"They're called orgasms, Rainbow Dash." Cadance tapped her pencil against her notepad, the books lining her office walls and the thick carpet perfect for muffling the sound. "And they're nothing to be ashamed of." "I know, I know!" Rainbow flipped into a hover above the couch, little lightning flashes popping the air around her. "And I'm [i]not[/i] ashamed of, y'know, that happening." As much as she wanted to arch an eyebrow, Cadance didn't. Instead, she put on her best neutral but encouraging smile the way she always did and wondered just how many more sessions it might take till Rainbow actually started to believe the things that came out of her mouth. "I mean," Rainbow was going on, her wings a blur behind her, "when Mac and I, y'know, do it, it's, like, the best thing ever! [i]Ever![/i]" She flailed both her front legs. "He's, like, always so gentle and patient and gorgeous! But I...I'm a good filly! And Poppa always said that good fillies, they...they don't [i]like[/i] doing...that! But when I'm with Mac, I...I [i]love[/i] it! I don't [i]want[/i] to love it, but I do! And...and...and—" Her eyes started wavering. "And why does Mac want anything to do with a pony so screwed up in the head as me?" Cadance had already set down her pencil and was using her magic to lift a box of tissues toward Rainbow. But she was too late: Rainbow burst into tears, her wails becoming more strident and more high-pitched till— Snapping awake, Cadance bolted upright in bed, Flurry Heart's peevish crying from her crib across the room mixing with the remnants of her dream and making her blink. "Honey?" The word came slurred from Shining in the dark beside her. "You got that?" "I—" It took her two or three more blinks before she could get out, "Yes, I...I do." [hr] "It was the oddest thing." Cadance sipped the oatmeal from her spoon. "Do you recall Twilight saying anything about Rainbow Dash being interested in Applejack's brother?" Shining shook his head. "Frankly, I always thought she was more likely to be interested in Applejack." He gave her a wink and pushed away from the table, his magic plucking his helmet from its stand by the door. "It's Wednesday, so I'll be out marching the new recruits around. I should be back in time for supper, though." He leaned down, touched a kiss to her cheek, said, "Love you, Honey," and turned to go. "Dreams're just weird, but maybe your Aunt Luna can help." "Maybe." She conjured up a kiss bubble and flicked it from the tip of her horn to pop against the back of his head just as he reached the door, a glowing pink lip-print appearing in the blue of his mane. "Love you, too, Pookums!" He staggered like he'd been hit with a rock, grinned over his shoulder, stepped out into the hallway, and pulled the door closed behind himself. Cadance finished her oatmeal, nodded her thanks to Cloves the butler waiting by the side door, then headed upstairs to her new office next to the nursery. Her gaze went to the vials of dragonfire she kept beside her correspondence, but no. It was just one odd dream. Nothing she needed to bother Luna about. Except— It had been so [i]vivid[/i]. She could still see the layout of the room in her mind's eye, could still smell the gardenias that had been arranged in the vase on the table beside her, could still feel the jagged outlines of Rainbow's love for Big Macintosh as clearly as she could feel the various loves of the palace staff bobbing and weaving all around her. With a shrug, she took the top file from her stack of reports, settled at her desk, and got to work. [hr] "And how does that make you feel?" Cadance asked, bracing herself for the answer that question always sparked. "Feel?" Fluttershy slammed one hoof into the couch's cushion, her lips pulled back to show more teeth than Cadance thought a pony ought to have. "How the hell do you [i]think[/i] it makes me feel? 