The Weight of Her World

by Foxy Henhouse

Rating: everyone
Tags: Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Princess Cadance, Flurry Heart, Shining Armor, Slice of Life
Length: 5234

Cadance tries to be the best mom in the world. She really does. But when she's summoned to Flurry's school after her young daughter gets in a fight with a classmate, she wonder just how good of a mom she's capable of being.

Cadance tries to be the best mom in the world. She really does. But when she's summoned to Flurry's school after her young daughter gets in a fight with a classmate, she wonder just how good of a mom she's capable of being.

My technically-not-late entry into the Cadance Is a Terrible Mom contest.

Published 2021-04-26 01:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2021-04-26 01:50:01 UTC

The Weight of Her World

As Cadance stepped out of her carriage, the glare of the midday sun in her eyes forced her to stop and squint for a moment. Instinctively, she stood up a little taller, and cocked her head and furrowed her brow as if deep in thought. It was a lesson Aunt Celestia had taught her years ago, when she was worried she’d trip over her Grand Galloping Gala dress in the dark and make a fool of herself in front of everyone: ponies always assume that princesses know what they’re doing. So if she ever got her hooves tangled up or awkwardly tripped up a flight of stairs, all she needed to do was fall back into her “regal” pose—chin out, spine straight, and eyes pensive but unreadable—and everypony who saw it would just assume she’d meant to do it. That it was all part of a princessly plan that they just didn’t know anything about.

It didn’t feel like it was working this time, though. She’d kept that pose for the whole carriage ride from the castle to Flurry’s school, so long that her back muscles were starting to ache and her face was twitching from the unnatural strain, but there was only so much composure she could pretend to have right now.

Thankfully, there was nopony around to watch her too closely as she strode towards the school’s front gate, heel-to-frog-to-toe like any proper princess should walk. That was one of the reasons she and Shining had chosen this place—Sodalite Academy was famous for providing the best elementary schooling to the children of the highest-profile ponies in the Crystal Empire, and that meant discretion was a top priority. No paparazzi were allowed within a hundred feet of the school grounds, and communication between parents and staff came in the form of magical scrolls transported via dragon’s breath from the drake who worked in the front office. The kind of scrolls Twilight used to send with Spike, back when she was growing up in Canterlot.

The kind of scroll Cadance had received just half an hour ago, in the middle of a conference with a foreign dignitary, asking her if she could please come to the school at her earliest convenience for a “disciplinary matter.”

A disciplinary matter. For Flurry Heart. For the first natural-born alicorn in a thousand or more years.

Cadance grit her teeth, bent her lips away from forming a grimace, and crossed the threshold of her daughter’s school grounds as regally as she possibly could. She was overreacting. She had to be. Surely it was just a misunderstanding, or a forgotten homework assignment, or at worst a momentary bit of stubbornness. She’d probably grumble to Shining tonight about the inconvenience of it all, about all the bits they paid each year just for her to still be pulled away from diplomatic matters for something so minor that–

That it was worth calling Shining too. That it was worth bringing him out to the schoolyard to stand with Flurry’s teacher and every other foal in her class, all of whom turned to gape at their Princess the moment she rounded the corner. Shining looked up at her too, with an expression on his face that seemed to say, “Oh, good, the backup’s here.” Was she the backup? What kind of “disciplinary matter” warranted a response from a princess?

She swallowed hard and kept her stride. Eyes forward, she reminded herself, and chin high. There might not be any photographers around, but there were plenty of foals, and foals talked to their parents and parents spread rumors. Rumors that could bring her capacity to rule into question—that could reflect back on Flurry. And there was nothing Cadance wouldn’t do, nothing she couldn’t handle, if it meant keeping Flurry from getting hurt.

Except this, apparently. Except keeping her heart from hammering and her neck from prickling with sweat as her dear daughter’s teacher, Mrs. Parsnip, stepped forward to meet her.

“Thank you for coming,” the older mare murmured, motioning with her head that they should stay where we were—several feet from the crowd, out of earshot from her other students. “I’m so sorry to have called you like this, but it’s...”

“It’s fine,” Cadance interrupted. “Is she, um…”

She couldn’t get the last word out. Fortunately she didn’t need to. “Flurry’s fine,” Mrs. Parsnip quickly answered. “She’s inside. That’s why I called you, actually. She’s… well, as I told her father a moment ago, it’s complicated.”

