes narrowed into thin slits. “I have to do right by you and prepare you for the future. It’s a tough thing to do, Fluffalump. I have an obligation to see that you are schooled and prepared… for the future that you choose. I also have a job to make certain that you don’t wreck your future… or the futures of other ponies for that matter. The Lulamoon name is mud, Fluffalump. It has been for a long, long time. They’re outright reviled. And Sumac had a chance to come out from beneath that shadow and do good. But now? Sumac is just another Lulamoon. Your little stunt at the cotillion has left Sumac with a lifelong uphill battle for acceptance. See, Fluffalump, I’m your friend, and your father. You make it hard to be both. I have an obligation to protect you from things you don’t understand yet so that they won’t hurt you.”

“I’m sorry… I… am… I’ve said this so many times already.”

“One bright future ruined, for the cost of your tantrum. This is what it means to be a Royal, Fluffalump. When you make mistakes, other lives bear the cost. I’m trying to prepare you for a lifetime of this. There will come a time when you make a mistake and others will pay for it with their lives. That is what it means to be us. If I make a poor choice as a field commander, I might get a whole bunch of soldiers killed. I have to bear that weight on my shoulders. It darn near breaks my back. I have been the direct cause of death for others.”

Flurry’s eyes began watering and Shining Armor could see the faint lights glimmering in the tears that welled up. Was everything sinking in? He had no way of knowing. Would she forget this in a week? There was a good chance of that. He took a deep breath, calmed himself, and tried to figure out what to feel. Reaching out with one foreleg, he pulled his daughter close to him and then sat down on the floor, right in front of the fish tank.

“I’m still trying to prove my own mother wrong,” he confessed, deciding that now was a good time to give Flurry a peek into his own private existence, his thoughts. “My mother, your grandmare, not long after you were born, she told me that I could either be your father, or your friend, but there would come a time when it was impossible for me to be both. She said that if I acted as your friend, but not your father, then I would mess you up, but she also warned me that there would be times that if I acted as your father and not your friend, then you might feel betrayed and hate me for a time. I’m still trying to figure out all of the things my mother said to me, and being the fool that I am, I am still trying to take the middle path to prove her wrong.”

“So I get my stupid from you?” Flurry asked, her lower lip quivering whilst she leaned into her father’s embrace.

“Well, Flurry… I can’t say that you get it from your mother, because she’s right over there and probably listening to every word that we’re saying. But I can tell you that against the advice of everypony, the entire village of earth ponies that raised her and knew her, she went and picked a fight with an evil pony named Prismia. Now, your mom was a filly when she did this, and this is most certainly evidence that she has some problems listening to what others tell her.”

When Cadance nickered, Shining Armor’s ears pricked.

“Uh-oh,” Flurry said to her father.

“I took a gamble and lost,” he replied.

“Let’s keep looking at the fish, Dad.”

“Sure thing, Fluffalump.”

“Dad, you have to stop calling me that. It’s super embarrassing.”

“Yes, I agree.”

“Wait… wait… that wasn’t you agreeing to stop calling me ‘Fluffalump,’ was it?”

Giving his daughter a loving squeeze, Shining Armor smiled.
> The perfect day has a perfect snag
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Daddy, sometimes, I feel that it is impossible for us to understand one another. We’re so different, for so many reasons. Sometimes, I feel like we have nothing in common. No common ground. I get angry sometimes, frustrated, and I’m not even sure why. But there is something I keep thinking about over and over, and lately, it has almost become… well, it’s something I can’t stop thinking about, no matter how hard I try.”

Flurry it seemed, was doing her utmost to be sweet, disarming, and charming—she had called him ‘Daddy.’ Shining Armor’s guard rose to a general state of alarm and his eyebrow rose as a matching indicator. Without a doubt, Flurry was up to something. Or maybe not. Maybe, just maybe, the perfect day had relaxed her well enough so that she could talk. Still, his suspicions would not go away. His daughter, no thanks to Sumac and Dim’s tutelage, had shown a minor talent for duplicity. This was the problem with Lulamoons: they were the epitome of unscrupulous, artful sneakiness, and Sumac had proven himself worthy of the Lulamoon name. The Crystal Cotillion was only a juvenile effort; no doubt, more concerted, more practiced actions would be taken later.

“Spit it out, Fluffalump.”

“Sunburst said that for two ponies to get along, they need some kind of common ground. He called it a… what was that again? Oh, right, a ‘shared bridge.’ Sunburst used Dim as an example, he said that he and Dim were probably the greatest living arcane researchers. That was their common ground. Sunburst said that he and Dim shared mutual respect for one another because of their positions, and from this, the bonds of friendship were formed.”

“And you think we have nothing in common?” Shining Armor asked, getting right to the point.

“We do, we do—” Flurry’s growing worry overcame her and she sat panting, leaning against her father, clearly terrified by whatever it was that she was about to say. “Please don’t be angry with me. Promise.”

“No anger,” he replied while watching a miniature titanic three-headed sea serpent go swimming by.

Flurry took a deep breath, no doubt gathering her courage, and Shining Armor found himself admiring her. Even though she was scared, she was seeing this through. She was pushing onwards. He could feel her quivering, trembling, she shuddered with every gasping breath she took. When she had been younger, when she was worked up like this, the feathers of her wings would tickle her ribs and send her into fits or near hysteria.

“We only have little things in common,” Flurry said, blundering ahead into the conversation full tilt. “You like dorky eggheaded stuff. You like boring stuff. But that’s not what’s bothering me. I feel like you can’t understand me because of what you are. I’m an alicorn and you, you’re a—”

“Unicorn?” he finished. His lips pressed into a tight, thin line and his ears pivoted forwards, focusing upon the sounds of his daughter’s troubled breathing. Flurry was sweaty now, it was pouring down her face and soaking into him. It occurred to him that she wasn’t being manipulative—not unless she had figured out some means to control her physiology—and so she couldn’t be part of some subtle effort by others to get him to change his mind.

