Cadance walked alone.
This was a rare, if not momentous event. It was so very seldom that she was ever truly alone. At best, she managed a few minutes to herself at night, when Shining had taken over with the baby and bid the nurse good evening. At most, again, she had but a few moments as she refreshed herself in the royal bath and that was all. Every other waking moment she was with dignatories, with her aides and staff, with her husband, with her child…
But tonight she walked alone, and none could intrude upon her.
She had been very clear. Arrangements had been made. Tonight she would have peace. She needed peace. She needed peace often, but only nights like this did she finally get it.
If any of her palace staff had seen her, they would have been quietly uncomfortable. Why? Because they would have been reminded of a very strange and unsettling fact.
Alicorns are different from other ponies. They are different from many things. From most things, in fact.
It was an easy thing to forget. Even as they bowed and fawned and praised, ponies forgot the very reason for their actions. Think of the smiling of Celestia and the common air of Cadance, the recalcitrance of Luna, the amiable quirky manner of Twilight. In each their own way, they are approachable, or at least understandable. Even at her most regal, no one has ever approached the Empress of Crystal and thought her cold or alien.
If anything, before Twilight Sparkle’s ascension, she had easily been the most amiable and approachable of the assembled royalty known to ponies.
Yet this Cadance was not the Cadance that smiled and waved from the dias at Imperial celebrations. This was not the Cadance that visited the school and hospitals of the city.
She could not be the same. Tonight was the night that she dreaded and looked forward to in equal measure.
Somewhere in the Vaults of Snow, she began to smile a smile that none of her faithful subjects would have recognized or liked. Her countenance was altered altogether.
Yes, she could taste it already. She could feel it in the air.
She could smell it. Tonight was the Night.
Shining Armor awoke and felt for his wife in the darkness.
Nothing. He laid back and took a slow, deep breath. He wasn’t even surprised. Years before, the first time this had happened, he had been a nervous wreck. Two months into their marriage and just settled in, and his wife nowhere to be found in their apartments in Canterlot. He had searched every room frantically, turned the street on its head, and been halfway to the guardhouse when his wife landed beside him. She’d been on a walk, she said.
Of course he’d felt awful. Humiliated. She’d been kind about it, but they’d both not spoken of the incident after.
Until of course it happened again. Exactly a month later.
And then the next month.
He stopped looking for her outside of the house after the fouth month. He stayed to the rooms. His searching became more and more cursory. Each time, he would wait up with a book or tea until he heard the faintest signs of her approaching. He’d stayed up at first, but she had always just been out walking. He felt foolish.
Why was he so… fixated? It was a fair question. It was a question that he had asked himself many, many times. It was unusual for his wife to be walking out in the city or flying out in the darkness at 2 AM perhaps once a month, sure. But it was one oddity in an otherwise lovely and normal pony and shouldn’t it be something he could simply let go? Every time he asked, she’d just been out on a walk. Or she’d been meeting with her aunts. Or Twilight had needed something.
And it would have been easy to let go. His bunkmate in basic had been obsessive about knowing which mare had been featured on Playcolt’s magazine cover for the past forty years. He’d known a sergeant who had needed exactly eight pillows to sleep. Ponies wanted or needed strange things sometimes. It was just a thing that happened.
Except her face. Her face was different. She came back another mare and sometimes as he pretended to sleep he imagined that she looked at him so very strangely as she lingered in their bedroom doorway. It took all of his steel will not to shudder and give the game away. He found after awhile that even had he wanted to, he could not speak to her in those moments. Some primal fear stopped him.
Time passed. He felt for the clock with his magic and brought it over to him.
Eight minutes past one. He had to be up in four hours if he was going to be ready for the grand inspection. There wasn’t time for anything but sleep.
He got up anyway. What would be her story tonight, if they crossed paths? At least some of the times, he knew that she met with the other alicorns, and they discussed things that he did not know. He could have accepted it if it was just that. But in no other way had Cadance ever withheld anything from him, and to be stonewalled like this...
“Just a walk,” he told himself as he yawned and stumbled towards the door. “Be back in a bit,” he told no one at all.
