“UGH!! I can’t believe you screwed that up, Armour!” yelled Cadence at her fiancé. The soon-to-be couple were in their temporary home in the castle courtyard, the captain’s quarters. “I asked you to do one thing: Pick up the roses from the florist, and send them to the decorator!”

“I did!” said Shining Armour, Captain of the Royal Guard, doing his best to calm Cadence down. “I picked them up on my way back to the castle after I was done my rounds! I made sure he got them!”

“No…” growled Cadence, as she levitated a red flower sitting on a table, her green aura of her magic dragging it to the alicorn. “Do you know what this is?” she asked bluntly.

“A flower?”

“Yes…” she said, putting up an obviously fake smile, “and do you know what kind of flower it is?”

“Umm… A rose?”

“It’s a red carnation!” she yelled, throwing the flower to the ground and stomping it into the floor. She twisted her hoof, grinding the pedals into nothingness.

“But they look almost alike,” gulped Shining Armour. “I thought they were roses, so maybe no pony will notice?” he asked hopefully.

“I NOTICED!!!” Cadence screamed, rocking the entire room with her roar. “Which means that others will noticed that we used the poor-pony flower instead of roses, and they’ll think that we have no sense of class and that I married a barbarian who doesn’t know the difference between a ROSE AND A RED BUCKING CARNATION!!” she yelled, the last bit knocking over a flower pot, the clay shattering on impact.

“I’ll get that,” mumbled Shining, quickly scurrying over to the fallen pot, his, magenta magic picking up the pieces.

“Can’t you do anything right?”

“I’m trying!” muttered Shining, magically teleporting the ruined flower pot away. “Look, I’m sorry about the flowers. I’ve been just as busy too, what with royal guard duties and keeping the shield up around Canterlot.”

Cadence rolled her eyes and groaned. “It’s always something with you, isn’t it?” she jabbed the white stallion in the chest with her hoof. “You need to get your act together, because if our wedding day isn’t absolutely perfect, I am going to lose. My. MIND!”

“O-of course dear!” stuttered Shining, cowering in the menacing shadow that was his bride to be. “I’ll return the flowers first chance I get.”

“Ugh, I can’t even look at you now,” she mumbled, as she headed out the door. “I’m going to check to make sure the table cloths were sent in on time to the castle. Need something to go right today.”

“Okay,” nodded Armour as he watched Cadence head out the front door. “I love you!”

SLAM!!

“… Do you love me back?”

Shining Armour let out a heavy sigh, slumping onto the hardwood floor. He looked around in the emptiness of his home. He had been captain of the royal guards for only a few years, as the old captain had retired and now resided somewhere in Trottingham, where he was living with his children and grandchildren.

The stallion gave a little chuckle at that thought, he remembered of a talk the two of them had, a few days before he had asked Cadence to marry him.

“Remember son, you get one shot with love. Screw it up and you’ll lose her forever… That’s what happened to me, and I don’t want to see a good colt like you to end up in a loveless relationship like this old fool. Find your special somepony and never let her go! Celestia made a mare for every stallion, and a stallion for every mare. I believe this strongly Shining, and I know you will find her,” the captain had once said.

“But how will I know?” he had once asked.

“Well,” the captain had chuckled, “that’s the beauty of it. There is no right way of knowing. However, in my years, I have learned that when I am alone, I can ask myself questions, the most important one being…”

“Do I love her?” Shining asked himself. His old captain had once told him to ask that question honestly and truly to himself, and that his heart would answer back. That night when he asked Cadence to marry him, his heart had screamed yes. Now, after months of cakes, ribbons, flowers and wine tasting, he found himself to be in the presence of a different mare entirely, no longer the mare he had thought to be in love with.

“Well Shining? Do you love her?” his captain’s voice echoed through his head.

“I—I don’t know…” he sighed. Was this it? Was the spark of his marriage gone before it was ignited? Was this new Cadence here to stay? All these thoughts and more rang through his head like bells, not helping the already growing migraine in his temple, the stress of the wedding and the constant duty of keeping the shield up around Canterlot was tearing his skull into two. He needed to kill the pain immediately.

He decided to head into the market district, maybe get something to eat and pick up the roses.

He took a deep breath of fresh air as he walked out into the sunny day. There was a slight pink tint to the air, from the massive shield protecting Canterlot. It had been a week after he proposed to Cadence when the threat had been reported, and ever since then he had been keeping up the shield. It was actually a little funny, because roughly around the same time, Cadence had started to act the way she was: moody, highly irritable, and at times just straight up rude. He had thought it was suspicious at one time…

“Yeah right,” he droned. Cadence was just stressed out, having to plan a wedding almost entirely by herself, and he certainty wasn’t much help. “Red carnations…” he grumbled. How could he have been so stupid? Well, he did have another one of his headaches, and must have grabbed the wrong order. It was all this stupid shield’s fault! If it wasn’t for that threat, the princess wouldn’t have asked him to conjure the shield and him and Cadence could plan the wedding together.

But did he still want to get married to her? What if she didn’t become normal again? If she would remain bitter and mean, would he ever be happy? Could he do that to himself? Forced to live a life he hates because he feared the consequences, however brief they may be? He groaned as another pulse of pain rippled through his cranium. He was thinking too much, and he’d go insane if he didn’t get this headache dealt with, and soon.

