Shining Armor and Night Light led Soft Soap into the royal quarters. The cub reporter gawked about a bit; he seemed surprised at the decor. "Something about the royal apartments got your attention?" Shining asked, amused.

Soft Soap shrugged. "It just all seems rather... low key, I guess is the phrase I want," he said. "I mean, it's all very nice and spacious, but you wouldn't think royalty was living here. You couldn't tell this area apart from a penthouse suite in uptown Canterlot."

Shining gave a half-shrug of his own. "The princess and I grew up in Canterlot," he said. "We wanted our personal space to be more like home, for comfort's sake. And it didn't make any sense to cram it full of expensive bric-a-brac. It'd just be more stuff for the staff to dust. A well-made modern table holds up our breakfast plates as well as an antique one would." He looked back at the reporter. "So what brings an Equestrian pegasus reporter out to the Crystal Empire in the first place?"

Soft Soap puffed out his chest a bit. "Branch office," he said. "Our paper is the fastest growing publication in Equestria.. and the home office wants to add the Crystal Empire to that list, and I was one of the first reporters picked for the Crystal Empire branch."

"Well, good for you I suppose. Bit of a promotion?"

"Ahem. Well, a, ah, lateral move anyway---" Soft Soap said, averting his eyes with a cough. Shining traded a glance with Night Light but neither of them commented.

They came to the door of the study. Shining cracked the door open and peeked in; Soft Soap could hear voices and music and saw a light flickering, but he had no clue what it was. "Ah, looks like it'll be over in about ten minutes or so," Shining said cryptically. He noticed Soft Soap's puzzled look and explained. "I rented a movie projector. Nyx and I went to the premiere of that 'There and Back Again' movie but we had to miss the last half of it. I decided to make it up to her. She and her friend Bright Eyes are getting their own private screening." He grinned. "No point in being Prince Consort if you can't splurge a little, right? Come on in, grab a seat."

They crept inside. There was a projector set up in the middle of the darkened room. Two foals, a colt and a filly, were seated in the floor, an enormous bowl of popcorn between them. They were staring up at the screen on the wall, utterly enraptured, hoof-fuls of popcorn hovering in front of their mouths. On the sofa behind them sat a purple unicorn mare... it had to be no other than Twilight Sparkle, the mare who was leading the expedition to unearth the lost tomb of the Chancellor. Holy smokes, he might actually get two stories out of this! Next to her sat an older lavender mare with a purple and white mane, and a small dragon who was munching his way through a bowl of rhinestones. It was, despite the circumstances, the very picture of a close family sharing some quality time together.

The black filly glanced over as they entered. "Grampa, Uncle Shining, come on, you're gonna miss the ending!" Chuckling, the two stallions took seats in overstuffed chairs nearby. Soft Soap took a seat on a nearby chair himself, watching in fascination as the tiny black filly that everypony had told him was Nightmare Moon gasped and thrilled to a cinematic fairy story along with her friend.  At one point (when the diamond dog warlord had the heroes cornered on the branches of a tree overhanging a cliff) she even squealed and clinched the colt in a terrified hug, popcorn flying everywhere. It was too cute to bear.

The credits finally started rolling, to subdued cries of disappointment from the foals. "Wait, that's it?" the dragon pup said from his perch on the couch. "c'mon, they're not even halfway there yet!"

"Well it is the first of three movies," Shining Armor pointed out, amused.

"Really? Aw man, now we gotta wait..."

"Worse," Nyx lamented. "It's a book, too. Now we either gotta wait and wait and wait for the next movie to see how it ends-- or read the book and spoil the movie."

"I've read the book," the unicorn colt offered. "It--"

Two ebon hooves covered his mouth. "No spoilers!" Nyx said frantically.

Shining watched with an indulgent smile as the two foals goofed around, giggling. He brought the lights up with a wave of his horn while Waldorf Salad proceeded to shut down the movie projector. "Ahem. Nyx?"

The filly turned around and looked up at him dutifully. "Yes, Uncle Shiny?"

" Everypony? There's somepony here I'd like you to meet," Shining said. He gestured to a pony sitting nearby. Nyx started in surprise as she realized there was somepony else in the room. It was a yellow pegasus with a messy brown mane and a funny looking sort of squashed hat... what did Rarity call them, "Pork Pies?".... tipped back on his head. He waved a hoof at her and smiled.  

