"Do you think that you'll be able to do something like that?" I asked Cadance, pulling out the rest of lunch from my large brown bag. The castle kitchens are always open to the guard, but I always loved mom's cooking, whether they were leftovers, or not.
Out came three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, four bags of chips, two apples, a backup daisy sandwich, those stupid crackers I hate that Twily always puts in here, and half a chocolate bar — again, blame my little sister — were all the things that made up a perfect lunch for a growing guard stallion on his lunch break.
I quickly unwrapped one of the sandwiches with my magic and took a bite. "Mmm."
Cadance sat on the wall next to me with her own lunch. I wasn't sure what it was, but she always kept everything in a dorky, colorful lunchbox that was covered in ladybugs, ladybug charms, and lyrics to songs that she liked.
Right now, it looked like she was scribbling out... I squinted and leaned closer. It was something about decompression sickness. I don't know why somepony would write a song about that. Cady has always had the strangest music tastes.
Well, I already knew that. She is my little sister's foalsitter — it's how we met. I just hadn't expected to become friends with her — she wasn't exactly a normal pony, at least not anymore — and then... I grinned through another bite of the sandwich before poking her with a free forehoof.
"Hello-o-o, Cady, you still there?"
She bolted up from where she was hunched over, the pen in her magic shaking and hitting the stone of the castle walkway with a faint thud. Cady had gotten better at levitation with Princess Celestia's tutoring, but those pegasus roots showed through as plain as day.
I smiled a little before she whipped around her head to look at me — and whipped her loose curls into my face in the process. I'd told her months ago that, yeah, she'd look really pretty growing them out. She took the advice to heart, and when we were together, she didn't pull her mane back with a blue bow.
Now, I wish she had. Getting whipped in the face with your marefriend's mane doesn't leave much time for intelligent responses.
"Ffprmrph!" I protested.
"Yo, Shiny, you scared me!"
She, being the ever kind creature that she is, pulled her mane out of my face. Though, her purple eyes were still partially hidden by the multi-colored wave. Her horn glowed sky blue, and her pen was back in her magical aura that matched the weird crystal heart she had for a cutie mark. Nopony knew what it meant, not even Princess Celestia, but everypony was pretty sure it meant something about Cady having a pure heart — she confessed that to me a couple of weeks ago. I guess having even the sun goddess be unsure about the meaning of a special pony's cutie mark made her nervous about the whole thing. If I knew anything about omens and cutie marks like Princess Celestia did, I'd offer her any word of comfort.
"I was asking if you heard what I said. I know that both Mom and Dad already know you, but they know you as my little sister's foalsitter, not as my marefriend."
Cady giggled airily and ran a forehoof on the top of her still-zippered lunch box. "Shiny, you're eighteen; that's super sweet of you to wanna do that, but neither of us are itty-bitty little foals any more."
I cleared my throat and breathed in the autumn air. "Yes, but Hearth's Warming Dinner with the family is always important. The impressions, Cady!"
"Impressions are so... conventional," she said with a slight pout. "Not that conventional is bad... I guess it can just get boring at times, y'know?"
I bit into my sandwich again with mild worry. Was this the first or the second sandwich? I didn't remember. "Err, I'm not really sure how to respond to that part... but this is so important. Twily's Entry Exam levels of important."
Another giggle. "Twilight's been Auntie's pupil for years now, and yet nopony can forget her entrance exam, huh?"
I continued to practically inhale the sandwich with gusto. "Yeah, Equestria is a pretty uneventful place. Now, the southern nations?" I swallowed and whistled. "I heard there was a skirmish over who owned this territory and—"
I thought I caught her expression fall for a moment and saw one of her gold-clad hooves playing with a particular charm: a ladybug in flight.
"Cady, are you feeling okay?"
She sat up straighter and laughed. "Yeah, I... guess so? Equestria... it really is pretty uneventful. Auntie Celestia raises the sun and lowers the moon each day... huh. Do you think it's weird that we always think about the moon being lowered and the sun being raised instead of the other way around?"
I swallowed awkwardly and unwrapped the third sandwich. "Sure... I, guess?"
She stopped fiddling with the charm and laughed almost nervously. "Now that was a bit of a crazy thought... still, it always seems odd, now that I think about it."
I shrugged and levitated a bag of chips over to her since she didn't seem very interested in her own lunch, but she just pressed a forehoof to the bag in polite refusal, causing it to crinkle.
"On the topic of Hearth's Warming Dinner..."
"...which is months away," Cadance pointed out.
After finishing off the last sandwich, I pulled open the bag of chips to signify that I would keep talking and that this was important business.
"You're going to have to talk about yourself a lot. They'll want to know what you like to do and all the things expected of a princess..." I grinned sheepishly. "I'll probably be put under the spotlight as much as you, but... maybe we should practice?"
Cadance silently unzipped her lunchbox.
"What," she said flatly, blinking.
I stared at the contents. The entire thing was filled to the brim with chocolate chip cookies and absolutely nothing else. She quickly withdrew one with her magic and started nibbling on it after tucking the pen she had been scribbling with among the horde of cookies. I had no idea how she wasn't going to lose it.
I sighed and facehoofed. "Munchies?"
She nodded rapidly and levitated three more cookies out of the box. Then Cady began to see if she could fit four cookies in her mouth at the same time, and as discreetly as possible.
A passing guard gave us a very weird brand of look while I flushed and pretended everything was normal until he passed.
"You aren't going to share?" I asked between snarfing chips.
"Nawpgawpopglar," Cady confirmed through the mouthful of cookies.
