The first thing I noticed, when I began to wake up, was the sounds of birds chirping. Light and happy, their song echoed through the room. While they did sound awfully nice I still wanted to get some more sleep, so, grumbling quietly, I rolled onto my other side. Instead of muffling the chirping like I thought it would, my new position seemed to make the sound louder, and not only that but now I had the sun in my eyes.

“Sassafrasin’, horse apples, curd.” My nose scrunched up as I began to sleepily paw around the bed. “Ares, go and close the window. It’s too bright outside…”

When I couldn’t find my little human I grumbled some very choice words before covering my face with a wing and curling into a little ball.

There. That didn’t totally solve the problem but it was good enough since I was too lazy to get out of bed and close the window. Now I could get some mor—

“ARES!” In a hail of feathers and pillows I leapt out of bed, as wide awake as I’ve ever been. “Ares?!” My head whipped back and forth as I looked around the room for my little human.

I couldn’t see him anywhere in the room. I couldn’t see him. I didn’t know where the hay he was. I didn’t know if he was alright. Was he alright? Was he okay? Did… Did he...

With my heart pounding in my chest, I ran over and threw open the bathroom door. “Ares! Honey! Where are you?!”

My ears perked up. I expected to hear the pitter-patter of his feet as he made his way down the hallway. He’d hear me screaming like a crazy pony and he’d check to see what was wrong. Then I’d be able to see that he was alright and I’d be calm. But there was nothing; everything in the room was silent. Even straining my ears as hard as I could I couldn’t hear anypony outside.

Oh sweet Faust no. Please, please, please, please!

I stumbled on a rug as I raced toward the door but I managed to catch myself by grabbing the doorknob. Now shaking, I threw open the door and raced out of the room. “ARES! Honey!”

I could remember everything. The shadows leaving us, the taste on Ares’s lips as I kissed him, the feeling of the overpowering might of the elements as their power washed over me. My shield hadn’t stood a chance and I was sure that my body did nothing to stop all of that magic. Not only had the elements hit me but it had also hit Ares. I was sure of it.

My Ares had been pumped full of hyper-powerful, mind boggling magic and he wasn’t by my side when I woke up. Nopony was around to hear my yelling, he wasn’t around to hear my yelling. I was alone.

Oh please, oh sweet Faust please. Let him be alright, let him be alright, let him be alright. Please, please, please, please!

I didn’t see a single soul as I ran through the hallways. It was like the castle was deserted, abandoned, dead. Nopony answered my calls as I screamed at the top of my lungs, and every single room that I went into was empty.

Had the elements trapped me in an empty castle, doomed to wander its halls for the next thousand years? Had I done something wrong? Had I been that bad of a mare to deserve something like that?

“Um… excuse me, your highness?”

I jumped as I heard a voice from behind me. Spinning around I saw that it was one of my servants, a short little earth pony mare who was looking at me nervously.

“Are you alright? I heard yelling and I came we quickly as I—epp!”

“Oh thank Faust I’m not in some purgatory!” I said, pulling the maid against my chest and hugging her tightly. “I thought for sure that something—WAIT!”

The maid looked frazzled as I grabbed her by her cheeks and forced her to look up at me.

“ARES! Where the heck is Ares?! Is he alright? Did the blast hurt him? WHY WEREN’T WE IN THE SAME BED FOR FAUST’S SAKE?!”

The maid let out another “eep” as I not too gently began to shake her, the overwhelming relief that I had felt meer seconds before was turning back into anxiety.

“Your… majesty… he’s down… the hall. If you… take a right… he’s three… doors do—eep!”

Releasing the maid, I sprinted down the hall as fast as I could. “Ares! ARES!” Skidding as I made the right I saw a pair of guards standing on either side of a doorway. “ARES!”

As one their heads snapped toward me as I charged toward them. Their eyes widened. “Your majesty, please—”

“Getouttamyway!”

Dropping their spears, the guards dove out of the way as I lowered my shoulder, tucked my horn out of the way and rammed the door as hard as I could. There was a thunderous crash as the hinges were ripped from the doorframe and the door itself went flying into the room.

…Ow. Ow, ow, ow, ow, owie, ow.

Stumbling a bit, with a pained expression on my face, I quickly made my way into the room. There was my little human, lying in a slightly too small bed with his feet hanging over the edge, just lying there. His eyes were closed, his body covered by a pure white blanket. He wasn’t moving, and as far as I could tell he wasn’t breathing.