Cadance took a deep breath—held it until she could hear it screaming in her ears—then let it out through her nose. Flurry was fine. That’s what was important. Not rumors, not reputations, nothing else. She could handle whatever this really was. “What happened?” she asked.

Mrs. Parsnip pursed her lips, and Cadance caught the twitch in her brow as she glanced back towards her class. There was one pony in particular the teacher had seemed to focus on, a little blue pegasus colt with a rumpled black mane and a sour disposition. “I didn’t see exactly how it started,” Mrs. Parsnip said. “We were outside for recess, and I heard Flurry arguing with Cirrus over there. I started over towards them, and that’s when Flurry… struck him.”

“Struck him?”

“With her magic.” Mrs. Parship sighed, and thank Celestia she looked back at her class when she did. No amount of acting could’ve hid the paleness that overtook Cadance’s face, or the sound of her breath escaping her throat like Mrs. Parsnip had bucked it out of her lungs. “She’s quite gifted with her magic, as I’m sure you know, and there was such a commotion afterwards that I couldn’t tend to both of them. By the time I made sure he was okay, Flurry was gone, and Bu...”

The world around Cadance blurred at the edges, and she had to blink hard for several moments to chase the blackness creeping into the sides of her vision.“He, uh... is okay?” she managed to ask after who knew how long.

“Yes, nothing broken, just bruises. But Flurry… she teleported herself away. I found her back in the classroom, but she’s put up some kind of barrier. A magical one, quite advanced, really...”

Her bubble. Cadance knew it well—from trying to take a toy away at bedtime, or steer just one more spoonful of mashed-up cauliflower toward the little filly’s mouth. It was the first spell Flurry ever learned, taught to her by her father, and she was so good at it that it was like she was born casting it. She’d never done anything like this, though. She’d never attacked anypony before.

“I tried talking to her, telling her that I just wanted to know what happened,” Mrs. Parsnip went on. “So did the principal. But we couldn’t convince her to take it down. I’d just finished explaining that to your husband when you arrived. I was hoping one of you might have better luck.”

One of her parents. Right. Her doting mother and father, who’d apparently raised a filly so confident in her magical skills that she used them to settle playground disputes. That certainly wouldn’t be front-page news. That certainly wouldn’t give the tabloids fodder for months of editorials and thinkpieces about what kind of parent would raise such a little hellion, what kind of ruler couldn’t even control her flesh and blood...

Cadance took another breath, this one short and quick enough to stick her in her throat and almost cause her to choke. “I, uh… I see,” she said. “Thank you for letting me know. I’m sure we can…”

She trailed off again. All her rhetorical skills were failing her. Every proper manner and meticulous diplomatic practice she’d learned over the years had simply vanished, the moment she needed him to deal with her own family. Maybe those tabloids would be right. Maybe she was–

Cadance felt a hoof on her shoulder. Mrs. Parsnip patted her there twice, a knowing smile curling on her lips. “Breathe, honey. I’ve been doing this for twenty-six years. This is nothing I haven’t seen before. They’re kids. They fight sometimes. And then they’re over it the very next day.”

Cadance smiled and nodded, and kept what she was really thinking locked inside her head. This wasn’t the time to lose control—not now, or any moment soon to come. Now, this was just a problem she needed to deal with, like a trade negotiation or a budget shortage. She knew how to deal with problems. She was a Princess, damn it.

But so was Flurry Heart. So was the little girl she’d raised—and judging by today, not raised well enough.

“Take your time,” Mrs. Parsnip said, as she gestured towards a pair of double doors that led inside the school. “I’ll handle things out here.”

Shining was still standing where he’d been when Cadance had arrived, and he smoothly moved to join her when she trotted away from Mrs. Parsnip and into the school’s main building. She recognized the hallway from the tour they’d taken a few months prior, and followed the colorful signposts pointing towards Mrs. Parsnip’s classroom without a word. She managed to make it to the intersection of the first and second-grade hallways before Shining spoke up.

“Cadance…”

“Not now,” she brusquely replied. “We’ll discuss what to do about this later.”

“Cady, stop.”

Cadance stopped. As she did, her hoof began to tap against the tile floor, and she bit her lip as she stared up at the ceiling.

“Mrs. Parsnip told you what happened, right?” he went on.

“Yes, Shining,” Cadance said. “She told me our daughter started a fight, almost hurt another student, and then barricaded herself in their classroom. And now we need to deal with it, so can we please just–”

“That’s not what she told me.”