“Skyla has the same problem,” Flurry said to her father in a whisper so low that it was difficult to hear. “She’s scared that she’ll hurt your feelings and that things’ll get weird if she says anything. When things happen, when I do things, Mom kinda understands why I do stuff. We’re very different alicorns, she and I, with different instincts and wills. But she understands what drives me. You don’t. You can’t. And there are times when I really want to talk to you, but I don’t, because I know I’ll get frustrated because you can’t understand me.”

How was this any different from a unicorn understanding a pegasus or an earth pony? Shining Armor hesitated to say anything, careful as he was, and desperately tried to make sense of this. He didn’t always understand Cadance, and that was fine. Or was it? The seeds of doubt had been planted in his mind. Was he missing out? Was there some issue between he and his wife that he was oblivious to? Lifting his head, he cast a cautious glance in her direction where she stood in front of a dodecapus tank. Much to his alarm, Cadance was looking right at him while Skyla stood between her mother’s legs, peering into the tank.

Frightened, he jerked his head down and looked right at Flurry, feeling a growing paranoia. He thought of Gosling’s troubles with Celestia and Luna; trying to understand their perspectives had almost drove him insane on a couple of occasions. Gosling had long struggled and suffered, something that Shining Armor admired. Gosling never gave up, though a silly pony, he was tenacious.

Now, Shining Armor found himself sweating; the briny air of the aquarium and the salty smell of his own sweat was an unpleasant tang in his own nose. His composure felt dangerously close to broken and he hadn’t been this scared since… he didn’t know when. Even when Flurry had been captured by ice orcs, he wasn’t as scared as he was now. Flurry had yanked the rug out from beneath him and now everything in his life as he understood it was in question.

“Dad, you got quiet.”

“Sure did, Fluffalump.” He didn’t like the creak in his voice and felt ashamed of it.

“I’m in trouble, Dad.”

“Why’s that, Fluffalump?”

“I broke a promise,” she replied, her voice a thin, scared whisper.

“Tell me about it, Fluffalump.”

“I wasn’t supposed to tell you this,” she confessed, her words shrill and squeaky. “A whole bunch of alicorns cornered me in a room and made me promise and I wanted to keep that promise and Mom is probably going to kill me but I really needed to talk to somepony and I wanted to talk to you and today has been so nice and it felt so good to be able to talk to you again and for us not to be fighting and it was nice to be your daughter again and not feel like you are my subject that I have to humour because you’re a little pony and you couldn’t possibly understand my perspective.” When the last word came out, Flurry sucked in wind, held it, let it out in a huff, gulped more air, and gasped.

There it was—Shining Armor felt something dreadful go lancing through his heart. If Flurry felt that way, did Cadance? He wanted to look at her, but found that he couldn’t, his neck wouldn’t let him. For now though, Cadance was keeping her distance. She had to know. She had to hear. She most certainly knew because she could most certainly hear every word being said.

“Daddy, I’m so sorry… I had to get this out of me. It was killing me. It hurt so much to keep all this bottled up. Mom is looking right us and I’m pretty certain that I’m dead meat. Later, or maybe when we get home, Mom is gonna yell at me and it is going to be awful. Dad, there’s so much you don’t know because you’re not one of us.”

One of us.

“Keeping this secret is driving me crazy, Dad. It does. It makes me hate life. It makes me mad at Mom. Everypony else, too, I guess. Even Sumac got the talk, because he’s one of us. The importance of keeping secrets and making sure that certain things are known only to us alicorns. I’m not a good secret keeper. It’s ripping me apart and it leaves me angry all the time. I always feel ashamed and dirty because it feels like I am lying, and you taught me not to lie, so I’m conflicted and confused all the time.”

Knowing that his daughter was terrified, Shining Armor gave her a fatherly squeeze. He could feel Cadance’s eyes on him, some psychic twingle told him that her piercing gaze was boring a hole right through him, and maybe Flurry as well. A part of him wanted to promise Flurry that he would protect her, but who was he to poke his nose into the business and inner-workings of alicorns? What right did he—a lowly unicorn—have to tell an alicorn what to do? A part of him wanted to be angry, but he held that part in check. Anger would be dangerous now, potentially disastrous. No, anger was not his friend. Calm composure was his friend, and he fought to restore it.

“Fluffalump… Daddy needs you to be really, really honest right now.” He drew in a deep breath, steeled his nerves, and gazed into Flurry’s eyes. “Would it make me a better father for you and Skyla if I was an alicorn?”

“Yes,” Flurry blurted out. Her eyes flooded with hurt and she blinked away a few tears. “Maybe? I don’t know. We’re not supposed to mess with your mind to make your decision. We were told not to interfere and here I am interfering and everything hurts right now and I need to pee and I really don’t want to go into the bathroom with Mom because that’s just asking for trouble to start right now.”

Foals had such simple, foalish needs. Shining Armor was almost relieved, but he was also troubled, because now he faced the prospect of going into the mare’s restroom with Flurry. This was the cherry on top of a really, really awkward sundae. Shining Armor was torn between his protective fatherly instincts and separate societal mores that demanded that he stay as far away from the mare’s restroom as equinely possible. But Flurry was also at an age where she probably didn’t want her father listening while she was having a tinkle—and everything in his mind took a tumble.

Shining Armor understood Flurry’s position right now, because he floundered through his own ever-increasing awkwardness. He couldn’t just let Flurry go in there alone; it wasn’t like Flurry was in any real danger, no. He had to protect other ponies from Flurry if any of them tried anything funny with her. The aquarium and the surrounding environs just were not built to angry-alicorn standards and Flurry was a single pony wrecking crew.