I opened my mouth to scream his name again but I found that I couldn’t. “A-Ares…”

Stepping over the ruined door, I quickly made my way over to the bed. Though he looked alright, still too thin but alright, I still didn’t know what the elements had done to him.

Was he in a coma? Had the elements turned him into some crazy monster underneath those blankets? Had they turned him into someone other than the little human that I loved? Was he dead? Perfectly preserved by the elements magic so that he looked for all the world like he was just sleeping? WAS HE BUCKING BREATHING?!

Please be alright, please be alright, pleasebealright.

Seeing that one of Ares’s hands were hanging out from underneath his blanket, I quickly grabbed it. “Ares,” I muttered, pressing it against my chest.

His hand felt warm, so I leaned down and nuzzled it. A smile came to my face when I felt his fingers twitch, relief flooding through me.

“You’re alright... You’re alright… And you’re breathing...”

Ares’s nose scrunched up. Murmuring nonsense under his breath he tried to roll onto his side, but couldn’t because I still had his hand tight against my chest.

“Rfdfvndlfnlk…”

He tried to pull his hand away from me but I held it tightly, a small, happy smile on my face. This caused Ares’s nose to scrunch up even more, his eyes slowly starting to open

>”Fucking… whatzat?” His hand opened and closed, and then began tugging at the fur on my chest. “I’m tryin’… sleeping…”

There were tears in my eyes as Ares looked up at me. His eyes were hazy, unfocused, and I could tell that his sleep-addled mind was slowly trying to process what was going on and who he was looking at.

“Cadence?” he muttered, giving my chest a scratch. “Candy?”

I nodded, giving his hand a squeeze. Yeah, it’s me,” I whispered.

My little human blinked owlishly, just staring up at me. Being the wonderful marefriend that I was, I patiently waited for the little hamster in his head to start running in it’s little wheel.

Starting, Ares quickly sat up, his eyes huge. “CADEN—”

“Thank you, Swiffer. We will take it from here.”

I turned my head just in time to see both of my aunts, Twilight, and Shining walk into the room. Though they were looking at me warily they didn’t walk in here dressed up in battle armor. Which was good; that meant they didn’t think Ares or I were dangerous.

Ares, who looked ready to burst a blood vessel. He looked at me then at them. “Cadence. Fucking. Sleeping. Awake. FUCKING FUCK!”

Celestia, who was leading the pack, looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Cadence,” she said, in a tone that I couldn’t quite pin down. “Might you humor an old mare and come over here for a moment?”

I opened my mouth. I wanted to tell her no; I wanted to jump in that bed with my Ares and scream and shout and cry and hug him until I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wanted to do that and much more so much that it almost hurt.

I looked back over at Ares. After his little outburst he looked a great deal calmer, though a tad confused, and as happy as could be. Seeing that he had a smile on his face I found myself smiling, which made his smile bigger, which made my smile bigger, until the two of us were smiling like a bunch of crazy ponies.

“Cadence?” Ares whispered, his hand grabbing my hoof. He looked me up and down as he ran his thumb along the frog of my hoof. “Is that really you?”

I sniffled. “Yeah, it’s me honey,” I said, covering my mouth with a hoof so that I wouldn’t start crying. “It’s--”

Faster than I could see, Celestia darted forward and pulled me into the mother of all bear hugs. And by mother of all bear hugs I meant it. She was hugging me so tight that I swear I could hear my ribs cracking.

“URGH!”

My eyes bugged out of my head as my aunt began talking a mile a minute, all the while kissing and nuzzling me. Before I could even begin to grow accustomed to that, Luna slammed onto my side, then Twilight.

“BUCKING!—”

I could hear Ares laughing as the four of us fell into a heap of wings and horns and hooves.

“Oh, Cadence, you had me so worried! I mean it’s been days and—”

“Cadence, I’m sorry that the girls and I used the elements on you, we didn’t mean—”

“Huzzah! Thou survived! We art most—”

“Just let them get it out of their system, honey! Resisting will only make this worse on yourself!”

I did as best as I could under the assault. I nuzzled and hugged to the best of my ability, but eventually I just found myself going limp. I was only one pony surrounded by three frantic, surprisingly strong hysterically frantic mares.So I decided to stop trying to swim against the tide of affection and just let it take me where it will.

