”Cadance… will you marry me?”
Time stood still.
“Will I marry you?” the alicorn said playfully. “Gee, I don’t know. I mean, you’re handsome, playful, nice, you’re Captain of the Guards, and you have a cute flank, but why should I marry you?”
“Um… I’ll take you anywhere you want on your honeymoon?”
“I can go anywhere I want anyway. Diplomatic missions, remember?” she said teasingly.
“Well… you’ll get Twilight as a sister.”
“Wait,” she said, sounding offended. “You think I’d marry you to get closer to another mare? Do you really think I swing that way?”
Shining Armor blushed. “What? No, I…”
Cadance giggled. “Only kidding… though Twilight is kind of hot…”
“Cadance!” Shining Armor shouted, prompting her to laugh.
“Oh, you’re so easy to rile up. You know what? I’ve always wanted a sister, so I guess I’ll marry the most wonderful stallion in the world.” With that, she pulled her newly declared fiancée in for a tender kiss.
After they broke the kiss, the stallion had the goofiest, lovesick smile she had ever seen. Then, he began jumping around like a colt half his age, shouting, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”
In a flash he picked up the alicorn and spun her around, causing her to laugh along with him. A quick trip and they both landed in the grass, leading to them rolling around and laughing.
“Well, this has been fun, but I need to get back to work, and so do you, Captain,” she laughed, giving him a quick kiss before lifting herself up. “The last of my ponies should be coming in from Zebrica with their reports, so I’m probably going to be busy all night. But we’ll have lunch tomorrow. Then we’ll make a wedding date.”
“Sounds good,” Shining Armor answered happily, still looking lovesick. “I’ve got to go inspect my troops anyhow.”
“Go get ‘em,” she laughed, giving her fiancée’s flank a playful smack. He leapt and blushed, but never lost his smile.
With one final goodbye Cadance began trotting up to her office, waving friendly hellos to the guards she passed. She finally reached the double doors and thanked the guards as they allowed her to enter.
The doors closed behind her as she walked up to her desk, which had its chair turned away from her. Lighting up her horn, she turned the chair around.
To her surprise, she found herself already sitting in it.
“What the?” she gasped in surprise. Grinning wickedly, the imposter’s horn glowed a sickly green.
In an instant unnatural green fire surrounded Princess Cadance. She screamed and cried for help, but her doppelganger merely cackled at her fruitless crying. The flames enveloped her, and in a flash she was gone.
Cadance bolted upright giving a shout of fright. She took a quick look around. She was in her carriage. In a flash a pair of strong forelegs wrapped around her and pulled her close.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. It was just a bad dream,” Shining Armor assured, stroking her mane.
Cadance sighed. “I’m okay. I just… had a flashback there. Of the Changeling Queen getting me.” She rubbed her forehead with her hoof.
She felt her husband sighing thanks to being pressed against his chest. She turned to him and cupped his cheeks in her hooves. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for any of this,” she warned.
“What?” he said, perking up in alarm. “What makes you think I’m doing that?”
“Twilight told me about the conversation you had with her.”
The stallion’s eyes widened. “S… she told you?”
Cadance nodded sadly. “And you should be thankful. I don’t want you thinking that way,” she assured, kissing him on the cheek.
“I still should have been more attentive,” he said sadly. “I promised myself I’d always protect you.”
She smiled. “I know… I remember when you got your cutie mark. Don’t you?”
Shining nodded. “How could I forget? That was a long time ago. You hadn’t even taken the Trials yet,” he laughed a little feeling nostalgic. “It was just after Twilight became a part of the family.”
“When I met her for the first time. I saw you in the park, and you were all excited to show me your new sister. You took me up to her and she was lying in that foal carrier, giggling and cooing. She was so cute. Then your parents gave us some popsicles. We sat next to her and ate them, and when we turned back to her she was gone.”
”Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” Twilight Velvet said frantically. “Quick, everypony spread out and find her!”
With that, the three members of the Sparkle family and Cadance split in four directions to look for the missing infant. Shining Armor headed north, searching desperately for a small purple foal.
Suddenly, a loud cry echoed through the park. Recognizing it as a baby’s cry, he ran in that general direction. To his immense relief, he found his sister.
To his immense un-relief, the reason she was crying was because a stray dog was approaching her, growling a low and dangerous growl.
He didn’t remember jumping in front of the dog. It happened so fast he never even registered it. But he did remember staring the stray down, making it bluntly clear what would happen if it came a step closer.
It was not intimidated. With a snarl, it leapt forward.