Shining stepped out into the palace. He had no destination in mind, so any would do. How had the old saying gone again? No port in a storm? No. Ah, that was it--he smiled as he remembered--”no port is favorable if you do not know where you are going”. Fair enough. He had always interpreted it the opposite of others. If you had no direction, you could never be disappointed. You could find something worth the trip just about anywhere.
So the palatial kitchens were as good a place to go to as any other. One never outgrew the desire for a late night snack, or at least he hadn’t.
He hummed as he walked, hoping to keep at least some of the cloying darkness at bay. He didn’t mind the dark, not really. He didn’t mind being alone it at all. As a cadet and after he had spent plenty of time on guard duty in the dark, walking in the spaces between the torches. He had grown accustomed to feeling the route out by hoof, to the time honored Guard’s walk called Proceeding.It was an automatic sort of gesture, the kind that is best for going blank.
Going blank was another useful skill that he’d learned in the guard. Things overwhelming you? Go blank. Become an empty vessel long enough to get back to your barracks and sleep. Work and live by rote. A pulley does not complain about stress. A pulley moves according to the law in which it was made.
He came to the kitchens and walked through the door.
They should be pitch black this time of night, but a single magitech light near the back was lit. He blinked at it, only moderately interested, and and then walked the maze. Everything smelled of food, that half-delicious, half-repulsive smell that haunts any large kitchen. It reminded him of jobs in the summer, between grades. He’d flipped hayburgers for awhile, and it felt like an eternity ago. Hayburgers to Prince. He chuckled and found the pantry.
Normally, he would have had to contend with at least a half dozen palatial guards at this point, which occurred to him as she ferreted away a bit of bread and found a table tucked away in a side corridor where he assumed the cooks ate quickly when they could.
As he ate, he counted. No, he was sure of it--he’d set the duty roster himself, or at least signed off on it, for the entirety of their lives in the Empire. There should have been six guards between his personal chambers and the kitchens. Six.
Shining was very still.
There were, he knew, a few possible explanations for this.
The first and most harmless was that the latest shift had been shirking duty. Late night games of cards in one of the meeting rooms, perhaps. It wouldn’t surprise him. He’d done the same thing himself once or twice before he’d been married. Especially if it wasn’t a high priority target you were guarding, a bit of fun kept you from falling asleep or going crazy.
That would be pretty believable. He nodded to himself and took another bite. The only problem was that it was the sort of thing you did on guard duty that was meaningless or redundant, and not when you were down the hall from an Empress.
Attack? He wasn’t sure from who, but it was certainly possible. The Changelings were… different now, he knew. It would not fit their new modus operandi as stated. Not that he absolutely believed their change of heart. It was less because he had reasons at this juncture and more that painful memories die hard.
But he reluctantly ruled them out. Changelings operated stealthily, but they were unlikely. Chrysalis was at large, and Thorax had admitted there were other hives, but the chances of one of those queens bowing to Chrysalis without Thorax having noticed and alerted his new equine friends? He doubted it.
Another bite.
A simple mistake. Not impossible. Highly, highly improbable, but an increasingly restless Shining Armor could imagine a possible world in which the duty rosters had just left off an important segment of time. It was technically, mechanically possible.
And he didn’t believe it, which is why he got up from his table and took the bread with him as he headed back into the halls. Tonight was not a night for Cadance to be wandering. They needed to solve this together, even if it were only a bit of oversight.
The halls were dark. Even with the light he summoned to give him better visibilty, they seemed almost to writhe with darkness, as if it were a living thing that clawed after him, desperate to take and devour, desperate to feast.
He picked up the pace. She was not found in the high floors, in the vaults. He did not find her near the armory, nor did he find any guards.
None. The armory, the most secure place besides his own bedroom and the garrison, completely devoid of protection. It was a miracle that he kept his composure at all.
He went into a full run, not crying out despite his wishes. If this were some sort of plot, he had obviously not been intended to discover it so quickly, and he wanted them content to work without feeling the need to look for him.
The garrison was below, attached to the palace at the first floor and on the second by a bridge. He would make for the bridge.
Where could she be? Where was she? Shining’s heart beat wildly in his chest. He imagined her many possible fates and had he the time to spare, he might have trembled in horror. Yet he also knew she was strong. She was far stronger, magically, than he was by virtue of her nature, even if all that power was not nearly as honed. She could take care of herself. She had before. Shining had to hold on to that.