The talking and the nuzzles and the kisses continued for a good long while, an hour or so if I were to guess, but eventually Twilight, Luna, my auntie Celestia and myself found ourselves just lying on the ground next to each other, breathing hard and smiling so much that it hurt. Both of my aunts had their wings over me, and Celestia was holding me as close as she could. Twilight, with tears in her eyes, was nuzzling my face. I had my hooves wrapped around her neck, quietly whispering to her that I was okay, that I understood where she was coming from, that I didn’t hate her for what she did.

It was a little touch and go for her, I could tell that she had been beating herself up for the last couple of days, but eventually she was smiling just like everypony else. Which I thought was great. Ares was okay, I wasn’t trapped in some hellscape, my family was here and they were okay, everything was, as far as I could tell, alright. And because of that I wanted everypony to be happy and smiling. I wanted them to be happy just like I was.

“You know, you had us worried there,” Ares nonchalantly, acting like he hadn’t been about ready to cry just a second ago, as he slowly got out of bed. “You’ve been asleep for like three days.”

I managed to untangle myself from my aunts and Twilight just enough to look up at him. “Really?”

“You had me scared to death, young lady,” my aunt chastised as she nuzzled the back of my neck. “We tried everything we could think of but your eyes wouldn’t open.”

With measured, careful footsteps, Ares made his way over to me. Using Twilight as support, which she didn’t look all too happy about by the way that her nose was scrunching, he sat down beside me. Smiling, I placed my head in his lap.

“So is everypony alright?” I asked, humming as Ares immediately began running his fingers through my mane. His fingers, not those long sharp things that he had had. My smile widened as I let my eyes close, just enjoying the feeling of him touching me. “Did anything happen after the elements hit us?”

I felt somepony nuzzling my cheek and, opening an eye, I saw that it was Shining. “Other than a bit of ice that needed to be cleaned up, and some soiled armor, the windigo left both of your bodies without incident.” He nuzzled me again, tears in the corner of his eyes. “I’m glad that you’re alright, Cadence.”

Though it took some doing, I managed to wiggle my wing out of the pony pile. Wrapping it around Shining’s shoulder, I pulled him into a hug. “Thanks, Shining, I’m glad that I’m alright too.”

Shining’s smile widened even further as a stray tear fell down into his cheek. He nuzzled me again with a sniffle, a peal of laughter escaping his lips as he did so.

Underneath me, I could feel Ares wiggle uncomfortably. “Hey, Shining buddy, hugging is great and all but could you guys get up before you do it? Any closer and you’re gonna have to buy me dinner.”

I giggled as Shining pulled away, a blush on his scrunched up face. “Why do you have to ruin a perfectly good moment, bucker?!” He demanded, giving my little human an exasperated look.

“Because there’s only room for one pony on my lap.” Ares retorted, giving my ears a scratch. “If you want in on it you’re going to have to wait your turn. And I’m want to see where you’re taking me before I let you do the other stuff.”

“Buck off.”

“Yeah, that.”

Leaning into the scratches, I once again looked up at Ares. “…Are you sure that you’re alright?” I asked. “All that magic should have… well, you know.”

“Hey, you’re going to have to ask Purple or Sunbutt over there,” he said with a shrug. “I couldn’t tell you what happened.” He looked down at his hand, opening and closing it, a far off look in his eyes. “Not any of it…”

I looked over at Twilight, who shrugged helplessly. “I wish that I could say what happened, Cadence. After we got the two of you out into the hallway I spent a day and a half examining every inch of that room. ” She shook her head, a spark of disappointment and frustration in her eyes. “I used every instrument, every spell that I could get my hooves on, but I couldn’t get anything. Not a magical signature, not any pieces from the Windigo, not any data at all.”

Celestia just smiled as I turned to look at her. “The will of the elements is beyond even my understanding, my dear,” she said, quickly leaning forward so that she could nuzzle me again.

I looked over at Luna, who just smiled at me. “Mayhaps thou should just call it the will of the fates, young Cadenza?”

With a sigh, I set my head back down in Ares’s lap. Though we were all laughs and smiles there was a twinge of worry still gnawing at me.Celestia had said before that she hadn’t found anything inside us when she first examined me and Ares when there most certainly was something. What if that was the case again?

