Shining Armour was pacing in the throne room. Things were looking grim. Whenever he met Cadence’s gaze, she opened her mouth to say something, but hesitated and stayed quiet. She too was trying to piece together some way to organise the Festival of Light with just the two of them.
Twilight and her friends had agreed to help with preparations — four of them, anyway; Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy didn’t manage to find anything to do, but decided to come regardless — but the fact they each wanted to spend the holidays with their family had complicated things a little. It took some convincing to get everypony’s respective families to spend their Hearth’s Warming Eve away from their homes, but they eventually agreed that it was more about being together than about where they celebrated.
The Apples had been particularly reluctant, given that they’d need to find somepony to look over the farm while they were away. Shining Armour’s parents, on the other hoof, had already been meaning to come visit for the occasion.
However, an unexpected and violent snowstorm made travel to and from the Crystal Empire all but impossible for now. Of course, they’d taken reasonable precautions to make sure to arrive on time for the preparations in the case of a storm. Unfortunately for everypony involved, nopony had envisioned such a storm, and even the extra week hadn’t been enough.
When they hadn’t turned up, six days ago, Shining thought that it was still fine. After all, the reason they’d planned to arrive early was due to the risk of blizzards slowing the train’s progress, and those were common this far north. Sure, the storm seemed bad, but there was nothing to worry about. Even the second day passed without too much anxiety, though they did send a party of elite survivalists to scout ahead, since the storm was getting more and more severe.
Throughout the third day, Shining grew a little more worried. It was still within expectations, but what if it was the herald of something worse? When he confided those concerns in Cadence, she’d given him a reassuring smile and told him not to worry. She was right, of course.
Or so he thought.
At the end of the fourth day, not even his wife’s calming words could keep his anxiety at bay, as even she was worried sick. If only Spike could send letters to somepony other than Celestia, they would have already heard back from their guests.
So, when the scouts finally returned, Shining and Cadence were immensely relieved to find out that everything was fine, and that the train only needed more time to get to the Capital. It had more than enough coal and food to last a few more weeks, and nopony was in any danger.
However, it also meant that it was now squarely up to Shining and Cadence to organise the Festival of Light.
Technically, they still had a day of leeway, but the odds of the train arriving in time were slim, to say the least.
Since then, Shining had been trying to create a mental map of everything needing to be done, but there was so much of it, and it was all so unclear. He’d never prepared an event like that, so he had no idea where to even start. Cadence had more experience, but she’d been busy with her other duties. What didn’t help was that the organisers were the only ponies to know about the event and what it was supposed to be — thanks to Twilight’s and Shining’s research — so none of the royal advisors knew how to help out.
Now, it was the evening of the sixth day. Tomorrow, the preparations needed to start, and they didn’t have any of the ponies who were supposed to help them. Shining and Cadence had already postponed every single royal duty they could, freeing up most of the next two days.
Shining turned to Cadence once again, who’d finally decided where she wanted to start. “I think I should take care of the food situation if you don’t mind. I’ve already seen how it’s done during our wedding, so I think it will be easier for me.”
He nodded in hesitant agreement. “I think you’re right, but what should we do about everything else? Without Twily, I don’t even know where to start.” Oh, how he regretted not getting more involved sooner.
“We probably need to do things one at a time, and add only to our plate when we know it’s safe.” Cadence looked at him, waited a few moments for any additions he might have, before continuing, “The most important parts of the Festival are the banquet and the light show, so why don’t you do the latter while I do the former?”
“Me? But I don’t have Rarity’s, as she put it, ‘flair for the extraordinaire’. I’m not sure I’m creative enough.” He looked at the ground and sighed, resigned. “But I guess if I don’t do it, nopony else will.”
Cadence nuzzled his neck and gave him a worried little smile. “I’m not sure I can handle the food situation either. I know our cooks are competent” — after all, who else would volunteer to cook for a banquet — “but I have no idea if I’ll be able to coordinate them.”
“It shouldn’t be too hard, no? They already have everything planned out, wouldn’t you think?”
Cadence hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “I guess you’re right. If everything goes well, I might even be able to help you out.” They shared a small smile, followed by a quick kiss.
They fell quiet again, before Shining said, “This leaves us with the tables, tents, and seating arrangements. You really think we can just leave those for the last moment?”