Shining Armor quickly responded by striking the dog across the muzzle with a swing of his hoof.
The dog was knocked to the side with a pained whine. It shook off the pain and glared at the pony, who responded by glaring back, trying to look as intimidating as possible. The dog backed away, then ran off.
Shining Armor breathed a sigh of relief just as he turned to his sister. At that point, his parents and Cadance came up to them.
“Oh thank goodness!” Velvet exclaimed, scooping her daughter up in her forelegs. “Oh thank Celestia you found her, Shiny.”
Cadance wrapped her forelegs around his neck. “That was so brave of you,” she said, planting a kiss on his cheek. “You’re like a Royal Knight.”
The young stallion blushed a deep shade of crimson. “Uh… um… uh…”
Cadance looked down at his flank, and gave a small gasp. “Shiny, look!”
Shining Armor looked at his flank and gasped happily. “My cutie mark!”
“That was the day I fell in love with you,” Cadance told him.
The stallion felt his heart jump. “Really?”
She gave a warm smile. “Not only did you risk yourself to save your baby sister, but you decided you wanted to do that for the rest of your life. That was so brave of you, my shining knight,” she purred, kissing him.
He returned the kiss, but broke off before she was ready. “If you fell in love with me that soon, why did you wait so long to tell me?”
Cadance suddenly found the floor of the carriage interesting. “Well… everything that happened afterward. My parents dying, then I went away to do the Trials.”
“You had every police agency in Equestria looking for you,” he remembered. Her parents’ death had been a high profile event. Two members of the Princess’s cabinet suddenly dying was news enough, but it had been how it happened. A visiting griffon dignitary came straight to their home for a meeting and got into an argument with her father over the trade routes across the borders, which ended up escalating into a physical fight. In the scuffle a lantern had been knocked over, and the flames spread quickly.
Luckily Cadance had been at a sleepover with friends that night. Both her parents, however, weren’t so lucky. The poor child had been distraught for days, and inconsolable even though she stayed with Shining and his family.
”Cadance?” Shining Armor asked slowly, opening the door to the guest room.
“What?” she asked weakly.
“I brought you dinner,” he said kindly, levitating a plate with a daisy sandwich behind him. “Come on, you have to eat something.”
To his surprise, the filly raised her head and motioned him to come in. He placed the sandwich in front of her, and to his immense relief she began eating.
“You have your appetite back? Are you feeling better?”
“…A little,” she said finally. “I still feel horrible, but I don’t want to mope around anymore.”
“That’s a relief,” the colt sighed. “So what do you want to do instead?”
“Do you… do you remember that day a year ago when you got your cutie mark?”
“Of course.”
“Well, you got it because you wanted to help ponies, to make Equestria a better place. My parents also thought that way. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself unless I was willing to do the same.”
“So… what are you going to do?”
Cadance was quiet for a moment. “…I’m going to become a princess.”
Shining Armor couldn’t help but smile. “Following in your parents’ hoofsteps, huh?”
“It’s the best way I know to help ponies. But I’m hoping to climb further up the hierarchy than they did.”
“That’s a pretty tall order,” the stallion noted. “But I know you can do it. And once you do, I’ll be there with you.” He placed a hoof over hers, to which she smiled gratefully.
“You’re such a gentlecolt,” she giggled, pecking him on the nose and turning his face red.
“Uh, um…” he stuttered. “Uh… I guess you’re going to sign up for some law classes once you go back to school? I guess that would be step one.”
“Actually, I have something else in mind for step one.”
Shining Armor arched an eyebrow. “And what’s that?”
Cadance gave a sly smile and booped his nose. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
Despite not getting an answer, the colt couldn’t help but smile. She was getting her sense of playfulness back. Things were going to be okay.
But things weren’t okay. The next morning when Shining’s parents came to check on her, they found her gone.
For three long months the country searched for the missing child. Her disappearance made the relations with the Griffon Kingdom, already strained thanks to the actions of their dignitary, stretched to their breaking point. Such a sad child missing had Canterlot in an uproar.
Then she returned, with a pair of wings, earth pony strength, and a cutie mark on her flank.
Not even Celestia knew how to react. For all the trouble she had caused, she had also done the impossible. The youngest pony to ever manage the Trials had returned, ready to do everything she could to make Equestria a better place.
She was guaranteed a position as a princess right then and there. For the rest of her childhood she was groomed for her future position, though she still took time off to visit Shining Armor and foalsit Twilight.
Cadance sighed. “I guess I really didn’t have time for a relationship then. Neither did you, I guess. You were always busy with training.”