Somewhere before the door, before the walkway across to the garrison, he turned a corner and found a walking guard horn-first and they went sprawling on the floor. Shining was up in a fine battle stance, legs spread and horn bared that he might meet any charge.
But instead of a changeling drone or some roaring invader he only found a short earth pony mare laying dazed on the ground, obviously confused. She stumbled to her hooves.
“Your Grace! I’m so, so sorry! I didn’t see you coming…”
Shining must have worn a fearsome countenance, for she flinched and her ears flattened as she, too, took a defensive stance.
He blinked and then took a deep breath. “Where are the rest of you? Where is your unit, legionary?”
She babbled. “Sir! I’m only an auxilia, sir. The Empress ordered the First to not send any patrols tonight!”
Shining pulled her up and dusted her off with his magic, brusquely but helpfully. He wanted to shake her like a ragdoll until she started making sense, but that wasn’t proper for a Prince or for a commander. He needed to hold on to decorum to hold on to himself. Just for a bit.
“Why are you here?”
“Legate decided that we should at least have somepony in the building. I was headed to the armory to sit at the desk until morning…”
He covered his eyes, took a deep breath, and shook his head. “Go back. Tell the Legate that I apologize, but that I want a full night’s watch on as soon as he can. There has been a serious miscommunication.”
“Right! Y-yes sir.”
“I’m sorry for startling you. Stay vigilant.” He saluted, she saluted, and like that she had scampered off back towards the garrison.
He turned, not sure where to go or what to do. This was probably something very, very simple. His sleep and adrenaline addled mind had simply missed some vital point. As he walked back towards his own room, he cracked a strange smile. He’d gotten used to normal hours. Nopony used to normal hours thought clearly after midnight.
He had just entered through the great double doors and was in the drawing room when he saw her.
Cadance sat stiffly on a chair near the door leading to their more personal apartments. He saw her eyes first, glittering like watchfires. He saw the rest of her next, not just stiff but prepared. Alert, in the way a cat about to spring was. Nervous, perhaps. But even as he thought it, even as he opened his mouth, he knew that it was not nervousness but something else.
“I was just looking for you,” he said.
How had he missed her? One moment the room was empty and he was alone. The very next, she had been perched upon the chair, as if only then did she wish him to see her. Even now her positioning was perfect in the darkness of their rooms, out of the way of any stray moonlight. A lamp flicked on and he saw the tail end of her magic’s aura on its pullcord. Now he saw her without the dark intervening, and yet her eyes continued to bore into him. They continued to shine like a cats.
“I took a walk to clear my head,” his wife replied slowly. “I have trouble sleeping sometimes.”
Her voice was flat. A challenge. He thought of a tiger walking along the edge of its cage. Where was this feeling coming from? Why did he feel like he’d been caught doing something wrong?
“I know. I wasn’t here when you got back… I guess I worried you. I’m sorry, dear,” he managed. There was a lump in his throat. What was this? Work stress? Sleep-deprivation?
She sized him up, and Shining had no idea how to take it. “No, I knew you were somewhere in the palace still,” she said in a strange breathy way. It gave Shining a little chill and he did not know why. “I always know. It’s late. Will you come to bed?”
He almost said no. He wasn’t sure why he said it, why he wanted to deny her, but it was foolish. He shook his head, and then cleared his throat. “Of course. We both have to get up and work in the morning.”
When he woke in the morning, she was nuzzling under his chin. Something like worry squirmed in his chest, the holdover of a dream that had already begun to fade. He stirred, and she murmured something with the honeyed voice he’d come to love.
“Good morning, dear,” he whispered.
She kissed his chin and grumbled a good morning in response. Shining looked down, and for a moment their eyes met as his wife smiled at him.
He saw the sharp eyes glittering in the dark.
And then it was morning again, and there were no mysteries.
They had breakfast, leisurely and happy. Thorax and his antics had amused Flurry until Sunburst arrived, and then the two of them took her to play in the garden. Shining had performed an inspection of Center’s resident legions and watch and the Empress had met with her counselors before a session of the Imperial senate. They had lunch. They had dinner. It was a normal day.
