The train ride took around the better part of an hour, rattling along at about fifty miles an hour through the countryside, slowly ascending out of the Canterhorn valley and climbing up the mountain itself. Why Celestia chose to site her capital there, I have no idea. Her old castle, which she shared with her sister, is deep in the heart of the Everfree Forest, the place where we first arrived, and is now long abandoned. Following some unpleasantness with her sister, which is now all water under the bridge, the pair have continued to rule from a castle in a city perched precariously on a mountain ledge. Still, it’s stood for over a millennia and been through more strife than most cities in Europe, and it still stands strong, so I’m not too worried.
Emerging out of the last tunnel, the train blew its whistle as we approached the station, and the guard called out all change for the end of the line. Grabbing my briefcase from the overhead, I got to my feet, standing head and shoulders, and then some, above the other passengers. The train was fairly busy, with this being the end of the line and the express that ran directly to the capitol. Still, it was better than New Street on a Monday morning. There was far less pushing and shoving to get off.
Hoping down onto the platform, I found myself at Canterlot station. The train had nowhere to go now, with buffers blocking any further progress. During the journey, the sun had rose higher and looking up at the sky, for the station was an open air one, I found it a light blue with only a few clouds. I also caught sight of the floating city of Cloudsdale; the home of the pegasi. They actually walk on clouds, you know., and even manipulate the weather in Equestria to make sure the crops grow, even changing the seasons.
Heading out of the station, I found myself in one of the main streets of the opulent city. Being the capitol, it is also home to the nobility. Basically think of London, but without the hipsters and liberals, just the rich toffs. Everything was ivory and gold for the most part, with splashes of other colours here and there for the sake of variety. While most ponies went about on foot, you could hire single pony pulled dog carts to take you where you needed. Since the castle is right at the top of the hill, I didn’t fancy the walk, and I can well afford the fare.
Sticking two fingers between my teeth, I let out a sharp whistle and flagged down a cab. The trip was fairly cheap. Well, cheap by Canterlot standards; ten bits, round about ten quid for the brief trip. We made our way up the hill, past high end shops, restaurants, embassies to foreign nations like the Griffon Kingdom and Yakyakistan, along with plenty of offices. Eventually though, I was deposited in front of the gates of Canterlot Castle.
The castle itself is like something out of a fairytale. Beautiful tall spires stretch up into the sky, and access is only by a traditional drawbridge. Like the rest of the city, it’s design was mostly ivory and gold, with splashes of purple and dark blue hues here and there. Out front was the usual guard detail. This was the home of the nation’s two rulers after all; they don’t just let anypony in, certainly not after the various times wannabe tyrants have tried to take over.
I knew both the guards. They all look quite similar, being pegasi with white coats and light blue manes. That’s actually an enchantment brought on by the golden armour they all wear. While it takes a knack, you can eventually tell them apart.
“Morning, lads,” I said, fishing out my identification as I walked up. One of them scrutinized it briefly while the other kept an eye on me.
“Morning, Mr. Owen,” he said after a moment, before adding. “Alright, you know the drill.”
Stepping forward, I was approached by a third guard, this one with a grey coat and silver mane and tail. He was a unicorn, and using his magic did a quick scan of me. Think of it like going through a metal detector in the airport. I had no trouble with him. I’m always careful not to do anything to set them off. If nothing else, it means a half hour delay while they check you over. When he finished the other guard handed back my ID and I was allowed to go on my way.
“Thanks, gents,” I said with a nod. “See you all later.”
With that, I headed inside.
The interior of the castle was just as opulent as the exterior. Beautiful marble hallways took you all over the many wings of the castle, including the various towers that housed the princesses’ private quarters. Given our position atop a mountain, the large panoramic windows allowed for spectacular views of the valley a few thousand feet below, and let the morning sunlight stream in, lighting the place up without need for artificial light. Even in the nighttime, once Princess Luna had raised the moon, the halls were lit by the moonlight, giving the place a completely different character, mimicking the transition of power from one sister to another.
