As The Sun Sets

Cadance was in her office, doing office things she wasn't really paying attention to. There was a book on her desk she asked Amber to retrieve two days ago, Alliteration's Guide to Teaching, that was meant to be review for her upcoming meeting with Homeward today. To hopefully talk about progress, the green mare was excited about something the last time they spoke, so Cadance had high hopes. High enough that she couldn't focus on anything else, with the meeting just an hour away.

Cadance glanced over the details of the stack of papers in front of her. It was a maintenance report, and a funding request to fix the little filly's room down on the eighth floor. Apparently the construction ponies, while attempting to begin work on Cadance's grand idea for a mailroom, had ignored Ivory because, quote: "What would a maid know about construction?" and then went ahead and began construction in the wrong room.

Ivory was justifiably out for blood, hoping to at least make the money back by suing the ties off of the company; despite all of the company's bits coming directly from the Palace anyways.

Cadance magically slid the stack to the side, hoping to try and talk Ivory down before the entire palace ate itself. She kept her horn lit and opened her office door, "Amber?"

Amber's head came around the corner leaning over her own desk into Cadance's line of sight.

"Do you have Ivory's schedule over there?"

Amber nodded, "One second~!"

Cadance's muzzle scrunched. Not only was that an explicitly cheery reaction, but Amber was smiling. The mare was always so focused or in her head that she rarely expressed anything other than neutral professionalism.

Amber walked in through the doors, a folder open in her front hoof. She nosed through several pages before settling on one and lifting it up with her mouth and placing it on Cadance's desk. "There you go." She smiled again.

It was cute as Tartarus, but Cadance was far too interested in the why. Amber was... Giddy? Not quite excited, not quite happy, reveling? Wait...

Cadance gasped, "Amber!"

Amber stepped back in confusion and mild fear as Cadance nearly leapt over her desk, "Do you have a crush!?"

Amber's mouth did that thing fishes do, "Oh-uhm. Right... Princess of Love." She said as her heart calmed and she looked away bashfully.

"Oh my gosh!" The mare didn't deny it. "Tell me everything!"

Amber kept up the shy demeanor, "There isn't really much to tell. Yesterday I... Somepony left me a card and a cupcake, today it was a graham cracker. They've just been saying really nice things."

Cadance leaned over the desk more and smiled a dangerous smile, "oOoOo, so a secret admirer?"

Amber was wilting from the attention, so Cadance backed off a little. "Uh-huh."

"Do you have any idea who they are? Do you want any help finding them?"

"Oh no! No." Amber waved her hooves, "I mean, no thank you. They're probably really shy and I-"

"They're?" The tone was enough context for the question.

Amber blushed a little harder, "I'm not picky, your Highness."

"Oh! That's perfect!" Cadance clapped her hooves. "Amber, you have no idea how glad I am to hear this. You should leave them something too! A note or a confection, like they've been doing."

Amber's eyes lit up, seemingly with ideas. "That- I will. That sounds like a wonderful thought."

"Oh, and you just have to tell me all the details. What have they been saying? What's the-"

Cadance nearly broke into giggling as Amber interrupted her. The crystal mare was apparently just as excited as Cadance was. "They saw me first at the duel, remember? They were around during Sombra's reign, and remembered me from the palace. The...uh-" Her momentum slowed, and she got quieter. "They said that I was a genius. They've been following my court appearances, said they learned a lot about legalese from my work, a-and that they like the way I style my mane?" She finished, looking at Cadance who was nearly about to explode.

If Cadance was on all fours, she probably would have been dancing in place. She schooled her expression, "Out of curiosity, graham crackers?"

Amber shook her head, and suddenly, almost frighteningly, all of her emotions were replaced with nothing. Amber just dimmed on the inside when she answered, "The Empire doesn't make a lot of wheat, so what we do make doesn't go to waste... Since the Crystal Star Stalks bind with the yeast in the brown wheat berries we grow, it means that that the..." The second time Amber trailed off, it was for far longer than would have normally been acceptable in a conversation without somepony asking if the one speaking was okay. "-cracker can mostly be made out of sugar. It makes them very sweet, and they're more of a confection in the Crystal Empire than anywhere else in Equestria."

Cadance tried to keep her own mood from souring at the sudden change in the conversation. Despite the information from Amber's lecture being something Cadance would have normally taken polite interest in, the monotone presentation in conjunction with Amber's emptying emotional state made it difficult to keep a smile up.

"I'm... surprised I haven't heard of this before..." Cadance decided it best to change the topic, "Thank you Amber, for the schedule, did you need me for anything before you go?" Cadance made sure to imply what she actually meant in her tone when she said, "Anything at all?"