'Cause I can hear 'em, y'know! Hear 'em laughing behind their hooves when I walk by!" She leaped into her own sort of hover, much shakier than Rainbow's, her whole body seeming to vibrate. "And [i]that's[/i] what I wanna feel, you hear me? My fucking hoof smashing their fucking skulls! But no!" She pointed to her own chest. "I'm the nice one, aren't I? Always the meek and mild one! Always the—!" Something buzzed in her ear, made Cadance jump, her wings spreading and her head snapping from side to side. "Your Majesty?" a tinny voice was saying, and Cadance found herself staring at the little magical intercom she'd installed on her desk when she'd moved her office up here from its former spot just off the throne room so she could be nearby if the nanny called saying that Flurry Heart needed her for any sort of— "Your Majesty?" the voice said again, shocking her back into focus. "Yes!" Reaching out, Cadance slapped the spot to activate the intercom. "Yes, Liquid Amber, what is it?" "Your eleven o'clock meeting, My Lady." "Eleven—?" She blinked, snapped her gaze up to the clock on the wall, saw the hands pointing to five minutes after eleven though it hadn't even been eight-thirty the last time she'd looked. "Yes! Yes, I'll...I'll be right down!" Leaping to her hooves, she stared at the file open on her desk—the first one she'd taken from her stack—then scrambled through the pile, found the agriculture minister's report that she certainly should've gotten to by now, shook her head to clear it, opened her wings, and took off for the back stairway. [hr] "How are you today, Pinkie?" Cadance asked though she wasn't quite sure why she bothered. "Hmmmm?" Pinkie lay strewn over the couch like a disused rag doll. "I dunno," she said, her voice as thick and slow as molasses. "What day [i]is[/i] it?" "Well, what days do we have our sessions, Pinkie?" "Hmmmm?" One ear flicked in that bubble gum bramble of a mane. "Are we having a session?" "Yes, Pinkie." Her own voice carefully warm and modulated, Cadance took a breath. "And since we have our sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays, what day do you think it might be?" "Hmmmm?" Flopping her head over, Pinkie actually blinked, something Cadance thought she'd maybe seen three times in their sessions so far. "Thursday's nice, y'know?" Cadance leaned forward. "And why's that?" An expression that might someday become a smile started creeping across Pinkie's snout. "'Cause if you stop saying it right at the beginning, you get—" Her tongue shot out, and she blew a wet and slobbery raspberry straight into Cadance's face. Startled, Cadance hitched backward in her chair and tipped right over onto the floor, crystal cold against her, the ceiling of the palace's private dining room sparkling above her. But her office ceiling was textured wood, and the floor was carpeted... "Your Majesty!" Cloves rushed into her field of vision, and she came back to herself, her [i]real[/i] self, the self that had faked her way through the agriculture minister's meeting—fortunately, they were always the same, the way the minister was either complaining about too much rain or not enough—then had stopped in here for a quick sandwich before heading back up to her office, her [i]real[/i] office, the one with all the paperwork she hadn't gotten to this morning. Cloves was blinking down at her, so she pushed herself to her hooves and cleared her throat. "Cloves? Can you please tell me what you saw just now?" His eyes always bulged a little, but now they bulged a lot. "Whatever you want me to have seen, Your Majesty." "No." She rubbed her forehead. "I want to [i]know[/i], Cloves. I came in here, sat down, and you brought me my lunch." She gestured to the sandwich on its crystal plate, a single bite taken from it. "Then what happened?" His distress became a salty stink in her nose. "You...you nodded off, Your Majesty," the butler said, barely opening his mouth. "I can only imagine how difficult it must be, administering the entire empire while also seeing to the needs of the newborn princess, so I decided I'd not wake you till the top of the hour if you were still asleep then. But a few moments later, you cried out, leaped up, and...and fell over, My Lady." Cadance's breathing was slowly coming back to a reasonable rate. "All right," she said, not sure if she was talking to Cloves, herself, or her unseen aunt who had to be lurking around somewhere. Cloves had already righted her chair with his magic, and she took another few breaths before seating herself. "Thank you, Cloves. Could I ask you for one more favor?" "Anything, Your Majesty." She nodded to Shining's chair on the other side of the small, round table. "Sit with me, please, while I eat, and tell me about your day." The butler's eyes bulged even further. "My day, Your Majesty?" Wracking her brain, she came up with some information about him. "Your wife, Amethyst Ridge, then. Is she still the scheduling supervisor at the jade quarry?" "Why, yes, Your Majesty!" His face lit up, and Cadance finished her sandwich talking with a real pony about his real life and the lives of his real loved ones. [hr] "And