Alcohol, Alicorns, and Airships

Cadance couldn't help but smile as she watched the sun setting over the horizon. Twilight. That was what this time of day was called. It was also the name of a mare she was so worried about, and yet she just needed to let that worry go.

She turned her head to look at Shining Armor, resting in their plush bed and sleeping as if he had been knocked out by chloroform. Sex with her usually did that to most ponies. Shining did a very good job of doing that to her as well. Military stress and his peak physical conditioning added to his ability to push even her limits.

Cadance won a vast majority of the time though. Or were they both winners in the end? She'd go with the later.

She stood on the balcony of their master suite, her eyes staring off into the mountains and domains that she was proud to call her home. She was sedated from her recent coupling, and accepted what was going to happen tomorrow morning, come what may.

Shining was right: She needed to let go of her nanny and older sister instincts she had over Twilight and let her control her own life. Twilight was a young mare now. She had a job, saved Equestria - and Cadance's own life - numerous times over, had a group of extremely close friends and had matured extensively since Cadance last saw her. Twilight wasn't the reclusive shut-in who only focused on entirely being the Princess' pet anymore.

Thank Destiny and Fate for that. She doubted anypony in history could brown nose Celestia more than Twilight did as a foal. It always worked when Cadance said no to something. Twilight just went straight to Celestia, and got her wish.

When she thought about it more though, it was Celestia herself who recommended Twilight leave Canterlot and move to Ponyville. In the stress and heat of that wild night's chaos, Cadance had entirely forgotten about that bit of information. Luna had not.

It didn't matter though. She and Luna had it under control. Learn all of the details from the Elements of Harmony, offer advice from Cadance's own personal experiences, Celestia would be informed about it with some details added and moved about, and everything would be fine.

Celestia too, needed to accept that Twilight was an adult now, and that she would make mistakes and not always do things Celestia approved of. It was life. Twilight was ready to live it.

If that meant getting drunk and having parties with her best friends, it wasn't like Cadance could scold Twilight. She herself had done worse.

But eavesdropping was so much fun.

Cadance closed her eyes, letting out a peaceful sigh and venting as much stress as she could from her lungs. Her wings spread to let the tickling evening air dance over her feathers and add one more layer of faint pleasure to her body.

It would be alright. Everything would be alright. The Elements of Harmony were adults now. It was time to treat them as such.

As she opened her eyes, she couldn't help but notice a faint white orb far in the distance; it was very far in fact. It hung high in the sky and above the mountain ranges that helped protect the Crystal Citadel.

If she wasn't an alicorn and blessed with pegasus eyesight, she wouldn't have noticed it so soon. If she wasn't blessed with unicorn magic, she wouldn't have noticed the mana that trickled steadily from that burning light.

Both the brightness and ether trail that followed the light streaking closer toward her castle was beginning to agitate her. It wasn't a comet: It was too slow, but it was bright enough. It wasn't a phoenix either: It was too fast, but it was also as bright as one, if not brighter.

Whatever it was, she didn't like it, and it was coming directly for her.

Fast.

She should do something before it smashes into her fast.

It was visiting for a very different kind of jousting.

Cadance knew she was the only one in the Empire who could stop what was coming at her magically. She could stop an entire regiment for days with the divinely blessed defensive magicks she had learned. Offensively, she wasn't trained nearly to the capacity that Shining Armor was. With her raw power though, she could at least hold in stasis what was coming at her, if worst came to worst.

The object continued straight at her, her eardrums picking up the rising roar of that fireball flying toward her. She closed her eyes to concentrate on her spell casting.

That meteor sought only her. It was going to meet sixteen layers of overlapping shield matrixes, and fail.

Except that after Cadance quickly built the burning blue shield that formed a phalanx of armor in front of her, it was only three seconds later that her glowing half sphere of magic inconveniently suffered a catastrophic existence failure.

That was a first. It also wasn't good.

