Constant

Despite the sunset that was bound to be perfect for any artist's eyes, few of the ponies seemed to notice it, in fact, most appeared to be downright depressed.  None, though, could even match the sorrowful look that had befallen their ruler's gaze as she watched each and every pony she could see slowly walk back to their homes from one of the stained glass windows in the Royal Atrium.  As soon as the last of her citizens vanished from her sight, the pink coated princess gave a slight sigh of defeat before she, too, decided that it was about time to be turning in herself.

The princess sluggishly stood up from her spot by the window and stretched out her messy, unkempt wings before letting them hang loose at her tired, slender hooves.  Not even bothering to pull them in properly to her sides, she simply let the light blue magic from her long horn atop her head begin to straighten out some of her feathers before exhaustion from the day caused her to stop.

As she began to trot towards the tall doors of the Atrium she thought, 'Why should I preen my wings now after everypony's seen them like this? I mean...even my hair is more messed up than-' but before she could finish the thought one of the grand doors that she had been walking towards began to creak open.  Assuming that it was one of her more coarse mannered nobles, the alicorn quickly pulled in her wings and was about to politely explain that the day's court had been cancelled that day when she realized that the large, white unicorn with blue, cloven hooves that now stood before her, who looked almost as worse for wear as she currently felt, was not who she was expecting at all.

"Shiny..."  the princess exhaled in relief as she let her wings hang loose once again, "I thought you were Sir Quartz or somepony..."

"Actually..." 'Shiny' began to say while he closed the massive door behind him with his own dark pink magic, "I just bumped into him as a matter of fact..."

"Oh?"  The princess asked with a bit of confusion, "And where was he going at this hour?"

The stallion only rolled his large blue eyes in annoyance before stating in a deep and exhausted voice, "Where do you think?" In response, the princess only groaned.

"I swear..." the princess claimed with a stamp of her forehoof, "That stallion only cares about his family's mines and nothing else..." 'Shiny' only smiled at this and lifted a cloven, blue hoof to brush some of the slim mare's long and striped mane out of one of her eyes before stepping back.

"Cadence... love..." he simply said with a kind smile, "I already told him off for trying to seek a conference with you right now..."  The princess, Cadence, returned his smile, but she was soon frowning at the sudden scroll that was floating next to her head.   "... but he still insisted that I give this to you."  sighing once more, Cadence took the scroll in her own magic and quickly unraveled it.  Her eyes lazily perused the scroll's contents before clearing her throat to read it out loud.

"Dear Princess Mi Amore Cadenza," She began, "We here at the Coarse Gem Mining Company would like to formally send our condolences to you and your husband, Prince Shining Armor."

"Well that's nice of them to-" Shining began to say, but Cadence held up a hoof with a furrowed brow to silence him.

"In light of what has happened," she continued, "We have suspended all work within our mines for the week.  The workers will receive their week's pay as usual and will continue their work the following week.  Because of the large sum of bits we are bound to lose because of this, though, we only ask that you send... compensation... to make up for the net... loss..."  Shining could see from the dying light of the day that there was more to the letter, but the boiling anger that he was feeling right then couldn't have made him pay attention to anything more even if he tried.  He took a step towards Cadence to take the letter out of her magical grasp, but before he could even summon up the faintest of magicks within him, the scroll suddenly burst into flame.

"Whoa!" The unicorn exclaimed as he jumped back in surprise while his anger quickly dissipated in his new found shock.  Before he could comprehend what had just happened, he was suddenly assaulted by the look of pure rage on his wife's face.

"How... how dare they?!"  she practically screamed in his face, "Why in my aunt's name would they even consider demanding compensation over this?!"  Being careful to keep an eye on the burning pile of paper that was now at her hooves, Shining wisely took a few more steps away from the enraged mare, though if she noticed that she was dangerously close to burning herself then she clearly did not care.

"I... I mean..." She continued to rant unabated and unwilling to stop, "It's great that they've let off their workers for the week... but to demand compensation for it?  Can't they just be nice and not care about net bit loss for once in their lives?!  Just how heartless do you have to be to ask such a thing?! Just... couldn't they... have left us alone... for even... a day?" Shining only gazed back at the mare, torn between wanting to rush to her side and staying where he was so her anger wouldn't redirect towards him instead.  Cadence, though barely noticed his indecision as tears began to glisten within her eyes.

"Just one day... is all I ask..."  She mumbled right before her hind legs gave out beneath her gently shaking body.  At this, Shining didn't hesitate any longer as he carefully walked up to his wife before giving her a gentle yet reassuring hug.  For a while, neither of them moved from that spot, both simply taking comfort in the other's presence.  It wasn't until they heard him clearing his throat that they realized that one of they guards had apparently entered the Atrium without either of them noticing.  Cadence slowly blinked away the last of the tears that had been dripping from her cheeks just then before she and her husband finally let go of each other.

"Yes?"  Cadence asked the guard once the two of them had regained some of their composure, "What is it?"

"P-Princess Cadence,"  the guard stammered after having silently witnessed his weeping ruler, "And Prince Shining Armor.  I bring news from the border patrols."

Shining Armor frowned at this before stepping forward and asking, "Which one?  Are the diamond dogs acting up again from the south?"

"We-well..."  the guard stammered now looking a bit more nervous than before, "N-no... sir..."

"Then what is it? Which patrol is reporting a disturbance?" Shining almost demanded of the guard.

The guard pony swallowed hard before stammering,  "A-all of them... sir..."

Shining furrowed his brow, "All of them? Surely they can't ALL be-"

"But it's true sir!"  The guard interrupted, "I was skeptical at first myself, but then I noticed that they were all reporting the same thing over and over again...."

Cadence, showing a bit of concern, quickly stepped forward herself and asked him, "What exactly are they saying?"  At this, the guard's earlier bravado vanished and was quickly replaced by fear.

"I... well... you see... " he managed to get out after fidgeting for a bit, "I-I know that this'll sound crazy... but..." The stallion paused and shuddered for a moment before looking into both of his ruler's worried faces.

"Th-they're saying that the Frozen North is attacking the Empire."