• Published 2nd Dec 2012
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Xenophilia: Further tales. - TheQuietMan

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63: I can hear you singing to me in my sleep. (Hv)

I can hear you singing to me in my sleep
Chapter published 7th July 2013

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If changelings could swear out loud, the unfortunate pair struggling to carry an uncooperative Twilight Sparkle would be turning the air blue right about now. Just to make their lives that bit harder the unicorn had locked all four of her legs rigid part way through their journey back to the cells and it was taking all of her guards’ strength just to keep her off the ground while they pushed and pulled her down the tunnel, careful at all times not to let her either bounce off of the slick walls or allow her hooves to drag on the slick and uneven floor. Their queen had made it quite clear that no matter what happened no harm was to come to their ‘guest’ and she’d made it even clearer what would happen to any of her subjects who failed her.

Finally reaching the opening to their impromptu ‘jail’, the two changelings gathered their remaining strength and used their magic to rotate their infuriatingly cumbersome prisoner - all the while the unicorn remaining as annoyingly unhelpful as she could manage, her heavily swollen belly giving them one less place they could ponyhandle her by - before pushing her floating form through the doorway.

Allowing their burden to gently drift to the floor, the two escorts moved around their precious cargo eager to pass their troublesome prisoner off to the cell guard and get off back to their own posts as fast as their ragged wings would carry them.

Instead of a nice orderly jail with a guard ready to relieve them, all they found awaiting them was a scene of utter chaos and destruction. Much of the rag tag furniture in the room was smashed, pieces of wood strewn all over the room, two of the three ‘cell doors’ were what could only be described as ‘shredded’, obviously bludgeoned and torn with great physical force, their organic frames twisted away from the walls by what must have been some kind of large prying tool.

On the floor in the cell which had held that ugly biped lay the body of the cell guard, what remained of its once sleek face obscured by a mass recently congealed green goo, the lifeless head now sitting askew upon a grotesquely twisted neck.

The two changelings chattered in hisses and squeaks between themselves for a brief second - the first time Twilight had heard either of them verbalise at all throughout their entire journey - before one seemed to zone out for a second and then coming back to life again almost instantly. The two then chattered away between themselves once more for a few seconds before they turned as one back to their captive.

Changelings weren't particularly good at interpreting pony facial expressions unless they happened to be disguised as one at the time. But even now they could tell that the scathing look on the purple mare’s face was somewhere around the ‘vindictive’, ‘unimpressed’ or ‘right royally pissed off’ end of the scale.

“Looks like they got away. Oh, what a shame. Whatever will you do now?” The mare taunted, one end of her upper lip curling upwards slightly in satisfaction, the occasional glint of a tooth or two making it a full blow sneer.

On the floor by her hooves lay a discarded horn wrap (specifically designed to nullify the magic of any unicorn wearing it) and the canvas straps that had previously been used to bind Twilight’s pegasus herdmate’s wings to her sides.

“Ha. You are so bucked. I really wouldn’t want to be a member of this hive about now. Four out of five of your prisoners are at large, quite a few of which are highly trained combat specialists. Plus, reinforcements could be here any minute.”

Twilight sucked in air over her teeth while glumly shaking her head.

“Nope, it doesn’t look good for you at all. Maybe you should just think about letting us all go and hoping for the best, hmm?”

More chittering came from her captors before they slowly levitated their ward back into her own undamaged cell; the largest of the three and the only one with its old, small bed and its even older and even smaller wooden table still undamaged.

As she once again stood steady on her own four hooves, the door closed behind her, the mucus like substance that made up its bars hardening against the frame once more to keep her sealed within. Satisfied that she was properly contained, one of her guards left the room in total silence, the other lingering for a moment as if reluctant to leave their ‘guest’ unguarded.

