I knocked. Candle Wick opened the door. “Your highness, please come in,” he said, and waved me inside. “So good to see you again!”

“Please, mister Wick, just call me Cadance,” I said, as always, with a smile on my face. “Is little Dawn ready?”

As though summoned from across the house by mention of her name, the little filly exploded into the room with a high-pitched squeal of joy and up to grab me in a hug. “Cady!”

Dawn Song, daughter of Twilight Silk, daughter of Shimmer Song, son of Dusk Gleam, son of Starlight Lens, brother of Shining Spring held tightly around my neck and squealed. Candle Wick only smiled as Mama Silky came running after their daughter. “Looks like everything's ready here, dear,” he said. “Remember, sweetest, listen to your foalsitter and do what she tells you!”

But little Dawn was already too wrapped up in telling me about her day at magic kindergarten to listen, as she dragged me upstairs to the living room.

“—and then Miss Singer came running and she said 'take that slug outside' and all the other foals fell over laughing and oh oh I learned a new song today we have to sing it together!”

“Oh yeah? Well why don't you teach it to me then?”

“Yes! I wanna! Okay, okay, it goes like this. Oh, and there's a dance, I gotta do the dance.” Dawn sat down on her rump and clapped her forehooves together. “Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake...”

– – –

“Tonight,” Dawn Song said, looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, critically eying the dress, the makeup, the jewelry, her mane, fearing that none of it was good enough for the task at hand. “I'm going to ask tonight.”

Her breath quickened at the thought, her heart racing, but she forced herself to calm down. “I'm not going to chicken out. I'm going to do it.” The very idea was insane, but she couldn't stop thinking about it. It had been growing on her for years, and now, as she was on the cusp of adulthood, she couldn't escape it or put it off any longer. The thought burned inside her, wouldn't let go. Even if the answer was no, she had to know.

“I'm going to ask Cadance to be my very special somepony.”

She had tried to reason herself out of her feelings, but she couldn't deny herself. Age? Nothing. That they were both mares? Irrelevant. The fact that Cadance was a princess, eternally seated at Celestia's right hoof while Dawn was just a young unicorn in the lesser nobility? Unimportant.

They knew each other, had known each other for Dawn's entire life. Cadance was closer to her than anypony else, and for years the image of beautiful Cadance had been taking root in her mind. Now Dawn knew she had to take the next step. She would never be able to forgive herself if she didn't.

“Hi, Mama Silky,” I said, practically squealing with anticipation for what the night would bring. “Is Dawn here?”

“Hello, Cadance dear,” Mama Silky said as she leaned in for a hug which I immediately lunged at. “Oh my, you seem even more cheerful than usual! Did something happen?”

“I just feel very upbeat tonight for some reason,” I said, giggling.

“Well, we're so glad you could come over while we're in Manehattan. Hopefully you can spread some of that good cheer to Dawn,” Mama Silky said, and let me inside. “The poor filly has been pacing up a storm all day for some reason. Of course we can't very well ask you to foalsit for an eighteen-year old mare, but she's so very fond of you, you know.”

“It's my pleasure,” I said, smiling.

“Well, we're ever so grateful you could come stay here with her while we're in Manehattan for the weekend,” Mama Silky said, and I remembered when she was young and her mother too was scared to let her out of her sight.

I pat her shoulder reassuringly. “We'll be fine. You go and have fun, and don't worry, okay?”

She nodded, and called inside, “Dawn, Cadance is here! Candle Wick, Beacon, are you ready? The cart is waiting.”

“Coming,” Candle Wick's voice called out from inside, and shortly after two sets of hoofsteps came tromping down the stairs: Candle Wick and their son, young Beacon. The colt's eyes lit up when he saw me, and I smiled at him, and hugged him when he drew near.

“Hey buddy, you have fun at Bridleway, okay?”

“I will!” he proclaimed as he passed by, and the three of them left, leaving me alone in the house but for one more.

I stepped through the entry hall and saw her standing at the top of the stairs, and lost my breath. Just as I expected, she's all dressed up for me, trying to look her very best, and the result is stunning.

It was quite unnecessary, of course. Dawn is always beautiful just the way she is. But even so, she was stunning.

“Hi Cady,” she said, shuffling nervously, a blush apparent on her cheek. “Um. Wanna come on up?”

I nod and skip up the steps alongside her. “You look great tonight,” I say, and we both sit down on the couch. This is it. She's been waiting for tonight for a long time, and though she doesn't know it, so have I. We're together, we're alone, and she's decided she's ready to take that final step into adulthood with me.

Or so I thought, but she was hesitating. While we sat idly chatting she'd look away, draw a breath, and I'd think this is it, and she'd look at me with hope in her eyes... but then falter. She was afraid.

I learned how to make her relax long ago.

“Hey, Dawn...” I stepped off the couch and grinned at her. “Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake...”

At the end of the dance we laughed as we had done when she was just a filly, and when the laughter ended she took hold of me and we shared our first kiss.

– – –

I woke up one summer morning when the sunlight peeked in through the cracks between the curtains. I stretched and yawned and lay there peacefully for a minute before finally opening my eyes, and rolling over to spoon my wife, our hooves interlocking as I listened to her soft whistling breath. I rested my muzzle in her mane and breathed deeply. After fifty years of marriage, my little Dawn was still every bit as beautiful as when I first saw her.

Her breathing changed, the first sign that she was waking up, and then with a grunt of familiar pain she stretched out her creaking limbs before turning around to face me with her warm smile that I could never see enough.

I helped her out of bed and into her chair and pushed her out into the living room of my wing in a distant corner towards the back of Canterlot Castle, where we could sit and enjoy the morning chill over breakfast.

“Sunshine, sunshine,” she began. The dance had sadly been left behind years before, a casualty of arthritis, but her singing voice had only grown richer. I dropped my fork and listened with closed eyes. All the room was quiet besides, and only her voice called up a timeless world of foalhood pleasures that old age could not conquer.

“Beautiful,” I said, my voice quiet in an attempt not to disrupt the peace of the room. She looked me a question, and I repeated myself slightly louder so she could hear. “What are you going to do today?” I asked. Of course I knew, but I always wanted her to tell me.

“I finished reading the briefs from the Griffon Embassy last night, so my day is quite open and I thought I'd work on my knitting,” she said between sips of tea. “I'm almost done with the sweaters for Shimmer Song and little Twilight Ward. I expect they'll be ready for you to give to them when you're foalsitting this Friday.”

“That's wonderful,” I said, with utmost sincerity. “They'll love them. Oh...” I leaned in and nuzzled her. “I was thinking, about your song.”

“Hmm?” She mumbled through a mouth of soft oats in milk.

“I was just thinking, wouldn't it be fun if I taught the song and dance to the kids?”

“Hm,” Dawn chewed slowly. “You think they'd like that? That dance is kinda old-fashioned now.”

“They will if I teach it properly,” I said with a smirk. “I think after all these years I've gotten pretty good at it. Not as good as you, obviously, but then nopony ever could.”

She snorted, almost choked on her oats, and cast me a mock-angry but amused glance. “And don't you forget it, missy!”

We laughed together, the laughter we have shared for a lifetime under the sunrise.

We had another seven years of sunrises until the morning she did not wake up.

Author's Note

Next time: Bridges.