That New Magic: The Origin of Love

“Who are you?” I asked her, having never before seen the midnight-blue alicorn.

“An expected, if painful, query,” Luna replied, stepping towards me. “But ultimately not of import. Nay, tis only thy identity which matters on this night, young alicorn.”

“Young…”

I crossed my eyes as I looked up and caught the very tip of a horn sticking out of my forehead. Reverently, and carefully, I reached up and touched it with my hoof. It was real, very very real.

So I looked back at the alicorn of the night, tears in my eyes, confusion flooding through me.

“Why am I an alicorn?” I finally whispered.

“Ah, then thy question reaches the most urgent of conclusions,” Luna said more gently as she sat in front of me. “For it seems the magic of the world hath given thee answers aplenty.”

She gestured around me, at all the shimmering memories, all the little moments of my life where I had learned not to take out my pains on others, where I had learned to care for others even though I was struggling to care for myself.

I saw Shining Armor there, and the times that he’d gently reminded or shown me that there was more to life than my struggle.

I could see my father. I could see him as clearly as if he was alive again. There was no fog or pain in those bright memories as he laughed and showed me how to draw the ancient heart of the Crystal Empire. The heart that would one day become my Cutie Mark.

“His lessons bought thy heart the strength necessary to continue on,” Luna remarked, a wing over my back as she guided me through my own history, gesturing with a hoof. “Through a broken home, still carrying nought but the purest intentions for others. Then, it seems that thou hast met a stallion singularly unique by thy reckoning.”

Images flowed around us, so many of that white stallion laughing, smiling at me, holding my hoof in reassurance.

“You Love Him,” Luna said in a strong commanding tone, as though she was dictating reality. “And yet thou willst not let it show.”

“He deserves better,” I whispered, looking away only to see his image again and again.

“Thou art an alicorn,” Luna said, using her magic to pull my head back, to look into my eyes. “What else could he deserve beyond a goddess?”

“One who could give him foals,” I choked out, as tears spilled down my cheeks.

Luna recoiled, shocked and confused, all of the expressions I expected to see on the face of a princess faced with a freak. But instead of changing to revulsion, it faded to amusement, and she laughed.

“Don’t laugh at me,” I whispered angrily, trembling as I pondered actually attacking this dark alicorn.

“We shall laugh freely at fools,” Luna retorted as she flared her wings and loomed over me, smirking. “Thou hast unbridled magicks beyond our own ken, which could give thy body rebirth in a thousand ways, and yet it suits thee better to pout and ignore them!”

I scowled and flared my own wings, trying to feel larger than a weak and scared little pony. But then I felt the magic that had brought me here, and I felt it flow into my wings and horn. The magic that tasted like freedom.

In a flash, I was a touch taller and a touch smoother, and I understood.

Just like that, I needed no surgeon or potion. I needed no help to be myself, I simply was who I am.

“Oh,” I gasped as I looked down at myself.

“Oh indeed,” Luna scoffed, folding her wings once again. “What is thy name, young alicorn?”

“Mi Amore Cadenza,” I said as I let my wings hang down my sides and touch on my now slimmer figure, stunned by how complete the transformation was.

“Princess Mi Amore Cadenza,” Luna corrected softly as she bowed to me. “I pray that some night I shall meet you face to face.”

Then, in another flash of light and the scattering of stars, I was sat on the clouds far above Canterlot, under the bright moon.

The moon shone down on a mare that was aching with completeness. Despite it, I worried over what I might have lost in the change. I thought… Perhaps the magic had stolen my true self, and the uniqueness I had been so afraid of losing in the surgery to come.

So I touched on that magic again, and then I was effortlessly the prince that my mother always wanted. As though I had always been him. I laughed, my voice low and deep and rich as chocolate.

“I can be him,” I whispered, admiring my subtle strength before I flashed and changed again. “I can be them.”

Then another flash, and the sigh of a voice softer than my training had ever managed.

“I can be her,” I declared.

I was alone, but I did not feel lonely. Nonetheless I spread my wings and I soared down, seeking out and finally landing in front of Shining Armor’s parent’s home.

It was nearly midnight, and the lights were all out inside, but I knocked anyway.

When Night Light answered, he looked up at me with clear shock.

“Cadance, are you alright?” he asked immediately.

“I would like to speak with Shining, if he’s available,” I said softly.

And Night Light clearly struggled for a moment with the situation, eyes drifting to my horn several times before he nodded and gestured for me to follow him inside.

The O&O game was still set up in the living room, Diamond Flight still ready for the next fight. Would he want me to play still, now that I was so different?

“You’re not wearing any clothes,” Shining said, freezing at the doorway, uncertain and concerned.

I smiled a little, looking down at myself, my horn clearly pointing in my vision.

“Oh? I suppose I’m not.”

I looked back at him, as he started staring at the horn as well.

“Are you okay?” he finally asked.

“I’m better than okay,” I whispered. “I would like… if you’d have me, I mean, to be your girlfriend.”

He tilted his head in the most adorable way, and smiled, and walked closer to me to find that I now towered over him by a hoof’s width.

“Cadance, I would love to be your boyfriend,” he said softly. “If you’d have me.”

I kissed him, and then for a moment we rested cheek to cheek.

“So uh… how did you become an alicorn?” he finally asked.

“I have no bucking idea.”

That night as I left their house, I walked out into the night air not to find an empty street but to Princess Celestia sat on the sidewalk, with three royal guards sitting on the other side of the street.

I hesitated. Who wouldn’t hesitate if they found their head of state sitting outside of their boyfriend’s house after a midnight tryst?

But she didn’t order the guards to seize me, so I walked to the gate and closed it behind me before facing her.

“Mi Amore Cadenze,” she said with a smile.

“Your Royal Highness,” I whispered, bowing.

“Please,” she sighed, gesturing for me to rise. “Call me Celestia. Do you have a nickname you prefer?”

I looked into her eyes, trying to understand, trying to comprehend what she wanted from me. But it sort of made sense that she would need to check in on a new alicorn. I didn’t even know that ponies could become alicorns.

“Cadance,” I declared. “I like to be called Cadance, your highness… Celestia.”

“Cadance,” she nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, Cadence. I know this is a bit abrupt, but… did you speak with a blue alicorn tonight? Or perhaps black, it’s hard to know.”

I was a bit surprised, not just that she knew of the mystery alicorn, but that she knew I would have spoken with her.

“I did,” I nodded. “She… explained that I was an alicorn now. She also sort of berated me a bit for being childish.”

Celestia laughed, soft and light, as tears shone in her eyes from the streetlamps.

“Oh Luna,” she said softly. “Did she… say anything else?”

I wracked my brain, trying to remember the details of the conversation.

“She didn’t even say her name,” I admitted. “She wasn’t surprised I didn’t know her name… but didn’t talk about anything but… my life.”

Celestia nodded, and lowered her head, closing her eyes as those tears fell to the cobblestones.

“She said that she hoped to meet me,” I remembered, blurting it out just as quickly. “She prayed that we would meet face to face.”

Celestia looked up at me, then away as she thought, and finally a smile settled on her face even if it was a sad one.

“Well then… There’s a chance.”