She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it one bit.
Could she help it? Maybe, but from what she had seen, she was past the point of doubt.
Shining Armor was getting way too close with Princess Luna.
Cadence paced around her room in the early morning, her mane a mess as she hasn’t done anything to get ready for the day. Instead, the same questions that plagued her last night were still haunting her as the sun rose up. Shining had already woken up and went downstairs, the royal guard training in him still making him have a habit of waking up earlier than everypony else.
Were they having an affair? Are they just good friends? Does Shining still love her? Does Shining like Luna now? These questions and many more worried Cadence to no end. Seeing out of the corner of her eye that her pacing was now leaving a mark on the floor, she stopped and took a deep breath, using a breathing trick to calm herself down.
She decided to think back to last night. Celestia and Luna had just come to the Crystal Empire to finally see their new grandniece, Flurry Heart. They came during the day, and they were ecstatic to see the baby alicorn, Celestia looking prouder than ever while Luna happily cooed and enjoyed the foal’s company.
In the evening, after tucking their foal in for the night, the princesses and Shining enjoyed a late dinner together, the topic of the table varying from the foal to random events that had happened recently.
During the dinner, the topic switched to the guards, with Luna and Shining doing most of the talking. While they were looking for a suitable replacement for the next Captain of the Royal Guard, Luna had taken over the captain’s duties until further notice, and the stress and paperwork of it all was something both the lunar princess lamented and joked about together.
Ever since Luna had the nightmare purged from her, she and Shining had become close friends her first few weeks after her return. While many guards were still wary of Luna reverting back to Nightmare Moon, Shining Armor kept up his professionalism by reporting to Luna as well as to Celestia, being one of the first ponies to recognize her royal status. After a couple of weeks however, they warmed up to each other, and their brief meetings about the guard soon turned into all-night conversations about various topics between the two.
That was in the past, before Shining even married Cadence, back when they were still dating. But last night… last night she wasn’t so sure of their relationship anymore.
An unusually loud laugh from Luna startled the table, with Celestia jokingly admonishing her sister about using the Royal Canterlot Voice indoors. Shining downplayed himself by saying his joke wasn’t as funny as Luna thought, and just as the night princess was about to reply, the chair that she was sitting on had the two back legs snap.
It was a wobbly chair, in bad condition. Almost the same as Celestia’s chair at the time. Clearly, the castle staff weren’t totally awake, bringing out the inadequate chairs for the guests instead of the actual guest chairs that were much sturdier and in better condition than the chairs used. So in hindsight, it shouldn’t have come to anypony’s surprise that the chair would fail for a pony the size of the princesses.
Before she could fall back and hurt her head on the cold crystal floor of the castle however, Shining reacted quickly and held the chair in his magic before anypony else could reach her. She gasped out loud when the chair fell back a couple inches before she felt her momentum stop on the back of the chair.
“Oh, thank the stars for your quick thinking, Shining Armor,” Luna thanked, sliding out the side of the chair to stand up, letting Shining to let the chair fall down harmlessly.
“No problem, Princess Luna. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt on my watch, now would I?” Shining replied to Luna before turning to a few guards and addressing them, “Guards, if you could bring in the actual guest chairs instead of these rickety ones?”
At that moment, when Shining looked away from Luna, Cadence felt something in her latent magic. As she is the Alicorn of Love, she had special magical powers to sense changes in relationships of ponies. Feeling the change, she silently concentrated her magic to scan what was the change in the room.
What she found was the entire reason she was pacing right now in the morning.
When she focuses her special magic, she ‘sees’ the aura of ponies as they intertwine with each other. As each pony have their own way of sharing their feelings, so too did their own auras intertwine with different ponies in different ways. As Princess of Love, it was her job to figure out how the auras were connected, either if they were friends or something more.
