• Published 21st Dec 2012
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Forgiveness Pending - Kiroberos



Moon Mender's adventure continues right where left off. He jumps at the chance for a new life, but will his old one truly leave him in peace? Some things are better off forgotten.

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Chapter 94

I wasn't entirely sure what was worse. The absolutely excessive amount of questions after the press release, or the fact that Fluttershy and Twilight were literally right in the front row and I couldn't just bail off the side of the stage and hug them. Twilight appeared to catch on fast as to what had happened, and I saw her start talking to the other six. Spike still looked a little bewildered by it all, but the longer she talked, the more irate Rainbow and Applejack looked.

At least half of the questions were directed at me. Princess Celestia tackled the rest, with Shining Armor slipping down to speak to his sister and friends halfway through. I stood there, silently gritting my teeth as each question shot in, my forelegs shaking quietly, my magic keeping the hooves sealed to the wood so they wouldn't rattle. My armor was hot now at this point, the fur along my face and head damp and matting. With my helmet off, I couldn't do temperature regulation, which was going to be something I'd have to fix in the future.

All ranges of topics were covered. How dangerous I was, my moral integrity, if I was still going to be head of DReg, my relationship with the Element Bearers, what my relationship was with the royal sisters, my legality as an Equestrian Citizen, my legal status as a member of a herd, and even how old I should be classified. Most of the questions I felt they didn't have any need to know, but unfortunately, I was the scary alien creature trying to prove that it was a pony. The age thing even I couldn't answer, being mentally about twenty, biologically seven months, and technically three hundred and seven. After a surprisingly long three minute debate, ending with Twilight looking like she wanted to both cry and beat somepony's head in, Snapshot finally just flicked back to my bio page slide and doodled a smiley face and question mark in my age entry. Eh, good enough.

The stallion stood up again, his coat tan with slightly darker mane and tail, and surprisingly piercing orange eyes. His horn glowed fiercely as he continued writing, even while grilling me for information. I inwardly winced, him being the one to ask the most brutal questions so far.

"What exactly is your intent towards Equestria, and Equus as a whole? The nation, and our planet itself." I stared at him, biting back my immediate answer of 'to live on it'. Princess Celestia had told me to try to stay as direct as possible, and to answer everything with as much honesty as I could muster. Dry sarcasm probably wouldn't be well received.

Exhaling, I thought about it for a moment before just starting from the top. "At first, having no memories, I had no intentions one way or another. It was sort of... I took things one day at a time while trying to figure everything out. Once my memories started coming back, I was confused. I didn't understand most of it, and most of my intention was attempting to figure myself out. There were no large scale goals towards such things, at least not until a little while after the attack," I explained, fighting to remember back that far. It felt like ages ago now.

He frowned and started to open his mouth again, but the mare next to him glared and cut him off first, surprising me by instead asking, "What happened after the attack?" Her voice was softer, and she gave me another one of her encouraging smiles. She wore her lavender mane up in a bun with two longer bangs framing her face. Two darker purple eyes hid behind a small pair of spectacles, her coat a very pale green color.

Exhaling again, feeling the nervous energy dancing around in my chest, I focused and put my thoughts back together again. "I found out that I was cybernetic. That was a big shock to me, along with all of the publicity and high tension around the event. Everything happened at once, and I lost my sense of self. It became a struggle to identify with myself and figure out who I was, if I wasn't a pony," I tried to explain, frowning afterwards. Ugh, why couldn't I just write all this down and have somepony else read it?! Shivering, I continued, "Around that time, after I fully explained at least what I was to Princess Celestia, she broached me with the job for Dimensional Regulations. The main reason, of course, was my knowledge of dimensions, technology, and engineering, but she also helped me to try to figure out who I was. She had wanted me to live a normal life, and tried convincing me that even with the extra parts, I was still a pony. I..."

Swallowing, I closed my eyes, unable to look at any of them anymore. All I could feel was everypony's attention on me, judging me and ridiculing me. I could almost hear all of their voices in my head, laughing or throwing insults. The feeling of the stage started to twist around me, and I fought to keep my balance until a hoof touched down on my shoulder, almost scaring me out of my armor.

Reality snapped back into place when Tia gently reminded, "Breathe, Mender. Relax." I exhaled, not having realized I'd been holding my breath. My heart slammed in my chest and I swallowed a painful lump, willing my limbs to stop trembling.

