That or... they don't want to have their emotions read about what they're going get up to while Cadance is foalsitting their filly, making the whole thing awkward.
You know, that last one actually makes tremendous sense.
I can totally see Cadance being obnoxiously and vocally supportive of their 'private time, wink-wink, nudge-nudge'. I won't say that she has no filter or a one-track mind, but she's definitely enthused by her 'special talent' and keen to talk about it. Between that and Twilight's natural inquisitiveness, it's a conversational minefield that could at best draw out their farewell a lot longer than they'd like.
They may also have wanted to avoid laughing at her and Twilight's greeting ritual.
Twilight had gone from adorably enthusiastic to distressingly upset in the span of about two minutes, and I had absolutely not signed up for the latter. I did know a possible solution to the problem, though.
"Hey, want to learn how to terrify bullies into leaving you alone?" I asked brightly.
Cadance looked at me with gratitude that lasted for all of half a second before turning to horrified suspicion, her brain likely taking that long to notice the 'terrify' part of my offer.
Twilight has latched onto her as a "responsible authority figure who can do no wrong" and Sunset's worldview about social dynamics and magical education is being reinforced.
...In hindsight, the former was a completely obvious outcome and I'm not sure how I missed it.
Man, Twilight is just reinforcing Sunset's biases. And Cadence is realising that Sunset may have been like tiny Twilight ages ago, before terrible teachers made her such a hedgehog. You hear that Cadence? Additional proof that the Canterlot educational system needs revamping! I hope you can convince Celestia next time you talk to her! Cadence is clearly needed to translate Sunset's complaints to something Celestia will actually listen to.
Quite. I really want to know what Cadance's POV was during that. Must have been quite the interesting series of realizations. Assuming it's fully sunk in.
To be fair to Sunset, Twilight did not turn out too well in canon. She has no friends at the start of the show and crushes Moondancer's desire for friendship in the first episode. It takes a last minute Hail Mary for that to change.
Okay, that actually makes some sense. Still weird that there could potentially be two alicorns of such similar aspects.
If we generalize to everyone somehow ascending (prohibitively hard, especially since you've gotta manage all three feats at once in this continuity), I have to imagine there'd be overlap in their authorities/specialties, but even so, it's weird that they are so similar. You'd think just by statistics they'd be more different.
Do all magic-talent ponies have a friendship-related aspect if they were to ascend?
Also, it's still weird that there are alicorns of the Sun and Moon, but then you have ones for emotions. It's like, Celestia gets to be in charge of moving the sun around so they don't bake and the plants grow, but Cadance gets to tell when people like each other.
I mean, yeah, Heart is the best power in this setting, but it's still weird.
Imo as a irl empath other people's emotions feel almost exactly like mine, to the point it's often hard to sort out witch are actually mine without like… walking away to be alone
How does that actually work? I mean, I'm pretty sure you're not saying you have ESP (unless you are, in which case please see a lab because the rest of us want to learn too) so how do you feel other people's emotions?
But it makes sense they'd feel like your emotions because you're still the one feeling them.
and how much is the teacher not understanding why the student isn't understanding a very basic lesson. With something that seems like it should be so simple and might not be able to communicate their issue at that age it could be hard to tell if this is an issue with someone being too smart or frankly too slow.
It's also a crap teacher though. That said, she probably never heard it differently herself, but it's one of those "lowest common denominator" style teaching methods.
And yes, I can confirm that it's hard to tell if someone's smart or slow. I was something of a prodigy when younger (nowadays I'm burnt out and spend all my spare time on forums, yay) but there were some things that I didn't quite get or where people would accuse me of not understanding on purpose.
Or it might be more accurate to say she's a good tutor, because she certainly shouldn't be put in charge of an actual classroom- she would almost certainly have the exact opposite problem most of the teachers mentioned thus far have and focus on the 'geniuses' to the detriment of everyone else.
