Did you know that in Canterlot, there are a few secret lounging spots in specific places all around the city?

What most ponies don’t know about their capital city was that, Building Block, the mare that orchestrated the building of the city, was a very avid fisher, and it showed when she built Canterlot.

Aunty Celestia said the mare liked this weird hobby, not for the fishing per se, but because she liked to just sit in a boat and listen to the little waves the boat made, so technically she was more of a wave-listener than a—oops, getting a little off track there.

Anyway, since Building Block helped build every street, alleyway, and walkway in this city-- which took almost sixty of the mare’s life-- she had decided to ‘secretly’ build a couple of artificial ‘fishing holes’ all around the city to help her relax in between construction periods. All of which were turned, over the centuries, into swimming holes that ponies would use to get out of the heat.

These little swimming holes were almost forgotten or paved over over the years since a lot of ponies don’t bother learning to swim, so the few ponds that survived the over millennia just stayed there in a state of disuse, waiting for somepony to do something with them.

Now, you may be asking yourself, ‘why are you telling me about these silly watering holes that nopony uses?’ Well, other than the fact that I personally think it’s an interesting little history lesson, I’ve been going to one of these little lakes since I was little.

This little lake was the smallest of Building’s creations, built on the east side of the city in the middle of a bunch of now-rundown buildings that can’t be destroyed because of some weird city-ordinance law, and it’s been one of my favorite places to go and relax for years.

When I was younger I learned to swim there, I would sit under a big maple tree that grew right next to it and do my homework, and it was even the place where Shiny and I first cemented our relationship.

So, after a few weeks of going to the hospital, I became very stressed with my stay in Canterlot, so I decided to go back to my little hidey-hole and just relax.

“Are you sure that there are fish in this pond, Candy?”

…Or least I was trying to relax, but Ares was making it pretty difficult.

I frowned at the human, adjusting my grip on my fishing pole. “Ares, will you be quiet?” I asked. “You’ve been complaining the whole time and—eep!”

Ares grinned as he rocked our boat dangerously, ducking under the flailing swing of my pole. He started laughing when he saw my terrified look, which earned him a hard shove.

“Take it easy, Candy,” the human said, adjusting himself in his seat. “You’ll scare the fish away…if there are any in this fucking pond.”

I huffed while Ares reached into the cooler we brought and pulled out an apple juice, frowning at the beverage. “We’re the only ones fishing in a pond that has no fish and you wouldn’t let me bring any alcohol,” he muttered, taking a sip of his juice. “You ponies really have a different take on fishing than humans.”

I snorted, looking around the still waters for any hint of a fish. “You’ll never get any alcohol while I’m around,” I told the human. “You’re hoof-full enough sober thank you very much, and you didn’t have to come with me.”

“Couldn’t we have at least brought someone else? I mean, it feels like I may as well just go clothes shopping with you and call it a day.”

I rolled my eyes, giving my wings a little flap in annoyance. “Just get me a juice from the cooler, for Faust sake’s. I already told you that the others either were too busy to join us or they can’t swim, so just sit there and drink your juice.”

Ares complied, and we lapsed into silence with just the sounds of nature surrounding us.

That is, until Ares decided to break this peace. Again.

“Candy, I’ve been meaning to ask; who’s this Faust chick you keep taking in vain?”

I blinked at the question. “Oh, um, Faust is the creator of this world and every living thing in it, if you believe in our myths, that is.”

The human hummed, dipping his rod all of the way into the water for a second before pulling it back out. “Well that’s pretty neat.”

I decided to keep the conversation going, mostly out of boredom. “Do you human’s have somepony like that?”

Ares nodded. “Yep.”

I waited for him to say more and facehoofed when he just looked at his surroundings. “Are you going to tell me about this creator?” I finally asked, exasperated.

He looked over at me. “Oh, yeah, If you want,” He cleared his throat. “Well, depending on who you ask, the thing that made everything could be just be a load of science-y stuff to a whole bunch of divine beings fucking with all of humanity for laughs.”

He shrugged, looking out into the waters. “I personally like one of the older descriptions of one of our supposed creators. Say, do you want a Colta-Cola?”

Interested in the conversation, I nodded, Ares handing me a pop and smiling with me while we opened the cans together and each took a big swig. “Keep going about your favorite god, Ares,” I urged the human, who shrugged again.

“Well, unlike most religions, there’s this one guy called God, who back in the day was kind of a bad ass.”

“How so?”

“A lot of people nowadays think of this god as a guy that loves you and all of that, but I like how the people in the old days portrayed him. Back then he wanted people to get by on their own and just worship him because ‘fuck you, if you don’t I’ll flood your asses’.”

I gasped at that while the human continued. “You see, a lot of people bitch when bad things happen to them, and they ask themselves why any god would let that this or that happen,” Ares took another sip of his pop. “Which makes this god more realistic than the lovey-dovey God that most people worship today.”

“I’m sure that an all-powerful being has better things to do than tippy-toeing with a bunch of his creations—if he exists—so he just gives us a few things to keep us going once in a while and pretty much ignores us.”

