The day a baby almost killed her.
Velvet had led a pretty simple life during her time on this world. She realized that fact during the split second an enormous beam of energy had shot through the floor she had been mopping -- scorching straight through her purple mane as the powerful beam punched through the subsequent ceilings of pure crystal into the open sky beyond. She had grown up living an ordinary run of the mill life, married an equally ordinary run of the mill stallion, and the same could be applied to her decent paying job inside the Crystal Palace.
Though at the moment those wages seemed pretty anemic when compared to the near decapitation she had so narrowly dodged. No...dodged wasn't the right word for this. Dodging would imply that purple maned mare had the wherewithal to evade the beam. There was absolutely no way she could've even been aware of the sudden pulse of energy. If she had been just slightly closer she would've...
Velvet could smell her charred mane. She had just treated herself to the spa the other day, chatting with her friends about their fillies. She hadn't got around to having one just yet, though her husband was certainly interested. She had felt there was time, she could just sort out what she wanted to do later, there wasn't any hurry.
If she had had a kid and her head had been a little closer, just a strand of mane closer....
Everything was quiet. There didn't seem to be any kind of a fight going on. Despite her better judgment she stooped down and peered down into the hole the magic had left. Two floors below where she was she could clearly what caused the damage.
Right there, in the center of the blast radius of each hole was a little crib surrounded by the most important ponies in all of Equestria, all four princesses as well as the elements of harmony all looked down at cause of the magic with similarly spooked expressions.
All staring at the new foal that was born to Princess Cadence and Shining Armor.
Velvet didn't dare say a thing to them. What right did she have to say 'hey, your baby almost blew my head off, what the buck!' or any other colorful phrases that was filling her mind along with shock and a steep reevaluation of her life decisions.
She had always played it so safe and...average... just existing in each day doing her own thing. Here she is staring at an admittedly adorable baby and all she could think was... That thing almost killed her. She hoped none of the powerful and influential ponies down there could read minds because that thought decided to run on repeat for quite a few seconds.
The baby yawned and cooed like it did absolutely nothing. Celestia started to speak but the maid couldn't really hear her over the din in her own head.
Velvet had no idea how she was keeping her composure in this moment as she pulled her head out of the hole and shakily walked away from her post. She was going home. She was going home and she was going to plan to do some of the craziest things she could think of. Her husband hated dancing, well buck him they were taking some dancing lessons dammit. She was going to go skiing too, she was going to go skiing and she was going to like it. Maybe she'd have an affair...well no she loved her stallion.... but she sure as tartarus knew she didn't want a baby now. Buck babies, a baby almost killed her. Buck all that noise.
Maybe she'll go skydiving with a wonderbolt, they did those still right? Just strap herself up with one of the hunky stallions or nice looking mares...
Hmm... she never thought of a mare like that....but you know what, life is too short, why the buck not the mare thought. Maybe her husband would be into that kind of thing who knows. All she knew was she wanted to walk out of this castle and have some wild and crazy fun right this instant . If he didn't want to do it, well then too bad cause he didn't have his head almost taken off, life was far to short to wait on the stallion.
She did not want to have her life flash before her eyes again and not see anything interesting in any of the memories. That was just plain unacceptable. From this moment forward she was going to go nuts...
"Velvet, the castle shook a moment...what happened to your mane?"
She was going to do all of that...once she stopped hugging her coworker around her neck and road out the shock that had worn off. Minty was nice enough to comfort her even though she didn't really understand Velvet's near incoherent babbling.
...As Velvet stuffed her muzzle into the crook of Minty's neck, She couldn't help but look over the lime green nicely toned body of hers...
...perhaps near death experiences aren't so bad after all...
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On the other side of the crystal empire, A stallion by the name of Onyx had his life flash before his eyes as he had fell from some scaffolding and nearly splatted onto the concrete if it wasn't for a passing unicorn that had quickly enveloped him in magic. He saw his life flashing before his eyes and he had seen nothing interesting in it what so ever. Life was far to short and he had done absolutely nothing with his. His life was ordinary, he was too nervous over his pride to do the fun things his wife sometimes wanted to do, and it had all resulted in their life being nothing but bland.
He thought having a baby in the mix would give their marriage something to focus on, but If he had died right there he would of left Velvet and the hypothetical baby all alone.
Well he was fixing this right here and now. He was going to walk up to the Crystal palace, he was going to grab his Wife and they were going to do something amazing together. Maybe they could go skiing! He had always been nervous about that kind of thing but now he just wanted to do it just to do it.
"Onyx?" Velvet called out to him as he was walking absent mindedly to his wife's work.
"Velvet!" He rushed up to her, she did the same.
"Oh honey, the scariest thing happened today." they both said in unison.
They pulled back and looked at each other, "You first!"
They couldn't help but smile at each other, feeling something there that had long since felt dimmed between them.
"Onyx dear... I don't want a foal... at least not right now."
"Neither do I!" He exclaimed "We haven't even lived yet!"
She looked over at her coworker Minty who was a bit away from them and blushing a little. Velvet moved in and whispered something in her stallions ear that made the biggest blush and smile grow on his face as his ears perked up.
"Wait....wait really?" Onyx asked, "...like....really?"
"You wanna? Cause I know I wanna." Velvet cooed in his ear. He never nodded so hard in his life. This was going to be the start of the greatest days of his life he just knew it.
At least he knew if his life flashed before his eyes, there was going to be at least one REALLY good memory worth seeing again.