Princess Celestia did her best not to stare at Sunset as they underwent the trek back to the Apple Family’s farm, filling the time with talk from all of the other ponies around her. Which, thanks to that talkative red stallion, let her know that the youngest had been born a few weeks ago, the middle filly was eight, and he was a strapping fourteen on top of a dozen other things about every single subject that seemed to pop into his head. Plus, she could see that there was something...special about the older filly.

Although it was good to see how the seed she had planted all those years ago had borne such wonderful fruit, Celestia honestly couldn’t care less at the moment.

Ever since they landed, Sunset had been in a daze. She barely said three words after the mother and father of the family thanked her for saving them from the timberwolves. Although Celestia knew her daughter had a problem with praise, clamming up for saving a family seemed a bit extreme. But…Celestia had to admit that it was an improvement from where Sunset had been before. At least she wasn’t going on and on about how she didn’t deserve any praise because it was just an accident.

But on the other hoof, Sunset not talking at all was also worrying to her in its own ways. At least a talking Sunset told her what was wrong.

So, when they got back to the farmhouse, Celestia immediately looked to the mother of the family. “Do you have someplace where Sunset and I could freshen up? The crash did a number on her mane, and I must admit that I’m a little out of sorts from needing to catch up to her. Haven’t had to fly that fast in years.”

“Third room down the hall on your left,” Buttercup said as she pointed in the door’s direction.

Celestia took Sunset up in her magic.

The action snapped Sunset out of her stupor, and she started kicking in the air. “M-Mom!” the amber alicorn exclaimed.

“Your mane needs combing and your feathers are very ruffled and I doubt Cadance has taught you enough to care for them on your own yet,” she told her daughter before Sunset could use her horn to free herself. “Now, come along.”

A young mare stepped out of into the hallway and looked up at Celestia in surprise. “Waaaaaat?”

“Pardon me, miss,” Celestia said as she waited for the wrinkled mare to remove herself from the hallway.

“Granny get outta the way,” Big Mac called out. “Princess Celestia’s gotta go to the bathroom!”

Sunset stopped her struggling and groaned as Celestia waited for the elder of the family to move past her. Then, she trotted down the hallway and found the room she was looking for. It was...cozy, but still big enough for Sunset and herself...after she sucked in her rear a bit to get through the door, Celestia put Sunset in the tub, and didn’t turn around.

The door’s knob pressed up against her flank, digging into her cutie mark.

“Ugh,” her daughter complained before she looked over to Celestia. “You okay there, Mom?”

Celestia tried to look back towards the doorway, but hit her horn on the wall when it ran out of room to move around. “I’m a little...snug.”

After a few seconds of giving her a considering look, Sunset lit up her horn. Celestia’s defensive spells were washed away by a tsunami of magic coming from the amber alicorn. Then, there was a bright flash and Celestia found her neck being pulled down by a massive weight before a loud thunk resounded in front of her on the floor.

However, her flank found the space to be free.

When her vision cleared, Celestia found that she had room to stumble, as she did so out of horseshoes that were five sizes too big away from a crown that couldn’t possibly fit on her head and out of the regalia that had been touching the ground when she had been wearing it. The white pony looked up at the bathroom counter that was now much too high to see over, and Sunset...who absolutely towered over her.

If she had to guess, Sunset had reduced her to the size of a foal. Oh my, no wonder Twilight had been so frightened when we met, Celestia told herself as she looked up at her daughter’s massive form. “You shrunk me?”

“Sorry,” Sunset apologized before Celestia heard the door close behind her. “But you were having problems. I’ve been practicing, but this really is hit or miss.”

After flapping her wings to get some height, which took a great deal more effort than it should have thanks to her condensed mass, Celestia used her magic to turn on the tub’s shower head and wash the dirt off her daughter’s coat. Since she had gotten Sunset talking, the white pony decided to get the topic going. “You’ve been practicing size alteration magic? Why?”

Sunset pulled in on herself. “Come on, Mom. You know why,” she said.

To make thing easier on herself, Celestia cast another spell to reduce her weight to what a pony her size should have had and adjusted her flapping accordingly. Then she surrounded the room with a privacy spell. “No, I don’t.”

“Because I don’t want to step on anypony!” Sunset told her. “I’ve been having nightmares about being this giant pony that stumbles into the Canterhorn and knocking the city off of the ledge, then falling over and crushing everypony in Ponyville to death with my giant butt!”

Celestia frowned before moving the showerhead so the water would begin removing the dirt and sand from Sunset’s mane. “Cadance hasn’t said anything about you still having nightmares.”

After tilting her head back, Sunset continued talking. “Well my pillow’s dry when I wake up, so I doubt I’m crying in my sleep,” she said before giving Celestia a disgruntled sigh. “Besides, it’s just a stupid dream. I know this magic I’ve got isn’t going to turn me into some giant monster.”

Once the surface layer of grime had been removed and sent down the drain, Sunset put a stopper on it and switched the flow to the faucet setting before she laid down in the tub that was quickly filling with water. The amber alicorn spread her wings to hand over the edge of the tub, and Celestia took a brush in her magic to start scraping the remaining dirt off of the appendages. “So, what’s the real reason you’re interested in reduction spells?”

“Because I don’t like being so tall all the time,” Sunset grumbled. “Look, I know you get a kick out of being the biggest pony in the room, and I do too most of the time, but sometimes I just want Shiny to hold me and well...I even miss being shorter than Cadance sometimes.”

Celestia flew up to land on Sunset’s back to give her daughter’s wings a closer inspection before she went about straightening her feathers. “Is this about what happened to...me and Hurricane?”

Sunset tensed underneath her before she looked around and Celestia’s field of vision was filled with her daughter’s face. “Oh geeze, I-you want to go there too?” she asked before turning her head back to face forward. “Okay, yeah. It is a little annoying that Shiny’s penis is going to be filling me up less and less. I’ve already gotten bigger since the first time we had sex and he’s gotten better at it since then with Cadance’s coaching. But...damnit, size matters Mom! I-I know it sound weird, but just once, I want him to pin me down on the bed and fill me up till it hurts or shove his cock down my throat to the point where I choke on it.”

Something they both knew wasn’t possible, even with Sunset’s level of power. Reduction magic had safeguards to keep shrunken ponies from being crushed to death, even from the inside out. If Shining Armor tried to have sex with Sunset while under the spell, she would immediately revert back to normal.

“It almost sounds like you want him to...abuse you,” Celestia said as she chose her words carefully.

A groan came from the amber alicorn, and Celestia had to fight to keep standing as the big pony shifted around. “I knew this wasn’t something I should talk to you about.”

Celestia froze, unsure if it was a good idea to press the matter. Perhaps it would be better to let Cadance take the next step on this journey, she told herself. “Okay then, let’s talk about what’s been bothering you since you got here. Is there a problem with the fact you saved the Apple family from certain death?”

“Oh…” Sunset said before tensing. “Yeah...that.”

The miniature alicorn laid down on her daughter’s back and rubbed her shoulders. “Is this about your...praise problem?”

Sunset sunk deeper into the bath’s waters. “No.”

“Then what’s wrong?” Celestia asked. “Please tell me, Sunset. I’ve seen where this leads, and it breaks my heart to see you suffer like this.”

“...I don’t think I was supposed to save that family,” Sunset said with an empty voice.

Celestia stood back up and flew over to sit on the sink so she could look her daughter at least partly in the eye. “What?” she asked as Sunset pulled the plug on the tub.

Sunset looked over at her. “I’m not supposed to be here, remember? You’re not supposed to be here! Five timberwolves? I’m not stupid! They would have killed AJ's parents while the kids ran for safety,” she said before stepping out of the bathtub and instantly drying herself off with magic. “But then, the whole thing runs through my head again, and I realize that I’m actually feeling bad about saving ponies from dying! From saving AJ from losing her parents! It’s so fucked up, it’s actually making my head hurt.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Celestia told her daughter before looking to Sunset with the intent of hugging her, then stopped when reality reminded her that Sunset was currently five times her size.

It didn’t stop Sunset from reaching out to grab Celestia like a living plushie and pulling her close. “What am I supposed to do, Mom?” she asked softly. “I compartmentalize, trick myself into not thinking about things. But times like this...I barely got by just thinking about how I’m going to ruin Twilight’s life! But I’m a princess for crying out loud! I’ve already made laws and fucked all kinds of shit up on a grand society-level scale already! Cadance is even talking to a magazine about dating two ponies at once because I was stupid enough to think Equestria already had the concept of multiple partners!

“I stay up late sometimes, planning on how to bring Earth technology to Equestria because I need to keep my mind busy before it thinks about something else,” Sunset rambled on. “I’ve already come up with ideas for things like television using a network of crystal towers and magic mirrors, that could also double as an instant facetime communication system now that I think about it. But then I realize what I’m doing and I’m horrified because...because…”

Celestia decided to finish the thought for her. “You know that you can make things better.”

After a few seconds, Sunset let out a sigh. “Yeah,” she said before she hugged her mother a little tighter. “Did I tell you that I’m taking Twilight to the princess fair tomorrow?” she asked before she immediately continued talking. “The fair’s not even supposed to be going on, and Twilight...there’s no way she would be going to a public celebration if I hadn’t agreed to take her.”

“Then why did you?” Celestia prompted.