“And do you think a god like that exists?” I asked, not knowing about how I felt about the human’s gods.

Ares cracked a smile. “Candy, I’m fishing with a magical talking pink pony in a city on top of a mountain; I have no idea,” He snorted. “But Christ I hope not, ‘cause that guy’s a little too strict for me.”

I smiled slightly at that. “Thanks for your horrible view on theology, Ares.”

He cocked his head at me, his features suddenly turning angry. “Hey, I’m not a priest or anything like that; you asked me about who made us and I tried to give you a good fucking answer!”

I gave him a soothing pat on the shoulder with a wing. “Has the doctor been getting difficult?” I asked, Ares sighing while his shoulders sagged, looking at the floor of our boat.

When he looked like he wasn’t going to answer me I leaned over-- risking capsizing our boat-- and gave him a nuzzle. “If it makes you feel any better, Ares, my time at the hospital has been pretty rough,” I confessed, Ares looking up at me.

“It’s getting harder, Candy,” he muttered, taking his pole and setting it in the boat. “And I’m sorry about snapping at you like a five-year-old.”

I waved him away with a small smile on my face. “It’s alright , Ares, I’m pretty much used to you acting like a five-year-old anyways.” Though it was small, I got the smile I wanted as Ares snorted.

“Weeeeell fuuuccckkkk yooouuu tooooo, Candy,” Ares said, sticking his tongue out at me. This time he started to chuckle, and I couldn’t help but join him.

After we settled down Ares looked over at the side of the boat, frowning. “There’s no fish in this pond,” he said with a tone of finality that made me shake my head.

“Just keep fishing for a little longer,” I couldn’t help but gulp. “I have to go with Shiny and Twilight to see their mother in a few hours, so let’s just kill time this way.”

“Their mother, not your mother-in-law?” Ares asked, making me flinch a little bit. “You look like you’d rather do anything than that, Candy. What’s wrong with the Sparkle parents?”

I couldn’t keep my ears from folding against the back of my head. “Well…Shining’s mom doesn’t like me very much.”

I got a dismissive wave for that. “No mom likes their son’s other halves,” he said. “And she can’t be that bad, she’s Purples’ and Tina’s mom.”

He saw my look and rolled his eyes. “Hey, how about I just come with you?”

I looked hopefully up at him. “Are you sure that’d you want to?” I asked. “Because I promise you, you’re probably not going to enjoy it.”

The human just chuckled and gave me a pat on the head. “I’ll come if it’s okay with Purple and your hubby. If they say that it’s fine then I’ll lay the ol’ Ares charm down on your evil step-mother.” I raised an eyebrow when he leaned down and grabbed both of the edges of the boat.

“But first,” I heard him mutter, my eyes widening when I finally realized what he was about to do. “Fuck this fishing.”

“ARES, DON’T YOU DARE—”

Splash!

The fact that Ares was able to roll the boat on the first try was actually pretty impressive—they're designed to be hard to roll over after all—but that didn’t mean I was the least bit happy as I opened my eyes in the water to look at the grinning human.

I couldn’t help but point a hoof at him accusingly, trying to convey my angry emotions underwater.

YOU BUCKER!! I just had my hair done the other day!

That was the first time I had seen anypony laugh underwater, Ares producing loads of bubbles as he held his sides.

I only made it worse when I started to lewdly gesture at him, the two of us continuing this little back and forth thing until we remembered that we had to breathe. With a few brief strokes the two of us reached the surface, gasping for air.

“Bwahahaha!” The human roared after he took a couple more deep breaths. “You should see your face, Candy!”

I let out a very un-pony-like snarl, splashing him. “You jerk! What’s wrong with you!”

Still, laughing, Ares swam toward the shore, me in hot pursuit, ready to beat some monkey flank down. Unfortunately for me, humans were apparently way better swimmers than ponies, so Ares, still laughing and dripping wet, crawled onto the shore first.

Looking at me while I was swimming toward him. “Aw look,” I heard him call. “Candy can float! Christ, I've seen rocks that swim better!”

With a mighty roar, I launched myself out of the water with a great, big flap of my wings, Ares yelping when I missed him by an inch, landing as gracefully as a soaking wet alicorn could in a situation like this.

“You’re going to pay for messing my hair up, monkey!” I snapped, a hard look in my eye as I slowly circled the human, who gulped nervously.

“Now, Candy,” he said. “Let’s all just calm down and—”

Pawing the ground, I charged, yelping when I was hit in the face with Ares wet shirt. I shook my head to try to wrench the bucking shirt off me while the irritating human held his sides in laughter.

“Oh, Jesus!” He rasped out behind me, falling to his knees in laughter. “I-I can’t b-breathe!”

With a spell, Ares shirt all but exploded off of my head and into oblivion, my gaze red at the edges as I looked around for my prey, and, finding him, I charged.

Here’s a fun fact; while Ares didn’t really seem like he would be, he was actually a lot heavier than he looked. The doctor’s said that he was just denser than regular pony’s for some reason, which was why he was able to pick ponies up so easily. This also helped explain why I, even with my super earth pony strength, had a little bit of trouble carrying him around.