After a few seconds the one remaining changeling zoned out as it had before (or was it the other one? They all looked alike) before coming back to life just as quickly and then scampering out of the door after its companion. Whether they had been ordered to stand guard in the tunnel just outside the jail or to head back to their queen for further orders Twilight didn’t know. Either way, she was just glad they were gone as she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep up this facade.

Straining her ears for any noise coming from the tunnel outside of the jail, Twilight waited a few moments to see if there would be any other sign of movement. Satisfied she was alone for now she made her way over to her small table and the even smaller fruit bowl that sat upon it.

To refer to the bowl’s contents as ‘fruit’ would have been generous. There was something that might have been a banana once upon a time, what looked like shriveled up raisins on a withered vine and finally some... things that Applejack would rather have asked Princess Celestia to launch into the sun before she’d ever dare call them apples.

“Well, beggers can’t be choosers.“ The unicorn muttered, using her forehoof to lift one of the so-called apples to her lips, the magic inhibitor around her own horn preventing her from using even a simple levitation spell.

As she moved the piece of fruit ever closer to her mouth she gave it the evil eye. It was highly doubtful that it was poisoned - the queen had made quite plain that Twilight wasn't to be harmed - but she doubted her upcoming dining experience was going to be in any way pleasant.

Closing her eyes she almost threw the offending morsel down her throat, chewing as quickly as she could to get it out of her mouth and away from her already offended taste buds as soon as ponily possible.

Yep, she was right... that had not been pleasant.

Deep within her she could feel her unborn child squirm in protest. Looks like junior didn’t like dodgy fruit either.

“I’m sorry, baby.” Twi rubbed at her distended belly, hoping to sooth the foal within. “Looks like no tuna for you today I’m afraid.”

Eyeing the remaining ‘fruit’ she added “Nothing decent at all it seems. What I wouldn’t give for a bowl of fresh hay fries about now.”

Her unborn foal squirmed some more, maybe in agreement, before settling down.

“I know I’ve asked this before, but can you hear me in there?” The lavender mare continued to rub at her swelling, feeling her child fidget inside her as she did so. “I hope you can. That would be so nice. I’m not a huge fan of being all on my own anymore, too many of years of herdlife saw to that.”

Waddling over to the small (and particularly uncomfortable) bed she pulled the mattress free - a job made all the harder due to her current lack of magic - before throwing it on the floor. After pushing it up against the crooked bars of her cell she clambered on, turning in place a few times before gingerly settling herself down

After a few minutes of silence the heavily pregnant unicorn let her head slump against the bars, the organic material they were comprised of had long since dried and they were remarkably smooth to the touch.

“I’m scared.” She finally admitted out loud, the feeling of a great weight finally being lifted from her soul as she did so.

“Oh, not of all this.“ She waved a forehoof around her cell. “This is nothing. I’ve been in worse situations than this before. It looks like whatever the herd were planning as a jailbreak worked. They won’t be gone long though, your father will be back for us soon enough or mommy Rainbow will get out and go for help. They’ll figure something out, they always have before. Maybe Rainbow’ll bring the Shadowbolts, or the rest of the elements or maybe even Auntie Luna herself. They’ll come for us soon and then that stupid old queen won’t even know what hit her.”

Twilight laughed, though it wasn't a happy laugh.

Especially if they bring Auntie Luna. Her idea of appropriate retribution would probably be to level the entire hive just to break us out and then convince Princess Celestia to use the sun to fry it from orbit. Which I guess is one way to be sure.”

For a few more minutes silence once again reigned until finally Twilight spoke again.

“Oh, who am I kidding?” She asked, rubbing her belly to reassure herself as much as it was for the unborn child. “I’ll be honest with you here, kid, I’m absolutely terrified. I don't think I've ever actually been this scared in my life.”