Now, my office was a couple of floors up, and actually not a great distance away from the throne room itself. After all, as the legal advisor, I would often need to sit in on cases and petitions that came to the princess there. I would actually be headed to the throne room in a little while. Celestia typically held a morning meeting shortly before court opened, briefing her advisors and ministers on her itinerary and any special occasions that were due. Chief among those at the moment was the ongoing renovations. The throne room you see had been put together when Celestia had been forced to rule alone during her sisters’ exile. As such, the architecture reflected her role as Princess of sun and the day. But with her younger sisters return to Equestria and the political world, it had been decided that the throne room ought to reflect the reconstituted diarchy. In other words, the place was getting a new paint job, new furniture, including two thrones so that Luna didn’t have to share one with Celestia, as well as some major architectural modifications. Before too long, Celestia would have to conduct business from her own office, at least for a couple of weeks. The due date for the new throne room to be ready was the day of the Friendship Festival; an annual celebration beginning this year at the request of Twilight Sparkle.
Anyway, I’m rambling. Following my usual route, I soon came to my office with its large, heavy, dark chestnut coloured door. Fishing out my keys, I unlocked the door and turned the brass handle. My own office was relatively small, but still had enough for my needs. First of all, as you came in, on the right hand side and on the one side of the two panoramic windows, were the bookcases. Being essentially a lawyer meant that I had tome after tome of legal texts on hand, all full of useful titbits of information. You never know when a spot of case law is going to come in handy.
In the focal centre of the room was my desk, specially built to accommodate my human self. It was a large oak thing, in contrast to the white marble floor and walls, with green faux leather on top, and with a patina applied to give it an aged look. There were two faux leather pony style chairs in front of it for guests, and one larger one for myself behind the desk. Atop it was a desk lamp, a couple photos and some stationary. All my files were either locked up in nearby cabinets, or in my briefcase. Beyond that, there were a couple of paintings on the wall, including one very striking portrait of the two princesses. Finally, another door led out to my private washroom; perks of the job, you don’t have to use the public loos.
However, none of that was really important to me at the moment. I was more distracted by the fact that I had a visitor. A visitor I might add, who was presently reclining in my own chair, with his goat leg and lizard claws propped up on my desk.
“Discord! Get out of my chair!” I snapped irritably, standing on the threshold. He grinned and waved nonchalantly at me.
Discord is among other things, my best friend, but dear Celestia does he try my patience sometimes. He’s a draconequus, and the best description I can give you is a sort of serpent, with the head of a horse, with mismatched deer antlers, a lion’s paw on one arm and an eagle claw on the other, with a snake like tail trailing behind him, and then there’s the bird and dragon wings on his back. All in all, quite a peculiar sight.
He’s the only one of his kind, and with good reason, as he is the physical incarnation of the spirit of chaos and disharmony; a being of pure chaos. He has magic like the princesses or unicorns, only it’s a lot more powerful. With a snap of his talons, he can pretty much bend reality. He used to be a bit of a bad lad, having tried to take over Equestria, but thanks to Twilight and her friends and a brief stint of being turned to stone, he’s now reformed, more or less. He uses his magic for mostly good and tends to hang around the castle when I’m about, if nothing else, to alleviate his boredom.
Still, my office, my chair. The guy has his own pocket dimension for goodness sake. And it’s a bloody tax haven.
“Oh dear, somepony woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, didn’t they,” he replied, his red and yellow eyes fixing themselves on me. Still, he did get out of my chair. Snapping his talons, he briefly vanished in a flash of white light, reappearing by my desk a moment later.
“Discord, it’s Monday morning,” I said, now a little more understanding in my voice. Despite being older than Celestia, he can act like an eight year old at times. An eight year old with the powers of a near-god. “I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on, and I don’t have time to chitchat. Look, drop by around lunch and we can go see Tia.” Tia was the nickname Celestia permitted me and very few others to call her. Discord however, kept grinning.
