Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Foal
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The excitement fairly bubbled off of Twilight Sparkle as she darted into the Crystal Castle on her way to see Princess Cadence. The train trip had taken forever and they had not gotten into the Crystal Empire train station until it was dark. All of her friends and her parents had made a wonderful warm hug in the train station with Shining Armor in the middle, but the alicorn that Twilight had most wanted to see was still in the castle with a secret that Shining Armor had been unwilling to reveal. Leaving Spike to deal with the baggage, Twilight had slipped out into the cool night air, determined to spend a few minutes of quality time with her favorite former foalsitter before the wave of family and friends meant Cadence had to be shared.
The little gusts and breezes of the Crystal Empire interfered with Twilight Sparkle’s novice flying abilities, so rather than swooping down on her sister-in-law’s balcony from the sky (and possibly crashing into her), she had landed at the main entrance and traveled the rest of the way through the castle on her own hooves. The path to the Royal Couple’s bedroom suite was familiar and passed in a blur as Twilight burst through the door with a loud cry of, “Cadence! Oh, I’ve missed you so—”
She cut off abruptly as Cadence held a hoof to her lips and whispered, “Shhh, Twilight. You’ll wake her up, and she just got to sleep.” The Alicorn of Love was laying sprawled out on the living room balcony with a small pink blanket nestled down between a foreleg and an extended wing. The moonlight cast a shimmering sheet of silver across her reclining form, highlighting the tiny laugh wrinkles around the corners of her eyes and the gentle smile that Twilight was so familiar with, but there was an unexpected lump under the far-too-small blanket.
“Wake who, Cadence?” whispered Twilight as she tip-hooved closer.
As a response, Cadence carefully tucked a corner of the blanket back to reveal a small pink pegasus foal. The little pony was sleeping with nose tucked into Cadence’s neck and emitting tiny little snores much like Twilight could somewhat remember doing at times when she had been very young and fallen asleep against Cadence’s warm barrel. The foal must have been very young, due to her small size, the downy violet highlights of her tiny wings, and the pale blue of her mane that shimmered as if it were pure glacier ice. The glitter of Crystal Empire magic gave the sleeping foal the translucent appearance of the local crystal ponies, seeming so much like a tiny fragile glass figurine except for the slow rhythmic movements of her pink sides as she breathed.
“Meet your new niece,” whispered Cadence. “Aurora Dawn Sparkle.”
“She’s beautiful, Cadence,” breathed Twilight Sparkle. “Wait a minute.” Twilight’s eyes darted from the tiny crystal pegasus to Cadence and back again. “It hasn’t been long enough for you to have your foal yet.”
As quiet as she was attempting to be, Cadence’s laughter was like the tinkling of small bells and the foal shifted slightly in her sleep. Cadence tucked the blanket back over the sleeping foal and patted the carpet next to her. “Silly Twilight. Alicorns don’t have foals the same way ponies do. Didn’t Princess Celestia tell you?”
“No, I don’t think so. I would have remembered something like that.” Princess Twilight Sparkle looked from the little pink nose sticking out of the blanket and blowing a little snot bubble to her own purple wings and back again. “I thought it involved—” Twilight’s voice dropped to a bare whisper and her cheeks burned bright red “—sex.”
“Your brother and I still do that, Twilight,” chided Cadence with a smirk. “But an alicorn having a foal is completely different. I wonder…” She paused and looked out into the sky at the sparkling stars. “It could just have been a misunderstanding. After all, Luna is in charge of alicorn foals. If she thought Celestia was going to tell you, and Celestia thought Luna was, you could have just been left out of the loop by accident.”
The thought that a critical piece of information like this could have eluded Princess Celestia’s former student struck a chord in Twilight’s head, and she glanced out into the night as well. It would still be several minutes before the gaggle of friends and family showed up at the castle, which was plenty of time to learn her missed lesson from somepony with first-hoof experience with the process. “Do you think…” she started.
“Would you like me to tell you how?” asked Cadence as she tucked in the blanket. “I understand you have a very special somepony now, even though you’ve been keeping that little fact out of your letters to us. Maybe the two of you might want to have a little foal of your own someday.”
“He’s not that… We’re just friends,” said Twilight in a tone of voice that no sapient being would have believed, even with a signed and notarized copy of the statement given under oath. “Could you tell me how? Just for curiosity, that is. Not that I ever…” Twilight slowed to a stop while her ears glowed as red as her cheeks.
“Sex or making an alicorn foal?” asked Cadence while still apparently tucking the blanket around the little pegasus curled up in the crook of her foreleg.
“Sex. I mean the foal. Definitely the foal,” added Twilight as she pulled a pencil and notebook out of her saddlebag. “Not that I need any lessons on sex. Wait a minute, that came out wrong. I don’t know all about sex. Yet. I’m still learning. That came out wrong too. Foals. Definitely the foals. Yes, foals.” She paused with her pencil held over the notebook page and a false smile stretching almost back to her ears. “Foals. Go ahead.”
Cadence brought her wing up around the blanket and looked out into the starry night. “When a stallion and an alicorn love each other very much, they go out into a night much like this one, where the stars glimmer with light and the moonlight shines down so bright it seems like midday. They climb up on a hill, normally with a picnic lunch or something in case they get hungry because it’s hard to concentrate on an empty stomach, and the two of them sit out under the stars for hours.”
“Hours,” repeated Twilight Sparkle, scribbling away in her notebook before pausing. “That’s not all of it, right?”
“Not quite,” said Cadence. “As they recline on a blanket, the loving couple stare up into the night sky and pick out a star. It doesn’t have to be the first one that strikes their fancy, or the brightest one, or even the—”
“What if it’s a binary star?” asked Twilight, who had stopped writing.
