There was an ambient problem with working as hard as Cadance did, paperwork was a pain, but at the very least, it was easy. The cognitive effort of signing paperwork basically followed the workflow of two basic questions: 'Do I remember this, and, should I sign this?' If both answers were no, Cadance basically threw the documents out by giving them to Amber. If they were important, they'd find their way back to her desk anyways.

If one yes, and one no, she'd throw it in a pile to sort through after she was done with everything else.

Both ‘yeses’ were the easiest. Those went into a file packet that Amber usually took downstairs to Rim Shot who would handle making triplicates and stowing them away in relative locations and alerting the relative ponie-

People.

All that being said, Cadance was done.

As in, including the fact that her Thursday was normally clear, which necessitated her working harder to clear her docket for said day, she had nothing to do. No paperwork to catch up on, nothing new to sign, no trouble. Nothing. Cadance was a fully caught up Princess. Something she had, till that particular moment of sitting around in her office for an hour, believed was impossible.

...

"Ugh"

Cadance head slammed onto the desk with an audible 'thump'. She was unconcerned with hurting herself, Alicorn. The only reason she didn't actively use force was because she was concerned she'd damage the desk. Still face down, Cadance began talking to herself.

"Can't leave the castle, apparently there's an assassin after me. Can't go out with Silver... Those are probably related."

A beat passed, Cadance rolled her head and flicked a quill with her hoof.

"No work."

...

"I should be proud-" Her ears perked up, and she sat up with them. "I don't have anything to do because I did it all."

Cadance's excitement drained away immediately.

...

Her ears flopped down as she glanced around her office for the eightieth time, "I need an indoor hobby."

Cadance couldn't go out and spread love manually, like she used to in Canterlot. Assassin. That is, if she trusted Chrysalis to begin with... Which...

I do... I might as well... I don't think she wants me hurt, she just doesn't like me personally.

"The... Pantheon is what Silver calls it. Seems more like a group of immortals with grudges and mental issues."

Cadance rolled her eyes at no one, then internally berated herself for expressing internal thoughts to the people around here when there wasn't anyone around her.

"Okay Cadance, you need to-" Cadance got up, shook her wings out and made haste to the door to her office. The speed reminded her of the growing weight. She was showing now, just a little, Silver's prediction was off by several days, but if she was right about the basics, Cadance would have trouble getting up by the time the week was over.

She wasn't very excited about that.

The door opened, and Cadance walked out. "Amber? Do you have anything for me?"

Amber flipped a page over on her desk before making a mark with the quill in her mouth then leaned over to grab another parchment. A quick glance at that and Amber clearly said, "No." In the way that meant: 'please don't ask me a sixteenth time.'

Cadance glanced at the half eaten grained muffin on Ambers desk.

"Hey, did your secret admirer deliver that?"

Amber looked up and then glanced down at the muffin. "Oh!" Her eyes lit up, "Yes, they did." A hoof went over to pick it up. "A grain muffin, I'm sure you can tell, compact, and very nutrition." A bite was taken, Cadance watched the secretary's emotions sparkle, then fizzle out.

Where does Amber sleep?

The question echoed through Cadance's mind. Except it wasn't Cadance's business... Except-except, something was wrong. Ambers emotions were all over the place, they generally were, Cadance just figured that she was just like that, but... Call it intuition, but whatever was going on with her was getting worse. Cadance was sure.

Cadance had exhausted her dialogue options though... She couldn't continue a conversation without looking like she was prying... which would have been exactly what she was doing. Doing so before had led to Amber shutting down, so...

"Thank you Amber." Cadance turned and walked away. She had no particular destination, she just started walking around.

Some time between when she left her office and when she eventually found one of the invisible windows in the side of the Spire, Cadance realized she had no friends aside from Silver, and that was only kinda-sorta a thing. Shining was her husband, that was different; a similar premise with Twilight.

Celestia was... family, but not her friend. Luna was royalty like Cadance. There wasn't really room for friendship between them. Luna couldn't get over herself, as mean as that sounded, and Cadance still struggled to connect with her. At least, Luna tended to be far more personable than Celestia.

Do... Is Silver really my only friend?

The thought that Twilight, the pony she used to be to Cadance, currently had far more, and far better friends than Cadance did, or probably would have.

Don't compare Cadance.

Silver wasn't really her friend either. Their... 'relationship', if written out, would be a mess of yelling, nonsense, and gibberish. It just so happened that Silver was Cadance's go-to choice for things-to-do when nothing else was around to be done.

Homeward and her team were still working.