“Actually, my dear boy, you don’t,” he replied. “Haven’t you heard the news?” I rolled my eyes.
“No Discord, I only just got off the train.”
“Oh, its so wonderful,” he exclaimed gleefully, taking wing and doing a brief loop in the air. “Cadence has finally had that adorable little foal, so Celestia and Luna have gone up to meet her.”
“Huh. Then I guess court must be closed for the day,” I said, walking in and setting my briefcase down. Then a thought occurred to me. “Hang on, you said she, how do you know?”
“Oh, I went up there a while ago,” Discord replied offhandedly. “She’s positively adorable and the chaos she’s going to cause. Poor Shining Armor was dead on his hooves when I got there. The poor boy hasn’t slept in days. Or shaved it seems.” Shining Armor was Princess Cadence’s husband and previously was the captain of the castle’s Royal Guard.
Walking behind my desk, I took a seat in my chair, after briefly pausing to remove the whoopee cushion that Discord had put under it.
“So I guess I do have a free day then,” I confessed. “It’s a shame I couldn’t see Tia before she left. Ah well, I’ll give her my congratulations when she comes back. But since I’ve got nothing else on the cards, I suppose I can indulge you for a bit, old man. How about a two man game of Mornington Crescent?”
Discord grinned at that. Snapping his talons, he produced a game board and all the necessary pieces for Lower Volga rules game. My day was going to be fairly long, with little to do, so it made sense to take some time with a good mate.
I’d first introduced the game of Mornington Crescent to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, when Celestia had invited me to take lunch with her one day during court. The two sisters love to play games together to provide some relief from the banality of court. So I introduced them to the most interesting game I know. It’s all played out on a map of the London Underground. Each player starts at a station of their choice, provided that it doesn’t violate the Sardinia rule, and then attempts to reach Mornington Crescent whilst stopping or delaying their opponents. And that, in light of Rule 34A of the most recent rulebook, is all I can tell you. The wonderful thing about the game is that you have to figure out all the other rules on your own.
After a few weeks of play, both sisters had become quite skilled, and have managed to beat me on several occasions. And then Discord showed up. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he already knew the game off by heart, holding a Master level rating of Trout 67, far in advance of my own Bluebell 465. And from that day on, over lunch, the four of us would get together to have a game, except when Discord was busy having tea with Fluttershy, one of Twilight’s friends and the pony who helped reform him.
I’m also fairly sure he fancies her, but last time I mentioned it to him, he kicked off something proper and teleported a brass band to every room I went to and made them play as loud as they could.
Anyway, the two of us settled down for a nice, long, one on one game. You can have up thirty two players if you play tournament rules in teams, but for me, one on ones are more interesting. It’s all about skill, wits, animal cunning and oyster cards. Right now, I was on the defensive, and consequently winning. Discord was stuck at Bank due to a bad dice roll and not having The Knowledge, leaving him unable to hail a cab. Conversely, I was still a ways off from calling it a win, since I was all the way out on the Bakerloo line. We were both in a difficult position, each move that could advance us, also left us dangerously open to our opponent. And of course, as this was the fifth triangle round, simultaneous turns were now in force, meaning whoever had a move could make it, regardless of who had last punched a ticket.
The pair of us were staring at each other across the table, trying to figure out his opponent’s next move before the same happened to him.
“Come on, Discord,” I encouraged. “If you don’t do something soon, Parliament’s going to have risen and the lines will reverse.”
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking!” he replied earnestly. “Of course, it would be a great deal easier if you would just...” He didn’t get to finish that train of though, if you’ll pardon the pun.
Without knocking, somepony opened the door and came hurrying into my office. I was little irked by that. We might have been goofing off at the moment, but this was still a legal office. Everything I say is supposed to be private. Having somepony just walk in violates that privacy.
