To say that the Crystal Palace’s dining room was enormous was a bit of an understatement. It was easily able to accommodate both local lords and foreign dignitaries at the same time with the vastness of the main table alone. Crystalline pillars held up a vaulted ceiling whose height allowed for actual flight, even if being airborne during mealtimes was generally frowned upon. The last rays of sunlight had faded and the magical lights had come on, chasing the shadows back into the far corners of the massive space. Despite its size, the table was currently occupied by only three ponies, who were all seated at one end. Except for the occasional clinking of silverware, the room itself was mostly silent as the royal family ate.
Well, as two out of three ate, at any rate.
Shining Armor shifted slightly in the gold-trimmed burgundy uniform he wore, oblivious to how well it contrasted with his spotless white coat and blue/light blue mane. With a forkful of greens successfully crammed into his mouth, he looked to the head of the table and smiled as he chewed and took in the beauty of his wife.
Cadance really managed to pull off the regal look in all of her golden regalia, even after a hard day of ruling the Crystal Empire had taken its dulling toll on the normal glossiness of her pink coat and striped mane. She lifted a glass of wine and took a moment to savor the aroma before taking a delicate sip.
Turning his gaze directly across to his daughter, Shining suppressed a wince.
Having recently entered a new phase of her teenage life, Flurry Heart had recently changed up her appearance. A stripe of black had been added to her otherwise pink and blue mane. Dark makeup surrounded her eyes and graced her lips. Her hooves were coated in black polish. Twin beads of onyx were set into her pierced ears. Then there was her choice in clothing, which consisted of black fishnets on her forelegs, purple and black striped socks on her rear legs, a black lace dress, and a black choker, complete with chromed spikes. She had a fork in her magical grip and was poking at her own plate, a look of melancholy and sheer boredom dominating her features.
“Flurry,” Shining addressed his daughter with what he considered to be his most diplomatic tone, “you’re not eating.”
Sighing in a timbre that should have been reserved for only the most banal, Flurry used a forehoof to temporarily brush her striped mane from in front of her eyes. “I told you not to call me that anymore; my new name is Winter Nightshade.”
“Still not eating,” Shining retorted.
Flurry shrugged and dropped her fork. “How can I justify eating here, in the lap of luxury, whilst the world remains so full of pain and suffering?”
“Honey,” Cadance said, “we’ve been over this. No amount of you starving yourself will lessen the suffering of anypony else; it only makes you suffer.”
“Life is suffering,” Flurry replied. “Who am I to deny that which defines existence?”
“If you don’t eat your dinner, there’ll be no junk food later on,” Shining warned. “Now eat; Iron Chef worked hard on this meal.”
Flurry looked up from her hole-ridden food. “I’m not hungry.”
“Please Flurry,” Shining begged.
“Winter.”
“Winter, please, don’t be like this. We never get to spend any time together outside of dinner anymore, the least you can do is eat like a normal pony—”
Winter bristled over her uneaten meal. “Normal? Are you serious? You really don’t understand me anymore, dad. You don’t even try!”
“Please, don’t do this today—”
“Do what? Be real? Speak truth to authority? Why don’t you try being… not you for a day and see how it feels!”
Shining telekinetically set his salad fork down on the table. “Look, I know you’re going through a phase right now, and I know I don’t understand certain things, like why you’re wearing that dog collar—”
Winter threw her forelegs up in exasperation. “It’s a choker, dad. And it’s not a phase! This is who I am!” She stood and galloped from the room.
“Okay then, but why would you wear something designed to choke you,” Shining asked the empty seat with a sigh. He shook his head and looked over to his wife. “She never lets me finish.”
Cadance let out a sigh of her own and took another measured sip of her wine. “That escalated quickly, Shiny. You seem to know exactly what to say to set her off.”
Shining looked at Cadance with pleading eyes. “What am I supposed to do, Cady? We let her get her ears pierced, we don’t badger her about the makeup, or the mane dyeing, and I’m even trying to use her new chosen name, but she just keeps becoming more distant, all while embracing more of this… goth...ness. We’re so supportive, but I feel like everything just drives her further away. I miss spending time with my little girl.”
His frown suddenly vanished as an idea struck him much like a locomotive striking a cow who’d failed to get off the tracks. “Maybe if I—”
“No,” Cadance said. “Whatever you’re thinking, no.”
“C’mon Cadance, at least give me some credit.”