She never shares any of her... okay, so the name she gives her snacks reserved for, ah, this... it's, ah, foalish? 'Munchie munchies' is kind of... embarrassing to say out loud, and redundant.
Gods, that last bit made me sound like Twily.
The cookies smell really good too, so she probably baked them when she was able to get time between all the lessons she had with the princess.
"Okay, Cady, so I'm just going to ask you a few things and just pretend that you were giving the answer to somepony that isn't me. Like my parents. I mean, you've talked to them before, so it shouldn't be that hard, right? Just pretend. Got it?"
"Ooooaaaaaayyyyak," she said nodding cheerfully and swallowing a big mouthful of chewed-up cookies as she did so.
Oh gods, how did she fit six of those in her mouth? No, wait, that's seven... what even... how... is this some kind of freaky magic she learned? I suppressed a shudder since shuddering feels too uncomfortable in my armor.
"Hey, Cady? Maybe just... swallow more of the cookies?"
The fact that she was able to swallow a mouthful of seven cookies scared me. She reached back into her lunch bag and popped two cookies into her suddenly terrifying maw and swallowed them just as quickly.
I don't think I want any of those cookies anymore.
"What are your hobbies?" There, that was a good place to start.
"Does being a princess count as a hobby? Or concert going? They already know that I can play bass."
I nodded, remembering that particular birthday of Twily's. The one that ended in a grease fire in our kitchen and Twily discovering curse words.
"Oh!" She beamed at me, purple eyes shining as she chose only to pop one cookie in her mouth this time, thank Celestia and all the other gods. How many of those is she going to eat? "Archery! That's totally a hobby! A kinda lethal one, but still a hobby! Singing counts too, but that's way less lethal than archery. Matchmaking, vinyl record collecting... those totally count. I'm sure that my magic studies count too, even if they're not the same as Twilight's."
"Good, good... if we leave out the fact that you go clubbing now and then, this might work!"
Cady wasn't quite listening and was watching a couple of birds perched nearby instead. "I should probably not mention how much I love horror novels after that one time..." She grimaced and I rolled my eyes.
"Yes, Cadance, please don't mention the time that my ten-year-old kid sister got a hold of your purse and found horror novels that kept her up at night with pure terror and a 'special flask' that she showed Mom and Dad the next morning as proof that you were a 'special scientist'."
"It was that one time! A total accident!"
"An accident that ended up with you getting a six-hour lecture from my mom. Now, that was a new record. Six hours. Six."
"Auntie's wasn't much better!" Cady protested and cramming a guilt-cookie into her mouth.
"How long was that one?" Just what is getting lectured by a goddess like? It must be terrifying...
"It was for ten minutes." She popped a cookie into her mouth for emphasis. "Ten." Another cookie. "Minutes." She punctuated this last one with a cookie.
I moved onto my next chip bag. "...I think that we're covered in the hobby department, but not the princess-y one."
She twirled a curl with her magic and nibbled a cookie in confusion. "Princess-y department...?" she echoed.
I nodded, swallowing a few chips. "Yeah, think about it. Celestia is a goddess. There's the gods of the afterlife, the Reapers of all the old legends, and the ruler of Aquastria. All of them have these amazing roles in history and a lot of the real legends we learned about in school."
She nodded with sudden seriousness. Cady's family was very superstitious, matters of gods and ghosts weren't just reality to her, but something to revere and respect more than most ponies did to worship the divine. She knew more legends than me because of this, but we all knew a little bit of which was the 'real' legends: the tales of Reapers and ghosts, buffalo tales, witches, shaman, and the draconequus, Discord — a replica statue of the monster sat in the Canterlot Gardens! I'd seen it as a colt on a field trip, and I still see it now.
There were fake legends too, made up by ponies from this and that and absorbed into folklore. The Headless Horse, Pony of Shadows, Bloody Ploughmare, and the tooth breezie. There were other made-up hoodoo tales like dark magic, Santa Hooves, and the Mare in the Moon. Some really crazy books on debunking hoax-tales included stuff about a world consumed by fire and an ashland before our modern nations came to be, but that one is more persistent in the southern nations, along with a weird one that pops up now and then in vague mentions... a figure named Luna, who was supposed to be a moon goddess of some kind. They can't even give that character an original name, it's all based on how the name is like the word 'lunar'. So, in other words, that last one is an obvious bunch of nonsense because it's a complete knockoff of how we got words like 'celestial' because of Princess Celestia.
"Cady, what I'm saying is that all of the legends have so many impossible things... like you! A pegasus who grew a horn! Something like that... it just doesn't happen. A pony who stands among Alicorns, and they're always something... brave? Warriors, mages beyond understanding, hermits to be wary of, diplomats who know dozens of languages and dialects, wise and absolute rulers... things like that. What do you think would wow my parents about your role?"
She paused, thoughtfully bringing a cookie to her muzzle and tapping it there. "A warrior..."
Crumpling the last of the chip bag, I put it back in the brown bag with all the empty bags and wrappers before it. I probably wasn't going to be able to finish all of my lunch today from talking with Cady, but that wasn't anything to feel bad about.
"You don't have to be a warrior, it was just an example that came to mind."
The way she crunched the cookie that she had been grasping in her magic screamed 'eureka' as much as the crumbling of a cookie could.
"I've got it!" She beamed proudly. "Something that counts!"
"Yeah?" I asked, smiling happily at my marefriend. "C'mon Cady, what did ya come up with?"
"I'm a weekend warrior!" She pumped a hoof in the air.
I facehoofed. "At this rate, we really will need all the extra months to plan for your introduction as my marefriend."
Author's Note
[Revised for print on 9/5/2020]