“Are you sure that the shadows are gone?” I asked, shivering slightly.

“We had the both of you examined and quarantined,” Auntie Celestia said, climbing to her hooves. “Though I cannot say with absolute certainty that the Windigo was completely destroyed I am more than certain that the elements did their job. Not even creatures such as them can stand the power of the Elements of Harmony.”

She tapped both me and Ares with a wing. “Come now. Though I am overjoyed to see that the two of you are fine I think that you’ve gotten enough excitement for one day.” She poked my shoulder with her muzzle. “Let’s get the two of you back in bed before we do anything else.”

“It’s two in the afternoon,” Ares said, his face scrunching up.

“Cadence just woke up from a week’s long coma and you’re still recovering, Ares,” my aunt said, booping his nose with the tip of her wing.

“I feel fine, auntie,” I assured. “Why don’t you—”

“Ah, ah, I don’t want to hear anything else other than the two of you getting up and getting into that bed, young lady,” my aunt told me. “Now come on, all of this excitement is liable make you go lightheaded.”

With a few more wing boops and some motherly shoving, my aunt managed to get both me and Ares to stand up and walk over to the bed. My aunt then, after pulling us both into one last hug, complete with nuzzles and kisses, she ushered everypony else out of the room. Promising to get both of us something to eat, after she had called a doctor to get me examined of course, she then closed the blinds and made her way out the door, looking happier than I had seen her in a long, long time.

Now alone with my little human, on a bed that was slightly too small for the two of us, I couldn’t help but smile. “Has she been like that the whole time?”

“She’s been like that since I woke up,” Ares admitted as I laid my head on his shoulder. “I swear to god you’d think the women was my mother with all of her babying.”

I giggled. “Well, the two of us have had a rough couple of weeks. It only makes sense that she’s being so protective.”

“Yeah, I guess…” Ares muttered, leaning down and giving me a peck on the forehead, just above my horn. “Hey, do you know they found that little book?”

I looked up at Ares, an eyebrow raised. “What book?”

“The book that I told him he’d find—oh right, you were asleep when I told Shining about that,” Ares muttered, shaking his head. “Well, there was a book in the castle about the Wendigs.”

“Windigos.”

“Whatever,” Ares said with a dismissive hand gesture, reaching over to the nightstand, where a small book, almost a journal really, was sitting. “Purple told me they found it the day before I woke up. Apparently it was being used to even out a table leg.”

I took the book when he placed it in my hooves, looking over it from every angle. “This would have come in handy a week or two ago,” I dryly remarked.

Ares grinned. “You’d be surprised. Do me a favor and read the fifth page.”

“…Why?”

“Just read it you silly horse.”

Playfully swatting away his hand and wiggling myself against him to get a little more comfortable, I opened up the little book to the requested page and began to read:

Seven of the ten test subjects have already succumbed to the creatures. Subjects five, seven and nine have had to be exterminated due to becoming far too unstable.

After dissecting Seven’s remains and examining them I noticed that his body had undergone extreme changes. The internal organs had shriveled up , bones, particularly his fibula, tibia, humerus, ulna and raduis had been twisting and enlarging. Upon removing a section of the skull, I found that the a magicae res had appeared in between the lego Paulo and the flaggle flom.

It appears that the spirits were fashioning a vessel to support their vast magic...

“I don’t know why you’re making me read this…”

“Get keep reading. About two paragraphs from the end of the page.”

...The test failed. Ten, one, six and three have expired. Though further testing is required, it appears that, for the time being, there is no way, magical or otherwise, for the subjects to be freed from the possession.

Though accounts of my forbearers insist that the Windigo can be combated for the time being I must conclude that the only way to free the possessed is through death. Further testing will—

My nose scrunched up as I closed book. Sweet Faust above am I glad that the Crystal Heart blew up Sombra, I thought. How could he do something like that to ponies…

“If you read through the whole book you’d see that that Sombra fella tested over a hundred ponies with those Windigos. He tried all sorts of stuff but in the end everyone that was possessed had to get put down.”

I shivered, wiggling a bit closer to Ares. “How did he even manage to get so many Windigos?” I muttered.

Ares wrapped his arms around me. “You don’t want to know,” he said, resting his chin on top of my head. “But from what he wrote it didn’t look like there was any way to get unpossessed.”

