Ships and Shenanigans, Or I Ship Whatever The Hell I Want

She was at it again.

Shining Armour could hear her crazed giggles echoing off the polished crystal walls of the faceted castle, the iridescence (or perhaps it was prismatic? He never was too sure.) surprisingly failing to reflect light into the dark corners of the curtained room, despite said curtains made of translucent shimmering hues of purple and blue crystalline fabric. From the darkness, a pair of eyes gleamed menacingly, laughter following after, but not directed at the captain of the royal guard. She was hunched over, her smile unnaturally wide.

At her hooves were pictures of ponies, and non ponies. Her puppets. Objects dangled on invisible threads. An uncomfortable twitch formed at the corner of the white unicorn's cheek when he realised he recognised some of the faces printed on the papers that had been cut up and doodled on with a set of pastel crayons, apparently having been crushed to powder, as could be seen by blue and pink dust that trailed behind her hooves, that were devoid of the regalia they usually wore. Her wings, beautiful and preened recently, were covering countless other photographs, the shadows shielding them from prying eyes. Her magic lit with the blue pulse of telekinesis, dragging a small piece of crayon all over a picture that appeared to be the object of her attention, and rendered completely unrecognisable by red streaks covering most of the picture.

Her voice, usually musical and lilting, was hoarse and low, chanting soft words under her breath. It was a constant near incoherent string of sentences, but Shining Armour could make out a few more distinct syllables.

"....too cute.......can't......."

He had seen enough. Sighing, Shining Armour let a hoof smack his forehead, his horn lighting and channeling magic to pull the curtains wide open, sunlight streaming in from the chilly afternoon outside, chatter of the busy Crystal Empire market square drifting in, as well as raising his voice to speak.

"Cady, we've talked about this. You can't keep doing this."

The Princess of love, an alicorn who was dignified and serene, and had an appearance of being calm and collected (most of the time), was an image of perfection and grace throughout the Empire, and crystal ponies would lift foals into the sunrise chanting about her. Or sacrifice radioactive toadstools or something. It was hard to remember a bunch of crazy traditions made up by senile crystal ponies when one's wife was snarling like some feral manticore. Point was that Cadence had a spectacular reputation, but her response to rays of light entering her sleep deprived eyes was to flinch and growl, her eyes dilating but glaring in vain against the sun, whose stare she could not keep for long. If only the ponies could see her now.

The photograph gripped in her blue aura burned, turning to ashes within seconds.

Shining Armour sighed internally and grabbed his wife's shoulders, dragging her towards the door and a long needed bath that she must have been foalishly avoiding. Her eyes twitched and widened when she realised what he was doing, and immediately grabbed the crystal curtains with her teeth, gaze hardening at her husband. He tugged at her wildly curly tail, feeling the multi-coloured hairs start to stretch. The Princess held on, steadfast, her mouth clamping tighter on the smooth material, eyes flicking from her pile of doodled on photographs that she had worked on for hours, and the resigned look on Shining's face.

Feeling her tail pull uncomfortably, the warrior fighting a losing battle switched tactics, opening her mouth to yell in a way that every fortress, let alone castle, feared, the intensity and force embedded in every word shaking the foundations of even the strongest strongholds.

It was the famed Royal Canterlot Voice. And she had learned it from her aunt.

"FOOLISH GUARD! YOU WILL LIVE TO REGRET YOUR DESCISION THAT-...GAH!"

She realised her fatal mistake. Her sentence cut off when her husband yanked, dragging the now defeated Princess of Love by her tail, to the crystal bathrooms, where all nobles meet their fate, complaining and moaning about it all the way, as well as 'accidentally' snagging on carpets and corridor tapestries. Her rambling was met with much staring of visitors who decided to pretend they had not existed at that particular moment, and ignored by the stoic expressions on the Guards' faces, which plainly spoke where their voices did not. 'Yup. Same shit as always. We deal with this every other day.'