Ah, yes, my most hated story probably of all time because it basically tries to gaslight kids into not bringing their concerns to adults for fear of being ignored.
Yeah. I forget most of them by now, but I've always hated those movies or cartoons where a child tells the parents something and they aren't believed. Home Alone, A Series Of Unfortunate Events, etc... Phineas and Ferb technically counts as well.
I mean, it makes sense because if a child is talking about really impossible stuff they're probably making it up, but that's no reason not to investigate.
You know, I wonder if the person who came up with this story ever considered the unintentional implication that the boy was seeing an actual wolf, and that said wolf was stalking the village for a period of time before making a move.
Good question, actually. It's one thing if she actually babysits Twily because her parents are busy, but this is making it sound like she visits and her parents run away.
Nightmare Moon. She gets very bored on the moon and Cadence justifies the affair to herself as a backup plan in case they fail to stop the Nightmare's return is a decade or so.
Yaaa super powered empathy can go exceedingly wrong when one either doesn't know what to do with that information plus having such when around a number of Hostile actors or just normal nobility
Take the reporters and the greasy greed for example it makes something already somewhat exhausting in dealing with reporters into something she fled from via Chain teleportation
It is the sort of thing that if your kind of left high and dry in trying to figure out what to do with it can easily end up with a really cynical person because of a fair chunk of the Cognitive dissonance of someone acting one way and feeling something else
She's obviously taken it a little further after the ritual, but she very noticeably was feeling feedback from the reporters' emotions in the most recent chapter. Consider that she's been getting that feedback at least subconsciously while growing up in a court of nobles.
So is this the first mention of her empathy?
Because i don't remember it coming up previously.
It also makes her previous interactions with Celestia more interesting.
Maybe Celestia holds such a strong control over her emmotions that Sunset gets less of a read from her than regular ponies, and that leads to Sunset getting such a consistently bad interpretations about their interactions (on top of the whole always on royal mask thing Celestia has).
Also, it could explain why she is so, well, unpolite.
She can feel the fakeness that many ponies will have, and therefore not care to even try, which means that even ponies that don't exactly dislike her get a poor impression of her second hoof, and that balloons out of control.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if she was processing it subconsciously for most of her life. Without knowing, it was essentially acting as an empowered 'intuition' or 'first impression' regarding people she was interacting with. If she's been surrounded by the nobility and their ilk all her life, knowing (on some level) just how their 'friendship' worked, it'd do much to explain her disillusionment with the concept.
If she grew up with it, I wouldn't be surprised if she never bothered to question it.
If she never questioned it, nobody else would really have a reason to look into it.
Man, Twilight is just reinforcing Sunset's biases. And Cadence is realising that Sunset may have been like tiny Twilight ages ago, before terrible teachers made her such a hedgehog. You hear that Cadence? Additional proof that the Canterlot educational system needs revamping! I hope you can convince Celestia next time you talk to her! Cadence is clearly needed to translate Sunset's complaints to something Celestia will actually listen to.
Man, Twilight is just reinforcing Sunset's biases. And Cadence is realising that Sunset may have been like tiny Twilight ages ago, before terrible teachers made her such a hedgehog. You hear that Cadence? Additional proof that the Canterlot educational system needs revamping! I hope you can convince Celestia next time you talk to her! Cadence is clearly needed to translate Sunset's complaints to something Celestia will actually listen to.
I do get the impression that Celestia is realizing just how badly she's fallen back on the 'back in my day' stuff where yes she DID make massive improvements to education at one point. Unfortunately they've just reached the point where 1) the standards have risen to the point where what she has isn't enough, 2) the cultural context for her organization's ideals have been lost, and 3) the system is opaque enough from the outside that she didn't realize the problem existed and people are too awe in of her to make legitimate complaints..
