As The Sun Sets

Cadance blinked wearily.

The nominal speed of a blink tended to be fast enough that the actual action went unnoticed, however, due to both the hour, and the latent exhaustion...

It was nearing five, in the AM. Cadance was still hunched over her desk, reading over documents, marking down her signature. The actual signage was becoming more and more unintelligible to her mind, despite it being identical to the last four hundred copies of itself. She'd turned off the crystal lamps in her office for the sake of her eyes, letting her alicorn night vision handle most of the actual seeing. Only two lamps were still glowing lightly by the door.

Cadance folded up an order request and used her magic to bring out an envelope. A couple of quill strokes later, and she tossed it into the pile with the other pieces of mail going out, hopefully all together, when the rest of the day staff woke.

A yawn did her the favour of gracing her features. The action left her leaning back in her chair with a hoof over her face, trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes. Instead of turning back to the papers, she remained upright, sitting up against how sleepy she was. She scooched the nearby stack of single papers over as she felt Shining Armor's presence coming up the hall.

Despite the fact that he was almost certainly going to try and take her to bed, and she couldn't let him, (she still needed to get all of this done before the morning came properly) she didn't have the internal strength of will to prepare anything to say. Or do anything that would have been relatively speaking, funny, like trying to climb out the window so as to not get caught pulling an all-nighter.

He knocked once and opened the door. Stepping inside and quietly closing it behind him.

"Hey honey."

A smile came to her face. "Hey Shining."

He crossed the distance, coming around the edge of the desk and pulling up a cushion next to her. "Whatcha workin' on?"

Cadance valiantly fought off another yawn as she used her telekinesis to lift one of the papers in question in front of them both. "Organization. Logistics. Mostly work orders... Wish we could automate this..."

He nosed her shoulder, leading to her immediately leaning over. He moved with the gesture and hip slid himself over so she could rest her weight on him, just a little. "You feeling sleepy enough to leave it here?"

Yes.

"No." She protested, as convincingly as she could

"Uh-huh."

Guess that wasn't very convincing.

"I just..." Cadance leaned away from Shining and onto the desk, pulling over the stack she was currently working through. "I want this one finished too, and then if I can deliver everything just after the sun comes up, I can make it to the morning standup, and then-"

"Lemme stop you right there." Shining nosed her shoulder again, leading up to her neck. Cadance's feathers fluttered of their own accord.

Traitors.

"You and I both know that this ends with you taking a nap. Before the sun comes up."

Cadance leaned down and put her head on the table. "Nooooooo..."

"Yeeeees." Shining whined back. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way."

"But-"

"Nothing." Shining's head playfully joined hers on the desk, just across from her own. "I'll finish up for you an-"

"No, you can't. The-" Cadance flutily gestured at the completed box of envelopes, and the stack of papers next to it. "The maps and-things. You'd need to... It's too much." Cadance pushed herself up and tried to fight some wakefulness into her voice. "I can finish it Shining, it'll only take an hour."

"Alright." Shining pushed himself up too. "So the hard way then."

The white unicorn went around the table, crossed the office to the door, and left without another word.

Cadance was too tired and confused at the action to do anything with it, both mentally and physically. So she leaned back over the desk and continued answering questions, paper mail, and pouring over maps of The Empire in order to determine where structures would line up, and where tents would have to go without crossing over each other.

She felt Shining returning about seven minutes later.

He came back with a mug.

"What is that?" She asked, burning curiosity mixing with the strange sensory feedback she was getting. Oddly enough, she could smell the steam before seeing it, what with the darkness filling the room and all. She only got a good look when he placed it on the desk itself, on the opposite side.

Cadance picked it up in her telekinesis, and the mug drifted over to her hooves.

"Hot water and salt?" She questioned, looking up at him.

"Remember our first date?"

Oh... so that's what the hard way is...

Shining pressed himself up against her again, this time in earnest. Cadance melted, both at the contact, and the memories, and the overpowering wave of Love, affection, love, and care that sprouted out from Shining Armor and filled her to the brim.

Cadance smiled down at the mug, and shook her head. "I can't believe you."

"How was I supposed to know?"

I give.

Cadance leaned back from the desk, and into Shining, he was waiting for that, and moved to support her weight. "I had expected that you'd drunk tea before. Ever, even."

"I wasn't entirely wrong."

"You told me you thought it was like wine."

Shining pointed a hoof out at nothing. "Most tea's still taste bad, or at least weird. I'll hold onto that opinion."