The auras between the princesses were fine, as were the auras between Cadence and Shining still being as strong in love as ever. However, the auras between Luna and Shining were… unfamiliar, to put it in simple words. It was like one was trying to reach into the other, and Cadence couldn’t tell whose aura was connecting with who. The strangest thing, however, was when Shining looked back at Luna and smiled, saying something about an apology about the chairs. When he smiled, the auras almost fully connected, and the only reason why they would connect in the way she saw was…
…Was if the two ponies were falling in love.
Cadence didn’t know she was holding her wine glass up in her magic, but when it shattered in her telekinetic grip it splattered cold red wine on her person, sending her back to regular reality. All the ponies at the table looked at her in shocked concern, the glass shattering slightly echoing in the room.
“Cadenza? Are you okay?” Celestia asked.
“Yes, no, um, yes. I am completely fine, I am well, I just, um… I just remembered something!” Cadence backpedaled. “Something, um, embarrassing, yes. Something that I don’t want to remember anymore so let’s not talk about it and oh is it getting late now aren’t you two supposed to lower the mun and raise the soon?”
The two other princesses stared in confusion before looking at each other and then at a window showing the almost setting sun. “I suppose tis time to begin the night, sister,” Luna answered.
“I would say so as well, Lulu. Come, let’s not waste any more time,” Celestia replied, standing up from her chair and walking with her fellow princess sister to a point outside where they could switch the celestial bodies together. Before Luna left the room however, she looked back towards the table, and Cadence could see that she smiled at her stallion, her Shining. She felt the table indent underneath her hooves as she grinded her teeth, sensing another change in relationship between the two. Before she could determine how strong the change was, Luna had left the room and the only auras Cadence could see were hers and Shining’s, the latter not showing any change in intensity for Cadence, nor having any lingering influence from Luna’s.
That was what made Cadence so conflicted. If Shining was in any sort of love with the night princess, there would have been some residue of Luna’s aura in him that Cadence should have sensed afterwards, but she did not.
Again, Cadence found herself pacing in the room, leaving a definite mark on the bedroom carpeting, a circle showing the direction of how she paced. Using the breathing trick to calm herself down again, she turned and faced the door with a serious expression.
Pondering and worrying wasn’t going to get her anywhere. With determined steps downstairs, she formulated a plan in order to find what Shining Armor really thought.
Soon she had reached what she and Shining called the ‘living’ room, since it was the main room in the castle that they usually met each other and let down their ‘professionalism’ that they showed others in the Empire. Shining was finishing up eating breakfast when she walked in, and waved her over.
“Hey hun. Sorry for waking and eating so early, but Luna and I wanted to go check on the Crystal Royal Guards today, and she said she wanted to leave early this morning. …Is there something on your mind, Cadence?” Shining asked, at first smiling before frowning randomly at Cadence. “You look like something’s eating you this morning. What’s wrong?”
Shining always was a little more perceptive than most stallions. “Oh, no, it’s nothing, just…” Cadence hesitated before speaking, “just some things you don’t have to worry about.”
“Cadence…” Shining said with a serious expression. “Don’t hide from your emotions, that’s something you’ve told me and countless others. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, it’s just…” sensing that she was being backed into a corner, Cadence surged forward and kissed Shining… ignoring the smell of breakfast in his mouth.
With this sort of contact, Cadence passively reached down with her magic to Shining’s heart. Typically, any sort of contact between two ponies were good enough for her to find their hearts and see who they ‘beat’ for, in the figurative sense of her magic. She decided to use a kiss to see into Shining’s heart and focus on who was at its center.
It beat for her, and only her. Nopony else had Shining’s heart but Cadence.
With a smile, she broke away from the kiss. “Like I said, Shining, it’s nothing to worry about. Now go and head out, and say hello to Luna for me.”
“Hmm, whatever you say so,” Shining muttered, a little bit wary about his wife, but at least happy that she was still smiling. “Have a good day, love,” he whispered, embracing his wife before standing from the breakfast table and leaving.
Once Shining had left the room, Cadence couldn’t help but squeal, shaking in glee that her stallion was still hers. With the happiness contained before she could yell out her feelings in the early morning, Cadence went back upstairs to get ready for the day.