Put yourself in the place of an immortal Victorian. You've established nigh-universal education for all children as opposed to having them in sweatshops, gotten the teachers to at least toe the line with regards to messages of equality and unity which were so important when we were fighting the French and breaking down the walls between classes, and there aren't many complaints raised as to what exists. Universal education has been a massive success! Right, guys? ....Right?
The worst thing is this probably isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened for Celestia. It's just that there isn't exactly a convenient solution beyond pulling in another alicorn or at the very least a heroic demigod of a pony to shoulder some of the responsibility and offer another point of view that ponies won't dismiss outright in favor of Celestia's established perspective on things.
I do get the impression that Celestia is realizing just how badly she's fallen back on the 'back in my day' stuff where yes she DID make massive improvements to education at one point. Unfortunately they've just reached the point where 1) the standards have risen to the point where what she has isn't enough, 2) the cultural context for her organization's ideals have been lost, and 3) the system is opaque enough from the outside that she didn't realize the problem existed and people are too awe in of her to make legitimate complaints..
Put yourself in the place of an immortal Victorian. You've established nigh-universal education for all children as opposed to having them in sweatshops, gotten the teachers to at least toe the line with regards to messages of equality and unity which were so important when we were fighting the French and breaking down the walls between classes, and there aren't many complaints raised as to what exists. Universal education has been a massive success! Right, guys? ....Right?
The worst thing is this probably isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened for Celestia. It's just that there isn't exactly a convenient solution beyond pulling in another alicorn or at the very least a heroic demigod of a pony to shoulder some of the responsibility and offer another point of view that ponies won't dismiss outright in favor of Celestia's established perspective on things.
This is why Immortal God Kings ( well immortal God princesses for some reason seriously why is she a princess?) are bad even if they're of the immortal kind ruler kind people
On my own end, I was having trouble not letting my ears flatten alongside backing away. I hadn't really noticed anything different when I was teleporting, but apparently my new proto-alicorn senses provided uncomfortable feedback when multiple ponies were focusing on me simultaneously. Their greed felt greasy
Celestia wanted Sunset to be there when dealing with the court case related to a cult. I wonder if Sunset's new empathy sense will give her special insight into the cult people
Twilight quickly proved to be an absolute delight. I didn't even need to tell her that I was Celestia's personal student for those 'credentials;' she paid perfect attention even before I started incorporating illusions to aid in the lesson. Once I did, I couldn't quite put my hoof on how, but it seemed like she went from eagerly devouring knowledge, to treating my words as though they came from Celestia's own mouth — by normal pony standards, that is. Not my disillusioned ones.
Sure enough, Twilight had already grasped the concept of immaterial connections just fine, although her reasoning was that the range necessary for Celestia to move the Sun each day would make a line connection frail and easily subjected to interference that obviously hadn't manifested. Since something really big could be invisibly connected to a much smaller pony, then Starswirl's Law of Sympathy dictated that everything else must be connected at least as much.
Saying that Twilight had borrowed her brother's textbooks was underselling herself; she didn't use the method outlined there. All she needed to know was that one's mental image for levitation might vary by pony, and she figured out the rest on her own.
Within an hour of starting on the basics of fire cantrips, Twilight was able to produce sparks from her horn energetic enough to light a campfire. Cadance... arguably made even better progress.
Sort of.
"So, um," Cadance said, tapping her hooves together sheepishly. "...How do I extinguish this again?"
We all stared at the pink, heart-shaped, Celestia-sized Fire of Friendship that Cadance accidentally created in the middle of Twilight's living room. Turns out that getting the Alicorn of Love to cast a fire spell came with side effects. I really should have seen it coming.
"Be a much, much worse pony than any of us is," I deadpanned. "So, yeah, it's not going anywhere. Congratulations on being able to solo a herd of windigos, Princess. They aren't really a threat anymore, but maybe it'll be useful someday. I suppose you could go winter camping in the middle of the frozen north if you ever felt like it."
Cadance groaned and slumped down on her pillow.
"Really? I can't just—take the magic back?"
