Author's Note

For these last few chapters, I wanted to toss in some more music that inspired me, or music relevant to the scenes, or the feel of the story or the mood. On the mood note, have Immortal, by Reinaeiry

Time.

Shining Armor had no idea what to do.

This situation started outside of his understanding, and where it had gone had simply been even further outside of his wheelhouse and skill set.

At the start, Cadance was okay, he was okay. It was something she was doing that they both understood he couldn't really get involved in. Except he did, by Silver's own hoof no less. She fought him, and then trained him. Weeks of combat training and shield molding had led to him being smarter on his hooves than ever, quicker with his magic. Then came the talking.

Silver always layered snark into their combat training. She always had something to say to him about this or that, how he looked, something demeaning. That changed, slowly... or maybe Shining's interpretation of it changed, because the rude comments started to sound more like suggestions, or Silver egging him on. They started to seem less like insults and more like challenges. He eventually started to bicker back, much like he'd seen her and Cadance do, once or twice.

He'd said horrendous things. He drew out the silent things in his mind, the things that his mind used to check his sanity. 'Do you feel like turning that pony inside out? Did that question make you feel iky? Good.' All of the tiny things he was sure all ponies thought of to occasionally relieve stress, dark thoughts meant to be forgotten.

Evil things, to that mare. She laughed and said worse right back to him. Scaling up their sparing both physically, magically, and verbally. Their combats started to become chess games, and Shining really began to understand... Which was strange enough to say. The more he fought and screamed with and at her, the more he started to understand the situation Cadance was in.

Cadance was older than he was, roughly three times his age. She was just as stuck in her ways as Quick Silver was. She wasn't willing to give up on the silver mare, and she had every power in the world breathing down her neck to figure out what would happen before it actually happened. Cadance was a princess trying to unite a people, a wife, trying to help her husband understand, a mother, currently dealing with the physical ailments that came with that, and a mare, trying to live a life she felt was worth it.

Shining had no idea how she did it. He worked, sure, but he didn't churn through days of paperwork in an hour alone. He couldn't plan a nation wide event in less than three months. He wouldn't've been willing to downplay how much of a hoof he had in it either. It was something people didn't notice about Cadance, she was willing to bend and shift and change her intentions. Part of 'the way' she was stuck in, was acceptance. She wasn't like an old mare who had to do everything a certain sort of way.

But she never broke.

Cadance always went on. Every challenge, every decision, every mistake. It was almost comical, she couldn't be stopped. That wasn't just a 'when she set her mind to something', it was always. Cadance had a silent, but ever present determination that filled her and drove her to do the impossible.

It was enrapturing. Part of the reason Shining married her, when she asked him. They changed it around, but everyone who knew them knew it was Cadance who popped the question first. She swept him off his hooves, and in a very real way, she was his knight in shining armor, she just didn't know it. That was them, they were both each other's hero, an impossibility they had stumbled across and refused to let go of.

Then Amber had dragged Shining to Cadance's office where she was bawling her eyes out at her desk. 'Failed' she had said. She blubbered, and didn't want hugs or food for hours. Shining had thought he understood, and he had, Silver had given the tiny three month life she'd made for herself to do something nice for his wife. For him.

She was immortal, that's just how she thought, living and dying probably didn't matter to her as much as it did to anyone sane, turning herself into stone was just... a nap, between lives. It was the same infinite and silent determination to Do that Cadance had in her, constantly driving Silver to stronger fights, deeper intrigue...

And Shining did know what to do. That was the problem.

Nothing.

That's what Silver had tried to prepare them both for. After getting the full story and explanation from Cadance that night, it made some degree of sense. Silver had decided his wife was better off without her, which was... at least... Before that day, Shining would have thought that correct. Like their fights, Silver had set up a situation where she'd lose, and he'd learn something, only for Cadance, losing meant Silver's life was essentially over.

She couldn't show her face in the Empire anymore, she was a scion of the noble houses; it was barely short of banishment, and it had been Silver's plan the whole time. She'd made herself expendable, and done so to put the Empire squarely in Cadances' skilled hooves. He'd always been so worried about the future he'd leave for Cadance, and Silver had spent three months altering the course of history in Cadance's favour just to prove a point.

It was that point that Shining didn't understand. Cadance had gone on about her immunity to Silver's curse, about how she didn't want it to end this way, and 'being just like everyone else', but it may as well have been old ponish to him. What had Silver proved? That Cadance didn't actually care about her? He knew first hoof how incorrect that was, so what was the point?

Why even go to that length? What did she have to prove and why?

Mostly, he was upset that Silver had intentionally emotionally harmed his wife. Normally, he would have given her a nice slam into the ground for that, in their training duels, but she was gone. That part sucked.

Everything about it sucked.

The days passed, and Cadance threw herself into governance. She wasn't willing to waste the shot Silver had given her, even if she kept... hanging onto the idea that Silver would come back. After a week, every Thursday, Cadance found the emotional stability to take the time out of her schedule to go visit the statue. The first time, she was gone for a few minutes, the second time, she was gone for hours.

Shining had wanted to ask, but it was helping, at least. Cadance didn't want to talk about it, so he didn't push. Cadance became more withdrawn, diving more into running the Empire. She became harder to talk to, quieter. Cadance. His Cadance. Quiet as a mouse, unless she had a reason to project. She started a speed dating program, something to spark her old passion of bringing ponies together; and she basically dragged Amber out of her closet for it too.

That was an experience that Shining had no idea what to make of either.

Cadance spoke less, but she didn't communicate any less. She talked in action, in touch and hums. It just seemed like she'd lost the willingness to bother with people who didn't already know what she meant which, in its own way, made sense to him too. Regardless of what Silver did or what he thought of it, they were friends. It was clear as day. Cadance desperately missed talking to another pony who Understood her, and Shining wasn't that pony.

So he did nothing, like Silver had intended. She'd won, in that way. Done it all for them without asking any questions. She really had been there to help the whole time, and all Shining had to do was stand around and be Cadance's rock.

Something she was eternally grateful for, as she kept saying.

Time turned into a month, and Shining wasn't sure what to make of where his life had gone. He didn't feel sure of a lot of things anymore. Maybe he was getting older, and if so, far too quickly for his liking. Something Silver had taught him, something that drove him to do nothing, it was one of the first pairs of insults she'd thrown at him the first time he'd snuck away to train with her.

'You literally mean nothing in the scale of Eternity'

'Why aren't you doing anything with infinite possibility?'

Shining wasn't immortal. He didn't have to be stuck in his ways. He could do anything, make or break any promise and live any kind of life he wanted to. Cadance, Celestia, Luna, Twilight... Discord, to an extent. They didn't get that choice. They'd have to live with every action they took forever.

Silver was trying to tell him that he was worrying too much.

So Shining Armor didn't understand the plight or intricacies of the demi-gods that roamed his world, or the one he married. He didn't comprehend, not truly, the pain that came with what Cadance had lost when Silver had turned herself into stone. He didn't need to be sure of anything. He just kept living, kept going, like Cadance always did. That was enough for her, that was enough for him, and then Cadance burst into his office screaming about time travel and the baby coming.

Then Shining figured he might take up the whole 'worrying' thing again. It seemed like the right course of action.