why do you say that?" Cadance asked, absolutely sure that she didn't want to know the answer. "Because it's true!" Hearing Applejack's Manehattan accent jarred Cadance at every session. "The sort of riff-raff one is forced to associate with in these rural regions, why, it quite takes my breath away." A smile spread across Applejack's face as thin and nasty as a slice from a straight razor. "Of course, the [i]aroma[/i] of these bumpkins is more often the cause of [i]that[/i] particular effect." With a shiver, Applejack reached for the bottle of hoof sanitizer beside the box of tissues and pumped a dollop onto her fetlock. "I swear, I can hear the germs breeding on their filthy hides!" Swallowing every other comment that came to her, Cadance asked, "Really?" "No, not really." The look Applejack gave her absolutely dripped with condescension. "It was a metaphor: [i]do[/i] try to keep up, won't you?" A sneeze jerked Cadance sideways this time, and her blurry vision focused on Flurry Heart lolling in the bed beside her and sucking one rear hoof. "Your Majesty?" a worried voice asked, and she looked over to see Bauxite, the afternoon nanny, tucking a new blanket into Flurry's crib. "Forgive me, ma'am, but are you getting enough sleep?" "Too much," Cadance muttered. Giving Flurry a kiss, she set her jaw and rolled out of bed. "Thank you for asking, Bauxite," she said at a more normal volume. "I'm just going to see somepony about that, actually." Stepping into the hallway, she moved to her office, grabbed a quill and parchment and a vial of dragonfire, and— [hr] "Did you try?" Cadance asked, somehow not grinding her teeth. "Try?" Rarity gave a laugh that Cadance was sure could've cracked a mirror with a little training. "And how would you suggest I do [i]that?[/i]" Rather than mentioning any of the pamphlets she knew of that addressed the self-esteem issues—or the possible bipolar disorder—Rarity exhibited so often during their sessions, Cadance instead said, "Surely by this time you must have some thoughts on the matter." "Thoughts?" Rarity swept a hoof through the air. "I've got nothing [i]but[/i] thoughts, not a one of which is at all useful! I mean, to start with, where does one start? A pair of scissors held aloft in my magic, a wide, clean, fresh stretch of fabric before me, and I freeze! What is the first cut to make? And if I choose incorrectly, what do I do then? Go through all the rigmarole of unrolling a [i]new[/i] wide, clean, fresh stretch of fabric just so I can probably make a similarly incorrect first cut once again?" It took some effort not to shout it, but Cadance managed to make that effort. "Don't you have patterns? Design notes that will guide you to—?" "Notes?" Somehow, Rarity's words were coming out even more shrilly. "And where should I start with [i]them[/i], hmm? What's the first line to draw on a pattern?" Cadance couldn't help wincing, her ears folding at Rarity's screeching bombardment. "And how can I in good conscience waste page after page of parchment, all of them with the wrong first line on them, when—?" Glass shattered, and Cadance couldn't see, couldn't breathe, green and black smoke and fire swirling around her. "Your Majesty!" several voices called, and magic grabbed her, pulled her back, her eyes clearing enough to show a small but sturdy blaze licking at the front of her desk. A guard rushed past her, the wind from his beating wings blowing out the flames, and Cadance rolled her head to see a second wide-eyed guard holding her aloft. "We heard a thump and a crash, ma'am," he said, licking his lips. "Did...did you trip?" His horn flickered, and Cadance felt the floor under her hooves again. "I—" She stopped, her thoughts swirling and spinning like snowflakes in a blizzard. None of this made any sense! What was Aunt Luna doing? Unless...unless Aunt Luna had nothing to do with it. Had something gone wrong somewhere? Was Aunt Luna trying to send her a message? But what did it means? What could she do? Where could she—? Catching her breath, Cadance nodded to the guard. "Thank you. I'll also ask you please to run and tell Liquid Amber that I'll need the royal locomotive prepared and the tracks cleared between here and Ponyville. I'm afraid there might be an emergency." [hr] With Twilight sitting in a lump on the couch, her brow wrinkled and her gaze focused on the floor, Cadance almost leaped from her chair, threw her notebook away, and raced for the door. Because as awful as the others were, none of them