When looked at from a certain angle, Cadance almost looked human.
She stood on two legs, held her arms at her shoulders, with the same joints of mobility any human owned allowing her to stir her coffee with a tiny spoon her fingers dwarfed. Her hair was a mess that fell over her shoulders and long down her back, loose but still ruley- it seemed every strand knew exactly where they landed and what purpose they served there. Her dress, far too gorgeous and expensive looking for where she was sitting, had not a loose hair or patch of dirt sullying its cloth. It was an almost blindingly bright white, that dazzled in patterns around her neck where the frills were topped with tiny translucent gemstones.
Then you approached her from another angle, and the rest became clear. Namingly, the two extra limbs jutting out of her back like a tumor. The human form was not meant to have wings, and was far too heavy for any aerial flight to carry. This made the shapes that emerged directly from her spine, stretching taut the skin along them, appear almost like extra bones that had painfully sliced out her back. Her every movement should have brought her paralyzing pain, but her face was calm, serene. This was the next thing you noticed- Her perfect face, for all its appearance of beauty and wisdom, was vacant and always stared past its subject of interest. Her eyes were like deep reflecting pools, with a way of making you lose yourself in them that would be romantic in a human, but only made them endless valleys leading to the back of her head on her.
And jutting from her forehead, the last thing- another outcropping of bone, razor sharp and growing thick out of her skull to a tapered point.
Some of the people in the cafe around her were trying not to look, retaining some veneer of politeness. Others weren't even trying to hide, possessing ranges of emotions from fascination to fear to concealed hatred. Whatever they felt, nobody made a move on her, and all parties present continued eating, save Cadance. She only continued to make a perfect 360 degree circle in her coffee with her spoon.
Shining almost wished he had scheduled this meeting somewhere more private, but he supposed it didn't matter much. Most of these people would stop existing before too long. What did he have to be insecure about?
So he took a breath, teetered slowly on uncertain legs over to her table, and took his seat opposite of her.
"Hello, Cadance."
Her mouth creased into a smile as she stared past him. Her face seemed impossibly, unearthly youthful, but she smiled as if it took exertion. "Hello, my Shining Armour. It's been a long time, hasn't it?" She asked in an airy voice.
He took a breath. "Yeah, I guess it has been. When did you... what, 'drop out'? Last year before I graduated, right?"
"Senior year. You had just turned eighteen, I believe. You look so different; I almost didn't recognize you."
As she spoke with her bright smile, she slowly lifted her arms, setting her palms flat and towards the sky and bending her elbows slightly to avoid completely stretching them out to her sides. The result was a sort of cross between a hug invitation and a sun salutation.
Shining set his chin on his fist, glancing askance. "Started shaving? Less acne? Nobody looks good in high school. None of the boys at least."
"Do you still play your game?" She asked out of the blue.
"My... game?" He instantly began thinking on grand scales, wondering if this was some roundabout way of insulting him.
"Your game. The roleplaying one, with the dice and paper."
"Oh. Right, DND." He calmed a little. "Uh, a little. I mean, I've got a lot more free time these days. I guess everyone does."
Cadance laughed, tinkling like glass in an almost condescending way. "Not all of us, dear. You don't know how long it took me to schedule a time we could meet. I'm busy with everything 'these days'." She drew out the 'how'.
"Don't say it like that."
"Like what, dear?"
"'These days'. You say it like you're, like, you're amused by the words. You sound like everything I say is the funniest thing. I feel like an ape you're watching in the zoo." Shining murmured, more than a little hesitant to tell the creature anything he was thinking. The face she wore made it a little easier.
Cadance tilted her head curiously. "It's the way you said it, dear."
"I said-" Shining sighed. "Just don't sound so detached from it. This is... Well..." He struggled with the words.
"...My fault?" She finished, like she was talking to a toddler. Use your words. "I don't think you believe that."
"I do. It's making this hard."
"Shining." She lectured gently. "You know me. I'm sorry I had to leave you for so long. It was a hard decision, but... ultimately one that was not my own. I loved you in school, and I still do. But we all grow into our own responsibilities. I put away my childish things, and became a woman."
"No, they don't." He scoffed. "You think people are applying for jobs anymore? Working at all? Why do you think I have so much free time? We're counting down the hours until it comes. According to all estimations, it'll hit the coast in a matter of days."
"You think adulthood is acquiring a job?" She tittered. "Our childish things can be any manner of things. In order to make our place in the world, we need a sort of... deep clean, I suppose. Only years ago, that would have to be yourself. It was a process that took years, decades. Some died without ever completing the process." She shut her eyes gently, and set her chin on her fist, mimicking Shining's movement. "Now you have someone who will do it for you. Someone who takes your body in their hands, and scrubs you clean like a loving mother."
Shining blanched. "Can you describe it any less creepily? I don't want to think about her as my mom, or touching my body."
Cadance grinned, finally showing her teeth. "I'll give you that one. But you see my point. Ce...Lestia..." She seemed to have trouble saying the name, closing her eyes and keeping her teeth shut, "...Does this because she cares about humanity."
Shining blinked slowly. "You have to say that. You want to talk to me about humanity? When you're... that?"
"An Alicorn." Cadance answered simply. "I understand how this must all look, to the human species. Fear and paranoia is what has allowed you to survive this long. Celestia salutes that. But in time you will see that those fears were unfounded."
"We."
"Excuse me?"
"We. You say 'you' when referring to humanity."
Cadance nodded. "It is simply a matter of specifics. I apologize if it is putting you off."