"How well does 'reclaiming' love work out for anypony involved?" I asked rhetorically.
Cadance winced.
"Not well," she admitted. "So, what, trying might produce a corrupted Fire?"
"This is one of those situations where there is no practical benefit to finding out, and the possible consequences are dire," I told her. "In the absence of conflict or hatred, my assumption is that it would just turn into normal flame. In the middle of Twilight's living room."
"I think it's cozy like this!" Twilight loyally volunteered. "Even though it's summer, the Fire isn't making us too warm! Why not? I thought fire was supposed to just turn everything into itself."
"Have your parents ever taken you to a Hearth's Warming Eve play?" I asked.
Twilight nodded eagerly.
"Every year! Although I only clearly remember the last one."
"Love is stubborn," I told her, "and doesn't want to be extinguished, or reduced to less than what it is. So it burns for a long time, and maintains many of its properties until the very end. Discovering the Fires catapulted ponykind from disparate tribes eking out a meager existence where they could, to an uneasy alliance that slowly became more prosperous as time went on — until Discord appeared and almost destroyed basically all civilization everywhere, but that's another story."
Twilight blinked, befuddled.
"Discord?"
Okay, apparently we were having storytime now. I supposed I didn't mind if it meant rectifying a major educational deficiency.
"Discord is the God of Chaos that Princess Celestia defeated just before the start of her reign," I explained. "That feat encouraged the then-shattered society of ponykind to elevate Celestia to the throne and unify under her. I believe the intention of certain scheming factions was for this compromise to last for a normal mare's lifetime, and for the Princess to have foals that would subsequently inherit. As you can see by Celestia stubbornly never dying, this did not work out for them."
Twilight giggled, and I took the opportunity to steer the lecture back on track. Admittedly, I was the one who'd let it get that far.
"Emotion-based magics are largely disdained by modern academics due to their volatility and frequent difficulty with replication, but nopony sensible denies that they're powerful. So, yes, fire wants to make more of itself and burn everything it can. Anger can help that. Love and affection, however, override fire's destructive nature. Despite its name, a Fire of Friendship is less a fire using love and affection as fuel, and more a magical mass of emotion assuming some of fire's properties. Similarly, while Clover the Clever might have catalyzed the first Fire of Friendship, it took emotional contributions from ponies of all three then-squabbling tribes to trigger and fuel her accidental spell."
Cadance stared at me, unblinking with an unusual expression that I wasn't sure how to interpret. I had to fight not to snap at her.
"What?" I asked as evenly as I could.
"I'm starting to realize that magic is much more conceptual than I'd thought," Cadance admitted.
I definitely needed to declare war on Equestria's educational system. Every pony should know this much; unicorn magic was the most obvious and versatile, but all ponies possessed their own. Our bodies couldn't even function properly without it.
"Living beings birth magic," I summarized, "and it is shaped by our natures. If we're interested in something, odds are that we spend a great deal of time thinking about it. That shapes both our magic and improves our ability to visualize that magic, a necessary component of spellcasting. A pony's Special Talent and interests might let a novice spellcaster grasp and utilize spells that should, by the standards of most ponies, be 'incredibly advanced.'
"Having a more generalist bent doesn't necessarily mean that magic is harder, though. Take my Special Talent. I love all magic. I love how it slots together so everything makes sense. I love knowing the laws of reality and how they might be bent. I love making little connections between that which I've learned and that which I've observed, and realizing why the world is a specific way. I love how there's always more to learn, and so much of it is useful. I love how it lets you overcome any challenge if you approach it the right way, even those otherwise considered immutable such as death and mortality."
Twilight's hoof shot up, and I immediately shelved what I was going to say next. The Cutie Mark tirade could wait until later.
"Yes, Twilight?"
"Aren't those still inmute—absolute?" she promptly asked. "I thought that necromancy ate important parts of a pony in order to bring them 'back,' or just failed and only made an imitation?"