What hit her shields sounded like the worst dubstep pulse set on repeat, the frying of a bass amp, and a choir of insects chirping as one high pitched constant note into a poorly tuned microphone. It was all being played out on a horrible record player attached to a surround sound system that had its fifty adjustment knobs set to the radio static from the ninth level of Tartarus.

And that didn't include the train sized beam of polished pearl light that shot out from that demonic flaming orb from two miles away. It lite up half the city and slammed into her without mercy. It felt her she had to suddenly support the entire weight of her castle magically.

Cadance wouldn't even begin to let her mind think about the heat that was obliterating her shields. There was no word that could describe it, so she settled on very warm.

She didn't want to feel or hear any of it again.

And yet, it all relented the moment her shields collapsed after holding back that beam for only three seconds. The act of mercy spared her life and ears from the almost certain death she would have felt if it continued for a moment more.

Until she was burned to a crisp by a swirling orange tornado that wrapped around her body with a hellish roar.

Cadance was alive. She had literally just survived a baptism by fire.

She was not only still alive, but she felt all of her limbs intact. She couldn't feel any blood loss, or scars, wounds, or injuries of any type on her. That kind of heat and power could have turned the Crystal Citadel into slag in under a minute.

And yet, she was alive, with all senses saying she was normal, that she wasn't dead, and she was still up and ready to go.

Minus her magical reserves being completely gone, the adrenaline pumping through her body about to give out, and her bladder having let itself go at surviving a tower of napalm being shot at her. It was the least of her concerns.

"Cadance."

She heard her name being called behind her, and the voice had her attention; being charred in an inferno and then having her life spared was a good way to get her attention.

But there was more to the fear that had made her wet herself, despite being thankful she had lived through that hellfire unharmed.

Never before had she heard her name uttered as if she were the genocidal version of Discord. As if she were the sole source that all woes in the world stemmed from. The voice had so many hidden layers of contempt, disgust, anger, and betrayal woven through it that it caused a part of her soul to die that evening. It had that much power in it. It had that much awe.

Her eyes adjusted to the light around her. She was still in her palace, dropped in the middle of a wide open corridor. She had been teleported. She was unharmed, although the air was uncomfortably warm around her. Nothing was broken. Nothing was out or place.

Except for that one voice behind her, calling her name.

"Cadance."

She knew that voice. The fear it bored down her mind was one she didn't even know the once sweet voice was capable of.

Cadance felt more unsafe now than she had in her entire life. It was clear why her magic failed her before. She was proud she resisted for so long.

She put on her best poker face, and slowly turned her body around to look at the valkyrie of death. It was over now. Her life. Her game. Her existence was no longer in her hooves

Celestia, goddess of the solar winds, stared Cadance down.

Celestia's wings were fully flared, her eyes burning a plasma filled white that radiated excess heat from the corners of her glowing eyes.

On second glance, Cadance was very positive that fire had filled in most of the former mystical colors in Celestia's mane. It might have also been sparking off of her ruler's wings.

She was completely positive of that assumption now with a third take of Celestia's form. Celestia looked like a white dwarf star, and not the snuggly kind.

Her wings released a flare of energy, sending out a snapping hiss of heat that arced from one wing to the other. The sound that cracked through the air was the hydrogen around her getting excited for seeing its mistress once again.

Luna, directly beside Celestia, just seemed slightly annoyed compared to her relatively angry sister. It was as if Luna had not had her evening cup of coffee.

She hadn't yet. It was legitimately annoying more than anything else, including the current situation.

Luna looked just a bit antsy to Cadance. She looked pretty reasonable compared to Celestia, and unaffected by the heat coming from her sister's core. She was perturbed, but more like a mother about to give a firm talk to a daughter who had misbehaved.

Celestia looked like she was about to establish a dictatorship. Or go on campaign of what plasma does to everything when it's hot enough.

"Cadance." Celestia repeated the name of the alicorn in question in the same vile tone as she had twice before.

