Shining Armor was not a stallion to sit by and contemplate the stars. Like most of Equestria, he barely gave them a second glance... or, at least that was the way things used to be. Ever since the First Longest Night, there was a night culture to Equestria that hadn't been there before. Astronomers, astrologers, night-painters, other artists, musers, poets, and more flocked to the quiet night hours that the day's social butterflies lacked. His days as a guard carried reminders of the parties that would spring up, the light from such events seeping from buildings, only to be drowned by the shadows. Still, he wasn't one for stargazing. Even as a member of the guard, he found better distractions on night shifts than the night sky, like daring a buddy to lick a lamppost on a chilly night, or whistling along with park crickets on a warm one.

There were ponies like Twily, who had always relished in the daylight tried to understand the darker times merely by drifting to different lights - the stars - with all the logic of the daytime world. She measured, charted, and squinted at the pinpoints of light that were stars, as though she could understand them without imagination or any thoughts beyond charts, rules, and all orderly things.

But for the longest time, Shining Armor had never been like that. He didn't wonder about star-crossed things, and he didn't ponder constellations. It hadn't ever been a habit, to stay out late and just look out at the night in silence before.

And now? Being a different nation entirely from Equestria, and predating it by thousands of years and more, the Empire's different culture never had an era that shunned the night. This resulted in the Crystalline subjects - even when they were returned - to have a far more balanced culture than even modern Equestria, with an active nightlife and night-culture to compliment those of the day.

Somehow, Shining Armor found a little bit of himself swept up in that after all his time here, ruling over ponies so different than those he was raised with, and yet now they were so familiar.

Here he was, standing out on the same balcony he observed his first Crystal Fair from, quietly looking up at an indigo sky studded with stars and the tri-colored ribbons of the Northern Lights, produced from the Crystal Heart itself. With a dark, lonesome sky like this filled with chill and isolation, maybe that's why the crystal ponies were never afraid. Sure, the coats of a true crystal pony were resistant to most of the Arctic cold in ways that even the hardiness of the pegasai of the south could not compare to, but they sat here, with the stretch of space yawning above them - something the slightly earlier nights exaggerated - and they were on top of the world. How could they not revel in this?

As a colt helping a young Twily set up more than one Junior Astronomer telescope kit, the stars had always looked so far away from where they twinkled in the sky, and those stars hadn't grown closer to him in the years since.

Lately, he'd been staring at them a lot. They were balls of fire and gas millions of miles away, if his tired mind was correct. No god he knew ruled the stars, and if one did and really could, they were not of this world, his world. Luna, the Reapers, Discord, and all the other gods could not govern the stars or shape them, and yet every one of those stars and each possible world drifting around it was just as mortal as he was.

Mortal.

No matter how silent the night would seem, thoughts that he previously gave no mind to had a way of roping themselves into Shining Armor's mind and staying there. That was a frequent thought, and he felt the echoes of it often.

He liked to be matter of fact about the whole thing, so he'd narrow it down to facts, and nothing but those indisputable things.

Shining Armor knew death was natural for mortal beings. Shining Armor knew that ponies only lived two-hundred and thirty years maximum if they weren't demigods, thus enjoying a solid maximum lifespan. Shining Armor thought about living longer. Shining Armor did not want to live forever. Every time he looked at Luna, and laid eyes upon the Equestrian ruler, he would want to ask what being eternal was like, but never could. He didn't know how she could rejoice in that, and he couldn't begin to comprehend what it would be like to watch worlds wither underhoof as ages passed, remembering everything and every creature without time's perceptions playing with her immortal mind, and telling her that ten centuries was no more to bear than ten seconds, no matter how many billions of years had passed. Though, he was only assuming that the last one was correct. With Luna, he made many assumptions.

He couldn't ever get that, he didn't ever want that. Such an experience was truly mind boggling, but there were some occasions, where he would stand near her - never next to her - and try to look into eyes he could never understand for only as long was polite. He never could bear longer than that, and then he would have to use all his will to see as much of her as he could understand, for she kept so much hidden, and not ask her how she wasn't the loneliest creature in all the world.

But he never did.

Maybe she could see it in his eyes. Knowing Luna, she probably already knew. She just never said anything. He didn't either.