A popular view of necromancy, but not necessarily a correct one. Necromancy should, in theory, be incredibly powerful and allow the subordination of defeated foes. I couldn't help but wonder if backlash by Celestia's 'Harmony' was the reason why so few necromancers appeared within Equestria's borders despite how powerful their trade should be on paper. Necromancers were so sparse that I vaguely remembered reading about a few, but I couldn't even remember their names or how long they lasted beyond 'not long.'
"I may have dipped a little into hyperbole there," I admitted. "Once a pony departs for the Elysium Fields, death has its teeth in; that pony can only ever visit us afterward, and attempts at full resurrection don't end well. But as I understand it, if you 'hook' a pony beforehand, you can keep them from leaving here. Massive amounts of power can then be spent to convince reality that they're supposed to be alive despite evidence to the contrary. It's apparently not a method practical for mortals, and works best on alicorns; it takes too much power for normal ponies, as the world expects their lives to be fleeting.
"As for mortality: magic ensures that alicorns like Cadance are immortal. That should be fairly self-explanatory all on its own."
Twilight dutifully nodded, and I tried to remember where I'd left off. I couldn't quite remember what I'd already said, so I improvised something new.
"The tendency for ponies to be better at magics relevant to their interests is sometimes called an 'affinity,' and it doesn't only apply to unicorn magic. Pegasi might be better at manipulating weather in specific ways, earth ponies might prefer specific animals or plants, and so on. Similarly, you'll sometimes find a pony who seems to do just fine at using magics normally associated with another tribe while possibly having trouble with their own."
Twilight's hoof shot up again, and I couldn't help but smile. Yes, she might be 'interrupting,' but it meant she was listening and thinking. I'd much rather have an engaged pupil than one who barely bothered listening.
"How would other ponies use unicorn magic without a horn?" Twilight questioned.
Truthfully, I hadn't ever heard of that either, but I could extrapolate from what Spring Hail said about ponies being able to release magic from any part of themselves.
"I believe it's possible based on something said by Princess Celestia: that ponies can release magic from any part of our bodies, and some parts are just easier depending on our tribe. However, I will confess that I don't have any examples aside from zebras, and whether zebras count as ponies at all is a subject of scholarly debate. Regardless, their shamans can perform plenty of magic that really seems as though it should require a horn, but provably does not."
"Could you please provide the source or a demonstration of the 'any part' claim?" Twilight asked. "I've noticed that a lot of things ponies say 'Princess Celestia said' might have been said by another pony instead, and mishat–misate—um. They might say it's said by the wrong pony?"
I might be irked by being questioned if she were ten years older. She had a point about people misusing Celestia's name, though. Admittedly, part of that was Celestia quoting ponies she'd met. She was old.
Plus, Twilight's question was as good an opening as any. Twilight didn't know about my titles yet, and was already the best pupil anypony could ask for. I wouldn't need to worry that she would be acting differently just based on my status.
"The source is 'I'm her personal student and she told me directly,'" I said dryly.
Twilight's pencil froze, and the little filly stared at me with wide eyes. I had to fight not to grin at her expression. She might think I was joking if I did.
She looked back at Cadance for confirmation, and my former (im)mortal enemy promptly nodded. Twilight's eyebrows narrowed.
"Cadance foalsitting me was sushp—unusual on its own," Twilight accused. "Why am I being foalsat by a princess and Princess Celestia's personal student? I'm just a regular old unicorn."
That was a question that gave me pause. She had a point there; truthfully, I still wasn't certain how she and Cadance had even met, or why she'd continued foalsitting Twilight afterward. Cadance should have had better things to do with her time than possibly foalsit random foals until she stumbled across Twilight and latched on.