She took a step forward with every word she spoke. "Princess Mi Amore Cadenza: Co-regent of the Crystal Empire; sole heir to the house of Sonata Arctica; avatar of Love, Fertility, Compassion, and my subject. Explain yourself and your deeds, before I bring you forth to the Council of Creation, strip you of all your titles and lands, remove your horn, and banish you from Equestria on the threat of death."

Cadance opened her muzzle, only to be silenced by the crack of Celestia's forehoof on the floor.

The ground underneath Celestia whined like boiling steam from the impact, hissing as it bubbled underneath the raw heat of Celestia's hoof. "Do not deny the charges!"

The walls resonated with an ancient voice so rarely heard in the modern era. It seemed as if the roar of a forest fire filled Cadance's ears, consuming all of her thoughts and smashing ever wall of defense she had.

Celestia knew. How could Cadance, a thirty year old pony, outsmart a three thousand year old demi-god? She couldn't.

What inferno burned in Cadance's ears cleared enough for her to speak and think. She could not bear to lie. The pain in her head would have been an agony she could not survive again.

"I couldn't help it!" she replied. Tears streamed down her cheeks. "My powers are not like yours; I can't just turn my abilities off whenever I want to. You can't feel how much love I felt that night. How much friendship, how much... arousal." Her ears wilted by the side of her muzzle. "You can't-"

Celestia's ancient voice cracked out of her throat like a bursting volcano. "Do not-"

Luna stepped forward, pressing a forehoof onto Celestia's shoulder, patting her in comfort. She walked between Cadance and Celestia, closing her eyes to take a deep breath.

She needed her damn coffee. How anypony who got used to coffee could live without it, she would never know. Breaking her fifty year poppy tea addiction wasn't as bad as coffee withdrawal.

"She is not angry about that."

"I most certainly-"

Luna silenced Celestia with a dagger like glance from her cyan eyes, watching Celestia's anger flicker. A lash of fire crackled from Celestia's mane to her tail, followed by burning steam that jettisoned from her muzzle. It melted into Luna's mane without incident. Fire didn't like being in the vacuum of space without stimulation.

"It comes with who she is, sister." Luna said.

"What was I supposed to do?" Tears streaked down Cadance's muzzle, her wings deflating by the sides of her frame. "It was an emergency. They needed advice right away. I was panicked. I couldn't think clearly, and I knew they would listen to you, Celestia, more than me. If you told them to come to me, they'd listen."

"So you forged a letter in my name?!" Celestia spat in a moderately quiet roar, towering over her younger sister as she stared down Cadance. "You could have dragon-fired the information to me! You have it for these kind of emergencies."

"The advice on it was pretty decent for such a quick response," Luna admitted, glancing up at Celestia. "And it's not like we wouldn't have done the same at her age, sister. You really must watch your long distance flight mood swings."

"That means nothing!" Celestia shoved aside Luna, closing the distance on Cadance quickly. "They are the Elements of Harmony, my student, my... daughter. You ungrateful-"

"Thou is screaming like a Prench peasant being raped by Germaney mercenaries!" Luna shot back, pressing her muzzle into Celestia's. "In, my, ear! If this is what I sounded like back then and recently, then it is clear why I had to do the Night Watch several times to control myself."

What came out of Celestia's nose sounded like a volcano being vented through a tea kettle. "Be quiet you-"

Luna decked Celestia in the cheek.

Luna's fighting style back in the wars of yore was one of deception, confusion, and envelopment. It was Sleipnir, her brother, who went with shock and awe.

But it had been over one thousand years since she had punched something, and Celestia had never been one to engage in physical combat. She always went with ranged attacks or magic. Luna was a fan of getting close and dirty.

It was time Luna channeled just a pinch of the moon's eighty one quintillion metric tons of weight into something. And that time was now.

On Celestia's face.