"Oh come on, he's obviously faking it!" the tan stallion shouted out, not looking pleased at all. I winced, then flicked my ears at the hostile snarl further to the left.

"That's so it! This whole thing is a joke!" Rainbow snarled, taking to the air and glaring burning holes into the stallion's face. He took the sane option, nervously backing away from the pegasus and shrinking a little, but she turned her general wrath to the rest of the gathering ponies instead.

"Yeah, I get it. You're scared about what happened and the new pony who has extra, mechanical parts! Totally understandable, as I was a little weirded out at first by it all, too. But this isn't understandable! You've sat here for the last hour ripping into a worked up, nervous, and really vulnerable pony just to sate your own curiosities! This is disgusting!" she screamed, definitely not needing a microphone. My ears lowered as I watched her, not knowing if she was really helping or hurting. I looked over to Tia, but she was just calmly watching the flying pegasus, no expression whatsoever, really, but definitely not interrupting.

The stage vibrated lightly as Applejack landed on it, too, trotting along the edge while looking out under Rainbow, into the crowd. "Ya'all know us. We're tha mares who've worked real hard ta save Equestria, an' even Equus itself multiple times now. Ah'm hopin' ya trust us ah bit when we say that this 'ere pony is exactly who he says he is. Ah was right there mahself durin' tha attack, an' personally witnessed almost all o' his story! Ya wanna know what his 'intent' fer ya'all is?!" she shouted out, tone more level than Rainbow's, but still sounding a bit upset. I frowned while watching her, but she suddenly slammed both of her forehooves down into the stage hard enough to fracture the wood, the noise echoing out through the crowd as everypony glued their eyes right to her.

"Exactly what he's been doin'! He saved Ponyville from that creature! He stopped ah crazy alien plot ta get access ta Equestria! He saved Octavia Melody an' her whole group from ah horrible accident! He saved three foals from drownin' durin' Estrus break! Even without all that, he's been helpin' ceaselessly all around Ponyville... He thinks most o' that is his fault, an' has been workin' ta protect everypony as best he can! His intent is ta protect all o' ya, an' Ah bet he wouldn't hesitate, even though ya'all have been makin' him feel right unwelcome fer hours," she finished, gesturing back to me as I shrunk a little away from her as well. She frowned back at me, looking both concerned, and surprisingly relieved to see me up close at the same time.

Tia exhaled softly, surprisingly loud due to the microphone right next to her. Straightening herself, she cleared her throat, then spoke up with, "I trust each and every one of the Element Bearers personally with my own life. They're right, even if I can't always agree with their wordings. I think Mender's about reached his limit for public presentations." I swallowed, wondering if I'd done something wrong or screwed up when I panicked like that. I should have just answered, then the others wouldn't have had to get involved.

My head spun as I watched a dozen more hooves raise into the air. Tia frowned, but gestured to one of the mares off to the right, who instead looked over at me. "What are your actual qualifications for leading a national branch of our government?" she asked, lifting her pad of paper up.

Tia interrupted instead, almost instantly. "I chose him to lead it personally based on his experience with dimensions, the information they gave him when augmenting him, and his own knack for engineering and technical expertise. Also, I'll be answering all of the questions from now on, so direct them towards me, please. Mender is under a lot of stress, which is rather understandable given the situation," she pointed out. I hadn't heard her be so curt before, and the mare shrank a little, quickly noddfing, then writing more down on her pad.

I watched until orange filled my vision. Applejack sat down almost in front of me, giving me a careful look over, while simultaneously blocking a good eighty percent of me from the audience. I raised an eyebrow, but she quickly defended, "They've gawked enough fer one day. Relax, Mender. Ya just woke up last night, didn't ya?" Ah, right, they might not have all the details still.

Rainbow landed to my other side a moment later, looking my armor up and down before giving an appreciative whistle, blatantly ignoring the fact that Tia was still answering questions. Probably intentionally, to make her earlier statement all the louder. "Lookin' good with your new armor, Mender," she chirped, playfully reaching out and giving my shoulder plate a solid whack with her right hoof. My balance was still shot to hell and back from my 'almost' panic attack, and it actually tipped me over, unfortunately.