He lay down to sleep and did not dream of eyes in the dark.
But the days went on and on, and eventually he found that he could not put those eyes from his mind forever. He could not totally forget that strange feeling. And as the month ended, he realized that it was not so strange. He knew it by name.
He had been afraid.
Another night, and he sat in his office. It was late, and he’d already sent a runner up to inform Cadance that he would be taking dinner at work. Not that he’d eaten yet, of course. There was too much to do. Modernizing an archaic force was not easy, especially with an officer corps firmly rooted in the past and partially built by a megalomaniac. The old tactics he could easily replace. The old spirit had proved harder. Sombra’s army was not like Equestria’s. It had been built for conquest and repression, and the peaceful duties of a nation with no outstanding wars did not entirely agree with it. He’d suspected that rooting out the cancerous influence of Sombra in the city’s watch would take time, but he felt like there hadn’t been any progress at all.
He put down the reports and held his head in his hooves. He’d been on the streets too, once. He could read between the lines of every carefully-worded account. These guards needed to be punished, but his legs were tied. The whole system was built on predictable order, and he’d already shaken them simply by putting barriers on their use of force.
Shining groaned and laid his head on his desk.
All that he wanted was to leave, turn out the light, and go up to his own bed. Cadance would be half-asleep by now, no doubt. She’d be glad to see him. It would be warm and inviting.
That was when he noticed the calendar. The fifteenth. Glittering eyes in the dark. He had a feeling that if he were to return, that she would not be there. She would be somewhere else.
He spent a moment, perhaps, staring at the date. It was always the same day. Cadance simply vanished. Guards never saw her come or go. Maids and servants never had any answers for him. The Empress of the Crystal Empire simply vanished and nopony at all could say where she might have gone.
He hated not knowing.
Shining Armor reached out and tapped the bell on his desk. It rang, and after a pause, a young clerk poked his head into the office.
“Bellweather, would you mind sending a runner to go knock on my door? No worries about waking Princess Cadance.”
The clerk nodded. “Of course sir. Would you like them to send along a message as well?”
He smirked. This was foolish. Why was he doing this? “Oh, just that I’ll be along shortly, and that I’m looking for an excuse to put this off until the morning.”
The clerk chuckled. “Yes, your Highness.”
The door closed.
He read reports. A half hour passed, and Bellweather opened his door without preamble. Shining looked up and read confusion there in the way his brows knit together.
“Ah, I’m sorry to disturb you, but…”
“She’s not back yet,” Shining finished.
“No, she is not. The runner reported that no one answered. He seemed a little worried, and I confess I am to. Do you mean that you know where she is?”
He almost told the truth. “Yes,” he said instead. “I was just wondering if she had returned yet from business in the south. Everything’s fine, Bellweather. You can go ahead and go home for the night. Thank you for working this late.”
“I’m happy to help,” said the almost comically relieved young stallion, and with a bow he left.
Shining sat alone in his office and thought.
Cadance slipped back into her apartments by the window and found them empty.
She felt better. She felt the wild, fey mood leaving her and her normal disposition returning. It was always strange, settling back into a different and gentler self. Aunt Celestia had always expressed distaste for it, and Aunt Luna had reveled, but Cadance found she enjoyed every state of her being. As much as she enjoyed these nights and the Cadance who lived in them, she also enjoyed fully the Cadance who gossiped with the maids and sang songs to her sweet little Flurry. And Flurry would join them eventually, though neither of her Aunts were sure when that would happen.
She hummed and trotted around the room with a giggle. So much energy! Even if the rest of her mood had passed, the restlessness and the daring had not. Almost she was tempted to fly off into the night and race through the streets. If it weren’t for an early start in the morning, she might have.
She thought of Shining then. Poor Shining. She would let him sleep in tomorrow. He was working down in the garrison, going through reports no doubt. She’d left not long after he’d sent his regrets about dinner. She was sorry to miss him, but it was better that way.
Thinking about last month drained some of her glee, and she sat on the edge of her bed.
He’d always asked. Vividly, she recalled the first Night, when she’d returned and found him searching everywhere for her. He’d been so worried! And in spite of herself, in spite of what night it was, she had regretted that. She hated to worry him as much as she hated to keep things from him. Both felt wrong.