Amber's neutral expression became slightly more neutral. "No, nothing Princess, and you're welcome."

Amber then left, supposedly leaving once she'd been verbally dismissed.

The... The buck was that?

Cadance stared dumbly at the door as it closed, wondering what exactly about graham crackers would have... done the reverse of upset her so much. That and why exactly her asking about it was the issue, she'd mentioned it herself so...

Why?

Cadance leaned back on her cushion and flexed her wings to cover her face, "Ugghhh"

It's always something isn't it?

Cadance used her magic to clear off her desk quickly, and levitated a book over to herself.

Gonna need my energy to deal with tonight. Best conserve it.

Cadance stared at the book. Several moments passed her by, moments she wouldn't be getting back.

Her frown became more and more agitated.

You know what? No!

Cadance tossed the book onto the desk, delicately. Just enough for the motion to be conjuntive with her intent, without actually damaging the book. She took several efficient steps around her desk and strode up to her office door. Opening it just a few seconds after she had gotten up.

"Amber, can we-" She started, only to glance around. "Amber?" Amber had left. Her work station lay empty, with all of its materials organized or stowed away. The hallway was quiet and just as empty as the chair behind Amber's desk.

Tartarus...

Cadance reversed her way back into her office and shut the door, thinking about what she'd say the next time she saw Amber.

Hey Amber? Can we talk about- mmm, no. Amber! Hey, I was wondering about...

Ugh, Cadance, Amber is an adult, and your friend. Just ask her what was bothering her, she's not Silver; she won't make it so complicated it feels like your head is going to explode.

There was a knock at the door, the sound startling Cadance since she was so close. After settling, she turned towards the tall clock in the room. It read thirty minutes before Homeward was meant to be here, which in all likelihood meant that the pony who had just knocked was not Homeward.

Cadance's office was public, and while its location wasn't exactly a secret; it also wasn't listed anywhere and it wasn't generally spoken about by the ponies that did know where it was.

Cadance reopened the door to reveal Quick Silver.

"Am I early?" She smiled a cheshire grin

Cadance wasn't willing to entertain her at the moment. "Yes. What do you need?"

Silver pursed her lips. "I just wanted to give you a heads up. I'm bringing a friend tonight. I kinda want you to impress. We're doing a rich, secluded dinner thing; so pack a dress, or a tux, if you feel. Or don’t, what do I care? I'm not your mom." Silver turned away before stopping short, "Oh, and tell Luna when she gets here- Sorry, Selene? Was it Selene?"

"Yeah- uh, what friend?" Cadance knew she probably wouldn't get anything else, but it was worth trying.

"You didn't tell me Luna was coming" Silver's right ear twitched, "I at least gave you fair warning. Don't push your luck." She said flatly, then she left, flapping her wings and taking to the air. Cadance only now noticed as she watched the mare move down the hall that her flight wasn't real flight. Just floating that looked like it was lined up with her flapping.

"Okay..." Cadance said out to the once more empty hall. "See you later."

She huffed and stepped back inside her office, shutting the door again. She took a breath from the mood whiplash she just experienced and stretched out her hoof as she did so in her tried and tested breathing exercise. Once she felt suitably centered, she cracked her neck and elected to force down some work before Homeward arrived.

As Cadance had seen from Homeward thus far, it took her thirty minutes. She arrived just on time.

"Come in!"

Homeward's blue aura surrounded the central section of the door and swung it open. She stepped inside once the door was as open as it could be. "Cadance! Hi!"

"Homeward, perfect, come take a seat. I've needed some good news lately." Cadance had put on her polite professionalism voice, that and a big ol' smile. She was excited to see what Homeward had to tell her.

The solid tone green mare quickly made it across the short few steps to Cadance's desk, and planted herself down firmly before talking. "It's not... all good news, but I think you'll like our progress."

"Okay." Cadance said a little slower, "Why don't you start with the bad news?"

Homeward nodded, "We hadn't thought of it until Blue Sky, the lawyer pony you sent us, brought it up. Since we're technically an Equestrian province we fall under their wider scale education rating system. That means local details, government data requirements, guidelines and regulations to make a school formally a school. Otherwise, it's just a building where we commercially offer learning."

"That sounds..." Cadance mulled over the premise momentarily before coming to a conclusion. "Not what I'm looking for."

Homeward made a face Cadance didn't have to read in order to sense the upcoming trepidation. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I want the school to be an independent structure. If we won't get called a school by Equestria, what exactly does that entail?"

Homeward frowned, "Blue didn't really go on about it. If I had to guess, noble spite? Taxes, ponies being obstinate at worst, economically speaking, we'd be screwed by anypony who was associated with the EEA."