So, with this in mind—or at least in Ares mind; I was a little too upset to think at that moment—when I was about to connect, Ares kept me from probably really messing the two of us up. As soon as I connected with his chest—with my horn moved away to keep from piercing anything, I may have been a little upset but I didn’t want to hurt my friend—the human rolled with my tackle.

Or at least tried to, since he didn’t take into account that I was moving pretty fast it didn’t go as planned.

So what happened, instead of me tackling the human into next week or Ares rolling the two of us to safety, there was somewhat a mixture of the two.

With a pair of grunts the two of us rolled, a little painfully I might add, into the tree, with me on top of the human. He gulped when I gazed down at him with a predatory look, tightening my rear legs around his lower midsection so he wouldn’t escape from my wrath.

“Now, Candy, let’s calm down,” Ares said, and I had to keep myself from rubbing my hooves together gleefully while I spread my wings, inching them dangerously toward his naked chest. “We can talk about this.”

I nodded, waving a hoof around. “Alright, let’s hear it, I haven’t heard a good begging in a while.”

I could see the human trying to contain a snort and biting his lip hard when one of my wings gave his neck a little tickle. “Come on, I’m waiting.”

At first the human tried to wiggle out from underneath me, and, having failed that, he scrunched up his face, trying to figure out how to get out of his punishment.

I tried not to giggle when he sighed, trying to give me his best puppy-dog eyes. “I got nothing,” he admitted. “But how about you look into that big heart of yours and see if you have any—” He let out this adorable little squeak when I tickled under one of his arms, trying to wiggle away from me.

“Can’t I at least pick my punishment?” he asked.

I hummed, tapping a hoof against my chin in mock thought. “Well,” I began. “Are you ticklish?”

I already knew the answer but it was pretty fun making Ares sweat a little bit.

“…Yes.”

I nodded, my wings dropping on either side of him, Ares flinching whenever my soft wings touched him. “Alright, and I’m sure that you’d rather prefer that I did something else to you right?”

“…Yes.”

The human tried to buck me off him when he saw the look in my eyes and the grin on my face. “Alright, sooooo…tickletickletickletickle!”

…What? Don’t look at me like that!

When you have experience in babysitting like me you learn that sometimes tickling is the only way to teach somepony a lesson.

I had to hold on for dear life as Ares squirmed and bucked—laughing so hard that he had tears in his eyes—trying to get away from my wings of torture. “Hahaha! LetmegoI’msorryI’msorry!” He yelled.

“What was that?” I said between my laughter. “I can’t hear you. You were what again?”

He tried, boy did he try, to resist saying sorry again, but I persisted. Squaring my jaw I continued my attack, using my forehooves to keep Ares arms from flailing around while the human started to turn a very interesting shade of red.

We locked gazes for a moment before I finally won. “I’msorryforgettingyouwet!”

“And you think that Cadence is the greatest,” I said, smiling smugly.

“And I think Cadence is the greatest!”

“And the prettiest.”

Ares was able to keep himself from laughing for a second to look at me with scorn. “What are you, five?”

That got him a frown and some more tickling. “Say that Princess Cadence is the best, smartest, and greatest princess,” I said with a fake sneer, not noticing that I had brought my face a little too close to Ares’s. “And you—“

I let out a little squeak when Ares lunged up a little bit to nip me on the neck, my head jerking back in surprise. This gave him enough leeway to flip me off of him and onto my back.

The two of us looked over at each other for what seemed like a ridiculous amount of time, Ares once red and laughing face taking on a more sinister look, which made me gulp.

Trying to sit up—it’s harder than it looks to roll around when you’re on your back and you have a big pair of wings—I gave Ares a shaky smile, realizing that the ball was now in the humans court.

With a quick roll the now grinning human was in a pouncing position. “N-Now, Ares,” I said, trying to sound calm and collected. “Just—eep!”

I tried to scramble out of the way of the pouncing human, and, more importantly his fingers, but I was too little too late, Ares holding me down with a hand to the lower stomach. I gulped when Ares tsked my, shaking his head.

“Oh, Candy,” he said. “It looks like you’re in a bit of trouble, eh?” For some reason it didn’t occur to me to use my magic, my gaze glued to Ares's hands, which were wiggling in anticipation.

I tried to put on a brave face, glaring up at Ares and trying not to giggle when he started to tickle my belly. “Now, Ares,” I said, in my best teacher voice. “You let me go this instant! You dumped me into the pond and I tickled you, so we’re even.”

An amused looking Ares raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”

I nodded the best I could. “Yes. Now get off of me and get back in that water, you need to get all of the stuff that’s probably on the bottom of the—“

My eyes widened when I felt the human’s lips on my stomach, Ares sucking in a big breathe and rapidly releasing, giving me the first raspberry that I’ve had in years.

To my shame, I reacted negatively.

“Bwahahahaha!” I did my best to wiggle away, to get away from the tickling onslaught, but it wasn’t long before I was just as red-faced as he was before.

“Stopstopstop!” I yelled between laughs. “I give up, Igiveup!”

