Cadence Has Horny Problems

Sssssip.

At that particular moment in time, Princess Celestia was curled atop her golden throne, enjoying a pleasant cup of tea and reading the morning reports. Today her mane was a gentle shade of pink, and she had foregone her usual regalia of a crown and golden shoes, instead only sporting a pair of very slight golden pince-nez that were perched atop her nose.

She was looking forward to a bit of downtime after a long week of dealing with gryphons and dragons and the equestrian games committee, and her attire let everypony know without speaking that she was in casual mode. Not that she could be blamed, of course. It was a Saturday.

CRASH!

The throne room doors slammed open, and a galloping, sobbing, hiccuping blur of carnation, violet and cream shot into the room. Celestia jumped, nearly spilling her tea, and her glasses tumbled from their precarious seat atop the bridge of her muzzle, breaking on the marble floor below.

She swiftly gathered that it was Cadence. Except she was not nearly as bubbly as she had been when she left this morning.

“Cadenza!” the sun princess gasped. “My darling niece, what is bothering you?”

“Oh Auntie, it's awful!” Cadence wailed, practically launching herself onto the sun princess and burying her tear-stained face into Celestia's thick, white chest fur. “It's just awful!”

Celestia frowned, and immediately set the cup of tea to one side before embracing the young alicorn.

“Oh, sweetheart, there there,” she cooed, gingerly placing a foreleg around the young Alicorn's neck. “Go on, tell me all about it.”

Cadence looked up at her, her burgundy-coloured eyes filled to the brim with tears. “I... I... I was just delivering my invitations for my wedding, and... and the next thing you know...” Cadence broke into another series of wretched sobs. “Twilight Sparkle... she... s-he tried to hit on me! And then she told me she was in oestrous, and it was so gross, and... and...!”

She reburied her head in her aunt's chest again, weeping.

Celestia's mouth, which was halfway between forming a smile and a motherly frown, opened and closed a few times before replying.

“Oh. I see,” she said calmly, continuing to brush the young Princess's mane. “Well, Cadence, I'm sure it wasn't that bad. You know how strange and seemingly unwholesome that time of the month can be. But she only asked you for help because she trusts you implicitly, and that is not something to be afraid of. Oestrus is a beautiful, natural process, one that's necessary for us to live and grow. I'm sure Twilight meant no harm by it, and will probably be embarassed about it herself in a few days' time.” She gave Cadence what she hoped was a hopeful smile as the young alicorn peeked up at her.

“You don't sound very convinced,” Cadence said, sniffing.

“Well,” Celestia replied honestly, “I have to admit that I wasn't expecting it so soon. She usually writes me a letter about how she's feeling a few days before it kicks in, and then a few while it's happening, too.”

Cadnece looked aghast at the very thought. “Oh, gosh, Auntie! You don't read them, do you?”

Now Celestia allowed herself to chuckle in good humour, letting a wisp of a smile form on her face.

“Oh, Cadence. There's never any reason I wouldn't. They're not rude, after all. Twilight is a very rational, non-impulsive pony, and she likes to think things through. She might be a bit naive, as you no doubt discovered, but she never writes anything distasteful or disrespectful. And even if she did, she is still my student – whatever she might like to write –  and while I'll admit she's not very much in touch with her feminine needs, I try to guide her as best I can. It is my duty as her mentor and a pony she trusts implicitly.” Celestia accompanied the stress on her words with a motherly smile and a raised eyebrow. "Hmm?"

Cadence shuddered. “Isn't it... gross?”

“No, not at all,” Celestia replied calmly, still stroking her niece's mane. “I trust all my students, past and present, and they trust me. They are able to tell me anything that bothers them without fear of repercussion, and I am able to share my knowledge with them freely. That is the strength of bond we share. I have been also alive to have seen what Twilight is going through hundreds, if not thousands of times.”

Crack!

Luna appeared from the nether a few paces away,  rubbing her dark eyes with an unshoed forehoof and yawning sleepily, her long, dark mane slightly rustled.

“Sister?” Luna said, blinking wearily and glancing from Celestia to Cadence a few times. “What is all this racket?”