"The EEA?" Cadance said, though she remembered a moment too late what it was as the words left her mouth.

"Equestrian Education Association."

Cadance smiled, "Then ignore them. They're all bluster, nopony worries about accreditation anyways. When we succeed, they'll try and give it to us anyways and try to make it look like they were on our side the whole time. If you get any paperwork from them, you send it directly to me after letting Blue Skies look it over."

"Oh..." Homeward inclined her head a little, "Is it really that easy? We just ignore them?"

"Uh-huh, Celestia dealt with them while founding CTU." Cadance tapped a hoof to her chin, "Though I think she may have just outlasted them..."

"Well then, throwing that out of the window, all I have is good news."

Cadance clapped her hooves, "Well go on then!"

"We're ready to start looking for a location, and we have the first two drafts of what we want our operating rules to look like." Homeward lifted up a hoof, "But, we're going to need more ponies. Just like the thing with Blue, we didn't realize we didn't know something until after a pony with experience pointed it out."

"So you need a few more ponies on the roster, preferably an expert." Cadance agreed.

"Yes, and... we may need a little bit more time?" Ward tapped her hoof on the ground, a nervous tick she apparently had. "It's a lot of work writing up everything from scratch, hiring forms to adherence paperwork... it's a lot to get through with five ponies."

Cadance tilted her head, "From scratch? Aren't there public resources?"

Ward already seemingly had an answer prepared, based on how quickly she responded. "I thought that too, Ray convinced us otherwise though. If we want this place to be on the map, we have to do everything ourselves. That means all of our procedures have to be new, all of the lessons have to be hoof made, the staff and faculty needs to have papers up to date that we made ourselves..."

"And the reasons he used were...?"

"It's all about imaging." Ward's hoof tapped on the ground once more before she gestured with her other hoof, "Being totally new, and with the facilities you... envisioned, ponies are going to need a reason to trust what we have going. If we just copy the templates used by every school? Versus if we make everything ourselves."

Cadance nodded, "So we start with a clean reputation, and so long as we don't make any mistakes, it can only go up from there."

"Yes, exactly." Homeward's nervous twitching stopped, "When the research institution portion of the school opens, ponies are going to get interested. When they see what we're doing, and how we're doing it, ponies will get excited to come. Then when we announce the learning opportunities? Degrees and such? Ponies will come running."

Cadance was nodding along with everything Homeward was saying, "So... This is just an update meeting? You don't need anything from me?"

"Aside from any experts you can send us-"

Cadance interrupted, "I'll get that done, I know a few ponies, and I can ask Celestia."

Homeward smiled, "Then, nope! We don't need anything from you. Though, where do you think we should build it?"

Cadance waved her hoof, "Before we go onto that, how's your team? Like you said, it is a lot of work, and I know I didn't give any of you a deadline. How are they?"

"Oh uhm." Ward took a moment. "They're doing alright, I guess. Marker and Symbol are generally the same, nothing really seems to phase them. Dawn is really excited to be working on something so big, he has this dream of getting his name in the history books. I'm just glad to be busy, honestly."

Cadance opened her mouth, but Homeward apparently didn't see, and continued talking, "It is hard work, but that's what we get paid to do right? Nopony's complaining, and it's not like you're making it difficult. You basically told me not to care about the biggest roadblock we had, and then immediately promised to grant my request." There was a short chuckle, "You're basically the best supervisor I've ever had."

"Thank you, I try." Cadance shifted, "About the location... I was actually thinking about building it outside the shield."

Homeward blinked a few times.

Cadance continued, "There's not a lot of space left in The Empire proper, and I'm not eating up any farmland for this, so that leaves industrial zones, rural zones, and neither of those really fit the theme."

Homeward was justifiably skeptical, "Maybe, but, out in the perpetual blizzard? How would we even-"

"Magic, obviously. I've been... working on something in my spare time." Cadance gave the mare a silly smile, "It's going to stay a secret for now though, don't worry about a location yet."

"Okay. Not that I don't trust you or anything, but will building out on the permafrost be a problem? I'm no architect."

Cadance shook her head. "I don't think so, no."

Homeward shrugged, "Can't argue with that."

They both shared a short moment of silence before Homeward stood and said, "That's everything I have for you."

"Thank you, of course, if you have any questions or requests, come find me. Sorry my schedule is all over the place, you're always welcome to drop in and set something up. I'll tell Amber."

"Thank you, I will be doing that. There's a surprisingly large amount of hoops to schedule something with you."

Cadance gave a princessly titter, "Don't I know it."

"Bye Princess, thank you again."