“Joe’s Donuts,” he smiled, licking his lips as he entered the icing scented establishment, walking up to the short line that had formed in the bakery. He patiently waited behind a family of three, the little filly fidgeting with anticipation for her upcoming treat.

Kids. Shining Armour loved them. One day he planned to have one of his own, a son to raise noble and strong, or a daughter to teach to be kind and caring. Heck, who’s say he wouldn’t have two, or maybe even three?

Cadence, that’s who. For an ex-foalsitter, she no longer seemed to enjoy the little tykes anymore. Shining had tried to bring the conversation up, but would be immediately bombarded with hisses and curses. Cadence apparently had had her fill of kids with his little sister Twilight, and didn’t want to be, as she putted it ‘A swarm of mindless drones’. In fact, he hadn’t even been touched in over three months, another thing that was not helping his stress.

“Two white powered donuts with rainbow sprinkles, please,” Shining said to Donut Joe, dropping four bits onto the counter in exchange for a brown sack with the store’s logo on it. “Thank you,” he mumbled, taking the bag in his mouth and walking to an empty booth by the window. The white stallion levitated one of the deep fried doughy rings of flavour, taking a big bite into the powdery surface. It tasted like paradise.

“Hey look, you bought me one? That was nice of you!” giggled a strangely familiar voice.

Shining Armour almost choked on his donut as he turned around, eyes almost popping out of his head when he saw who it was.

“Lyra? Lyra Heartstrings?” garbled Shining, his mouth still full of donut.

“Who else?” grinned the mint green unicorn, “Long time no see, eh?”

Oh, how right she was. It had to of been--what--two years since he had last saw his silver maned friend? Lyra had moved away to pursue her music career; she was quite talented with the harp, and she left Canterlot with nothing but a head full of dreams, and a harp on her back, and then she was gone…

But now she was back, and he couldn’t be happier.

“Well?” asked Lyra, leaning down on the small table, “aren’t you going to ask me to sit down?”

Shining shook his head from his little trance. “Y-Yeah, sure,” he baffled as the green mare took a seat across from him. “So what brings you back into town? I would have thought you’d be some big shot in Manehattan by now.”

“Yeah…” sighed Lyra, still not dropping her smile. “That didn’t really pan out as plan.”

“Oh… sorry.”

“Hey it’s no big deal,” she laughed, reaching over to and picking up the other donut. “Do you mind?” she asked, Shining shook his head as the mare took a bite out of the powdery donut. “Thanks. Anyhooves I found a sweet little gig in a small town not too far from here. Ever heard of Ponyville?”

“Yeah, my sister lives there!”

“Really? Twily’s there? How is she?”

“I haven’t spoken to her in a while,” he admitted. “Been keeping myself busy with guard duties and the—“

“And the wedding,” finished Lyra, licking her hoof clean from the last of the powder. “That’s why I’m here!”

“You came to watch the wedding?” asked Armour, swallowing up the rest of his donut.

“Better, said Lyra, a big grin creeping on her face. “I’m going to be Cadence’s mare of honour!”

“Really? That’s fantastic!” smiled Shining.

“Well, we’re all friends back in the day…you know, until I moved…” sighed the mint green pony, a hint of sadness in her voice. “But then you get up and get married! And with a princess, no less!” she laughed, “How is Miss Cadenza these day anyways?”

“Honestly…” grumbled Shining, looking down at the table. “Not so great. She’s changed a lot over the past three months. She has had to plan the wedding all by herself because I’m too focus on keeping this shield up.”

“That sucks…” moaned Lyra. “Do you want me to talk to her? See what has her tail in a knot?”

“I know why she’s so irritable right now. There’s been a lot of stress and me not being any use isn’t helping. I’ve tried being calm and collected, but I think I’m slowly losing it!”

“Sounds like a little too much. You guys should try and relieve some stress,” suggested the mint shaded pony.

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly, what I mean, Shiny,” winked Lyra.

“Oh…” gulped Shining, his cheeks quickly becoming pink. “You mean that…”

“What else could I mean?”

“I don’t know. Yoga? Massage? Tea?” muttered the white stallion. “But she hasn’t touched me since the night I proposed…”

“Daaaaaang!” gasped Lyra, her mouth falling open and her left eye scrunching up. “That really sucks! No wonder you’re so wound up.”

“Tell me about it…” grumbled the white unicorn.

“Well, my offer still stands,” said Lyra. “I can have a chat with her, maybe see what bug crawled up her butt.”

“Funny…” sighed Shining, looking up at Lyra. “You really think you can calm her down?”

“Can’t make things worse,” she winked, getting up from the table. “Well, I gotta run. Things to meet, ponies to do!” she laughed. “We should hang out while I’m in town. You know, when you aren’t too busy?”

“Maybe. Where are you staying?” asked Shining.

“Ponylodge, room seven,” she said as she was trotting out the door of Joe’s Donuts. “Drop by anytime, my door is always open to an old friend!”

“I’ll remember that!” called out Armour, as he watched Lyra disappear past the glass door, and down the busy streets of Canterlot.

Lyra…

“Well son? Do you love the mare your with?”