"It's not every day you get to meet yourself."
Cadance grinned as she looked around at her companions, gathered in the forecourt of Canterlot High School, at the foot of the pedestal of the, by now rather famous, statue of the wondercolts mascot. The horse had been replaced at some point in the last twenty years, and now sported an impressive pair of widespread wings.
To her left, Shining gave her a nod and an encouraging grin, the sort he used when he wasn't sure what was going on, but wanted to make her feel better anyway. She twined her hand into his and returned the smile.
To her right, Twilight said nothing. Possibly because she was too busy attending to her young child, Selene, who had just learned how her fingers worked and was eagerly tugging at Twilight's hair.
"It's a shame you're not coming with us," she continued. "I'm sure Princess Twilight would love to see you."
"I'd love to see her too," Twilight replied, while trying to extract her bangs from Selene's rock-like grip. "Ow. We both agreed, though, that there's no predicting the effects of the portal on an infant, or on a nursing mother for that matter. They live longer than we do, but their children mature much faster than ours."
"Well, it was nice if you to see us off." Cadance reached out to give Twilight's hand a gentle squeeze, then pulled herself closer to Shining's side. "And it was nice of our counterparts to invite us, too."
"Even if it is a bit weird," said Shining. He rubbed at the fringe of grey on his neatly trimmed temple, a habit he'd picked up at some point in the last few years, though Cadance couldn't recall exactly when.
"You just need to be a little more adventurous," she said, nudging him in the ribs.
"I'm adventurous! I–"
The subtle, but unmistakable ringing of Equestrian magic silenced the conversation, as the portal in the base of the statue shimmered and swirled to life. To the ill-attentive eye it appeared no different, but up close as they were, the shallow, sluggish undulation of the statue's pedestal front was clear as day.
"That's our boarding call," said Cadance.
"It looks like jello," Shining murmured, before reaching out a hand to touch it. "It's warm! That's weird."
Twilight slid closer to the pedestal and brushed her fingers against the solid stone of the corner. If she had heard Cadance's last remark, she wasn't acknowledging it. "Passing through the portal might be disorienting the first time, especially at the end. That first step on the other side can be a real doozy."
"I'm sure we can handle it." Shining Armor stepped up to the pedestal again, hesitating a moment on the threshold of the portal. Then, with a loud whoop, he leaped through the portal and disappeared.
Cadence shook her head and sighed. He could be a real doofus sometimes. "How often have you been through, anyway?"
"Oh." Twilight lifted her eyes toward the sky, her mouth silently naming moments from her past while her free hand counted. "Probably thirty times. thirty and a half, technically. It's a nice place for a vacation."
"That's what I'm hoping," said Cadance. She took a breath and held it a moment. "Lord knows, we could use one."
"I'm sure." Twilight stepped back and smiled. "See you in a week."
A sudden attack of butterflies left Cadance unable to reply. She nodded instead, then turned to face the portal. All she had to do was step through and she'd be in a completely different world, in a completely different shape, facing a living mirror that wielded absolute power over a vast realm that dwarfed her own little fief of a school.
How hard could it really be?
She swallowed and put her hand to the portal's surface. It really was warm. Dry too, and prickly. Like pushing her hand into a sun-soaked sandbox.
"Here goes nothing," she murmured. With both arms outstretched, she marched forward into the portal.
The next few moments were indescribable, filled with a vague feeling of stretching though if she had to say anything at all about it at all, it would be that the journey took longer than you'd think.
She emerged with her eyes closed, breathless, dizzy, and warm, which was odd. Twilight had explained that these ponies had a higher body temperature, like horses back home, but it was one thing to be told, and another thing entirely to feel. It didn't feel wrong, or uncomfortable; she might even go as far as to describe it as pleasant. Just... odd.
Enough introspection, she chided herself. There were magical aliens to meet! Gingerly, she lowered her arms to the ground, and found herself balancing on what felt like her fingernails.
"This is going to take a lot of getting used to," she said, opening her eyes.
A towering wall of shelves, stuffed with books of every size and shape a book could have, was the first sight to greet Cadance. There were even scrolls, piled haphazardly in what crannies and crevices weren't filled by books. It was a veritable Twilight's Paradise.