Looking up from the game, I saw that it was Buttercup. He’s one of the guards here in the castle, with the two of us being pretty good friends, as well as colleagues. He’s one of the guards posted inside the throne room, acting as a sort of bailiff during court proceedings. When Celestia needs me, as Equestria hasn’t yet cracked telephones or pagers, she sends Buttercup to fetch me. Still, he of all ponies knew to knock. I was about to chastise him when I saw the look on his face.
He looked worried. Not frightened, but concerned quite deeply about something. Whatever it was had to be important for him to barge in.
“Buttercup,” I greeted. “What brings you down here?” The guard swallowed before speaking.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” he said. “But something is happening in the Crystal Empire; some of sort of snowstorm seems to be encircling the city.” I got to my feet, the game now forgotten.
“What?” I exclaimed. “The Crystal Heart isn’t holding it back?”
“No sir.”
The Crystal Empire, the city state where Celestia and Luna had gone to visit their niece and her new daughter, was in the lands far to the north of Equestria. Surrounded by snow and storms so powerful even the pegasi couldn’t control them, it’s existence was possible only by the Crystal Heart; a magical artifacts that through the literal power of love projected a shield around the city state. At least, that was what it usually did.
“Has there been any word from the city, or the princesses?”
“Nothing sir,” Buttercup said gravely. “Nopony can get through the storm wall. It seems to have intensified since the incident began. Any pegasus trying to fly in risks getting their wings frozen off. The storm seems to be being held back from the city proper for now, but it seems to be pressing further and further towards the palace.”
Hell’s teeth. All four of the princesses were in there; Twilight, Luna, Cadence and Twilight. If something was going on, then they were all at risk. Worse still, we didn’t have any leaders to fall back on. After them, next in line was Shining Armor, who had gained royal title by virtue of marriage. But with him away the only pony left with any royal title...
Oh merde.
Blueblood.
Equestria was, technically, now under the direction of Prince Blueblood. A greater idiot there has never been. He’s a spoilt brat and sufficiently far down the line of succession that he’s never been prepared to take any kind of office. All he does is rub shoulders with the nobility and get a weekly stipend from Celestia to live off. He’s no leader. Hell, I wouldn’t trust him to run a bath, never mind the Realm of Equestria.
Well, we could deal with that later. Buttercup had obviously come here for a reason, and not just to tell me a massively inbred retard was now my boss.
“So what exactly is happening then?” I asked. Buttercup elaborated.
“Oh, you know,” he replied. “Just your usual constitutional crisis. The other nobles, Fancy Pants in particular, aren’t too keen on accepting Blueblood as temporary ruler.” Despite the situation, I let out a laugh.
“No, I suppose they’re not,” I agreed. “And you want me to find them a get out of jail free card.”
“If that means finding a way to put anypony except Blueblood on the throne for the time being, then yes.”
This was a bit of an unusual situation, I thought, as I leaned back in my chair. In all the other cases where the princesses were unable to discharge the duties of their office, neither was Blueblood. But on this occasion, he’d accidentally ended up as the last idiot standing. Now, legally, for me to take any action to undermine my lawful ruler was tantamount to high treason and punishable by exile. Personally though, I’d expect no prosecution due to jury nullification. And if matters were serious, we needed somepony else in charge. Getting out of my chair, I walked over to Discord.
“Well, legally, Blueblood is the next in line of succession,” I said gravely. “And he can rule as regent until one of the other princesses returns. As far as the law is concerned, he has every right to that chair. However, you could certainly make the argument that he’s incapable of holding office. The only trouble then is, who do we replace him with.”
Discord stuck up his lion paw to interject.
“No,” I said, cutting him off at the pass. The paw retreated and he folded his arms in a huff.
“How about the Captain of the Royal Guard?” Buttercup suggested. I shook my head.