Sometimes, it was impossible for Shining Armor to be around Luna, no matter how well she got along with Cadance. She was a cold mare, a mare he could never read, and when he looked at her he saw this alien equine and not a mare's body. She was quiet. She was more terrifying than beautiful, and he knew that she would outlive every star that would ever be, and she did too. She never hid it, and somehow that gave Luna Galaxia a power that her sister didn't have because Celestia never stopped feeling like a pony over an Alicorn.

Luna was the only one who ever made Shining Armor feel like a child after all his years, and she did it without even trying.

Here he was, standing out under the sky and feeling the faint chill of what was, without a doubt, Luna's night, and his thoughts were on the stars. Looking at them made him feel young, but thinking about them made him feel old.

Maybe he was used to it.

The soft touch of feathers draped over his back and hugging his withers, pulling him toward the warm lover who he had quietly allowed to sneak up to him was something he was used to as well.

"You're going to be drained in the morning, Shiny," Cadance whispered, nuzzling him softly with her velvety muzzle.

Shining cracked a smile out of instinct. "Yes, dear, I know... I just can't sleep."

Cadance didn't reply immediately, but eventually, Shining heard her whispering gently in his ear again. "A bit for your thoughts?"

Nuzzling Cadance, Shining mulled over what his reply would be and how he would communicate everything in his mind to Cady. He knew she would understand. They often always knew when something was on the other's mind, but it was hard to guess what.

"You... Cady... I won't have much longer - with you." There was no question to it. The old stallion sighed and the night winds ran through his faded beard. "And..." He paused, trying to think of what fit best, what came next in a sequence instead of cursing how eloquent not-so-little Twily could be, and that he still fumbled so.

"And?" Cadance prompted gently. Her purple eyes gleamed in the dark, reflecting all the glimmers of the crystal around them, and starlight too.

"...I was thinking about how everypony but them-"

Cadance's quizzical stare begged for elaboration.

"-gods, that is, are going to outlast all the stars... and even though you're no goddess-"

In retaliation, the demigod mare booped her tired husband upon his muzzle suddenly.

When he laughed softly, she smiled, and for that moment, everything was certainly quite peaceful.

But Shining had to break that barrier if he wanted to get anywhere.

"...You're still going to outlast me..."

And with that, the silence resumed between them, heavily weighing upon both husband and wife.

As it rolled on, Shining's heartbeat played in his ears, a nervous repeat that he hadn't heard in a long time. Cold sweat touched his brow and he prepared to say whatever words of heartfelt consolation popped into his mind first but-

Cadance sucked in a shaky breath first and looked at Shining Armor with a shimmer of worry and melancholy bared to him in her eyes. Even in the dark, he knew that the sudden sorrow of his wife that was so plain to him was all his fault.

"Cady..." he began, his owns eyes wide and his body teetering with each step backward from every guilty thought on his mind. "Cady, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it like that-"

Ugh, was that really the best he could do right now? That was the excuse of some love-addled colt, not a stallion of his station who really cared about such a noble wife, one who had been as loyal to her husband as he was to her.

"Would you wait?"

His ears pricked forward to catch the sound of that melodious, mournful whisper. Had he heard right?

The soft rustle of fabric could be heard and the next thing Shining Armor knew, Cadance's purple mantle was draped around him and that same soft muzzle was nuzzling his cheek sadly. Two long, familiar forelegs wrapped around him, pulling him into a hug that was warmer than the mantle's fabric.

"Would you wait for me?" Cadance whispered into his mane.

Wait for her...

Right then and there, Shining Armor wanted to bring a forehoof to his face. Of course, of course. How could he think about the whole thing like that, shoving everything into such a conventional box?

He would be the one to die first. He would be the one leaving her.

Shining Armor would be the waiting one.

Finally reciprocating the embrace, Shining Armor pulls his empress, his wife, and his Cadance into a hug, running a forehoof through her candy colored curls, whose colors he knew in the dark even if he could not see them.

"Of course, Cady. I'll wait just for you."

She nodded quietly, pulling him closer and they both turned their gazes to the stars in silence, waiting for morning to come.

Author's Notes:

It wouldn't be a story be me without some kind of reminder of mortality.