"You 'understand how this must look', to humans?" Shining pointed out, no longer caring if the people around them heard them. It wasn't like they were going to try anything. "You fall in love with me in school, spend years with me. Tell me we're going to get married as soon as we're out of that place. Then, year zero happens, and you're nowhere to be seen. You've vanished entirely, and in the chaos of everything that first year I'm thinking you died. Wars and death and killing happens until we're all sick and tired of it, and then..." He fell silent. "I see you. I almost didn't recognize you on TV. Looking... like this. It's not just the wings. Your entire body's changed, slimmer and taller and more muscular. You look simultaneously like you became a bodybuilder and got hooked on botox." He growled.
"You know I wanted to find you before that." Cadance softly replied, reaching out to caress Shining's cheek. "I do love you, I truly do. But its that chaos and fighting that prevented me. People hated Celestia that first year, and any who she had touched."
"There's the Freudian language again." Shining swatted away her hand, briefly feeling how hot to the touch it was.
"It's not something disgusting, to be feared." Cadance assured. "Celestia made me into something I could hardly dream of. I can see so much more, feel so much more of the universe than I could as a human. This world is so... beautiful. I can see that now, Shining. Being touched by Celestia- Becoming an Alicorn- was the greatest thing that's ever happened to me."
She tilted her head again, seeming stuck between two or three poses. Her eyes still bored past his soul. "I have become a shepherd to Humanity."
She reached her palm across the table, inviting his touch. "And a guardian of what I will lead them to. Have you spoken to an Equestrian? One who used to be human, one touched by the Barrier?"
"They're on TV all the time." Shining watched her hand impassively. "It's why I stopped turning that thing on."
"Spoken, dear. It's incredible, the zest for life converting brings them. They see colors and lights humans can only dream of- and with the help of Alicorns like me, we will ensure this planet will never know vice again."
Shining kept his hands firmly at his side. For a moment, Cadance frowned, before her face reset and she withdrew her hand.
"Shining. We all must become adults someday, and put away our childish things. All childhoods end. Do you want to be the one who faces away from the future, a luddite who refuses to see what is inevitable?"
"No." He spoke softly. "I just wished I could have done it with you."
"I will be there for you, Shining. Always."
Shining glanced up at her, daring to meet her eyes again.
"What's my name?"
Cadance blinked. "Pardon?"
"You've only called me the nickname you had for me back in school. Shining Armour. What's my real name?" Shining narrowed his eyes accusatorily.
"...Shining." She began delicately. "I am still Cadance, the same one you knew all those years ago. Our favorite song was Peggy March's I Will Follow Him, the one we stumbled across while watching that old Whoopi Goldberg movie. You always invited me to your DND games, and refused to switch to 5E. There was that Wendy's down the road from the school stadium we used to go to together every lunch period. We always orde-"
"What's my name?" He repeated.
She fell silent. She only stirred her coffee, a perfect 360 degree circle.
"I don't care that the world's ending, Cadance. I got over that years ago. We all did. Once it was clear it was going to happen, that it wasn't just some asteroid that would land tomorrow and kill us all, it got very hard to stay scared." Shining admitted, waving his hand to the people eating around him. "We're all just tired. Waiting for the Barrier, and whatever it brings."
"Then what are you scared of?"
Shining bit his lip.
"I'm not. I just feel bad for you. Whatever she did to you."
He folded his napkin up, although he hadn't ordered anything. He stood up, pushed his chair in, and left with his hands in his pockets.
Five days later, the Barrier would hit him, converting him instantly. He would forgive Cadance instantly, and they would spend the rest of their lives happily together.
Cadance could see this easily, as easily as she could see the spoon in her hands.
Somehow, it didn't make her feel any better.
An hour later, Cadance teleported into the middle of the Sahara Desert. The Barrier had done surprisingly little to it- here and there flowers tried to bloom, but even the world-terraforming magic of the Barrier had left a few thousand kilometers of sand in the very center of what it had once been. Here, she was alone, away from both humanity and Equestrians.
She looked impassively out at the sand, recalling to years and years ago. She recalled Year Zero, and the first time she had laid eyes on Celestia. She recalled the eyes of sunlight, so bright they almost seemed to morph into one single point of light. She recalled looking into them, and feeling her skin tear. She recalled what she had been told, about the children she had chosen to become Alicorns long before she had shown herself to the world, and the deep seeds she had sewn in the earth to spread the Barrier. How the world would be encompassed, reformed, and humanity would be washed clean. Like a key in a lock, Cadance's long dormant wings had sprouted, and her entire skull felt like it was splitting with information and power.
"Near him I always... hmm hmm... Nothing will keep me... hmm hmm hmm... My destiny..." She murmured half recalled lyrics to herself.
Then, she screamed.
I love him! I love him! I love him!
Raw, wordless human emotion blistered from her throat. She couldn't call it sadness or anger, more like a bastard replica of all of them, like a machine regurgitating information it defined as 'emotion' without recognizing the intricacies. She howled and thrashed, kicking up miles of sand and spreading cracks in the Earth that would never fully heal.
And where he goes I'll follow! I'll follow! I'll follow!
It would be hours before she could run out of breath, so she didn't care about that. She wasn't even entirely sure why she was doing this; it was some deep, buried part of her, expurging everything contained in one great earth-shattering tantrum. Godly power spilled forth, magic ricocheting in waves from her horn and hands.
He'll always be my true love! My true love! My true love!
She shut her eyes tightly, reduced to her knees shaking and still screaming a banshee howl that could be heard for miles. She poured everything she had into the ground, kicking up dust in a horrible cyclone that reached for the clouds. Throughout all of this, her pretty dress and face remained perfectly clean, deflecting any grain that tried to touch them.
From now until forever! Forever! Forever!
And just like that her energy ran out, and she could no longer remember why she had been screaming.