"Um, hello," Nyx said uncertainly.

"This is Soft Soap," Uncle Shining said. "He's a reporter for the, ah--"

"The Trans Equestria Chronicle," Soft Soap provided.

"Right. And he wants to do an interview with Nyx." Shining Armor shifted in his seat.

This seemed to light a firecracker under the two mares. They both started in surprise and made expressions of disapproval. Soft Soap did his best to sit still and look inoffensive while the mares glared at him.

The younger of the two got to her feet and confronted the Consort Prince. "A reporter?" she scowled. "Shiney, what are you thinking?"

Shining Armor got to his feet and pulled Twilight to the side. The two of them held a muttered conversation. Soft Soap couldn't hear what they said, but the words "trust me" were pretty clear. They returned after a few seconds, Shining looking calm and Twilight looking less than happy.. but she raised no further objections.

Nyx was scrutinizing the reporter, squinting suspiciously. "Aren't you the one they fished out of the chimney last week?" she said.

"Ah, no." Soft Soap said, blinking. "Seriously? They were climbing down the chimney?"

"That's nothing, we found three hiding in the rubbish bins," Night Light said drolly.

"Anyway," Shining said, interrupting. "He wants to write a story about you." He cocked an eyebrow. "If that's all right with you?"

Nyx looked wary. "But I thought it would be bad if the newspapers started telling stories about us," she said uncomfortably.

"This is going to be different, sweetheart," Grandpa Night Light said, smiling. "We're going to make sure he gets it right." There was a strangled cough from Soft Soap, but he said nothing.

The filly regarded him skeptically, but finally nodded. "Okay," she said doubtfully. "...Where do you want me to start?"

Soft Soap gave a little sigh of relief. He pulled out a pencil, a pad of paper and a tape recorder, which he started and set down on the arm of his chair between them. "Well, my mother always said that the best place to start is the beginning," he said in a jovial tone. "I've never had to ask this of anypony before... tell me, how did you and your mother meet?"

A chuckle went round the room. "I think I should probably fill you in on that first," Twilight said. She crossed her hooves in front of her and got ready to relate the tale.

They all sat there for over an hour while Nyx told Soft Soap about, gosh, her whole life, it seemed like. (Well, with Mom and Spike filling some parts in.)  He was a really good audience, too; he even  gasped at the scary or exciting parts, and said awww at the sad parts, and smiled at the happy parts. His pencil never stopped moving, except when he paused to ask questions or go back over something.(1)  

Bright Eyes wasn't a bad audience either. His jaw hung lower and his eyes went rounder by the second as Nyx, Twilight and Uncle Shining told Nyx's story.

Soft Soap had a lot of surprising questions for everyone, even for Bright Eyes. For a while Nyx thought they'd be talking all day, but Soft Soap finally put away his pencil. "I think that covers every possible thing," he said, flipping through his notes. "Wow, what a story. This is prizewinning stuff, I tell ya." To the gathered ponies' surprise, he pulled a typewriter-- an actual typewriter-- out of his saddlebags, scrolled a sheet of paper into it, and started typing. After a few seconds he looked up from the keyboard and realized that everypony was staring at him. He halted and grinned sheepishly. "Um, perhaps I should wait until I get back to my place to type this all down," he said, setting the typewriter aside. "Ahem."

"Well, so long as we get to see the rough draft before it goes out," Shining reminded him.

"Oh of course," Soft Soap said. He pulled out his camera and grinned. "But before I go I'd like to get a few photos to go with the story. I'd especially like to get a few photos of Nyx reading her fan mail."

Nyx blinked. "I have fanmail?"

"All of this is for me?"

Nyx gaped with undisguised glee at the piles of presents, packages and letters. The servants had brought the mail in and sorted it into piles by recipient; Cadence, Shining Armor, Twilight, and even Spike had received some(2)-- to their surprise there had even been a handful of letters to Bright Eyes.(3) But Nyx's pile was indisputably the largest.

Everypony, even Soft Soap, chuckled at that. "Yes, yes they are," Shining Armor said.

Nyx look of glee suddenly melted away to one of consternation. She looked over the pile of envelopes, packages and baskets. "Oh wow," she said. "Writing the 'thank you' cards is gonna take forever...!"