"No wonder she loves coming here so much," she murmured, as she made her way to the foot of the shelves. Then she paused and looked down at the ground, at the hooves that should have been hands, and frowned. "How come I'm so good at this?"
"The same reason," said Twilight's voice, from the far side of the room, "that you're so good at walking while human."
Cadance turned to the voice; a pony stood before her, far larger than she'd expected. She was looking down – emphasis on the down – at Cadance, and frowning ever so slightly beneath her bangs. Tresses of mane hung down the side of her neck, apeing Twilight's simple, straight cut.
"Muscle memory," the horse princess concluded, after a moment's silence. A hint of a smile reached her lips. "Welcome to Equestria, Principal Cadance. As you likely have guessed, I'm Princess Twilight. Your, ah, counterpart had to step out for a moment."
"Oh. Right." Cadance shuffled her hooves. Strange how natural it all felt. "Should I bow or, or something?"
"I'm not sure you need to..." Princess Twilight tilted her head. She was trying not to laugh at something, Cadance was sure. "What I mean is, I don't like having ponies bow to me. It creates a barrier of formality."
Cadance found herself nodding along to the sentiment. She looked around the endless books again. "Where's Shining?"
"Main library. He's in there with–with my brother, and Spike."
"The main library?" Cadance looked back up; this Princess with her friend's voice was already marching toward a door at the far end of the room. She gave chase with quiet taps of her hooves. "I'm surprised Twilight has ever come back from this place."
At the threshold of the door, she found herself looking into a much larger, airier room. Bright sunlight shafted to the floor from tall windows on a far wall to her right, falling across a vast, crystalline floor that was surrounded by yet more towering shelves of books. At the far end of the room, beyond the reach of the glittering light, more shelves stood in a more familiar library stack, which was isolated from the rest of the room by a line of brass stands that bore loops of thick, velvet rope.
A snug collection of sofas and beanbags sat close by, surrounding a brace of low tables, and occupied by a gaggle of people – ponies, she reminded herself. Except as they approached, Cadance realised that not all of them were even that.
A pair of ponies, large and obviously male, sat close to one another, their eyes fixed on a slim book that, if Cadance had to guess, was likely a comic book of some sort. Which meant that at least one of them had to be Shining. Her first guess would have been the one with the close-cropped, neatly styled lock of hair, but the rich silk shirt and purple waistcoat he wore soon disabused her of the notion.
They both looked up as she approached. Shining - her Shining - smiled and waved. The other one, the Prince, put a hoof over his mouth, closed his eyes and turned his head away for a moment.
"Someone is hiding a joke from me," said Cadance, turning her attention to the table's other occupant. He peered back at her with heavy-lidded, unblinking eyes. "Are you a dragon?"
The slender creature uncurled, snakelike, from its chair and eased its upper body across the table, peering at Cadance with discomforting intensity. It flicked its tongue at her. "Yes," it said. Its voice sounded male, but young, like a child.
It held out a hand. After a moment, Cadance reached up her hoof, to complete the most awkward handshake of her life.
"Spike," he concluded. He grinned a toothy grin when Cadance's eyes widened, and settled back into his couch. "Yes, like Twilight's little dog, so you don't have to say it."
"Not so little any more," said Cadance, drawing her hoof back.
Twilight had moved around behind Spike's chair, and now began to converse with him in quiet, sibilant whispers. She looked at Cadance and smiled.
"He's put on a growth spurt recently," she said, with what Cadance assumed was a shrug of her wings. "It's stretched him out like a lank old wyrm, but he'll make it up eventually."
"You– He's nearly as big as me, now," said Cadance.
Behind her, Shining – which one, she had no idea – snorted and stifled a laugh. She turned and glared at them both, which was a bizarre feeling in itself, and then tried to put a few stranger thoughts from her head before they got too insistent.
The Prince raised an eyebrow and smiled at her. It had to be him. Her Shining would never be so... but he was her Shining, technically. Wasn't he?
That train of thought would have to wait, however, as a far set of doors swung open to admit another, much larger pony. Cadance turned her best smile toward the newcomer, whoever it might be. Then she laid eyes on the pony, another alicorn by the look of things. Pink. Familiar hair – mane. Pink... She could feel her smile freezing in place, awkward and glassy, as she saw this ersatz rendition of herself strolling, languid as silk caught in a summer breeze, toward them.