“Because it’s the right thing to do!” Sunset exclaimed before she leaned back against the bathroom’s wall and let her mother fly free of her grip. “She’s six! But she doesn’t even know a single pony outside of her household! She needs to go out into the world and meet ponies!”

Celestia landed in front of Sunset and looked up at the massive alicorn’s stressed face. There was something else that stood out as strange about the Apple situation to her. “But, Applejack isn’t Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said. “That new maid of yours, you decided to add a law that massive ramifications for all of Equestria, snatched her up, and decided to introduce a massive change in the direction of both her life and that of her foal’s. But I haven’t seen you get upset about Star once. So, what’s so different about Applejack and her family?”

“Oh...yeah...that,” Sunset said. “Um...well, that’s a little...complicated.”

Celestia found herself wondering if Sunset’s connection to Harmony also allowed her a certain foresight. Could she also see the potential within ponies? Was that why she didn’t feel any problems with helping Spangled Star? While she was a sweet filly, Celestia knew she wouldn’t be amounting to much in the grand scheme of things.

After a few seconds of gathering her thoughts, Sunset looked back down at her mother. “Okay, so...remember how I told you that there are other versions of ponies on Earth, but...human?”

Celestia nodded a bit. “Yes,” she replied.

“Well, everything’s not the same,” Sunset said. “I mean, you don’t have a sister named Luna like the other Celestia.”

The world seemed to stop for a moment at her daughter’s words. There was a Luna in that other world. Celestia didn’t know why she was so affected by that fact. She had been to alternate realities before thanks to Starswirl’s other mirror.

But, that did stop her from wanting to know something about the other her and that Luna. Did they get along? Did they work to together? Was she...happy?

As soon as Celestia cleared her mind of such thoughts a minute later, she saw what Sunset was getting at. “And you knew an Applejack, there?”

“Yeah,” Sunset said with a nod of her head. “She was one of my friends. Twilight may have known this one too…” She reached up and cradled her head with her hooves. “I don’t really...remember. Twilight never wrote about what she did in Equestria.”

Because she didn’t care about you, Celestia wished she could tell her daughter without alienating her. That was the thing that really showed what Princess Twilight Sparkle thought about Sunset. Celestia had gone through the journal time and time again, and it was always Sunset writing to Twilight, Sunset telling Twilight what was going on, Sunset pouring her heart out to the bucking purple alicorn, getting next to nothing in response beyond the most basic of pleasantries.

Except of course for that one time she was suffering at the hands of every other human in school. Twilight had told her to stay there rather than come home where she belonged and wrote a bunch of nonsense about wendigos. It angered Celestia to no end.

“Wait,” Celestia said before frowning at her daughter. “This Applejack, was she one of those creatures that abandoned you because of the...misinformation?”

Sunset looked away from her mother. “I really don’t want to think about that.”

After letting her temper cool a bit. “Well, it’s not like the pony we just met is like that...creature,” Celestia admitted. “But then, what do you want to do about...what’s going on?”

“Honestly?” Sunset asked. “Part of me wants to wipe Applejack’s memory, replace it with a constructed one, abduct her parents, turn them to stone and hide them away for about eleven years so I don’t mess anything up!”

Celestia blinked. “And you...thought all of that up just now?”

Instead of answering, Sunset just continued on. “But another part of me wants to take Applejack to Canterlot with me tomorrow. I want her and Twilight to meet. I want to introduce them and see them play together like I did with that other Applejack. I want them to become friends and wright letters and see each other every other weekend, because-because...I just know they’ll get along and be better for it!”

“Then do it,” Celestia told her. “The second option, I mean.”

Sunset froze. “But...but I can’t!”

A few flaps of her wings brought Celestia up to meet Sunset face to terrified face. “Sunset, look at me,” Celestia told her. “When we came in here, you casually blew off five layers of mystical defenses, and reduced me to the size of a foal just so we could shut the door. You are as close to all-powerful as a pony can be. There is quite literally nothing that you can not do.”

“But-”

“I know you, daughter. If you had really wanted to go through with that first option, you would have done it,” Celestia told her. “You know what would be best. The only reason you’re even talking with me about this is because you’re looking for permission. Which I am now giving you. Send a chariot to take that filly to Canterlot, tomorrow. I’ll even end court early and go with you.”

Even after Celestia parked herself on the sink countertop, Sunset didn’t look convinced. “But...what if I mess something up?”

Celestia took in a deep breath and made a quick decision. “Sunset, as you know, I have a...sense about certain things. It’s the reason I made you my pupil,” she told her daughter. “And I’ll tell you this, Applejack is very special, full of potential. Potential that will shrivel and die if she sits here bucking apples for the rest of her life.”

A silence filled the room for several minutes as Sunset looked down at her mother. Then, she sucked in a deep breath. “Okay...but after we’re done inviting her, there’s another pony in town I want you to take a look at.”

While the response wasn’t quite what she was expecting, Celestia let out a sigh of relief. Although, she was still a bit troubled about what what Sunset had told her in regards to intercourse with Shining Armor, Cadance could take care of that worry.

A thought that made Celestia wonder just what Cadance was up to at the moment.

The pink pony princess shoved her boyfriend’s butt into the face of the archivist. “Well what about this?” she demanded as she poked the picture on Shiny’s flank with her hoof. “Are there any books in the restricted section with the picture of this star in them or on the cover?”

After a few seconds of checking out the side of her coltfriend’s butt, the old unicorn across the desk sat back and lit up her horn. She swung it to the left and then back to the right before leaning back on her pillow. “I’m sorry Princess,” she apologized. “But there aren’t any books with that symbol on them in the archives.”

“Damnit,” Cadance swore before she dropped her Shiny on the floor and let out a snort. “Well, thanks anyway. Come on Shiny, we’re done here.”

Shining Armor picked himself back up and followed after the pink princess. “Okay so, are you going to tell me what’s going on now?” he asked. “You just barged into my house while Twily was having me help her plan for tomorrow and told me to come with you to the palace.”

She was a little surprised when Twilight insisted that she needed to stay home and work on her schedule. But, if she had known Cadance planned on going to the archives… Better not tell her. “State secret,” Cadance replied automatically.

“Cadance,” Shining Armor said with a frown. “It’s my cutie mark you were showing that mare.”

The pink princess froze in mid-step and looked over to Shining Armor. What little frown she had left after the pony in the archives told her something she didn’t want to hear slowly wilted as she realized how rough she’d been treating Shiny before Cadance let out a sigh. “I’m sorry, Shiny. It’s just that this is a time-sensitive issue, and I’m a little stressed on top of everything.”

“What’s so important about my cutie mark?” Shining Armor asked.

Cadance held herself from saying anything for a moment. Both Sunset and Celestia had told her to be very careful when it came to just doling out information about the future. Shining Armor might have known that Sunset was a time traveler, but she had been very careful not to say a word about Twilight. “It’s not your mark, specifically. It’s about the six pointed star on your shield. It’s supposedly a universal symbol of magic despite not being in any bucking book and...well...how much do you know about Sunset’s...evil episode?”

The question made Shining Armor tense up and look away. Cadance could understand how much he didn’t want to drag up the memories of the conversations he had with all of the alicorns involving Sunset going overboard on telling him how she turned into a bloodthirsty murderous monster that tried to burn a group of innocent little girls to death because it was the most suffering way to die she could think of on top of being convenient.

“You know everything I know, Cadance. You were there when she told me. You and Celestia,” he said. “Do we really have to talk about it? It took an hour for us to stop Sunset from crying.”

Cadance nodded, the memory wasn’t a pleasant one for her either. “And you remember how she said she was purified of the darkness?”

“Yes,” Shiny replied.

It took a few moments for Cadance to steel herself for the next part. She didn’t even like to think about the possibility of what she was about to voice, much less talk about. “Well...what if she was a little...too purified?”

Shining Armor’s head cocked to the side. “Come again?”

“Look, I don’t want to talk bad about Sunset, but...she used to be a total jerk,” Cadance told him. “She had her reasons which I totally understand and sympathize with, but...well...she came back...not a completely different pony, but the level of guilt she seems to experience over her past actions is just so all consuming that it’s beyond all reason!”

When Cadance couldn’t think of the proper way to voice her concerns, Shining Armor spoke up. “You mean she may have been geassed in some way?”

Cadance gave her coltfriend a nervous grin at the question. Despite being an alicorn and undergoing training under Sunset, she was still a novice in magic thanks to her rural upbringing. “Geassed?”

“Well, it’s like a spell that compels you to do something,” he explained before becoming a little uneasy himself. “Uh, at least...that’s the way it works in O&O. I don’t actually know if it does that in real life.”

The admittance of his ignorance got a shrug from Cadance. “Well, it’s more of an idea than I had before,” she said.

Shining Armor frowned. “But, I thought Sunset had been gone for three years. That’s plenty of time for a pony to decide to take a new path in life.”

“That’s true,” Cadance agreed with a nod. “But according to Sunset, she only got worse during her three-year stay in the other world.”

She sighed and sat down near the stairs back up out of the archive. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just wanting this to be too easy. I want there to be some magical force that’s making Sunset do what she does, making her want to cripple herself.”

Shining Armor nodded. “That, I can understand. You wouldn’t believe how many times I wished Twily had a curse on her or something when it came to her panic attacks,” he said. “But, if Sunset really was hit by a magic spell, so...I guess it’s possible. Still, wouldn’t Princess Celestia told you if anything was wrong?”