If I were cruel, this would be the part where I told Twilight that my attendance was a temporary matter, and that I was really here to tutor Cadance. Despite having met Twilight little more than an hour ago, I was no longer completely convinced that I would let this be temporary. Twilight was brilliant and I had zero confidence in Canterlot's public education system to raise her well. Private schooling would put her in a room with a great many nobles judging her due to her lack of noble titles, and the less said about my former tutors, the better.
However, the exact nature of any longer-term tutoring from me would take time to determine. Even if I might have the capability on paper once Celestia adopted me, I didn't have the time to take Twilight as a full-fledged personal student. I refused to repeat Celestia's neglect of me — plus, I wasn't sure if the novelty of teaching a clever little filly who eagerly devoured my every word would wear off after a while.
Cadance seemed unusually intent on letting me answer, silently watching me like I was performing on stage. Her lack of input felt a bit unfair; the question had been pointed at her, too! Maybe she'd answered for herself before, and my inclusion was the only new component?
Well, if she wasn't going to talk, she had no room to complain for how I answered.
"You really, really aren't a normal unicorn. Among other things, Cadance said she loves you like a little sister," I shamelessly threw her under the carriage, "and she thought I would like you, so here we are. We might have lofty titles — and mine is going to get even loftier soon — but we're still ponies. Ponies might be more private in the modern era and don't necessarily congregate into herds like we used to, but we still want to introduce each other to ponies we like.
"So, Cadance meets a brilliant little filly. She happens to know a certain brilliant wizard, and decides that we should meet. I needed to tutor her in magic anyway and she's at a foal's magic proficiency, so she uses that as an excuse to have me come over and help foalsit you. Nowhere does my status as 'Princess Celestia's personal student' come into it, nor does Cadance's status as a princess of Equestria."
While her pencil was still scritching away, Twilight's eyes had taken on a slightly glassy look. I suspected that I had lost her. I was deciding how to simplify the explanation when Twilight craned her neck to look up at Cadance without shifting out of the ongoing cuddling.
"You love me like a little sister?" Twilight questioned.
Cadance didn't even have to think about it before affectionately nuzzling Twilight.
"Of course!"
Twilight was not deterred.
"How would you know since you're an only child?" Twilight asked reasonably.
I would have expected that one to at least slow Cadance down. Instead, she smiled and answered in moments.
"Well, I am the Princess of Love. I want us to stay a part of each other's lives for our entire lives, and I want to watch you grow up. I already spend as much time with you as your 'Big Brother Best Friend Forever.' It makes me happy to be around you, and happier still to see and make you happy. I could keep going, but then we would be here allllll day.
"I stuck to the role of 'foalsitter' because your parents have serious trouble looking past my royal title, and aren't comfortable with a princess being interested in their little filly — or possibly aren't comfortable because they worship alicorns? It's really hard to tell which it is, nervousness can have different sources. Either way, I think they're afraid I'll steal you away or something — and I'll admit I've been tempted! But part of loving another pony is to know when you need to step back and let them live their own life."
"But what if I want–" Twilight started, then stopped. "Oh. You can't bring my whole family, so you would be taking me away. Never mind."
"That's right," Cadance confirmed. "When you're a bit older, you could visit me sometimes like I visit you, but some of the ponies around the castle are very mean. I think it's better if I just visit so you can have your privacy."
"Fire," I stage-whispered.
Twilight giggled, and Cadance halfheartedly glared at me.
"Fire is not at all a good solution to social conflicts, Sunset. That conversation isn't over, only postponed until we're closer to school starting again."
An idle thought struck, and I decided to pull an arguably unsuitable comparison out of my flank.
"It works just fine for Princess Celestia," I pointed out.
Cadance stared at me in disbelieving silence for several seconds. Twilight's eyes were narrowed without doubt, but definite thought and possibly some concern.
"Princess Celestia," Cadance said flatly.
"Mm-hmm," I confirmed, grinning.
"The same Princess Celestia who used to argue with you over your use of fire on pony's manes."