She looked surprised as I fell over sideways with a rather loud thud, Tia stopping and frowning over at me as I exhaled while lying on the stage in front of Applejack. Figures. "Sorry, a bit dizzy, and this armor is really hot. Uh, could I get some water?" I asked timidly, giving Tia an awkward, pleading smile.

After a moment, she just smiled and shook her head before letting out a chuckle. "Go get some food and something to drink, Mender. The incident did interrupt your lunch," she reminded, immediately causing my stomach to growl weakly. There were a few chuckles from the crowd, but to my surprise, Octavia stood up in the first row. Huh?

She gave me a winning smirk before asking, "So, third time's the charm?"

* * * * *

It was actually rather refreshing when nopony really shied away from me while we trotted down the isle between the crowds. There were lots of stares, but the majority appeared to be of curiosity now rather than fear or apprehension. Maybe the press conference really had helped? Regardless, I put my tentacles and armor away as to not draw excessive amounts of attention, if I could help it.

"And she seems okay to you?" Twilight asked gently while sitting across from me at the table. I felt her back left leg gently rubbing mine as we rested, and relaxed. Fluttershy pressed into my left side about as close as she could, gently massaging my shoulder while we waited for food.

Shaking my head, I repeated, "She was absolutely terrified. I think they actually got her to believe the world was going to end if she didn't do something about me."

Octavia snorted to my other side, still reading over a flash press release from Equestria Weekly, huge picture of me in my armor standing up on stage right above it. "They're absolutely foolish. All they seem to really be good at is scare tactics and trying to sling baseless accusations around. Now look what it got them? This is going to backfire amazingly on them, ponies fully aware now that the whole situation was them endangering an innocent filly to try to force Mender to reveal himself," she pointed out, flipping to the other page and gesturing to the image of the filly and mare on the roof.

Rarity smiled softly, even as my ears flicked back, seeing that picture again. "You did a wonderful thing, and made the right choice to save the mare. You revealed your secret saving the very pony trying to slander you, when it would have served you far more to not save her at all. Ponies already see that much," she reasoned out, closing the small news pamphlet with her magic, Octavia nodding to her.

Fluttershy pushed a bit closer into my side, rapidly shaking her head, however. I glanced to her, and she instead asked, "Um, how are you doing, though? You had to go through all of that, stand up on that stage in front of all those ponies, and we haven't even heard about how you've been since you woke up!" Oh, right.

Everypony at the table blanked except for Octavia, who glanced back and forth before settling on me instead. "Admittedly, I'm not entirely sure how you ended up in the hospital in the first place. If you're so heavily augmented, wouldn't it be really hard to-" she started to inquire.

Twilight coughed lightly, covering her mouth with her hoof for a moment before quickly explaining, "He was turned to stone by the Elements of Harmony. Long story, the summary being that we weren't technically aiming at him, but due to circumstances, he just happen to get in the way, too." The gray mare blanked at that momentarily, matching most of the rest of the table for a moment before Rarity instead turned to me, gently leaning over and placing her forelegs on Spike's head to lean over him. He looked momentarily surprised, then shifted to his traditional look of swooning, apparently totally fine with being a temporary table.

"Regardless, you should indeed tell us how things have been since you woke up. We were extremely worried for you," she repeated, blatantly changing the topic.

Exhaling weakly, I nodded once before assuring, "I know you were. Thanks to my parents, I was able to see what happened while I was a statue."

As expected, the theme of confused, 'not quite processing the information' stares continued, and Applejack topped it off with, "Uh, what?" Well, this was going to be a long story. I'd lost track of how many times it had been told at this point, but I broke into the recount once more, this time sparing no details...

* * * * *

I crunched down on the lightly toasted bread, tasting the mix of crisp hay, tomato, lettuce, and mayonnaise between the slices. It was cooked to perfection, and I had to admit, Octavia was quite right. This restaurant was amazing. There was a light air of presentation to the meal in both delivery and form on the plate, but it wasn't overly stylized or gaudy, and the helpings were extremely plentiful. I was impressed!

Octavia was also eating, having been reasonably unfazed by the story, although she had listened with interest throughout. We appeared to be the only two not tremendously affected, however. Fluttershy had descended into a funk, expression looking downtrodden when she realized exactly what they'd all meant to me. Twilight was simply frowning, sliding a fry around on her plate absently with her hoof. The fries were quite good as well, lightly seasoned with both salt, spicy peppers, and a light undertone of garlic.