“This is just something I’m looking into on the side, I don’t want her getting worked up without a good reason,” Cadance explained. But now that she had exhausted her last real lead on Twilight’s crown, it looked like Celestia was her only choice.

However, that was a worry for another time. Right now, she needed to pay Shiny back for abducting him. The pink pony princess stood up and smiled at her colt. “Thanks for helping me out, Shiny. I’m sorry I had to pull you away from your baby sister.”

Shining smiled. “It’s okay.”

“You know,” Cadance said as she stood up and gave him some bedroom eyes. “If you want, we could go back to my apartment and I could give you a proper thanks for putting up with me.”

Her advance was met with withdraw. “Um...it...uh,” Shining Armor stammered before his cheeks lit up.

Cadance giggled before moving close to give him a peck on the lips. “You are so adorable,” she said before giving the paralyzed pony a quick nuzzle. “Although, still being embarrassed after sleeping with me for a week is a little silly. Unless...Shiny, does me and Sunset being so open about our sexual attractions make you uncomfortable?”

“What?” he asked, startled. “Well, um-that’s not...okay, maybe a little.”

The confession made Cadance sit back down. She looked back up to the stairs. Although where she was at wasn’t the best place to hold such a conversation, nopony would be coming into the restricted archives. So, she looked over to Shining Armor. “Why is that, Shiny?”

Shining Armor looked down at the ground. “Honestly? Sometimes...well...I know it’s stupid, but...sometimes it feels like you two only want me for my body,” he said before giving Cadance a little laugh. “I know, right? Me, saying something like that. Plus, you two...well, it’s really hard to keep myself sheathed when you’re both just around.”

“So, you want to have less sex, and more activities,” Cadance surmised before she nodded. “I can do that if you want. But, uh...Sunset, well… Shiny, you know you are literally the first colt she’s seen in three years after being stuck on a world of bald apes who only get naked to engage in intercourse that she had to have sex with at the drop of a hat as a means of survival. To be honest, I’m not even sure if she knows how to be romantic. The only real experience she’s had with males is to raise her tail.

“But, I’m not Sunset,” Cadance told him as she stood up. “So, what do you want to go do, Shiny? I don’t have any other plans until Sunset comes and gets me for my nightly workout.”

Shining Armor stood mute for a moment, then shook his head quickly as if to dislodge the paralysis. “Okay...well,” he said before thinking things through for a moment. “Uh, there’s a card tournament at the Iron Golem’s Dungeon today because of Sunset’s coronation. We could go sign up for it.”

The offer made Cadance blink. She didn’t know Shiny played cards. “What type of tournament? Poker? Go Fish?”

“Uh...these cards are a bit...different.”

There was a knocking at the door.

“Sweetie, could you get that for me?”

Rarity looked up from her still unfinished masterpiece with thread in hoof, as her magic had not reached the refinement necessary to wield a needle with the precision necessary for sewing, and back to her mother. “But Moooooooom! I’m in the middle of creating something,” she explained to her parent, who was in the same place she had been since this morning, laying on the couch. “Besides, isn’t the door unlocked?”

They lived in Ponyville after all. Everypony’s door was always unlocked. They hadn’t had a robbery in over eighty years.

There was another knock at the door.

“Rarity dear, you know the doctor said that I need to stay off my hooves as much as possible,” the mother reminded her daughter.

After letting out a sigh at the unfairness of the world and her lot in life, Rarity looked back at her mother. Twice as fat as anypony had the right to be, Cookie Crumbles laid on the family’s sofa with some food resting not too far away on the table next to it. The reason for her bloated belly being Rarity’s as yet unborn little sister.

At least, Rarity hoped it was a little sister. But, as there wasn’t any magic to tell the gender of her unborn sibling, all Rarity could do was silently ask Princess Celestia to make sure that she got a baby sister. After all, colts were just so...icky.

But, since the doctor had ordered her mother to stay off her hooves as much as possible, Rarity graciously arose from her spot on the floor and abandoned her all important work of sewing a tiny dress for her future little sister to go answer the door.

Oh Princess Celestia, please don’t let it be another salespony, Rarity begged to the alicorn of the sun before she got to the door. They had been coming around like crazy since her mother’s condition started to show with all sorts of things for a new foal.

After taking a second to compose herself, Rarity opened the door. “Hello, how may I-eeeeeee,” she said as she spotted the big golden horseshoes being worn by four legs longer than Rarity was tall, which after following them up, found they were attached to the only pony in Equestria with golden horseshoes and snow white legs that were taller than Rarity. “Whaaaaaaaa… Princess Celestia! Y-You! You’re Princess Celestia!”

The immortal ruler of Equestria, the pony that was the very definition of poise, beauty, grace and utter refinement stood on the other side of Rarity’s door with her perfect mane blowing in a magical breeze that existed just for her...blinked. “I am?” she asked before taking a step back.

Without the goddess filling her home’s entrance, Rarity could see that the ruler of Equestria had attracted quite the crowd of ponies who were keeping a respectful distance. As for Princess Celestia, she looked at her hooves, then her chest, which was followed by an unfurling of her wings to examine them before turning her head to check her cutie mark and let out a gasp of utter surprise. Then she looked back to Rarity. “Oh my heavens, you’re right! I am Princess Celestia!”

The high Princess of Equestria turned to look at the crowd. “Why didn’t anypony else tell me I was Princess Celestia?” she asked all of the ponies that had gathered.

Rarity cocked her head to the side. “...huh?”

Outside, the gathered ponies began to look around nervously.

“Hey, why didn’t you tell her she was Princess Celestia?” one of the mares in the distance asked.

“We were supposed to tell her?” another pony said. “I didn’t know we were supposed to tell her! WHY DIDN’T ANYPONY TELL ME WE WERE SUPPOSED TO TELL HER!”

“Is that why she always has all those ponies with the trumpets and loud voices announce her all the time?”

The commotion was cut short by an earth shattering boom that left Rarity’s teeth rattling for a second. Princess Celestia looked over to her left. “Sunset! Are you alright?”

“I’m invincible Mom,” the royalty perturbed voice that Rarity wouldn’t forget if she lived to be a hundred said. “I can do an epic facehoof.”

Then, the...well, Rarity couldn’t say that she looked as regal as her mother, but she was still royalty, so… The royal amber alicorn walked into the view provided by the doorway and gave her a little smile. “Hey there Rarity. Excuse my mother for being well...her.”

Princess Celestia gave an indignant sniff. “Well, I never!”

“Mom, quit trolling everyone,” Sunset told her, which got a confused look from the bigger princess.

“Trolling?”

Princess Sunset ignored the question and looked back to Rarity. “Anyway, like I was saying,” she continued. “There’s a big celebration in Canterlot going on all week because they’re putting a stupid crown on my head and I was wondering if you want to go with me to the Princess Fair tomorrow?”

Rarity...blinked.

“And I can set you and a few other foals I’m inviting up in the palace tomorrow, so you can attend the coronation afterwords,” Sunset went on before becoming a little hesitant. “Uh, that is your...thing, right? Fancy ceremonies and stuff like that?”

“Hugima...ra...Princess...castle...coronation…” Rarity managed.

“Oh, we can take your family too, of course,” Sunset said after a moment before she looked through the doorway as much as she could from her place outside the house. “Speaking of which, are you doing okay? Your dad is treating you right, isn’t he? I haven’t gotten a letter from you yet and was wondering how you were doing.”

Faced with the reality of meeting Princess Celestia in pony, spending the day with Princess Sunset, and GOING TO A CORONATION...Rarity did the only thing she could. The little unicorn rolled her eyes up in her head, and promptly removed her legs out from under her.

“Yeah...should have seen this one coming,” Rarity heard Princess Sunset’s voice say as her world was replaced by darkness.

Cadance looked down at the cards in her hooves, then to the ones spread out in front of her on the table in front of the illusion grid before turning her attention back to the ones in her hooves. While some of the pictures were downright adorable, others were...less so.

“Okay, so...let me just see if I understand this,” she said before looking up to Shiny. “The game has three types of cards. Creature, magic, and structure. You build structures to power your creatures, and magic lets them use special moves, or affects creatures on your opponent’s side of the field.”

Shiny nodded. “Right,” he said before adding, “Oh, and the structures you build also have special abilities, but they can only activate in response to an event.”

After making a mental note of that, Cadance looked over to the rest of the room. Thankfully, most of the other ponies in the store were more concerned with setting up their games and playing than gawking at the princess in their midst. While this was probably because she had seen a good many of them at school, it was still nice not to have every action she took examined by a dozen ponies at once.

Then she looked over to the store manager, or more specifically, the counter behind him. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be better for me to just buy my own cards instead of using these?” she asked. While it was sweet of Shiny to help her out, the deck she had...well, it just didn’t suit her personality. The pink cards behind the counter that looked so cute and were linked to the candy element seemed a better match than the mystical aqua deck Shining had helped her build with spare cards from his own collection.

“This is just to help you learn the game, Cadance,” Shining Armor told her. “Once you get your hooves wet with a few matches, then you can make your own deck.”

Cadance smiled “Oh, that makes sense,” she said before a thought occurred to her. “Say, why don’t you play this game with Twily? I’ve come to your house plenty of times, but I’ve never seen the two of you doing this.”