I thought back to what happened after Ares had transformed. Me slapping him on the rump, the two of us yelling at each other, me watching as the shadows left him. I could still see him shrink and soften and change until he was the same adorable little human that I knew and loved.

“But we were fixed before the elements hit us,” I said, looking up at Ares. “At least I’m pretty sure that’s what happened…”

“I know,” he said, with a shake of his head. “It was really fucking weird watching you get smaller and your wings turning back to normal.”

The two of us just sat there letting it all sink in. Honestly, I couldn’t even begin to guess why what happened had happened. I remembered the old Hearth’s Warming tales. About how the three leaders of the pony tribes had beaten back the demons with the fire of love and friendship.

…Was that what had happened? Had our love finally overcome the Windigo, or Windigos, or whatever had taken over us?

If that was the case, how did it or they manage to possess us in the first place? I’d still like to think that I loved Ares just as much as I did before all of this horse apples happened.

Was… was it because I slapped him on his butt? Was that what saved us? A firm slap on the tuchus?

Snorting, I pushed the book off of the bed. “I don’t even care anymore,” I muttered. “As long as we aren’t bucking monsters anymore.”

Ares chuckled. “Hey, at least you get to take that bubble bath that you were talking about.”

My ears perked up. “Yeah… you’re right,” I said with a smile. “I can do that after we get something to eat.”

I looked over toward the bathroom in this little room. Idly, I wondered if my aunts were going to let me and Ares go back to our bedroom. There I had a proper bed to snuggle my coltfriend and that bathtub was huge. That and I had all of my shampoos and soaps that I could scrub myself with to get the smell out of fur that hasn’t been properly washed in days. I mean I couldn’t see why we couldn’t go back to our bedroom. It wasn’t like going to a different room would make a difference in anything…

With some wiggling, I managed to roll onto my back with my head resting comfortably on Ares’s shoulder. “In a few days, if the two of us are feeling up for it, I think I’d like to do what you wanted to do.”

Ares’s eyes widened. “You mean the thing on the balcony?...”

I said nothing, simply grabbing one of Ares’s hands and bringing it up to my face. Giving him bedroom eyes I stuck one of his fingers into my mouth and started to gently suckle.

For about a minute Ares said nothing, just looking at me with this thoughtful, neutral expression as I ran my tongue over the tip of his finger. “…Cadence?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you wanna get married?”

I giggle-snorted, as I playfully shoved him with a wing. “Ares~”

My little human’s face scrunched up. “Isn’t that what happens in the stories? The princess and the dashing prince—”

“Dashing?”

“The. Dashing. Prince. go through some bullshit, they get married and they live happily ever after and they have a hundred kids and all of that?” His face scrunched up as I began giggling hysterically. “Oh fuck off, Candy, you know—thmp!”

I continued to giggle even as I pulled Ares into a kiss. It wasn’t a hot or heavy kiss, there was no tongue and it didn’t leave me feeling hot under the collar. It was just a simple, loving kiss. Something flashed across Ares’s eyes, something happy and bright and cheerful. And, though it might have been my imagination, but as he kissed me back I swore I saw a rainbow of colors around his irises.

We held the kiss for another second or two before I broke it. “Cadence, you can’t—”

“Mwah.”

“I’m asking you to—”

“Mwah.”

“Will you stop—”

“Mwah.”

“For fuck’s sake wo—”

“Mwah, mwah, mwah.”

Ares looked outraged as I cackled in glee, crawling up his body just a bit so I could playfully bite his nose. “You can give me that look all you want, my big, “scary” human,” I said with a smug look on my face, giving him a peck on the cheek before settling back against his side. “I’ll just think you’re adorable.”

Ares grumbled a bit as I once again grabbed one of his hands. “So no marriage?”

“Not for a little while, honey.”

“And just how long is a little while?”

I kissed the palm of his hand, then each of his individual fingers. “Probably after the rest of this horse apples is over and everything goes back to normal,” I promised.

Ares grunted again, using his fingers to tickle my nose. “Fine. But I’m fucking your brains out in the throne room. Then out on that balcony. Then in the kitchen, maybe.”

I smiled, pressing his hand against my heart. “Promise?”

My smile only widened as Ares leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “Promise.”

