Only Emptiness Remains

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"She's gone..." Cadence knew her voice was shaking and that tears were already slipping down her cheeks but this time she couldn't hold them back -- she felt like she had been completely robbed of any fight she had. She couldn't even look away from the ocean to meet his gaze as he walked closer to her. He had never seen her cry. Everything they've seen of each other, all the comfort they've given to each other through the worst of the past few years and they've never seen each other cry. (Well, she's seen him crying but she doesn't think eyebrow waxing or cheesy romance movies count in this case)

"I know Cadence..." He murmured, his gaze locked on her shaking figure. He glanced down and saw her hair ribbon caught on a branch and noticed her mane was loose and flowing down in a way she hadn't ever worn it outside, at least for as long as he's known her. He took the ribbon gently in his magic and hid it away in his collar to keep safe for her later. 

He doesn't even think she noticed it was gone. She was so strong, the strongest pony he knew -- she kept fighting and fighting and standing in the face of everything and yet right now the smallest bit of wind could carry her away from him. It was scary.

"She's gone. She..." Cadence choked on her words and cleared her throat to try again "She ran away and I can't reach her... I can't do a damn thing for her now! And I knew something like this was coming, I did... but I thought... I thought I could..." she stared down at her reflection and tears broke up the picture staring back. How fitting. She let out a completely humorless chuckle as she cried even more. 

"It must seem silly to you, me getting like this... I-I know you didn't like her but--"

Blueblood cut her off unexpectedly, unable to hold his emotions in and he stomped his hoof down onto the old wood of the pier roughly.  

She jolted at the show of emotion and the curse that came from him. He didn't fancy cursing, in his words, it was 'uncouth' and 'unbecoming of a pony of their status'. 

"You're right, I didn't! She was Celestia's star student, the one she had by her side for everything. I was never given any of Celestia's council or her trust and I'm family! I'm just the descendant who receives her good fortune because she feels she must -- out of some damned need to soothe her guilty conscience. All I wanted was her approval but she's never even tried to see me as anything more than a stupid socialite... she acts as though it shouldn't bother me that no one sees me as anything more than a joke but it does because clearly she feels the same way!"

Cadence finally turned, just a bit to see him -- he didn't look as bad as she did... but the fact that she could even see darkness under his eyes and exhaustion clouding his blue gaze meant that he wasn't holding up as well as he let on. 

Oh they both hid their damage, their demons. It's why they were as close as they were... it was exhausting to hide so much of your broken self just to live even the facade of a life that Cadence was. The difference was that she lashed out with her passion and impulsive emotions and he kept those feelings inward from his self-preservation and pride ... he was a lot better at composure than her.

He always looked put together and comfortable (even to the point of detached arrogance) in his place, so much so that even she had to wonder what was going on behind his carefully constructed surface sometimes and she was perhaps the only pony who knew him well enough to know one was even constructed.

"Blueblood..." she murmured softly, wanting to try and comfort him -- despite her own feelings. He ignored her and continued on much quieter...

"... You know, Sunset looked down on me for that. For being a prince without 'earning' it. I suppose we both had our negative feelings toward each other. Our only reason for ever hanging out with each other was to be with you. I never wanted this for her though... she's just a kid. A kid who, despite me being jealous of and not liking to be around her -- I couldn't hate. Maybe she hated me but I never hated her. I'm actually gonna miss her... a lot." Cadence was surprised at this, she never knew he had any fondness for their little yellow tag-along. 

"I'm gonna miss how she tagged along when we all would hang out, how she would tease me and we would bicker for hours, how she'd show off her growth magic to Big Mac and write down spells for him to take home to Ponyville... how Sassy would swat me when I called her names and how much she loved you and wanted to act like you did... It already feels so wrong not having her around to mock me for how much hair gel I use."

Huh. She suddenly realizes that his hair looks a bit less glossy and put-together than usual and thinks she knows why. 

He met her eyes for the first time tonight, glassy with what looked like unshed tears avoiding escape as he finished, "And I don't want you to think I don't wish I could have helped her too." 

They both looked back down into the water, thinking about the young mare they had just lost. Neither could tell how long they stood there in heavy silence, it felt like both seconds, hours and years all at once. He finally spoke again, staring at his reflection. She wondered what he saw in the rippling mirror of himself. 

"You and I both know the damage Celestia can do to a pony, what she can bring out in them. We've both been driven to our absolute lowest because of her. She doesn't even mean any of it, which might be the worst part... because she just doesn't seem to understand the world beyond her own perspective. I suppose that's due to her age or her life experience or something. Her 'little ponies' could hardly understand..." His voice was an odd mixture of bitter, admiring and understanding. 

Cadence didn't know how she felt anymore. Or if she even felt anything sometimes...

"She was so much like us... both of us." She wasn't sure if that came from him or herself. Maybe both. Maybe no one even said it. But it made the dam burst in her heart and made her speak again, tears still streaming down her cheeks. 

