Twilight Velvet broke the uncomfortable silence.
“So you’re…”
“Pregnant, yes,” Twilight nodded, her cheeks seeming to have gained a permanent red hue.
Night Light spoke next. “And you are…”
“The one who sired the child, yes,” Chrysalis finished, having sorted out how to phrase the explanation on the ride back to Canterlot.
Unfortunately, this brief exchange was followed by more uncomfortable silence and the conversation, if you could call it such, had failed to move forward.
Velvet coughed and sipped her tea and Night Light seemed overly fascinated with a spot he had just found on the armrest of the couch. Twilight and Chrysalis exchanged uneasy glances.
“So…” Chrysalis began slowly, “I take it you do not approve?”
That seemed to snap the two out of whatever state they had slipped into.
“Oh of course not,” Velvet said quickly.
“These things take time to process,” Night Light added.
“My best friend’s maid was a changeling.”
“I once shared a pizza with a changeling. I think.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Mom, Dad, you can stop the political correctness. I just thought you two should know why we’re moving.”
Silence briefly returned before being shooed away by Velvet. “You’re moving? Again?”
Twilight nodded. “We have to,”
“Where?” her father asked.
“The Badlands are more than ready to receive us,” Chrysalis said. “It’s… more hospitable than the name suggests.” she added.
“But why?” Velvet asked.
“The nobles and the diplomats didn’t take to kindly to the changelings snuggling up with Equestria in the first place,” Chrysalis said.
“And they didn’t especially like me snuggling up to Chrysalis,” Twilight added. “Imagine what they’ll do once they find out about this?”
Twilight’s parents balked at that.
“Surely they’ll understand?”
“Could you perhaps hide it?”
“You could always say it was Princess Celestia.”
Twilight shook her head. “No, no, and Mom? Where in Tartarus did that last one come from?”
Velvet blushed a little under the other three ponies’ questioning gazes. “She was by here not too long ago, asking all these rather, uh, intimate details about you, I figured what she was planning later so…” Velvet blushed harder and shrugged. “She’s obviously not too subtle about it.
Shouldn’t take too much to convince everypony she’s the one that, uh…” since Velvet couldn’t actually turn any redder, she settled for sinking down in her seat and hiding herself behind her tea cup.
Chrysalis looked to Twilight. “It’s not a bad plan, in theory. What do you think?”
Twilight shrugged. “I suppose not, but do you really want to do this? Lie about who sired our foal?”
Chrysalis chewed her bottom lip for a moment before replying. “No, I don’t. But the kind of havoc this will raise politically? I say it might be for the best.” the changeling smiled. “Besides, we can always go on one of those tv shows afterwards and do a big reveal.”
Twilight smiled. “Yeah, we could. But, we’ll have to convince Celestia to go along with it first.”
“Not necessarily.”
Twilight and Chrysalis looked over to see Night Light adjusting his collar nervously. “I still play cards over at the Guard Barracks bar every week or so and chat up the guards there. Rumor is that Princess Celestia occasionally has a little too much and the previous night is fuzzy. So all you really need to do is get somepony Celestia will believe to go along with the story.” Night Light sipped his drink. “Luna, maybe?”
Chrysalis and Twilight looked back at one another, grins forming on their lips.
“That could work,” they said in unison.
Celestia stared at the cover of the magazine for a long time, long enough for one of her assistants to bring over the usual bottle of forget-me potion. The alicorn picked up the bottle, ready to drown the necessary images in vanilla flavored forgetfulness. But she stopped and looked carefully at the bottle before tipping it over and pouring its contents out with a sigh.
“Never again,” Celestia muttered.