The orange mare was the most stoic, a gentle frown adorning her expression while managing to look slightly angry over the whole ordeal. The ending had gotten to her, with the final actions of the captain and Kyliona. Dash looked miserable instead, sliding her fry plate back and forth next to her in an idle annoyance motion. It was complimented by Pinkie across from her, who refused to halt the nervous fidgeting. She looked back and forth between her friends, uncertain but looking like she desperately wanted a musical instrument suddenly. No, wait, that was coming from her link, not her expression...

Actually, Spike just looked hungry, now that I noticed. He was munching on a fry, dipping it in a small blob of ketchup in-between while glancing at me every other bite. Rarity sat next to him, looking a bit distracted instead, her eyes staring at some far away point beyond the wall of the restaurant behind our table. The mood had soured tremendously.

"So Purdue, or at least Prudentia, possesses the power to manipulate the memories of perceived events of those already in the 'story', connected to the 'protagonist'," Twilight confirmed a moment later, snapping right to possibly the most pressing concern the story brought up. Apart from Keela's impending decision to get her memories back or not, everything else in my story was just that. In the past. Due to the captain being beyond dead, in an extreme overkill sense, there were no other pressing matters to attend to from that. You don't get much more dead than cut into three pieces, mentally tortured, soul schismed, blown up, beat to hell, purified by the Elements of Harmony, torn apart and eaten by a billion-soul amalgamation, and then purified again by the Elements. Almost any one of those would have done the trick for a normal individual...

Octavia shook her head to that, inquiring, "For such a powerful item, doesn't its powers seem awfully, I don't know, specific? What placed all of these 'rules' onto it in the first place?" A very good question, and one that nopony here could properly answer.

Twilight exhaled softly, looking a tad frustrated before shaking her head. "I have no idea. All of these limitations are based off invented concepts by sapient individuals. That said, I doubt any natural force of the universe would abide by such limitations," she admitted. Ah, right. Artificially limiting things was definitely a mortal concept.

Sighing, I warned, "That would mean that instead, there's a 'who' behind it. So who put all of the rules in place?" The lavender mare locked eyes with me for a moment before nodding absently, looking down at her half eaten salad. Her fork floated up to gather another bite up while she considered it.

After chewing and swallowing, she finally theorized, "The most likely candidate is Purdue herself. Her powers artificially limited themselves before she was turned into the book, I speculate. Her mind most likely couldn't handle the sheer scope of what she could see, so it made up limitations as to ease the strain on her. If she carried that concept over to her book form, she might have taken the limitations of a book's narration and applied them subconsciously to her own powers." That would be... interesting.

"Or it could be something put in place by whomever made her," Rarity finally suggested, glancing back up at Twilight finally. Ah, right. Purdue never told me who her first master had been. If she behaved like a normal Aegis Artifact, then the one who created her would have been herself, but she acted like that wasn't the case. Plus, all artifacts were very carefully monitored by our society. The sheer levels of energy to make one, and effort involved... It baffled me how one could be made without being detected. Or maybe it was, and she used her memory powers to eliminate the evidence?

Fluttershy let out a low whine, however. "Um, what about Keela though? Now that you remember everything that happened..." she murmured, tilting to the left in order to see my face. Slowly, I nodded in her direction, still wondering what the Keldarian would say about it, if she even wanted the memories back. Twilight surprised me by snickering before I could formulate a proper answer.

"That's simple enough, no? If she gets her memories back, she's probably going to want to pursue a relationship with Mender again. I have a suspicion that Equestria is going to become a lot more familiar with Keldarians now, and seeing one that's in love with a pony might go a long way towards smoothing that transition," she reasoned. My eyes widened a little, not having expected that answer at all, and by the looks of the rest of the ponies at the table as they turned to look at her, I wasn't alone.

Twilight looked back and forth between us before rolling her eyes and leaning back in her chair a little. "Seriously? We're dealing with possible alien threats and alternate dimensions, and the thing that's the most worrying is if it's okay for Keela to join our herd?" she asked skeptically a moment later. Uh... Huh.