Cadance tried to roll her eyes. The motion failed halfway through, and just led to her eyes closing as she pulled the warm mug closer to her chest and her nose. Maybe it was the baby and the hormones talking, but the smell of warm salt was very inviting. After a deeper whiff, she took a sip, and was rewarded with positive sensory feedback she wasn't expecting. Some part of her said: "Salt water! Yes!"

"Mmmmmm."

Shining pressed into her again. "Like it?"

"Yeah." Cadance joked, "It tastes like dumb, lovable colt."

"I'll take that." He left a kiss on the side of her muzzle. "So. Bed?"

Cadance removed the contents of the rest of the mug, and basked in the warm feeling of water for a short moment before responding. "Mhm. You got me."

Shining leaned forwards, and lifted her leg up over his shoulder with magic. She let him guide her, and he stood up from underneath her, leaving her to scooch herself up onto his back. Her muzzle came to rest in his mane, in-between his ears. He started walking towards their bedroom.

About halfway through the walk, Cadance mumbled something along the lines of "Morning-wake up-Amber" and then fell asleep to the smell of her husband, and the sound of his hooves on the crystal flooring.

Shining's perspective

That worked like a charm

Shining made sure to start walking quieter when he noticed his wife dozing away on his back. His sideways smile said it all. He was glad she was going to get some sleep, and as much as he'd prefer to let her sleep in, she did have work to do.

When he set her down in bed, a mixture of skill and telekinesis, she didn't even murmur. Out like a light.

Shining's sideways smile turned to a sideways frown. Usually she'd make some noise, snore, or talk in her sleep; a sign that she had a lot on her mind. The main dilemma was trying to find some way to help. Getting her to sleep was only really a stop gap, she'd wake up and then throw herself back into working just that much harder.

I love you, but you're crazy.

He left another kiss on her muzzle, and then left the room and started heading back to her office. His thoughts of getting help to finish her work threw themselves out the window when he found Amber, scribbling away at something at her desk, the one just outside of Cadance's office.

"Amber?"

She jumped, throwing a hoof to her chest in surprise before calming down. "Shining Armor! I-er, Prince, I'm sorry. You startled me."

Shining suppressed a chuckle, "What are you doing here so early?"

Amber collected herself, "Princess Cadance let me know that we had an early day ahead of us. So... here I am."

Ah

"Well, I just put her to bed after an attempted all-nighter." Shining magicked the door to Cadance's office open. "Wanna help me decipher what she had left?"

"Of course." Amber flipped up a folder and threw it onto her back, then followed Shining into Cadance's office.

Cadance had been spending more time here, after Shining exploded their bedroom, that is, more time than usual.

It took them a minute or two to find the pages in-between the last thing she signed, and the thing that looked the most like it went after the last thing she signed.

"Seems as though she was finalizing the budget. See this map?"

He did, it had lines, markers, little scribbled proper nouns that didn't mean anything to him. It was a map of the grounds surrounding the Spire, and supposedly, it depicted the arrangements for the upcoming Winter Solstice and Crystal Faire combo.

Shining's view of the map was enough for Amber to continue, "This is going to have a reference sheet somewhere, then we can get started."

What followed was the initial hope, followed by sadness when Shining realized that Cadance hadn't likely written out a reference sheet, and then an additional two hours of learning it all from scratch. Both Amber and Shining did work it out, and ended up putting Shining's name on a dozen or so leaflets while Amber wrapped them up. The rejection pile was twice as large, and left out for Cadance to send return messages.

Hematite's perspective

Hematite was standing over a rudimentary control panel made of mostly wood. She tended to prefer wood casing because of the ease of working on them, shaping them, but that wasn't here nor there. Kayfur, and Grey Skies were at either end of the apparatus that sprouted cables and copper wiring leading towards the box. They were all inside, hidden away in one of Quick Silver's subterranean crystal rooms.

"What's the status say Grey?" Hematite said, her crystalline accent slipping in a little due to the excitement. Alchemy and its technological applications had never been studied in the way they were studying it. After Quick Silver had introduced her to the wonders of electromagnetism, and its effects on the measurable wavelengths of permeating thaumic background, Hematite had been struck with inspiration on par with when she got her cutiemark.

"~Flow looks steady~." Grey melodically responded. As much as Hematite was jealous of Grey's voice, there wasn't any real ire. Hematite was glad she didn't have to sing all the time. The singing was magic practice, elemental pegasus magic apparently involved singing, or rhythm. The lessons were mostly lost on her.