I found myself squirming, so happy that I didn’t know what to do with myself. “I love you, Ares.”

I could hear my aunts, Twilight, and Shining, my family, making their way down the hall. They were no doubt just about to open that door with tons and tons of food and ponies in hoof. But, just for this moment, there was just me and my Ares. Me and my lover. Me and my little human.

“I love you too, Mi Amore Cadenza.”

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

“—And we lived happily ever after!”

The messenger stared up at the Princess of Love, who was smiling down from her throne with the most pleased look on her face. He didn’t know how long he had been standing here listening to the ruler of the Crystal Empire tell her tale. To be honest it felt like days, maybe even weeks.

For what felt like the hundredth time, the messenger wondered (to himself of course; he had no desire to spend a night in the dungeons) how all of… this had come up. He had come here to deliver a message and Princess Cadence had just started to tell this story out of the blue. Parts of which, he might add, he did not need to know.

Why him? Didn’t the princess have other ponies that she could have told this story to? Ponies that she actually knew? This story, this tale, obviously meant a lot to her, and it revealed so much that he’d be the richest stallion this side of Manehatten if he decided to bring it to the tabloids!

He was a messenger for Celestia’s sake! The story might have been fine, interesting even, but he had been here for days listening to the princess, and quite frankly he had better things to do than just stand there listening to how she rutted this hyoo-man thing or whatever he was called!

Princess, Cadence, with a small smile still on her face, leaned back on her great crystal throne. “So?... What do you think?” she asked.

The messenger blinked. “Your majesty?”

“I was wondering how you thought about my little story. It’s the first time I’ve told it to anypony and I wanted to know what you thought about it,” the Princess of Love chirped.

The messenger balked, looking around the room. “U-Um, well, it was—”

“Mommy, mommy!”

The messenger stumbled as something brushed against his side. His eyes snapped toward the little pink blur, which was running/flying toward princess Cadence at an alarming rate. For a moment, the messenger feared that it was going to slam into the princess but, with a giggle, Cadence reached out and caught the little bundle of fur.

It was princess Skyla, daughter of princess Cadence and Ares the human, and she did not look happy one little bit. Her mane was messy and ruffled, her wings were flapping like a hummingbird’s and her cheeks were as puffed out as they could be. The filly looked grumpy, and she didn’t seem to give a flying feather who knew it.

“Mommy! Daddy’s teasing me again!” the heir to the throne cried.

“I am not you little turd!”

The messenger could hear heavy footfalls coming from behind him. Before he could turn around to look a hand, complete with a wedding ring, found its way onto the top of his head.

“Hello random horse,” Ares, Prince of the Crystal Empire, said, patting the messenger on the head like a dog.

Frowning, Cadence pulled her daughter into a hug. “Ares! What were you doing to our poor, sweet daughter?” she demanded, while little Skyla stuck her tongue out at him.

Prince Ares gave the messenger another pat on the head before he took a step forward. “I didn’t do anything,” he protested. “I was just—”

“Naha! You were teasing me daddy!” Skyla accused, pointing a hoof at him. “You were playing with my mane while I was eating my pudding! Mommy! Daddy was playing with my mane while I was eating pudding!”

“Ares,” Cadence said, her brow furrowed. “Were you playing with our daughter’s mane while she was eating her pudding?”

Skyla nodded frantically. “Aha, aha, he did mommy! He did! You can go ask uncle Shining and auntie Twilight! They were sitting right there!”

“Hey, what did I tell you about ratting out people, Ms. Skyla Costelnock?”

“You’re a butt!”

Ares gasped dramatically while Cadence giggled. “I’m a butt?!”

Skyla nodded, snuggling up against her mouth. “Yeah, you’re a big butt!” the young alicorn cried, sticking her tongue out at him.

“Well, if I’m a butt you’re a double butt!” Ares fired right back, making his way toward the throne.

Skyla squealed, burrowing into her mother, who giggled quietly. “Well you’re a triple butt!”

“I know you are but what am I?”

“A butt! You’re a butt! A BUT—”

The little princess giggled as her father bounded up the throne and snatched her out of her mother’s hooves. “Come here you little turd,” he growled, picking her up over his head.

“No daddy! Nooooooo!” Skyla cried, a great big smile on her face as she playfully kicked her hooves. Ares, taking the blows without complaint began to give his daughter an overly loud raspberry.