“Bad idea. In addition to Mareclellan being an idiot, it’s never a good idea to mix the military and the political. The trouble is there’s no precedence here.”
“Why not you?” Discord offered. I turned to him in disbelief. “You have good relations with most of the nobles, Celestia trusts you, and I know for a fact you have her power of attorney. And unlike ponies, you’ve got no real interest in power. When this is all over, we know you’ll hand the reins back.” I smiled at my friend.
“You can’t be serious? I’m an advisor. I’ve got no real political experience, never mind leadership. You’re asking me to temporarily run the highest office in the land.”
“For another...” Discord glanced at a watch that magically appeared on his wrist. “Seven and a half minutes.”
“Why so short?” Discord shrugged.
“This whole mess started about ten minutes ago, give or take five minutes for the setup and recap, I’d say there’s about seven minutes or so left.” Buttercup and I just stared at him in bewilderment. Sometimes even I don’t understand the nonsense that comes out of his mouth.
“Then we might as well just wait for Celestia and Luna to come back,” I replied, sitting back down again.
And with that, my one vague chance at becoming a regent of Equestria went up in a puff of smoke.
Discord was right. Seven minutes later, on the dot no less, Celestia teleported into the throne room and order was quickly restored. Even Blueblood, dumb as he is couldn’t do too much damage in seven minutes. Still, I was glad to see her back in her rightful spot.
She explained the whole situation to us to calm everypony down. The storm was the result of the Crystal Heart being shattered. With it gone, the Empire lost its only defence against the winter storms. How did this happen you ask; well, that would be down to the new bundle of joy. To everypony’s surprise, Cadence’s foal was born an alicorn, complete with alicorn level magic surges (it’s a thing unicorn foals go through when they’re little, basically they can’t control their magic and it runs haywire for a bit, then goes dormant until they learn to control it). Her crying had shattered the heart. Luckily, Twilight, with the help of her ‘student’, that lunatic Starlight, and an old friend of hers, Sunburst, who now lived in the Empire, had been able to undo the damage, while Celestia and Luna used their more powerful magic to hold off the storms.
With the Crystal Heart restored and the storms subsiding, the princesses had returned to Canterlot. Twilight and the others had stayed on for a little while to meet the newly christened Flurry Heart under safer conditions, now that her surges were under control. It certainly made for an interesting story. I was just glad they were both back.
With things returning to normal and the nobles all packing up and going home, I took a moment to chat with my boss and friend as she relaxed on her throne.
“So, sounds like you had quite the adventure, Tia,” I offered, standing at the bottom of the dais. “I’m almost sorry I missed it.”
“I’m certainly glad that you were able to keep a lid on things while I was away,” the alicorn said with a smile. “We both know how the nobles can be.”
“It was a bit of a sticky situation though,” I replied. “Having Blueblood technically in charge. Another ten minutes and I think the nobles might have started fighting amongst themselves.” Celestia nodded in thought.
“Indeed. I hadn’t expected that paying a visit to my niece would throw the whole realm into chaos.”
“Well, the problem was that we had no clear plan on what to do,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders. “If we had somepony on hand who could actually lead, if Luna or Twilight had been here, there’d be no problem. But with all four of you in the same place, it threw the whole system into chaos. I was thinking about something the Americans did about this sort of problem; the Designated Survivor.”
“Oh, and what’s that?” Celestia asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Well, just as you have Luna to replace you, Cadence to replace Luna and so, the US government did the same thing. But when they have their big State of the Union address, the whole government is in one place, vulnerable to a decapitation strike. So they pick one guy to go somewhere out of the way. If anything happens, and everyone else is dead, he can still run the country.”
“And you think we can do the same?” I nodded.
“Sure,” I replied. “The issue is never having all four princesses together in the same place. That way, there’ll always be one of you to keep things running and fighting whatever threat we may face.” Celestia thought.