It was time to nut up or shut up; it was time to be a father.





Shining Armor couldn’t help but think that the delicate pink alicorn standing just outside of the restroom area was not his wife; not at the moment, no. A different creature awaited he and Flurry, and this pink stranger stood tapping her hoof. An awkward gulf manifested and Shining Armor felt that his novelty shirt was a bit too tight right now. Well hung? Indeed. He’d been strung from the emotional gallows.

Flurry sprung from the corner of his vision, puffed out, stiff-legged, she moved in open, downright defiance of her mother. When she stood in front of him, Shining Armor understood that Flurry was protecting him from Cadance. The sudden contest of wills filled the air with electric tension and though Flurry was rather tiny compared to Cadance, his little pink filly was fearless, full of resolve. Skyla, blinking, uncertain, stepped away from her mother with an apologetic glance, and with her head held low, her ears limp in submission, she moved to stand with Flurry.

Something alicornish was going on here, and Shining Armor understood none of it.

“You heard everything.” Shining Armor’s spoken words were not a question.

“I hear mouse farts when they happen, Shining Armor. Farting shrews are shrill and quite annoying. It’s been quite the struggle to learn to tune everything out. I wasn’t born this way, so there was a long battle just to feel normal again. I had to learn how to adapt to the world. It was difficult.” Cadance cast her eyes downwards at her two daughters for a second, and then she looked at her husband once more. “It is a struggle that the three of us share. I’ve been an alicorn just long enough to have some helpful advice for my little fillies.”

“And I, of course, utterly lack in this department.”

“I wish you wouldn’t feel this way, Shining Armor.”

Shining Armor. Not Shiny. No, he was almost Mister Armor, or Emperor Armor. The sheer formality of the moment made him choke and he had trouble meeting his wife’s gaze. His eyes had been opened; he had seen beyond the veil of normalcy and there was no going back. This could not be undone. There was no return to how things had been when the sun had dawned this morning.

“This was done to protect you. Princess Celestia made it very clear that you were off limits. No meddling. No influence. No subtle manipulation. You had to reach the decision on your own. Twilight wanted to nudge you in what she felt was the right direction, as did I, of course. Luna wanted to take matters into her own hooves and do what she felt was necessary. She said that you would understand and forgive after your ascension. She’s right, of course… you would. You probably wouldn’t even be mad after it happened. It changes you, Shining Armor, in more ways than you could possibly comprehend. Celestia stood alone against all of us, really. She insisted that you would come around on your own.”

“You think I wouldn’t be mad if this was just done against my will?”

“You wouldn’t, Shining Armor. You would understand. You would have clarity and then you would be angry at the rest of us for not doing it sooner. You would lecture and chide. Perhaps accuse of us being weak-willed, and of being lax in our duties. We would suffer your wrath and endure it, because that is our nature.”

This gave Shining Armor pause and he didn’t know how to respond.

“You are one of Luna’s stars, Shining Armor. Just like Twilight and all of the others. The stars will aid in her escape. It is the fulfillment of a promise. Luna recovers, she is restored. With each day that passes she becomes more of what she was meant to be. You have a role to play in that.”

His mouth went dry and he found that he couldn’t swallow. This was stuff he could barely comprehend. Once, he had made an effort to understand it, to learn a little about it, but the topic was too broad and his time was far too limited. It was through Luna’s bloodline that more alicorns had been born—but not through Luna’s bloodline alone, no. A piece of Celestia’s soul rested within Cadance. Was this the fulfillment of some ancient promise? Prophesy?

Cadance was the only creature known to birth alicorns.

“We shouldn’t talk about this here.” Shining Armor glanced around, nervous, and then returned his gaze to Cadance. “I’m fine with talking about this, but we should go somewhere more private. Okay?”

“I’m fine with that, but only if the girls are okay with leaving early.”

“This is more important,” Skyla said.

“It is,” Flurry added.

“It is in our nature to convene. To gather. To strive towards an accord. It is impossible to resist.”

“Sproglodyte, stop that. You’re freaking Daddy out.”

Cadance’s smile radiated gentle compassion and she gave her family a nod. “We should be going…”
> A perfect outcome?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The nearly deserted beach was silent, save for the cries of seabirds and the soft lapping of waves against the pale white sand. Shining Armor stood in a dramatic pose, his mane and tail windswept, his ears waving in the tropical breeze. Nearby, a trio of alicorns stood watching him, each of them solemn. Three stood as one, united, together, with the lone unicorn as the outsider. Unable to look back at them, Shining Armor kept his eyes focused on the distant ships on the horizon.

So much had been said.

So little had been said by him.

So much could be learned by listening.

A paddlewheel steamer ship in the distance blew its horn and Shining Armor thought for a moment of how some things were built to last. The paddlewheel steamer certainly was; ships of that design hadn’t been manufactured for almost a half-century. Newer, more efficient models had replaced it, yet this old vessel steamed on, and would continue to do so for a long time, no doubt.

As a unicorn, he was a tough nut to crack. His magic shields were now part of storied legend. But he was not built to last, not like Cadance was. He and his daughters had one thing in common, but it offered only cold comfort; they would all die of old age. Cadance, Celestia’s most successful animancy project yet, held a sliver of Celestia’s immortal soul. When he and Cadance had merged tiny slivers of their souls together to make Flurry and Skyla, this immortality had not been passed along—but it could be. Animancy, the magic of souls, was a great mystery to Shining Armor, and trying to understand even the most basic concepts left him with a headache.