And he kept asking! Even after she finally told him she was meeting with the others, he still pressed for months and months. Then, it had seemed as if he had finally come to terms with her secrecy and stopped caring…
Only to find him wandering the halls again.
She sighed and laid back on the bed. Maybe he had just been antsy? Shining having trouble sleeping wasn’t the end of the world. It didn’t mean he was starting up his little investigation again. It certainly didn’t mean she would have to put her walls back up just as she was starting to truly enjoy letting her mane down once in awhile.
As if to prove it, if only to herself, she did not put her illusory charm back on. She remained as she was, and didn’t even think of disguising herself until she laid down for bed at last.
Shining came in not long after she laid down for the night, and she greeted him with a purr and a kiss. But he was exhausted, and it showed, and she let him be. Snuggling up to him, she felt grateful for what she had.
On the morning of the fifteenth, Shining and Cadance were drinking coffee on the balcony.
It was a lovely day. Fall was in full force, and ponies were still enjoying the weather before the legendary winters of the north ruled again. Peasants from the countryside bringing in crops was a constant sight these days, and Shining had had his hooves full keeping traffic flowing and the city fed.
But today? Today wasn’t a day for all of that. This morning was just for the two of them. There was no senate today, and no pressing issues of state. The guard could take care of itself.
Perfection, unfortunately, wasn’t quite yet in her grasp. Shining had seemed distracted all morning.
So she did her duty as a wife and friend, and threw a slice of coffee cake at his head.
He almost didn’t catch it, but his reflexes were too sharp and his magic halted her sugary missile. He stared at her, bewildered, and she stuck her tongue out at him.
“Did you get any sleep last night?” she asked with a catlike grin. “I mean, I know we were busy, but…”
He stared at her, apparently baffled.
“Or is it work?” she asked. “Because if it is, Shining Armor, then I’ll remind you that we’re taking a break. I’m your boss as well as your wife, Mr. Captain of the Guard, and if I have to write up an order so you’ll relax, I will!”
“I… yeah.” He chuckled, but it sounded forced.
She frowned. “Maybe the cake was a bit much. Sorry if I spooked you, honey. I knew you’d catch it. Remember when Twilight did that when we were dating?”
“You mean when dates meant doing homework while you kept Twilight from experimenting on the houseplants?” Shining asked, and his smile evened out into something more natural. “Yeah, I remember her upending my plate in an escape attempt. Where was she going?”
“The Museum opened that late night exhibit, something about ‘Exploring the Secrets of the Old Colony’. You know, the bat pony settlement? I actually saw it the next day. It was pretty neat.”
He nodded, and then slumped back in his seat and regained some of his distant air. “Yeah, that was it.”
“Is it work?” she asked again. “Joking aside, if you want to talk about it… I know it’s been hard, and hasn’t gotten easier.”
He looked at her. He really, really looked at her. Cadance’s concern morphed more properly into worry.
“Did something happen? You seemed really stressed yesterday…”
“It’s nothing,” he said.
She pursed her lips. “I’m not so sure. You’ve been on edge for weeks! It’s why I made sure neither of us were busy today. It was the only day I could arrange us both to have absolutely clear schedules, and I’m not going to let it go to waste. What is it?”
Shining avoided her gaze, but she knew he would talk. Even if it took a bit more prodding, he always talked. Shining Armor’s honesty had been one of the qualities that had drawn them together in the first place.
“It’s just… I’ve had trouble clearing my mind,” said her husband at last. He pointed at his head. “Just a lot of thoughts swirling around, and I haven’t had much time to just chill. Today will probably do me some good.”
She smiled. It wasn’t the most complete answer, but it was technically an answer. She took it.
“I think so too! It’s why I picked out some awesome disguises.”
He blinked. “You did… what?”
“Disguises, dummy. Wanna see?” She tittered. “They’re great, trust me. A little bit of illusion magic should make them perfect.”
He stiffened, and she put on her best pout to head off his protest at the pass.
“What do you mean?” he asked slowly.
“Shiney… c’mon, it’ll be fun. You and me and not a single guard to follow us around! There’s an awesome show downtown tonight.”
“An awesome show.”