"Nooooooooo...you're not my Mom...you can't make me...why can't Drifting Bismuth just accept Ruby Shard as his other half...they are so cute together...the Chef wants to legally marry his stove, you should let him, its true love...did I ever tell you how happy I am that you're not gay?"

Shining Armour switched to his telekinesis, spitting out curly hairs as he continued to drag his lover unceremoniously on the crystal floor, his destination still too far for his liking. "Speaking of gay, you realise Drifting is gay, right?" He informed her, watching her expression crumbling like the crayon that stained her hooves.

She managed quite successfully to swoon, while still being pulled around, her hoof pressed to her face. "I owe Flash twenty bits. Buck."

Shining yelped, glancing around, automatically searching for the head of a furry little alicorn foal that had made it her life mission to eat every normal non-Crystal curtain that had somehow wound up in the castle. Flurry had taken escape as a challenge, so much so that a shady betting ring had been formed (of course he was not in it, who said anything about him being the founder of it? Stop talking), based entirely on how long it would take for the little princess to break free of some new restriction or spell that had been cast in an attempt to win the bet or break some record. Oh, and keeping her safe and all that jazz, of course. Not that she needed much protection. The first few changeling and pony kidnappers had practically begged for her removal from their custody. They never got that far, either.

One of the perks of being an alicorn.

Flurry was quite the handful, and matured faster than any foal Shining had seen, including his sister, who was read Quantum Mechanics and Probability Fluxes as a bedtime story, but while Twilight had been pretty knowledgable, so much so that Shining had to read a dictionary to keep up with her vocabulary standard (and by Celestia, Twilight was such a grammar nazi), Flurry was smart in that she learned pretty quickly when the Guards changed shifts such that she could slip off, or that ice cream sometimes made her teeth hurt, like when she tried to chew crystal curtains.

In summary, taking care of Flurry was great, but Shining decided he did not want her to hear swear words anytime soon. It had been awkward enough with Twilight, whose curiosity and thirst for knowledge has been insatiable, especially as a filly. Shining still remembered the traumatic experience of answering Twilight's questions after she had heard him swear. In fact, he could still her young voice echoing through his mind...'But...but...Shiny! Doesn't it mean-'

Yeah, all aboard the nope train. Shining was a stallion of integrity, but lying probably would be a better option than explaining. At least Twilight had learned early on from her Biology textbooks where foals came from. He did not want to have to talk to Flurry about that. Certainly not then, if ever.

With that revelation, the Captain of the guard snapped back into reality and had a fantastic trip over (and onto) his wife, who had been watching him stare off in the distance and reminisce for the past few minutes.

And Sunburst picked that particular moment to walk through the one of the hallway's multitudes of doors, Flurry Heart tucked under his hoof and solemnly shredding his cloak, which looked pretty worse for wear. His voice was loud and ringing, which drowned out the scuffle of his white socked hooves. "Your majesties! I have found her little highness in the kitchens-"

Sunburst took a moment to register the scene before him.

He backed away slowly, Flurry having the sense to stop her shenanigans and pull his beard as they went back the way they came. It appeared the Nope fandom was ever-increasing.

Of course, The Princess of Love was having the time of her life. If she'd known this would be the outcome of her shipping relapse, she would have done it ages ago. She liking her job was an understatement. Getting dragged down hallways aside, bringing ponies together was her life, what she lived for. Falling in love herself was just a bonus. And with the Guard Captain, too! The Guard had so much shipping potential. If one could peer past the porcelain mask of perfection, they would find hearts, gentle, frail, brave and very, very complicated feelings. It was so much fun!

Except that Drifting Bismuth would probably never fall in love with Ruby Shard.

Cadence bemoaned the cruelty of the world.

Author's Note

How this story came about:
I read about two paragraphs of a fanfic, and had a bout of inspiration.
Then I went back to the fanfic after some crazy writing.

Hahahaha.... Cadence is like the MLP fandom.
May have a sequel. I have a story in mind where Cadence tells off aristocrats for having a very traditional opinion about LGBT+ couples.

Thanks fer readin'.