“It’s what happened, Shining!” Cadance winced as her voice echoed back at her, reverberating off of cinderblock walls covered in construction-paper butterflies. “It’s what Flurry did.”

“It was a couple kids tussling on the playground, Cadance,” he said. “Kids fight.”

“Our kid doesn’t!” Cadance snapped. “Our kid can’t. And we need to… we’re supposed to…”

Cadance clenched her teeth and looked down at the floor, and if it weren’t for her stupid pulse pounding between her stupid ears, she might’ve been able to hear herself think, and use those thoughts to come up with something more to say. But she couldn’t, so she didn’t, and now Shining was wrapping his hoof around her and pulling her into her chest, and her eyes were prickling with moisture she could no longer hold back.

“She’s…” she tried to say. “I…”

“It’s okay,” Shining murmured. “You’re okay, Cady.”

And for a moment, she was, but only a moment. After that, everything came rushing back: anger, and disappointment, and anxiety, and fear. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered, and by the way Shining squeezed her tighter, she knew he didn’t either.

There was a bench in a little alcove set into the wall nearby, next to a pedal-operated water fountain lowered down to the height of a foal’s chin. Shining guided Cadance over to it, and she collapsed onto it next to him in a not-even-close-to-princessly heap. After a minute of leaning against him and a moment taken to rub her eyes, she found the strength to speak again, her voice small and brittle like that of a little filly.

“This is gonna follow her,” she said, drawing energy to keep going from the feeling of Shining’s hoof wrapping around her back. “She’ll always be the kid who starts fights. She won’t have any friends, they’ll all be scared of her.”

“She’s six,” Shining replied—softly, and in earnest. He wasn’t criticizing her, just answering her concern with his trademark calm logic. “No six-year-old foal remembers one fight.”

“I would’ve. I never got in fights. I stopped fights. I would step in and calm everypony down, and make sure they were all happy. And Twilight… Twilight never got in fights. Did she?”

Shining chuckled. Cadance felt it rumble through his chest. “Not when she was a foal.”

“Well, of course I mean when she was a foal,” Cadance said. “When it was just other kids on the playground, who weren’t as talented as her. Who she could boss around…”

Even without looking up, Cadance could feel Shining’s eyes on the top of her head. “Is that what you think happened? Do you think Flurry was bossing other ponies around?”

Cadance thought of Flurry Heart—of a rambunctious little filly who made a new friend at every park they visited together, and who beamed with pride when grown-ups complimented her impeccable manners. “No...” she admitted. “I… I don’t know what I think. Maybe it’s something we said to her. Maybe she heard too many stories about Sombra, and she thinks she’ll have to fight wars like that when she grows up. Maybe she thinks she needs to be stronger, tougher… like we were. Like we had to be.”

Shining chuckled again, and squeezed her again. “That’s not what you think,” he said, as it were obvious—which, to him, it probably was. He didn’t become Captain of the Canterlot Guard by accident. He didn’t just know how to look strong, he knew what strength was, inside and out. And he knew when somepony was just pretending to still have it.

Celestia, she hated that about him sometimes. He was the only pony she could never lie to, even when she tried. Especially when she tried.

“I’m not ready for this,” she whimpered, hot tears stinging under her eyelids as she shut them tight and pressed her face into Shining’s chest. “Why am I not ready for this? What kind of mother…”

For the first time that day, a sob escaped Cadance’s chest. She clapped a hoof over her mouth too late to stop it, and soon enough a second sob followed, then a third. The whole time, her husband kept stroking her back and pressing her lips into the top of her head, and eventually it started to actually help. Once she regained control of herself, Shining answered her unfinished question.

“No parent’s ever ready for this,” he said. “No parent’s ever ready to be a parent. I know I wasn’t. I remember standing by you at the hospital when Flurry was born, looking down at you both and just… shaking. Smiling and shaking. I was so happy, but I was terrified too. I didn’t know how to raise a kid, what kind of father she’d need or what kind of pony she’d turn out to be. But I knew I loved her, and I loved you, and I figured, ‘Well, that’s gotta be enough.’”

“I love her,” Cadance whispered. “I love her so much, and I failed her. This is my fault. I didn’t talk to her about dealing with problems at school, I didn’t do enough to make sure she was ready for this, and now…”

“And now she made a mistake, like everypony does. Like I have, and you have, and Twilight has.”

“Twilight never got in fights…” Cadance mumbled again.

“She never got the chance to,” Shining said. “I got in fights for her.”