“Twilight's going crazy!” Cadence said anxiously, before Celestia could put a word in edgeways.

"Crazy?..." Luna repeated, her dark irises widening at the very thought. "Oh stars, should we go to her, or - ?"

Luna's worried musings were cut off by the tinkling laughter of Celestia, who turned her head to nuzzle Cadence affectionately. “Oh, Cadence!” she tutted. “Now that couldn't possibly be right. I'm sure it was just her special time of year, and you had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She glanced up at her sister with a serious glare.

Heat, she mouthed. Luna's blue eyes widened in understanding.

“But you don't understand, Auntie!” Cadence said, rearing to place both of her golden-shoed forehooves upon Celestia's chest. “I've been having issues with my magic all day – just a few hours ago, I had the worst headache, and I miss-poofed a couple of times, and..." she lowered her voice to a bare whisper. "I think I've been accidently shocking a bunch of ponies with my horn!”

Celestia, for all her sagely wisdom, was slightly taken aback by the young alicorn's announcement. Her maternal smile unfaltering, she pondered her niece's words, humming thoughtfully.

“Hmm... are you proposing that you made Twilight Sparkle the way she was, my dear? She said carefully.

At this, Cadence blushed, pawing at the marbled tiles with an anxious hoof for a moment before replying.

“Maybe,” she said, rather sheepishly. “I am the element of love, after all...” she trailed off, biting her lip thoughtfully and hoping that it wasn't true.

“Well, I think that just sounds like magical overload,” Celestia said carefully. “You cannot just simply put somepony into oestrous, my dear. It arises as the result of several factors, such as the season, the day and their proximity to a pony they have feelings for. You are probably a pony she loves very much from the heart, and you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Yes, but...” Cadence faltered slightly, still looking unsure. “My magic...”

“Is just a very strong manifestation of the stress you've been feeling of late, I'm sure,” Celestia said forcefully. “You have a wedding to plan. You stand upon the precipice of marehood, about to make a big jump in your life with the pony you love, and no doubt you must be a little worried.” But even before she'd finished her sentence, she could see in the filly's nervous eyes that Cadence was still unconvinced, and would not be swayed by mere words.

“Alright, then,” she said, without letting a hint of her weariness in edgeways. “Would you like me to see if there's anything wrong?”

Usually, Cadence would have backed off from such a request, and Celestia knew it. The one drawback with her darling niece was that she was far too modest, and most certainly never asked for anything more than was absolutely necessary, despite the fact that she worried about almost everything.

So it came as something of a surprise when Cadence nodded vigorously.

“Oh yes,” the young Princess said, lowering her head and closing her eyes. “That would be wonderful, thank you.”

Caught by her own bluff, Celestia lowered her own horn with a sullen frown. But it wasn't having to use her powerful magic that had her worried.

Surely it's just Cadence getting worked up over nothing, a small part of her said, quite rightly. She is only twenty-three.

All the same, another, older part of her replied as she closed her eyes, channelling magic to the tip of her horn. I'd better have a glance around. It probably is just wedding jitters, though.

Like two graceful swans forming an arc, their horns touched to form a heart, and, leaning deeply past Cadence's worried veneer, Celestia's phantasmal image slipped into Cadence's open mind.

The first thing that bothered Celestia was how very stuffy the inside of Cadence's mind was. No sooner had she opened the familiar door that her mind-spell had created, then she was hit by a blast of humidity and soggy dampness. For a moment, her image stood in the open doorway, blinking in surprise and taking a few deep breaths.

She peered through the doorway she'd created.

The mind, like a pure representation of its owner, was usually ornamented with precious memories and core beliefs. For Celestia's purposes, though, the mind was often a much deeper and chaotic place. It could indeed be 'read' with magic as the scribes of old had wrote, but only so far in that she could see any obstruction or abnormality of magical energy, or, if she felt so inclined, to view the individual threads of logic that made up a thought.

Such threads often wove themselves into intricate realities of the caster's choosing, and for Celestia, the mind was built like an ancient temple.

Only this time, rather unusually, it had been tossed into a swelteringly hot jungle.

