Ghost of the Crystal Empire

In the Royal Bedroom or Shining and Cadance’s agreed bedroom out of the one hundred and thirty available within the castle, while he could understand having two or three for guests; Shining Armor couldn’t fathom anyone possibly needing over one hundred bedrooms in one’s own home.

Once they arrived, Cadance laid back on the bed as he sat on the edge.

Now was the time to tell her, if he didn’t and he lost her to Sombra’s curse he’d regret it for the rest of his life.

“Cadance?” he spoke softly.

Her eyes moved to the direction of his voice.

“Yes?”

Her voice was so calm and relaxed; she looked so beautiful and peaceful in spite of her current condition, which made this even harder for him.

“I…” he swallowed, feeling his throat getting dry. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

She gave him a questioning look.

“Before our wedding in Canterlot…when I thought the Changeling Queen was you, a lot of it is still kind of blurry but, I-we almost…before Twilight came in and stopped us…” he admitted shamefully.

He looked over at his wife, whose expression was not one of anger, but that of pity.

“Honey, were you beating yourself up over that all this time?” she asked in a sympathetic tone.

He nodded.

“Yeah…I should have known better-she didn’t act like you at all-but, I was stupid enough to fall for her tricks.” He replied, solemnly.

“But she also had you under a spell.” She pointed out.

“That’s even worse!” he exclaimed. “I was supposed to be a big brother, Captain of the Royal Guard, and your fiancée! If I couldn’t protect myself from something like that…”

He lowered his head.

“How can I protect the people I care about…the people that I love?”

Cadance put a hoof on his shoulder.

“You’re a great brother and a wonderful husband…I know you’ll always do everything in your power to protect us, I can’t ask any more of you than that.”

She gave him a warm smile as he smiled back at her.

“Are…are you smiling? I still can’t see anything…”

They both shared a laugh.

“Yeah, I’m smiling…” he replied, once they had both calmed down.

“So, it sounds like Twilight saved you without even realizing it…” she commented.

“Heh, I guess it really is a good thing that she’s so overprotective of me that’s like what-three times now she’s saved me?”

“Your forgetting the Equestria Games Inspector.” She reminded him.

“Oh yeah, I guess that makes it four times now-I really shouldn’t have made a habit of this, the big brother supposed to look out for his little sister-not the other way around.” He chuckled.

“How is Twilight? With everything that’s been going on I haven’t had time to ask you about her.”

“Well, it turns out she has a special somepony in her life now.”

“Oh? Is it someone we know?”

“I guess you could say that…it’s Rainbow Dash.”

“Well, you do know what they say about opposites.” She laughed.

“So…you don’t have a problem with it?” he asked with a mixture of relief and hesitation.

“Of course not, why would I?” she asked, giving him a puzzled look.

“Well…don’t take this the wrong way, but…some ponies in royalty are pretty old fashioned and have a problem with same gender couples…”

“You’re referring to Blueblood?”

He nodded before remembering that his wife couldn’t see his body movements and added a “Yeah.”

She scoffed.

“Blueblood’s an idiot, always has been. So…are you been bothered by it?”

“No, just surprised I mean-I don’t think I’ve ever even seen her interested in anything to do with romance…well, aside from our wedding and her interest in how Hearts and Hooves Day got started-and I guess I just never realized she and Rainbow Dash were so close…what do you think?”

“Well, first of all I told her that if she was interested in the holiday she could have just asked me, since it was my royal duty to learn everything about the subject since I was a filly and I think that as long as they are both happy and not hurting anyone…I don’t see a problem with it.”

“I guess I’m just feeling guilty,” he sighed. “as kids we were inseparable before I began training to be a guard, but after seeing her again and hearing all this…it really opened my eyes to how out of touch we’ve been with each other, lately…”

“Hmm…” Cadance hummed thoughtfully, “We are pretty much on the other side of Equestria, but we could still send letters and maybe one of these day when the empire is relatively calm we can head out to Ponyville for a surprise visit.”

“I think she’d like that…but, this Doctor have you ever met him before?” he asked.

“Not formally, no. But, I do know that he is a very old and very trusted friend of Aunt Celestia’s…so I trust him, too.”

“It just doesn’t seem right to let him take care of our problems for us while we sit around here waiting for everything to clear up…”

Cadance put a hoof over his.

“You’re not just ‘sitting here and doing nothing’ you’re looking after me and I’d rather have you safe in here than out there with that monster Sombra, remember what he did to your horn the last time?”

“Yeah…how could I forget?”

“Well, whatever is going on-I’m sure the Doctor has things under control-he’s been doing this for a long time.”

“I hope so.”