Thankfully, Ares took pity on me, letting me go and rolling next to me while the two of us caught our breaths.

“B-Bucker,” I rasped out, looking over at Ares, who just smiled at me.

“You started it,” he replied.

I just rolled my eyes, the two of us lapsing into a comfortable silence.

“...Candy?”

“Yes, Ares?”

“We’re soaking wet and it’s getting kinda cold outside.”

I gasped, getting to my hooves as quickly as I could, looking at the slightly shaking human with concern. “Oh shoot, Ares. We should probably get you warmed up before you catch a cold.”

Ares closed his eyes, smiling. “Oh shoot? Really?” he asked, making me flush slightly. “I know children that swear more than you, Candy.”

I ruffled my feathers irritably, placing myself in the way the wind that was starting to pick up so Ares wouldn’t get any colder; I didn’t want him to have another episode after all.

“Seriously, Ares,” I said. “We need to get you out of this—”

“You know,” the human said, interrupting me. “I think I’m actually okay with being a little cold like this.”

I cocked my head at him as he continued, laughing a little bit. “Huh, I guess that the doctor’s really helping me…”

I couldn’t help but smile as I sat on my rump, still slightly concerned about the human’s welfare. “Are you sure, Ares?” I asked. “I don’t want to take you to the hospital or anything.”

Ares opened an eye to look at me, the smile still on his face. “I think I’m fine, Candy,” His head rose up a little bit, his eyes scanning the area. “Hey, where did you put my shirt? I can throw it up on that tree and let it air-dry.”

Still smiling, I magicked his shirt—which was in rags by the way—over to him, Ares getting up and throwing his shirt and pants on the tree’s various branches before laying right back down, patting the space next to him.

“Come on, Candy, you gotta air-dry too.”

Rolling my eyes, I made my way over to him, laying down and laying a wing over the human.

“I still don’t want you to catch a cold,” I explained to Ares when I saw his look.

“…But, your wings are soaking wet.”

“I’m keeping you warm and helping my wings get drier faster." I told him, giving my wings a little flap to help them dry faster.

Ares snorted, and I could feel his arms starting to move around under my wing. “You’re going to keep the both of us wet,” he told me, his arms popping out from my wing as he gazed at my appendage.

“You know, Candy, your wings look pretty messed up,” I watched as he started to rearrange my feathers carefully. “You should probably preen them more.”

I rolled my eyes, letting the human continue with his rather relaxing preening. “Well, they would be alright if you didn’t dump me into the lake—“

“Candy, this is a pond; it’s too small to be a lake.”

I snorted, closing my eyes and sighing. “Just shut up and keep fixing my feathers,” I told him, flinching when he pulled one out.

The human looked at the feather carefully, showing me that it was cracked at the base. “And you said that you took care of your wings,” he said with a little tease in his voice.

I huffed. “Unlike some people I know, not all of us have hands to fix ourselves,” I shook my head a little bit to keep from dozing off. “Ares?”

“Yes, Candy?”

“How are you so good at this?”

I felt him shrug. “I saw Flash do it when we were up at your kingdom, and since he looked so adorable I offered to help out.”

I wiggled around to get a little more comfortable. “Yeah?” I muttered sleepily. “Did he tell you what preening another means to Pegasi?”

“Yep, he told me you either gotta be a family member, fuck-buddy—“

“Lover,” I corrected, snickering.

“—Lover, or a really good friend,” he finished, giving my wing a gentle pat. “Get up and switch wings, Candy,” he told me, eyeing my other wing. “That one looks a lot worse than this one.”

With a little bit of regret I got back up and made my way to Ares’s other side, plopping down next to him.

“And I guess you can add ‘if you have hands’ to that list now,” I told him. “You know, Ares, when we get you home and start communications with your world, you should really set up a shop to do this.”

“What? I’m not listed underneath the ‘really good friend’ category?” he asked with a little bit of tease in his voice.

I shook my head, swatting Ares’s side playfully with my tail. “Nope, but seriously, you really should set up something to help Pegasi with their wings.”

“Oh?”

I nodded slowly, a lazy smile on my face. “Yeah. It’s actually really hard for a Pegasus to get every little feather and you’re actually pretty good at this.”

Ares made some sympathetic noises. “Yeah, I thought this would be pretty rough for you guys,” he muttered, more to himself than me as he carefully ran his hand over my secondary row of feathers. “Especially you princesses; you gals have some big fucking wings.”

I heard him snort as he looked down at me. “Are ya asleep there, Candy?”

It was getting more difficult to get irritated at the human, so all he got was a content sigh. “It’s not my fault,” I argued. “This is relaxing! —And thank you for telling me my wings are big.”

Ares bit back a chuckle. “Oh shit, did I just ‘your dicks huge’ you?”

“…What?”

He waved my question away. “Never mind, it’s not important,” he patted my other wing, beginning to sit up. “That one’s done.”

I opened my eyes and refurled my wing, looking over the both of them to see if they were actually presentable while the human got up.

“Well, I’m still soaked,” I heard Ares say as I also got up, the human shaking himself like a dog to get some of the water off of his body. “Couldn’t you have just used some of your crazy magic to dry us off?”