Rarity coughed lightly, then admitted, "Well, when you put it like that..." Frowning, I instead glanced towards Fluttershy, who caught the motion out of the corner of her eye and turned back to me rapidly, ears perking up.

Fighting back the wave of cuteness, I hesitated, then asked, "What do you think, Fluttershy?" Every member of the herd should be consulted, of course. As anticipated, she momentarily looked like I was heading at her on an out of control train.

"I, uh, w-what? Um, you grew up with her, and she seems to really, uh, like you, so why wouldn't I approve?" she inquired softly, recovering from the surprise fairly fast. Applejack smiled at that on the right of Twilight.

"Yer ah part o' tha herd, Flutters. You an' Twi get ah say in who gets ta join as much as Mender does," she reminded. I nodded to that, as did Twilight, and the yellow mare shrank down again, wiggling her hooves together.

Rarity shook her head before reminding, "You should wait to go over this once you actually get an answer from Miss Keela, right?" Of course. Deciding everything ahead of time was probably a bit silly. I took another bite of my sandwich, thinking about everything I'd seen so far in no particular order. It was going to take me a while to really let myself relax, it felt like. My entire life so far had happened in the space of seven and a half months, and looking at the whole thing, everything was a blur moving faster than I could track.

I felt eyes on me, and looked up in time to note Applejack staring at me rather intently from across the table. Our eyes locked for a moment before she suggested, "Ya know, Ah think tha best thing fer ya at this point would be ah real long vacation." Heh. That I had to agree with.

"Twiley!" I suddenly heard in a rather familiar voice. Everypony perked, Twilight herself glancing behind me to my right. I looked back in time to see Shining trotting up. Several other ponies were at the restaurant gate behind him, gasping and whispering in this direction, and I was kind of pleased that it was him getting the attention rather than the hijinks surrounding the earlier event.

"Shining! I was hoping I'd get a chance to see you before we had to leave," Twilight admitted, perking up as she sat up in her chair. Being technically in another kingdom, even if it was still part of Equestria as a whole, undoubtedly made things difficult on their close relationship. Although, I was pretty sure I trumped that with Keela and the other Keldarians at the moment, distance-wise.

He sat down just behind me to the right and nodded in my direction before looking back to his sister. "Mom and Dad also asked to see you, Fluttershy, and Mender before you left town. This incident has everypony in a fuss, not to mention they already knew about you being in the hospital before this," he reminded, looking back to me. Ah right, the card.

"Yeah, I got their card. How did the rest of the press conference go?" I asked, rotating towards him slightly in the chair.

Chuckling, he shook his head for a moment before admitting, "Better than anticipated, but Princess Celestia has a way with words so I'm actually not sure what I was anticipating now. Regardless of how it turns out, though, you did the right thing. I already talked to the Bastion guard, and he admits to not thinking he was going to be able to slow her down enough, in time. It was the right decision." I sighed and nodded to that. I'd already committed myself to that outlook, but it was interesting to hear the input on the guard, too.

Fluttershy pushed into my other side, quickly asking, "We never heard about the mare and filly. Are both of them okay?" Oh, right! The ice cream offer. I perked at that, then nodded.

"Yeah, they're all fine. The filly and her mother are Morning Joy and Banana Swirl. The other mare is Dusk Star. I got all three of them to the castle's clinic after the incident. Pretty sure the filly is fine with just a superficial cut, but Star has a torn muscle in her foreleg," I explained. Shining nodded to that, and Twilight got a glum look on her face as I spoke.

"I used to get ice cream from Banana Swirl a lot. I didn't know it was her filly that it happened to," Twilight murmured.

Smiling to her, I slowly shook my head and explained, "They were in good spirits when I left. In fact, Banana Swirl asked me to bring all of you by for ice cream treats, on the house."

Pinkie did a hop directly out of her seat, flailing once in the air before landing perfectly again. "Oooh! So done, let's go!" she cheered. Rainbow lifted an eyebrow to her, ducking under the flailing hoof as it shot in.

"Uh, Pinkie, we're literally still eating lunch. Relax," she pointed out, putting both hooves on the mare to hold her in the seat for a minute while she vibrated back and forth. Oh boy. So called it.