Ignoring the clamminess of the air around her, her image took a few steady steps into the temple's massive atrium, glancing around at the dusty brick walls. On them were inscribed dozens of hieroglyphs, pictures and equestrian runes, each one of them their own monument to what was on Cadence's mind. In the centre of the room lay an artisan marble basin of Celestia's own spellcraft – a thought-well, from which the memories she wished to procure would take visible form.

She would have liked to have taken the time to explore her niece's mind. As a young filly at heart, Cadence had never taken to sharing things with her own parents, let alone Celestia herself, and that meant that comparatively little of her life was known to the sun alicorn. But she respected her niece's privacy, and was not about to pry where she knew she would be unwanted. Of the many hundreds of things in there that fascinated her, she only sought one thing, and that was thoughts pertaining to Twilight Sparkle. The fastest way to find that was through Cadence's relationship tree.

After five minutes of searching aimlessly, she found it by the doorway she'd come in, half-way up the left wall – a carving of a tall oak tree topped with a golden crown, with dozens of crisscrossing carvings, ropes and chains to represent the relationship they shared with Cadence and each-other. Everypony that had ever meant something to Cadence was in here, and much to her own delight, she spotted her own kindly face just below the centre of the tree, along with a shimmering rune that she knew to mean 'Great Teacher'.

She resisted the urge to smile, and looked up towards the tip of the main trunk, to where Cadence's picture smiled back at her. Adjoining it by two interwoven golden chains and a heart-shaped gem was a carving of Shining Armour, framed in a cute little heart of pink energy. Adjacent to Shining Armour was a portrait of her student, Twilight Sparkle, the source of Cadence's worries.

Trotting forward, Celestia peered closely at the picture of Twilight. There were four braided ties running from it, three of which were golden, and one of which was silver. The golden ones she knew to mean family, and linked in turn to portraits of her parents and brother, but it was the silver thread of 'dear friend' that she wanted to examine.

Celestia's image leaned forward, touching the thread with a hoof. Immediately, it began to glow, and a soft whooshing noise accompanied a soft wind that brushed against her mane gently.

Like an ancient scientist, Celestia's image turned to glance at the thought-well, curious for what she might see.

In the real world, Celestia frowned from behind closed eyes. There was, before her mind's eye, a large magical presence contained within the thread. She made her illusion blink once or twice just to make sure it was there – but there it was, as real as day. A large ball of humming, rose-coloured energy.

Like a brilliant sphere of shimmering water, it appeared to be a solid and a liquid at the same time, and its surface rippled like a recently disturbed pool of water, though the sphere was suspended in place by some unknown force.

Inside Cadence, the shade of Celestia raised an ethereal hoof, and touched the sphere's shimmering surface. The sphere pulsed once, and suddenly flashed.

“A-ah!”

Celestia's eyes snapped open, and she withdrew her image in an instant, ever-wary of causing her niece pain.

Oh, how far from the truth she was.

Cadence's eyes were closed. She was clearly still asleep, and had been since the beginning of Celestia's spell, but some change had come over her. Her mouth was just open, her breath heavy and audible.

But Celestia's attention was drawn instantly to the surge of magical energy that was making its way up the length of Cadence's horn at an alarming rate, and –

“Oh!” Cadence cried, as a gush of sparks sprayed from the horn's pearly tip.

As swift as light itself, threads of Celestia's magic spun themselves into a tight arcane barrier. With hardly a second to spare in the matter, she decided to protect herself rather than contain Cadence's rather violent outburst. From inside her golden shield, could hear the and see Cadence's magical sparks fizzling upon as they contacted her own, like little sky-blue coloured darts.

But as swiftly as the moment had come, it had vanished. Cadence's horn was dormant once more, and the crystal princess yawned once as she awakened, blinking her eyes sleepily. Celestia dropped her shield quickly, not wanting to worry her niece.

“Mmm..." Cadence mumbled, sitting up on her flank so she could rub her eyes. "Did you find anything?”

In the brief interim of Cadence's blindness, Celestia looked up at Luna, her mouth half-open.

“Yes,” Celestia said flatly, silently imploring her sister for a moment of inspiration.