could compare to her sister-in-law when it came to— "You'd think," Twilight muttered, her shoulders so tight under her hide, Cadance was sure she would clatter like rattan if she moved, "that I'd be [i]used[/i] to it after all this time. But I'm not." Her wings flared. "I mean, how [i]could[/i] I be?" Cadance shivered, forcing her ears not to fold shut. "I mean—" Twilight's head snapped up, and her eyes were twisted, burning cesspools. "They come into my castle all smiling and laughing like...like they think they're real ponies! It's all I can do not to vomit right there! That damn snow-white hornhead, I swear, if she calls me 'darling' one more time, I'm gonna snap the thing off and shove it so far up her ass, she'll hafta face backwards to cast a spell!" She pounded a hoof into the couch. "Hornheads are the worst, the absolute worst! They can almost trick you into thinking they're real ponies if you let them!" [i]Go away,[/i] Cadance wanted to say. [i]Please just...just go away...[/i] "And those dusters flapping around." Twilight gave a smile like the crack in the shell of a rotten walnut. "At least they're good for getting the cobwebs outta those hard-to-reach corners, right?" Her smile shriveled into a sneer. "Not like those stinking mud-bloods! Things're vermin, creeping and crawling everywhere! It's all I can do not to call the exterminator whenever those two come—" A steam whistle shrieked, and Cadance did as well, throwing herself to her hooves in the aisle of her still and empty train car, a frantic glance showing her Ponyville station outside the windows. Gasping, she rushed for the door, desperate to see and talk to the [i]real[/i] Twilight, to exorcise the image of that horrible mockery from her mind. The door slid open just as Cadance reached it, and standing there, her mane flowing like the deepest winter midnight, Aunt Luna seemed to fill the frame, her eyes half-closed and looking down at Cadance. "Yes," Aunt Luna said, her voice cold and quiet. "It [i]is[/i] rather horrible, isn't it?" "You...know?" Cadance stared up at her, and anger began heating her middle. "Why are you doing this to me, Auntie?" A tiny smile pulled Aunt Luna's muzzle, and Cadance was suddenly sitting again, a desk between herself and her aunt, nothing but dark and billowing clouds shifting all around them. "You have a great talent, Cadance, and you've used it to good effect here and there." She waved a hoof lazily, and an image of a teen-aged Cadance and Shining Armor laughing with little Twilight flickered in and out of the shadows. "But you're an adult now." An image of Flurry Heart appeared and disappeared. "And I rather think it's time you graduated to something larger." Her mind racing as quickly as her heart, Cadance struggled to find words. "So you want me to...what? Become some sort of psychiatrist?" Luna leaned forward, her forelegs folded atop the desk. "The nightmares I've been sending you: what disturbed you the most about them?" "Nightmares?" Cadance clung to the word. "You mean they weren't...weren't real? Weren't actual visions of, I don't know, deeply hidden truths or anything like that?" Sitting back, Luna shrugged. "We all have a [i]certain[/i] amount of unpleasantness inside us, don't we?" Cadance didn't try to stop her jaw from dropping. "You mean Fluttershy's really a sociopath? Twilight's really—?" "Answer my question first, niece, for I tell you truly that the future of Equestria may hang in the balance." Luna pressed her front hooves together in front of her crescent moon breastplate. "What disturbed you the most about my little scenarios?" Not really wanting to, Cadance cast her mind back. "Honestly?" She shook her head. "The way I was acting in them." The feelings each dream had inspired flooded over her. "I was being so cynical and uninterested: snarky, even! It was like...like I didn't think I could help, so I didn't even want to [i]try[/i] anymore! Friends of mine were obviously in trouble, and I was just...just sitting there wishing their hour was up!" Closing her eyes, she swallowed. "I might not be the best choice for this, Auntie. Whatever this is, I mean..." A warm hoof touched hers, and Cadance looked up to see that they were back in her train car, sunlight streaming from outside, Luna sitting on the cushioned bench beside her. "In truth, you've just revealed yourself to be the perfect choice." Luna stretched and yawned. "You would never act the way you did in those nightmares any more than Twilight and her friends