Ungula

The ESS Fire of Friendship seemed just a little tighter a fit than usual when her crew all piled back in. Likely this was because they were all feeling a bit bloated, having had rather large helpings once they'd worked out how to eat spaghettinoodles in sideways gravity.

(It had involved setting their plates on a wall and treating it like a sideways table, which was a bit awkward but worked well enough.)

It was a quiet flight up to the facet, that sleepiness that comes of eating a large meal hitting in full force. Pinkie Pie was up in the cockpit with the door left open, no amount of food being enough to keep her down even as Rainbow Dash was out like a light, and the rest were all piled up against each other on a couch in the lounge. Even Roombella was quietly cleaning the carpet at their hooves.

It was a companionable silence, recent events finally feeling behind them as they quietly reaffirmed their bonds.

Pinkie flew them on a wide and lazy path, in no hurry, quietly humming to herself. This was good, she felt. Her friends needed this.

There was no need to cut the moment short by indulging in her usual exuberance, or by docking again so soon.

Or by exposing their stowaway.

…Ah, yes, that was why the Fire of Friendship felt like a bit of a tighter fit than normal. It wasn't the everypony being overstuffed thing after all, it was the extra invisible person. Pinkie was glad to have put her hoof on that.

Hmm? No, don't worry, this wasn't another mind whammy sort of thing, silly! This was just someone invisible. She'd know if they were gonna hurt anyone or if she needed to warn her friends, and they weren't, so she didn't! She had a feeling it would work out fine, and her feelings were usually right, so she wasn't worried, and neither should you! Pinkie didn't want for you to get the wrong idea about that. This wasn't a horror chapter, this was a fluff chapter.

Cadenza Station did not contain a palace. This was because Princess Cadance did not want one, and as she was not only in charge – Celestia and Luna being far too busy keeping the sun from exploding and the planets from colliding, respectfully, to fit ruling a solar system into their schedules on top of their personal lives – but also the one who'd spearheaded the effort to create the station to begin with… Well, she'd just had them not build a palace.

Instead there was a large and slightly ostentatious city hall at the center of the station, where she did most of her work and which served as a convenient place to smile and wave to the public, and a large and rather nice house nearby, where she lived with her only current spouse Shining Armor and any other partners that might be staying over with either or both of them.

The appeal of this was obvious: By living separately from her place of work, her private life could be enjoyed separately from her work as a ruler. The apparent downside of having heads of state living in a normal if slightly secluded house without a live-in security detail was also obvious. Note, however, the wording of apparent downside, because there were several reasons this was not as much of a risk as it seemed.

Firstly, Cadance herself was an immortal goddess, and as such couldn't actually be assassinated to begin with. Even if anyone somehow managed it, she'd just come back a day or so later.

Secondly, Shining Armor was the former Captain-of-the-Guard – there was a new one now that he was prince consort, a mare named Sunny Field who'd been doing a rather good job stepping into his horseshoes so far – and as such he was more than strong enough to form his own security detail all on his own.

And, lastly, Shining Armor was also Ungula's foremost expert on Protection magic, and as such the house was enchanted to the void and back such that it would be near impossible for anypony on the grounds to actually suffer significant harm, or for anypony who meant them harm to force their way in to begin with.

All this to say, Princess Cadance could damn well have tea on the back porch with what she was certain was her sister-in-law's future polycule instead of some stuffy office if she wanted to. And as it happens, that is exactly what she wanted to do. So she did.

Twilight was having a great time. Her friends were getting along with her sister-in-law, she was going to see her brother later and then they'd get along with him too, and overall everything was going quite well. She was going to get a good grade in friendship, something it was both normal to want and – as she was increasingly learning to believe – possible to achieve.

The debriefing had been a bit rough to get through, but get through it they had, and Cadance had given Fluttershy a hug and all of them the contact info of her therapist.

They'd agreed there wasn't really anything actionable in there apart from what they'd already done and that they should continue as normal with their mission – which was, essentially, to fly around and have adventures and bring back the data from the ship's Amity reactor and anything else of note – and moved on to lighter topics.

…Now, to say Twilight was having a great time at this exact moment, while true, was a bit complicated, because the lighter topic in question was currently her love life. She had retreated under the table blushing furiously at the innuendo Cadance kept making. And then come back up very fast at Cadance's latest innuendo.

Her friends were not helping. They had ganged up to flirt at her. Even Fluttershy! They were all joking, obviously, but still! Huff.

She was saved from having to examine why her friends flirting with her felt rather nice by the abrupt appearance of what looked sort of like a really wrinkly black hippogriff asking for more details about that reactor they mentioned.