“Pfffffffffffffffffffffff!”

“Hahahahahaha! Daaaaaadddddddddyyyyyyy! Sttttttooooooppppppp!”

The messenger couldn’t help but smile at the sweet scene before him. The scene in front of him, however, was immediately ruined when he remembered what princess Cadence had just told him what may or may not have happened in this throne room. That thought ruined the scene a great deal.

…Oh sweet Luna, I hope that filly wasn’t conceived in here…

“—So Luna and Twilight decided to come and visit huh?”

“Yep, like I said I tried to send someone to tell you but they said that you were busy in here. Me and the little daughter there have been entertaining them for a couple of hours, and since it’s about dinner time I thought we’d come here and get you so we can go somewhere.”

“Daddy said that we could get pizza, mommy!”

Blinking, the messenger was brought out of his rather… disconcerting thoughts, complete with mental images, to see that princess was smiling at her little family. It was a heartfelt, wholesome, happy smile, as if the pink alicorn was absolutely, completely content.

“Alright, give me a few minutes, I have to talk to this nice stallion for a little longer,” she said, kissing Skyla on the cheek before she leaned up and nuzzled her husband.

“Alright, just don’t take too long,” Ares said, tickling his daughter a bit before setting her on his shoulders.

Skyla giggled in delight, patting his head with both of her hooves. For a second, the messenger swore that he could feel a sudden chill in the air, but it was gone as soon as it had come. “Come on daddy! I wanna go and get some pizza!”

“TO PIZZA!” Ares yelled, taking off at a brisk pace toward the exit, much to his daughter’s delight.

“MUSH DADDY! MUSH!”

The messenger watched the two leave, both confused and a mite concerned. “So the elements…”

“Yep.”

He jumped when he noticed that princess Cadence was standing right beside him. The alicorn took a deep breath as she stretched like a cat.

“After I found that out I had gotten pregnant Ares had all but carried me to the aisle.” She sighed, a reminiscent look coming to her face. “It was a wonderful, quiet little wedding. Flash was Ares’s best stallion and Luna caught the flowers at the end of it. I think she still has them in her room. Celestia told me that she encased them in glass.”

“Huh…” the messenger muttered, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “So does that mean princess Luna…”

“Oh, she flirts with both of us every once in awhile but I think she’s done with the whole wooing thing,” Cadence said with a wave of the hoof. “Just like Celestia I think she’s just happy to spoil my little girl rotten.”

The messenger found himself smiling at that, looking over at the princess, who smiled back. “Well… I think it was a good tale, your highness,” he told her. “A little… longer than I was expecting but—”

“Cadence!” Both the messenger and Cadence turned toward the door. There was Shining Armor, the Captain of the Crystal Guard, standing at the entrance with a smile on his face. “If I were you I’d hurry up. Your daughter is practically begging to get something to eat!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Cadence called, rolling her eyes before she regarded the messenger once more.

“Thanks again for listening to my story,” she said, leaning over to give him a friendly nuzzle. “I’d
have stayed here to answer any questions that you had but it looks like I have other engagements that I must attend.”

“It’s no problem, your highness,” the messenger said politely. “I was happy to listen.”

“I’m glad,” the Princess of Love chirped.

“Cadence!”

“I’m coming! I’m coming!”

The messenger watched as the princess made her way toward the exit.

It was an odd tale that he had just listened to. It had been happy and sad, playful and tense, filled like drama and joy and struggle. What had happened to the Princess of Love was something that he sincerely wished would never happen to him, but he could see, and he had heard, that what had happened had not only been good for the pink alicorn, but for all of her friends and family and even her kingdom as well. Though she had gone through so much she had come out of the other end with a husband that she loved, a daughter that she could call her own and a brand new angle in which she could look at love.

Because what was love, really?

Was it an emotion that could be changed at the drop of a hat? Was it something preordained by higher beings? Could it be measured? Would it last forever? Did it truly even exist at all?

Honestly, a simple messenger like himself didn’t have the answers to those questions, but he had a feeling that Cadence, surrounded by a family that loved her to bits, might have a little insight to a few of them. She had found her love, and had come out a stronger, better mare because of it. As he watched the princess, who was humming a little tune to herself, leave he also realized something else.

“…Oh horse apples, I didn’t even tell her what my bucking message was…”