What good was unicorn pride exactly, if it impaired his ability to be a good father? Was his pride more important than his duty? Though he had many reasons, his public declaration had the weight of truth to it; the common unicorn could make a difference. He had tried to rally his tribe to do more, because he expected more—demanded more. Though he had never given voice to it, Shining Armor envisioned himself as something of a leader for his tribe. Rather than lead with talk and so many pretty words, he led by example, striving and struggling to hold himself to the highest possible standards, and then pushing himself just a little bit beyond that.

Shining Armor was envious of Gosling’s revitalisation of the pegasus tribe and the restoration of pegasus pride. Together, with the help of Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, Gosling had reminded the entire pegasus pony nation that they had two known champions, two Elements of Harmony; Kindness, and Loyalty. After the Day of Insurrection in Cloudsdale, Gosling had steered the course of the pegasus tribe back into goodness using nothing but words, actions, and example.

Equestria was full of unicorns, but much to Shining Armor’s dismay, the many wakeup calls went unheeded. Sure, there were some fine individual examples, but as a whole, as a tribe, it seemed as though the unicorns were content with mediocrity, something that frustrated him to no end. If anything, unicorns bore the stigma of secret shame, for many had left Equestria in search of Grogar, lured away with promises of power.

As he stared at the horizon, Shining Armor came to the conclusion that he had done as much as he could as a unicorn, and that if he wanted to do more then drastic measures had to be taken. He needed to somehow be a better unicorn. Had he really reached the end of his unicorn potential? Could he do more for unicorns and ponykind—or, indeed, the world—if he were an alicorn?

Was he held back by his own pride?

“This feels like a defeat,” he said aloud to his family. Reconsidering, he shook his head, took a deep breath, and turned to face them. “Or maybe my own limited perspective holds me back from seeing the truth about all of this. What you said in the aquarium really rattled me, Cadance. That bit about me understanding and being angry about this not being done sooner. I am aware that there is a bigger world than what I am capable of seeing. This makes me feel small.”

The trio of alicorns said nothing, but stood there, looking sad and somehow wise.

“We unicorns have a rough go of things,” he continued. “Earth ponies are practically born knowing what they need to do. I’ve talked with Maud Pie and we’re… well, I guess you could call us pen-pals. She’s always given me sensible advice. To be truthful, I’m not even sure how this friendship started. We were both in the same place at the same time at just the right moment. Funny huh?”

Still, the alicorns were silent.

“Pegasus ponies have to learn how to fly, and their potential is unlocked. It’s not hard. Flight camp is relatively easy.” Dropping his head, Shining Armor stared down at the sand. “But being a unicorn… magic is complicated. Schooling starts as early as equinely possible and continues for a lifetime, potentially. Education is expensive and tutors are hard to find. This isn’t like learning how to play the piano or the flugelhorn. Magic schools only have so many desks available. The really good ones remain good by keeping the number of students they accept low so that the teachers actually have a chance to teach. We’re a tribe that fails to see its own potential. So many of us go uneducated. So much potential talent is wasted, left unnoticed in the vast urban sprawls of our big cities. We can barely operate public schools as it is, much less magical academies. Earth ponies and pegasus ponies balk at the idea of paying increased taxes for special unicorn schools, and this, of course, is understandable.”

He tried to lift his gaze, and found that he couldn’t. “Cadance”—he shook his head from side to side while a long pause manifested and his thoughts coalesced—“I’ve seen my own lies, damn lies, and statistics. They are bewildering, terrifying, paralysing… and I can’t even begin to see a solution. I wish I hadn’t been so hard on you for yours, given how I live in fear of my own. Sometimes, I live in denial of them. I’ve seen the numbers, Cadance. There is a huge problem with no apparent solutions. It is a problem that is only going to get worse and worse as the population grows. More and more unicorns will be resigned to something less than mediocrity. I’ve stared down the uselessness of my own tribe… we’ve been defeated by our own complexity.”

“So you cling to your own unicornhood to be a shining example. A beacon.” Cadance’s voice was almost gentle thunder, a powerful, commanding voice that radiated immense authority. “You stand defiant in the face of impossible, overwhelming odds, and for this, all of us admire you.”

Again, he shook his head. “What good is this futile struggle and my stubborn refusal to change if it holds me back from being a better father? I’m more than a unicorn, I’m also a dad. A father. Now I am in the position where I see… no, I know I could be doing more. I could be a better example to all. That’s the trouble with armor; it is rigid and inflexible, hard and unyielding. Celestia warned me… she told me to be careful about living up to my namesake.”

“And this is why you strive for compromise?” Cadance asked.

In response, Shining Armor nodded.

“Shiny”—Cadance’s soft, gentle thunder caused her husband’s ears to twitch—“have you considered the example that you offer right now?”

“What do you mean?”

“You are a unicorn that has lived up to his fullest possible potential. More than that, a pony, if you set tribe aside. You stand upon the very cusp of greatness, the precipice of illustriousness… you could be one of the great and shining lights in the world… but you refuse to budge. For all of your accomplishment, for all of your achievements, of which there have been many, you refuse to take your well-deserved reward and then go even further.”

“But I…” The words died in his throat and Shining Armor, though he made a valiant effort, could not refute what his wife had said.

“Does the world not need a fine of example of accepting the consequences of living up to your potential? Look at Sunburst and all of the great good that he does. There is a pony who lives up to his potential and then pushes himself beyond what he is capable of when the situation demands. Did he not take to the field of battle when the ice orcs invaded? Ultimately, that choice was his, and he made it. He did not refuse the call when it came.”

Sighing, Shining Armor listened, his heart heavy and his senses dull.

“Little Sumac, a pony with such humble aspirations, he’s rejected a position of royal rule. But when Flurry, his friend was in danger, and the Crystal Empire needed him, did he not act like a prince? He stood up to his own mothers and bravely defied them. When the call came, when the situation demanded it, the most fragile and weakest of we alicorns thrust himself into danger. He even risked the wrath of Princess Celestia with his bold and cunning plan, doing something that he knew that she would not approve of. Little Sumac stuck his neck out and risked the axe falling upon it.”