The rubbing continued as Twi thought about what she wanted to say next. There’d been a lot of thoughts rolling around in the back of her head over the last few months that for some really weird reason had decided to push their way to the front of her consciousness right now. Twi could (and possibly would) live to a thousand years old and she’d never be able to figure out either exactly how her brain worked or quite why it seemed to really hate her at times

“But to be honest this is nothing compared to how scared I am of being a mother. What if I’m like my own mother, what if I just don’t get it? What if the connection’s not there? What if I’m the worst mother in the world?”

Tears were building up in Twilight’s eyes by now and she fought to keep them at bay.

“I try with Sweetie, I really do, but I still need Lyra to help me at times. I don’t know why but we’ve just not bonded like she has with the others. There’s even times I think she likes Luna more than she likes me.”

Twi sniffed loudly, trying to pull back some of the mucus that was building up in her nose.

“Oh hay, even Rainbow’s heaps better with her than I am. I’ve got the biggest family, the most siblings out of all of us and I just… I… It’ s just so hard. Apart from Shiney I never got on with any of my own siblings, just never felt that special something that makes us all familly. So why on Celestia’s beard should I have thought that this would be any different?”

Lapsing back into silence for a few moments Twi continued to rub at the soft fur on her belly.

“Lyra said she could feel Sweetie’s magic radiating from deep inside her after only five or six months. That it felt like a portion of her own magic, her own soul had budded off and become its own being, that she could feel the ebb and flow of a new life flowing back into her from something that had originally started off as a part of herself. That the two of them could linked in a way that I can only dream about, it’s…”

Tears fell, rolling from her cheeks and onto her coat as she spoke.

“But I just can’t feel you.” She cried. “I know you’re there, I can feel you move, can feel you stretch and turn and kick... I just can’t ‘feel’ you. Not the way Lyra did with Sweetie, not like Gramma Velvet said she could feel Guiding Light.”

Twi lifted her head away from the bars before letting it fall back again, the sudden pain of the impact jarring her mind, in a strange way helping her to push out of her brain what it was that she felt she needed to say..

“Velvet said that Star couldn’t feel me either, when I was growing inside her.” Twi idly lifted her head and again banged the ridge of her eyebrow against the bars, a small part of her mind welcoming the physical pain. “What if you end up hating me like I hated Star? What if you end up blaming me the way I blamed her. I don’t think I could take it. I’m not like my mother. I couldn’t put that wall around my heart and just carry on regardless.”

Lifting her head from the bars as before, this time she pulled a moth-eaten blanket from the edge of the mattress and wrapped it around herself in an attempt to make some sorry approximation of a nest. Curling herself into as small of a ball as she could manage, her ears pressed back against her skull, she spoke again, quiet now, like a whisper, as if she didn’t want to be overheard.

“Sometimes I have these dreams. That I mess it all up so badly that I’m thrown out of the herd. That I end up old and unloved, sitting all alone in my big empty office drinking glass after glass of gin, just wishing that I could do it all over, that I could somehow go back and make it all right.”

Deep within her barrel her baby squirmed. Maybe she was sleeping? Maybe she was having dreams of her own? What dreams would the unborn dream? What visions would their young, half formed minds bring them? Could they have nightmares as their mothers did?

“But this isn’t doing us any good is it?” Twilight wiped at her eyes with a forehoof, looking around the cell for something to distract herself with, something to steer her mind away from the unwanted course it had plotted for her.

Table, bed frame, bowl full of yuck, nasty mattress and its ratty blanket. Yep, that was about it.

“It’s kinda silly, if you think about it. Here I am, one of modern Equestria’s most successful scientists, sitting here moaning about being disturbed by bad dreams.” The very thought made Twilight smile, even though it brought her no real joy.

“Some of these dreams have been getting pretty strange recently, let me tell you. There’s been ones about giant metal dragons that can carry hundred of ponies all the way around the world in a matter of hours, others about ponies fighting against each other just because their coats are different colours or that they don’t all follow the same beliefs about how the pony races came to exist in the first place. Or even this really crazy one where we mismanage the ecosystem so badly that Equestria’s struck by famines and floods and food shortages and all other kinds of disasters. Pretty far fetched stuff, eh? I really must stop eating cheese before bedtime... or at all actually.”

