Dark Pink

Princess Cadance sat on her crystal throne, lazily flipping through the papers in her hand. Most of them were fan letters. Some of them had drawings attached to them. A mental note was made to go through them more deliberately later. It was sweet that the local school kids adored her so much. It brought a certain flutter to her chest… typically. Today was different.

Today, thoughts of her husband plagued her mind. She couldn’t shake what he’d said to her last night. Her heart clenched when she remembered how harsh he’d been. Shiny had never scolded her like that, especially over something as trivial as sex. Ten minutes. That’s all it would have taken. She’d have had to finish herself off anyways.

“Things have changed, Cadance! It’s not like when I used to sneak up to your room in the middle of the night! We didn’t have responsibilities back then! Not like now…”

Like she didn’t know that. An annoyed huff escaped her lips, audible enough that one of the guards beside her throne noticed. He glanced up at her out of the corner of his eye. When Cadance met his gaze, he blushed and quickly looked away. As he cautiously looked back at her, she flashed him a soft smile. He was one of the guards from Canterlot. Dash? Flash. Yes, his name was Flash Sentry. He was one of the zephyr guards from Canterlot. “I’m fine, Guard,” she said sweetly, forcing a smile across her lips. She wasn’t fine. He could probably tell. She was bad at hiding her emotions. She put a hand on her chest and took a deep breath. “I think the tailor got my size wrong again. I can barely breathe in this thing.” That was a lie. While the dress was a tiny bit tighter than she’d like around the chest, it wasn’t all that uncomfortable.

His blush got even deeper as he whipped his head in the opposite direction. So cute. His wings even ruffle up a bit. He was pretty young, so maybe it was wrong to tease him like that. It was just too fun not to. It seemed like all the other guards were used to it, or they were trained not to react.

“I can relate, Your Highness.”

What? She… She hadn’t expected a response. “I’m… sorry?” she asked dumbly. Now it was her turn to blush. Since when did they talk back?

“Wrong size, Ma’am,” he specified. He looked back at her with a calm smile. His cheeks were still a bit pink, but that didn’t matter. He was smiling at her, just like he would at any other human being. “When I joined the guard, they didn’t have my size armor. My recruit armor was too tight.”

What a sweetheart. Even if he didn’t know what was really wrong, he was still trying to make her feel better. The other guards wouldn’t do that. Shiny wouldn’t, either. Maybe he was special? He had to be. She returned his smile in short order. “You’re sweet. I’m glad someone else knows my pain,” she said softly. “Sentry, was it?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

This was a terrible idea. She shouldn’t. She was going to, anyway. She needed someone to talk to. “Would you please escort me back to my chambers? I’d like to change.”

His face flushed red again, no doubt imagining her in the process of changing. Poor thing, he was way too easy to read. Many women would happily take advantage of that. Regardless of his embarrassment, he offered a quick nod and hoisted his rifle to his shoulder. Oh, he had the new model. That was impressive, especially considering that his rank insignia told her he was just a private. Shiny had told her that only the best marksmen in the guard got the new auto-loading repeaters. It was a pretty rifle too, with a solid walnut stock, as well as a brass-finished barrel, action and furniture. The steel on the infantry models was blued.

“Thank you, Private Sentry.”

♥X♥X♥<

The two of them walked silently for a while. Cadance couldn’t stop smiling. She’d never done something like this before. Granted, she wasn’t actually doing anything wrong, but it felt like it. Even the act of being friendly to this guard felt like she was betraying her husband. She was only inviting him back to chat with, maybe play some chess with her. It wasn’t as if she were planning to seduce him.

Oh… but she could do that.

All at once, Cadance’s body heated up. Her dress very quickly started to feel like a sauna, and she felt a familiar itch in her nether region. She very well could seduce Pvt. Sentry. He was young. Even if he was a royal guard in his early twenties, there’s no way he was in total control of his hormones. But even further, she could order him to sleep with her and then swear him to secrecy. Or, if she wanted to be cruel, she could frame him for raping her.