Far from being helpful, though, Luna was wearing a shocked, wide-eyed expression that could only have come about from seeing something that she hadn't anticipated on seeing.

“I... we... we shall leave thou to it,” Luna managed, watching Cadence with a mixture of embarrassment and regretful schadenfreude. She trotted from the throne room as quickly as she thought she could manage without losing any of her regality, an effort made entirely useless by the fact that her usually royal blue coat had turned a dull shade of plum around her cheeks.

Celestia watched her go, seething. So Luna was ditching her, too? She resolved to get her younger sister back for this later. Maybe she'd hide the xbox. Maybe she'd replace it with a sack of bananas and feign ignorance.

Yes, that seemed right. The banana fairy always did come around whenever Celestia was feeling sour, after all.

“Cadence,” Celestia began, once the throne doors had slammed shut. “I don't mean to pry, but when was the last time you were in heat?”

The young Princess jerked her head up, a usually-dormant frown crossing her youthful face.

“Uhhm,” she said thoughtfully, putting a hoof to her lip. “About last Tuesday, I think.”

Celestia blinked.

“I'm sorry?” she said, not fully understanding.

“Oh no, wait – it was two days ago,” Cadence said, with a satisfied smile. “Yeah. That seems about right. Sorry," she added, with an apologetic smile, "It just happens so often that I sometimes forget.”

Still frowning, still unsure how to reply, Celestia fumbled for a brief moment.

“Cadence, how can you be in heat every week?” she said, somewhat astonished.

The young princess's eyes widened.

“Is that not normal?” she said, slightly worried.

“No, it isn't,” Celestia replied, as lightly as she could. “Most ponies only go through heat once every year.”

At this, Cadence's eyes widened even more.

“What do you mean?” The young mare's voice was filled with alarm.

Inwardly, Celestia grimaced. She had told Cadence's parents multiple times that taking the girl in for private tutelage did not mean she would have to explain the birds and the bees. She made a wry mental note to send them a 'thank-you' banana later.

“Well,” she replied, sucking up her annoyance with a deep breath. “The oestrous cycle happens to everypony. It's a very normal thing to happen to ponies in spring. It hits some ponies later than others, and–”

“Wait, oestrous?” Cadence whinnied rather loudly, jerking her head back like she'd been slapped. “I thought we were talking about heat?”

Celestia stared at her young niece, her great mind slowly ticking over as it added two and two.

“Cadence,” she said slowly. “I don't think you realise. Oestrous is heat.”

Cadence's reaction was one of mixed worry, unsureness, and then complete shock.

“W-wait." Cadence swallowed. "Are you telling me?...”

“Yes...” Celestia replied grimly, nodding her affirmation.

Now it was Cadence's turn to let the cogs in her head crunch together. When she'd finally worked it out, she gasped.

“That... that sort of behaviour is normal? That every mare acts that way?”

“Only during the spring,” Celestia replied, still frowning. “I'm surprised you haven't noticed it by now? Surely you and Shining Armour have discussed it, unless...” she trailed off lamely as a little thought in the back of her head sprung up.

It was only logical. Cadence was not a ditzy doo, nor was she a derpy, and the subject wasn't exactly something that was... easily discussed, for lack of a better term. She'd met stallionswho'd never heard of oestrous before, and that was fine, because it wasn't exactly something stallions would talk about beyond a classroom - but for a mare to have not heard of it could only mean one thing.

“But oestrous has never happened to me before!” Cadence blurted out, mortified.

Ding-a-ling. A little bell rang in the back of Celestia's head, and the ringer's name was 'worry'.

“Cadence,” she said slowly and carefully. “Are you absolutely sure?"

“What? No!” Cadence replied, looking both mortified and disgusted. “I'd never be so... so gross!"

Celestia resisted the urge to gnaw on her lip.

“Tell me, what did you think 'being in heat' was?” she pressed.

“I thought it was those hot flushes that I get every now and again,” the young girl replied, once again thoughtful. “You know, because they're all heated and stuff.”

“...I see,” Celestia said carefully, though she didn't entirely understand. “And how do you deal with these flushes?”

