“I… I’m just not sure,” Twilight said demurely as she walked beside Cadance.
Cadance giggled. “What is there that’s not to be sure of?” she asked. “You’re a Princess now.”
Their hoofsteps intermingled as they headed down the hallway, passing by servants and balconies. The crystal walls shimmered with their warped reflections, the afternoon light from outside casting a glow upon it. A passing servant bowed before the two. Cadance gave him a smile and a wave of her hoof. He continued on his way.
“I might have the title,” Twilight said as she watched the servant leave, “but I’m not sure I have any real responsibilities.”
“What do you mean, Twilight?”
The two continued down the hall. “What I mean is, I haven’t…” Twilight looked about, then sighed. “I’m not sure if my responsibilities have changed. I mean, I’m still living in a library; I’m still studying; I’m still—”
Twilight found herself cut off by a gold-slippered hoof put to her mouth. “Being a Princess is more than just responsibilities or title,” Cadance said. “It’s also your attitude. How you present yourself to others.”
“Wee-wee?” Twilight asked, her voice muffled from behind Cadance’s hoof. (Really?)
Cadance put her hoof back down and nodded. “Yes,” she giggled. “Wee-wee.”
Twilight looked bemused for a moment—before cracking up and shaking her head as they continued down what must be the longest hallway in existence. “I’m afraid I haven’t really… possessed the attitude of a Princess either.”
“And you never will with all that doubt,” Cadance said.
“Well… how do you do it then?” Twilight asked, coming to a stop. She turned to look at her sister-in-law, her eyes repeating the question.
Cadance looked to her with an odd smirk, the kind you’d see on a trickster just before they pulled a particularly funny prank. “How do I act like a Princess?”
“Yes,” Twilight nodded. “How do you act like a Princess?”
“You wanna know?” There was an odd noise, quiet at first, then growing, sounding like a beatbox left running.
“Yes! I wanna know! Take me through a day in the life of a Princess.”
Cadance nodded as the beatbox continued to grow louder. Twilight realized, moments, before it happened, that this was a musical number—subsequently, she questioned the taste of the author, as there was little effect in putting a song in a written narrative, as opposed to, say, cartoons or music videos.
But it looked like it didn’t matter. As they continued down the hall, Cadance bobbed her head and shook her groove thang to the beat before belting out lyrics:
“I wake up!” (Like a Princess!)
“I get dressed!” (Like a Princess!)
“Eat breakfast!” (Like a Princess!)
“Attend my kingdom!” (Like a Princess!)
“Listen to problems!” (Like a Princess!)
“Solve the problems!” (Like a Princess!)
“Write a letter!” (Like a Princess!)
“To my aunts!” (Like a Princess!)
“Ask for money!” (Like a Princess!)
“Coz I’m broke!” (Like a Princess!)
“Remember birthdays!” (Like a Princess!)
“Forget my husband’s!” (Like a Princess!)
“Then we argue!” (Like a Princess!)
“Bring up Chrysalis!” (Like a Princess!)
“Get him angry!” (Like a Princess!)
“Hurt his feelings!” (Like a Princess!)
“Feel like shit!” (Like a Princess!)
“Hide and cry!” (Like a Princess!)
“Myself to sleep!” (Like a Princess!)
At this point, Twilight had the weird mental image of her sister-in-law curled up in a ball, mumbling “Oh fuck, why’d I say that???” between heaving sobs.
“In a box!” (Like a Princess!)
“In my mail room!” (Like a Princess!)
“Get shipped out!” (Like a Princess!)
“Wake up lost!” (Like a Princess!)
“Punch some dude out!” (Like a Princess!)
“Punch myself out!” (Like a Princess!)
“Get kidnapped!” (Like a Princess!)
“And hid away!” (Like a Princess!)
“But I escape!” (Like a Princess!)
“Eat a cake!” (Like a Princess!)
“Then explode!” (Like a Princess!)
“Fart rainbows!” (Like a Princess!)
“Get wasted!” (Like a Princess!)
“Crash my carriage!” (Like a Princess!)
“Bite a donkey!” (Like a Princess!)
“KARATE CHOP!” (Like a Princess!)
“Become a rocket!” (Like a Princess!)
“Fly through space!” (Like a Princess!)
“To the moon!” (Like a Princess!)
“Then I crash!” (Like a Princess!)
“Then explode AGAIN!” (Like a Princess!)
“Now I’m DEAD!”
The beatbox finally came to a warping conclusion that died off gradually. Cadance grinned and nodded victoriously. Twilight stared at her with a look that was halfway from befuddled to concerned. “So… you exploded twice, and you’re… dead?”
“Coz I’m the Princess.”
“Yes,” Twilight said dryly, “I know you’re the Princess. You said it like three hundred times.”
“Coz I’m the Princess.”
“Right. Sure.”
Cadance patted Twilight’s shoulder. “Because really, it’s all about attitude. You gotta start thinking of yourself as a Princess in order to truly understand how to behave like a Princess. It's very zen.”
Twilight thought for a moment. “Does that mean I get to fart rainbows too?”
Cadance nodded with a smile. “If you believe in yourself enough, Twilight, you could shit a rainbow and feed it to orphans. And they’ll love it.”
Twilight didn’t know whether to feel amused or horrified. But either way, her course was clear: it was time to Princess up. Coz she’s a Princess.
“Okay,” she said. “Let me try this. Maestro?”
The beatbox slowly came back, Twilight tapping a hoof and fluttering her wings to it. Cadance took a step back—having plenty of previous experience with Twilight’s quote-unquote “dancing”—and let her have at it:
“I wake up!” (Like a Princess!)
“I do stuff!” (Like a Princess!)
“I go back to sleep!” (Like a Princess!)
The beatbox fell silent. Cadance raised an eyebrow, looking around the hallway, her myriad broken reflections vaguely doing likewise. “…Is… Is that it?” Cadance asked.
Twilight shrugged. “Sometimes, you gotta keep it simple.”
They continued down the hall—finally reaching the door they’d spent this whole fanfic walking toward. Worth the trip, right? The two guards at the door bowed before their Princesses. “Well, that’s true,” Cadance giggled. “It looks like you finally have the attitude part down, at any rate.”
As the guards opened the door for Cadance, Twilight hazarded a question. “By the way, did… did you and Shining Armor really have a fight like that?”
Cadance paused. Sighed. “Yes, we did. But we made up.”
“So you got him a present?”
Silence. A long, sly grin danced on Cadance’s lips as she patted Twilight affectionately on the head. “In a sense, yes. It was the best present either of us ever had.”
With that, Cadance entered her audience chamber to begin her day of listening to her Crystal Ponies’ problems and solving them. Twilight smiled and skipped merrily back down the hallway, humming the song she and Cadance previously sang.
Only when she was almost to the door on the opposite end of the hallway did Twilight figure out what the “present” Cadance mentioned was.
“Oh—Ewwwww!”