She couldn’t do that to him, though. She couldn’t do that to Shining Armor, either. The only thing he’d done was his job. She couldn’t be mad at him for that. And Flash, the poor boy, would never be able to focus on his job if she took him to bed. And then there was the psychological aspect of it. Would he expect it again? Would his self esteem plummet? There was no way of knowing.

She quickly, and rather roughly, shook her head to chase off her despicable thoughts. That damn libido of hers was seriously going to get her in trouble one day.

“…Okay, Princess?” All at once, Cadance snapped back to reality with enough force to give her vertigo. When did she stop walking? Flash looked concerned. If fact, the poor private looked downright distressed. His brow was raised and his eyes were flooded with what might’ve been worry.

“I… beg your pardon?”

“I asked if you were okay,” he repeated, his concern visibly growing. “Your face suddenly went red and you looked like you were zoning out… do you need to see a doctor?”

“I…” She couldn’t tell him what she was thinking. And yet, if she went to the doctor, he’d want to run tests. What could she tell him without giving it away? “I’m fine. I was… I just recalled a scene from a novel I’ve been reading. Trashy romance. You know the type, right?”

His eyes shot wide open, wider than they ever should. His back stiffened and he turned away from her. “I don’t read that kind of… literature, but I am aware of it, Your Highness.”

Cadance let out a small giggle, stepping up behind Flash. “You should give it a try, Pvt. Sentry. You might like it.”

“I’ll give it some thought.”

Neither of them said anything after that. They simply continued on the way to Cadance's chambers. It wasn’t a long walk; a single flight of stairs and a bit more walking before they arrived at her door. It was a rather nondescript door, but that was by design. The previous king had apparently chosen this room as his own to further avoid assassination attempts. It seemed far too reasonable for someone the citizens had described as a ‘rabid monster.’

As they came to the door, Cadance turned and flashed a soft smile at the private. “Take up a station here, please,” she said simply, eliciting a nod from her escort. “I’ll let you know when I’m finished.” Another nod. It occurred to her that she may have presented herself as a little too promiscuous in the eyes of the young guard.

Cadance stepped into her room and shut the door behind her, letting out a sigh as she did so. She quickly moved over to the closet and pulled out her go-to normal people clothes. It was a cute outfit, no matter how simple; just a grey hoodie, an old band t-shirt, a black-and-pink-plaid skirt and some fishnets along with combat boots. She made a mental note of the knit cap on the hook in the back of the closet. She planned to head into town later and the hat would help to hide her face.

She reached back to unzip her dress, but she couldn’t seem to get her fingers on the tab. She briefly thought of calling the private in to unzip her, but that might be too much for him. Instead, she mustered together a small amount of magic and used it to pull the zipper down towards her hand. She did the same to undo the snaps the fastened the dress above her wings. Simple things like this made going through the princess transformation ritual worth it. Her wings were, of course, much larger and heavier than they were before the ritual, and magic had taken years for her to wrap her head around, but she’d gotten used to it. As her dress slipped over her shoulders and fell to the floor, she glanced over at the mirror on her vanity.

She saw herself, obviously, but she saw more. As a youth and before the ritual, she had been small and weak. She was pitiful. The fact that she had beaten that witch back then was a miracle in and of itself. It was her wits and courage that had saved her during that trial and had garnered Princess Celestia’s attention. Memories of the first time she’d seen herself after the ritual suddenly resurfaced. She’d felt like the person in the mirror was a stranger. The pointed ears of an elf and the larger muscles of a terran, in addition to her old zephyr wings, all told her that she wasn’t the same anymore. It had hurt back then, to see such a strange person in the mirror.

Even now, as she stood there brazenly in just her panties, vulnerable and cold, she could see the dichotomy with her old self. She liked her new body, now that she was accustomed to it. It was strong, fast and powerful. She never gained weight, regardless of how much she ate (and she was always hungry these days). And yet, she still saw that dichotomy. She wasn’t human anymore. She was something more. Maybe that was why the guards were so nervous around her. She was physically superior to them in every way, so it made sense. She was also taller. That actually might have more to do with it.