"So sorry, everypony," said the creature with Cadance's voice. Except it wasn't quite her voice. It was like listening to herself on a recording. "I had to take care of a message."
Cadance looked the Princess up and down. "At least now I know what the joke is."
Princess Cadance, for it was indeed she, halted in her tracks as she focused her attention on Cadance. She seemed to shrink back, though she didn't move an inch; something about the set of her ears and wings. It seemed an understanding of body language didn't come along with the muscle memory Princess Twilight had mentioned.
"Well." Princess Cadance shook herself and took a firm step forward. "Well! It's not every day you get to meet yourself."
"I said the same thing!" Cadance liftd a hoof and made to hold it out, but then paused. How do you shake hands when you have none? She set it gingerly to the floor, and settled for what she hoped was a welcoming smile. "How is it you're so much taller than I am?"
The same odd, indecipherable body language was in play again. Princess Cadance turned from her, standing sideways as she looked Cadance over. She was smiling as well, and it was clear as day that hers was just as put-on as Cadance's own.
"It's a question for the ages," she said, looking across at Princess Twilight. "And this isn't the first time Twilight has dropped a surprise on a pony."
"It wasn't something I had expected," Twilight replied. Her horn was glowing, and Cadance had seen enough magic in her own world to realise that meant she was performing some spell or other.
Magic in her own world. There had been a time, not so long ago, when that entire sentence would have seemed like nonsense.
"I believe it does play into the hypothesis I've developed regarding our worlds," Twilight continued. "As for your question..."
Twilight moved to the couch next to Spike's, but didn't sit immediately. Instead she stared across the room at a distant door, which opened to admit a trio of flutter books, encased in a wavering cloud of purplish light. The books flew to a halt in front of Twilight; she peered at each in turn, taking particular interest in a smaller volume, then set the three down on the table in front of her.
"You're a pegasus," she said, as she settled onto the couch. "Your counterpart here is an Alicorn."
"I'd gathered that much," Cadance said.
Princess Cadance seated herself next to Prince Armor and leaned on his shoulder. "She has to work her way through the explanation here, as well."
"Your letter said you wanted to study the similarities between our worlds," Cadance continued, ignoring the sudden pang of jealousy she felt for the sight of 'herself' leaning on her man. Even if it wasn't her man. Or her stallion, she supposed.
And that was before she got to the accompanying envy at the thought of being so close to two of them at once.
"And the differences," Twilight said. She was relaxing into the couch now, and let out a quiet sigh. "The fact that we're all here, now, is improbable, but within the realms of possibility, given the apparent linkage between our worlds. The fact that Celestia and Luna in your world are mortal, and still managed to be born in time to adopt similar roles to their counterparts here at this moment in time, is– I couldn't begin to calculate the odds."
"You've said as much," said Cadance. And so did Princess Cadance. They looked at one another, both trying to suppress a quiet laugh.
Shining cleared his throat. "You didn't expect my Cadance to be an, a what, Alicorn? Or– Or tall?"
Twilight shook her head. "I didn't know exactly what to expect. My counterpart isn't an Alicorn, nor does she hold any particular position of influence in her world–"
"Unless you count deputy head of the municipal library system," Shining cut in. He raised his nose a little and closed his eyes. "I'd call that influential."
"More influence than either of us might like," Twilight sighed. She shook her head. "The differences within the similarities are what I'm interested in, though I'm still not entirely certain of their meaning. I asked you here to broaden my sample set, which is still incredibly small, despite the number of transitions between our worlds."
"Well, we're here." Cadance made to fold her hands, but then stopped, unsure of whether she could even bend like that now. She settled for tapping her hooves on the couch. "So what do we need to do?"
"To start with, I need to establish a baseline between ponies–" Twilight paused and squinted her eyes. "Yes. A baseline between two candidates who are more similar. Obviously I can't expect identical twins, but Shining and Shining are close enough in age, temperament, and appearance to stand in as a close proxy."
"I guess that means we're stuck here, while you're free to explore," Shining said.
"I'm sure Twilight will keep you entertained."
Shining gave Cadance a wan smile and held up a comic book – with magic, she noted. How come he got to have all the fun?
"That being the case," said Princess Cadance, "I think I shall take myself for a spot of afternoon tea. It's been a long time since I've had the chance to visit Ponyville."