Twilight resumed her self-administered belly rubs - what she wouldn't give for a rub from Lero or Lyra about now - watching as her her forehoof moved against the grain of her fur, making the hairs stand on end just to lay back flat again when her limb passed back in the other direction..

“If that’s what’s going on in my head right now, maybe it’s better that we aren’t connected. I’m not sure I’d wish what I've been seeing on any pony.”

She watched the fur-show some more, letting her brain wander back to some of the better dreams she’d been having recently.

“You know, sometimes I have good dreams too. My favourite’s the one where you turn out to be just the prettiest little thing, just like your sister. And smart too, like me; fast and strong like your other mothers and bold and brave like your father. They’re the best ones, the ones where we all get to live together in a life full of love and happiness.”

Ears that previously lain flat against her skull lifted once more. While they were by no means back in a ‘happy’ position, they certainly weren't advertising their owner’s troubled state of mind in as uncertain terms as they were a few moments before.

“It might look a bit grim for us right now but your father will be here soon. He’ll get us some help and then he’ll come back for us, I just know it. I know it here.” She moved her hoof from her belly to her chest, just above her heart.

“And I know it in here.” The hoof moved up to her head.

“And I know it here.” Her hoof moved back to her swollen belly.

“He’ll never leave us, not while he’s still alive. He’s been through worse than this. We’ve all been through worse than this.”

And they had. They’d handled the return of the seaponies, survived griffin attacks, dealt with bigoted and belligerent ponies, cut through bureaucratical red tape galore and they’d even weathered the most irksome of all obstacles; the slings and arrows of Canterlot’s high society.

“Just think, in just a couple of months now we’ll all be together. You‘ll meet your father and your mothers and your sister. I think you’ll like them.”

Twi patted her stomach a few times, gently though, not hard enough to wake her young one if she was asleep in there.

“Your sister’s so smart. Everypony says she takes after me like that, even though we all know that’s physically impossible. Lyra keeps telling me that with the huge amounts of my magic I’d poured into her while she was pregnant at least some of it must have seeped through into Sweetie.”

Though highly unlikely Twilight thought it was a nice idea nonetheless.

“And your mommy Rainbow. She’s so awesome… but just don’t tell her I said that, okay. She’s one of the bravest ponies I’ve ever met. She’s got, well Lero says humans call it ‘the right stuff’ and though I’m not sure exactly what that means it sure sounds like her.”

Suddenly a loud noise echoed into the jail from tunnel mouth... no, not a single noise, much noise, many noises, a whole cacophony of noise even. Unintelligible animalistic screaming punctuated by the occasional ‘fizz’ and ‘pop’ of some kind of magic was the only way Twilight could describe it. But on the whole she didn’t care what it was, she just wished it would stop.

While the distance was hard to judge what with the way sound carried and bounced and echoed within this system of caverns, the purple mare was fairly sure that whatever it was making that Luna thrice-damned noise was a good way away from her little jail cell... and for this she was grateful.

Making herself as small as she could once more Twi tucked herself back into her little nest, intently stroking her belly whether her child was awake or not. Right now she needed all the distraction she could get.

“And mommy Lyra, you’ll like her.” She whispered. “She’s just so…so... so Lyra. Ha, I never could quite pin that mare down. She’ll be here soon. She’s probably the one making all that noise. Any pony’d think she’s trying to get caught. But I know her, if that is her then she’s trying to confuse them, keep them all on the back hoof. From the sound of it she’s doing a really good job too.”

The shrieks were getting further away now. Whatever was happening, whatever chaos was raging within the tunnels and caves of this damnable hive was moving away from her location.