“Yup.” She was practically bouncing in place. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way, but you have to promise not to be a stick in the mud about it.”
That hit something. He scowled and stood. “Me? A stick in the mud? Since when?”
“So no ‘but Cady it’s not safe!’ and no ‘but what about security?’, no anything like that. You have to promise me.”
He smirked and her heart melted. “I think if I’m with you I won’t worry about either. Show me what you have in mind.”
What she had in mind was ridiculous, but Shining couldn’t help but enjoy it.
Being in the spotlight did grate after awhile. Sure, he could escape into work in a way that his sister and wife couldn’t--the reporters weren’t keen on visiting a military stallion in his own office for some reason--but he was only a pony and the pressure did build up. Walking through the street without a single pony recognizing him was a novelty, and a fun one.
Cadance looked so different. She was an excitable pegasus with a big camera and an obvious tourist’s manner. Her comically large sunhat drooped, her ludicrously large sunglasses took up half of her face, and she took pictures of everything worth taking pictures of with abandon.
He rolled his eyes, but smiled anyway as they headed towards the park. His hooves ached, and a lazy picnic in the grass sounded like a great return to younger days to him.
“Why the pictures?” he asked. “You see most of those things every day.”
“Shiney,” she whispered, bumping into him, “it’s all about staying in character.”
“I was never great at acting.”
“Yeah,” she groused. “I noticed. But you’re having fun, right? The ice cream was good.”
He chuckled. “It was. It’s kinda like being back in Canterlot again, huh?”
She nodded, and then trotted out in front of him and stopped. She gestured, flaring her wings, and behind her Shining saw the wide green expanse of the city’s largest park.
“And this time, we don’t have to bring Twilight along if we want to enjoy the park in the afternoon. So I’d say it’s a lot better than it was when we were kids. Race?”
He laughed. “To what?”
“There’s a hill in the middle. It’s got a monument on it. You can’t miss it.”
“Then you’re--”
But she had already taken to the air. Shining wasted no time. He bolted into the park.
It was late by the time the couple returned to the Palace, laughing. It had been a full day, and a good one, and Shining had forgotten all about his question. The very idea of asking seemed impossible and unnecessary. All of his worries and angst had been nerves from overwork and nothing more than that. Here he had had an absolutely wonderful day with Cadance. A very normal, not secretive, not unsettling Cadance.
They hurried up to their room, and collapsed into bed together. Shining stole a long, lazy kiss and she groaned.
“I’m exhausted,” she said.
“Same. Thank you for today.”
“No, thank you, Mr. Captain of the Guard,” she answered teasingly. “After all, you had to keep up with me all day! Imagine what I would have done without your watchful eye!”
“I can imagine a few things. Like stage-diving, for instance.”
“It would have been fun,” she said.
“Probably,” he said, a bit unfocused. Exhausted or not, whatever she claimed, it was obvious his wife still had plenty of energy. She was still bouncing. “I guess alicorns get a bit more energy than the rest of us,” he said.
She stopped, and looked at him sharply. “What?”
“Just that you seem like you could run--” he yawned. “Sorry. You could run a race. A marathon, I mean.”
“Oh! Heh, no, it’s just the jitters after the music. I haven’t been to a real show since I was babysitting Twilight, it feels like.”
Shining grumbled something about her forgetting the time he’d taken her to see Sapphire Shores and before he knew it he had begun drifting in and out as Cadance stroked his hair and they lay together in bed.
Half-awake, he almost missed it when she began to move.
To her credit, she did so carefully and even gracefully. With slow movements she untangled herself and edged towards the bed. He stirred, and she stopped. He was still and she moved.
Through one eye he saw her flare out her wings and stand in the moonlight. She was different again. Taller? No. Physically she was the same. But the way she held herself was different.
His question bubbled to the surface of his mind again. It burned.
“Cadance?”
She whirled to face him, eyes wide.
“Honey?”
Shining sat up.
“You’re going again.” It wasn’t a question.
“I thought you were asleep,” she said.
“I was. Almost.”
She paused. Looking at her was a strange experience. It was like watching ice melt, catching it halfway through changing from one thing into another. Second to second she wore a different expression.
“You should go back to bed,” she said after a moment.
