“Shining.”
Shining Armor froze. “Y-Yes, dear?”
Cadance narrowed her eyes at Shining. “Where are you off to?”
“I was just going to the bathroom real quick, is all.” Shining cast his glance off to the side for the briefest of moments.
“Right. A shower wouldn’t happen to be on your itinerary, would it?” Cadance pursed her lips, wings rufling at her sides.
Shining cringed. “It’s that strong, huh?”
Cadance nodded, sighing. “Besides, your muzzle’s still smeared with her snail trail.”
“Ugh, don’t call it that,” Shining said, heaving a shudder.
Cadance shot Shining a stern glare. “Don’t act like you’ve got any say about your comfort here, you’re in trouble; did you honestly think you were going to get away with it without even trying? I’m certain Twilight has at least a towel in her room.”
Shining bowed his head with all the shame of a foal caught stealing from the cookie jar. “I’m sorry! You know how... how it gets sometimes.”
Cadance wanted to shout at Shining for daring to try and flip himself into the position of the victim, but she caught herself.
He is, in a way.
Cadance presented Shining with her best unamused, deadpan look. “I know, honey. But that’s no excuse. You aren’t even trying to sound that sorry. And really, you’re getting too old for this. You’re fifteen now, and she’s eleven. It’s not the same as that stuff like...”
She stumbled over her words slightly. “L-Like when we were foals.”
“I—” Shining gulped. “You’re right.”
I know.
“Do you need my help?” Cadance said. Her voice was soft. “All you have to do is ask.”
“I-I...” Shining hesitated.
“Yes?” Say ‘yes’.
He swallowed. “I need your help.”
“Yes you do,” Cadance agreed curtly. A smile was beginning to cross her face despite herself. “Fortunately for you, I’m always more than happy to help.”
Shining pursed his lips. “Yeah.”
Cadance closed her eyes; a tiny trail of sparkling mana began to creep up along the spiral curve of her horn. Opening her eyes again, she looked up into Shining’s—that beautiful rich blue, like the sky in the late afternoon when they cuddled together in the grass—and she spoke.
“You love me.”
Pressing the tips of their horns together, a burst of energy whose tiny size did nothing to restrain its power pulsed from Cadance to Shining. Cadance felt the deep, resonating vibration of the magic yanking on her insides, turning her stomach in knots—this was a spell that required a lot.
Shining stumbled, struggling to keep his wobbling legs from buckling beneath him. Cadance empathized; the spell took quite a bit from her, too.
“I-I love you,” Shining mumbled, sounding councussed.
“Love you too, cutie,” Cadance said, tone distant. She gave Shining a quick peck on the cheek and patted his back, rubbing her throbbing temple with her other hoof.
Cadance had come up to Twilight’s room after finishing cleaning up after dinner; Shining had told her he was going to tuck her into bed for him, and she’d more than happily let him. He usually volunteered for that, anyway. Now with the dishes washed, dried, and put away, she was scampering with damp hooves up to fetch Shining from his sister’s room.
What had she been thinking, she wondered, before it all changed forever? Had she been thinking about taking Shining to curl up against her on the couch? Or maybe slipping into bed with him? Snuggling beneath the sheets, laughing and playing with one another like they’d spent so many nights?
It didn’t matter what she had thought was going to happen next.
This is what did.
Cadance had walked to the door, and had noticing that it was mostly closed. It had still been open by just a crack, and it was through that space between the frame and the door she heard their voices.
“This is gonna be a lot of fun,” She had heard Shining promise Twilight.
“Okay.” Twilight’s voice had carried the same tonality as if she were anticipating a new book. “You’re gonna use your tongue, right?”
Cadance didn’t exactly fully comprehend what was being said. Because that sounded like—
“If you like,” Shining said. Cadance could almost hear the coy little smile on his muzzle in his words. “We gotta hurry, though; she’s not gonna take forever with the dishes.”
Cadance’s heart stopped. In fact, it seemed as if all time had frozen in that one, horrible moment when the comprehension dawned on her.
It hadn’t, of course, and time marched on treacherously forward.
“Mhm! My favorite is when you use your tongue.” Twilight still sounded for all the world enthusiastic about this prospect. Was she looking forward to this? She was still a filly! Not even ten! How could Shining—
“Oh? How about when I tickle your rump with my tail?” She heard him say. Cadance found herself leaning closer, unable to quench morbid, gut-wrenching curiosity, and caught the quickest flash through the sliver of space between the door and the from of Shining’s tail flicking and brushing against Twilight’s own momentarily before swiping softly down his younger sister’s rear.
Cadance stumbled back from the door. Her heart hammered in her ears. She thanked Celestia quietly in some dissociated corner of her brain that the carpet had muffled her hoofsteps.
“Haha, that tickles!” Twilight’s giggling rang about her words; usually so sweet, now beyond surreal.