"Kayfur?"

"It's fine." He responded, notably less melodic than Grey Skies. "Exactly the same as it was the last three times you asked me."

Hematite sent him a raised eyebrow and pursed lips.

He rolled his eyes and leaned forwards to squint at the magical display. "Still says one thaum."

"The decimal, Kayfur." Hematite scolded.

"One point five seven nine."

Grey skies perked up. Equestrian ponies were far too expressive for Hematite's tastes. "Aren't we looking for point six?"

Hematite nodded, "That's probably as close as we're going to get. How's the condensation core?"

Grey leaned over and grabbed a little silver ball from a tray stand. "Got it right here."

"Are we actually going to do this? Or are we just going to keep talking about doing it?" Kayfur grumbled.

"Go ahead Grey." Hematite responded, sending Kayfur an annoyed look. He chuckled and sent her a shit eating smirk back.

Grey stepped up to their science fair project. A pair of pressure chambers, attached to each other, and a circular oscillating electromagnet surrounding the center chamber between them. Her wings spread unconsciously as she tilted her ponytail out of the way. Her hoof guided the silver pellet into a slot that she grabbed the back of and pressed into the center. She latched it closed next, securing it on the inside of the two sides of the pressure chamber.

"Secure?" Hematite asked

"~Yuuuup~" Grey sang back

"Alright ponies." Hematite flipped a switch on the wooden control panel. There was a spark, from underneath it, and a whirring noise from the cooling fan on the electromagnet as it started up and began to spin around the center. "How does it look Kayfur?"

"It's doing exactly what I made it to do." That, in particular, was suspending the silver pellet in-between the two pressure chambers.

Hematite flipped another switch, and then reached up for her goggles. Grey and Kayfur took note, and adjusted their own personal pony protection equipment as well. The hum of the spells on the outside of the pressure chambers designed to remove the air let her know that it was working. "Okay Hemi... Just..." She kept turning the dial, and the speed of the magnet increased, filling the room with a steady electrical hum.

As soon as the magnet was at full power, Hematite ducked away from the control panel and over to the metal cart next to Grey, and the pair of vials of glowing blue powder sitting on it. She pulled the first one out with her teeth, and brought it over to a slot on the top chamber, sliding it into place, and pushing a tube down over the top. She repeated the same for the bottom side.

"Okay." She breathed out, stepping away from her creation. She turned to Kayfur but he interrupted her with another over exaggerated roll of his eyes.

"Point six one one."

Hematite rushed behind the control panel again and reached for a switch. "Okay! Releasing in three... two..." She waited the extra second in silence before flipping the switch. There was a hiss followed by a thump of the vials' contents getting discharged into the vacuumed chambers. Both sides filled with the glittering blue-green smoke of copper acetate. "Alright. Moment of truth."

Another dial, and the magnet began oscillating, an idea she had gotten from a conversation Silver had with Point Flare about fusion reactions, whatever those were. With the magnet spinning in multiple directions, both clockwise, and inwards, it created an inverted vortex of magnetism around the silver pellet. As expected, despite the lack of ferrous metal in the copper mix, the powder began moving along the arcs of invisible electromagnetism towards the center in ridged cubic patterns.

The silver pellet disappeared under the rapidly forming blue green crystal, glowing brighter as the powder mostly turned clear around the growing shape.

Kayfur, sounding alarmed, said "We just jumped up to two."

Hematite immediately slammed her hoof down over the emergency stop button. A metal lever dropped into the magnet and stopped it in place with an angry screech. The crystal had grown large enough that it didn't fall down into the bottom chamber when everything stopped, but the hissing sound of the chambers filling again dashed Hematite's hopes of keeping the crystal contained.

Kayfur grunted in annoyance, "I said we jumped up to two thaums, not 'it's about to explode.'"

Hematite responded as academically as she could. "I'm not willing to take that chance. This is uncharted territory." Really, she would have let it run until it melted the container, but not with her friends standing right next to it. She turned to Grey, "Help me get it out?"

Grey was already holding a screwdriver, she sent Hematite a wink, since her mouth was occupied.

Quick Silver's perspective

Four hundred and eighty one.

It was nearing the hour after sunup, and Silver was counting the steps required to walk from her abode to The Spire. The only thing she had on her was a folded up letter, and herself, of course.

Four hundred and eighty two.