Cadance pulled away from her husband to look at him, and the crook in his brow mixed with the warmth in his gaze made her fall in love with him all over again. “What, you think a precocious little filly with her nose in books all the time didn’t have bullies? I was constantly chasing off colts who wanted to make fun of her. She could’ve handled them with her magic easily, but I knew she never would, so I always stepped in before she had to. Got more than a few bumps and bruises for it too.”

“Yeah, but you’re…”

“A big colt? A Guard Captain?” Shining answered with a grin. “Flurry’s my daughter too. She knows how to protect herself… and her friends.”

Cadance furrowed her brow. “Her… what?”

Shining’s smile widened even more. “Yeah, I figured you might have missed that part. I saw you get that look in your eyes when you were talking to Mrs. Parsnip, like you get when the whole world falls away while you’re trying to figure out how to fix everything. I love that about you, you know?”

“Yes, I know,” Cadance said. He reminded her of that a lot—not that it didn’t make her feel better each and every time. “But what were you saying about Flurry’s friends?”

“That’s who she was with,” Shining said. “Her friend Buttercup. You remember her, little yellow filly with a long orange mane, came to Flurry’s birthday party last month? Mrs. Parsnip said Flurry was standing in front of Buttercup when she attacked that colt. A colt who I happen to know has visited the principal’s office more than once this semester for not playing nicely with others.”

Cadance’s eyes widened, and Shining shrugged in mock innocence. “What? I’m a Guard guy. Nopony minds if I glance at a few student conduct files in my spare time.”

“No, not that. I…” Cadance could barely string her words together. There were too many emotions swirling around in her head, stretching into her heart and loosening the binds that had wrapped around it. “She didn’t start the fight?”

“She ended it. That colt was messing with Buttercup, and Flurry told him to stop. When he wouldn’t let it go, she got upset.” His voice softened a bit. “And she’s still upset now. She never uses that spell unless she is. She’s not hiding from her teacher, or trying to get out of punishment. She’s scared.”

“Of…”

“Of herself,” Shining said with a quiet sigh. “Of what she didn’t know she was able to do. She’s a good kid, a kind and happy kid, who just tossed another pony across a playground like it was nothing. Like Twilight could’ve done when she was that age.”

Cadance sniffled and wiped her nose. “She didn’t have a big brother to protect her…”

“She didn’t need one,” Shining said. “Twilight didn’t need one either. Because of me, she never learned what she was capable of when somepony could’ve taught her how to control it. She almost missed her chance to get into Celestia’s school because of it. Flurry didn’t need a big brother, and she doesn’t need one now. She needs her mom and dad. She needs us to tell her that she’s okay, and that she’s not a bad pony for something she didn’t mean to do.”

Slowly, gently, Shining leaned over and kissed Cadance on the forehead. “And for the record, her mom isn’t a bad pony either. Certainly not because she taught her daughter by example how to stand up to bullies.”

Celestia, she was transparent. She really needed to work on her poker face. Ideally before she rescheduled with that diplomat she’d left back at the palace. “You couldn’t have just said that from the start?” she grumbled, pursuing her lips so they didn’t bend upwards at the corners.

“If I thought you would’ve listened, I might have,” Shining answered. “But I know you. You need to figure things out for yourself. And hey, you did! So I was right. For the record.”

“You’re a jerk,” she muttered as she hugged him.

“I know,” he said through laughter, hugging her back.

They took a few more moments to sit on the bench together and draw strength from the other’s support. They were the grownups in this situation, after all, and no matter what the real story was, it was their job to help Flurry through it. Even if it was scary, even if Cadance still wasn’t completely sure she wasn’t somehow to blame for everything that had happened, she had something more important to worry about. And that something was just down the hall, behind a thick wooden door that—even from several yards away—visibly shimmered with the outer rim of a room-sized shielding spell.

They were able to walk right up to the door without any problems, but a translucent golden barrier stopped Cadance’s hoof before it could reach far enough to knock on it. Instead, she rapped her hoof against the wall next to the door, right where Flurry’s bubble sank back into and through the stone. “Flurry?” she called out. “Sweetie, it’s Mommy. Daddy’s out here too. Can you hear me? Are you hurt?”

There was no answer. The bubble stayed where it was, pulsing with energy and impassable to anything but a blast of magic strong enough to level the whole building. Shining really had taught her well. But Cadance and Shining both knew that sound could still pass through this kind of spell, so Cadance kept talking, finding each word she wanted to say mere moments before it passed through her lips.