For some reason, the anticipation of enjoyment on Shining Armor’s face morphed into a nervous grin. “Well...uh...that’s because...she’s a little young...you know,” he told Cadance while his eyes darted around nervously. “I...uh, have to let her win.”

The obvious lie got a frown from Cadance. “Shiny, tell me the truth.”

“She routinely beats me worse than a red-maned foster foal,” he admitted as he lowered his head. “I’ve never won a single game against her, and the last time we played was so bad, I gave up on ever trying to take her down.”

Cadance blinked at the information. Despite how much she wanted to ask Shiny if telling the truth made him feel better, she thought better of it and just focused on what he wanted to do. “Okay, let’s start the game then,” she said before setting down the three creature's in her hoof and activating the enchantment on the game mat in front of her.

The table between the two of them sprang to life, and her three creatures: the blue beagle, the pig, and the analytical archaeologist appeared on the field inside of her blue-colored zone, with its ice mountain, frozen fields, and the Floating Eye of Glob atop her mystic tower.

Shiny’s side of the field looked much more inviting to Cadance, reminding her of her home village with all of its planted fields, a silo, and...well, the Pyramid of Plenty sitting in the middle of the area wasn’t something they had back home, but everything else made her a bit wistful for the good old days for a moment.

“Okay, I’ll go first,” he said before playing a card from his hoof. “I summon my corn dogs, who increase their damaging power by a factor of two thanks to the power of my corn field’s Pyramid of Plenty and and play the spell, butter churn! This gives them the slippery ability, which allows them to retreat before being counterattacked.”

On the table below, energy flowed from Shiny’s planted vegetables to the yellow dogs with ears of corn for heads. The creatures doubled in size before a butter churn appeared overhead to shower them with golden liquid that stuck to the hounds. Then, they charged forward into Cadance’s territory.

“Alright Cadance,” Shiny said. “Now you need to pick which of your creatures you want to call and defend your territory.”

The pink princess looked down and read her cards’ stats. After skimming over them and glancing to the cards still in her hoof, she turned one of her creature cards already in play sideways. “I floop the pig.”

Shining Armor blinked as the little pig trotted past his corn dogs that were still approaching Cadance’s structures. “Hehe, Cadance, hon. You need to call a creature to defend your territory if you don’t-ahhhh! WHAT IS IT DOING?” Shining Armor said as he watched Cadance’s pig devour his crops of corn.

“The pig’s special ability allows me to destroy corn-based fields when I floop him,” Cadance explained before she looked back on the board to watch the fallout take effect. Without the power of Shiny’s corn providing them power, the attacking creatures became sluggish as they entered her territory, eventually stopping all together and turning blue. “And, my frozen field’s special power freezes all creatures that travel through it without being empowered by their home element.”

With his dogs frozen cold, Shining Armor hung his head. “Okay then…” he said before looking at his hand and lowering his head. “I end my turn.”

“Okay,” Cadance said before she pulled a card from her hoof.

“Oh! Cadance!” Shining Armor quickly said. “You need to draw a card at the start of your turn. I didn’t because I started the game, but now that it’s begun, everypony draws a card at the start of their turn.”

Cadance smiled at her coltfriend. “Okay Shiny,” she said before doing so and reading the spell card’s effect before setting it down. “I play, Crown of the Ice King on my analytical archaeologist.”

The golden crown that appeared in the air fell on top of the earth pony that was standing on Cadance’s side of the field. A second later, the pony’s mane turned white before he sprouted oversized wings and let out an insane laugh as he flew into the air.

“Uh, Cadance...turning that creature into the Ice King makes him go crazy,” the unicorn pointed out. “He attacks everything on the field.”

Cadance took a second to double-check the card, then looked back to Shiny. “Not if it’s played by a princess, see?” she said as she pointed to the instructions on her card with a feather on her wing. “So...I have him activate his new special ability, eternal ice age on your side of the field.”

“Yes my Princess!” the little pegasus cried out before he flew over to Shiny’s farm and summoned a little storm.

Shining Armor’s mouth dropped as all of his corn fields, pyramid, and silo were covered by a glacier. “But...that, my creatures...they’re all frozen, and you’ve put glaciers on the empty parts of my field.”

After double-checking her card’s effects again, Cadance looked back to Shining Armor. “Plus, it transfers your section of the map to my control, giving me all your structures,” she said before putting two and two together. “Oh! If I have control of all your structures, does that mean I win?

Shining Armor’s mouth continued to hang as his eye twitched...and his head fell to impact the table between them.

“Uh...Shiny?” Cadance asked in confusion.

“Wait! A dress! I need a new dress! If I’m going to go play with the Princess, I need a dress by tomorrow!”

Celestia’s daughter sighed as she and her mother left the house before turning back to face the little unicorn after she thought of how to avert the latest problem to Rarity’s royal day at the fair. “Don’t worry Rarity, I’ll send something suitable with the guards that will be picking you and Applejack up, okay?”

“Um...okay,” she said before going into her twenty-third bow in the last thirty minutes. “Thank you for your generosity, Princess Sunset. I will never forget it!”

Sunset put on what Celestia could tell with a fake smile as she gave the filly a little wave before the door to the house finally shut. With the crowd shooed away from Rarity’s house long ago, the amber alicorn let out a long sigh on the mostly empty streets of Ponyville and hung her head. “Good gravy, if that filly had her nose any further up my butt, she would have died from lack of oxygen.”

Unable to stop herself, Celestia let out a tiny giggle at her daughter’s discomfort. “Welcome to my world,” she said.

After giving the bigger alicorn a brief glare, Sunset started down the free area between the houses that the ponies of the small hamlet used as de facto roads. Celestia quickly matched pace with her daughter. “So, who’s next?”

“Well,” Sunset said before becoming a bit hesitant. “I think Rarity and Applejack are the only two of my-uh, the ponies who are like my old friends from Earth that live in Ponyville. I know Rainbow Dash is in...wait, she’s in that junior speedsters...thing. At least I think she is. Hey Mom, shouldn’t she be in school? It’s the middle of Fall.”

Not that any human would ever be able to tell with the way most of the trees still have their leaves. Equestrians didn’t really knock their trees bald until right before Winter.

“Cloudsdale has a different timetable for their education system than the rest of Equestria, remember?” Celestia reminded her daughter. “Most of the schools are out for Fall because the weather factory needs to hire extra hooves for part-time work to help with snow creation for Winter, not to mention that Fall is the season that gets the most rain.”

Sunset blinked, then frowned. “Huh...didn’t actually know that,” she said before her expression dipped a bit. Then she shook it off and looked back to Celestia. “But...it’s not like we can just pop over to Cloudsdale and grab-”

Before her daughter could finish talking, Celestia sucked in a deep breath and drew on her source of power. Like Sunset, she had her own special power source that granted her magic beyond a mortal pony. She didn’t draw too much. Doing so would have caused her to burst into flames and scorch everything in her immediate area, something Celestia did only in the most dire combat situations. But, she could draw enough power to increase the range of her teleportation and combine it with her sun’s position that looked down on all of Equestria to get a destination.

After that, the world disappeared in a flash of bright light, and she deposited Sunset next to herself on the edge of a large cloudbank.

“Gah!” Sunset said as she stumbled back and fell on her plot. “Mom! Don’t do that!”

Celestia looked over to Sunset and blinked in confusion. “What?”

Slowly, Sunset picked herself up and took a tentative step forward. “Well, aside from the whole, popping me without permission being rude as hell, I’m still getting used to having permanent cloud-walking. Plus, heights make me-uh...nevermind,” she said as an embarrassed blush began to creep up her cheeks.

The sharp pain of upsetting her daughter was repressed before Celestia could wince. Despite the arguments they were getting into, she knew she had a good thing going with Sunset, if she stopped it now to apologize profusely...well, Cadance had warned her about getting into an apology cycle. “Well, you said you needed to get here, so I thought that it was just best to jump on over,” the big alicorn explained.

“Now, you said this Rainbow Dash is-” Celestia stopped herself from talking as she heard a tiny voice let out a trio of sobs, followed by a little sniffle that was followed by a tiny whine before more sobs. “Is somepony crying?”

While Celestia looked around the cloudscape to find it empty, Sunset closed her eyes and perked her ears up a bit. After a few more sobs, she pointed to a tiny puff of cloud that had drifted off of the main mass of Cloudsdale. “Over there.”

Sunset moved to launch herself into the air, then suddenly stopped when she reached the edge of the cloud. “Uh….”

“Perfectly understandable,” Celestia told her after walking up behind her daughter to put a wing across her back. “With the way your wings are working, I don’t think Cloudsdale would survive even a short trip. I’ll go see what’s happening, then we can go find your little friend.”

A second later, Celestia took to the air and went into a glide after a single flap to fight the force of gravity. When she landed on the tiny cloud, she found the source of the tears. A little butter-yellow pegasus with a long pink mane was curled up into a ball and crying her eyes out.

One look at her told Celestia what was probably going on. While young, the little pegasus’s legs were very long, and her body extremely thin. As a whole, ponies were a very uniform race. With the exception of Canterlot unicorns that resorted to alchemy to increase their height in imitation of Celestia, anything outside the norm was considered ugly. Which usually led to being mocked and all kinds of trouble.

