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Together Forever

by Snake Staff

Chapter 3: Against the Sun

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Shining Armor

“Sound system?” I call out from behind my clipboard.

The mare on stage, Stylish Cuff, gives the microphone in front of her a tap with her hoof. “Check!” she says brightly into it. There’s a flare of sound from the speakers. The servants and guards around me wince. Some cover their ears. Not me, though. Pain is another sensation that I don’t really feel. Would you believe I miss it?

This isn’t hearing. The voice reminds me. As if I needed that.

“You might want to adjust that a bit,” I observe. Stylish blushes slight, and scurries off backstage to fiddle with the equipment. I go on to the next item on the list. “Seating numbered?”

“Rows 1 to 15, check!” says Ivory… something. Sorry, among the hundreds of ponies I deal with on a semi-regular basis, she hasn’t exactly distinguished herself in my head.

“Rows 16 to 30, check!” quips a purple stallion whose name I confess I haven’t acquired at all. He’s a temporary hire for the event, I think.

“Rows 31 to 45, check!” answers the final member of the intrepid trio of ponies tasked with making sure all the seats have been conveniently numbered for the benefit of our visitors, Penned Iridescence. She, at least, I can remember, having been a member of the palace staff for at least a decade.

I check that item off my clipboard after a brief personal sweep over the long rows. “Good work, ponies. We’re a little ahead of schedule. If you wouldn’t mind, I hear Violet Blossom could use a bit of extra help with the refreshments…”

The trio groan a little at the prospect of helping our infamous perfectionist of a chef, but they do as bid.

Does this sound like a really petty task for a prince to be doing? Does it sound like I could delegate this to an assistant, like Autumn Sun? That would probably be because it is, and I could. But if I did, I wouldn’t have any excuse to not be attending Twily’s little carnival with Cadence.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my LSBFF, and I want her to be happy. That’s exactly why I can’t go. Carnivals just make me uncomfortable, with their food I can’t taste, rides I can’t feel, and shows that just make me feel more out of place. There’s only so much playacting I can manage in a day. Faking just isn’t in my nature, even with all my practice. I don’t know if I could avoid revealing a sour, somewhat jealous mood and bringing little Twily down on what’s supposed to be a happy occasion. Here, at least, I can act bored and grumpy and nopony questions it.

Fortunately for me, Twily hasn’t changed so much since becoming an alicorn that she doesn’t still obsess over every detail of an event going right. She personally inspected the details of the setup of the carnival all of last night, forgoing almost all sleep for it. When a pony’s dealing with her, a desire to personally make sure that your opening speeches go just perfectly is an utterly plausible excuse. I’ll make it up to her, though, I promise. I’ve got a little free time this afternoon, and she and I are going to go fly a kite together. Just brother and sister, doing something we’ve done since she was a filly and I taught her for the first time. That, at least, I can still enjoy.

When I take a look, Stylish is back on stage, fidgeting slightly but otherwise dutifully awaiting her turn. I choose not to keeping her waiting. “Sound system?” I call out a second time.

She hesitates for half a second before tapping the microphone again. “Check,” she answers. This time there’s no screeching noise. Good. The last thing I need is ambassadors stumbling out the door with their ears bleeding.

I check that item off my list of preparations. Okay, I’m almost through here, I just need to inspect the cuisine and then-

“Shining Armor?” a familiar voice interrupts my thoughts.

I turn to face the direction it’s coming from. “Princess Celestia.”

Grand. Just the pony I don’t need right now. Not that I’ve got anything against my adopted relation, but she has a way of getting to a pony when he just wants some time alone.

“There’s no need to be formal with me,” she says, the ever-present calm smile dominating her features. She takes a couple of steps down the stairs and into my converted auditorium. “I’ve told you before, you can call me Auntie. Or Celestia, if you prefer.”

I sigh – a remarkable feat without lungs – and pointedly look at the clipboard held in my magic aura. “Auntie, I’m a little busy right now.” I wave a hoof at my surroundings.

She continues walking towards me, raising a knowing eyebrow. “Indeed?”