Twilight gasped, obviously shocked that anypony would ever disagree with the Equestria's oh-so-perfect Princess. Possibly some dismay that what I'd been teaching her was Celestia-disapproved, too. I might have lost some significant ground there, unfortunately.
"Indeed," I confirmed.
"How do you think your statement makes sense in any way?"
I grinned as far as my lips would stretch.
"Name the last time another nation tried to invade Equestria, and the reason why they haven't since then."
Cadance openly gaped at me while Twilight blinked in apparent befuddlement. I expected that Twilight probably hadn't gotten to those wars in any history classes yet.
"You–" Cadance sputtered. "That was war! That doesn't count; war is already the exact opposite of a healthy social relationship!"
Comprehension dawned, and Twilight relaxed. I'd been intending for this to be a joke, but if Twilight decided our methods were princess-approved if you squinted—well, Twilight would technically only be wrong for a few more years.
"And yet, very few ponies have dared to do worse than whisper insults at my passing since I started on my policy of fiery deterrence," I said smugly. "Unlike outright confrontations, I can just ignore whispers and keep reading books. Celestia might prefer that I resort to other methods, but her example of international deterrence works even on a personal level."
I wondered how much time would pass before Cadance realized that Twilight was still taking notes, and seemed much happier than thirty seconds ago. Lost ground regained.
"I—you–" Cadance said, apparently utterly incapable of conjuring a refuting argument.
After several seconds, she took a deep breath and regained control of her language centers.
"I don't even know where to start," she huffed. "Have you considered that ponies might not like you because you set some of their friends on fire?"
My smile slid away.
"You should know better," I told her. "Why in Equestria would you think that my tutors were the only ones to hold their opinions?"
Cadance twitched, clearly realizing that she had put her hoof in her mouth.
"...Oh," Cadance said weakly.
The alicorn promptly pulled a befuddled Twilight against herself like the filly was a stuffed plushy.
"So, yes, deterrence through fear isn't perfect," I told Cadance. "But they're too afraid to do anything that I can't either ignore outright, or dampen into silence with a deliberately underpowered privacy field. That is a vast improvement. If ponies don't like Twilight following in my hoofsteps as far as social self-defense goes? They should make sure that she doesn't need to defend herself."
Cadance only hugged Twilight tighter to herself. I had the sudden thought that Twilight's puzzled expression right then might be remarkably similar to my own surrounding some of Celestia's recent behavior: that she had no idea why a princess was acting like this, but she wasn't opposed.
Cadance had better not follow Celestia's example in other ways and hurt Twilight with neglect. Cadance still definitely needed to pick up more princessly duties, sure, but since she'd already established obligations to Twilight, not too many royal duties.
"I wonder if this is how Celestia feels all the time," Cadance unhappily murmured.
Be better than her; don't just ignore it, I refrained from saying in front of Twilight. She might decide that Celestia's example was a good one, and that was the last thing I wanted.
"Do you want to borrow Miss Smartypants?" Twilight offered. "She helps me feel better a lot of the time."
Cadance's expression eased back into normality, the mare wearing it becoming successfully distracted. She rested her neck across Twilight, earning a small squeak from half-squishing the filly.
"Thank you, Twilight, but I'll be okay. I already have a perfectly cuddly little doll right here," Cadance said playfully. "I think I'll just carry you with me forever."
Twilight's eyes widened with feigned horror even as she smiled. The filly started ineffectually struggling against the older alicorn's strength.
"Noooo! I'm not a doll!" she pretend protested.
Two forelegs stretched toward me, and I couldn't keep surprise from my features.
"Save me, Sunset!"
Considering how little time we'd known each other, Twilight's huge, expectant eyes and outstretched hooves should not have garnered as much of an emotional response as they did, cute or not. Remaining aloof wasn't quite unthinkable, but it would certainly be unacceptable.