“I’m wide awake now.”
“Honey--”
“Cadance, can I ask you a question?”
She took a deep breath. “I’m just going for a little flight. I’ll even go get a guard.”
“No, not that.”
“Then what?” She fidgeted. It was clear she was on the verge of leaving regardless.
“Why do you have the teeth of a predator?”
Whatever she had expected, it was not this. Cadance flinched back as if struck. She tried to cover--she tried to act as if she was merely confused, but Shining saw it and he pressed his advantage.
“Cady, why do you have teeth like--”
“I heard you,” she said. She swallowed. “What do you mean?”
“I saw them.”
She opened her mouth. All flat, no sharp canines to be seen. “See?” she said.
“Undo the illusion.”
She shook her head. “There isn’t an illusion. You had a dream--”
“Remember when I had to work late, a few weeks ago?”
Cadance shook her head. Her movements became quicker, more and more as if she were watching somepony bring forth rope to bind her and less as if she were talking to her husband. “No,” she said firmly. “You’ve done that a lot. I don’t--”
“You know. It was the fifteenth. I decided to leave the rest for the morning and went back to our rooms. You had just gotten back.”
She froze.
She really froze. There was no expression of shocked revelation or sputtering protest. Her eyes glittered in the darkness as they had before, like a cats. Like a predators. Shining’s mind went wild. His imagination broke its leash and ran on ahead of him into the realm of nightmares as the illusion dropped around his wife, as her aura washed over her and seemed to change nothing at all until she opened her mouth to speak, and then he saw them, teeth sharp for the tearing of flesh.
“So you were there.”
Her voice was flat as it had been the night she’d waited for him in the drawing room.
“I was,” he said. “I was awake the whole time, and I had just closed the door and stepped into the drawing room when you flew in the door. You didn’t notice. I was going to say something, and then I saw them.”
“You spied on me.”
It stung. He had. It was true, and any excuse he could muster would just emphasize the truth that he had in fact spied on her like a skulking traitor. He hadn’t let the matter go. He had refused to let his wife have her one and only privacy.
“Not intentionally,” he said, and it sounded hollow. “Not at first.”
She blinked. She said nothing. Cadance waited for what would come next, and even as he held the upper hoof, Shining still felt like he was the prey. This was his sweet wife, and yet he felt suddenly as if he hopped aboard a tiger and made as if to ride it around town.
Shining cleared his throat.
“What do you do on the fifteenth every month? Sometimes you say you’re on a walk. Sometimes you just can’t sleep. Sometimes you’re honest and say you’re meeting with the Princesses… but you’ll never tell me what its about.”
“It isn’t for you to know.”
She said it by rote. She’d said it before, years before, when he’d let it rest.
“Maybe. But I have trouble believing that,” he said. “I was Captain before. Now I’m a Prince. What could be so important, so secret, that I can’t be apart of it? You leave at the same time, you come back in the dead of night. You refuse to answer when I ask about it. And when I’ve crossed paths with you, you seemed different. And now… And now this.” He gestured, and then instantly regretted it.
She didn’t answer.
Shining Armor wilted. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “Cadance, I shouldn’t have spied on you. I shouldn’t have kept pushing. At first I was suspicious that it had to do with Chrysalis or that there was something… I don’t know, bad going on. But nothing explicitly evil has happened, and the whole changeling thing…” He faltered. “I ruled that out a year ago.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Then show me,” he said. “Show me. You’re headed there now, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
He took a deep breath. “Why do you have teeth like that? Why do you go somewhere else in the middle of the night every month? Where are you going and what do you do? Nothing can be worse than what I’ll dream up if I don’t know. Cadance, I’m sorry I spied on you but we can’t go back to some kind of status quo. I have to know. We both know I have leverage now, and we both know that I would never, ever use it. I can’t make you take me with you.”
“But if I don’t…” Cadance didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t have to.
They stared at each other.
“You’re certain?” asked the alicorn at length. “You’re certain, completely certain, nothing could make you back down?”
“If you asked me, I would go back to bed. But I would never forget it.”
“You’ve always been hard to shake,” she said softly. “Knowing won’t make you feel better.”
“I had a feeling you’d say that,” Shining said.