Which was also why the poor little dear was hiding in the depressed section of a cloud.

Celestia knelt down until she was on her belly and extended a wing to both shelter the pegasus filly from the light of her sun and have a feather ready to wipe away the tears. “Hello there, little one,” Celestia said gently to the crying pegasus. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“Hmm?” the yellow pegasus said before she rolled onto her back and proved to Celestia that it had been a good decision to keep the sun out of her big blue eyes as they went wide upon seeing the alicorn. “Princess...Celestia?”

While it had been a little fun to go on in front of Rarity until she just...collapsed, Celestia decided that a different method would be needed for this little yellow pony. “That’s right,” she said gently. “Now tell me. What has gotten such an amazingly beautiful little pony like you so upset?”

The little pegasus blinked before she looked looked away from the alicorn. “Oh...well...it’s...n-nothing you need to worry about, Your Highness.”

“Hmmm, I think I’ll be the judge of-say, would you mind telling me your name, my little pony?” Celestia asked.

“F-Fluttershy,” the tiny pegasus answered.

“WHAT?”

Celestia’s ears perked up and she looked over to her daughter standing on the edge of the cloudbank. Fluttershy joined in the investigation a second later, peeking over the top of the dip she was hiding in.

“Somepony made Fluttershy cry?” Sunset demanded.

Although she didn’t quite know what was going on, Celestia let out a little sigh and surrounded herself with a forcefield a second before Sunset’s wings flew out on instinct in a show of angry dominance that sent a roaring wind past Celestia.

The amber alicorn’s eyes lit up as she started putting out an absolute terrifying amount of power. “I’ll turn them inside out and-” Before Sunset could finish what Celestia hoped was an empty threat, Celestia used her magic to bring the cloud she was sitting on close to her daughter, causing Fluttery to let out a tiny ‘eep’ and latch onto Celestia’s neck as best as she could. “Would you please cut that out? You’re scaring her.”

Sunset froze for a moment before she blinked away the whitness in her eyes and looked at the filly. “Sorry,” she apologized before reaching over, and waiting for a second for Celestia to drop her shield before she put her fetlock across the back of Fluttery’s neck. “I’m sorry I frightened you, Fluttershy. I just don’t like it when I hear about somepony being bullied.”

“Oh,” Fluttershy said before she looked over to Sunset. “I wasn’t crying because of that. I mean, I do get bullied a lot, but...I was crying because…b-because my little friends went away.”

The little filly’s statement threw Celestia for a bit of a loop as Sunset took a look around in thought for a moment before she turned her attention back to Fluttershy and smirked. “You’re talking about some birds, right?”

Fluttershy stopped clinging so close to Celestia and looked at Sunset in surprise. “How did you know?”

“I’m a princess, we know everything,” she said with a smile.

Celestia looked up at her sun to ask for emotional strength in case Sunset started to do something...Sunset.

“Now, I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for you in Cloudsdale,” Sunset told her gently. “There aren’t any animals that can be up here with you, and it’s hard to keep birds as pets since both them and the city are migratory.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Every month, I have to say goodbye to my friends, and sometimes Cloudsdale doesn’t go low enough to where I can meet new ones.”

“Well, maybe you should try making some friends with a few pegasi,” Celestia suggested.

The suggestion was a bad one. Fluttershy tensed over what had to be traumatic memories of the past while Sunset gave Celestia a tiny frown. Well, how was I supposed to know.

Fluttershy let out a little whine. “I-I can’t make friends with other ponies. They make fun of me because I can’t fly very well and...I’m afraid of heights.”

“Oh...that’s…” Celestia blinked as she found herself at a loss for words.

A pegasus that was afraid of heights?

In her one-thousand-one-hundred-plus years of life, it was the first time she had heard of such a thing. Pegasi were the warrior tribe of Equestria. While there were plenty of less than athletic flying ponies in the skies above her country, one that didn’t even like to fly seemed almost too unnatural.

Sunset didn’t even blink at the information. “Well you know what Fluttershy?” she said before leaning in to whisper into the little filly’s ear. “Heights scare me too.”

“WHAT?” Celestia cried out as she reared up a bit, getting a squeak of fright from the little pegasus on her neck before Fluttery lost her grip to be caught by Sunset’s magic and placed on the amber alicorn’s back. “What do you mean you’re afraid of heights? Since when?”

The half-lidded stare Sunset gave Celestia a second later made the big alicorn regret asking the question. “Since you threw me off the edge of Canterlot.”

“...oh,” Celestia replied.

Sunset didn’t even seem to notice before she smiled at the little filly and turned around to walk away from her mother with a little bounce to her trot. “You know what you need Fluttershy? A trip to Canterlot! There’s a fair going on there with a petting zoo, and if your parents will agree to it, I can take you to the castle and show you Mom’s menagerie! Her phoenix is still out nesting-thank the sun-but a ton of other birds I know you’ll just love. We just need to be careful not to spook them because-”

Her daughters words were lost as Celestia stood on the little cloud, left behind as what Sunset had said ran through her mind. She...she wasn’t serious, was she. I didn’t-no, keep it together, Celestia. If you stop smiling, your daughter will wonder what’s wrong, and everything that’s going so wonderfully will be ruined. Just keep smiling.

Cadance looked over the cards in her magic. “So, I think I’ll go with the rainicorn, elasto-hound, fuzzy bunny and hug-wolf out of this set to add to my deck,” she said as she sorted through the good cards from the last few packs. Once she had put them aside, the princess looked up to her coltfriend that was laying on the bed, letting lunch digest. “What do you think, Shiny? Is that a good set of creatures?”

The question went unanswered for several seconds before Shining Armor rolled onto his back and looked at Cadance when he let his head hang upside down from the mattress. “Honestly? I think I’ve created a monster.”

“Huh?” the pink princess asked.

Shining Armor sighed and looked over to the table where Sunset worked on her projects whenever she needed to scratch some weird itch. He rolled back onto his stomach and used his magic to open the middle left drawer before pulling out a scroll. He floated the scroll over and unrolled it before reading. “The hooded figure unlatched the block of crystalite, letting it fall to the floor. She reached into her bag and withdrew a sparkling potion to pour on the rock that rested on the floor. Seconds later, the magical minerals dissolved to reveal the brave, roguish pegasus, So Low,” he read before looking up to Cadance with an even expression. “You wrote a Solar Battles fan fiction.”

Cadance crossed her forelegs. “It’s not going to be fiction when I get them to put the scene in the next play,” she said before Shining Armor’s face became a little judgmental. “What? That duchess needs to prove she’s worthy of So Low’s affection! If they don’t do that, then any romance between the two will be completely unbelievable!”

“Cadance, I’m ready for that pony ride now,” Shining Armor told her.

“In a minute, Shiny,” Cadance told him before looking back to her stacks of unopened cards. “I need to finish building my deck. Then we need to play a couple of test rounds. Then, I can get the mood for some loving.”

“Our little girl, I just can’t believe that Princess Celestia Herself came to invite our little Dashie to Canterlot!” the pegasus who introduced himself as Bo exclaimed.

“Well I can!” Windy Whistles said happily. “Every dawn, I would tell Her Glorious Highness that if she wanted to see something amazing, that she should take a second to watch our daughter!”

All of the fillies and colts along with the instructors for the Junior Speedsters looked on as Sunset waited for the pair of blue pegasi in front of her to finish celebrating the good news.

From the looks of things, they had come just in time to catch Rainbow Dash. The presence of the parents told Sunset that the fillies and colts were fixing to go home. Unfortunately, it looked like she had missed the big airshow/musical number the students had probably put on.

Although, considering how Celestia was handling Dash’s parents, it was probably better that they didn’t stay very long.

It was slight, but Sunset saw the strain on her mother’s smile as the pair of pegasus parents hugged their daughter. “Well, this is Sunset’s initiative, actually. I’m just here to...provide support,” Celestia explained rather... pathetically.

Sunset understood what was going on with her mother, if not the why. A few of Equestria's ponies literally worshiped her mother as a goddess. It was a religion that endured despite the fact that their goddess wanted nothing to do with the whole thing.

So much so that she couldn’t even bring herself to stick around long enough to disband the religion.

“So, I take it that’s a yes, then?” Sunset asked, not even stopping for clarification before she went on. “Great! We’ll send a couple chariots to pick Dash and the two of you up tomorrow morning. Well, we need to get going! Important princess stuff to do and all that.”

Before the little ponies could try and guilt her into staying with a collective awwwwwwww, Sunset quickly led her mother away from the crowd. Once they had made their escape, Celestia looked over to Sunset. “Okay, that’s four. Where can we find your fifth friend?” she asked before quickly shaking her head. “I mean the pony doppelganger of the girl you knew back on Earth. My, that’s going to become a bit confusing.”

Sunset looked down at the clouds beneath her. “Actually...this is it,” she admitted. “I have no idea where to even start looking for Pinkie Pie. Hell, the only reason we got Rainbow Dash is because you ported us here, and we just stumbled across Fluttershy.”

Well, if you’re supposed to meet with her, it will happen when it’s supposed to,” Celestia assured her. “So...shall we head home? We’ve missed lunch, but I’m sure the cooks wouldn’t mind preparing something for us. Although, I suppose we should humor them and ask for something a bit more extravagant than hay burgers.”