It suddenly dawned on her why Shining Armor had been avoiding her. Or rather, a possible reason for his avoidance came to mind. Was he also intimidated by her? She was a good foot taller than him, and stronger to boot. The incident at their wedding flooded back into her memories. Now that she thought about it, it was around that time when he’d started becoming so distant. She’d had to save him. Even further, he’d been tricked and subjugated by that wicked changeling queen. He’d failed to stop a threat and the mighty Princess of Love, Mi Amore Cadenza, then had to come to the rescue. All of that had to have been extremely emasculating for the Captain of Canterlot’s Royal guard. And coming off the heels of his mother’s time in that position, he probably felt like he wasn’t living up to expectations.

She had done that to him.

The first tear came before she even realized that she was upset. It streaked down her right cheek, cold and demanding of her attention like a harsh winter wind. She was, as a lady should be, extremely quick to wipe it away. Another quickly took its place, coming from the other eye. Again, she wiped it away. Another one fell, and she again wiped it away. More and more kept falling, their frequency increasing steadily as they did so. She felt the first whimper rising in her throat and in spite of how hard she was trying to stop it, it leaked out with such a feeble note that one might think a child was in distress. Following that pitiable whine was the first sob, which shook her body with a force not unlike a hard shove. And much like that hard shove, it took her balance from her and caused her to collapse to her knees. She suddenly found her arms wrapped around her torso in a pathetic self-embrace as more and more sobs broke through her previously unbreakable façade. She screamed in her mind for the grief to stop, but that seamed to only make it worse.

“Stop it,” she whimpered, digging her fingers into her arms. The pain didn’t help. If anything, it made it worse. She could feel her sobs as they tried desperately to become anguished wails. She couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t show that kind of weakness, not even here in her own bedchambers. Such was tantamount to admitting defeat. She fell forward onto her hands, and then her elbows when her strength failed her. She pounded her fist on the floor to try and vent, but all that did was hurt her hand. “Stop it!” she screamed, only too late realizing that she’d done so aloud, and that Pvt. Sentry would hear her.

Like any good guard would, the private threw open her door and ran inside, rifle at the ready to deal with whatever threat was present. “Princess, what’s wrong?” he hollered as he came to her side. He placed his hand so delicately on her shoulder. That touch, however gentle, felt like a freight train hitting her, and she fell away. Now on her side, she curled up in a tight ball, even as her sobs shook her body. He asked something else, but Cadance couldn’t make out what he was saying. She could tell when he draped her discarded dress over her body, and when he stood up and started searching the room.

Mustering her strength, she crawled back onto her knees, ignoring her dress as it fell away. She didn’t care about something as petty as decency at the moment. She had to let him know she was okay. As he passed by again, she held out a hand to catch his arm, but he simply slipped past her. She tried to call out to him, but he ignored the infantile whimper that came instead. Finally, as he strode past again, he mentioned something about going to raise the alarm.

“No!” she shouted, causing the private to stop and turn to her. The poor boy looked so confused.

“No?” he asked, lowering his rifle.

“No,” Cadance reiterated. “Close the door and… and come here.”

“B-but…”

“Please…” Something must have clicked for him. Whether it was because his princess was pleading with him, or because of the fact that she was doing so on the floor naked, he obeyed. He shut the door and came over to her. As he kneeled in front of her with his hand outstretched, his face betrayed his worry. He wasn’t embarrassed, annoyed or anything like that. He didn’t even look all that confused, either. He’d put aside her nakedness and his own uncertainty so that he could better serve her. She didn’t need someone to serve her; she needed a hug.

She lunged at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder. His armor was hard, and it wasn’t very comforting, but it was enough. She felt safer-safe enough to cry again. So she did. She cried into his shoulder, and cried even harder when he sat his rifle aside and put his arms around her.