After my encounter with what could believably be called my natural predator, I had remained frozen for a long while.

So long in fact I almost got exposed by Shining, had I not had my subconscious instincts slap me out of it at the first sign of danger.

“Cadi? Are you alright?” he said, his voice slightly strained.

“... you’re not the one who should be asking that.” I say as I turn to see his tired eyes.

“Sorry, keeping a spell up for this long is uncomfortable, I’m starting to get headaches, I don’t think I can keep this spell up anymore than I have.”

Great! If he drops the spell then I won’t need to worry about a shield.

Wait, CRAP! If the shield goes down they might bring in Luna, or Celestia might use her own shield instead, or worse, the wedding will have to be delayed! And I don’t know a spell! Come on Chrysalis, think! This is clearly mental stress, how does one relieve stress and tension? I slowly blink as an idea comes to mind.

I smirked as I proceeded to trot over to him, head lowering. “Cadence? What are you doing?”

“I’m helping~.” I purred as I nuzzled his cock out and proceeded to fellate him.

“C-Cadi~!! Oh buck that feels good!” he groaned out as I sucked off the hard working stallion.

I was not being left high-and-dry either, getting a nice lustful mouthful of future husband love was very tasty and very pleasurable as I ran my tongue across his medial ring.

“Oh Ponyfeathers~! Cadi if you keep that up I’m gonna…”

Already? Well I guess either my little rutting-session with him and Segmenta the night before last really drained him or… no matter, it’s still gonna be tasty~. I concluded before working to coax out his climax.

“Oooh~!!” he managed to groan out as I was able to get a very orgasmic helping of liquid love.

I pulled back, licked my lips, and almost broke character until I noticed to my surprise that he was still on his feet, a goofy smile on his face and a vacant stare in his eyes.

“Feeling better, honey?” I asked.

“Mhm…” he nodded before shaking his head a bit. “Wait… oh wow, I actually do feel better! how’d you know?”

“Well it was clear the issue wasn’t fatigue but mental stress, you didn’t have a drop of sweat on you, and you didn’t have bags under your eyes so you clearly slept well, so maintaining the spell is clearly just causing psychological pressure in the form of stress.”

He blinked a few times before tilting his head in confusion. “huh?”

“Brain stuff I needed to learn to make sure I didn’t screw up my duties as the princess of love.” I bullshitted flawlessly. “All you need to concern yourself about is if you ever start getting a headache again, come find me and I’ll suck you off again.”

“Really? No matter what?” he said incredulously.

“No matter what.” I confirmed before kissing him on the cheek and sending him on his way.

On his way out I had to hold in a laugh as the guard stationed outside my door seemed to have overheard, and muttered to Shining. “You. Lucky. Bastard.”

Unlike the hectic panic that I was dealing with these past few days, I now had all the preparations in hand for the events. this important factor meant I could take a moment to kick back and relax, which is what I happily intended to do in the royal gardens, on a beach chair, soaking in the sun with my nice apple-juice drink… fucking love apples.

My Queen, the barrier is causing more trouble than expected.

And there it is… what now… wait who am I speaking too? You don’t sound like Stag.

I’m Th-Thorax, My Queen, and Stag is part of the reason I’m informing you, he attempted to use his body and some shapeshifting to force a hole open by way of becoming a stone gate. He started to explain.

And how did that go?

When he shifted back to his true form midway through the shield in order to turn into the archway, he ended up bisected with his front half on the outside… luckily a medical team was nearby to stabilise him and the cut was clean so simple regenerative spells will fix him up… but until then he’s in a medically induced coma so he doesn’t feel all the pain he should be in.

I had to try… REALLY HARD… not to wince externally at that, now I know that the shield is constantly making checks, meaning it won’t even be as easy as simply transforming my army into accepted guests and flooding them in, because then the spell would know something was up if it let Fancy Pants enter three times in a row. Pondering, I took a sip of my juice box.

*suuuuuuck*

Hm… tastes sweeter for some reason, oh well… so we need more numbers inside, but we can’t get them from outside… is Compound still undercover?

Yes, My Queen.

I need her to go into the archives room and look in the section with all the older spells, more specifically, I need her to find the spell ‘Similo Duplexis’ and begin distributing the instructions on how to cast it through the hive-mind, from what I remember it is a form of cloning spell.

Of course, thank you My Queen!

And thank you, show knowledge!! I dropped the link and relaxed back, taking another sip of my strange-tasting juice.

“Ahh~!!” I blink, my mind informing me very clearly that juice boxes don’t moan.

I glanced down with confused eyes to find a unicorn groundskeeper in my grip as I was sucking something from her horn.

What is that, it’s so odd, and it has a little spark to it like—

I blink in shock as I glance to her eyes to see them become faded, and then to her cutie mark, seeing it disa—

“OH MY FAUST!” I yelled as I release her and back off, realizing what had happened and what I had just swallowed. “AUNT CELESTIA!!” I cry out as loudly as I could, the white alicorn arriving immediately.

“My dear niece, what troubles—”

“I need you to make me throw up!” I demanded, causing her to throw her head back in surprise.

“...wut?”

“NO TIME TO EXPLAIN! MAKE ME THROW UP! NOW!”

Seeing my desperation, my ‘Aunt’ panicked and delivered a hard kick to my stomach, making me eject out a pile of glowing vomitus onto the ground, which slowly formed into a wisp and returned to the unicorn, who promptly got the buck out of there.

“... I trust you can explain now?” Celestia said in concern and… I think a hint of fear.