Worse, it wasn't like my brain ever shut off even in sleep, and I had to willfully push away alternative meanings of her request. Yes, she was already at the point of breaking down in tears at the thought of returning to Magic Kindergarten, but we were working on that. I would do what I could for her, but not at the cost of repeating Celestia's mistakes.
Celestia does 'what she can,' too, came an uncomfortable thought. Excuses wouldn't cut it when a filly's future was at stake. I would need to think about this more later. Not yet; for now, I had an expectant foal to entertain.
"Princess Mi Amore Cadenza," I intoned, circulating power through my horn even though I had yet to decide what I would do. "Release the filly, or suffer the consequences."
Twilight giggled before clapping one forehoof over her muzzle. Cadance looked satisfyingly uneasy at the threat, but to her credit, she did not immediately surrender. It was just about the best reaction I could hope for: awareness that I was not to be trifled with, but also trust that I wouldn't actually hurt her during a filly's playtime.
"Do your worst, wizard," Cadance haughtily sniffed, sticking her nose up like she was one of those high society mares who were navigational hazards for everypony nearby.
Tradition probably dictated that I should start tickling Cadance at this point. We weren't anywhere remotely that close yet. I instead telekinetically gripped every nearby pillow and cushion not currently in use and gleefully took this socially acceptable excuse to start pummeling Cadance with them.
Sunset is incredibly adorable. Twilight is equally adorable. Cadence is wonderful as usual. I keep squeeing out loud.
I really feel bad for Cadence getting screwed over by people not explaining how conceptual magic is. It's very much classic academia for the emphasis to be on the well understood and easy to teach and control elements though.
Dawwww, explanations of international relations and peace ruled by a large pony obsessed with cake and possessing WMD's. Adorable. Seriously love the story
Problem is that Sunset is not, technically, wrong.
She is just not really in a mental place where she is capable of understanding the costs of her solution and how destructive they are to people using them in specific, and society in general.
Sunset seems to have devoted an interesting amount of thought to necromancy. I can picture her wearing a nondescript cloak and leaning on a muddy shovel, growling "I should have known the so-called "experts" were as incompetent in this field as they are in any other! Where are my notes? And my sacrificial goat?"
She is just not really in a mental place where she is capable of understanding the costs of her solution and how destructive they are to people using them in specific, and society in general.
I think she knows that her solution kind of sucks. She says as much in the chapter. It's just that she doesn't see any viable alternatives. I would guess she tried the first time Celestia told her, it failed because of her environment, and so she concluded that was a dud and went for deterence. From her perspective, it's a choice between fear and insults behind her back, or contempt and insults (and worse!) to her face.
And from what we've seen so far of her environment growing up, she might be correct. Being polite and kind to her tutors or the other children might not have lead to any positive relationships either. There wasn't really much young Sunset could do there. It's made worse by the fact that her intelligence would also have isolated her all on its own.
She's not blameless, of course. Treating doctors and others like shit as an adult is still a dick move, but I can't really blame her for how she treats the nobility.
Ahhhhh sooooo very cute but yaaaa I kinda feel bad for Cadance here because Sunset here is Right but also wrong in fairly Tragic ways
if she ever figures out that Sunsets special talent involves Empathy in the I seek to understand sense but grew up in a situation where she runs into the nobility Disliking her because commoner orphan becoming Celestia's student and being very able to tell they feel that way behind the Noble ettiquete
But Sunset herself was probably unaware that such was Strange but did not have the tools to actually deal with that in a constructive manner and from the outside it would not be as apparent why she was reacting that poorly to such things
Yeah, for an empath, societal niceties would mean very little, because all the white lies, polite expressions and conflict avoidance techniques we use almost unthinkingly, would come out as obvious lies and the offence intended to avoid would remain.
Yaaaaaa I imagine interacting with twilight is going to be good for sunset whilst also have a number problems but also serve as a point of interaction so that Cadance can understand Sunsets thought process
Probably not be good for Sunsets blood pressure and having her declare war on the current state of the educational system