I shrugged, hip-checking him and sticking out my tongue. “Magic doesn’t solve everything, silly human,” I told Ares as he reached up the tree to grab his clothes. “Besides, I’m pretty sure that we wasted enough time here. Now we can go get ready for war.”

My sour tone made Ares chuckle, walking over and patting me on the head. “Don’t worry, Candy, if I can come I’ll try to make this as painless as possible.”

The two of us turned toward the lake, and I couldn’t help but touch the top of my head with a hoof. “Ares?” I asked. “Did I bring my crown here and if I did, is it at the bottom of that pond right now?”

…

A ‘fun’ fact about Twilight and Shiny’s parents, Velvet Sparkle and Night Light, was that usually the two were some of the nicer nobles in the city. The two were responsible for more charities than I could count and I’m pretty sure that Velvet went incognito every weekend to go down and work in a soup kitchen.

So, like I said, these two were very kind, caring ponies, and it showed when they both saw Ares for the first time.

“Holy hay you’re huge!” Night Light muttered as Ares walked through the doorway, his wife nudging him hard.

Ares just looked down at the couple, a small smile on his face while the Sparkles hugged their children. While I got a friendly hello and a nuzzle from Night Light, all I got was a look from the mom, my mother-in-law, before she turned and led us into the moderately sized house.

“Well thank you, sir,” he said as the rest of us crowded into the Sparkles living room. “My mom would love to hear that; she always tells me that I need to eat more.”

To my surprise, Velvet giggled, walking toward the human and offering him a hoof. “Well, your mom sounds like a good mother,” she looked at all of us and I couldn’t help but notice that her warm smile turn cold when she looked at me.

“All good mothers have their baby’s best interest at heart.”

Ares took the mares hoof, giving it a gentle shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Sparkle. I can’t wait to eat all of your food.”

The mare laughed again, looking over at Twilight with a sly smile. “Such a nice young stal—“

“Man.”

“—Man. You know, you should really ask my daughter out…”

“MOM!” Twilight yelled, her face lighting up like a Hearths-Warming’s Eve tree.

Night Light chuckled, shaking his head as he made his way over to the human, poking his thigh. “Don’t tease the poor girl, honey; and besides, I don’t think Mr. Ares here is too keen on our daughter.”

To my horror, Ares patted the stallion, who was probably twenty years his senior, on the head like a dog. “How did you know my name, Mr. Sparkle?” He asked while he played with the stallion’s ears. “I don’t remember us getting into that part of the hellos.”

The Sparkles gave the human an apologetic look. “Word travels fast, dear,” Velvet said. “It was pretty cute how you got around Blueblood,” She patted his leg. “And you don’t need to call me Mrs. Sparkle, Hon. Just Velvet will do.”

Night Light clapped his hooves together, stepping away from Ares. “Enough of this, we can chit-chat while we stuff our faces!”

We were then led to the Sparkle’s giant dinner table, and promptly started to all but throw all of her food at us.

To my delight, this was actually one of the best experiences that I had had with Shiny’s mother. Because of Ares, the worst that I had gotten so far was a nasty glare or two from Velvet.

It was a really good idea to bring, Ares, I thought, smiling down at my plate-full of ravioli. If I keep bringing him with me then maybe Velvet will be able to carry a conversation with me.

This thought was promptly broken into a thousand pieces and melted down into nothingness when Night Light finally asked, “So, Ares, I haven’t seen a ‘hue-mun’ before, and I’ve been around.”

Ares nodded, swallowing another big mouthful of his food. “Yeah,” he said, taking a drink of his water. “We humans don’t come around here all that often, but the Princesses are trying to fix that.”

The stallion nodded. “So, may I ask how you came to meet my son and daughter-in-law?” Velvet frowned at that, her cold gaze turning toward me, me trying to shrink into my chair while Shiny and Twilight gave me sympathetic looks.

Ares either ignored or just didn’t see what was going on around him, answering the stallion, “Well, I lost my way up north a bit and Cadence and her hubby over there helped me out when I was in their kingdom and gave me a place to stay.”

“Is that so?” Night said. “It seems like you have an interesting story to tell my boy,” he took a sip of his drink, humming thoughtfully. “This wine is excellent; are you sure that you don’t want any, Ares?”

The human shook his head. “No thank you, I’m not really a wine guy,” He turned toward Velvet, giving the mare a big grin. “Mrs. Sparkle, you should really tell me how you make this ravioli.”

That drew the mare’s gaze off of me, Velvet giving Ares a bashful smile. “Aw, thank you, Ares, but this isn’t anything special,” she teleported another bowl of food over to him. “It’s just made with a lot of love.”

“And she gets the noodles and sauce from a pony down the street,” Night said, ignoring his wife’s glare. “She’s a nice mare, nam—“

“Anyway,” Velvet interrupted her husband, all of us hearing a thumping underneath the table, which was followed by the stallion’s eyes crossing in pain. “I haven’t asked yet, Baby, but how are you doing up in the empire?”

The mare continued, not seeing the look that Shiny and I shared. Pleasedon’tdothis! I thought to myself.