She glanced at Twilight. "That is, if you don't need us to stick around."
Twilight, holding up a number of odd little devices with her magic, drawn from heaven only knew where, nodded fractionally. "Response variances to spousal separation will provide a more robust baseline. Just be sure to stay within Ponyville, so I can send for you."
"Wonderful!" Princess Cadance clopped her hooves and then jumped up from her seat; quite a feat given she had been lying on her side. "There's a great place on the corner of Groningen. You'll love their daisy sandwiches. See you later, Spike!"
At his name, the young dragon raised a clawed hand and waved, though his eyes were fixed entirely on Twilight's actions. Cadance half expected him to twist one, chameleon-ike, to watch them as they stepped away.
"I don't suppose your Twilight is any less of a nerd when she sets her mind to a task," Princess Cadance murmured, once they had exited the library. She looked down at Cadance; there was humour in her eyes, in the tiny wrinkles at their corners, even though she wasn't smiling.
"She's mellowed a little since Selene was born, but I won't pretend she's got an obsessive streak to her. Besides," Cadance continued, as she peered around at the endless crystal corridors. "It has its uses. Is this whole place made of glass?"
"Crystal." Princess Cadance tapped a hoof against a nearby wall as they passed. The room filed with a quiet hum that felt the way glistening water drops looked. "I think it's a little like sapphire. Twilight could tell you its exact composition."
"It makes Crystal Prep look like a cinder block." Cadance slowed to a halt and stared up at the curiously organic vaulted ceiling.
"If you think this is impressive, you should see my palace."
Princess Cadance had skipped some distance ahead when Cadance brought her attention back to ground level. She was watching Cadance from a doorway at the end of the corridor.
"Maybe I should."
Palace, she thought, as she followed the Princess into another enormous, pillar-hemmed hall. Flags and tapestries hung from remote fixtures, so long and wide that two or three of them could carpet a reasonably sized parking lot. If her palace made this pace look dowdy, it had to be truly magnificent.
And all she had back home was rowhouse in a nice part of town.
A detail on one of the tapestries caught her eye. Cadance leaped to the air and hauled with her wings until she was level with an expertly woven image of a slender, white alicorn, prostrate at the foot of a fenced-in tree.
"That looks familiar," she said, looking down at the Princess. Then, very slowly, she turned her gaze back to the tapestry. "Oh."
"Don't think about–" the Princess began, but Cadance had already closed her eyes and folded her wings. In testament to the Princess's reflexes, Cadance she fell only a few feet before a warm cushion of magic wrapped around her and lowered her gently to the ground.
"I flew," said Cadance. She opened her eyes and stared up at the tapestry. "I hate heights!"
"That's a difference for Twilight's notes," Princess Cadance replied. She waited as Cadance gingerly lowered her hooves to the floor, then extinguished her magic. Then she lifted her wings and smiled. "Come on, I promised you lunch, remember?"
* * *
Ponyville, as it turned out, was exactly the sort of place Cadance had always wanted to live. Despite the enormous castle towering over the place, it was small, rural, and friendly to a tee; she'd had more warm greetings in the five minutes she'd been following her Princess self than in several years of travel around Glasnorth, or even downtown Canterlot. Perhaps she could retire to her own world's version of it one day, assuming it existed.
The thought of home drew Cadance's gaze toward the north, where the self-same city – or its ethereal cousin – sat atop a towering mountain that she only now recognised as a greatly enlarged copy of Canter Peak.
"You remind me of Twilight, the first time she came for a proper visit."
It was still her voice and not her voice. Cadance had compared it to hearing a recording of herself, but there was at least some implicit knowledge of what was about to be said in that case. She brought her attention back to the Princess, seated across their shared table, and looking for all the world like an adult sat at a child's tea party.
"Did she freak out every time she heard herself talking, too?"
"No." Princess Cadance rested her kelbows in the table and leaned her chin on the tops of her hooves. "But I can understand why she might. It's like listening to a phonograph."
"With a mind of its own," Cadance concluded. Maybe this was what it was like to have a twin?
She found herself looking around again, awed by both how alien and yet how mundane and normal everything was. Ponies, seated in pairs and threes around tiny tables, conversed and laughed and ate the same way a person would at any restaurant. Birds sang. The wind, scented with baking bread and cut grass, tugged at her hair. Even the pile of hay that served as a seat, which she was sure should have been a mushy, prickly pain in her backside, was just... normal.