One moment, Celestia was snout to snout with Luna. The next, she was twenty feet away from her, implanted in the castle wall. The crystal wall cracked, its foundation shaking from the impact and the furious bellow of solid gems giving way to an alicorn sized indentation now replacing what was formerly there. Shards of crystals splattered everywhere, and it was Luna's ebony force field around Cadance that prevented her from being impaled by razors of death. Not even the runic magic embedded in the foundation of Cadance's fortress could withstand the force of Luna's blow.

Luna was grinning like she had just won the lottery.

"That felt as good as my first orgasm after coming back from the moon!" she cheered, hugging Cadance like a mother finding their lost foal. "Oh I haven't done that since... I can't even remember! Most likely when I first started drinking coffee and she told me I needed to stop, and she began rationing it. Oh what a hypocritical hōra she can be, thinking I can not control my intake of that mystical nectar!"

Her wing wrapped around Cadance's body protectively, looking down at the shivering mare with a smile. "You know, I still don't forgive Epona for not telling me about coffee until the end of the First Empire. 'The sun never sets in the Equestrian Empire' they used to say. Well that was because Celestia drank more of it than I did!" she laughed. "Oh that silly mare, thinking she can out wit me and tell me what to do. How you little ponies would be enslaved by the dragons or griffins or have had to run off to the Ents if it wasn't for me planning in the shadows during those years. How she managed to keep this place from falling apart without me, I still don't know." She stroked her chin in thought. "Most likely cocaine."

Cadance shuffled in place. Her mind was dead, her magic gone, and one of her two rulers had just knocked the other one out in one punch. "W-w-what are you talking about?" she shivered. "What's going on? What did you do? I thought we-"

"Shh!" Luna hissed, bopping Cadance on the nose. "Say nothing. I have this under control. I just need half a gallon of coffee. I'll be alright. Sometimes Celestia just needs to be punched. Luckily, I'm the only sibling left who will do it." She grumbled. "Our brothers and sisters have grown soft."

Celestia was no longer on fire as she fell from the wall with a slight groan, her pinkish purple eyes opening slowly as they turned to look at Luna. "You've... always been the hōra, Luna," she coughed.

"Now, now, sister," Luna smiled confidently, "we agreed that when you are in heat, you are absolutely dreadful; I'm just open to ideas like Cadance is most of the time. You repress so much!"

What Cadance heard was not Equish, but Neightin. She knew only a little of the ancient language that few ponies could speak fluently, but there was no doubt that Celestia was replying to Luna in it as she pulled herself tiredly up on her hooves.

Cadance was positive anypony - or perhaps non-train sized mortal - would have turned that wall red from the impact that Celestia just seemed to be lightly bruised by.

"Do you feel better, Celestia?" Luna asked, tilting her muzzle to the side. "It must be relieving to swear freely. May we talk like adults now instead of you having one of your solar..." She looked toward the ceiling, filling the heavens beyond it with stars. "Ahh! Solar scittestorms?" Luna cackled. "Oh the modern language has come up with wonderful words!"

Celestia limped forward, flapping her wings to let out a few sparks of solar energy still stuck to them. Her eyes switched from atomic orange to pink rapidly to let out her last bit of her physical rage. "I'm listening," she said, her teeth grinding together.

Luna preened contently, letting out a cheerful nicker. "Good! Now, we were talking about the Elements of Harmony, us, and the letter." Celestia opened her mouth to comment, but Luna continued. "Yes, Cadance and I knew they coupled, naturally of course; she felt it during and I felt it afterwards. She got hasty, offered advice, signed in it in your name, and sent a copy to them and then me. Yes, she should have messaged me first, but it turned out to be a good plan regardless. She was right not telling you, considering how you have reacted so far."

"They could have been in danger," Celestia growled, shaking off the last bits of crystal stuck in her coat. "You know as well as I do it could have broken their friendships."

"Ahh, could haves are not did haves are they?" Luna hummed.

"This isn't time of your word games, Luna!" Celestia neighed, slamming a forehoof onto the ground. Fire trickled around her hoof, splintering the floor.

"And this isn't the time to mentally scar Cadance anymore than she already has been," Luna said, looking down at Cadance. "I think it's time you go rest, for a day if you can. I'm sure the fatigue of having no magic for a mare such as yourself must be devastating."