"Thank you, Homeward." Cadance gave a wave as Homeward exited.

Good good good

Cadance leaned over her desk and lit her horn. She focused the same thoughts into her magic as before, and a little floating pink cube appeared.

"Hello little one." She floated it over to her hoof, where it landed and began to sag. Cadance charged it with more magic, and it seemed to fill out, getting denser and becoming opaque.

Alright, here it goes.

A little creativity mixed with inspiration, and the sensation of reaching out. Her eyes began to leak blue smoke, and the cube began to expand, gaining more vertices and edges, becoming an octahedron, then a dodecahedron. Then she started thinking of herself, her features and who she was. The pink shape fell through her hoof, becoming intangible to her, and landed on her desk.

Cadance identified a few more objects in the room, mostly everything besides the walls, and poured magic into the growing shape.

Unlike the last time Cadance tried this, the object was now nearly a sphere as it grew out from it's resting spot on the floor. The magic around it's edges began to swallow up everything it grew around, lifting up things Cadance hadn't identified. A few quills and a sheet of paper got shoved off her desk, and Cadance strained to continue pushing magic into the sphere. The area around her became covered in pink as it enveloped her.

Once it became too difficult to continue, Cadance stopped and caught her breath. The sphere took up half the room now. Lighting not only the interior, but the walls and bookshelves with pink light as it glowed. Cadance walked around her desk towards the edge of the sphere and lifted a quill that had been thrown to the ground, leisurely tossing it at the bubble and watching it bounce off.

A self sustaining shield spell... If only I could make the inside less pink.

Cadance had another cube in her bedroom. It was three days old at this point, and had yet to show any signs of disappearing on its own. If she could produce permanent shields, they could expand the Crystal Empire.

Cadance blinked a few times to get the smoke flowing from her eyes to disappear. It was sticking around longer and longer now. Something she needed to keep track of.

"Okay. Now for the fun part."

Cadance stepped up to the bubble, and tapped the edge of it with her horn. She lit it a second later, and all of the energy began flowing back to where it came from. The sphere shrunk all the way down to Cadance's horn, before disappearing with a 'pop'. The whole process took far less time than expanding it. Now revitalized, having gained back the magic she used, Cadance smiled to herself.

I'm getting better at this.

"Okay." She ruffled her wings. "That's enough messing around for today." She glanced at the clock, "I apparently have somepony to impress."

Cadance lit her horn and Love-ported to her room.

Luna arrived just as Cadance stepped out of the bathroom. She was looking for a pin for her mane, it occurred to her that she wouldn't be able to find a dress that fit her if she was going to change size into Allium, so she just went with something that fit with hopes for the best.

"Oh! Luna, hey." Selene simply stood in the room, having seemingly been waiting. Cadance was wearing what was essentially a large soft maroon cape that covered her flanks. The front end of it curled around her chest and hung down, tied off on itself with a ruby clip with just enough give to wrinkle into a flowy pattern.

"Hello Cadance, was I..." Luna, in her disguise, looked Cadance up and down. "Was I supposed to come dressed?"

"Silver let me know a little last minute. We're meeting a friend of hers for dinner."

Selene's face immediately filled with suspicion. "Silver does not have friends, by her own word. What else did she tell you?"

"Purposefully? Nothing, though she alluded to payback for bringing you." Cadance levitated a mane clip from inside her nightstand and fiddled with her mane, trying to get it into a bun.

"This is concerning." A space floating above Selene's head began to glow, and light flickered around her form as an undershirt that matched her jet black coat appeared, followed by a series of blankets that folded over her form, leading to a ruffles filled jacket that could have been mistaken for a dress by passerby's.

"Was it really that bad last time?"

Selene looked to the side and considered the question.

Cadance chuckled, giving her bun a tentative poke to make sure it would stay in place. "Aside from you drinking way too much, it went well right?"

"It did. Am I worrying too much?"

Cadance nodded, "I think you just want to make a good impression. Don't worry about it, just be yourself."

Selene made a face, then shook her head. There was a mixed burst of a few emotions that Cadance couldn't understand. "When should they be arriving?"

"I'm not sure. Let me send Silver a letter." Cadance did just that, a few quill strokes and a spell and that was that. Selene still looked unamused at the spell itself, but a bolt of lightning appeared moments later.

We're meeting my friend at their restaurant, if you're ready now, I'll be there in a second.

Cadance looked up at Selene, "Ready?"

"Now then?" Selene looked over Cadance at the letter. "Yes. I suppose."

There was a knock at the door a second later. Silver let herself in, despite the door being locked, she took a few steps into the room before gesturing outwards. "Shall we?"