The crystal princess cocked her head thoughtfully. “Well, I go outside, find ponies who are fighting or quarreling, and spread my love to them.”

“And then these hot flushes go away?”

“Right!” Cadence said happily. "And the ponies go back to loving eachother."

“And how long has this - have these flushes been happening?”

“I dunno,” Cadence replied, with a shrug. “They just sort of started one day, and, well... I figured out how to stop them. I just thought it was something to do with my love magic, and nothing ever happened, so I never asked anypony about it.”

Celestia shook her head.

“So you've been putting off oestrous? Skipping your cycles?” she frowned. “That can be dangerous for a young mare like you.”

“Skipping them?” Cadence said, confused. “I don't know what there is to skip!”

Celestia sighed, and shook her head. “Oh come, now,” she began, with all the patience of a saint  – but a train of thought gave her pause. “Cadence, do these flushes happen more in spring?”

“Well, yes, they do,” Cadence replied. “I only really get them around this time of year, though this year they seem kind of hard to beat.”

Slowly, painfully, the realisation of what Cadence was telling her hit home.

Her Niece's evident anxiety.

Her strange, unusual questions for a filly - no, a mare her age.

And most importantly, her disgust at what should have been a perfectly familiar process.

“Cadence, oestrous usually happens in the spring,” she said wearily, putting a hoof to her forehead. “If you've been getting rid of this feeling every year with your love magic, then...”

It took a moment for Cadence to catch up.

“Oooh!" she said, as innocent as the day she was born. "So I've actually been in oestrous before?”

“Yes and no,” Celestia murmured, shutting her eyes. “You have, but you've been putting it off with your magic without realising it, it seems. I take it you've never...” she trailed off again grimly.

“Never what?”

There were several colourful euphemisms floating around in Celestia's head for what she had in mind, but some part of her didn't want to trial them on Cadence just now, as undoubtedly funny as they would be.

“Had the overwhelming desire to mate,” she said, calmly.

Cadence balked furiously. “Oh, no!” she objected, even taking one or two steps back and shaking her head furiously. “No way! No no no nononono!”

“Well,” Celestia said, feeling slightly apprehensive, “I don't believe that's very normal or healthy. Even if you are an alicorn, you should obey normal estrous cycles, although...” She paused, pensively. “Neither your aunt or I experience them anymore.”

Cadence, momentarily torn from her own problems, scrunched up her nose.

“Eww... you were in heat once?”

The silliness of Cadence's question aside, Celestia's mind flitted back to the last time she'd been in heat, and she allowed a small smile to grace her cheeks. How many stallions had she floored on her own? ten, twenty, thirty royal guards? It was definitely sixty before she even began to feel a little out of breath. It was a long time ago, certainly, but three hundred years was not out of memory.

And it never would be. Ca-ching! Off to the royal memory bank with you, my pretty.

“Well, yes,” she replied, skipping over the gruesome details and feeling extremely grateful that every last document pertaining to the event had been destroyed. “But that is a very normal part of being a pony. Alicorn or not, it worries me that you've never been in heat before.” She gave her niece a solemn look. “In fact, I could even see it, contained like a giant bubble before me. The question is, are you feeling better now?”

The alicorn of love shuddered slightly.

“Yes and no,” she replied. “I mean, whatever you did helped a bit, but I... for some reason I feel sort of... dirty.”

Celestia held her tongue. She was not about to explain the intricacies of a horngasm if Cadence hadn't ever beaten the heat before.

“Well, we're going to have to deal with this,” Celestia said, looking very intently at Cadence.

“What do you mean?” Cadence asked.

“You can't just keep skipping oestrous like that.”

“Why not?”

Celestia blinked. It was a legitimate question, albeit one she hadn't been expecting.

“Well,” she said, “for a starters, it's highly unnatural to skip even one cycle, though some mares do, much to their own detriment, and... and it can seriously impact your mental health. Among other things,” she swiftly added, her mind flitting back to a large reservoir of wine she'd once broken into after a particularly lengthy dry spell. “You've skipped many more then that. I can't actually say what will happen, but I can guarantee you that at some point the dam of those feelings will burst, and it's not going to be pretty. It's going to be very volatile. So you're going to have to sort it out.”