“Probably. We already have the tables and tents in stock, so it would just be a matter of setting them up, and we have more than enough horsepower to do that. It shouldn’t take too long. The seating arrangement seems a bit tougher, but it doesn’t need to be as perfect as Twilight would have made it, so it’ll be fine as well.”
Pinkie’s plans for two pre-parties would probably not come to fruition. Not that Shining or Cadence minded. Pinkie had been the one insisting on throwing them to get everypony excited for the event.
Brush covered in glue in his mouth, Shining Armour was carefully bringing together two pieces of crystal. The angle needed to be just right, or the effect would look off.
But was this really right? He turned his head to one of his dozens of failed experiments. Yes, it needed to go right about… here.
Now, he only needed to check if it looked as he’d imagined. He floated it up to the small hook hanging from the ceiling above his table. Picking up a flashlight, he shone it at the bundle of crystals and… “Yes!”
The brush dropped out of his mouth. He caught it in his telekinesis out of reflex, only to drop the flashlight instead.
It thunked against the bucket of glue, knocking it over. Within a few moments, Shining righted it and moved everything out of the spreading puddle. However, the damage was done. One of the finished pieces had come in contact with it, and the crystal-melting magic that was imbued in the glue had already started eating away at the surface, removing its shine.
Shining groaned and let his head drop onto the desk — away from the puddle of glue.
“No, no, no, I’m telling you, a crème brûlée will absolutely not work!” shouted a mare whose name Cadence should have remembered. Right now, her head was aching with a dull throb, and her eyes were almost closing on their own. The cook continued her tirade for several more moments until Cadence realised she’d tuned out. “... the flavours just clash too much!”
“No they don’t,” rebutted a stallion in a prench accent. Come to think of it, he was the only non-crystal pony in the room, aside from Cadence. “Maybe if you were to eat them with each other you would notice the problem, but if you space them out there will not be a problem.”
“But we don’t know how long ponies will end up waiting between dishes!” chimed in another mare in a nasal and high pitched voice that sent nails into Cadence’s skull.
Cadence briefly pressed her eyes shut and took a deep breath as somepony else screeched some other rebuttal. Over less than a minute, the table had yet again devolved into a shouting match.
For maybe the tenth time that day, Cadence slammed both hooves on the table, drawing silence from everypony. The nine other times, she’d made sure to keep it princess-like while remaining firm. Now, she’d definitely put more force into it than intended.
With all eyes on her, she said, “I think it’s time for us to part for the day. Meeting adjourned.” Somehow, she managed to keep her tone curt, despite herself.
Shining Armour was pacing in the throne room when the door opened and Cadence trotted in.
He stopped to turn to her and asked, “How’re things on your end? Please tell me you’ve been doing better than I have.”
Cadence shook her head. “I doubt it. Would you mind telling me about your day first? I probably won't be able to stop ranting once I start. Did you make any progress on the crystal light show? I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you with it.”
Shining grimaced. “Yeah, but really not as much as I’d like. It took me a while to figure out how exactly the crystals refract and reflect light. With what I learned, I should be able to make a lot more progress tomorrow. Still, even at this rate, the light show will be very short. Do you think you’ll have the time to help me out? I’m kind of out of my depth here.”
Cadence first shook her head, then furrowed her eyebrows. “Well, maybe, depending on how things go on my end.” The look on Shining’s face begged her to elaborate, so she did, “I spent all of today talking to the cooks, and nopony can make up their minds. They have lots of individual ideas for dishes and pastries, but they can’t decide on how to put them together properly in one cohesive course. They just keep on arguing. And arguing. And arguing. We didn’t even manage to make any of the desserts that could have been kept fresh till the event.”
She took a deep, long breath and sighed. “Do we have any headache medicine anywhere? I’ll need it if I’m to try again tomorrow.”
“Why don’t you just put your hoof down?” Shining offered.
“I did, several times in fact.” Cadence gave a sheepish smile. “But all of their ideas sound interesting, and it’s hard to make up my mind. The crème brulée, the apple pies, the salted caramel ice cream.” Her mouth started watering, so she shook herself out of it. “And that’s just some of the options for desserts.”
“Then… do you really need to choose? Can’t they just make some of each?”
Cadence shook her head. “We’d need a lot more kitchen space for that. If everypony’s making the same dish, it’s a lot easier to coordinate what goes where and who gets to use which parts of the kitchen. As it stands, the castle’s kitchen isn’t big enough to cook so many diverse meals for everypony in the Capital.”