“Then come. We’re meeting here this month. In the dining hall, the one on the fourth floor. I’ve cleared the floor of guards. Everyone who knows is there already. Everyone but myself. I told them I would be late tonight. I wanted to spend the day with you.”
Shining winced.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked at him. Or through him, really.
“I know you are,” she said. “I suspect you’ll be more sorry in a few moments. I suspect we will both be sorry.”
She gestured with her head, and he followed her.
They walked the halls together, her leading and him following. There was no conversation. Would they have even had anything to talk about? Shining had never worried about his marriage before, and now he was starting to do so in earnest. What was he getting into?
The walk to the dining hall was agony. Every echo was a plaintive cry for him to turn back, to stick his head into the sand and not ask anymore questions.
But then she was pushing the doors open, and he had no other choice.
Princess Celestia and her sister were there at the long table. Twilight was there, across from them. A batpony was in the middle of pouring wine for them. Otherwise, it was an empty dining hall.
All three alicorns stood, startling the poor batpony maid who almost lost control of the bottle of wine. Luna caught it in her magic without turning her eyes from the door.
“You brought company,” Celestia said. Somehow she managed to project her voice without ever raising it. Shining shivered.
They all looked like thieves caught in a heist. No, not like that. Like wolves scared off from a kill. They all had those teeth.
“Shiney?” Twilight seemed to shy away from his gaze. “What are you doing here?”
“I’d like to know the same. Cadance, what--”
“He knows part of it already,” his wife said. “It’s better to just… tear the bandage off. Let him sit at the table, Aunt.”
“You know the rules,” Celestia said. “You know he can’t leave. He’ll have to stay until we’re done, and he’ll have to be here every night.”
“He does?” Twilight turned to her. Her wings half-unfurled as if she might bolt. “Is that… is that really, um, is that…”
“Necessary, Twily?” Cadance asked. “Very. It’s a rule older than both of us. Everyone and everypony who knows has to be here every time, so that none of them can lead anyone else. It has to remain secret.”
“And it will. Shining Armor, come here,” Celestia said.
Shining didn’t hesitate, mostly because he was barely moving himself at that point. He obeyed by sheer force of habit.
He marched past the others. Luna watched him like a hawk. Twilight didn’t seem to want to look at him.
“Stand at attention, Captain,” Celestia purred.
He did so.
“Need I swear you to secrecy? Magically bind you to it?” She looked him over. She licked her lips and Shining flinched. He shook his head. “No, I thought not. I have had many Captains, Shining Armor, and all of them were good ponies. You are no different. I was a bit sad to have you leave.” She glanced over at Cadance. “But here you are, returned to my sphere of privileged information. And you are family now, after all. Has she told you anything yet?”
“No, Your Grace.”
“Here, you may call me what you like. I prefer my name.”
“Y-yes’m.”
“That’s a bit better. Cadance, it was wise of you not to prepare him, but perhaps a bit cold.”
Cadance had taken her seat. “Sorry, Auntie. I was… I was a bit put out.”
“I understand.” She shifted her eyes back to Shining and he felt small. “You will find it unpleasant.”
“So I, uh, gathered,” he said.
“I would offer you wine, but I think you might want to hold off this time. You cannot leave, and you cannot speak of this even to us outside of this room. We like to compartmentalize our lives.” She smiled. “Part of me is glad to have you here. Please sit. We’re about to have dinner.”
Shining turned stiffly and sat beside his wife. They kept an uncomfortable distance between them.
The doors to the kitchen opened and a griffon led a group of batponies carrying covered dishes. Celestia greeted him as an old friend, fawning over him. “Oh, Jaques! It’s been too long.”
“Only a month, my lady,” the griffon said with a bow. “Ah, I did not cook for five!”
Luna chuckled. “He won’t be having any.”
“T-thank you, Jaques,” Twilight said. “I’m sure that, uh, I’m sure it’ll be as good as last month.”
“I have no doubt! Now, if I might?”
Celestia nodded. There was a great dish in the center of the table and with a flourish he uncovered it.
Shining gaped. “What? What is it?”
Celestia looked at him across the table with something like a sad smile, her teeth sharp for what lay ahead. “Alicorns have needs,” she said. “And it’s mutton.”