Her head turned slowly to the side while her eyes snapped over the nearest ponies, a crystal mare and a stallion, talking about getting lunch. The stallion was clearly just a bit younger.

By the tone alone, four eighty three, I'm betting siblings.

Silver did a quick glance over while continuing to face the opposite direction.

Definitely siblings, see the, four eighty four, curve behind the neck? Crystalian, four eighty five, genetics for you.

Silver twitched suddenly and violently. Nobody saw, she chose just the right moment to crack her neck.

Focus.

Silver's mind fell away as her body slipped into autopilot, the next thing she knew, she was striding down a crystal hallway. She could smell Shining Armor, her current target, two doors down with her heightened sense of smell. Still trying to avoid any thought, so as to not spook anyone, Silver crossed the rest of the distance in a blink, and knocked on the door. Cadance's office, which was odd, because Cadance definitely wasn't inside.

What could he be doing inside?

Amber was in there too, apparently. Silver heard her voice reverberate through the crystal floor. The door had a sound refraction charm on it, making the conversation inside audible, but completely unintelligible. The floor had no such restrictions. Silver leaned over to Amber's desk and expended a large sum of magic to conjure a slice of sponge cake. The card filled with niceties joined it at the desk, and then Silver turned back to the door.

Having given a courtesy knock, Silver pushed the door open.

It was an office, there wasn't a lock on the door, as far as she knew. She'd never looked. It's not like it would have mattered anyways. Silver could always just walk through the door if she really needed to.

Amber made a move to grumpily tell whomever was intruding to leave, before noticing Silver, and falling silent. Silver made sure not to let the disappointment show, regardless of how much she expected it.

Yeah...

"Silver?" Shining Armor looked up from the desk. Silver took in the stacks of paperwork and made the connection.

Ah, they're doing Cadance's piled up paperwork.

"I take it the princess is suitably in bed, at the moment?" Silver strode up to the desk, moving eerily smoothly to make herself seem intimidating by moving just a little too grateful to be possible. Precise muscle control.

"What are you doing here." Came Amber's frustrated statement.

Shining sent Silver a look, and Silver smiled as she explained, "I'm here to collect the fair prince for his training."

Amber looked at Shining in confusion, Shining looked like he needed to yawn and rub his eyes. "Stuff came up."

Silver slid herself over to the desk and propped herself up over the back end with her front hooves, she leaned her head to the side, "OoOoOo. Stuff?"

"Silver."

"Alright. Message received." Silver turned and pretended to be about to leave. In reality, she did actually leave her body, folding her essence down into the crystal flooring. Despite the over-opulence of having an entire spire made of crystal, it was horrendously thaumically conductive. Probably the same way Sombra used to be able to get around the palace so quickly. She wove a spell into the response features folded into her body's flesh, telekinesis of the blood magic kind. "I could help you know."

"What, with running a country?" Shining sarcastically monotoned.

Silver turned her head over her shoulder and protested, "I've run countries, and no, setting up the faire."

"Aren't you already doing that?" He asked, seriously this time.

"She is?" Amber questioned.

Silver pushed her magic through her body, pulling the important parts into ethereal mist, and slowly draining them into the floor to join the rest of her. She also made herself shrug while doing it, slowly replacing the parts that were disappearing with fake misty parts that merely looked like her. "Something like that." Silver's body said. "Regardless, I'll get out of your manes; though, Shining."

Shining knew that tone of voice, clearly, and narrowed his eyes.

"Here's a bit of homework for you. How did I do this?"

Then the fake Silver disappeared, and the real Silver slipped through the crystal flooring, making her way back out into the hallway she started in. A quick perception charm stopped anyone from watching her fold her body back into material, which looked gross, as blood magic does.

"Looks like I've got a few spare hours."

Silver's head leaned to the side.

"Helix?" She offered

The voices bickered for a moment.

"Helix." She decided

Silver walked off.

Discord's persp-"Ahah... No. Next!"

Luna's perspective

Luna kicked one of the palace doors closed behind her. She was already half asleep, and she still had the rest of her duties to take care of... still... before she got the chance to go to bed. In her delirious state, she failed to notice the guard that began trotting towards her in confusion, as they approached, Luna lit her invisible horn and cast off her 'noxa selene' disguise. The armor plates fizzled into dreamstuff that fell into the void of her ethereal mane, and her body lengthened and 'blue-ened' as she simply became Luna again.

The approaching guard, wisely, turned around and returned to their post without a word.