Celestia is always a tough one to lie to. I guess all those millennia dealing with courtiers and nobility and ambassadors have given her experience. Or maybe the rumors about her being able to read a pony’s mind are true after all.

“Shouldn’t you be at Twily’s carnival?” I ask.

“Now, now, is that any way to greet a friend?”

“It’s a valid question.”

“I saw my niece there without my nephew and decided come looking for him. Is that wrong?”

I look up from my clipboard when the hoofsteps stop. Those long alicorn legs of hers took Celestia across the room to me a lot quicker than I anticipated. I really should be used to that by now.

“What do you want, Celestia?” I cut right to the chase. Is it rude? Probably. Ungrateful for all she’s done for me? Definitely. Drill Sergeant Iron Hoof would have me doing dozens of pushups in the pouring rain for that. But he’s centuries dead, and I’m really not in the mood for this. I’ll probably need to apologize later.

Her smile fades from her face. “I wanted to take a little walk around the gardens with my nephew. Would you kindly spare a few minutes from your busy schedule to come with this old mare?”

“Celestia, I’m a little busy right now…”

“Please? I’m sure your wonderful staff can manage itself for a brief while.” She gives me a look. It’s… hard to describe. Not commanding, but not pleading either. “Kindly inviting” might be my best way of putting it. I find it difficult to resist, and she knows it.

I sight again. “Alright. You win.”

She gives me a little hug with one long leg and smiles again. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

I call over Autumn Sun, a long-time aide of mine. She’s always useful for mundane tasks like this, and more importantly, from my perspective, is a model of discretion. If anypony who doesn’t need to know asks where I went, she’ll give them a non-answer and then shoo them away. She nods at my instructions while Celestia waits patiently in the background. At last, I plant my clipboard in her hoof.

Celestia graces me with another of her smiles as we walk up the stairs and out of the auditorium together. She has this remarkable ability to slow down for a smaller pony without looking like she’s doing anything out of the ordinary. Her legs alone are almost as tall as I am – and I’m no small stallion myself – but I can’t say they’re moving any slower than mine. And yet she doesn’t pull ahead of me.

We walk in silence for a time, accepting the salutes of guards and the hurried bows and curtsies of servants without a word. Celestia smiles benevolently down on everypony we pass, while I keep my face blank. Most ponies prefer it that way, I’ve found. Few truly enjoy being smiled at by what many consider a necromantic freak of a pony, even when he’s with the sun goddess herself.

Eventually, we slip into the greenhouse gardens Cadence had planted all those years ago. It’s quite hot and humid in here at this time of year, and so few ponies honestly want to stay long. That makes it a good place to have a private conversation, if you care to endure the stuffiness. Celestia is the ruler of the sun and I lack feeling altogether, so we aren’t deterred. To my annoyance, the water in the air starts condensing on my polished body almost immediately.

“Shining Armor,” says Celestia when we’re a good ways in, out of earshot of anypony. I notice her horn flare briefly, and a quick look into the Aether confirms she’s surrounded us with a magical bubble. Silencing us, no doubt. “Tell me, how are you?”

“I’m doing alright,” I reply, noncommittally.

Celestia sighs and looks down at me. Her eyes have a pitying expression in them. “I can no longer order you to do anything, but as a family member and a friend, I ask you to please not lie to me.”

I avert my eyes. “I’m not lying,” I answer, slightly more hastily than I intended. “I’m fine.”

“Very well. Lie to me if you feel that you must, but at least be honest inside your own head, alright?”

“I’m not lying,” I repeat, this time with a twinge of irritation in my voice. I don’t like ponies challenging my honor, not even alicorn sun goddesses.

“Shining Armor, anypony who pays even a small amount of attention to you can see that you are not “alright”, as you insist.”

I can feel the frustration rising inside my head, but I work to keep my tone level. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I was attending the feast last night, if you recall. Not far from where you sat. I saw you there. You kept staring at the empty plate in front of you. More than a dozen times my eyes caught you staring at other ponies’ plates and licking your lips.”

“You were spying on me?!” I snap, my voice harsh. I don’t like underhoofed games.