"Sometimes I'd look at that filly, looking up to me like she did and I'd just want to tell her to run away. That this isn't all it seems and that she should just be happy being the bright, talented pony she already was and stop trying to be like me. I didn't. I wanted her to have her dreams even if I... I wish I had. I don't even know if... if she would have listened. I should've tried."

She briefly thought of the filly she had recently begun to babysit, Twilight Sparkle and her brother Shining Armor. She was such a smart girl, full of that same brightness and potential. She didn't want to see her become like them. Like Sunset Shimmer. She couldn't lose another filly she was growing to care about and she couldn't let Shining Armor watch her lose herself -- they were so close it made Cadence ache. Letting ponies in seems so easy until you think about how you might lose them. Did Sunset Shimmer ever feel like she lost Cadence to someone else...? God, it would kill her if she thought that.

"... I never understood your desire to be royalty. Either of yours. It's absolutely and completely awful to me. I would gladly trade with you if I could. I just wanted to go home and be myself again. I still do. I just know I can't. I've always known." 

She stared hard at her reflection, trying to find something of her old self in this new image. She couldn't. All she could see was her desperately trying to hide something that was never going away. She let out a shallow, worn out sigh and her eyes squeezed shut, suddenly burning from the crying and lack of sleep. What she wouldn't give to not hate her reflection, to dread having to look at herself, the times she forgets she has a horn and the pain of remembering everything when she was reminded... What is a legacy anyway? She wouldn't even know what her story would become when she was gone... 'If I'm ever gone...' She thinks and then pushes that box down into the deepest corner of her mind. Not now. Not yet. 

"We're growing up. We're a few months to graduation and I still can't let go of these awful feelings I've had since the day I stepped into this damn castle. I've lost so much of myself in this place, I can almost see the ghosts of everything I've had to leave behind following me when I walk through the halls. Sometimes I can forget and then... Oh fuck, do I remember. And it hits me just so hard... I can't ever seem to move on from them no matter how hard I try and I can't just play pretend anymore. I have to make myself move on and just accept all of this." she swallowed and nodded to herself. 

She would keep trying until it worked and try after that until she couldn't feel those ghosts any more. She was trying so hard to move on, for all those she cared about. She couldn't go back to that place anymore. "I'm so fucking tired..."

She opened her eyes again and felt something soft graze her cheek and it snapped her back to reality. Blueblood had untied his soft bow tie and brought it up to her face, wiping her makeup stained tears away. She didn't look at him but she felt something in her uncoil at the sweet gesture. She felt the smallest of smiles begin on her face. 

"You hate stains on your tie. Or anywhere, really."

"Special occasion. I'll bill you later for the dry cleaning." he chuckled, smiling a bit himself. "It's what friends do."

Her smile grew and she sniffed. She still felt tears on the edge of her eyes and she still couldn't quite look at him but he was helping. Her Blueblood. And she bets that he will make up a bill for her later, just to make her laugh because that's what he did. 

"You know, when you first came to the Castle, I was jealous of you too."

That made her look at him in surprise. "You were?" she couldn't help but laugh at that, if only a little. He really could be such an ass-kissing schmoozer that she, of all ponies, never noticed that. 

He smirked and sounded a bit like his usual self again -- "It didn't last very long. Hard to hate you for very long, Orphan Annie," Prick. Though from him, the usually insulting nickname wasn't pity or condemnation -- simply a joke to the two of them. He was perhaps the only one, save Big Mac, that never made her feel out of place. Though Big Mac was much to nice to tease her with that, even in innocent jest. Sometimes she needed that. Tonight she needed this.

"Especially given other developments in our ... 'relationship'." Both of them chuckled at that. Friends, lovers, genuine comfort, unhealthy distraction, fellow royals, partners-in-crime ... two halves of a whole, extremely damaged, coin. 'Relationship' was the vaguest blanket term for what they were to each other. 

They both turned to each other, moving in closer and Blueblood swept back a strand of her hair tenderly. He asked her.

"Are you okay now?"

"... Yes."

He could have left it like that, except she wouldn't. Neither would he. "... Are you lying...?"

"Yes..."

Cadence didn't need to ask the same -- she knew their answers matched. They were gonna keep fighting their demons, keep trying to put the pieces of themselves back together and they weren't completely alone as long as they had one another. They would be okay. 

But that didn't change the fact that Sunset was gone, that they still had a long way to go, that they were alone together and that living normal life was very, very hard. Right now they weren't okay, not really... better than they were but not as good as they could be. At least the pain was gone. In it's place was pure emptiness. A missing piece they felt so strongly it covered everything else. As always though, they would keep pushing on and on and on.

She leaned in and kissed him, thankful for him coming to her. And again to say what she couldn't quite express in words that other ponies don't matter because she knows how amazing, smart and kind he is and how he would be an amazing leader one day when they all woke up to that fact. And one more time ... because she just wanted to. That lasted a good bit longer than the other ones.

She barely pulled away enough to say quietly, "I don't want to go back there tonight." before he pulled her back to him to answer with a kiss that said:

So they didn't.

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