Chapter two: meanwhile

"I'm so bored," princess Cadance whined to the unfortunate guard posted by her side.

She had been laying about for an hour, waiting for her colt-friend to be done with his work.

"As I have said before, your majesty, with all the noise the griffons are making at the border Captain Shining Armor has to help preparing for the potential war," the guard said trying to remain as statue-like as possible.

Cadance looked at the guard huffing, "I know that-" she crossed her arms and pouted, "-but he said he would be done by 11, it's nearly noon. *Sigh* I think I'll just go for a walk through the gardens," she gets up and makes her way to the door.

The guard moves to follow her. "You don't need to come, I won't be long, just need some fresh air," she calls back.

He hesitates for a moment but turns back to his post.

Once in the gardens Cadance walks around for a bit but stops to look at some of the birds splash around in the bird bath. It's rather fun to look at them puffing up the feathers cleaning off the dirt from digging up worms and seeds.

The peace does not last though as a flash of blue fire drops a skull a few feed away from her, scaring the birds away and making her jump.

When she takes a closer look at the skull she sees there is something off about it. It's strangely blue-ish with small black horns like that of a goat of a sheep.

Picking it up to inspect it up close the eyes flash blue. With a startled squeak she drops it. Making it land hard on her toe.

After cursing the damn thing and jumping around for a bit she picks it up again, somehow drawn to it.

She doesn't know why but she walks over to the birdbath and empties it over the side, and placing the skull in the empty pedestal.

She stares at it, as if expecting something to happen, but after staring at it for a couple of minutes and nothing happening she reaches out to pick it back up. The moment her fingers touch the skull, it bursts into flame.

Quickly pulling her hands back to prevent them from getting burned.

She looks at it for a while and then 'poof', gone is the skull leaving only the blue flames on the pedestal.

Holding out her hand to the fire, trying to feel its warmth, but it's not there. It's just cold, like what you when you hold your hand in the wind.

"There you are Cadance, I was looking for- what are you looking at?" Cadance turns around to see Shining Armor standing behind her, still in full uniform.

"Shining!" running up to him, hugging his head and giving him a kiss that sends a shiver down here spine.

"I was just looking at those flames, it's weird, it's not hot and it seems to burn on nothing," gesturing back to the blue burning birdbath.

"Where did it come from?" Shining says while walking over to see for himself. "There was this weird looking skull that appeared out of nowhere and when i put it on the bird bath it caught fire and the next moment it's gone. Poof," Cadance explained, at the word skull Shining immediately backs away from the cold fire.

Randomly appearing skulls that catch fire, that can't possibly mean anything good.

Walking back and pushing Cadance with him until they where a good twenty feet away from it.

"Cadance, don't you find it strange that there just happens to fall a spontaneously combusting skull right next to you?" Shining turns around, to look his filly-friend in the eyes.

"For some reason, no I don't think it's strange, which is of itself pretty strange, but I somehow get the feeling that it was meant for me, that I was the one who had to find it. Does that make any sense to you?" She asks.

Shining's eyelids drooped down a bit. "No, that makes no sense what so ever," Shining looks back over his shoulder at the fire finding it even creepier than it was before. “I don’t like it, Cadance,”- shaking his head- “there is something very wrong with that fire.”

"I’m keeping it." Cadance says defiantly. It’s hers damn it, and nopony, not even her lover, is taking it from her.

“Get some guards to move it to my room,” She commands.

“Cadance, sweetie, I don’t think that’s a good idea, I just-“ he looks back at the fire “- get at bad feeling from that fire, like it’s not natural, it’s not supposed to be here at all.”

“Just do it, Shining!” She glares at him for a while, and then walks back to the castle.

Casting one last look at the unnatural fire, he walks back to the castle as well to do as he’s told.

It’s evening now, the birdbath has been dug about an hour ago and moved to Cadance her room.

Cadance is laying on her bed staring at its captivating blue flame.

“Cadance, what are thou looking at?” standing in the doorway of her room is princess Luna.

“I was just looking at… this blue fire,” she says awkwardly.

“How did thou get it to burn blue, and prevent it from emitting smoke?” Luna asks intrigued by its strangely beautiful color, she has always liked the color blue; it’s a close second to black.

“I don’t actually know why it’s blue or why it has no smoke, I just placed this weird looking skull with horns on the pedestal and poof, fire,” she explains to Luna.

“Thou should look into what it is, things made from skulls usually mean something dark and dangerous, it may be best to move this fire to a more secure location, just to be sure,” Luna reasons.

“NO! It stays where it is, right here. It’s mine and I’m not letting anything or anypony take it from me!” She yells.

Luna stares in shock at her usually kind and calm niece, such an outburst is unbecoming of her.

After a few haphazard breaths Cadance calms down, her eyes go wide realizing what she just did, she yelled at the princess of the moon, her aunt.

Cadance puts her hands in front of her mouth, “I-I’m so sorry, aunty, I didn’t mean to yell, I don’t know what came over me, I-I just, I just…” Luna walks over and sits down next to her, and places her arm around Cadance shoulders, “shush now, it’s okay. Let’s just figure this out together okay, we’ll find out what it is and how it got here. But it’s getting late, thou should get some sleep,” squeezing her nieces shoulders a little she gets up makes for her to night court.

As princess Luna left, Cadance looks back the fire again, looking at it like it was a cute little doggy that just made an attempt to bite her.

She puts on her pink hearths PJ’s and goes to sleep feeling a little uneasy now.

Down the mountain at the edge of the Everfree forest stands a lone figure with demonic looking armor staring up at the city on the mountain.

That is his destination, that is where he needs to go, he doesn’t know why but there is something there, something important, something he needs to find.

Author's Note

second chapter, yay.