Shiny gave his mother a forced smile. “Oh, it’s fine mom. It’s just a lot of work getting the crystal ponies sped up to modern times.”

Velvet smiled, looking over at Twilight. “Night Light and I have been wanting to go up to the empire for a while now.”

Night nodded. “Yep, I heard that the crystal houses up there are something else.”

Twilight nodded happily. “Oh, it is something else, dad. When the light hit’s the castle at the right time the whole place just lights up,” I couldn’t help but smile when the purple alicorn adopted this dopey expression. “And the library that they have there,” We all chuckled when she shuddered.

Velvet looked back at Ares, and for a second I thought I was going to get out of this dinner with just a few nasty looks. “Well, Ares, you were a guest there, what do you think of the Crystal Empire?”

Ares hummed, throwing me a sly wink before he answered, “Well, the ponies up there are really friendly, but it’s a little too cold for my taste.”

Night scrunched his face up at that a little bit of information. “Is that so? Huh, then I don’t think that going up there would be for me,” he all saw our looks and shrugged. “What can I say? I can’t really take the cold.”

Shining nodded. “Well, Dad, the tundra that surrounds the empire will dissipate in a few years.”

I nodded, having finally worked up my courage to put in my two cents. “He’s right; the more that my subjects love and are loved, the more power the Crystal Heart has and the more that the barrier that surrounds the city grows.”

“It seems like I’d be a lot of work,” Night commented.

Night Light was about to say more when his wife interrupted him. “Speaking of which, Cadence,” she all but spat out my name, making me flinch slightly. “How have you been? Stealing my baby and ignoring my letters must be difficult.”

It was like somepony turned the eerie silence switch on, my eyes widening in shock and hurt while Velvet and Ares continued to eat calmly like nothing happened.

“My mom would have beaten around the bush a little more,” the human said after taking another bite of his food. “And she wouldn’t bring something like that up when she had company, but I guess telling someone that you hate their guts bluntly is alright too.”

Night Light, bless his soul, tried to stand up for me, looking angrily at his wife. “Velvet, do you really have to do this now? In front of a guest?”

The mare turned toward the stallion, her face as emotionless as ever. “Night, I can’t think of a better time than now; there might not be another time to save my baby from this mare.”

The stallion almost snarled, slamming his hooves onto the table. “Enough! I’m sick of how you treat our daughter-in-law, Velvet! She’s a strapping young filly who—“

“Must have used her mind-control magic to rip my baby away from me even when I told her that I didn’t want her a part of this family!” I bit back a sob, my tears hitting the table quietly.

Velvet cleared her throat, giving Ares a leveled look. “And I don’t hate her, Ares; I just don’t think she’s good enough for my son.”

“Shit, if I had a mom like you, then I wouldn’t return your letters.”

“My Shining deserves better than this upstart Princess.”

Ares snorted while I had to fight back my tears. “A princess and a great gal isn’t good enough for your son,” he looked over at Shining, who still hadn’t looked up from his food. “You know, Shining, now’s the time to defend your wife’s honor.”

“You wouldn’t understand, Ares, you’re not a mother.”

“I understand bitchy, child-controlling women just fine, thank you very much.”

Velvet continued like she hadn’t heard him, her cold, cold gaze turning toward me. “I think that my baby deserves a bright, pretty mare that can give him foals!”

Everyone in the room gasped while I swallowed a whimper, promising myself that I wouldn’t cry.

Ares face lost all emotion, but I could still see the rage in the eyes. “Velvet,” he said in a cold, angry voice, which almost forced the mare to look at him. “You can get away with that shit with your kids and husband, but you will not talk about Cadence like that in front of me.”

By now I had closed my eyes, tears starting to stream down my face. She’s right, I thought miserably to myself. I’m just— I stopped when I felt a hand on my shoulder, which squeezed me reassuringly.

I opened an eye to see Ares standing next to me, giving me a smile. “Cadence here took me in, fixed me up, and had been one of the best friend’s a guy can ask for,” He leaned forward with his hands on the table, glaring at Velvet Sparkle, who glared right back.

“Now, whether or not you like her I could not give less of a fuck, but she is your daughter-in-law, and you will treat her with respect.”

The furious mare slowly got out of her chair, standing nose-to-nose with an angry Ares. “Get out,” She all but snarled. “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

“Honey—”

“Mom—”

“GET OUT NOW!”

I don’t remember being carried out of the house while all of the screaming started, but soon I was outside, crying my eyes out.

“FUCK YOU, LADY!” Ares roared while he carried me through the door, Shining and Twilight barely making their way through the door before he slammed it, gently putting me down and wrapping me in a hug.

“Don’t cry, Cadence,” he muttered while I continued to weep. “That bitch doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

I whimpered, nuzzling the human’s cheek while Twilight and Shining just sat there, not knowing whether to just sit there or console me.

“S-She’s r-right, A-Ares,” I all but whispered. “I-I’m j-just a no g-good f—“

He clamped my mouth shut gently, whipping the tears from my face. “Don’t listen to what that nag said, Cadence,” he whispered. “Shining should thank his lucky stars that he’s got someone like you.”