“Forget about all of that,” he said to his wife, whilst he struggled to keep his many thoughts in check. “For right now, my primary concern is being a better father. Look… let’s come right out and face it; I am not the best father. I can’t be. As Emperor, I have a ton of duties. My work takes me away from home for months at a time. I am absolutely riddled with guilt sometimes because I feel like—no, I know there are times when I fail my girls. And now, I have this chance to make things right—no, not right, but maybe better. Everything else can fall where it may.”

“That is not a good reason to do this,” Cadance said to her husband. “This decision should be more than that. For better reasons.”

“I am but a simple unicorn, and this is all my perspective has to offer,” he replied. As the last word left his mouth, he saw a flash of anger in his wife’s eyes. Though he felt a twinge of regret, he did not apologise, but he did think about armor being rigid and inflexible. “Look, just do it. Sort me out. Fix me. That’s what this all comes down to, doesn’t it? Twilight never even got the choice and I suppose you didn’t either. Maybe it’s better if the choice is never offered. I don’t want to turn my whole life upside down trying to adapt to a new body with new perspectives and new abilities, but that is unicorn me. Maybe alicorn me will look back at unicorn me and think, ‘hey, that pony is an idiot.’ Maybe once I’m past this point I’ll finally understand and everything will be okay again.”

“Shining Armor—”

“Don’t you ‘Shining Armor’ me,” he said, interrupting and pointing his hoof. ‘Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what reason I make this decision for, or if I make the decision at all, really. Once I’m like you, none of this will matter for me. I’m dying, Cadance. That’s how it is. Unicorn me is dying and I’m going through those five phases of grief. When this was first proposed that I give up my unicornhood and become an alicorn, I denied it flat out.”

When Cadance had nothing to say, he continued, “And then I was angry about it for a long time. I was. Trust me. I never showed it, but I fumed about it. I didn’t want this choice. I didn’t need this complication thrown into my life. I resented all of you for dumping this on me. I had to come up with reasons why I said no so I wouldn’t look like a selfish prick, because I’m the darned Emperor and I’m not allowed to be selfish.”

Flurry shuffled her hooves in the sand and leaned up against her mother’s leg. Squirming, Skyla did the same, and she gave her little wings a sad shake. The two fillies took a moment to look at one another, but remained silent. Reaching out her wings, Cadance stroked her daughters and tried to comfort them.

“I tried bargaining with myself, telling myself I would deal with this later, once my schedule cleared. Once I had certain things done. When certain goals were met. But I kept adding things to my to-do list and new goals presented themselves like magic. I got stuck here for quite a while, and then I went back to anger, because anger felt better and motivated me to work even harder so I could ignore all of this even more.”

His wife’s silence was palpable and left Shining Armor with a feeling of discomfort. “After all of the bargaining and telling myself that I’d do this once my daughters were grown up and I had less to do, I was depressed. And I don’t mean a little depressed, I mean I was really, really depressed, because I knew I was only delaying the problem. I had made it Future Me’s problem, and I felt just awful for tossing it off on Future Me. I’m even more depressed right now because all of this could have been avoided if what was best for me had been just done for me. The girls don’t get a choice when it comes time for them to get their shots. We do what is necessary for them and they don’t get a say in the matter. We just hold them down and stick them and we deal with the consequences as best we can.”

Reaching out one wing, Flurry Heart began to rub her bottom with a thoughtful, pained expression.

“So this is my acceptance. Just do it, okay? Get it over with. Stop drawing it out. A mistake was made in giving me a choice. It’s messed up my whole life. So fix it. Just… do it.”

The trio of alicorns all looked at one another, as if trying to reach some silent consensus. Shining Armor tried to control his breathing, because his barrel felt tight, as if some invisible force was crushing it. With some minor sense of amusement—an odd, but not unwelcome thing, given his situation—he realised that he had fallen back on what he knew as a parent to help make his point. As a unicorn, he wasn’t in a good place to make decisions for himself, just like his daughters were in no position to make choices such as saying no to shots. He had fallen back on what he knew, and there was a curious sense of pride for having done so.

He smiled, a warm, genuine smile; acceptance felt good.

“As Cadance, I am hesitant.” The pink alicorn cleared her throat. “As an alicorn, I am certain. As your wife, I have some reservations about all of this. But as an alicorn, I am relieved that you have come to your senses. I must confess, this troubles me more than I’d care to admit. I know what should be done… what is necessary… but there is a part of me that expresses grief at the idea of the unicorn that I’ve come to know and love dying. Your choice of words has left me shaken, Shiny.”

“Is this denial?” he asked. Seeing his wife’s response, the way her face darkened, his smile became more of a smirk. “Is that anger I see?”

“Shining Armor, I demand that you take this with some seriousness. I spoke from my heart.”

“Bargaining.” When he said this word, he saw Cadance bite her lip, and both of his daughters appeared confused. He sighed, feeling bad for reasons he could not comprehend. He was almost certain that Cadance was indeed, depressed, but he could not bring himself to say anything about it. She had backed him into a corner and now, all of this was the end result.

Unicorn Shining Armor was putting up a fight, pointless as it might be.

“Come now, Cadance. We can’t let our feelings as ponies trip us up and prevent us from doing what needs to be done.” He made a broad, expansive gesture with his foreleg at the world around him and thought of one more thing to say. “Let’s set an example for our girls, Cadance. We both know what needs to be done. Our feelings make it messy, and it is unpleasant, sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is necessary. If we turn away from this now, what are we teaching them? So come on… let’s get this over with. I know that Celestia has taught you what to do. All of you have been waiting patiently for this moment to arrive.”