“And your daddy, he’ll be right behind her. I bet he’s got it all planned out. He won’t leave us, he’d never leave us. He’ll have taken Rainbow somewhere he can get her out of these tunnels and back to the surface and then he’ll have sent her to go get help. She won’t have been happy about it all, was probably kicking and screaming the whole way out of the door. She’ll go though. She always sees sense in the end and somepony needs to get Sweetie away from here.”

Another scream came from the tunnels again, louder than the others but just as far away. Twi could swear that last shout was almost masculine, the words almost but not quite understandable.

“Yes, that’s what he’ll have done. He’s a very clever stallion.”

The purple mare patted her tummy again.

“That’s why he’s your daddy.”

Poking her head out from under the blanket, Twilight rotated her ears to get a better handle on the diminished sounds still making their way onto her little jail cell.

“So yes, you’ll be here soon.” She whispered again as the sounds continued to fade away, the distant combatants getting ever further

“I’ll teach you all about magic. It’s powerful stuff, but it can be very dangerous too. Not something you can run off using willy-nilly. With great power comes great responsibility as your father says.”

By now nothing but silence was coming from the cave mouth; no screams, no shouts, no echoes of any kind. As she was becoming uncomfortable, all curled into a ball as she was, Twi took the opportunity to unfold herself and stretch out on the mattress, keeping the blanket close to hoof at all times. Before long she returned to her verbal wanderings.

“So, yes. Magic. You have to be very careful with what you’re casting. Not like this time I was working on an old unfinished spell Starswirl the Bearded had left behind. I’d been sitting on it for years and then like some kind of foal I just went ahead and cast it one day to see what it would do. The next thing we knew your mothers were stuck delivering mail and babysitting orphaned animals and your father and I were apparently married to BonBon and Rarity. You can bet your father’s never let me forget it since.“

Thinking back to that crazy, crazy week Twilight felt her cheeks start to heat up with what she was sure would be quite an impressive blush were anypony there to see it. For all the time she’d spent in Ponyville before that week she’d never realised just how… passionate their confectioner friend was. Nor had she had any clue about how domineering ‘Madame Rarity’ could be in the bedroom. Poor Lero hadn’t been able to make eye contact with either mare for weeks afterwards.

“Ahem, maybe best to save the rest of that story until you’re a bit older. Like thirty or something.”

While the unicorn struggled for a new subject of conversation - something she’d have never in a thousand years thought she’d have to do whilst chatting away to herself locked up alone in an underground jail cell only Celestia knew how many miles from civilisation - another mangled scream came from the tunnel mouth.

Pulling the blanket tight around herself again, Twilight waited for the sounds to fade away before attempting to restart her one sided conversation.

“Do you know what he does, your father?. He sings to you. I thought he was crazy when he started singing to Lyra’s bump when she was pregnant but it seemed to help. Sometimes, when we were back staying in Ponyville, Sweetie Belle would come over and and help him. She used to live next door with the rest of the Crusaders. It’s a shame she’s already left for Neighpon on one of my mother’s research trips, you’d really like her. Everypony does.”

Twilight’s unborn child took this opportunity to try out one of her limbs, probably a hind leg what with the way the kick (or buck) had felt against the unicorn’s insides.

“Woah, Easy honey, that’s mommy’s bladder right there and I don’t think our captors have a bathroom anywhere around here I can use.”

After a bit of squirming both mother and child settled back down again.

“So, your father, he sings to you. He sings these strange songs that humans sing to their foals. Would you like me to sing you one? I probably won’t be as good as daddy but I can have a go if you like.”

As no more kicks or wriggles came from within her, Twilight took this as a sign of agreement... well, that or abject disinterest. Either way she needed to keep herself occupied which meant the kid was getting a song whether she wanted one or not.

Taking a deep breath as she prepared to sing, Twi tried hard to remember the lyrics. Singing wasn't as easy to do when you didn’t have the magic of harmony to help you out. Remembering things like timings, how the verses were ordered, hitting the right cadences and keys were hard to do on the fly. How on earth humans managed it all alone was an eternal mystery.