“I would have made time for you,” he said bluntly.
“I know you would have,” she answered, kissing him again. “But it could have cost you your dream, your special talent. I wasn’t going to make you choose between the two. It’s your desire to protect ponies that I admire.”
“…What did I do to deserve you?”
“You’re you. That’s enough.”
”C-Cadance?” Shining Armor asked slowly.
The alicorn looked away from the scenery high on top of the castle. “Yeah?”
“Um…” the stallion answered.
“Wow, insightful,” Cadance chuckled. Shining Armor blushed and looked away. “Hey, hey,” she said gently, “I was just kidding. What’s wrong?”
“…I …I have to tell you something.”
She gave a worried look. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he assured quickly. “Nothing, I just… I have something to tell you.”
“Well, whatever it is, tell me.”
“…Cadance… I… I…”
“Come on, you’re a strong, brave knight. You can tell me.”
“I… I…”
“Shiny, remember when my parents died? You were right there beside me the whole time. Whatever you have to say, it won’t get me to stop liking you. Just come out and…”
“I love you.”
Cadance stopped, her eyes going wide. “Wha…”
“I love you, alright! Ever since you got back from the Trials! I love the way you put everypony else above you! I love how dedicated you are to helping others! I love the way you laugh and the way you’re always there for me! I think you’re the most gorgeous pony in Equestria, and I want to marry you someday, and have foals, and just please say yes because I don’t think I could take it if you said no!”
Silence lingered for a few seconds as Cadance just stared at the nervous stallion sweating bullets in front of her.
“…Finally,” she exclaimed. Before Shining Armor could register this reaction, she closed the gap between them and kissed him.
In surprise, he actually pulled back. “W… what?”
“What took you so long? I was five days away from asking you,” she smirked. “Now, how about that kiss?” She said this trying to sound seductive, though it sounded more hilarious.
“Uh… aren’t we moving a bit fast?”
“What do you mean?”
“I haven’t even taken you out to dinner yet.”
Immediately Shining Armor felt Cadance’s magic tug at him. “Well, let’s go now.”
“It’s mid-morning.”
“We’ll get brunch instead,” she said almost immediately.
“Wow… you move fast.”
In response, Cadance turned to her new coltfriend and grinned. “Well, I want my kiss. Whatever it takes to get that, I’m going to do it.”
Suddenly Cadance felt a jerk. Shining Armor was now resisting her pull. In fact, he was pulling her toward him. “You know what? To Tartarus with that,” he said, kissing her on the lips.
“I don’t think we’re ever going to top that kiss,” Cadance sighed dreamily. Then she licked her lips. “Unless, of course, you want to try right now.”
Despite having dealt with his wife’s frisky nature for months now, Shining Armor couldn’t help but blush. “Still as eager as ever, I see.”
“Why?” she pouted. “Don’t you like that?”
He laughed. “Completely. I never once regretted dating you. Ever.”
“Same here. Even if we did have our arguments."
Shining couldn't help but smirk at that, despite the topic. The things they had fought about had been, in retrospect, petty and foolish things to fight about. Where to go for a weekend getaway, whose home to sleep at that night, the usual things a new couple would fight about. Half of them they couldn't even remember later.
Perhaps the biggest was the issue of how intimate they could get before this very night. Shining Armor was adamant on waiting until tonight before they could come together, but his fiancee wanted it sooner. It had been the biggest divider between them, though both of his parents told him he was lucky if that was all they faced. Until earlier that day, he hadn't really appreciated that.
“I still let you down today…”
“No, don’t you dare,” she said firmly. “Listen to me… the only one to blame for anything that happened was the Changeling Queen. Everything was her fault. What anypony did as a result was just fallout.”
“But I have a responsibility,” Shining Armor argued. “I’m supposed to be on my guard…”
“You can’t be on guard from something that you didn’t know about. Nopony did. Even Princess Celestia was surprised that they existed. You’re a wonderful pony… but you’re still just a pony.”
Shining Armor looked at her for a moment, then sighed. “I still feel terrible.”
At this, Cadance gave a sly smile, earning her husband’s confusion. Licking her lips, she moved up to his ear. “Oh don’t worry,” she said slyly. “I’ll be fixing that very soon.”
Shining Armor blushed deep red, earning a giggle from her. “You’re still too easy.”
He gave an embarrassed smile. “Well, it feels good to know you only want to do that with me,” he said awkwardly.
“Oh, I wouldn't be so sure...Twilight's quite a cutie.”
“Cadance!”