“How about when I kiss your neck?”
It took every inch of willpower Cadance had not to scream out instinctively when that sickening smack of his lips on Twilight’s neck echoed in her ears.
Still, to her credit, she somehow managed to bite her tongue.
“How about when I press you to the bed, gently grinding myself against ya?” Shining had purred softly, almost too soft to hear through the door.
Almost.
That’s when Twilight had gone quiet all of a sudden. “Um. I don’t know. That’s usually... it feels a bit weird.”
“Aw, you don’t like it?” Shining said, Cadance already able to imagine him donning the slight pout that she knew was bound to come with that tone of voice. “You know how much I do, though.”
“Yeah, I know. I like that you like it...”
“C’mon. For your big brother?”
Cadance wanted to look away.
But she didn’t.
She watched as Shining lay atop Twilight, so much smaller than he was, and rocked gently back and forth. She watched as Twilight gasped and pressed her hooves against Shining’s chest, her face screwed up in the expression of someone who was doing their best not to cry out in pain.
And she watched when Shining pulled his cock from her, a single red streak thinly marked down the side of his mottled length as he spilt his seed across his filly sister’s chest... belly... crotch. It splattered across the inside of her thighs, oozing and dripping as Twilight let out a whine that cut through Cadance’s head like a sawblade—
She closed her eyes and stumbled back. Finally at her limit, Cadance could not watch another moment of this.
She clamped her hooves over her ears, and fell against the side of the wall, not caring for the sound it made. She curled her legs closer to her, wings paralyzed in place, folded too-tightly against her back, tail curling to her side as she rocked back and forth slightly.
She couldn’t get it out of her mind; the image of Shining, her Shining atop Twilight, little Twilight, his sister—
The door creaked open. Cadance heard it through her hooves. Slowly, she pulled them from her ears, and turned her head to look behind her.
Shining peered down at her. His expression was even, but Cadance saw his ear flicking and twitching. That nervous tell she usually found all-too adorable, but now nearly brought her to vomit.
“How long were you there for?” Shining’s voice was similarly level, save for the tiniest waver on the final syllable.
Cadance took a rattling breath. “All of it.”
Shining’s jaw set, and his ears flattened. “All of it?”
Cadance nodded.
“Why... why didn’t you stop me?”
Cadance didn’t say anything at first. She sat there quiet, still playing over everything she had just seen. The initial emotions were fading. Something new was beginning to take shape in her mind—
“I wanted to see if you’d stop yourself,” Cadance said at last.
Shining stared at her. “Wh-What?”
“I didn’t know, at first. Maybe I don’t know. But I... I think that’s why. I wanted to see if you could—if you were capable of—” She got to her hooves, facing away from him. “But I was wrong.”
Shining took a step towards her. “I’m sorry, I’m not—Cadance, I didn’t mean to hurt you! Honestly!”
“I know.”
“And I won’t—huh?” Shining blinked, the words beyond comprehension. “What?”
“I know. I can... tell with these sort of things. I know you weren’t... trying to hurt me. But it’s not about me.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt Twilight either,” Shining rushed to say, panic beginning to creep into his voice.
“I don’t think you were. But that doesn’t matter, Shining. You did. You were... rough with her. And she’s a lot smaller than you are, and younger, a-and...”
Cadance was looking directly at Shining, but she may as well have been looking through him.
“I wish I were normal,” Shining said finally. Cadance flung herself against Shining, wrapping her hooves tightly around him. She held his tightly, eyes clamped shut; it was several seconds before the thought occurred to her.
I can do that.
“I can do that,” she said out loud.
“What? Cadance, don’t screw around right now.”
“I’m not. I’m the Princess of Love, Shining.” Her horn sparked, and a smile began to creep across her face. “I can do things you couldn’t even imagine.”
“Wait. Are you serious? Are you... are you actually serious? Can you really do that?”
“I can,” Cadance said. “If you want it.”
Shining said nothing.
Cadance furrowed her brow. “You do want it, don’t you? That’s what you just said.”
“Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean. I did...”
“But now that the option is here right in front of you you won’t take it.”
“No! No, it’s just—”
“What is there to think about, Shining? You can’t live the way you are right now! You got extremely lucky it was me who found you and not your mom or dad! How do you think they’d respond if they saw something like that?”
The color drained from Shining’s already white face. “I-I didn’t think—”
“No, you really didn’t. Listen. Shining.” Cadance set her forehooves on Shining’s shoulders, looking him deep in the eyes. “Do you love me?”
Shining swallowed. “I-I do.”
“Okay. Then will you please, if you aren’t capable of letting me do this for you, at least then let me do this to you for me.”
“I-I...” Shining stammered. Cadance gazed at him pleadingly, her hooves sinking slightly harder into his shoulders.
“Please.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “It’ll be okay. I promise. It won’t hurt, and you’ll...”