Chuckling, I warned, "She also asked that I said a warning ahead of time, once she found out I wanted to bring you all, too. She wants to prepare." Shining nodded, but Rainbow got a coy grin on her face a moment later. Actually, I almost could even guess what she was going to say, this time.

"Oooh, she originally just invited you, huh? Well, I imagine she is grateful," the cyan mare teased. Applejack's expression didn't even shift as she munched on her sandwich. She just moved her left back leg over and shoved Rainbow out of her chair, causing her to land in the still overly excited pink mare's lap.

Pinkie just grabbed onto her and grinned down into her shocked expression for a moment before adding, "Free! Ice cream! No teasing, or he might not bring us! Ice cream!" Rainbow just nodded slowly, looking a bit uncertain with a few beads of sweat going down her forehead. I just mentally shrugged and looked back to Twilight, who smiled and nodded.

"We can go, of course. We were actually considering staying tonight anyway. The train station just sent a letter in with us, warning that construction of the temporary barracks is going to take another day," she revealed. Oh, right, we were bringing a dozen or so guards back with us. I should talk to Shining and Luna about those two guards, then.

Shining smiled and nodded to that before suggesting, "We could head over to our parents after you finish eating, if you want. I... I'm not entirely sure, but I think Dad wants to officially apologize. I know Mom's been on him awfully hard about the last time we were here." Oh hell. That disaster.

It surprised me when I heard Spike chuckle softly at that, swallowing the fry he was working on. "Knowing Twilight's dad, that means he's finally stopped being stubborn. Better go before he changes his mind again," he warned, smiling up at Twilight, who giggled in amusement. Oh, right, he grew up with Twilight.

"Do you want something to eat, Shining?" I offered, sliding the empty chair out next to me regardless. He considered the seat for a moment before shrugging and nodding, finally.

"Eh, why not. I am getting rather hungry, and this place serves amazing food," he agreed. Octavia smiled and nodded in concurrence, and Shining slipped up and sat down next to me. My eyes widened a little as he sat down, Cufflink on the other side of him as he moved past in my vision.

The suited stallion gave a perky smile, then asked, "Can I get you any food or drink, Prince Shining Armor?" Shining gave a start, too, and I felt better about him sneaking up on me, too. What, did he moonlight as a ninja or something?!

"Gah! Don't sneak up on me like that, Cufflink. And you know it's been just Shining…" he shot back, smirking over at the stallion, who was still grinning. Yeah, he was doing that on purpose, I realized. Octavia was right. The gray mare just rolled her eyes at that.

"He uses titles just to get under your skin, don't worry,” Octavia chirped, earning a chuckle from Cufflink, who resumed standing at attention, waiting for order details.

Shining scratched under his chin for a moment, considering probably what to get, and I glanced to the left, noticing the crowd of ponies watching us getting a bit bigger. Oh, right. If he was here, that meant the press event was over and news about what happened was probably spreading like wildfire.

“Eh, I think I’ll take a toasted hay sandwich on wheat, with lettuce and mayo. Oh, and just a glass of water to drink,” he finally decided, turning to the waiter stallion again. Cufflink nodded, then turned and trotted off with no further fanfare, heading for inside the building again.

Shining turned back to us instead, relaxing a little more before revealing, “Overall, though, I think it went well. Nopony was hurt, and explaining who you were and what happened three hundred years ago went a long way towards earning trust of the press and crowd. Fancypants stopped me as I was leaving, though.”

“Oh?” I asked, glancing towards him curiously at that.

He nodded, then revealed, “Yeah, he’d like to get an interview in with you for Equestria Weekly. He wants to get the truth out before rumors started cropping up.” Ah, right, I figured that ‘all’ the details would be requested of me soon enough. It would take more than just the conference to fix this. I fully anticipated it would be awhile before I was trusted again, anyway. It made me curious as to how Ponyville was taking the news.

“When does he want to talk to me, then?” I asked, trying to bring up a schedule in my head. Oh, wait, I had a program for that. A little calendar popped up in my inner eye, and I sorted down to today’s date and brought up my to-do list, which only included catching the girls up, and potentially visiting Twilight’s parents. I shifted possibly visiting the ice cream parlor to tomorrow, provided Pinkie didn’t consider that a mortal sin. Keela calling back was a bit of a large question mark still.