“How about Shining Armor?” she suggested. “As a prince he has a lawful claim on the throne, and he rarely visits Canterlot now that he’s left his position as captain of the Royal Guard.”
“Sounds like a reasonable choice,” I agreed after consideration. “Can we table it for the next session of court to make it official?”
“I’ll have it put into the docket,” Celestia promised. “But it will probably take a few months to put through.” I didn’t know it at the time, but that little incident would pay dividends later on, not on the next threat, but the greater one looming on the horizon.
And so the whole incident with Flurry Heart, the little foal who nearly destroyed a nation by accident, came to an end. I headed home that night with an interesting story to tell Margaret, but other than that, it had been a surprisingly normal day, all things considered.
When I got back and told her that Cadence had finally popped, she became adamant about going to see her. She and Cadence have met a few times through me at various functions and have become quite good friends. So I found myself sending off a letter to Celestia requesting a spot of leave, which I had a fair bit of to spare, and we booked a pair of return tickets to the Crystal Empire.
I’ve visited the city state once or twice before. While it is technically an independent nation, as it is ruled over by Princess Cadence, it is also a protectorate of Equestria; think of the relationship between Hong Kong and China. The city state (to describe it as an empire was quite an overstatement) pretty much relied on Equestria for most things and we have very close diplomatic ties. The ponies there though, are crystal ponies, essentially earth ponies that sparkle a bit; an effect brought on by the Crystal Heart.
The Crystal Empire is an absolutely stunning place to visit. Everything is pretty much made of crystal, from the roads in the city, right up to the impressive Crystal Palace (not to be confused with the venue for the British Empire Exhibition) and one of its main sources of income was tourism. As such I was glad of the opportunity to visit. I could meet Flurry Heart, visit Shining Armor, and possibly meet this Sunburst fellow who had helped repair the Crystal Heart.
The next morning, I heard back from Celestia, who was happy to give me a couple days off work. Court was still relatively quiet, and she could use Cadence’s new snowflake system to send a letter to me quickly if needed.
And so, Margaret and I packed a bag each and took the train up to the Frozen North. The train is the only reliable way of getting through the snow fields. The storms that surround the city are rarely safe enough to let an airship pass through. As we rattled along the line, more than once, we felt a slight jolt as the engine burst through a snowdrift that had formed on the line.
Eventually though, the snow began to thin out, and as we neared the city and the range of the Crystal Heart, the snowfields gave way to rolling grasslands and fertile plains. Before too long, the city itself came into view, perfectly pleasant in a magically created warm summer’s day.
As the train pulled into the station, the wife and I got out of our seats and prepared to hop down onto the platform. I happened to glance out of the window and saw a sight that caught me by surprise. Shining Armor was there on the platform, waiting for us. He and I might be good friends, but it was still nice to see the Prince of the Crystal Empire turn up to greet you personally. I wasn’t even expecting a guard or anything. Stepping down onto the platform, I greeted the former captain of the Royal Guard, now CO of the reconstituted Crystal Guard, as an old friend.
“Shining!” I called out, waving as we stepped down from the train. “Great to see you again, mate!”
Shining and I have been friends even since I started working for the princesses. Back then, as I said, he was in charge of the Royal Guard, so our paths crossed fairly often.
“How’s Cadence doing?” my wife asked as she joined us. Shining smiled.
“Well, now that Flurry Heart’s magic surges are under control, a lot better, thanks. It’s certainly been nice to get a good night sleep.” I laughed lightly at that.
“Yeah, Celestia told me you looked like death warmed up when she got here.” Apparently ,he was seriously sleep deprived and hadn’t shaved in a few days. I still can’t get the picture of Shining with stubble and five o’clock shadow out of my head. I mean, how can ponies even have beards?
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” Shining replied. “That last time I was that tired was in basic training. But we’ve got things under control now. Flurry’s a lot calmer, and we have Sunburst as the new Royal Crystaller to help out.” He began to lead us off toward the palace.