She fought around the lump in her throat for the next words.
“...you’ll be okay.”
She had wanted to say normal.
Shining looked back at Cadance for a few moments. Whatever he was searching for in her eyes, he must have found it, or had given up, because after he let out a forceful exhale he said—
“Okay. Help me be okay.”
Cadance sighed, a heavy weight off her chest. She’d been close to crying, and earnestly at that. She sometimes put up a bit of a show of tears for Shining when she needed to pressure him into doing things, but these... these were real.
She was sure of it.
Cadance took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Still balanced on her hindhooves, still braced against Shining’s shoulders, she dug deep down into the earnest desire to save Shining from himself. The anxiety of a plunge from the clouds to the ground built in her stomach, almost throwing her over the edge to vomiting she was already dancing along.
Mana sparked along her horn, little vibrant flecks of super-charged magical energy. With it, it carried all of the intentionality, the fear—and yes—the love Cadance had within her surrounding Shining and Twilight both.
Her lips parted, and it was as if a mare who wasn’t her said:
“You love me.”
The mana sparkled along her horn, and Shining’s back stiffened. He turned his head, cringing as if he’d just been thrown from a chariot at a hundred miles per hour.
Then his eyes became glazed, his jaw slackened, and then in that concussed voice Cadance would hear many more times after this, he stuttered—
“I-I love you.”
“I love you too, cutie,” Cadance said, and then she threw up a bit in her mouth.
This is so messed up.
“He can’t help himself, Twilight. So I have to help him. You love him, right?”
Twilight nodded. Cadance took a deep breath and felt another piece of herself die. “Well then, you can help me help him by not telling anypony about what he does with you, alright?”
“I don’t think I was going to,” Twilight said. “It might’ve come up, but if it’s really important to keep it quiet about it, I will.”
“Yes.” Cadance tried not to betray how desperate she sounded, but that was next to impossible. She was begging. “Yes, it is very important. And you be sure to tell me if Shining gets too... ‘loving’ again. Alright?”
Twilight cocked her head. “I’m still kind of confused about that. What’s wrong with it, exactly? I get other ponies don’t like it, but—why? How can he love me too much?”
Cadance had been afraid of this. But she was prepared for it.
“The dose makes the poison.” Or something. “They teach you that in alchemy, right?” Cadance mustered a weak smile that looked more like she’d just been bucked in the stomach by a draft stallion. “Even love can get a bit... unhealthy if it’s taken too far. Does that make sense?”
Twilight screwed up her face, certainly looking as if it didn’t. But she said yes, and Cadance believed her.
Or tried to, at least.
“Thanks for coming, Cadance.”
Cadance watched the tea cascaded from the kettle in a long, fluid arc. Steam billowed from her cup, obscuring her vision.
It did not do it for nearly enough time, and even then it did nothing to block out Twilight’s voice.
It had been long enough since Twilight had become a princess of her own. It shouldn’t have surprised Cadance how much things had changed, but it still did. Twilight had wings. Cadance herself had a foal.
Time marches treacherously forward.
“Cadance, do you remember what happened between Shining and myself when we were foals?”
Then, there, with those words, was the crushing reminder of how some things were always going to stay the same, and how she could still feel so trapped in moments that had thought been lost to memory so long ago.
“Which thing?” Cadance tried to inflect a tone of carefree ignorance into her voice, trying her best not to sound like she had stumbled upon the door again for the first time. But she failed miserably, the words coming out cracked and warbled, and Twilight noticed.
“Cadance, I... I’m going to have to ask you something very difficult.”
You don’t have to—
“Do you still help Shining... control how he feels about me?”
Like a buck to the head. “I do.” Throat dry, temples throbbing, vision slightly blurry—
Twilight took a deep breath. “Cadance, I... don’t get me wrong. I am so thankful for what you did for me. I was young, too young to understand anything, and Shining... you gave him a life he couldn’t have. If things had continued going on the way they had, I don’t know what would have happened. He’d be locked up in some asylum, or in prison if our parents had found out, or...” She trailed off. “I don’t want to think about it, really.”
“Yeah, me either.” Cadance felt like somepony else was saying the words for her. Was she really here? Was this really happening?
“But Cadance...” Twilight looked her directly in the eyes. Cadance wanted to look away; she couldn’t. “In the time we spent together there, when he was... himself, his other self, that I... wanted it in some way.”
Cadance shook her head with fervor. “Twilight, you can’t blame yourself. You said it yourself—”
“No, no! I’m not! Thank you, honestly, for the concern but... Shining was manipulating me into a sexual relationship, whether he realized it or not. And yes, I’m biased—but I don’t think he really did. He was young too. Older than me, sure; but still young enough not to really know any better. Not really.”
Twilight pursed her lips. “But, Cadance... you directly controlled him.”