“Oat burgers it is then,” Sunset agreed before she prepared her teleportation spell. Unlike her mother, the amber alicorn couldn’t just pop anywhere the light touched with perfect accuracy. So far, all her extraordinary power had provided was an unprecedented boost in magical energy. But no special abilities.

But, that did mean she had plenty of power to make the trip with a spell. And the teleportation marker she had placed in her room at the palace had enough energy to be sensed from all over Equestria. So, she locked onto it, weaved her magic into the proper pattern, and felt the world disappear around her.

When the world came into focus…

“Sh--Shi-Shi--Shiiineeeey!” Cadance cried out after several thumps sounded from the other side of Sunset’s bedroom door before she let out a loud neigh of a pleasurable cry.

...Sunset was left standing mute as the banging sounds from the other room ended with Cadance doing the thing she did when she did...that.

“Oh...oh my,” Celestia said, reminding Sunset of the reason she was feeling rather embarrassed over almost but not quite walking in on Cadance and Shining Armor.

And then, they started up again, making Sunset groan and hover her face with a hoof. “Oh for the love of…”

Celestia blnked at the door. “My, he um...certainly sounds...enthusiastic,” she said before looking over to her daughter while the racket continued. “Sunset, if you don’t mind me asking, how exactly is your colt possessing enough stamina to give Cadance-” Another cry of pleasure came from Sunset’s bedroom, making Celestia pause for a moment, “-more than one of those.”

“Can we please not have this conversation where I can hear by boyfriend pounding my girlfriend into the bed like a nail?” Sunset demanded as she whirled around to glare at her mother. Not even bothering to see if her mother was following her, Sunset made her way to the door. “And it’s two things, an endurance spell and one that increases a mare’s sensitivity. And now that I’ve answered you that, tell me something. What the hell does thirty pages of sex magic have to do with crystal creation? It fills half the damn spellbook she has!”

Shining Armor trotted down the hallway of the palace bit a spring in his step. Although he didn’t like the way the girls constantly pawed him in an almost predatory manner, the sex that came from it was absolutely amazing. Of course, the downside of being a member of the least physically imposing tribe meant that Cadance needed to give Shining Armor a little extra help to keep up, which caused him to pass out shortly afterwards because the crystal ponies didn’t think stallions should be allowed to have tons of sex with their special somepony and then cuddle afterwards.

Sunset got to cuddle with Cadance after getting her off.

Which...made Shining Armor wonder if that was why he felt a little jilted when it came to his relationship with the girls. After all, being the constant object of his mares’ affection wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. They were princesses! He was lucky they even noticed he was there!

And...then Shining had to start wondering where they were.

He trotted through the castle until until he ran into one of the palace staff. “Hey, where’s the Princess?”

The gray pegasus pointed to the dining room, making Shining Armor feel a little worried. “Did I miss dinner?” he asked himself as he made it to the door. That would have made the time he was out from Cadance’s magic much longer than it should have been. Shining Armor opened the door as he went in. “Hey girls, sorry I’m late I…”

Princess Celestia looked up from the dining table where she was reading the evening paper. “Oh! Shining Armor,” she said. “I thought you were going to exercise with Cadance and Sunset today.”

“I...had planned on it,” he admitted. “Um….” As Shining Armor tried to think of something to say, he remembered what Sunset told him in regards to her mother as she had him pinned against the wall and blocked out his entire field of vision. “Never be in the same room as Mom, alone! I’m being serious here, Shiny! Jump out a window if you have to!”

Princess Celestia took a sip of her tea. “Actually, I have been meaning to speak to you about a few things in private. Now is as good a time as any. Sit down, Shining Armor.”

The white unicorn looked over to the windows behind the Princess. If he could put up a shield like he did with Twilight right before he hit the ground… No, there really wasn’t any way out of this.

“Okay, Princess Celestia,” he squeaked before cautiously walking to sit down on the raised pillow across from the supreme ruler of all Equestria that raised the son and happened to be Sunset’s mother...and Cadance’s aunt.

“I know I’m here a bit early, but I missed lunch and Sunset teleported us back to the palace. She popped us back into the living room of your apartment while you and Cadance were in the bedroom,” Celestia explained.

Shining Armor whined and sunk down in the chair in an attempt to hide.

Then she looked at him for a few moments before speaking again. “Hmmm, too much?”

“What?” Shining Armor asked, his attempt to escape from Princess put on hold for the moment.

“I’m sorry, I’m a bit new at this,” Princess Celestia told him. “You are my daughter’s first coltfriend, and while I can speak candidly to Cadance, I found myself forgetting you aren’t yet comfortable enough with my presence to...play with. So, let’s skip straight to the heart of the matter, shall we?”

Shining Armor blinked. “Um...okay?” What heart of the matter? Had he done something wrong?

He couldn’t think of anything that he did wrong.

WHAT HAD HE DONE WRONG?

“From what I understand, there is something that’s been troubling you lately. For several days, in fact,” Celestia said before her gaze turned intense. “What is it?”

The question had Shining Armor blinking. “Ummm...why’re you-”

Celestia didn’t give the colt a chance to finish. “Shining Armor, my family is the most important thing in the world to me. You yourself saw how I gave Equestria to Sunset as a present in an attempt to keep her here despite the fact that Equestria is hardly ready for her rule,” she said. “And you are one of the most important things to both my daughter my niece.”

“Huh...I never thought of that before,” Shining Armor mumbled.

A half-lidded expression crossed Celestia’s face. “That I didn’t love my family?”

“No, that Cadance and Sunset are cousins,” Shining Armor explained. “That kind of makes the two of them being together a bit more-”

Princess Celestia snorted. “Oh please, Canterlot is filled with in-house marriages amongst the nobility,” she said. “Sixty years ago, the matriarch of house Lion had gotten things so tied up, she effectively became her own grandmother after marrying a stallion of House Rose because her daughter had...well, never mind. Besides, it’s hardly important. Cadance is my adopted niece.”

With the mention of the two of them getting together like they did, Shining Armor couldn’t help but ask, “Princess, did you...mean for them to...be together?”

“No,” Princess Celestia said as she shook her head. “I wanted them to be friends. Sunset had all the skills Cadance lacked when they first met, while Cadance possessed several traits I had hoped would rub off on Sunset. My hope was that they would become friends. Now, Sunset has acquired everything I had hoped she would gain and more, and Cadance is...taking after her instead of it being the other way around. Honestly, I’m still not sure how I feel about that.”

Shining Armor looked down at the empty table. Since he had nothing else to really talk about… “Well, the thing is...I don’t know what’s bothering me,” he said. “I thought it was because the girls were being pretty...grabby, but I told Cadance, and she listened to me and stopped it. Although, I did like it when Sunset would wrap one of her wings around my butt...okay, maybe I did like Cadance’s teasing when I was in the mood for it too. They’re princesses, they could have any stallion they want, but they choose me, and I like the fact that they like way I look and that they enjoy my body because I enjoy their bodies and I just realized I said that in front of Princess Celestia! Please make me stop talking!”

A golden aura of magic closed Shining Armor’s mouth. “Better?” Princess Celestia asked, to which he nodded. “So, you like that Sunset gives you a few squeezes on your plot with her wings. But it annoys you sometimes. My advice is for you to speak your mind more to the girls, they will listen to you.”

The magic disappeared and Shining Armor took in a breath. “Okay, but...I don’t think that’s what’s wrong,” he admitted. “To be honest, I’m not sure it’s the girls at all. Maybe it’s...me.”

Back during the Fall Formal, a lot of ponies had given them their opinions and a lot of it had made sense at the time. It still did! But...it still didn’t feel like solving the things they pointed out would lead anywhere, if any of that was even possible. After all, Gaffer had said Shiny felt the way he did because he didn’t think he had earned the right to be with Sunset.

How in the hay was somepony supposed to earn the right to be with an alicorn?

“So, you don’t know what’s wrong,” Celestia clarified.

Shining Armor threw up his forelegs. “I know!” he exclaimed. “That I don’t know, I mean. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Two princesses, the pony that bullied me pretty much my entire life is gone because of Sunset, Cadance fixed my school, I’m talking to Princess Celestia Herself, who is offering to help me of all ponies with the littlest of things and any possibility is in my reach, but here I am, worried about...nothing!”

“No, you just don’t know why you’re worried about nothing,” Celestia said before her horn lit up. “That’s something completely different.” A piece of her newspaper was torn off and was transmuted into a piece of clean parchment. She fired a blast of magic at the paper before it rolled up and was tied with a red ribbon that appeared in her magic. “Here. Use your magic on this before you go to bed, then ask Sunset what’s bothering you. Don’t worry about the side effects, I’ll have a potion ready to counteract them by-”

The doors behind Shining Armor banged open. “Shiny!” Cadance called out gleefully before she trotted up to him and smiled. “I’m sorry sweetie, it took a bit longer than usual to set up the obstacle course and…” she looked over to Princess Celestia for a moment before looking back to Shining Armor with a much more intense look. “She didn’t do anything to you, did she?”

Princess Celestia groaned. “No Cadance, I didn’t do anything to your coltfriend,” she said. “In fact, I promise not to do anything until after the marriage and it’s too late for him to escape. That sound good?”

“If you know what’s good for you, don’t propose for at least twelve years,” Cadance told him.