Shining furrowed his eyebrows, deep in thought. He started nodding and muttered, “Why don’t we split the groups and have them cook elsewhere? They could make the food in their own kitchens, and just bring it over for the event.”
Cadence hesitated. “A few of them are restaurant owners, they certainly would have the room for their small groups. Estimating off the top of my head, with the restaurants’ kitchens as well as the castle’s, we’d still have a third of cooks with nowhere to go.”
“What about even smaller kitchens? It might be a bit weird to ask some of those ponies to lend us part of their homes, but I’m sure they’d understand.”
“But that would force us to have even smaller groups, I’m not sure we’d be able to make enough food.”
“Can’t we just ask more ponies to cook, then? We’re already gonna have very diverse food, so why not…” He trailed off, following a stray thought.
Cadence furrowed her eyebrows and mumbled, “I think you’re right…”
They both went quiet, piecing together their respective options.
Over a few moments, Shining’s eyes opened wider and wider. “I think I have an idea for the light show as well. It… won’t be perfect, but now we kind of just need to get it done.” When Cadence motioned for him to continue, he added, “I could ask some ponies to volunteer and build their own contraptions for the Festival. We could have dozens upon dozens of ponies helping out.”
They looked at each other, grinning from ear to ear. Almost in unison, they said, “I think we might just pull it off!”
They shared a chuckle, then a nuzzle and a kiss.
Shining was pacing in the throne room. Everything was ready, and he only had a speech to hold. He’d practised it, and he had enough experience with public speaking to not be a nervous wreck, but there was a shred of anxiety that would never go away. Pacing did help calm down the rest of his nerves.
For him and Cadence, the last two days had gone by extremely quickly, yet had felt like two weeks with everything that had happened.
As expected, neither of them had the time or energy to organise either of Pinkie’s parties. It was an idea best left in the past.
The time they each freed up by delegating the tasks to individual ponies ended up necessary to set up the tents. Even with crystal guards helping out, and even with Shining and Cadence’s telekinesis, getting everything ready in time had been a challenge.
An individual pavilion didn’t pose much of a challenge and could easily be mounted within an hour, including everything inside. However, problems arose when they needed to do multiple at once, with everypony involved stepping on each other’s hooves. It had been utter chaos, and both Shining and Cadence wanted to forever forget about it.
Other than that, the preparations had gone well, as far as the two could tell. It was hard to estimate, but there might have been a little bit too much food. Not that it was a big issue.
A knock sounded on the large double door, and a guard pushed it open before stepping inside. “Your Highnesses, it’s time,” she said after giving the couple a short salute. Shining and Cadence nodded at her, then at each other before trotting out onto the balcony.
The tents extended all around the main plaza and down the larger arteries of the Capital, and in front of each stood a group of ponies, idly chatting as they waited. Silence stretched over the combined crowd as ponies noticed the royal couple step out onto the balcony.
Shining cleared his throat, and Cadence’s horn glowed to cast the amplification spell.
“Good evening everypony.
“At first, I had a very different speech prepared for the occasion. I was going to talk about the historical significance of this tradition, but given everything that happened, I decided against it.” Ponies in the crowd looked at each other in confusion, and Shining spotted the occasional shrug.
“I’ll still have to tell you a little bit about the tradition since it fell out of fashion long before many of you were even born. A few might still remember, or may have read about it, but I don’t think there’s anypony here who holds dear memories of it.
“It used to be that the royal family would organise a feast and a light show for the entire Crystal Capital to enjoy, right around the longest night in the year.
“As you may know, it’s what we originally meant to do. However, things really didn’t turn out as expected. Maybe that’s even why the holiday fell out of fashion in ancient times, since all the organisation worries would fall on one group of ponies.”
Understanding started to dawn on most ponies’ faces, confusion turning to joy.
“Which is why I’m happy to say that, despite the departure from tradition when it comes to organisation, we still managed to prepare a great festival for everypony!
“What’s more, we didn’t just make an event and a show. By coming together and all working side by side, we managed to make these last two days special. It isn’t just an event anymore, but a real holiday where everypony comes together to celebrate. From the bottom of my heart, I believe this is better than our original plan, because in the end, what matters is spending time with your loved ones.”
Shining paused, letting his words sink in for a brief moment before adding, “So, without further ado, let’s begin. Dig in, everypony!”