The clunk of a plate being set to the table brought her back to the moment. Cadance smiled nervously at herself, then looked down at her meal. Honest to go daisy petals were poking out of it, incongruous alongside a thin slice of tomato and cucumber.
She looked up at the Princess, expecting another stifled laugh, or a gotcha, but she found her counterpart chewing contentedly on her own flowery feast.
"So." Cadance toyed at the edge of her sandwich with a hoof. Picking it up might be a challenge. She lifted the upper slice to peer inside. "Why are you so big?"
After a moment's thought, Cadance closed her eyes and pressed a hoof to each side of her head. "What I mean is–"
"Why am I an Alicorn and you're not?"
Silently, Cadance nodded.
For a moment neither spoke. The Princess chewed at her sandwich, eyes half-closed as she stared into the near distance. Then she set the remains of her meal down, tapped her hoove together, and smiled down at Cadance.
"Were you small, as a filly?"
"A–A child. And yes, I was, until my seventeenth birthday. Mom said I was gaining an inch a week for the rest of that year."
Princess Cadance nodded. "I ascended a little before my seventeenth birthday. Quite a coincidence, isn't it?"
"I guess, if I knew what ascended meant."
"It means I grew this." Princess Cadance tapped her horn, which let out a quiet ring. She smiled again. "I didn't get the legs for a few years after that, but I did start growing, which was nice. I'd always been the smallest in my social circle, even though I wasn't nearly the youngest."
"I suppose that makes sense," said Cadance. If you're a magical talking horse, she didn't add.
"As for why that happened, I–" Princess Cadance looked away to the horizon. She was still smiling, but there was a melancholy to her expression that hadn't been there before. "I've never been able to figure that one out. Auntie Celestia says it's because of the sacrifices I made when I was young, but I know for a fact that I did nothing that any other pony wouldn't do in the same circumstances."
"Wait, I know this one," said Cadance. She waited until the Princess was looking at her, then grinned. "It's the fact that you did it."
"Sort of a right place, right time sort of thing, you mean?"
"Sure! That's how I got my promotion to Principal, when it comes down to it. I was there when they needed me, and I said I'd do it."
"That's what I told myself. It's good to hear it from someone who isn't Shining or Celestia, though."
Cadance smiled and nodded. "It was Luna in my case. She came to me about a week after I started, and pretty much ordered me into being happy with the situation."
"She's certainly hard to disagree with," said the Princess.
"She was," Cadance replied. She turned her attention back to her sandwich; a rumble in her stomach convinced her that dignity was overrated and that she should just tuck in. She leaned forward and took a delicate bite from the edge.
"Oh, of course. I'm sorry."
"I know. It's ok." Cadance teased at a daisy stalk that had caught between her teeth. "And thank you. She wasn't as close as Celestia, but she was a good friend. Good enough to let Flurry ride her motorcycle once, though I think that might have been a mistake."
"Oh?"
Cadance shrugged. "She races."
Princess Cadance tilted her head. "Really? Flurry, racing?"
"Not something she did, here?"
"It's not something she can do." Princess Cadance picked up her sandwich, stared at it for a moment, then set it back on her place. "Her wings are completely the wrong shape for high speed flight. She can manoeuvre well, which stood her in good stead when she joined the Guard, but she's definitely not one of life's sprinters."
Cadance swallowed a bite of her sandwich and leaned back. She felt her wings flap once. Odd. "I couldn't even imagine Flurry having any sort of military career."
"I can't imagine running a school."
"That's the thing I never understood about this whole place," Cadance replied. She waved a hoof across the town in general; her wing followed it, as if it wanted to emphasise the point. "Back home, I'm the Principal of a mid-sized school, but here, I'm the Princess of some enormous, frozen empire. Everyone I know is either wealthy beyond my wildest dreams, or immortal, or both, and everyone loves them without question. This whole place feels like a kid's fantasy, like something Cliff Cord would write."
"The philosopher?"
"The– No, the children's author." Cadance lifted her eyes to the heavens as she tried to order her thoughts. "He wrote about a group of children finding a magical world called Nequinumia, in the back of a wardrobe, populated by all sorts of talking animals. They all got to go on adventures, and became kings and queens, and lived entire lives there. I used to fantasize about finding my own secret kingdom inside every bit of furniture I had.
