The Queen of Canterlot

“I can’t see you again,” Cadence said.

“A princess should have better grammar,” Chrysalis replied, feigning inspecting her own hoof. “You shouldn't see me again.”

“Fine, I shouldn't see you again.”

“Then why are you here? This isn’t an appointment, Princess. You don’t have to call to cancel. If you don’t want to be here, don’t show up.”

“I’m sorry, you’re a good creature and I love being around you, but I’m in a committed relationship. I can’t—”

“Princess,” Chrysalis said. “I didn’t ask.”

Shining and Cadence started planning their wedding. Of course, they did little of the actual planning. She was a princess, it would be a state affair -- held in the royal palace, with hundreds of guests in attendance. Shining asked Princess Celestia if they should reschedule, if the royal family required them to do something other than what they were doing, but the sun princess said no. It was a good story, the Princess of Love marrying her childhood sweetheart, on the day Shining graduated from the military academy and became a royal guard.

Though he still lived under his parents roof, Shining began planning for the transition to adulthood, and in doing so shed the vestiges of childhood. He and Cadence would live together, instead of sneaking around to find privacy where the adults weren’t looking. They would have to manage her royal duties, his military career. To avoid corruption and nepotism, there were protocols for how to handle junior officers married to ponies of high station, and they themselves were a cartful and a half.

“I think I should leave the palace,” Cadence said. “You’re leaving your parents house. Celestia isn’t my mother but… it’s time to stop living in her shadow. We should get our own place.”

“You’re sure?” Shining asked. “That’s a big step.”

“Shining,” Cadence said. “I want to be with you for the rest of my life, and I don’t want to have to share that life with anypony else. Not my parents, not Celestia, nopony.”

That night, Cadence showed up to vent to Chrysalis about how Celestia was being “a complete bitch” about wedding planning, about how her mother was already asking about grandchildren, about how it wasn’t fair that earth ponies could drink when they were fourteen and nopony cared but as a princess she had to wait until she was past twenty.

And when Chrysalis didn’t react, she said: “That was your signal to send a drone to get something from the liquor store. You’re really dense sometimes, you know that?”

Having learned to pace herself, she only drank half the bottle, and told Chrysalis nothing was going to happen: “So get any ideas out of your head. We’re just friends.”

Late that evening, when she grabbed Chrysalis and tried to kiss her, the changeling queen interposed a hoof. “If you do that, I think you’ll regret it.”

Cadence would have not been so shocked if Chrysalis had slapped her. Her eyes went wide, her ears folded back, and her cheeks burned a brilliant red under her pink coat. “Oh, I’m sorry, what’s this? Are you condescending to me? The mare from a nice family who spends her evenings as Queen of the Trash is going to lecture me on what I’m going to regret? How I’m throwing a good life away?”

“Princess-”

“Cadence!” she screamed, voice ragged at the edges. “Call me Cadence! You know me! You think I haven’t figured out that you know me? With your prim and proper diction, always correcting my grammar, being ever so exacting and cold. Somebug’s had a high society education! So who are you!? Are you one of my servants? One of those catty bitches from cotillion? Are you Lyra?”

And in her head, she said: I’m Shining Armor.

But aloud, that was another story. “You said it yourself, I’m Queen of the Trash, and you’re my royal consort.”

“Oh fuck you,” Cadence said. “I can barely stand you.”

“You love me.”

The words could not be taken back. Of course, Cadence was the only creature present who didn’t know, and when her eyes raced over the changeling drones all around her, she realized in an instant that she was the only one who didn’t know. That what she was just now realizing, that implication that made her heart race and left her in a cold sweat, every bug in her little gang had been able to smell for weeks.

An outside observer would have assumed Chrysalis was in control of the situation. Certainly, her domineering manner and smug tone implied it. And perhaps she was.

Right up until Cadence said: “Yes. Okay. I love you. And now I’m going to kiss you. And how about you let me decide what I will and won’t regret.”

All Chrysalis had to say was no.

She kissed Cadence back.