Luna grumbled to herself while trying to figure out where she was in the maze of a castle. After a moment, she gave up thinking, and just cast a homing charm on her sister. Celestia was in the castle, the sun had risen about an hour ago.

Luna didn't really feel like dealing with Celestia at the moment, but there was an idle hope for comfort, followed by a bed, if she could convince herself to push off doing 'princess' work for just another day. Following her horn, Luna navigated the castle, occasionally drifting away from a wall when she got too close, and meandering her way towards what looked to be the palace dining hall.

She could have figured out where she was now, but Celestia almost certainly recognized the homing charm from a distance. Not at least saying hello would be rude. So Luna continued until she found herself in the dining hall, the doors came open with a gentle, tired application of telekinesis, and Celestia, who was talking to a smart looking grey unicorn in a suit, snapped her head towards the sound.

Pretending, of course. Your ears were already facing me, you just wanted the butler to think you didn't know I was coming.

"Luna!" A wide smile opened up on the white alicorn's face as she stood. "Good morning! I didn't think I'd see you today."

Luna suppressed a deep frown. "And yet, you made breakfast for..." She trailed off, looking over the table. Clearly Celestia's work, fruits adorned everything, from pastries to just sitting out in bowls. There were pancakes, waffles, croissants, a few buttery treats, and more.

Celestia shrugged, "Well, you can't blame me for hoping can you?"

Hoping my flanks...

Celestia caught Luna's frustrated gaze, and her own face softened, "Join me?" came the tentative request.

Luna moved to sit down at the table, and Celestia tried and failed to hide a pretend dancing in place in excitement. Celestia rushed over to the table herself, sitting at the head, next to where Luna dropped her rump. Chairs were ignored, Luna was too tired to care.

"What looks good? Anything you want in particular?" Celestia asked.

Luna blinked wearily. "It all looks delicious, sister." She used her magic to levitate one of the buttered rolls towards her, "Can we not do this?"

Celestia seemingly ignored her second comment, levitating a fork and knife into action on a stack of pancakes. "So how was your night?"

"The same as it always is." Came Luna's pointed reply

Celestia's left ear flicked. "Anything interesting happen though? Guard work tends to be boring- I know." She tittered, "But I'm still curious."

Of course she knows about my forays...

Seeing as Celestia knew, Luna didn't bother trying to hide it. "My disguise isn't very good for getting me places, and I'm not opposed to boring."

"But surely you're moving up, right? Your combat prowess is unmatched." Celestia noted.

Luna looked over at Celestia's plate. The fork was still holding onto the same piece of pancake, and the knife had gone through the plate, and was sawing away at the table. Celestia's face was glued to Luna's, impassive, but still blanketed by cheerfulness that didn't reach her eyes.

"Oops!" Celestia let the knife and fork clatter from her telekinesis. "Silly me."

Are you... actually so stressed? Or is that just another ploy?

A flash of fire on the table and Celestia's glowing horn signaled the repair. The table cloth mended, and the shattered ceramics slotted themselves back into place. "Anyways-"

"Sister, as I asked, can we please not do this? I'm exhausted."

"That's exactly my point. How could you be so exhausted if the work is boring?" Celestia smiled again, leaning forwards conspicuously. "I'm sure you're holding out on me. Cmon, tell your big sister, what's the excitement? You know an old mare like me loves the gossip."

Luna finished the roll silently. Looking away from Celestia. She couldn't see it but Celestia's frown was practically audible.

Let's see how you like being ignored.

Celestia leaned back in her seat and pursed her lips. "Okay. I get it. Guard work, boring. How goes reforming Silver?"

Luna didn't suppress the frown this time. Luna responded with tense measured words. "You promised you wouldn't get involved."

"I'm not!" Celestia protested, "I'm just... curious. She dodges most of my spies, you can't blame me for being curious can you?" Celestia's sickly sweet voice didn't match up with the intensity of her stare.

Yes.

"No." Luna monotoned, "But I can blame you for bothering me about it when you know I don't want to talk about it."

"You won't talk to me about anything else." Celestia retorted, her voice dropping low, almost gravely, with a timber normally reserved for people about to be executed.

"There she is." Luna snarked, her muzzle wrinkling.

Celestia's ear flicked again. "Excuse me." Celestia roughly stood, and teleported away without another word.

"It's actually nice to see you, properly." Despite the frustration, Luna's eyes turned to the floor, and her ears drooped. "Celestia."