In his wife’s eyes, Shining Armor saw sadness, but also grim determination.

“Skyla?” Cadance turned her eyes down to her youngest daughter.

“I feel bad,” Skyla whispered to her mother, “but this feels right. My alicorn instincts tell me that there is only one way to make this better.”

“Flurry?” Cadance turned her head and looked down at her oldest.

“Don’t you dare ask me.” Flurry sounded angry and her eyes were turbulent, even stormy. “My alicorn instincts tell me to smash face and lay waste. Mom, we both know that Skyla was meant to rule and I was meant to see her rule enforced. Do whatever.”

The smirk on Shining Armor’s face vanished. Something about what Flurry had said and her resignation left him with a curious feeling, something he could not identify. His first instinct was to feel bad for Flurry, but thinking about it, was this the beginning of acceptance? Was she—would she settle into her role? Her destiny? Or would Flurry, the Storm Princess, always be a tempest in a teapot? Excitabat fluctus in simpulo? Something about Flurry’s attitude left him hopeful.

Stepping away from her daughters, Cadance approached. Shining Armor’s belly was suddenly damp with sweat, as was the underside of his dock. Each step that Cadance took filled him with abstract terror. His end approached. Soon, he would be undone and whatever he once was would be no more. Something else would replace him.

“Will this hurt?” he asked. Mouth dry, his belly now soaked, he licked his lips, nervous.

“No, Shiny. Why would it hurt?”

“Uh, sprouting wings. New flesh. New bones. Sounds painful.”

“The body changes to mirror the soul,” Cadance said to her husband. Her words held a princessly calm but her body showed evidence of her turmoil. Ears twitched. Her folded wings flapped against her sides. Her tail whipped around her hind legs, restless. “Now, Shiny… take a deep breath, and cast aside your worry, fear, and doubt.”

Doing as his wife requested, Shining Armor drew in a deep breath…





When he exhaled, a grey featureless expanse surrounded him. There was light here, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It came from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Cadance was a brilliant, luminous being of incredible beauty, somehow capable of floating without flapping her wings.

They were not alone. A paper pony sat upon the grey expanse that was almost—but not quite—like clouds beneath him, and she was watching floating moving pictures, movies projected upon nothing. Shining Armor tried to view the moving images, to take in their meaning, but all of them changed, with each of them now showing scenes from his life. Both his accomplishments—and his failures.

The paper pony’s horn glowed and a massive book popped into existence in front of her face. Said book had his cutie mark on the cover and looking directly at it made his vision fuzz over. Perhaps even more curious, the paper pony held a terrible familiarity, but try as he might, he could not put his hoof upon her identity. It was most certainly a she though. She opened the book and appeared to be reading something with great interest.

With her every movement, the paper alicorn crinkled.

“And so, Shining Armor took the vacation that would end his life as he knew it.” The paper pony shook her head, her voice familiar, and Cadance let go with a soft, musical laugh that echoed through the surrounding nothingness.

“Do I know you?” he asked, intrigued by what he saw.

“Not yet,” the paper pony replied with a magnificent smirk. “But give it a few moments and a new pair of eyes, and you will know me. I am the star that will forever sparkle, I Am the Light of Friendship.”

When Shining Armor tried to say the name that came to mind, he found that he couldn’t. Most curious, most curious indeed. Cadance’s wings touched his neck and he felt something being tugged from him. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was weird. Something was drawn out from him and it took him a moment to realise that he was looking at his own soul.

“You know, Cadance… there is another way,” the paper pony said and this caused the pink alicorn to pause.

“Another way?” Cadance, who held Shining Armor’s soul between her graceful primary feathers took a moment to peer in the direction of the peculiar paper pony. “What do you mean, another way? Do explain.”

“He is to be the light that will forever shine, The Light of Virtue. That part is written in Ink. But there is room for compromise. It is in his nature to compromise on what he can, part of his Virtue. We should allow for that.”

“Compromise?” Shining Armor tried to ignore the curious sensation caused by having his soul outside of his body.

“Speak then, Librarian, so that we might know.” Cadance, still holding her husband’s soul, waited.

“Graft a fragment of your soul with his. Give him time and perspective. He’ll need that for the trials to come. But with that, give him what he craves. It is possible for him to remain a unicorn—at least, for a time. He can be the Light of Virtue… the great example to unicorns.”

Shining Armor felt a dreadful temptation, at least, for a time, but then the wrongness struck him. Why hold himself back? Why be an example to only one tribe? What ruler would only understand one third of his subjects? This compromise felt dangerous, wrong even, and turning his head, he looked down at his own soul, held between Cadance’s wings. No—no, this compromise sounded dreadful and held the portent of wrongdoing.

What he said surprised him: “No. No compromises. No half measures. This is too important. Too meaningful. It stinks of tribalism.”

“The final test is passed,” the paper pony said, sighing out the words. “Of course his virtue would hold him steadfast. I never doubted it for a second. Continue, Cadance, for he is worthy. Do as you will.”

“Librarian?” Cadance blinked a few times, clearly confused.

“Oh fine,” the paper pony said, sighing out her words in an exasperated huff. “Look, I tried to reassure you, Cadance. A part of you still hesitates. You hold back. I made up a little meaningless test to help reassure you and ease your mind. But keep in mind, this is your test.” Smiling, the paper pony pointed to a floating image projection that showed Celestia’s smiling, expectant face. “Can the foalsitter complete her animancy homework? Questions, questions. You know, as a filly, I can remember doing your homework so you and my brother could do what you and he liked to do in his room.”

Cadance sucked in a sharp inhale and then: “Uh—”

“I have the book right here, Cadance. Well secluded, I see all.”