The newsroom was still a day or two away from completion, they were waiting on special order equipment from Mirror's people.

The maps and organization for the Winter Solstice/Crystal Faire had left the planning stages and Cadance was just waiting on word back from their sponsors, companies, visitors, and staff/volunteers for tweaks and management. Even that was barely hooves on for Cadance. She'd found the right ponies, and after the setup, the momentum of the teams working together would make it all happen on its own.

She'd gotten an 'in' with Gemstone, and thus, the rest of the nobles. Not to mention the imports taking the stress away from Sugar Cane's ponies. She'd received a few letters from a scattering of workers of thanks to the crown for the contribution.

Open Court was now being handled by Amber, meaning that the court was much more 'no nonsense'. Whenever there was a law that genuinely required a dispute, Amber would hoof the documentation to Cadance, and she'd make a decision. That had wonderfully streamlined the whole process.

...

What has it been? Two? One and a half months? Three?

Cadance let her wings droop slightly. One lowering down to cradle her stomach.

Time flies then. What to do... what to do...

She made a few auditory clicking noises with her tongue and lips, noise to fill the air.

Starting a hobby is out of the question.

That, and starting a new project that she wasn't going to complete on her own was out of the question. They were nearing the holiday season, on top of the faire, the solstice, Hearth's Warming, and Nightmare Night. The last two weren't widely celebrated in The Crystal Empire, at least, they hadn't been last year.

There had been much immigration since then.

Cadance's brow furrowed.

Civil war... Gemstone... Book...

Silver must have been where Banana Split got that book. Cadance hadn't looked through it, true to her word, but... Silver also subtly warned Cadance about Banana, it was half the reason she took him seriously. Gemstone's response to the record said a lot.

Crystal Ponies... Tac & Co... Transportation industry...

Silver was trying to 'destroy the crystal empire' that's what she said, she'd said it more than once.

It's all connected

Cadance stomped a hoof

Duh! Filly! OF COURSE it's all connected!

Silver had stuck her hooves everywhere. Gemstone had almost viscerally referred to Quick Silver as an enemy of the state, which meant that the mare probably had also caught the ire of all of the other Nobles too...

Civil war... between Equestria and The Crystal Empire?

Of course it was all connected, Silver couldn't simply 'destroy' everything without getting involved everywhere, but what did it all mean? More importantly, what was Cadance supposed to do about it all? She couldn't get Celestia and point out the problem and ask her to fix it, which was sure to lead to Silver getting caught. Luna...

No... probably not a good idea...

A thought struck her, mainly with the premise that it was a terrible idea, that she could ask Discord for help.

...

She laughed.

"Yeah-no. Definitely not."

And she pushed the thoughts away, and started wandering again. Hopefully her subconscious would work the problem for her.

"Hey boss?"

"Yes?" Silver didn't turn. She never turned while she was working.

Point Flare had been working with Silver closely for around a month. As it stood, Silver was weird. She had only ever heard stories of what Discord was like in-pony, and had made the mistake of comparing Silver to him in passing.

"Do you think we could go out for dinner tonight?"

Silver's ears perked up, and her back straightened as her hooves worked a series of metal tubes around a tube form of quartz enchanted by Misty. "You're all under house arrest, essentially." Was Silver's response, clipped and professional.

Flare shifted on her hooves. "Yeah, except we constantly leave here to different places all over Equestria to do work for you."

"Exactly." Silver answered the same way.

"That's not really house arrest, is it?"

Silver frowned deeply, "No."

Flare waited for an addendum which didn't come. The obvious was obvious, but Silver would ignore logic most of the time. Instead choosing to either lie, and then claim honesty, or just completely follow some other tract of law that wasn't real, or was completely unexplainable. The only explanations Silver ever gave was for their lessons.

"So does that mean we can go out?"

Silver snorted. "Are you asking me for permission?"

"Well yeah." Flare tracked Silver as she stepped through the island she was working on. Her body meshing over the solid object and reforming on the other side. That was another thing. Silver definitely wasn't a pony. Some kind of changeling or chimera or something... it was gross to watch. "You're our parole officer, right?"

"Not really, and you won't get my permission."

More parts, runes she wasn't meant to look too closely at, and a metal cord joined the pile of magical instruments on the table. Silver started using specialized spells to cut off chunks to machine the parts by bending and shaping them together.

Flare shifted on her hooves again. "Please? Grey and Rip Tide have really been wanting to celebrate their proposal properly. It'd mean so much to us."

"I know exactly how much it would mean to you." Silver grumbled to herself.