“Sweetheart, I know you’re scared. And that’s fine. I know you didn’t mean to hurt anypony, and Mrs. Parsnip knows too. She’s just worried about you. We all want to make sure you’re okay.”

Still nothing. Cadance glanced at Shining, and Shining’s face seemed to say, ‘You know what she really needs to hear.’

“Flurry, I…” Cadance continued, her gaze dropping down to the floor. “I know what this feels like. I really do. I remember what it feels like to see… to see a bully be mean to ponies I cared about. I wanted nothing more than to teach them a lesson, and keep everypony safe. You’re not a bad pony just because you tried to help a friend and you… did something you didn’t mean to do.”

Cadance looked up at Shining again. He nodded for her to continue. “This may come as a surprise to you, sweetie, but your daddy and I… we’re not perfect. We’ve made mistakes too. We’ve tried to help ponies by doing one thing, and what ended up happening wasn’t at all like what we planned. But when that happens, we stick together, and we apologize, and we figure out a way to make up for it. That’s what good ponies do. And I know you’re a good pony, Flurry. Your daddy and I love you, and we always will, no matter what.”

She looked down together, and leaned forward to press her forehead against the magical barrier her daughter still hadn’t brought down. “And we’ll always be here to help you too. If you ever make a mistake, if you ever aren’t sure what to do, you can always come to us, and we’ll do our very best to help you be the best pony you can be. That’s all I ever want you to be. So please, let us in, and let us help you.”

Not a sound passed through the door from the classroom behind it—but within the ephemeral force that gave the barrier physical form, Cadance felt something shift, like a tightly wound string suddenly breaking into pieces. With a quiet sound like the snap of a static shock, the barrier dissipated, and Cadance had to brace herself against the wall to keep her head from bouncing off the classroom door. Before she had a chance to do it herself, Shining reached out and grabbed the door handle, finally granting them entrance into the room their daughter had holed up in.

The classroom looked normal enough at first sight—all the desks were still lined up in neat rows, and pastel-shaded backpacks filled the cubbies lined up along the far wall. There was just one bag missing, the one that should’ve been in the space marked “Flurry Heart”—and that was because it was in the middle of the room instead, next to a shivering white lump hunched over something she was holding in her lap.

Cadance didn’t need to get much closer to guess what it was: a little stuffed snail with a green felt shell and thoroughly worn seams that had been mended time and time again. Even though she insisted she was a big girl who was responsible enough to pack her own schoolbag, Flurry always made sure her Whammy had a prized place between her school books and pencil case, just in case she ever needed a little boost of confidence or a momentary rush of comfort during the day. She had it squeezed between her front hooves now, her muzzle pressed into the gap between its head and its shell. Her face was pink, and the fur under her eyes was matted with streaks of tears.

“Oh, Flurry…” Cadance couldn’t help but whisper as she exhaled. Flurry’s shoulders twitched, and the little filly whipped her head around as if she hadn’t really expected to see her parents standing behind her, like she was still waiting for some hammer of divine punishment to come crashing down on top of her. Cadance bit back the urge to sweep her daughter up in her hooves—bit it back so hard that she almost drew blood from her bottom lip—and instead slowly sat next to her, so she wouldn’t overstep her boundaries, and so Flurry could decide what she wanted at her own pace.

“‘M sorry,” Flurry eventually said, her wavering voice barely audible through Whammy’s threadbare body. “I-I didn’t m-mean…”

“We know you didn’t, honey,” Shining said from her other side, where he’d settled onto her haunches across from Cadance. “We’re glad you’re okay.”

Flurry squeezed her eyes shut, hard enough that a couple more tears slid down her soaked cheeks. “I didn’t wanna… h-hurt him. He w-wouldn’t stop teasing Butter, and I… I told him to leave her alone, ‘cuz you said I should stick up for my friends, a-and then he wouldn’t stop. I got so mad, and I just wanted to push him away from her, and t-then it… I just…”

Oh, the hell with boundaries. Cadance leaned over and grabbed Flurry as she hiccuped and trailed off, and Flurry whimpered and clung to her as hard as she ever had in her short life. For a long while, they just sat there on the classroom floor together, Cadance rocking back and forth with her sweet baby Flurry shuddering in her lap, until Flurry’s breathing slowed and Cadance’s pulse calmed down with it.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Cadance whispered. “That colt’s okay too. You didn’t hurt anypony.”