"And now I found out one actually exists, and some version of me is a practical goddess there! "She looked at the Princess and held her hooves out. "And Shining makes a really sexy horse."
"Pony. And yes, he does."
Of course she would agree with herself about that. Cadance let her arms fall to the table, following up with her nose, and she began to laugh quietly.
"It's crazy," she said, between chuckles. "I guess the reality of what's happening only sank in right now. I'm a talking horse, possibly contemplating the mechanics of sex with another talking horse, in a land filled with pastel-cloured magic and fairy-tale castles."
"I think," said Princess Cadance, "that you need some fresh air. Clear your head."
Cadance lifted her head up again to stare at herPrincess self. She looked around, narrow-eyed, at the town. "We're already outside. How much fresher can the air get?"
Her counterpart didn't reply, except to point a hoof skyward.
"Oh."
"Just follow my lead," Princess Cadance said, touching Cadance on the shoulder. "Trust me, you'll love it up there."
* * *
She'd thought it might be a lie.
Cadance was used to lying to herself; each time she'd promised herself a long summer vacation, free from administrative work, had been a lie. Each time she'd told herself that this year was the year she'd retire. All the times she'd convinced herself that next time she'd visit old friends for longer than an hour...
Wind rushed past her body, tearing at her hair and the oddly sensitive coat that covered her skin in a rush of sensation unlike anything she had felt before. She stretched herself into the motion, revelling in the feeling of air beneath her wings, unable to even think about dragging the grin from her face.
Sometimes, sometimes, she told herself the truth.
She opened her eyes. Pale blue sky stretched above her to the horizon, while a patchwork of fields and forests scrolled slowly past beneath her belly. To her left, sunlight scattered from the surface of a grand lake and a river that meandered slowly toward her, while to her right, the same sun glowed on the snow-capped Canter Peak, and the marble-white towers of the fantasy citadel that was Canterlot in this world. She found herself staring at the city, at how familiar it looked, for all its strangeness.
Ahead and below, Princess Cadance soared on outstretched wings that she barely had to move to stay aloft, which left an odd and entirely confusing pang of longing in Cadance's chest. She fluttered to gain on the Princess, and found the feeling dissipating again, burned away by the fizzing satisfaction of flight.
The Princess turned her head back as Cadance approached. She smiled and nodded toward the distant city. "I saw you looking," she called out. "Want to pay a visit?"
"Twilight wanted us to stay nearby! Besides, it's miles away!"
"We're already halfway there!"
Cadance blinked, then looked back along the path they'd flown. Ponyville was little more than a smudge in the distance, the crystaline palace that dominated its skyline barely visible beneath the haze.
"Don't worry about Twilight, either! I used to sit her when she was a foal." Princess Cadance grinned as she banked around toward Canterlot. Despite their speed, her voice carried well over the wind. "I don't care how old and mature she thinks she is, I can wrap that mare around my hoof any time I want."
"That's not quite how I remember the experience," Cadance replied. If her counterpart heard her, she gave no sign.
When she looked, Canterlot was visibly closer already. Cadance peeked back at her wings, which didn't feel particularly overworked. She wondered just how capable these creatures really were.
The remaining flight to the city was brief, but quiet. The Princess soared ahead, maintaining altitude with only the occasional flap of her wings, like an eagle, where Cadance had to constantly struggle – if that were the right word – against gravity.
Before long they were circling a great, bulbous tower, that put Cadance in mind of the old Library tower on Palace Avenue, though on a much grander scale. A balcony wrapped around the southern half of the tower, overlooking the city, and as they passed closer she saw a statuesque white creature crossing it, holding aloft a grand pair of wings. Its mane was awfully familiar.
The alicorn Celestia, for it could be nobody else, looked up at the pair and waved demurely. Cadance found herself waving back, before following her counterpart into a shallow dive toward the city streets below.
It was Canterlot. The same city, the same streets, but somehow ancient and muddled. She could see the University, the old Starswirl and Clover buildings facing one another across the quad. Beyond them, a sprawling, temple-like building that was the spitting image of Canterlot High, with even the same statue standing before it, though the grand sign carved over the door announced it as a library.