With a furious pink blush, Cadance set about her task and with a look of intense concentration, she began reshaping her husband’s soul while the paper pony watched with relaxed interest. Shining Armor was treated to the rare sight of seeing one’s soul being reshaped like clay. Bewildered, overwhelmed, he couldn’t think of what to say, nor did he wish to disturb his wife while she was doing something as important as reshaping his soul. Then, using her wings, Cadance pushed her husband’s soul back into his body. He was overcome with the most curious of sensations as his mind and body began their great change.

But perhaps most important of all, as he underwent the change, as his eyes and mind opened to new possibilities, Shining Armor began to understand; almost right away, he started to regret the time that had been wasted…
> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shining Armor looked upon Sunburst with new eyes and saw a pony that shone with brilliant radiance. The effect only lasted for a moment, perhaps it was a trick of the eyes, because when Shining Armor blinked, the brilliance went away. Sunburst was looking at him in a most curious manner, head tilted off to one side, studying him. That was the way of it; ponies—little ponies—loved to gawk. It was their nature and something that had to be tolerated, endured.

“Must’ve been some vacation,” Sunburst said with a great deal of dry wit.

“I had one perfect day,” Shining Armor replied, “and then several more. Don’t tell anypony, Sunburst, but Flurry saved me. She helped me to see the mistake I was making. Too bad she had to break the rules to do it, however.”

“That’s kind of what Flurry does.” Sunburst squared his withers, lifted his head, and leveled his bespectacled gaze upon Shining Armor. “Though in Flurry’s defense, when she does break the rules, there is usually some good to be had after the fact. Flurry, for all of her many faults, has good intentions.”

“Always the optimist, Sunburst?” Shining Armor allowed himself a rare wry grin.

“Always and forever.” Sunburst took a moment to adjust his spectacles and studied Shining Armor’s wings with scholarly interest. “Fascinating… white wings with blue feathers. Very much like Gosling. Princess Celestia said that, long ago, male alicorns had contrasting wings in comparison to the females. Plumage displays, no doubt.”

Shining Armor nodded and then asked, “How is my empire? More importantly, how is my apprentice? How did she hold up as Temporary Empress?”

At this, Sunburst squirmed in place and averted his gaze.

“Sunburst… tell me what happened.

“Uh, Sir… I, uh, well, um, your apprentice, she uh…”

“What did she do?” Shining Armor’s jaw firmed and his neck muscles stood out in sharp contrast beneath his skin.

“Well, she almost jailed Princess Celestia, for one thing and—”

“She what?”

Fearful, terrified, Sunburst went rigid and did not—perhaps could not—move.

“I’m still a pony,” Shining Armor said to the spooked little pony, while also enduring a strange, confusing moment of supreme annoyance. Why, oh why, did Sunburst have to be so scared of him? This had never been the case before. “Sunburst, deep breaths. Tell me what happened.”

“Princess Celestia arrived for the meeting you arranged… the test. Chartreuse was taking all of this quite seriously. She was the Empress and she was doing rather well. Everything was going as planned until all of a sudden, it wasn’t. Princess Celestia offered Chartreuse the finest cookies that Canterlot has to offer in exchange for more favourable trade terms. Chartreuse ended the meeting right then and there and Princess Celestia was almost jailed.”

“And neither you nor Dim tried to stop this?” Shining Armor asked.

“We couldn’t.” Reaching up with his hoof, Sunburst tugged at the collar of his cloak. “Dim and I found ourselves silenced and paralysed. We could do nothing while Chartreuse laid into Princess Celestia and demanded accountability.”

“But it was resolved?” Shining Armor’s eyebrow arched.

“Princess Celestia pled guilty and was granted leniency.”

Shining Armor facewinged and almost gave himself a concussion.

“Chartreuse sentenced Princess Celestia to a public shaming for the attempted bribery of a public official. The princess had to wear a sign saying that she was a bad pony and was forced to walk the districts. Princess Celestia was also put on the list, Sir, the list of disturbers of the peace.”

“Oh… my… goodness.” It took a moment to recover and Shining Armor had to blink several times before he could regain his senses. He needed to have a little chit-chat with his apprentice, that was for certain. “Sunburst, is there any chance that you are pulling my leg? I mean, I know I pranked Chartreuse by leaving her in charge as the Temporary Empress, but this… this is nothing to joke about. Did this really happen?”

“It’s in the newspapers, Sir.”

“Oh fronk.”

Sunburst winced at the profanity and averted his gaze.

“Well, Sunburst, at least we know that Chartreuse is loyal and cannot be bribed.”

“Indeed we do… Sir.” Sunburst tugged at his cloak again and shivered, even though the room was quite warm. “Sir, your apprentice also used her authority to pass a law. She issued a royal decree.”

“Oh, did she now?” Intrigued, Shining Armor wondered just how much of a train wreck he had come home to. “Out with it, my friend. Cease being so timid and just tell me.”

“When Princess Celestia was walking the districts while wearing her sign, Chartreuse observed a pony littering. A wrapper was thrown down into the snow. Or maybe a paper bag, I’m not sure of the specifics. Chartreuse had the guards seize the perpetrator and he was put on trial right on the spot. Charged with uncouth behaviour and littering. When Chartreuse found out that littering only carries a minor penalty, she became quite disturbed.”

Nodding, Shining Armor said, “She would. That filly is wound a little tight, if you know what I mean.”

“Littering now carries a penalty of one thousand hours of community service.”

For the second time, Shining Armor facewinged and this time, he almost knocked himself out. The pain was exquisite and in between waves of dizziness, he wondered how his wing knew how to move on its own. His apprentice, for all of her seeming perfection, held herself to ruthless standards, something that was on the list of things to address over time. Chartreuse needed to learn flexibility so she would not be so rigid. For a brief moment, Shining Armor thought of his sister, and a fond smile appeared upon his face.