She felt a bit more tension leave Flurry’s body as she said that. “Am I gonna get grounded?” the filly asked next.

Cadance tried not to giggle, but she couldn’t help herself. Flurry laughed too, though with a bit of nervousness that wouldn’t go away until her mom answered her question. “Not this time,” Cadance said, “but now you know not to use your magic in that way, right?”

Flurry nodded vigorously. “I promise.”

“Then I don’t think anyone needs to be grounded. In fact, I think your dad and I might want to…”

Wait, where was Shining? He’d been here a moment ago—or whatever a moment was in Cadance’s perception. Maybe she really did have a problem with getting lost in her own head.

Before she could stand up to look for him, though, he revealed himself again. The classroom door swung open—she hadn’t even heard it swing closed—to reveal her husband standing with Mrs. Parsnip, along with an orange-maned filly whose bright yellow coat went blurry as she rushed into the room.

“Flurry?” the filly asked, scanning the room wildly until her eyes landed on Cadance and her daughter. “Flurry! You’re okay!”

Flurry’s eyes lit up, and Cadance let her squirm out of her lap to go greet her classmate. “Buttercup!” Flurry said once they peeled apart. “You’re…”

“I’m okay,” Buttercup said. “I told Mrs. Parsnip everything! About Cirrus, and you, and… well, everything!”

From the look on Flurry’s face, Cadance got the sense that this was far from typical behavior for Buttercup. “You… were you okay? Did you get scared?” Flurry asked.

“A little,” Buttercup admitted. When she glanced up at Mrs. Parsnip, the teacher smiled back. “But I saw how brave you were when you stood up to Cirrus, and I… I wanted to be brave like that too. So after your mom and dad got here, I talked to Mrs. Parsnip, and she said you’re not in trouble!”

When Flurry looked up at her teacher, Mrs. Parsnip confirmed Buttercup’s claim with a nod of her head. “And there’s somepony else who’d like to talk to you too,” she told the two fillies. “Cirrus?”

It took a few moments, but a blue-coated colt soon sidled into view, still sour-faced but seemingly chastened a bit by the ordeal he’d been though that day. “I’m sorry, Buttercup,” he mumbled, the way a colt who wasn’t used to contrition might try to phrase his first experience with the feeling. “For teasing you about your mane. And I’m sorry I teased you too, Flurry.”

Flurry was quick to respond. “I’m sorry I blasted you, Cirrus. I didn’t mean to do it. I just wanted to protect Buttercup. Can you, um… forgive me?”

Cirrus looked confused for a moment, but a pointed nod from Mrs. Parsnip got him back on track. “Uh… yeah, sure,” he said. “If you forgive me. Or, um… do you forgive me?”

“Yes,” Flurry said, looking back at her mom and smiling before continuing. “That’s what good ponies do.”

After that, there wasn’t much else to do but let Mrs. Parsnip shepherd the rest of her class back into the room and continue with the day’s lessons. Both Cadance and Shining asked Flurry if she wanted to come home with them, but Flurry insisted that she was okay to stay in class for the rest of the school day, and who were they to tell her she wasn’t? So in the end, they left the school together without their daughter, and somehow Cadance was okay with that. Somehow, she was okay with everything.

“Hey, you know what this means?” Shining said as they passed back through the school’s front gate. “We handled our kid’s first crisis. We’re officially parents now.”

“Yeah, handled it,” Cadance said back with a roll of her eyes. “That’s definitely what I did just now.”

“You did great, is what you did,” Shining told her, nudging her with his shoulder for emphasis. “And a job well done deserves a reward. Like, say, ice cream?”

Cadance stopped in her tracks, just so she could level her best motherly glare at her simpering, doe-eyed husband. “Is that seriously what you want right now? Ice cream?”

“Well, I was gonna offer to take Flurry out for ice cream if she wanted to take the rest of the day off,” the big lunk said, “and now the idea’s stuck in my head, sooo…”

Cadance sighed, and smiled, and let the last lingering bit of tension leak out of the sore spot between her shoulder blades. “Fine,” she told her idiotic, childish, adorably precious husband. “Ice cream. One scoop of ice cream.”

He grinned like the foal he was inside. “You’re the best mom ever,” he said as he reached over to hug her.

Cadance hugged him back, and decided not to argue the point. Maybe she wasn’t the best mom ever, but she loved her daughter, and the meathead who she married and had her with. And like that meathead said, that had to be enough.