“Oh, Cadance,” Celestia said as the pink princess motioned for Shiny to come with her. “Could I have a word before you go? In private, if you would.”

Sunset looked at her cards, then down at the field for a few seconds. It would hurt, but...she couldn’t not go through with it with the way all everything was looking. “Okay, I play the volcano,” she said before putting the card down. “That’ll burn all the creatures on the fields and destroy non-fire power sources of energy.”

“WHAT?” Twilight cried out at she watched the mountain of fire grew out of the middle of the board and erupted before covering everything in lava. All of her creatures were destroyed by the red mud that flowed from it. “NOOOOOOOOOO!”

A bird cried out from Sunset’s side of the board. “Being destroyed by a fire attack causes my phoenix to be reborn with twice the damaging power it had before,” she said before her three dragons emerged from the lava unharmed. “Plus, being fire lizards, my dragons are immune to lava. And now I begin my attack phase.”

As her armies had already been destroyed, Sunset’s forces quickly moved in on and laid waste to what was left of Twilight’s base as the little purple horse looked on, making Sunset worry if she had made a mistake. “Um...Twilight, you know...my deck is a lot better than yours,” she said. “I had a ton of bits to buy whatever card I wanted. Please don’t freak out over the fact that I beat you!”

“It’s okay Princess,” Twilight told Sunset after looking up from the carnage. “I didn’t expect to beat you anyway. I’ve only ever played against Shiny and he always lets me win. It got boring, so we just stopped playing.”

The mention of Shining Armor made Sunset look up and over to the track, where Cadance just got done lapping him for the third time. Sweat absolutely covered his body as he trudged ahead, the spell Sunset had cast on him beforehand putting a great deal of strain on the poor colt’s muscles.

Sunset was just glad she had long since ordered the military cadets that usually used the training field to stop watching her and Cadance days ago. She knew that there was more admiration and jealousy than lecherous leers from the ponies, but she really didn’t feel comfortable for a bunch of guys and girls watching Cadance run around naked.

She cast a spell to carry her voice over to him, and cleared her throat. “Shiny, what do you say to calling it quits for the night? This is your first time doing this,” Sunset pointed out. “I don’t want you hurting yourself by overdoing it.”

“N-No,” Shining Armor panted as he trudged forward. So much sweat was dripping from his body that it was leaving a followable trail while the pound of cold iron being held by his magic continued to wobble. “I...I can….finish another lap.”

Since it looked like the poor guy was about to collapse under his own weight, which was a good four-hundred-plus pounds thanks to a minor tweak Sunset did to his personal gravity, the amber alicorn teleported in front of him and stopped the colt with a pitiable look. “Shiny, please. Let’s go get cleaned up and have dinner. You’ve pushed yourself plenty today,” she said.

The extremely loud footfalls from a Cadance that was five times her normal weight stopped, then started up again after she turned around to run back to where her lovers were. “Yeah, Shiny. I feel like calling it quits a bit early tonight too.”

Sunset studied Shining Armor for a moment as he looked over to Cadance. From what she could tell, he didn’t seem ecstatic about the offer, but it didn’t get a frown from him either. “You sure you don’t mind?” he asked.

“Shiny,” Cadance said before reaching out to him and wisely stopping short. Altered gravity made things...tricky when it came to touching other ponies. “I love that you want to come and exercise with us and run through some of Sunset’s tests. But if it’s going to cause you to hurt yourself, then I’ll call it quits here and now, understand?”

It took him a minute, but the cold eventually nodded. “Okay...I am pretty sore,” he admitted.

Sunset stepped up to the young stallion to kiss him on the nose and give him a hug. The smell of sweat entering her nostrils gave the alicorn another reason to like being changed from a human and back into a pony. While humans didn’t much like a body’s odor, ponies didn’t mind it at all. The sweat Shiny was coated in just magnified his natural scent and added a bit to the mix, which Sunset sucked in as much as possible when she stepped in to give him a lite hug. “Mmmmm, gotta say, loving this part of the process,” she said before burying her nose in Shiny’s shoulder.

“Okay you two, hungry ponies with empty bellies here,” Cadance reminded them. “Where do you all want to go eat after we clean up?”

“Feel like just heading back to the palace and eating there?” Sunset asked before glancing down at Twilight. For some reason, the little filly just froze up at the mention of the big house.

Cadance let out a contemplative moan. “Well, it’d just be the four of us. Celestia ate dinner early,” she told them. “And she said she had something else she needed to work on when I went there to pick Shiny up for our workout.”

Adding to the mystery, Twilight’s nervousness suddenly vanished. “Oh, well...then we’d...go home?”

“Do you want to spend the night there, Twilly?” Cadance asked her before kneeling down to look her eye to eye. “Shiny’s already had his workout for the night, so he could sleep with you if you wanted. And it would save a little time tomorrow all the other fillies that will be coming to the fair will be coming there too.”

Twilight thought about it for a minute. “Well...okay,” she said before glancing to Sunset. “As long as we don’t have to bother Princess Celestia. I don’t want to keep her from doing anything important.”

After Sunset dispelled the gravity magic around her lovers to return them to their normal weight, the three of them freshened up and had the amber alicorn teleport them to the palace. Sunset decided to use a new marker she placed outside of the main gate because of what happened earlier that day.

Twilight showed both of the princesses the schedule she had spent the entire day at home planning out, then revising after finding out that there would be several more fillies accompanying her and the others.

Then it was time to turn in, and she went to her private quarters with Cadance, who seemed more and more uneasy as they got closer to the bedroom. So by the time Sunset got there and set up her wards in case of a changeling incursion, she couldn’t help but ask about it. “Something wrong?”

“Just a little...butterflies I guess,” Cadance answered before immediately switching topics. “Say, Sunset. That magic you used on the portal to Earth, that was a full spectrum analysis scan, right?”

Sunset blinked at Cadance’s sudden knowledge of such spells. “Um...yeah,” she replied. “Wait, you don’t think I’m going to open a portal to Earth or something, do you?”

Ignoring Sunset’s question, Cadance just went on into another. “And did your scan go past the portal, into Earth?”

“Yes,” Sunset said before giving her fillyfriend an uneasy frown. “Cadance, what’s going on?”

“And you still have the data from that scan stored in your mind? Celestia told me it’s saved in some type of matrix that lasts about a month so you can pick it apart at your leisure,” the pink princess told her. “Did you save the data?”

Although she was starting to become a little uneasy, Sunset nodded. “Yes.”

Cadance took in a deep breath and held it. “Does that include the information you need to turn yourself into a human?”

All of a sudden, everything...became even more confusing. “Yes,” Sunset replied slowly.

After taking in another breath through her nose to steady herself, Cadance stood tall and looked at Sunset in the eye. “Do it.”

Sunset blinked, but decided to trust Cadance and did as she was told. She accessed the information stored in the back of her mind. There was more than just the biological information on human beings of course, analyses of Earth’s atmosphere, the readings from the tear, information Sunset could use to chart the exact rate at which time flowed on Earth relative to Equestria. The amber alicorn just took what she needed and put it into the species-change spell.

The change was slow and painful, not like the nausea followed by an instant switch the mirror caused. Her wings ungrew and hands unfolded from hooves. Hair retreated back into her body, while it grew atop her head. Bones restructured all over so they were of a bipedal configuration, and Sunset found herself looking down at Cadance from even higher up than she had been before.

Sunset slowly clenched and opened her hands as her brain remembered how to use them before she wiggled her toes for a bit while the got used to the change in how humans perceived the world around them. After experiencing it with the enhanced senses of pegasus, the whole thing just seemed a dull comparison to what life was supposed to be like. Colors weren’t as bright, she couldn’t hear the clip clop of hooves outside her door as the palace’s night staff came out to do the majority of the cleaning, and the bland coconut shampoo Cadance had used to wash up with back at the training field no longer reached her nose in sufficient quantities to be detectable.

There was some things that were different from when she had undergone a true transformation, though. She could still feel her magic and the mana flowing throughout the air all around her thanks to the horn jutting out of her temple. On top of that, a sun with a red and gold coloring adorned both sides of her butt. Sunset didn’t know which she found more comforting.

“Huh?” Cadance said as she looked up at the biped’s face. “I thought you said humans didn’t have horns.”

Sunset sighed and sat down on the bed, which was actually a bit higher than what she was used to on Earth thanks to her sleeping arrangements back there being little more than an old mattress on the floor she had salvaged from a Goodwill donation area. “Safety measures. A unicorn would never willingly give up their horn or cutie mark.” She didn’t even know if it was possible to remove those.

All of a sudden, Cadance lifted her nose and sniffed the air. “Oh,” she said before taking another sniff. “Oh my. Sunset, is that you?”

“Huh?” the former alicorn replied before the pink princess stepped forward and pressed her nose into Sunset’s stomach to inhale a deep breath. “C-Cadance! What’re you doing?”

Sunset tried to stand up, but Cadance pushed her back down on the bed with a surprising force amount of force that left her sprawled out on her back and a bit sore in the stomach. “Sorry, I just...Sunset, do all humans smell like this?” she asked before raising her head up a little bit. “And I thought humans didn’t have coats. What’s with that patch of hair above where your legs join?”