Seems like everypony just comes in my room whenever they want

Selene approached, "We shall. Hopefully I won't end the night early again."

"Oh, please Selene." Silver waved her hoof, reminiscent of what Cadance expected from a noble. "You were a joy last week. I'm surprised you didn't puke your guts out."

"Castle guards tend to have a high alcohol tolerance." Selene said, monotone, with the slight twinge of a smirk at the edge of her mouth.

Silver found it funny enough, giving a few laughs. "Exactly what I mean." Silver turned to Cadance, "Cadance! I like your cape, very ALC." Silver leaned over to Selene, "After Lord of Chaos." Then back to Cadance, "Are you ready to get your comeuppance?"

Cadance joined the other two at the door. "I thought I had to do it again for you to…?"

"Nah, but yes. This is something else. You'll think it's funny, eventually."

Cadance deadpanned in Silver's direction. "Thanks."

Glad to have that cleared up...

"Cadance told me that we'd be meeting with a friend of yours?"

"Oh yeah." Silver pointed at Cadance, "She definitely shouldn't've invited you last time, especially without telling me. So hopefully I get one back tonight. We're going to dinner."

Cadance ignored Silver's exposition. "Where exactly? Are we going, that is?"

A ghost of a smile appeared in Silver's expression, but her eyes were still wide and as empty as always. "Los Pegasus. I'd have rather gone for something a little more exciting, but regardless, we can always come back."

"I thought Los Pegasus was an amusement park." Said Selene.

Cadance answered with, "It basically is."

"Oh come on you two. The place is covered top to bottom in shady businesses and the gears that keep the place running. Plenty to make it more complex than just an amusement park. Despite it only having roughly a thousand permanent residents."

A raised eyebrow from Cadance, "That was eerily specific."

"What can I say? I do my research." Silver tossed her portal onto the ground like she was flipping a coin. It hit the floor and stretched open. "Shall we?"

"Is this not inconspicuous?" Selene said, looking down through the floor, to the other side of the portal.

"Very conspicuous. Though ponies nowadays seem inured to strange magical effects."

"Am I wearing a disguise today?" Cadance asked.

Silver stepped over the portal. "Nope, you won't need one; plus, I'd hate to ruin your colour theory cape." As she stepped down, her body inverted, rotating to the different orientation of gravity.

Selene was next. Her wings instinctively spread as she stumbled through.

Cadance jumped in, hoping to land with all her hooves facing down. It worked pretty well, all things considered, the sensation of passing through the portal was still disorienting, especially sideways. Cadance was starting to get used to it though.

She landed on clouds, and looked around as the portal faded away, the little coin shape disk floating it's way towards Silver as she turned away. "C'mon mares, it's just down here."

"Out of curiosity, why not bring us directly to the door?" Selene asked, keeping pace with Silver. Cadance came up behind them, hoping to let them talk.

"I wanted to show off how I could use cloud walking magic." Silver scrunched her muzzle, "Except I realized neither of you know I'm not actually a pegasus, so the point is ruined. I really should have thought of that."

"I actually saw it earlier." Cadance said, "Your flapping didn't match your flight path perfectly."

"Huh. Good catch." Silver shrugged, "Anyways, here we are. Oh, and there's Photo."

The building they'd come up on had neon lights going around the rim, and a red and white façade facing out towards the cloud-crete walkway. Cadance turned with Selene as the dark mare's eyes went wide. Silver took several steps back, bumping into Cadance and pushing her backwards with her surprising weight. As she pushed Cadance backwards, she whispered, "Watch this, you'll love it."

Selene gasped and ran up to the other mare. A light green unicorn mare with a two tone auburn brown mane. "Firefly!" A huge grin split through Selene's muzzle, and her voice slipped from her disguise's back to Luna's.

"Uh-" was all the mare had the chance to say before Selene wrapped her in a hug.

"I cannot believe you're still alive! I thought for sure my- uh-" Selene remembered herself and backed up.

Cadance was trying to make sense of the situation as Silver silently chuckled to herself. She got it when she reached out with her emotional senses on reflex and got nothing.

Changeling.

It wasn't a normal changeling. Normal changelings felt like voids with sparks going off on the inside. This mare, Photo, felt like a vacuum, swallowing even the latent emotions coming off of Selene. The same sensation she'd received from only one changeling she'd ever met.

Cadance was further flabbergasted when the unicorn mare gasped as well. "Long horn?!" She tapped her hooves in place, doing a little dance, "I knew you were back! I told them! HA!" The mare had a familiar voice, lacking only the two tone vibrations of a changeling.

Silver nudged Cadance in the shoulder, "Careful not to catch any flies. Princess."