The Marriage of Princess Cadance to House Sparkle

I ran through the Crystal Palace at a mad gallop.

There is a magic that is passed down from parent to child. It linked my darlings to Warding Glow across the centuries, and through it, my love for him, for all of them, was reborn again and again. It formed an unbroken chain that now held me and Twilight at either end, and it held within it every link that had passed between us. All my darlings. All their memories. Every trick I had used.

All my crimes.

The halls were empty outside my private chambers: my guards were nowhere to be seen, ordered away, I assumed, by Celestia. I threw open the wide doors, only to see my worst fears realized. The thought stamped itself inescapably on my mind:

I'm too late.

“Twilight!”

There were winds, powerful winds, gusting in my bedroom. The furniture was tossed aside, every small and light thing smashed against the walls or swirling in the winds. At the center stood Twilight, locked in a magical surge such as she had not had since she was a filly.

She turned to face me with eyes of white light that saw right through me.

It's over.

“Cadance,” she said, her voice a chorus of many voices. “I opened the magic and saw... everything.” She blinked, and it was Twilight who looked at me with sad eyes. “Oh Cadance... Is it really true? For all this time?”

I kept you chained to me for seven hundred years.

“I watched you foal-sit all my ancestors for centuries, planning out our lives for your own purposes. I saw how you taught us everything we know, and how you made sure you were our closest friend and confidante. You made us all trust you and love you. You used everything you knew about us to make sure we would never question you, that we would always go to you for answers... and your answers were always meant to keep us close to you.” She shuddered. “There's a sickness inside you, Cadance.”

Her words cut like a knife through my heart. I fell to my knees, my tears flowing uncontrollably as I was made to see myself, and how far I had fallen, while she only walked, slowly, purposefully, towards me. “So many secrets, so many lies... so much darkness. Even when you were with my brother, you were planning how best you could use me as well.”

She's going to leave me. She's going to leave me and she's going to make sure I never see her or her family again and I'll have nothing and nopony.

My throat hurt: an enormous lump choked me, and I could hardly breathe. “Please don't... I can't... I couldn't let you go... I can't bear to go on alone again...”

She looked at me sadly, shaking her head. “I never would would have suspected this from you. Not from Cadance, the Princess of Love, who brings joy and warmth to ponies. That your grief had so poisoned your mind that you would conspire for centuries to keep my relatives at your side in secret, in the name of love.”

Twilight stood above me now as I saw the collapse of everything I had worked for, of my entire life's work and happiness slipping away. “We knew you from our cradles to our graves. You bound us to you and never let us go. So many lies... Incest. Slavery. You knew that on a mortal ethical scale these transgressions are unforgivable. You knew it was forbidden, so you kept all your thoughts and plans secret, because you feared what would happen if anypony ever found out. But now we know. It's all over now. The evidence has been presented, and as a Princess of Equestria I am ready to place my judgment on you.”

My head fell to the floor as I prepared to lose everything.

Twilight bent down and planted the softest, kindest kiss on my brow. “I'm sorry that you were in so much pain,” she whispered. “And I forgive you.”

I looked up. “What...?” My voice was cracked and weak.

“We know you, Cadance,” she said, and her voice was somber and serious, but also compassionate. “We know you better than anypony. You know that none of us would ever want to see you hurt.”

“But... I used you. I manipulated you. I lied to you. I broke the Princess's Oath!” My head fell down low again as I cried. “I betrayed my domain... I betrayed you, my peer... I don't deserve to be a Princess...”

Twilight frowned, and nodded. “It's true. You failed to understand the Oath, Cadance. You thought you were a tyrant of love, and that you could command it as you pleased. But you're wrong. Your domain was entrusted to you, and you are its shepherd. But you are also its servant.” She looked at me thoughtfully. “You were never the tyrant. You are the slave of love, Cadance. You, more than any other pony, could not control how it led your life. Warding Glow knew that right from the start.” She took hold of me with her magic and brought me to stand. I tottered, unsteadily, as her grip left me. “We were always there to help you, Cadance. We still are.”

I shook my head. “It's all lies,” I whispered again. “Everything you're feeling is false. I made you dance like puppets.”

“That is what you thought you were doing,” she nodded. “Intention counts for something, and you're going to have to make amends for that somehow. But you're wrong. You don't understand ponies like you think, and you don't understand yourself. We're not puppets, Cadance. Our feelings weren't false just because you inspired them. If you made us dance, it was only because you made such beautiful music.”

She stroked my mane gently with her hoof, her face kind and gentle, and not afraid or angry. “All of them are here now, inside my head. Even long after they passed on and you could no longer see them, when all your little tricks fell away, their love still burns like the sun.” Twilight smiled, her eyes still softly glowing. “They have something to tell you.”

She stepped forward and kissed me, and in her kiss I felt all of them at once.

It was a kiss of aeons. Twilight Sparkle, who had never kissed a pony before tonight, subdued my tongue as though it were her own, with all the passion and confidence and kindness, all the skill and experience of all her forebears in one. And I felt young again, and I heard the song I had been singing when I first spied Warding Glow in the royal gardens, when all the world was fresh and full of wonder.

Twilight released me from the kiss and smiled, looking into my eyes. “They want me to tell you,” she whispered, “that it's time for you to stop living in hiding and fear. They want you to be happy. And if you still want to... I would like you to be happy with me.”

She placed a hoof gently on my shoulder. “It's time to tear it down, Cadance. Let go of it, and live.”

The dam burst inside of me then. Every memory I had clung to for all those years replayed in my mind, every joy, every ache, every argument, every kiss, every smile, every tear, every death, every birth, all of it burned in my mind for a fraction of a thought, and then left.

And at long last Cadance remembered herself again, and was whole.

Twilight was there for me throughout the entire ordeal, and in her eyes I saw them all looking back at me from a fountain of love that could never run dry.

One by one I bid them farewell, and they were at rest.

“There,” Twilight whispered after it was over, as I lay motionless on the bed save for the slow rise and fall of my ribcage as I breathed. The magic surge was gone, the room was quiet again, and Twilight was looking down at me with a tender smile. “That was pretty weird. I'm not used to having many different ponies talking in my head all at once.”

Twilight bent down and kissed me, and I felt all the wonder, all the giddy, nervous tension and sweetness of a little filly kissing her first crush, warm and pure and fresh.

She chuckled, her laugh playful and kind. “I know all your tricks now. I know all your weak spots too, as well as you know mine.” She looked into my eyes, brooking no disagreement. “If we're going to be together, Cadance, we're going to be equals.”

Just one night earlier that thought would have terrified me. Instead, I felt close to crying with happiness. “I can't think of anything I'd want more.”

“Good, because if you try to push any of my buttons, I'm going to push yours right back,” she chuckled, stroking a hoof idly down my side. “Personally, I think I'd prefer just being comfortable together, doing what comes naturally... But I'm sure you'll make me more adventurous over time.”

I pulled her close to me, holding her tight in my arms, finally free of fears of death. “We can take it slow,” I said. “We have all the time in the world.”

She nodded, smiling, and closed her eyes.

We held each other close and slept like foals through the night.