A groan escaped from Sunset’s lips. “Okay,” she said before sitting up and rubbing her stomach. “In order, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Humans do grow a little bit of hair on their bodies,” she explained. “And I don’t need you commenting how the rug doesn’t match the drapes!” Sunset had to admit that it was strange how the hair that grew on her body was the same color as her pony coat as opposed to something resembling her hair. “And be more gentle, humans are fragile compared to ponies.”

Cadance’s eyes stopped looking at Sunset’s toes and widened in concern as she looked to the human’s face. “Did I hurt you?” she asked in concern.

“Well...no,” Sunset admitted. “But...well, look. You were jogging around an hour ago, weighing the better three-fourths of a ton. I can’t even lift a hundred and fifty pounds with my hands right now.”

For some reason, the pink pony became very worried. “Okay, that’s...oh, buck!” she exclaimed before pacing back and forth beside the bed. “Okay...okay, let me think here.”

“Cadance,” Sunset said in concern. “What’s going on?”

The pink princess looked up at the human for a moment, then let out a tiny groan, followed by a sigh. “Okay, look. I was talking to Celestia earlier today, after I sent Shiny down to the track and…” Cadance stopped and gave Sunset a hesitant look. “Sunset, you’re still holding a lot of guilt from the time when you were a human, right?”

Sunset blinked as Cadance came to rest her head on Sunset’s lap like a big pink dog to press her nose against the human’s belly. The few hairs on her muzzle tickled Sunset a bit she reached down to scratch Cadance’s ear on instinct. “Well...it’s not as bad as before. But...yeah,” she admitted. “Especially when it’s late at night, and I’m laying there with you and Shiny. I can’t help but think how much I don’t deserve anything I’ve got, about how I should be in Tartarus, or jail cell back on Earth.”

“Ohhhh, that feels good,” Cadance moaned before her whole body jerked and she quickly back away. The pink princess looked to the ear Sunset had been scratching for a moment, then back to the human. “Well, um...like I was saying. I...um, talked to Celestia, and then I started thinking that one of the reasons you’re still feeling guilty is because of the human’s stupid system that’s more interested in punishing creatures for doing wrong than making things right, so I thought that’s what you needed and to help separate your past and present in your mind, I could punish you as a human and now I’m talking really fast and rambling so could you say something please?”

The rush of the sentence that Cadance said took a second for Sunset to work out, but by the time she was done sorting through it, the transformed pony was both nervous and a little...excited. “Are you saying you’re going to...punish me, for all the bad things I did as a human?”

Cadance looked down at the ground the way she always did when she was blushing intensely. “I was thinking of using a paddle,” she confessed. “And the rods of pleasure, but now I’m not sure because I don’t think you’re anywhere near big enough to handle them, and if nudges can knock you down, I really don’t want to know what happens if I actually hit you.”

“Uh...what exactly were you planning to do?” Sunset asked.

The question made Cadance even more embarrassed. “Restrain your hands with crystal cuffs and spank you with a paddle,” she confessed.

Sunset gulped as the image ran through her mind, which quickly transformed to the pink princess pinning her down on the bed before planting one of their sextoys inside of her before she had Sunset suck her horn, then lick her frog like a good little dog...with a restraint around her neck.

Grateful that she hand hands again, Sunset reached up to rub the bridge of her nose as she sighed. “Okay, we’re going to need the dildos, a dog collar, and...hmm, we don’t have any lube, so you’ll need your pet to-”

“S-Sunset!” Cadance cried out in alarm. “What’re you talking about?”

The human looked back to her. “What you’re going to do to me tonight when we have sex,” she explained simply. “Oh, I’ll also need to have an amnesia spell cast on me after we’re done planning. It won’t be as effective if I know what’s coming. Next time, bring a lactation potion too, you can get that question you asked that one time about human milk answered. Plus, I gotta admit, just thinking about you being all masterful with me as a human... it’s getting me a little excited.”

“Your...place?” Cadance asked, her head falling to the side while she looked on in confusion.

“Oh! Don’t forget to do stuff like call me your bitch and a worthless piece of garbage,” she said before getting up to look for something she could transmute into a collar. “I wonder if I should make it with a choke chain?”

Cadance stood by the bed, stunned. “Okay, now I’m even more worried than I was with the paddle idea.”

With it being nearly ten-o’clock, Twilight didn’t take long to fall asleep, leaving Shining Armor awake and alone in the room they had agreed to share, looking at the scroll Princess Celestia had made for him. It still glowed a faint golden color with her magic as it floated in the air on its own.

She had said it would give him answers, but not how it would do that, only that he needed to ask Sunset after he cast it.

The longer he looked at the scroll, the more nervous he felt.

What if it couldn’t help him with his question?

What if it could, and he didn’t like the answer?

What the hay did Sunset have to do with anything?

“Well, only one way to find out, I guess,” he said before channeling his magic into the scroll.

The piece of parchment unrolled before there was a bright flash that blinded Shining Armor and then...he found himself standing in the same room he was before. However, daylight was streaming in through the windows, and Twilight was gone.

There was a minor change to the room as well. Instead of candle holders on the wall, there were what looked like electric lights, which confused Shining Armor. Electricity was hard to generate in large quantities, giving priorities to hospitals and other important institutions that communities needed. Everypony else made do with candles and firefly lights.

“What the?” Shining Armor said before a strange alarm blared in the unicorns ears. “Ahhhh!” He looked around wildly for the source of the noise, then started running to the window in the hopes of learning what was going on, only to have a wall of metal suddenly slide down before he got there, blocking all light from coming into the room.

Shining Armor concentrated to light his horn, which was another reason Canterlot didn’t push very hard to expand its electric grid since unicorns populated the majority of the city. “What’s going-”

The door was suddenly smashed open, and Shining Armor let out a startled cry as a purple dragon twice the size of a pony, with green spikes and wings crashed into the room, carrying what looked like a spear with a crystal head on the end. “Intruder! Get down on your belly and surrender!”

“W-What?” Shining Armor stuttered as he reared up in surprise.

The gem on the end of the dragon’s staff lit up before a lighting bolt shot out to strike the white unicorn. Shining Armor felt his body go numb and he quickly collapsed onto the ground. “Wlgha?” the young stallion tried to say, his mouth not wanting to do what it was told.

“Take him to a cell boys,” the dragon ordered.

With his eyes the only thing that would work like his brain said they should, Shining Armor was only able to watch as a unicorn came in wearing a strange set of crystal armor that covered most of his body to levitate Shining Armor and carry him out of the room. A group of three ponies and one griffon, of all things, surrounded Shining Armor before carrying him down the hall, following the purple dragon.

Because of the ponies surrounding him, Shining Armor couldn’t see anything at eye level, but the stained glass windows that he began as they entered one of the main hallways of the palace were telling enough. The first one showed an amber alicorn standing over a giant blue dragon that was laying on its back on a field of green. The next window depicted a white alicorn facing a black three-tribe pony with a background of gold and blue. The third glass picture depicted six ponies around a strange serpent creature that also had arms and legs. Then there was a window showing a pink alicorn kicking a black unicorn with a red horn in the face with a crystal heart comprising the background. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see the bottoms of the stained glass windows that depicted the resolutions of the historic events.

Then the scenic windows stopped as Shining Armor was carried into a side hallway and down a narrower corridor before coming to a stop at what he recognized as the door to Princess Celestia’s office door.

“Hold here boys,” the dragon said before knocking on the door and opening it a bit.

“Ha-ha! Our warrior doth prove superior to-”

“Princess? We captured-” A surprised shriek came from beyond the door before Shining Armor heard a great deal of hooves striking the ground and things moving around.

“Spike!” a voice that was much too high to be Princess Celestia called out from inside the office. “What did I tell you about knocking?”

The dragon stiffened. “Do it before entering?”

“Get permission first!” the unknown princess exclaimed. “What if I had been in the middle of an important experiment, and you distracted me.”

Spike shrunk in on himself. “I-I’m sorry, Princess,” he apologized. “It’s just, the last time I did, you were on your game station, and you couldn’t hear-”

“Are you implying that I am disregarding my royal duties, playing Fighting is Magic when I should be working?” she demanded.

The purple dragon held up his hands and backed away from the door. “N-No, Princess! Everyone knows how hard you work for the good of the Empire. If anything, you deserve as much downtime as you want.”

Then the dragon retreated a bit more, and Shining Armor caught sight of the princess he was talking to as she came halfway out of the door.

The alicorn that stepped out into the hallway wasn’t one that Shining Armor had ever seen. She was tall, but not overly so, not much more than the bigger stallions. Her mane and tail were a mix of light pink and sky blue that ended in curls the same way Cadance’s tail did and ponytail was starting to. At first, Shining would have called her coat white, but second later his eyes told him it was a very soft pink, while her eyes had a icy quality to them.

There was something a bit odd about her, though. The princess’s horn seemed much more thick as it should have been, and her wings looked like they belonged on a pony twice her size.

The alicorn let out an irritated growl. “Okay, now what did...you,” she said, her volume dropping as she saw the other guards out of the corner of her eye and looked over to where Shining Armor was floating in the middle of the air. “...the hell?”

“Ahem!” Spike said before standing up straight. “Princess, we detected an incursion in the palace and deployed a security team to investigate, apprehending this unknown stallion who set off the alarms. We...um…” The dragon stopped as the alicorn slowly trotted up to Shining Armor to stare at him as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing before the dragon spoke again.

“Princess Flurry Heart?”