The toe bone's connected to the foot bone,

The foot bone's connected to the ankle bone,

The ankle bone's connected to the leg bone,

Now shake dem skeleton bones!

“Actually that’s not particularly accurate, humans don’t so much have ‘toe bones’ as a series of phalanges which meet the metatarsals and then the cuneiforms before joining up with another group of other bones at the ankle before continuing on up the leg. Oh, sorry, I’m getting off topic. Mommy does that when she’s nervous.”

Twi allowed herself a childish giggle before launching back into her song.

The leg bone's connected to the knee bone,

The knee bone's connected to the thigh bone,

The thigh bone's connected to the hip bone,

Now shake dem skeleton bones!

“You know, it’s interesting that, unlike us, your father actually has two bones sitting side by side between his ankle and knee as opposed to our one. He says it’s to do with why he can rotate his ankle in ways that we can’t. Quite fascinating stuff really. Coincidently, your sister has an odd formation on the back of her metacarpus which may have been a proto-OWOWOW.”

Twi rubbed at her belly just in front of one of her teats where she’d just received a quite potent little kick.

“Okay, okay, I’ll get back to the song. Oh boy, everypony’s a critic these days.”

The finger bone's connected to the hand bone,

The hand bone's connected to the arm bone,

The arm bone's connected to the shoulder bone,

Now shake dem skeleton bones!

“Now, again this is a somewhat simplified representation of the skeletal arrangement of the human hand and arm but I think-ARRH. Okay, I get it. Maybe it’d be best we just leave that one for now, eh?”

Was it her singing that wasn’t working? Was it the choice of song? Whatever the reason was, it didn't seem to have gone down that well. Whenever their child was particularly unsettled it would usually only take a scant few minutes of Lero’s soothing voice to put her back at ease.

Well, as she was the only one here who could sing then the sole piece of advice that Twi’s analytical mind could suggest was changing her choice of lullaby and then checking the results. Now, if only she had a clipboard.

And quill.

And a scroll.

And her old lab assistant so he could dragon-fire a message to Princess Celestia to get her the buck out of here before the queen changed her mind.

No, she need to stop this train of thought right now.

“Okay, how about we try one of your father’s favourites?”

Some things in life are bad

They can really make you mad

Other things just make you swear and curse.

“And we’ll have no cursing from you young lady. That’s mommy Rainbow’s area of expertise and we’ve been trying to get her to cut down for years. Honestly, I think all these years in the Wonderbolts have just made her worse. Get her together with her flightmates for more than ten minutes and they’re drinking up a storm and swearing like troopers. Ooh, sorry, where was I?“

When you're chewing on life's thistles

Don't grumble, give a whistle

And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...

Always look on the light side of life...

Pursing her lips to whistle, Twilight let herself sway gently from side to side, finding the motion strangely calming she moved onto the next verse..

If life seems jolly rotten

There's something you've forgotten

And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.

When you're feeling in the dumps

Don't be silly chumps

Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

And...always look on the bright side of life...

Always look on the light side of life...

While she wouldn't have been able to say exactly why, Twi felt that the song had done some good, both for her child and also for her own state of mind. Maybe it had helped to make small connection in her mind to her stallion, wherever he was right now. Maybe it had made her face the fact that she couldn’t actually do much to help with the dire predicament she found herself in at this moment in time so getting herself all worked up would do her no real good.

Or maybe the crazy idea that facing the situation with a positive attitude could actually help push back her worries, even if it was for a short time, was really working It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that PInkie had been right all along, maybe sometimes you did just need to ‘giggle at the ghosties’ after all.

Well whatever the reason, it had done the trick and right now that’s all that mattered.