I sniffled and buried my face into the human’s neck while he picked me back up, tears still streaming down my face. He turned toward a very shaken Twilight. “Purple, after things calm down a little bit, tell your dad that I’m sorry for everything.”

They all flinched when a loud crash was heard inside of the house, which was followed by even more screaming. “He seems like a nice guy; I’d really hate for this to fuck up his life.”

I felt him pat me on the back while whatever my sister-in-law had said faded into the background, my hooves tightly gripping Are’s midsection. “Come on, Candy, let’s get you home and away from this. Shining, get your white ass over here and lead the way; I have no idea where the fuck we are.”

The minutes that followed were filled with my sobs and the human gently bobbing up and down as he carried me back to the castle. I think I had heard Ares tell Twilight to teleport there first to tell my aunt’s what had happened but I wasn’t sure.

“You’re okay, Candy,” Ares kept telling me over and over again while he used a hand to stroke my back. “We’ll just get back to the castle and get some ice cream; by tomorrow we’ll be laughing about this whole thing.”

I chuckled weakly at that, giving Ares a nuzzle. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, Ares,” I said.

Velvet was right after all, no matter what Ares said. Shiny— I started to think, then stopping when I remembered how the stallion, my stallion, had just abandoned me, just let his mother say those horrible things to me!

Ares’s eyes widened when he felt my grip on him tighten angrily, his eyes flashing with realization. “Now, none of that, Cadence,” he murmured. “If you could see your boy you’d know what this is doing to him.”

“But he—”

He shushed me, and I could tell that we were making our way up the stairs. I counted the two hundred steps and I finally realized that we must have been going to my Aunty Celestia’s room.

You’d know that too if you were ever a filly that grew up in that castle and got bored easily.

Anyway, after a short walk I heard a door open and I was all but wrenched out of Ares arms into the white bosom of my Aunt, who then proceeded to wrap her wings tightly around me, which brought back my water-works.

…

Ares watched as Celestia comforted Cadence, the human running his hands through his hair as Luna made her way over to him and Shining, the princess looking like she was ready to tear into someone.

“Sir Shining, Ares, we believe that it would be best if thee let my sister, Twilight, and I comfort young Cadence,” Her eyes glowed white with power as she stared at the ex-captain, Shining swallowing the lump in his throat.

“Young Shining, it would be best if your mother was not seen by us for some time. Do We make ourself clear?”

The stallion could only nod, yelping when he was roughly grabbed by Ares and all but thrown out the door, an angry Ares in tow.

“She’s your wife!” The human snarled, Shining backing up to try to escape the human’s wraith. “And what do yo—”

Now it was Shining’s turn to be furious, the stallion all but ramming into the human’s chest, knocking him off his feet and into the wall. “I KNOW WHAT I DID!” Shining roared, butting heads with Ares. “I WATCHED MY MOTHER TELL MY WIFE THAT SHE WASN’T GOOD—” The stallion lost all steam when he said that, sitting on his rump in shock.

“—I just let her say all of those horrible things and I did nothing… How could I do that?”

For some reason, all of the anger left the human when he saw Shining’s utterly defeated look. Sighing and closing his eyes tiredly, he muttered. “This isn’t all your fault, Shining, I know what kind of mom you got.”

He let out a mirthless chuckle. “She loves you so much that no one’s good enough, and she’ll want to poison your love-life until you hate her for it,” Shining, still in shock and tears beginning to stream down his face, sat next to Ares, the two drifting off into a painful silence.

“…I bucked up,” the stallion finally said.

“That you did,” Ares agreed, his head gently hitting the back of the wall. “That was your mom, and you gotta respect her, but that mare in there is the one that you promised yourself to.”

“And I just sat there and let her get torn up and you had to defend her.”

“…You did,” the human finally said while Shining’s head hit the wall a little bit harder than Ares’s did.

Having ever been a part of something like this, the human honestly had no idea how to comfort or help the stallion, while Shining also closed his eyes, tears streaming down his face as regret, anger, and confusion racked the stallion’s body.

A pony who had also never been a part of something like this—Cadence was his first fillyfriend and he had wanted to keep it that way—had no idea what to do. Opening an eye, the stallion looked at the last person that he expected wanting to get advice from.

“Ares,” the prince finally said after he worked up enough courage. “What am—“ he sighed. “—What should I do?”

The human internally groaned, covering his face with his hands. Shining, I am NOT the guy you should be asking this, he thought, opening an eye to see the stallion looking back at him miserably.

He was about to tell the stallion what he thought but then he stopped, his mind working out on the best solution.

“…She’s not going to be happy, Shining,” he said after a bit of thought. “Trust me, I’m not the best guy for this kind of advice, but if you really want it, fucking…” he sighed again, smacking his head against the wall again.

“Why did your mom have to do that? We were having such a fucking nice dinner too…”

The two, not knowing what to say to each other, lapsed into another silence, the muffled sounds of talking and sobbing coming from the inside the room.

After what seemed like hours, the door opened, an upset Celestia making her way through the door with and equally downtrodden Twilight and Luna.