The Crystal Palace sort of reminded me of the Eiffel Tower in it’s design. Underneath the base was the Crystal Heart itself, suspended between two vertical columns of crystal and spinning steadily. It was here that we found Cadence, her new foal Flurry Heart and Sunburst.
Shining had told us on the way over how he used to be Starlight’s friend when they were kids. I’d thought that the name sounded familiar to me. Apparently the two had reconnected during the brief crisis. He was a lot like my own son, with a passion for magic, but not particularly powerful. I was surprised to hear that he had dropped out of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns because of this. Still, what he lacked in power, he’d made up for in intellect, being able to both provide a means of repairing the heart and also stopping Flurry Heart’s surges. Shining showed us the hole the little tyke had made when she sneezed and her magic had activated. Apparently it would take months to repair the damage.
Shining and Cadence introduced us to him. He was quite the nice lad; a somewhat orange coloured unicorn with four creamy white ‘socks’ around his hooves and a similar streak along his face, making him look a little more like a horse back on Earth. I actually hadn’t seen that many who didn’t just have one predominant coat colour. He also wore clothing, a flowing dark blue cape, as well as a pair of round rimmed glasses that again reminded me of my boy. He also sported quite the impressive goatee, something I’d expect old Starswirl the Bearded would have had during his college days. Overall, he was a nice enough chap, if a touch nervous about his new position. From what I can make out, the Royal Crystaller is sort of like a godfather, charged with protecting the royal baby and teaching her. Quite the step up for a college dropout.
And then there was Flurry Heart. I have to admit, I’ve never been good with babies. To this day, the Cakes twins still terrify me with those unsettling dead eyes and ominous giggling. Flurry took that up to eleven. Large eyes that seemed to stare into your very soul, although at least they had pupils, made her just a little unsettling, particularly when you factor in the damage she did by accident. Still, she seemed to like me. As Margaret was cooing over her, as middle aged women tend to, the tiny alicorn levitated herself out of her pram and hovered directly in front of my face. She regarded me curiously for a moment before reaching out and poking me on the nose. Then she took to playing with the rest of my face. Luckily, amidst much giggling, Cadence was able to make her let go. Margaret still laughed though.
Aside from that though, she seemed a sweet little thing. I’m sure when she’s a few years older I’ll find it much easier to get along with. Kids I deal with just fine, it’s just babies that I can’t hack.
Still, at least she didn’t throw up on me like the last one did.
We stayed and chatted with the new parents in the palace for some time. I hadn’t seen Shining in an age, and Margaret hadn’t seen Cadence since the day the husband and wife came to Ponyville to tell Twilight that Cadence was in the family way, so it was nice to just catch up. Sunburst took charge of Flurry as we all talked. She certainly seemed to like him well enough, if her tugging on his beard was any indication.
We stayed the rest of the afternoon, heading back to the train station in the early evening. It was a fairly long trip back to Ponyville, and I didn’t fancy kipping in the overnight train when I had work tomorrow. So we bid the two parents farewell, with Mum inviting Cadence to come down and visit some time.
As we boarded the train, I couldn’t help but shake an odd feeling. I could feel somepony watching me. When you’ve lived the life I have, you develop a bit of an instinct and know when you’re being watched. I paused on the step up into the carriage and looked around, but there was nopony there. I shook my head, trying to shake the feeling. But even as Margaret and I went into the carriage, passing by several ponies who were also heading south to Equestria, and sat down in our seats, I still had this feeling.
Glancing out of the window, I looked to see if anything was amiss; movement on rooftops or balconies, figures lurking in dark corners, or the flash of reflected sunlight from an exposed telescopic sight. But there was nothing. And yet I couldn’t shake the feeling.
Frowning to myself, I settled down in my seat. Margaret would start badgering me if I kept up much longer. Maybe I’m just getting paranoid in my old age.
Then again, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.