"Well..." Point Flare wanted to be careful, Silver got moody, but she really only had the option of being blunt. "We were thinking that if it was okay for us to leave the property in general, it'd be okay for us to go out too. We wouldn't mind a guard with us either, none of us would try to run." She rambled on earnestly.

"You won't be getting my permission." Silver tensed.

"But why not?"

Silver stopped working and turned to glare at her. Flare's ears folded unconsciously, and she stepped back, silently reprimanded. Silver's gaze didn't waver. Flare felt herself getting scared, the prey in the eyes of the predator feeling Silver tended to invoke when any of them made her genuinely frustrated. "Were you ever going to invite me? Like Hematite asked you to?"

Right... magical surveillance...

Point Flare tried to push the sensation out of her head and stuttered out, "Yes! I was, I just- I didn't-you-"

"You're not a good liar, Point Flare."

"I'm not lying." Flare protested.

Silver took a step forwards, "You're trying to twist the truth. To clarify, you're not very good at deception. Especially when I already know how you feel." Flare heard the rest of the words Silver had to say, and let her continue despite the want to continue to protest; it was embarrassing to get scolded like she was a little filly again. "You weren't, despite wanting to. You were nervous over something you shouldn't be nervous about."

"If it's really about you not being invited, Grey and Rip Tide really wouldn't mind." That was the closest she could get to 'I'm sorry' without outright saying it.

Silver's gaze softened.

Flare continued, "You changed our lives... first for the worst, then for the better. I'd just be in prison without you." She lit her horn with the arcane weight of living fire. It sparked with hunger and creativity. The fire on her horn lifted and grew like a breath and Flare felt the air shift as she turned the magic and matter into chemical energy, expending it into heat and light. "Now I'm a mage. A real one, not just some hedge witch."

Silver's frown returned in full force. "Flattery won't get you anywhere."

"It's not flattery." Flare protested, "It's true."

That was the other thing about Silver. The mare was easy to agitate, incomprehensible most of the time, and generally abrasive. She cared though, she had a soft side, and she didn't mind showing it when she could. Point Flare had yet to see Quick Silver eat, much less sleep. Kayfur's running explanation for that was that she was actually a robot in disguise.

It was probably why she was so grumpy. Yet, Flare still couldn't ever tell if it was genuine kindness, or Silver cleverly placating them while the cabin fever ran rampant.

"What's wrong with the food we have here?" Silver asked conversationally, turning back to her work.

"Nothing. Grey just..." Flare felt the sensation pass over, "She really wanted to do something formal."

"Fourth shelf down my left side, third drawer." Silver stated, wedging her hoof inside one of the lines between one of the poles and the quartz.

Flare moved over to the drawer. Expecting some kind of tool or part stowed away. Silver didn't waste words when she needed help. Dunno what she needs help with th- Flare blinked and her eyes narrowed in confusion as she got a look at the contents. There were a stack of papers and folders, and on top, a clear bag full of... what looked like vouchers

"Grab the bag, bring it here." Flare did so, levitating the baggie over to Silver and set it down on the island. The bag opened by cerulean telekinesis, and a quintet of slips floated out and stacked up in front of Flare. "That place is in Grey's hometown, I'm pretty sure."

Flare took another look. They were vouchers for a restaurant in Phillydelphia. "I..." what? "But I thought you sai-"

"Point Flare." Silver interrupted. "You're lucky you're so cute, because dear All, are you dull." Silver didn't turn, but she did shake her head as she hefted one of the metal tubes into place alongside another. There was the slipping metallic noise of friction against the crystal as she did it.

Flare looked at the vouchers, then back at Silver, then silently stuffed them in her mane and elected to simply not ask. Silver didn't like explaining, so if Flare had gotten what she'd wanted, she'd consider that mission success, despite the insult. "What are you making?" She asked, hoping to change the subject, lest Silver change her mind.

"A gun."

Flare tilted her head, "A what?"

"An accelerator rifle, to be specific. I have a chunk o- never mind. Point is, it's good for one shot of anti-shield or anti-magic." Silver held up the thing.

"You mean... like a crossbow?"

Silver nodded, and turned it over. "Yeah. Except it uses spell magnetism, and hopefully I can get the spell to fire past the speed of sound this time."

"That's..." Flare scrunched her muzzle, "Kind of unnecessary, don't you think? What would you even need that for?"

Silver shrugged. "Hunting."

Author's Note

An excerpt that I wrote at random. Wasn't planning to write this, it just sorta happened.

:D