The crowd exploded in applause. In the end, most ponies had helped out in some way or another. Once it became known that the Crown was looking for more cooks, many ponies each made a small dish to share with others.
A similar chain of events happened with the light show. Shining had vastly underestimated how excited ponies were, and how much they wanted to help. Now, instead of being worried that the light show would be too short, there was a good chance it would be too long.
Still, it had warmed his heart to see ponies working together, especially given how hard Cadence and he would have had to work otherwise.
Yet, despite the happy tone of his speech, Shining Armour and Cadence felt like the words didn’t apply to them. While everypony else was celebrating, they would be alone, without their friends or family.
The atmosphere grew heavier throughout dinner. They could see and hear ponies laughing and talking. Fillies and colts would hurry up and finish their food and either run around and play with their friends or simply find a quieter place to talk to them.
The adults, too, were having fun. Since nopony had come up with a seating arrangement, some tents were a lot more cramped than others. Ponies hadn’t cared about that, simply joining wherever their friends and family were. It didn’t look comfortable, but everypony appeared happy.
This left some of the tents rather empty looking, but the groups sitting inside didn’t mind.
One exception to that was unfortunately Shining and Cadence’s tent. Most of their usual assistants had gone off to spend time with their families, and only a few remained with the royal couple. Those that did weren’t the kind either Shining or Cadence could really speak their mind to, so conversation ended up polite and uninteresting.
Oh how Cadence and Shining both wished their own friends and family were here. The Festival of Lights hadn’t been meant as a replacement for Hearths Warming Eve, but to either of them, spending it alone was all too gloomy — even if they did have each other.
It didn’t help that Cadence and Shining were still worried. The fact that their friends still weren’t here after an entire week was a heavy weight on their minds. Yes, they knew the train’s passengers weren’t in any real danger, but that was far from enough to fully quench their worries.
Eventually, both of them retreated into the throne room to prepare for the ceremony itself. There wasn’t a lot to do, since everything was ready, but neither of them could stand being near the festivities anymore and needed a bit of time alone. Needing to get ready was just a convenient excuse, though the pair did make sure to freshen up and make sure they looked perfect for the occasion.
While Cadence was brushing her mane — Shining had also taken care of his, but didn’t need nearly as long — a purple flash came from the throne room.
Ideas flashed across Shining’s mind. Could it be Twily?
Sure enough, Twilight was standing in the middle of the throne room. Their eyes met, and they ran to embrace each other. After a few moments, they parted.
“Twily, I’m so glad you’re okay,” he said.
Twilight sighed and giggled. “Me too, that was one heck of a trip.”
Cadence, whose hoofsteps had been overshadowed by Twilight and Shining’s, finally got close enough to speak, “You need to tell us about that later. Where are the others? Are you hungry?”
“All outside. We tried going in through one of the side entrances, but there were no guards and it was locked.” She gestured in the general direction. “And kind of. We had a proper lunch, but that was already a few hours ago. Did we miss the main event? We didn’t see any of the lights, and I don’t know if you moved the schedule.”
Shining gave her a warm smile. “Actually, you’re right on time. Ask the others if they wanna watch the light show or if they’d rather eat first.”
Cadence, Shining Armour, Twilight Sparkle, Twilight Velvet and Night Light were watching the lights dance on the dark wall. Everypony else had gone into nearby tents to get some food in their stomach. It turned out that Twilight had underestimated how hungry everypony was. They could still see the event, but weren’t underneath the dome that made up the bottom of the castle.
Lights danced around the floor and ceiling, reflecting off the castle and ground, forming intricate and slightly chaotic patterns. However, nopony minded, as they were completely mesmerised with the show.
After the first ten minutes, all five of them joined the rest of the late arrivals. Shining and Cadence hadn’t eaten much during the main dinner, so they still had room for more.
While the Crystal Empire’s first Lights’ Shining Eve — as it later came to be known as — had a bit of a rocky organisation, the following years had the event see ever more attention, spreading throughout the entire Empire without any particular efforts from Shining Armour and Cadence, with ponies coming from even remote parts of Equestria to witness it in the capital, where it was usually the grandest.
Of course, the event never lost its new meaning. Unlike in ancient times, it would never just be about the contrast between light and shadows. Instead, it was an occasion to come together and celebrate ponies’ differences.
Author's Note
This story ended up a lot less interesting than I intended for it to be, and I'd like to apologise for that. I didn't realise how badly this needed a full rewrite until it was too late to change it.