“Sunburst, go say hi to the girls. I’m sure they’ll want to tell you all about our trip and all of the times I crashed into the ocean trying to learn how to fly. I’m going to say hello to the Empress.”

“For the love of Princess Celestia, don’t try to bribe her!”

It took Shining Armor a moment to realise that Sunburst wasn’t joking.

“The aristocracy has taken to calling her the Iron Duchess and they thoroughly appreciate her ironclad rule.”

Unable to help himself, Shining Armor smirked. “Thank you, Sunburst. I’ll keep that mind.”





On the throne sat a twitchy, jerky filly with eyes filled with vivid crimson spiderwebs. She wore the tiara that Shining Armor had placed upon her head before he left, and in her right fetlock, she gripped her iron fireplace poker, very much as if it were her sceptre of rule. It was obvious that she hadn’t been sleeping well, and through some strange, unknowable instinct, Shining Armor knew that Chartreuse understood the weight of the crown. She felt it, bore it, and strained her neck beneath it.

As he approached, her face took on a crazed look of utter relief and the whole of her body trembled. At the foot of the throne, Chalcedony sat on the floor and beside her, Nomination was reading aloud from a book. Or he had been, before he went silent. The colt appeared to be quite alarmed for some reason and brushing himself off, he rose so that he could stand at attention.

“I hear that you’ve had a busy two weeks,” Shining Armor said to his apprentice and he saw her nod in response to his words. “It is nice to come home and find that my empire is safe and secure. Thank you, Chartreuse.”

Head bobbing, Chartreuse licked her lips, cleared her throat in the most unassuming, most polite way that one might imagine, and then with total fearlessness, looked Shining Armor right in the eye to say, “I think your nose is sunburned.”

That was it? Nothing else? No other comments? Was Chartreuse completely unphased by what she saw? She had to be. Squinting, he studied her with a well-practiced eye and saw many familiar sights, things he had observed in his sister too many times to count. Jaw firming, he asked, “Chartreuse… when was the last time you had some sleep?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, quivering. “Thousands of lives to worry about. The prosperity of many. Each one of our subjects is owed a meaningful, prosperous, happy existence, and I tried to think of ways to give it to them.”

Guilt washed over him and he felt terrible. He had done this to her as a prank, but his serious, studious apprentice had thrown herself into her duties. Chartreuse could be trusted—this he already knew—but this just went to show how much she could be trusted. Though feeling guilty, his heart warmed from a bright, burning sense of optimism that welled within his barrel. There were good ponies in the world, fine ones, ponies like Chartreuse.

“You are relieved of your duties,” he said to her, his words soft, gentle, and proud.

“Oh, thank you, Master.” She slumped over, her ears sagged, and she allowed exhaustion to overcome her. The fireplace poker fell from her grasp and would have hit the floor, had Shining Armor not caught it. Chartreuse’s tired eyes sagged behind her triangular spectacles while tears welled up in the crinkled corners.

“I am going to take you home,” he began as a flood of strange paternal instincts overcame him. “When we get there, I am going to fix you some tea, we’ll talk a bit over tea, and then I’m going to put you to bed. How’s that sound?”

“Oh, I’d like that.” Relief could be seen on Chartreuse’s face.

“Before we go… would you mind explaining to me what your reasoning was involving Princess Celestia?”

Chartreuse inhaled, a sharp gasp, and her ears went ramrod straight. Nostrils flaring, withers rising, the filly underwent a curious transformation, going from limp noodle to Iron Duchess. Everything about her bearing and demeanour changed, and did so with a drastic, austere severity. It was scary to witness and Shining Armor took a step backwards without realising that he was doing so.

“We are a nation of laws,” Chartreuse said, her voice hitching, “and not a one of us is above them. Things have been a little… lax, as of late. The aristocracy has been downright squirrely. You know of what I speak. They are lazy, and some of them are even insolent!”

Nomination, hunched over in submission, nodded.

“So I took the biggest fish in the pond and I made an example of her!” Chartreuse’s voice was almost keening now, strained, and the filly struggled mightily to remain rigid. “She thought that I would betray the better interests of the empire for cookies… cookies! It was insulting. Uncouth. Uncouth! So I made an example and in doing so, I brought the aristocracy in line! Now they bow and behave as proper supplicants! They are reminded of their place as public servants! They have been made properly afraid and behave in a manner befitting their station!”

Right away, Shining Armor understood exactly what had happened, he understood and he knew. Chartreuse had been manipulated—used—and no doubt had responded in exactly the way that Celestia had wanted. This sense was new, this quirk was new and somehow, Shining Armor knew that this understanding of the situation had everything to do with being an alicorn. Chartreuse was rigid to the point of being predictable, and that had been exploited, used for the greater good.

Senses overwhelmed, he needed a moment to get his thoughts under control.

When the cat went away, the mice would play, and Celestia had used his vacation time to bring the aristocracy back into order. Opinions had been divided since the Crystal Cotillion and the invasion of the ice orcs. There had been an enormous rift that had split the governing body right down the middle. He would need to investigate this matter thoroughly to determine what had happened, and how much things had changed.

Much to his relief, the Iron Duchess went away, and Chartreuse hunched over on the throne. Chalcedony was staring at him in some weird, sightless way, which could only be described as creepy. So, little Chartreuse was a dominating authoritarian; which made sense, really, because he had observed how she ruled over the lives of her friends.

As Shining Armor, he was most pleased with this student—but something else within him, some other part of him, some separate part that made itself known—it was already calculating and scheming, thinking of the best possible way to exploit this newfound asset.

“Come, little one. Let me take you home and put you to bed.”