“...What do you mean?” Cadence inquired again, this time more slowly and cautiously. “What do you mean, 'it's not going to be pretty?'”

AAARGH! The Princess groaned again internally, letting out a great sigh. The poor girl was worse than Luna. Why couldn't any of her relatives be normal?

“I mean,” she said rather painfully, “That you're going to have to sort that issue out with the help of Shining Armour. Or else you're going to end up like Twilight, except ten times as worse.”

“I don't even...” Cadence began to say, before pausing.

Cadence stared at her, and Celestia could see her emotions taking turns controlling her face. Fearful, alarmed, embarassed, surprised. Panic, worry, blushing and astonishment, all in a perfect loop.

For a second.

And then, just like that, it jumped to fearful, fearful, fearful and more fearful.

“Wait... are you really telling me to...?”

“Well, that's how most ponies with special someponies deal with it,” Celestia added quickly, attempting to mitigate the fallout. “You just have to share all that love with somepony else. That's normal.”

Inwardly, Cadence wretched. The mere suggestion of what her aunt was saying frightened her beyond words.

“No,” she said, rather simply.

“Yes,” Celestia replied, matter-of-factly. “You're going to have to deal with this somehow, Cadence. Now, I know it's scary, but –”

Cadence never even let her finish. Instead, she jumped back with a little frightened whinny, as if her aunt was a venomous spider.

“You're telling me to embrace it!?" she said, feeling her voice heighten in pitch and volume. "You want me to turn into some kind of... some kind of sex-crazed animal?”

The sun Alicorn winced at her reaction. “Look, Cadence, It's not that bad,” she said, frankly. “All that happens is that you have some funny urges, and then you go back to normal...”

“I don't want to be asking Twilight to do that, though!” Cadence blurted out.

For the umpteenth time, Celestia looked as if she was taken aback, and she held a hoof up for pause.

“Wait, wait, slow down,” the sun princess said. “What exactly did you mean when you said 'Twilight was hitting on you?'”

“What do you think I mean!?” Cadence replied, her voice cracking a little in anxiety. “She asked me if I wanted to... you know!”

Celestia stared blankly at her for a bit. “Well that's certainly not normal,” she said, after the longest of pauses. “Not normal at all. I will have to go and write her a letter or two after we're done talking.”

Cadence was distraught. “And you're telling me that I'm going to be like that, whether or not I like it!?”

Well, no,” she replied with a wince, tipping a hoof left and right in a so-so fashion. “You just have to find a way to share your love so that this doesn't happen again. What happened to Twilight was abnormal, certainly, and I will look into it – but it doesn't necessarily mean it's something you've done, and it doesn't mean you'll end up that way. It could simply be Twilight being Twilight. Your horn discharging we will see to. The two may not be related at all, dear. And as for your skipping of your cycle, I suggest you remedy it in a controlled fashion, one where you're comfortable with sharing your love."

Another pause. Cadence teetered on the verge of bursting into tears once again.

"Maybe you could simply help yourself achieve some release?" Celestia hinted unhelpfully.

Still frightened and close to a breakdown, Cadence shivered a little, totally unwilling to comprehend what she'd just heard.

“I... I will not!” she said as stubbornly as she could manage.

Celestia only replied with a sigh.

“Well, look. I know it must be it's a lot to handle,” The Sun Princess said, running a hoof through her great mane in weariness. “Why don't you go and think about your wedding, and we can talk about this later, once you've had some time to think it over. Does that sound alright? In the meantime, I'll go and check on Twili–oh.” Celestia suddenly looked thoughtful again.

“...What is it?” Cadence replied, the hint of uncertainty in her Aunt's mannerisms worrying her.

“Oh, horsefeathers,” her Aunt murmured flatly. “Cadence, you mentioned you'd been... shocking ponies all morning... , right?”

The reply came before the thought. “Yes, I –”

Cadence clamped her mouth shut, throwing a hoof over it, mortified.

She stared at her Aunt, suddenly aware of the potential tangle she was in. Celestia looked back down at her, unamused.

“Well, we might have a problem, then.”