Faster than Ares could see, Shining was up, trying to make his way through the door only to be stopped by Celestia’s outstretched wing, the alicorn shaking her head sadly. “No, Shining,” she said. “She and Twilight told us what happened; I do not think she will want to talk to you at the moment.”

The stallion tried to argue. “But I’m her—“

“Shining,” Luna said, gently closing the door behind her. “Our niece does not wish to speak to thee at the moment,” When she saw the stallion’s look she leaned on to nuzzle his cheek. “Just wait for her to send for you, young Shining, she is hurting right now and we fear that thou may only make it worse.”

Ares, thinking that this wasn’t really any of his business--he was a friend, not family-- started to get up and make his excuses on leaving, only to be stopped by Twilight who waved him to lean down so she could whisper into his ear.

“Cadence wants to see you, Ares,” the mare said after sniffling, wiping her nose with a hoof.

The human blinked at that. “Why? She has a hus—“

The mare reached up and brought the human into a hug, nuzzling Ares cheek. Ares scrunched his face up at her uncomfortably while she gave him puppy-dog eyes.

I’m her friend, I’m her friend, he thought to himself, breaking the hug and walking toward the door, and, giving the small group an unsure look, he opened the door to see a sight that almost broke his heart.

The light was so dim that Ares could barely see Cadence just laying on her bed, her tail curled around her as she stared sadly at nothing. The alicorn was simply a mess, her make-up running down her face and her wings and hair messy. She was ‘naked’ as far as Ares could see, her garments discarded carelessly around the room.

And I just fixed those wings this morning, Ares thought, ignoring the alicorn for a moment as he made his way to the bathroom, grabbing a rag and wetting it before going back into the bedroom.

Trying to lighten the mood, Ares said, “Well, you’re a mess, Candy,” the alicorn didn’t comment as he hopped onto the bed and all but dragging Cadence toward him. He tsked while gently wiping the mascara from her eyes. “Why do you even wear this color? Pink and light purple really don’t look good for—”

Ares couldn’t help but let out a squeak when the alicorn all but pounced onto him, wrapping the human in a hug. Wordlessly, he just wrapped his arms around the alicorn’s barrel while she rested her head on his shoulder, sniffling quietly.

“Thanks for coming in here and trying to make me feel better, Ares,” Cadence whispered.

The human patted her soothingly on the back. “What are friends for?” he asked as Cadence broke the hug, looking at him with a small smile that really didn’t reach her eyes.

Trying to keep his smile up, Ares grabbed her face and kept cleaning her face up. “You’re lucky that you brought me in here; you don’t know what happens when you girls keep this stuff on all night,” He puffed out his cheeks comically. “Your faces swell up to hell and back. Doesn’t look good.”

Thankfully, the princess of love giggled at that before looking back down dejecting. “You’re always looking out for me, Ares, unlike my husband…”

Ares frowned, giving Cadence a stern look. “Now none of that, Candy, you should see how fucked up this is making your boy,” He patted her on the cheek. “You should really go and talk to him.”

The alicorn just whimpered and broke down again, sobbing, closing her eyes and leaning into Ares’s cheek.

Sighing and a little bit confused, Ares wrapped the now crying pony into another hug. “You don’t need to do it right now,” he told her. “How about you and I take the day off tomorrow and go do something fun? Huh?”

Cadence just responded with a hug, wrapping her wings around him. Ares just simply picked her up and set her in his lap, gently rocking her back and forth until her crying stopped and it looked like she was asleep.

Luna better be on the ball with Candy here tonight, Ares thought as he tried to gently pry the mare off him. “Come on, Candy, let’s get you to bed.”

To his surprise, Cadence yanked him down with her, the two now nose-to-nose, a red-faced Ares looking at the sad princess. “Ares,” she whispered. “Please stay, p-please.”

He tried to say something, anything, but Cadence just nuzzled her cheek against his, and he just nodded nervously. “J-just—*cough*—just let me take my shirt off then and get under that blanket.”

Looking happier than she had been for hours, Cadence reluctantly let him go, Ares quickly stripping down to his skivvies and rejoining Cadence, who wasted no time wrapping her hooves and wings around the human, trying to get as close as physically possible to Ares as she nuzzled the nape of his neck.

“Thank you,” she whispered, closing her eyes and smiling while her tail wrapped around the humans leg. “And your idea sounds great; I could use a little vacation from my vacation.”

Ares wiggled around in his alicorn snuggle-prison, trying to get a little more comfortable. “Oh?”

He felt her nod her head sleepily. “Yeah, I can take you around—“ she yawned hugely, snuggling against him a little more. “—to see the town….. You know, you smell nice…”

Calmdowncalmdowmshe’smarriedshe’smarried!

Ares, still fighting his various emotions, just patted her back in reply. “We can do that, if you want.”

Cadence just nodded again, the two getting ready for sleep when Ares realized that he was missing something. “Cadence…. I think I left my shoes at the pond…”

Author's Notes:

If you're wondering about the whole religious talk thing, that's just what people talk about fishing... I'd know.