“I don’t know for certain,” said Cadence. “Your brother and I picked out this darling little pinkish star by Booties. We just sat next to each other for hours without saying a word, gazing up into the sky and kissing.”
“Kissing?” echoed Twilight, sounding a little hollow.
“That’s the important part. Long, slow kisses, filled with all of the love you have for each other.” Cadence sighed, still looking up at the stars. “It’s a magical moment, and that magic of love causes the star that the couple has picked out to blossom into a foal.”
“Oh,” said Twilight Sparkle, sounding somewhat relieved. “So if they don’t get a foal while out looking at the stars, it didn’t work. Right?”
“The stars are a long way away, Twilight.” Cadence nuzzled the little pegasus foal lovingly. “It takes over a month for the foal to travel to Equestria, through the stardust and moonbeams, until Princess Luna flies up into the night sky, catches the little one in her magic and brings her to the ground.” Cadence tittered quietly and shook her head. “She loves little foals.”
“A… month?” Twilight scurried over to the balcony and silently looked up into the star-strewn sky.
“Shining and I went out and looked at Aurora every night together, standing side-by-side while she got brighter and brighter. And then one night, she was gone, and Luna showed up at our window with our daughter.”
“Uh-oh,” declared Twilight, still staring up into the star-strewn sky. After a minute or two she began to rapidly shift positions with a clatter of hooves on the balcony floor. “Is there anything else that can cause a star, or stars, to get brighter, Cadence?”
“I’m not sure, Twilight. We could always send a message to Princess Luna and ask—”
“No! I mean…” Twilight coughed into one hoof without taking her eyes off the stars. “Maybe they only look brighter up here in the northern air. That’s it. Nothing to worry about.”
Twilight looked at the adorable little foal, tucked into the crook of Cadence’s foreleg.
Then she looked back out into the star-strewn sky.
Then back at the foal.
Then back at the sky.
“I gotta go!” she blurted out, darting for the door.
“Don’t you want to hold her, Twilight?” asked Cadence. “It’s good practice for later.”
Twilight Sparkle’s only response was to increase her forward momentum by the application of frantic wingflaps, and a fading cry of panic as she shot out of the front doors of the Crystal Castle, calling out, “MOOOoooommm!!”
Cadence remained where she was, fussing over the little pink pegasus as she yawned and shifted positions in the silver moonlight that filled the balcony. Eventually, the sound of heavier and slower hoofsteps could be heard, and Shining Armor poked his head into the room.
“Hey, Cadie. Mom and Dad are getting their things taken up to their bedroom. What’s going on with Twilight?”
“Whatever do you mean?” Cadence nuzzled a strand of fuzzy mane back from the little foal’s face. “We were just up here adoring little Aurora Dawn and talking about the stars when she went running off. Isn’t she precious?”
“Yeah, she’s a sweetheart.” Shining Armor fairly glowed with a broad smile as he reached down and nuzzled his wife, sparing an additional bit of nuzzling for the little filly curled up in her forelegs. “Where’s your maid, Glitter Puff? I know she wanted to be here to show my mother her new foal.”
“She’s asleep in our guest bedroom. She was so proud of her foal but it was late and she was so tired that I just had to volunteer as a foalsitter while she got some rest. Aurora has been a naughty little crystal pegasus and keeping her awake at nights. You’re so good for your Auntie Cadence, yes you are. We’ll just let your mommie have a couple hours of sleep for a change while we spoil you rotten. I’ll bet Twilight Velvet will love cuddling with you just as much as I do.”
“Yeah, Mom loves little foals.” From the sound of Shining Armor’s voice, the preference was inherited.
The little pegasus took that moment to yawn in her sleep and smack her lips against Cadence’s chest. “She’s just so cute that I can hardly wait for our own,” said Cadence with a motherly sigh.
“Only seven months left to go,” said Shining Armor. “It almost makes me wish there was a quicker way to have a foal. I’m so glad we’re in the Crystal Empire instead of in Canterlot. Going through this in the same castle with your prankster aunts every day would drive me nuts.”
Cadence wiped a little bit of saliva off the foal’s chin. “Oh, they’re not that bad, Shiny.”
Shining Armor raised one eyebrow. “Princess Luna convinced my sister that all of the Royal Guard were actually dragon’s teeth. Afterwards, Twiley made me sit down next to Spike and looked inside our mouths for an hour until she was sure we weren’t really brothers.”
“You do have very hot lips.” After a brief kiss, Cadence giggled. “I’ll bet it’s a family trait. Maybe I should ask you-know-who?”
“No.” Shining Armor’s pleasant smile flattened out somewhat. “I wish Princess Luna had never told you about that. I wish she hadn’t told me. I love your aunts dearly, but having them just show up last night to swap hot gossip about my sister was not very…” He turned and looked out into the starry night. “I just feel like I’m losing her.”
“Feeling a little jealous of your little sister, Shiny?” Cadence reached out with a wingtip and ran it up his flank, but pulled it back and wrapped it around the tiny pegasus foal when it started to fuss about losing its warm blanket. “We’re alicorns, dear. Twilight is one of us now, like one of the family, and with that, comes all of the things that alicorns do.”
“Mmmmmoooooom!” came the desperate wail of an alicorn on the edge of panic from somewhere out in the castle, “I’m going to have twins!”
“What in the…” Shining Armor looked down at his smiling wife, who was fully occupied with nuzzling the little crystal pegasus.
“Yes, dear?” asked Cadence.
“Dear, does this have anything to do with Luna catching Twilight and—” Shining Armor coughed into one hoof, as if he were thinking about a more appropriate use for it “—her coltfriend out stargazing?” He lowered his voice to a growl. “And kissing.”
“Maybe,” said Cadence.