“He suggested tomorrow, after I told him you were probably all spending the night. He also suggested that you take the rest of the day off, as you need it,” he returned, smirking afterwards. My ears flicked down, and Fluttershy giggled to my left before leaning over against me again. I felt her soft breath across my left shoulder and relaxed a little, absently nodding to the advice. My body was still recovering from apparently having its insides nuked by an absurdly powerful cosmic force, of sorts, so I guess taking a day off was fine.

Pinkie was having none of that, of course. “Oooh, after this, can we go get ice cream?!” she asked yet again, wiggling in her chair. Shining raised an eyebrow, but I cut him off with the simple explanation.

“Banana Swirl offered free ice cream in thanks for saving her filly.” It was the cleanest explanation I could think of, and he seemed to accept it, a dawning look of recognition spreading across his face.

Twilight shook her head, however, then suggested, “How about after this, we go drop by my parents’ place. After we visit with them for a while, we can go get ice cream after we leave. That sound okay?”

The pink one gave her a long, squinted eye look for several seconds. Twilight blinked once before slowly easing back away from her. Half a second later, Pinkie perked up perfectly fine again and smiled. “Okay! That sounds good,” she chirped, and I exhaled, not realizing I’d been holding my breath.

Applejack smirked and nodded next to her, declaring, “Ah guess that settles it, then. We’d best eat up if we’re gonna.”

Nodding easily to that statement, no hesitation needed whatsoever, I plowed back into my sandwich with much enthusiasm, earning a smirk from Twilight across the table. Hey! There were few things I got to enjoy without repercussions, so I was damn well going to enjoy this…

* * * * *

Could parents of your mates be considered a repercussion of having mates in the first place? I debated the morality involved as we slowly walked along the sidewalks heading into the more suburban area of Canterlot. The city itself was mostly built right into the mountain, and curved lightly to follow the natural contours of the rock. This included various elevation shifts, and the lower density residential areas spanned slightly lower than the bulk of the town, shifting along the west side of the mountain. The lower altitude made the air a little warmer and thicker, so breathing was just slightly easier. The dirigible docks were further up the mountain above this area, and I idly watched the floating balloon ships go in and out of the ‘ports’, looking mostly for cargo.

“I’m not sure. He honestly sounded like he wanted to apologize,” Shining assured, still carrying on a conversation with his sister while we walked.

“Ugh. After the mess he made at the café, apologizing to Mender is only the start,” she grumbled back, sounding miffed again. Heh. He should probably apologize to the actual café, too, if he hadn’t already. That was probably quite embarrassing for them, too.

Rarity sighed wearily, then added, “Personally, I feel he should apologize to Twilight as well. I mean, she’s quite old enough to be making her own decisions. Love should be celebrated, not buried under old-fashioned nonsense.”

Applejack chuckled next to her while we walked, idly pointing out, “Aren’t ya tha one talkin’ about all those ‘prince’ an’ ‘shinin’ armor’ types from those old fairy tales, though? That seems pretty ol’ fashioned ta me. Err, no offense, Shinin’.”

He smirked, then shook his head at that before assuring, “None taken.” I wondered idly at how often his name had come up like that in normal conversations…

The pearly unicorn huffed, looking away from the orange mare before defending with, “Hardly! Their methods may not be in social circles anymore, but the aspect of a chivalrous, noble soul standing up for what’s right and winning the love of fair damsels is timeless!” While it felt a little overblown, I could at least understand the basic concept there. Heh. Spike nodded along, of course, perched carefully on her back. That was becoming a regular occurrence, I noticed.

Rainbow made a gagging gesture while trotting next to me, and I smirked, giving her a playful nudge in the shoulder. She grinned over at me, her amusement transferring down the link in an instant at this range. It felt wonderful to have those back again. At this point, I couldn’t imagine being around my closest friends without them. And now, thanks to me no longer sharing my body with any hostile intruders from another dimension, it was safe again to have them present.

The yellow mare to my left perked a little, then chipped in herself with, “Um, personality is good, but you really should consider more how a mate is going to mesh with your own, too, right? Compatibility seems really important.” Well, this conversation had taken a sudden, veering turn off course.