“He’s got hundreds of songs like that you know, thousands of them maybe. All these amazing, funny, or just plain weird human songs that no pony’s ever heard before. He’s been teaching them to other ponies for years now and he never seems to run out of new ones. “

Once Lero had gotten his head around the fact that there were a lot of ponies that would like to hear his songs - an idea that he’d apparently found awfully hard to accept for the longest time - he’d thrown himself headlong into the act of teaching them to any pony that wanted to learn. And to everyone’s amazement there had been a shockingly large amount of those.

After a few years It had even gotten to the point where the Royal Canterlot Conservatorium had offered him a position as both a part time lecturer and as the co-head of the “Preservation of Human Music” program, a project he now managed along with two good friends of Herd Bellerophon - Octavia Melody and DJ PON-3.

“Both Miss Melody and Professor Scratch tell me that if he carries on at the rate he’s going then Equestria will eventually have more songs written by humans written down and recorded for posterity than there are written by ponies.”

Twi turned her head to look up at the slick rock ceiling of her cold, dank cell. She imagined that she could see beyond the walls of her jail, through the layers of rock and earth above her to the sky and its stars beyond. In her mind’s eye she could see humans, untold numbers of them standing on their own world, looking up at their own stars, wondering to themselves just as she had ‘Are there others like us out there beyond those stars?’”

For the inhabitants of Equestria, that question had long since been answered. Both the stallion... no, the man in her heart and the child in her womb were a testament to that fact.

“Just think, all these far flung voices from a distant star, written by humans who by now might be long since passed away, their bodies returned to the star stuff from which they were made while the words of their songs are being kept alive by generations of ponies that they’ll never meet.”

Turning her attention back to her belly and the child growing within, she leaned her head closer, so her unborn foal could better hear her words.

“And you, you’re my own little star song. My little bit of whatever this magic is that Lero’s brought with him. Equestria’s own little piece of him that will keep on living long after he’s gone, to carry on his lineage through your children and their children and their children’s children after them.”

At that instant Twilight found herself struck by that fleeting flash of inspiration that many mothers-to-be talked about, the brief but insistent touch of the magic of harmony in the moment the name of their unborn child was brought to them on the magical winds.

“That’ll be your name, ‘Star Song’.” Twilight smiled wide for the first time in what felt like forever. “It’s nice to meet you; Star Song, Second child of Herd Bellerophon, Future Duchess of Smaragdvea.”

Form deep within her came a response, a small but definite kick which thankfully just about missed her bladder.

“Hey, it’s not that bad. Though I’ll agree that the fancy title is a bit pointless but trust me, you’ll get used to it. Technically I’m Professor Lady Twilight Amaranth Guinevere Sparkle, Bearer of the Element of Magic and Future Duchess of Smaragdvea... give or take a middle name or three.”

The unicorn wiggled her head from side to side in a mock-pompousity as she regurgitated her full name, of which she was not particularly fond even now.

“Yeah, I don’t like it much either. ‘Amaranth Guinevere’... pah. I mean, who names their foal Amaranth Guinevere? Perhaps they thought it was funny? Can you guess what Malachite Shard was like once he found out “Amaranth’ can mean ‘Purple Heart’? Up to that point I hadn't thought he could make my life any harder than he already did. Boy, was I wrong.”

While Twilight had unashamedly adored her eldest brother Shining Armour as a child (to the point where other ponys had stated to use the phrase ‘brother complex’ behind her back), to say there was no love lost between her and her other elder brother would have been an understatement.

No, better words to have used for the foalhood relationship between Malachite and Twilight would have to have been along the lines of ‘dislike’, ‘distrust’ or ‘detest’, depending on how kind the speaker wished to be at the time. Also, quite how much of these attitudes could be attributed to Mal’s birthmother Scintilla would also depend on the speaker’s level of kindness... though the general opinion was that it was mostly her fault.