“I glanced at you from time to time, no more. You simply did it quite a lot.”

“You’re lying.” I growl at her.

Is she playing at this again? Wouldn’t be the first time. She never agreed with my decision to embrace this new body.

“Have I ever lied to you?”

“You feel free to get quite liberal with the truth when you think it serves the “greater good”. Do I need to remind you about Nightmare Moon? How nopony knew about Discord’s era for hundreds of years because you hid it?”

“Shining…” she shakes her head. “I’m concerned for you. This isn’t healthy, for you or Cadence-”

“DON”T!” I smash a hoof into the floor, cracking the crystalline tile. “Don’t you bring her into this! This was my decision, and I will live with the consequences!” I bash the floor again for emphasis. Little pieces of tile clatter off my chest.

This isn’t feeling.

Celestia blinks and her eyes widen for a fraction of a second, before they resume that sorrowful look. I hate that, you know. I’m a stallion grown, not some little stray colt in need of mommy’s guidance. I don’t like it when Cadence reduces herself for my sake, and I don’t like it when another pony insists on babying me. I’ll decide what’s healthy for me and what’s not, not some distant sun deity.

“Shining,” she starts again, “You are not alright, you are suffering. And my niece suffers with you. You cannot just continue to-”

“Yes. I. Can!” I’m half screaming at this point. “Who in Tartarus died and made you Princess of Relationship Advice?! I will not abandon my wife! I will never abandon her!”

“It is not abandonment! It is accepting the natural order of things! It is letting go!”

There it is. Out in the open. She wants me to die and fade away, leaving my shattered wife behind to commit suicide or worse. How can she ask me to destroy the pony I love most?!

“Like you let go of Luna?”

That does it. Her eyes go wide, and I think I see a tear somewhere in them. Good. She’s trying to get my Cadence killed, she should suffer for it.

Celestia closes her eyes for a moment, and a hooful of tears drip down her cheeks. “Yes, Shining Armor. Like I let go of my sister.”

“You liar,” I snarl. “You didn’t let go. Your sister is immortal, like you! How the hell would you know anything about dying and leaving somepony behind?!”

“I banished my sister to the moon for a thousand years, Shining Armor. Do you have any idea how-”

“So the buck what?!” I cut her off. “A thousand years?! You’re an alicorn! A goddess! You don’t have to worry about dying and leaving the pony you care for behind to mourn! A thousand years is nothing compared to what you’re demanding Cadence suffer so that your precious “natural order” is followed!”

Celestia’s left eyelid twitches. Ooooh, I think I’ve got her mad now.

Nothing?! NOTHING?!” she breaks out the Royal Canterlot Voice. “YOU IGNORANT LITTLE FOAL! DO YOU HAVE THE SLIGHTEST CONCEPTION OF – AH!”

Sorry, Celestia, that fancy vocal trick of yours might work on the lesser ponies you’re used to looking down on, but Shining Armor is made of sterner stuff. I’ve faced down King Sombra personally to protect the ponies I love, and I’ll face down you for the same reason.

Or, in this instance, I’ll shut you up. By tossing a flower pot at your head.

The artistically carved vase of crystal shatters against the alicorn’s oversized head. It doesn’t break skin, of course – Celestia’s kind are far too tough for that – but it covers that pretty little alabaster coat of hers in black soil. A half-grown mint plant slides off her royal highness’s pretty face, which stares at me in open-mouthed shock.

Before she can say another word, I teleport myself out of there. I don’t need any more of this.


I reappear in the same auditorium where I had been working before. I spot Autumn Sun quickly enough.

“Your highness?” she asks when I tap her on the shoulder. She looks around, then back to me. “Where is the princess?”

“Kindly inform the guards that Princess Celestia is no longer permitted into rooms in which I am working.”

She blinks, her jaw dropping a bit. “My Prince?”

“Well?”

Like the good assistant she is, Autumn Sun collects herself. “Yes. As you wish, sire.” She gives a quick bow and hurries to do as instructed.

Next Chapter: The Eve Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 55 Minutes
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