The city centre was the same, too, though the dull office blocks of her world were replaced with a fantasy landscape of fanciful, baroque towers. She could even see, in the far distance, beneath the shadow of the mountain, rows of townhouses that looked identical to her own little home.
Cadance raced to catch up to herself, as the Princess took another shallow turn back toward what had to be the Royal Palace. The fortifications, guards, and gilt decoration on every surface kind of gave it away, if she were honest.
A trio of the same guard lifted off from the wall as she passed over it, surrounding her as a very definite escort. She glanced over at the one to her right and grinned nervously; he eyeballed her in return, not even pretending to smile.
A final turn on the Princess's tail found Cadance setting down on a broad, flat lawn, that felt soft as a feather bed to the touch. She took a long breath of its scent and trotted over to Princess Cadance, who was turning this way and that a few metres away, and who looked up as Cadance approached.
"I see you've made some friends," she said, nodding to the closest guard, before turning to address him. "Thank you, kind sirs, but she is a friend. You can return to your duties."
"Ma'am," the guard replied, with a perfunctory bow. He backed away, followed shortly by the others, and the trio swept back into the sky and away.
"That was something," Cadance murmured. She sat herself on the grass. "And you know what else is weird? I'm naked, and I don't actually care."
"I was going to ask if the fresh air helped, but–"
"Oh, it did, it really did! It gave me some perspective, pun only slightly intended." Cadance poked at a stray blade of grass that had somehow avoided the manicurist's ministrations. She leaned down to bite it off, then sat and chewed thoughtfully at it.
"All right," Princess Cadance replied, once Cadance had swallowed her snack. "I'll bite. What sort of perspective?"
"Have you ever thought about retiring?"
The Princess opened her mouth to reply, but then seemed to think better of it. She circled around Cadance, until she was facing the towering facade of the palace, and sat down at her side.
"I've thought about it a lot," Cadance continued. She looked up at the palace and the tower they had circled earlier, where Celestia was no doubt signing death warrants or new tax laws, or hosting crazy parties, or whatever it was that Princesses did in this world. "I'm still young, or at least that's what I'd like to believe, but I can see the days sliding by faster. I'm starting to miss moments. No the big ones, like birthdays? The little things. The last time I had a good girl-to-girl moment with Flurry, she was fifteen, and we made enchiladas. Now she's going semi-pro and building her own motorcycle in our basement."
"I think I understand."
"Retirement would fix it," said Cadance. She looked up at herself. It was comforting, to look up to someone in that way, to pretend for just a moment... she shook her head and looked away. "It would fix a lot of things."
Princess Cadance stretched a wing around Cadance's shoulders. "But?"
"But," Cadance agreed. She snorted and closed her eyes. "I love my work. I love helping my students become who they're meant to be. I love bringing them that joy, the companionship that inevitably comes from finding their purpose and meeting like-minded people. The friendships they'll develop. The places they'll go and see. I can't just walk out on that."
"That's certainly some perspective," said Princess Cadance. "I know I can't speak directly to your relationship with Flurry, but has she ever given you any reason to believe she resents you working?"
Cadance opened her eyes. "I–I don't think so. No."
"She feels safe with you, doesn't she?" Princess Cadance withdrew her wing and looked down at Cadance again. "She's building her motor seeker in your basement. If my Flurry is anything like yourse, that means she thinks it's a place where she can be safe and comfortable expressing herself."
"I guess?"
"How much time do you spend with her, down there?"
"I don't–" A warm knot settled into Cadance's chest, enervating and sharp. "I was down there last week, actually. That's how I found out she was– huh."
"I think you spend more time with her than you realise," said the Princess.
"But I'm not seeing it because it doesn't fit my preconceptions," Cadance added. She rubbed the side of her head and snorted again.
"One last little piece of perspective," said Princess Cadance. She withdrew her wing from Cadance's back and stood, all in one fluid motion. "Now, since we're here, I thought we could spend a little time exploring the city, or I could show you the Palace art gallery. Unless you want to head back?"
Cadance pondered this. She looked in the rough direction of Ponyville, then up at the palace again. When would she get a chance like this again?
"You know, I think our husbands will keep Twilight busy for a while yet." She stood, and then jumped into the air, to hover at eye height with herself. "Let's do something fun."
Author's Note
What is spelling? (baby don't hurt me!)