“But it could be worse. Don’t you ever tell your sister this but her name actually came from Lyra's favorite curse words from whenever she was struck with a really nasty case of morning sickness. We tried to get her to change it to ‘Sweet Surprise’ but ooooh noooo, she was adamant. So far we’ve just been telling Sweetie she’s named after Bon Bon and leaving it at that. Heck, even Rainbow’s promised to keep that particular secret a secret and you know she’s just dying to tell. I give it about three more years until Sweetie figures it out.”

Twilight gave her tummy another little rub while she suppressed a laugh at the memory of the her nigh-on permanently unflappable unicorn herdmate’s surprisingly vulgar and unladylike responses to months of unannounced nausea, uncontrollable vomiting and some of the wackiest food cravings that ponykind had ever seen. Even now some of AJ or Fluttershy’s animals still ran and hid whenever they saw the minty unicorn approaching.

“No morning sickness for me though, you’ve been so perfect, it’s me that hasn’t been. I can read a million books about pregnancy and I have no idea what I’m doing. All the advice I gave Lyra and I still know next to nothing. When it comes to doing what comes naturally, I'm anything but a natural I guess.”

As she again fidgeted on her uncomfortable mattress, trying and failing for not the first time to get settled, another bout of screaming and hollering came from the tunnel mouth, much closer this time than ever before. As she strained to make out one scream from another she recognised Lero’s voice, his deeper voice and masculine tones making their way to her ears as she pushed herself against the bars of her cell.

He was alive! And if he was alive then that meant that either Lyra or Rainbow were probably still with him. They’d survived and come for her just as she’d known they would.

Just as quickly as it had begun, the sounds of the fight were over. All that could be heard from outside the doorway was silence, no screaming reached her now, no sounds of violence echoed from the walls to her ears.

Eventually the silence was broken by some kind of shuffling noise, which made its way slowly closer to the threshold of the small jail.

Twilight pulled herself from her little nest and pushed herself against the back wall of her cell; afraid that the figure making its way out of the gloom and into her field of vision might be a changeling, that what last shred of hope she had held that her herdmates might had survived would be cruelly stolen away from her.

But what was making its way out of the shadows was too large to be a changeling, too upright to be a quadruped. It was Lero, her stallion had taken on overwhelming odds and returned to her alive.

The beaten and abused human looked a state; his clothing was badly torn, almost every patch of visible skin covered with bloody cuts, his right arm hanging limp and useless at his side. What looked like a broken table leg covered in something Twilight didn’t even want to think about dangled loosely from his left hand.

Lyra came in after him, slowly walking backwards as she kept watch down the tunnel behind them. She was limping quite badly, a forehoof twisted at an angle that didn’t look at all healthy and, from what little Twi could see in the dim light, parts of her mane appeared to be missing.

As the mint green unicorn turned to check on her human herdmate Twilight could see that her face was a mess, dried blood caking one side of her head while fresh blood dripped from her nose and mouth.

Making his way over to Twilight’s cell, moving through what was obviously a great amount of pain, Lero slumped against the bars of the door, letting his body slide down to the floor. Desperately the unicorn rushed forward, pushing a forehoof through a gap in the bars so she could cradle his head.

From his spot on the slick, cold floor Lero smiled up at his wife, one eye locking onto her worried face as the other refused to focus.

“Hey baby, we’re back.” He whispered, his voice hoarse from shouting.

Letting the table leg fall from his grasp, he lifted his good hand and placed it over his wife’s forehoof.

“I told you I’d never leave you.“

Author's Note:

Disclaimer. Now this is a surprise... Dem Bones was written by a white guy called James Weldon Johnson back like a hundred years ago. Without starting a whole discussion about race or anything here, I'd always assumed the person behind it was black. Talk about preconceptions.

So, Ford own Mazda and Jaguar? That explains why I always though the 323 looks like a Fiesta with a better paint job and the XK8 felt like driving a Mondeo on performance enhancing drugs.

Oh, and 'Bright Side of Life' is a Monty Python song... as if you didn't know already. Sshhhesh.

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