“Well, of course,” Rarity assured, then started to explain, “Compatibility is the most important bit. I was merely pointing out-“

She was interrupted by Applejack, who snickered, then finished her sentence for her with, “Tha type o’ male ya like tha most, we know. Yer lucky tha little guy on yer back matches that so well.” Oh Celestia…

Rarity was pink before she even whipped her head into a glare, and I saw Spike squeak out loud on her back, then move both of his hands up to his mouth. Twilight averted her eyes, then coughed quickly. “Oh look, we’re almost there!” she loudly announced, drawing everypony’s attention back up towards the incoming house, in possibly the least subtle distraction I’d ever seen, given how forced her tone sounded.

Regardless of obviousness of the distraction, it at least worked, and the remaining four meters of the walk was instead done in awkward, looming apprehension. I couldn’t stop worrying, admittedly, if the discomfort from the restaurant was going to carry over into this little visit. Our group spread out when we reached the front steps, and I exhaled uneasily as Twilight and Shining took the lead, and the lavender mare knocked. She looked a bit apprehensive herself as she looked back towards me and smiled weakly. I nodded, trying to look more confident than I felt on the inside, but I don’t think it worked very well, especially considering that at this range, she might be able to feel my individual panicked thoughts.

A long and awkward ten seconds went by before hoofsteps could be heard heading towards the door. It had probably been unlocked, and certainly either Twilight or Shining could have just walked right in, but I figured it was more just common courtesy. Plus, there were a lot of us here.

There was a bit of rustling, and I lifted an eyebrow for a moment. A long couple of seconds later, the door swung open again quite abruptly, and I suddenly remembered something in the foggy distant memories inside of me. It was too late, however, and I got a stick shoved into my mouth in an instant. Shining had stepped sideways off the porch, cleanly avoiding the stabbing attack of the test stick. Instead, it hit Applejack, who was right behind him at the time. Twilight, Rarity, and Fluttershy were also simultaneously attacked, and Twilight Velvet stood there just inside the door, smiling in amusement.

“Anypony else want one?!” she cheered, sounding entirely too happy for the situation. Once more, my test stick acted extremely confused to be found in a male, turning purple almost immediately. Dutifully, I pulled it out of my mouth and handed it back to her, earning a snicker from the mare.

“I’m sorry, Mender. You’re not pregnant,” Velvet announced, and I shuddered lightly. That wasn’t bad news at all. If I somehow was, something had gone very, very wrong somewhere along the line.

Twilight looked less than pleased, just spitting her stick out immediately and making it squawk and turn orange on the tip, probably a warning for not long enough to take accurate readings. “Mother! Why are you still doing this?! I told you last time that we didn’t do anything during estrus, and Mender wasn’t here for the first one!” she growled out.

“I’m more interested in why she keeps targeting the others, too,” Shining admitted, nudging his head in the direction of Applejack and Rarity. The farm mare didn’t look like she really cared one way or another, making crossed eyes as she looked down at the tip of her own stick. Okay, that was kinda cute.

Velvet just rolled her eyes, though, still smiling playfully before assuring, “It’s just a joke, relax. And hey, they might want to know, too. It’s valid information.”

This only seemed to make Twilight all the more irked, of course. She hopped once in place, making a surprisingly cute ‘irritated’ noise, and I reached over to pat her gingerly on the shoulder. She exhaled, then looked over at me before relaxing a little. She started to smile, when the oddest little cutesy bell chime fired off, rather loudly. I raised my eyebrow and tried to figure out what that was, but to my surprise, Rarity gave a little jump and quickly looked down at her stick tip. I saw Applejack do the same, but both were met with a glowing red lights. Huh? Oh, had that come from one of the sticks? Wait…

All of us slowly turned and looked to the only remaining stick. Fluttershy stood there, both of her eyes wide, pupils shrunk down as they locked onto the bright green end of her test stick. Twilight’s jaw dropped, followed slowly by everypony else’s as the silence dominated. A second passed, then another, and then Velvet suddenly let out a high-pitched squeal of happiness, hopping in place, back and forth on her hooves.

I looked back to Fluttershy, and she slowly looked over at me, utter shock mixed with dawning realization mixing in her eyes. Did that… She was…?! My own eyes widened, and hers slowly crept upwards. In slow motion, she wobbled, the stick falling out of her mouth before she limply collapsed sideways, a low squeak escaping from her muzzle as she fell over…

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