Cadence's Curse

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// Story: Cadence's Curse

// Chapter: Blueblood- Part I

// Author: CastawayWish

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It had been two months. Two months since her brother's funeral, and two weeks since his beloved Princess Mi Amore Cadenza got to join him. And she still couldn't believe it, even though she was standing here. Here in front of her, she watched as a simple gravestone depicting Shining Armour in his full regalia was switched for a complex and beautiful statute of himself and Princess Cadence combining their powers to evict the changeling population in Canterlot. Twilight sighed deeply. Her mother and father had gone on a cruise, curtsy of the Royal Treasury, right after Shining Armour had died. Celestia knows that's what they needed the most. But since they had gone on the cruise, they weren't here to oversee the tombstone switch, or to see the ceremony where Princess Candence was buried alongside her love. Letting another deep, heavy sigh escape her mouth, Twilight turned around to face the construction workers doing the menial task.

"Thank you both, here is your pay." Twilight said, not really focusing as she teleknickly brought two fairly well filled brown purses filled with bits out of her saddlebags, dropping them in front of the workers.

"Gee, thanks lady!" Said the taller of the two male Earth ponies.

Twilight did not respond, but just grumble and mumble, her head down low in a solomn parade of sadness.

-

In what had seemed like no time at all, Twilight was back inside the castle grounds. But the beautifully scenery did little to change her mood, and the cocky, white unicorn stallion strutting his way towards her certainly wasn't going to help matters either.

"Hello Prince Blueblood." The pretty lilac unicorn drawled- what was her name? He had seen her plenty of times before, but had never bothered learning the poor little commoner's name.

"Oh hello there miss, uh excuse me but I never got your name." He said, surprised at himself. After all, he made sure that he knew the names of anyone important enough to go inside the castle, and he made sure to also know the names of all the pretty mares in Canterlot.

Really? I mean really? After living in the same castle in the same city as him for over 7 years, he still didn't know her name? Ugh. Wow.

"Oh, well my name is Twilight Sparkle." She said with a kind smile, which Blueblood returned with a strangely seductive smile.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Miss Sparkle." He replied, holding out a hoof.

Twilight looked at his pale, outstretched hoof with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion in her eyes. Was this the Blueblood she knew? She wasn't so sure anymore.

Nervously, she agreed and took his hoof, shaking it gently. His smile reduced down into that of a kinder pony, as they both turned back towards the castle.

"Miss Sparkle, you wouldn't happen to be my Great Auntie's favourite~ student, now would you?" Blueblood asked with a cheeky smile that always got the mares.

"Yes."

Well, almost always.

"Ahem, well then, how about I walk you to her. I'm certain that she would want to see you right away. In fact, she hasn't stopped babbling about since you moved out of Canterlot!" Well, that part was true. Although he had never put a name to the face-- er, a face to the name, his Great Auntie Celestia was always babbling about 'Oh Twilight did this!' or 'Twilight did that.' or the ever popular, 'My, my, my, she is a very powerful unicorn because she did this..'. It was starting to get annoying, but now that Blueblood had this, ... exotic filly in his hooves, he could easily see why.

-

Twilight had always loved the Canterlot Royal Library. Within its walls were hundreds of thousands of books, some thousands of years old, others barely a few days. Before a book could be published, at least one copy had to be placed in here. But it wasn't just the books that she loved, oh no. After having lived in a grander old palace, Tiwilght had learned how to to spot and appreciate truly sublime architecture.

The library had four levels; the first one had the most popular and newest books; the second level, which is the largest, held the more general books; the third and final level had the best books that were only allowed to be seen by ponies that were given special permission; it also held the observatory and some desks for writing. The basement was held under lock and key, with guards protecting its heavy metal doors. It was nicknamed "The Forbidden Crypt" by the librarians scribes, and even some of the regulars. Only the Princesses could open the magically enchanted door, and a pony must be given specially permission from the princesses themselves.

All three visible levels were beautiful, stunning, and amazing, but by far, Twilight's favourite was the third level. Normally, she could work quietly alone their, often late into the beautiful night. The room was purple, and the walls were gilded with gold details. At night, the gold was magically enchanted to turn into silver under Luna's magnificent night.

The ceiling is high and mighty, held aloft by four large and mighty, arched columns. On the celing, during the day there was just a simple sun, but at night, it changed it a brilliant, glowing silver moon and showed all the constellations of the night sky; magically enchanted to change accordingly.  The brilliant celing, which was designed after Luna's banishment, showed just how deeply Celestia loved her little sister.

The dusty, earthy smell came calling for Twilight from deep within their rusty old pages. But these books would have to wait; she was working on something, something big. She had to focus on getting to the books at the back, so she could continue her research on-

"Oh hello Twilight Sparkle, fancy meeting you here." Came a bouncy, slightly snooty voice.

"Oh.. Um hello Prince Blueblood. How are. You today?" She asked, slightly irritated at being disrupted from her work.

"Oh I'm just wonderful thanks you, say I was wondering if you would like to-"

"WOULD PRINCE BLUEBLOOD, TWILIGHT SPARKLE, PRINCESS LUNA, AND CAPTAIN GOLDEN SHEILD PLEASE REPORT TO THE THRONE ROOM IMMEDIETLY," Came the tense, commanding, yet still kind voice of Princess Celestia. Twilight and Blueblood looked at each other. Simply by staring at each other's faces, they could tell that they had never sound like this, and they had never heard her use the Royal Canterlot Voice.

A regal white alicorn was pacing back and forth, which was very unusual for her, yet lately, everything had been unusual.

'Why would they want war? What- hoe did this happen...'

Her thoughts were suddenly disrupted as a soft whining noise and a loud pastel midnight blue flash scared her vision.

"Sister, what is the meaning of this?" Princess Luna asked, still groggy from the nap she was having.

Celestia opened her mouth, but before she could answer, her prized student galloped through the open, heavy double doors.

"Princess!" She cried, but before anything else could be said, another figure trotted through the door.

"Auntie!" Came a shrill, whiny voice. "What is the meaning of this?" Continued that blonde maned whiner.

Before Celestia could speak, another figure calmly walked through the door.

He was tall and muscular, with the same build as Big Macintosh. His coat was snow white, his horn sharper to a fierce point. His eyes were a bloody red. His cutie mark was a go.den shield with two crossed spears behind it. The shield had an insigna of an owl on it. His mane was a soft golden tone, that was long and surprisingly shaggy, but his tail was docked short like most of the other unicorn guards. He was surprisingly handsome.

"Ah, Golden Sheild, now we can begin." Celestia turned to face the small crowd.

"Guards, please leave us." She commanded, while the guards gave a bow and left the area.

"Now then..."