All throughout the day, guards would swear she had a joyful skip in her step.
After a long day of inspections, Luna was just about ready to finish the evening and rest for what little time she had before she was woken up to take the earliest train back to Canterlot. The royals ate dinner earlier than yesterday, this time enjoying the meal with the newest member of the royal family, Flurry Heart.
When Flurry was showing signs of sleepiness, Luna volunteered to tuck the foal in, and when nopony objected, she picked the sleepy foal up with her magic and carried her to her nursery.
She laid the foal down in her crib, and when she started to pull the blanket onto her, Flurry was already asleep. Luna always had a soft spot for foals, especially the babies, and she cherished the moments that she was able to see her grandniece.
She took a look at the sleeping foal, admiring the mane that would soon grow long, and remembered the eyes full of wonder that the baby had of the world.
She had his eyes.
Luna scrunched her mouth and stepped back for a moment. No, she thought, she shouldn’t be this way anymore. Shining had married Cadenza, she was not going to interfere with a happy couple in order to fulfill her wants.
She made the choice long ago that she wasn’t going to act on her love for Shining, she would stand by that choice.
However, when she stood up in order to start walking out of the nursery, she spotted a photo on the wall near where Flurry was sleeping. Right in range of her eyes so the foal could seem them when she was awake, it was a photo of the family of Flurry, Cadence and Shining. It was a bit tilted off, so Luna stepped towards it in order to correct it.
As she reached out to the photo with her hoof, it changed. Instead of Cadence and Flurry, it was Luna with Shining and another foal that looked similar to Flurry, with her coat being tinted light blue instead of the light pink of Flurry’s, and her mane shades of blue and black instead of pink and blue. The foal still had her father’s eyes, but it had her mother’s look of pride and determination, even for a baby.
That mother being Princess Luna.
Luna stared at the photo, imagining and hallucinating several things all at once. Shining and her would be laughing at his captain’s desk, then at her quarters, then at a restaurant table in Canterlot, and then in bed. Their wedding would be a wondrous day in the kingdom, Celestia happy to officiate for her little sister. Many wonderful nights later, they would have a foal named Midnight Gleam, with her nickname being Middy.
These and many more imaginary events happened in her mind before Luna was brought back to reality with a shuffle of feathers coming from Flurry Heart’s crib. Luna looked to see the photo was now changed back to the original family of Cadence, Shining, and Flurry, and quickly tilted the photo back into place before checking on the baby.
Flurry seemed to be curling in fear at some monster in her sleep. Luna sighed wistfully before leaning down and letting a little bit of her magic seep into the baby, calming her and taking care of whatever nightmare she was having. With no nightmares bothering her, Flurry stopped shivering and smiled again, a little flap of her ears showing her contentment.
“Though you are not my own, even as I wish you were…” Luna muttered quietly, rubbing the foal’s back to sooth her sleep even more, “You are one of our family. Your father, Shining Armor, he is a stallion of great character, and your mother, Cadence… you could not have had a better mother than her. You… you…”
Luna desperately tried to imagine the same foal that she saw in the photo to be in the crib. She desperately tried to imagine her and Shining, in Canterlot, taking care of their foal, cooing over her crib as she slept. She tried to create the scene within her mind, but soon she released the breath she didn’t realize she was holding, and Luna came crashing down to reality as Flurry Heart, the daughter of Shining Armor and Cadence, slept peacefully next to the princess’s hoof, subconsciously wrapping her tail around it.
Feeling more guilty every second that she saw Flurry Heart, Luna turned around and started walking out of the nursery again. She glanced back at the family photo, focusing on Shining’s portrait in the picture. His smile, the mirth in his eyes, his loyalty towards his family…
She turned around again. “Perhaps there will be others. Perhaps there will be… others… Perhaps…” she muttered, repeating the phrase again and again as she walked back to her guest chambers.
Author's Note
Just some weekend writing, decided to think about an unrequited love interest. And then this happened.