Cadance shook her head, leaning into Luna's side. "I-I-I can't leave. The people must be in a panic. Shining, the guards-"

Luna waved away the concerns with a wing. "A few sedatives, altered dreams, a delusion or two, and a few illusions saying it was a comet that nearly hit will take care of all of that."

"I-I-Is that ethical?" Cadance gasped.

"Absolutely not only unethical according to the recent Council of Creation treaties but illegal," Luna said. "And most likely it would result on sanctions on my assets, a mana limiter casted on me for some time, and maybe even a scolding from my parents."

She shrugged. "What they don't know they can't punish, for they have grown rusty following my trails."

Celestia's eyes bored into Luna's own, dueling pink and blue battling it out in another realm. "You already did, didn't you?" Celestia whispered.

Luna smiled innocently. "If it makes you both feel any better, Twilight is still a virgin. Her dreams were confusing since she was so stressed from her friends' antics. But I can assure you the only coupling going on in her dreams was her having to block out the thoughts of her friends doing what the Silver Shields did so well in the past."

"That would explain why she was left so unsatisfied." Cadance's eyes opened wide, "and they... they did it without her!?"

Celestia's eyes quivered, her hind legs barely able to support her weight. "The Elements of Harmony have... have..."

"Yes," Luna nodded. "And you would think with her being both a virgin, a bit on the heavier side, a curious mare and-"

Celestia stood up to her full height, inhaling sharply from her nose. She let out a gust of warm air from her mouth in an attempt to calm down, but it did nothing.

"Knock out Cadance."

Before Cadance knew it, she was swallowed by a twirling black sphere with swirls of dark purple enveloping her. As soon as the enemy of all light consumed her, Cadance was gone.

Luna smiled sweetly at her older sister. "You know that reversing what I've done is only going to cause mass panic. I accept what punishments our siblings may give to me."

Celestia trotted to stare blankly down an empty hallway, peering into the distant wall. "I won't tell them, on one condition," she said coldly.

"And that is?" Luna asked, flicking an ear. "I can help you find some living creature to-"

"To let me interrogate them when they meet us tomorrow morning," Celestia snapped.

She turned around, her pink eyes radiating as brightly as they could without changing color. "You think this is funny, don't you, Luna? I thought you cared about the Elements? They freed you. That you cared about me?"

"What ever made you think that I didn't?" Luna blinked. "I trusted Cadance's advice, which really was the basic 'mating changes emotions, talk to an elder about it, I know love, come to me, we'll have tea and I'm just a protective nanny' kind of prep talk."

Luna moved forward to press a forehoof gently onto Celestia's nose, letting a confident grin spread across her muzzle. "So I kept it from you to keep you from being... you, and made Cadance realize she needs to control her mortal impulses from time to time. And maybe, just maybe, have all three of us talk to them at once."

She shrugged. "I wasn't the one who attacked her, and I certainly could not have kept my own cool if I stopped that force and had to sedate the city, now could I? So it's just you and me, having to scare the Elements, instead of Cadance being with us to calm them down."

Celestia stood there, her eyebrows and cheeks twitching as Luna looked back at her like a kitten up at its owner.

"So I guess it's my fault you have temper problems, almost killed our niece, and now want to scream at the ponies who have saved both of us to vent your own sexual frustration." Luna's ears and wings went limp by her side. "I'm sorry, Celestia. Please punish me!"

The scream that Celestia let out was not of a nuclear fusion fueled rage, but of an older sister seeing their younger brother crashing a slumber party. The high pitched groan was followed by Princess Celestia encasing herself in a ball of white light, and vanishing from the hallway with a hiss of burning plasma.

Princess Luna, goddess of the lunar tides, squeed.

"Haza! I still have it! It never gets old frustrating her because I'm right! You can not out plan me, Celestia!"

She galloped in place in excitement. "Now time to find me some coffee!"