“But he was directly controlling you,” Cadance cut in. She couldn’t keep the wavering out of her voice.
Twilight bowed her head for a moment, and continued. “Overtly. Through mind control, at that. We can make all the justifications and assign any amount of reasoning we want to why it was ‘necessary’ that you’d done that, and again—I am, ultimately, glad you did.”
Cadance stared blankly at Twilight. Twilight did not meet her eyes.
Cadance stared deep into her teacup. “Twilight, you don’t understand; he—”
“—wants it?” Twilight finished for her.
Cadance gaped soundlessly, her bottom lip quivering. “H-He consents to it.” Why was her voice suddenly so weak? Like she didn’t even believe what she was saying any longer? “He asks me for it. He wants it.”
“Because you told him to want it.”
“I never—”
“Maybe not with your magic, but with your words, absolutely. He didn’t need magic to convince me, either. He loves you Cadance, at least when you make him. Of course he’s going to start trusting you, even when it’s to force you to trust him. You believe that so much that you cant even let him decide who he can love. And that’s exactly what he was doing to me.”
Plap. Cadance looked down at her hoof, dampened by the single drop from her cheek.
“You’re not an irredeemable monster,” Twilight assured her. Her tone was soft, and Cadance found no resentment within it. “And I don’t mean to come from this place of seeming... above it.”
“No.” Cadance pressed her hooves against the table to keep them from shaking, but merely succeeded in causing her teacup to rattle on its saucer. Inhaling deeply and trying her best not to sniffle, she wiped her eyes. “No, Twilight, you’re not. You have every right to—after everything...”
She trailed off.
“What was I supposed to do?” Slumping slightly in place, Cadance let her head sag on her shoulders. Her entire body felt as if it’d been filled with lead.
“You did the best you could with what you had at the time,” Twilight said softly. “But I feel, now, there is something new you can do. With what you have now.”
Cadance slowly lifted her head. “You aren’t serious. If he were suddenly placed into this life he’s in now—”
“—you don’t think he’d still love you?”
Once again, Cadance was robbed of the ability to speak.
She could still hear, though. And she heard what Twilight said next with sickening clarity.
“I understand that you did this out of love for him, and for me. And you’re scared of what will happen. I don’t even know what will happen. But the reason I think this is so important is because, when we get down to it, there’s no denying that...”
Twilight’s voice caught in her throat.
“Cadance, you are to him what he was to me.”
The words pounded in Cadance’s ears like a bass drum, her legs shaking slightly as she walked very slowly.
What was this life she lived now? What had she done, what had she gained and what had she truly given up?
She thought about everything. Their relationship. Their marriage. Flurry.
Would he really give it all up if she stopped... encouraging him? Would he just... abandon everything to leave for Twilight?
Flurry. That... that hadn’t occurred to her. She felt the sinking pit in her stomach bubble sickeningly. Was his attraction even specific to Twilight? Was he, as a rule, simply unable to keep himself from younger ponies? Or was it familial alone?
Cadance knew a lot about love. She knew a lot about Shining’s love especially.
And she knew that either way, that put Flurry in danger. And even though this was merely one of the myriad reasons swarming through her mind as to why she was about to do what she was going to do—what she had been doing for so long—
She still couldn’t banish the twisting and knotting ropes in her stomach.
And she thought again about what she’d been last told by Twilight.
“You ready, sweetheart?” she whispered.
She’d entered the room. Her room. Their room.
Shining nodded. “Of course.”
His voice sounded so... hurt?
No.
No, it was tired.
“You won’t remember it,” she said. “Not for a while.”
“I know,” Shining said. He smiled; he looked incredibly tired. “I’ve spent so little time like... ‘this’ recently that I don’t really feel... like me when I’m in it.”
His voice was so calm and level; Cadance marveled at it.
Maybe Twilight had been right.
She had been about everything else in that discussion.
Cadance opened her mouth, a small hiss all that eminanted. For whatever reason, of which twenty immediately jumped to her mind, the words would not escape her throat.
Maybe she’d ask him some day.
But she couldn’t right now.
“You’re not an irredeemable monster.”
And maybe there, Twilight had been wrong.
We’re perfect for one another, she found herself thinking as she looked over her husband’s weary visage.
We are both monsters.
Cadance took two steps forward, and bowed her head. She touched the tip of her horn to Shining’s; a fireworks display of technicolor sparks erupted forth, accompanied by that resonating full-body vibration that had become all too comfortable. All too familiar. Spread from her core into her extremities.
Mouth opened.
“You love me.”
Shining’s eyes widened; for a moment, he looked as if he were about to say something, his brow furrowed and mouth open ever-so-slightly—
But then his gaze was glazed, and his jaw slack. “I love you, Cadance,” he mumbled through a mouthful of marbles.
“I know, Shiny,” Cadance said, unable to keep her voice from cracking. “I love you too.”