“I… I didn’t realize what I was doing!” I said, tears in my eyes as I realized what I had done and who I had imitated. “I was relaxing with some juice I-I didn’t realize she came up to me until a little later and by the time her eyes were faded and-”

“Shh, shh, it’s okay, it’s okay now Cadence…” she pulled me close into a wing-hug, her less potent, motherly affection flowing from her body into me was not as intense as Shining’s romantic love, it was subdued, yet the subtle flavors let it stand out better, and the sensation was merely a gentle, soothing warmth. In no time at all I was relaxed as she gave me quiet and gentle reassurances.

“What… what did I do?” I said, playing dumb as I knew exactly what happened, but knew I shouldn’t.

“You drained magic from her, it was a practice used long ago by Grand Magus to boost their power, but in almost all cases they only took partial amounts and left a remainder so the donor could recharge, it wasn’t until a Centaur named Tirek that for the first time a unicorn was completely drained intentionally.” She patted my shoulder gently. “And he was the only creature to do so, you are not the first pony to make that mistake, and I’m proud that in your realization you put yourself at risk to help her… but next time, just use your magic to guide what you took out of your body.”

“I can do that?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

“Of course, It’s simple telekinesis, another’s magic won’t mix with yours unless you want it to, so you can still isolate it and bring it out without issue.”

“Huh… neat…”

“Now, is that all?”

“No… thanks Auntie… love you!” I say without thinking.

She pauses and looks at me, her face unreadable for a solid minute before it gave that telltale smile. “I… love you too, my niece.” she replies, a small surge of that motherly affection appearing from her… but also pain, guilt, and fear, as she turned away to fly up.

This was clearly something hurting her, if it festered it could lead her to alienating herself through professionalism, in fact the weeds of discontent had already sprouted with how distant she decides to be with Twilight… as one currently assuming the role of the Princess of Love it is my duty to help her, but as my true role of Queen of the Green Changeling Hive...

I could let her get away, I should let her get away! This isn’t my aunt! She’s my enemy, my arch-nemesis of a ruler, opponents of a war she is too cowardly to fight for, let my people starve! I don’t care for her! I don’t I don’t I don’t-

“WAIT!” I called out, against my better judgement. In my train of poor decisions, I even held her wings down so she couldn’t fly off before I got to her. “I… I saw the pain you were feeling… I can’t let you do this to yourself.”

“...is it obvious?” She smiled. “With my sister back I keep being reminded that instead of the love I should’ve given her, I pushed her away and left her to—”

“It’s not about Luna.” I interjected, causing her to actually flinch.

Yeah, that’s right Celestia, your half-truths and double speak aren’t going to work on a queen of deception! Plus I can totally taste that shame from being dishonest.

“Despite what you’d wish it to be, your conflict with your sister doesn’t weigh on you, you’ve had time to reconcile and work through the problems, at best you’re worried about how she continues to beat herself up about it.” She winces as I pick apart what happened. “Despite how that concern might weigh on your spirit, that isn’t why you’d feel such pain when I said that I love you… no, this is about Somepony you can’t reach, one that left with bitterness still in her heart as she disappeared to somewhere outside of your influence… this is about Sunset Shimmer.” She was silent, but couldn’t bear to look me in the eye. “You gave that pony a home and made her feel wanted and destined for greater things, that’s your regret, how you fueled that ambition and arrogance in a child and made her feel betrayed when you couldn’t give her that destiny, and it hurt to see that you had betrayed her considering your relationship… and that’s why you always adopt ponies as your nieces and nephews, so you can stay detached!”

“Stop…” She said, visibly shaking.

“When are you going to stop pushing ponies away? How long are you going to seal off your heart because you don’t want to feel again!”

“I said stop…” she was firmer, a silent rage building.

“Or maybe you’re worried the moment you give a pony a cuddle, they’ll end up an entitled bitch like Sunset was—”

“DO NOT DARE SPEAK OF MY DAUGHTER SO ILL!!” She snapped, hair ablaze with fury as her wings loomed over like claws.

But I had no fear, I just got what I wanted. “...Daughter, eh?”

All that rage, malicious intent, utter unbarred fury, died with a meek and pathetic whimper, her eyes wide in panic, her mouth slammed shut, and her wings limp. She looked at me and my resolute and knowing expression as tears stung her eyes and she wailed, several years of anguish and pent up sorrow unleashed in a torrent of despair as I said nothing, merely outstretching my hooves so that she could hug me and bleed off all this sadness.

I didn’t mind, sadness was a salty emotion, salty and full of empty calories, so I blocked off my feeding and merely let her feelings wash over me and consoled her. Eventually she calmed, and pulled away, looking at me with a sad smile and tired, red eyes.

“Feel better?”

“...no… no amount of outlet will help me find closure for my actions… but the weight is lighter, thank you Cadence.”

As I saw her torment full force, I decided that in some way, I’d confide in this pony the truth… but only some.

“Auntie… I… there’s something important I need to say.”

“Yes, Cadence? Go ahead and tell me anything.”

“I have to tell you, that me, the true me, no tricks or anything, loves you no matter what, and to prove it I want to give you something to show you that true me when the time comes…”

“And how would you—”

“Cross My Heart and Hope To Fly, stick a cupcake in my eye, it is indeed the truth.” I could see her go visibly paler as I invoked the promise of great power… followed by her simply nodding for me to continue. “I’m going to give you a code-word that I will not speak to anypony else to prove to you who I am: Fluffernutter.”

“Fluffernutter? Well, I guess it will be unexpected… I won’t forget it, Cadence.” she hugged me again and trotted away.

“That was nice, now I just need to wait for—”

“Oh! One more thing, Twilight and her friends are arriving tomorrow! We should be prepared for the ceremony the following day.” She says before she gets out of earshot.

“Oh buck…”

Author's Note

I don't know how to feel about this chapter, so I'd appreciate any constructive feedback.