“I want to give you a little credit,” Cadance said. “But I know that you’ve just come up with what you think is a great plan, but trust me, it isn’t—” She frowned. “—you’re not listening to me are you? You’re just planning to run off behind my back to do Celestia knows what in a vain effort to fix what doesn’t need fixing.”
Shining’s eyes flicked back and forth. “You can’t prove that.”
“Shiny, please let it be. She just needs space, give her space.”
“Yes, dear.” But Shining’s questionable decision making process had already arrived at an equally questionable course of action. He was going to reconnect with Flurry, even if it killed him. And she’d just given him what he thought was the most perfect idea.
The music thundered, the atmosphere was caliginous, and Mistress Winter Nightshade lay upon her bed contemplating the futility of existence when the knocking came. It had been almost a whole day since she’d stormed out of dinner when she heard the deep sound of hoof impacting on wood. Despite not being in the mood for company—especially of the parental type—she knew that her door would end up opening on its own if she ignored it, so she stood up, turned the music down, and trotted over.
Taking a steadying breath and placing one hoof on the knob, Winter slowly turned it and opened the door. The sight that greeted her made her gasp and place a hoof over her mouth.
Shining stood before her in a black leather jacket studded with rhinestones, with a matching spiky bracelet on his left fore pastern. A black headband held his mane back from his face, bunching it into an unruly mess atop his head. His hooves were painted black and he had a black stripe in his mane. Two fresh piercings, which were still bleeding, adorned his head: one upon his left lower lip and the other in the upper half of his left ear.
“Celestia’s horseapples,” Winter said. “Dad… what have you done to yourself?”
“Language,” Shining retorted. “Anyhow, I realized I wasn’t being very supportive yesterday, so I decided to turn that around and embrace the new you!”
“Celestia kill me,” Winter muttered under her breath. “Dad you really shouldn’t have—”
“You don’t have to call me dad anymore, sweetie. My new name is Umbra Steelshard. I like it cause it’s tangentially like my old name, only more dark and edgy. Besides, if this new darker look and equally dark name are good enough for my daughter, then it’s good enough for me.” Shining smiled wide.
“Dad… no, just no, for the love of anything and everything holy, please no.” Winter rubbed at her temples with both forehooves. “I really hope this isn’t some kind of perverse attempt at reverse psychology.”
“C’mon Flur—I mean Winter; I’m serious. I even went to Warm Subject and got advice from one of their cashiers before getting all this rad gear. And now that I’m hip, as the kids say, we should be able to relate to each other better! You could maybe even hang around with me again!”
“Nobody says ‘hip’ anymore dad, not unless they’re talking about their bones. And you just don’t seem to get one big thing: The reason I can’t just ’hang out’ with you is because you’re my dad. That would be lame.”
Shining frowned. “But I even got the piercings—”
“Yeah, mom is gonna kill you over that.”
“They really hurt, are they supposed to hurt?”
Winter sighed. “Look dad, I’m not even sure what you’re trying for here, but I can tell you that it’s not working. But since I’m pretty sure that you are trying, I’ll say this with love: please go away.”
“Can I at least listen to some obnoxiously loud music with you? We can bond—”
“No.”
And the door closed, leaving a thoroughly defeated Shining Armor standing alone in the hallway.
The last rays of sunlight had faded and the magical lights had come on, chasing the shadows back into the far corners of the dining room.
“So this was your good idea?” Cadance downed a snifter of wine and poured herself a generous second glass.
“Well I—OW!” Shining flinched as the hole in his lip reopened. He probed it with his tongue and levitated a bag of ice over to his face. “I’ll admit that my plan may have had a few holes in it.”
“A few? Shining, I—”
“Umbra,” Shining said.
“What?”
“I changed my name to—”
“No,” Cadance said, downing her second glass and filling another. “I’m not going to dignify that by letting you finish saying it.”
“That’s fair.”
“I swear,” Cadance took another gulp, “you’re going to be the end of me. I know we’re both stressed about the changes that Flurry—”
“Winter,” Winter interjected.
“—that Winter is going through, but I never thought you’d do something so monumentally stupid. Winter at least asks before putting holes in her body.”
Shining pffted. “Who are you, my mother?”
“No,” Cadance said icily, the room somehow darkening in tandem with her facial expression. “I’m your wife.”
Shining shrank back into his seat, realizing his mistake a wee bit too late.
Winter stood. “May I be excused?”
“Yes,” Cadance said. “I have things to discuss with your father, namely his preferences regarding his upcoming castration.”