would act the way they did." Her ears perked to hear that, but Cadance forced herself to scowl. "Then maybe we can stop with the games, Luna, and you can tell me what exactly is it you want from me?" The air crackled, and when Luna swung her head around to meet Cadance's gaze, every long century of her aunt's life seemed to resound in her voice. "I want you to become my partner in keeping Equestria safe from destruction," she said. "Me?" Cadance could only stare for a moment. "But surely Aunt Celestia is—" "Feh!" Luna flicked a hoof. "My sister knows nothing of this, nothing of the [i]truth[/i]." Sighing, she rubbed the base of her horn. "In fact, it's because I love her so dearly that I will never reveal these secrets to her." Her head snapped around again. "And [i]you[/i] will never reveal them, either, not to your husband, not to your sister-in-law, not to anypony." Now that her pulse had almost slowed to normal, Cadance let a little impatience start burning inside her again. "Reveal [i]what[/i] to them, Auntie?" Luna sighed again. "All my life, I've been doing what I can to keep Equestria happy and family friendly and, well, 'rated E for Everypony' is the phrase I've heard whispered on the winds of legend. When I sensed a greater degree of malice or unhappiness in a pony's dreams than seemed appropriate, I would do what I could to guide the dreamer back to understanding and contentment." Not sure what else to do, Cadance asked, "And this has kept Equestria safe?" "It has." Something dry and ashen came into Luna's fresh water scent. "But in the thousand years I was away, Equestria got so much larger, so much more complex and interesting. Functioning solely in the realm of dreams, I can't do everything that needs doing anymore. I need a pony who can walk and talk with our subjects in the sunlight, who can feel what they're feeling and help lead them away from thoughts and actions that run contrary to the correct standards and proper practices. For my studies of the realms beyond our own have convinced me that such thoughts and actions might very well jeopardize our world's continued existence." That tiny smile returned to her snout. "What I'm saying, niece, is that I need [i]you[/i]." Again, Cadance tried to think. She'd gotten to know Luna's sense of humor quite well over the past few years, but the love that wafted around her aunt at the moment had nothing to do with pranks or quips or the sly sort of mischief she delighted in. This love was much stronger, possibly more solid and serious than any love Cadance had ever felt: large enough maybe—and the thought made her swallow again—to encompass the whole world and all the ponies in it... "All I'm asking of you," Luna went on, "is that, when I send to your attention certain ponies who need the sort of warmth and love my dream realm isn't quite set up to convey, you simply treat them as you would any pony who came to you for help." She cocked her head. "What say you, niece?" Still unsure, Cadance decided to go with her gut. "I'll accept. Under one condition." Luna blinked. "And that it?" She jabbed a hoof squarely against her aunt's breastplate. "This little test of yours—or whatever it was—alarmed several ponies who are very dear to me, upset every train schedule from here to the Crystal Empire, and took me away from my baby daughter for nearly the entire day! Ponies have lives, Auntie, and disrupting them the way you've disrupted mine is unacceptable! So yes, I'll help however I can with whatever unhappy ponies you might send my way, but you will [i]not[/i] cause this sort of turmoil to any other pony ever again! Is that understood?" For a moment, Cadance's breath puffing in and out seemed to be the only sound in the carriage. Then Luna threw back her head and laughed. "Excellently said, Cadance! I will offer you and yours my heartfelt apologies, accept your condition, and hereby announce that you and I will be doing wonderful work together!" Luna's eyes flashed, and— [hr] With another gasp, Cadance sat up. Dawn glowed at the curtains, and Shining stood across the room at Flurry Heart's crib, their daughter yawning as tendrils of his magic fastened her into a fresh diaper. "It's okay, Honey." He gave her a grin. "I got her. You go back to sleep." "I—" She looked quickly at the wall calendar, saw it was Wednesday, realized that she hadn't lost a day after all, and settled back against the pillows with a smile. "Thanks, Pookums. I was just having a long chat with Aunt Luna, apparently."