Darcy was sitting in her house. Since she was inside her Equestrian home, Darcy could use her human form. She needed that. It was easier to clean up her weapons with hands instead of wings.
She was sharpening her knives, currently. They were her pride and joy. Darcy always had a good time with her weapons. Caring for them, knowing how to properly store them, the most effective uses for them. Somedays, Darcy likened it to having a pet.
She never had a proper pet before, Darcy mused. Probably ‘cause Morgan thought she’d kill it. Not that Darcy would(wouldn’t try), pets were so cute.
Darcy was most excited at being alive too. She’d died and revived and died and revived more times than a Joss Whedon character.
A part of that tied in to being Nikki Stevens, aka Iron Assassin again. That girl was able to party hard, and had cool powers. Fuck yeah this is gonna be cool.
There was a creak outside her door. Darcy did a quick check. Her sister knew about the creak, so she’d just yell beyond it. Thorax would just open the door like an idiot. Cookie too. The ponies would open the door then duck.
“I was given a knife, niece!” Darcy called over her shoulder.
A sigh, then the door opened. Lilac poked her head in. Her head fin falling to the side of her face.
“How’d you know?” Lilac asked.
“I’ll never tell.” Darcy replied.
The dragon sighed. “Where are Mom and Dad?” Lilac asked.
Darcy looked up from her blade sharpening. “...talking about wedding plans.” She replied after a moment’s thought. “That or sex.”
Lilac grimaced. She was almost fifteen. She didn’t wanna hear about her parents...ya know.
Darcy snickered at her niece’s expression. She sat up from her weapons. “Nervous about the trip?”
“A little.” Lilac admitted. “Weren’t you nervous the first time Mom took you someplace?”
Darcy shrugged, toying the newly sharpened blade in her hands. “Not really. I was younger than you, so I wasn’t really...it didn’t hit me until later how big that should’ve been, you know? It was bigger for Morgue than it was for me. Then again, Morgue always blows things up in her head. Must be why she gets along with Twilight.”
Lilac chewed her lip beneath a fang. A new habit she had picked up from her family. She couldn’t say herself when she started doing that, only that it hurt whenever she accidentally bit into her lip.
Darcy realized she’d have to...give reassuring advice. “...it’s gonna be easy, Lilac. Over before you know it, and then you’ll ask why you were so nervous.” Darcy explained. This reminded her of the Talks she’d heard in foster care. Well, at least Darcy knew what to say if Lilac ever started asking those questions.
Darcy’s ability at giving advice was proven stupid at Lilac’s unsure expression.
She decided on a new tactic.
“You trust your mom with your safety, right?” Darcy quizzed.
“Of course.” Lilac answered.
“Then you know your mom wouldn’t have given in unless she was sure you could handle this.” Darcy pointed out. “If she thought you weren’t ready, she’d have given you something else to do to get you ready.”
Now Lilac had a smidge of hope on her face. “You think so?”
“Am I the one in this family that gives false platitudes?” Darcy questioned.
Lilac’s eyes widened. “No Auntie!”
“That’s right. That’s Thorax.” Darcy countered. “That guy has the backbone of a feather.”
Lilac laughed, despite the insult to her father. “You and Dad are always like that with each other.”
“Because he’s always had the backbone of a feather.” Darcy answered. “The guy needs to toughen up, or the MCU is gonna eat him alive.” Lilac suddenly paled. “You’ll be fine, Lilac. You may be Morgue’s kid, but we worked together to make you tough.” She put a hand on her niece’s shoulder, beaming. “It’s gonna rock. Now, get out. I’m not done sharpening my stuff.”
“Bye Auntie Killjoy.”
“Whatever.” She waved the child away.
When the door shut, Darcy got back to work on her weapons.
==RRFTC==
Later that day, Thorax was cooking their dinner.
Morgan sat at the dinner table working on the Plan. Ah, yes, the Plan. Basically Morgan Stardust’s Plan was everything she knew about the world she was entering, everything she knew about what was coming, and all the things she noted that needed to be changed either actively or inactively.
Lilac loved watching her mom work. She’d seen it a few times over the years. Once or twice, Morgan let Lilac in on the Planning process. It had been a lot- given Lilac her first ever headache. An achievement, according to her mom.
Right now, Lilac was standing at the path to the living room, looking torn between actually walking up or walking back to her room.
Morgan was organizing some index cards, shuffling them around the table in a unique fashion that seemed to make more sense in her head than in reality. Lilac remembered being told the color code system for Planning, remembered that it was something her mother had spent a lot of time thinking about before following through with it.
Lilac should’ve studied it again.
“Hey Lilac.” Lilac turned, seeing her dad walk over. His horns were glowing blue. A quick look told Lilac that Thorax was using his magic to continue cooking. “What’s up?”
“Just-” Lilac glanced at the dinner table, which was covered in papers and pictures and a rainbow of index cards. “Do you know how it-”
Thorax snorted.
“You don’t?”
“You think your mother hasn’t tried?” Thorax countered.
Lilac winced. “That bad?”
“She actually thinks I have color blindness, because of how badly I kept mixing up the cards.” Thorax admitted with a fond smile.
“...are you?”
“Well no, it’s just they all kinda looked the same when I picked them up in my magic.” Thorax excused. He gave Lilac a kiss on the head. “You’ll do great, Lilac, just ask.”
“I’ve already had it explained three times.”
“You’ll be dead by dinner time.” Thorax smiled kindly. “Good to know, when working out portions.” He walked back to the kitchen.
Lilac groaned.
Her mother hummed.
Lilac squeaked, slapping her hand over her mouth.
“What’s happenin’?” Morgan asked, barely looking up for a note she’d been writing.
“Nothing, Mom, ignore me.” Lilac made to run up to her room.
“Hey wait. Come here.” Morgan instructed.
Lilac stopped.
“I changed the code around. Wanna see?” Morgan offered.
“...yes.”
Lilac sat down beside her mother, observing the Plan laid out on a new angle.
“Okay. Now, as a given, this is a Live-Action world. The Green Index Cards are for-”
“People that you’ve met in other worlds, but...they aren’t the same person.” Lilac recalled. “Like...like because Maria Hall played Robin Sher...Scherbatsky. She got a Green Card.”
“Look at you, showing off the Stardust brain.” Morgan praised. She picked up another index card. “Red is for fixed points, and also fixed facts. Like the fact that a portal is going to open up above New York. That’s a given. I can’t see a way to stop that, and I think it’s actually impossible at this stage. Also, I have to admit that Loki doesn’t come out of this looking good.”
“Okay.” Lilac nodded. “Or like...how the Tesseract is going to be used by Loki as a door?”
“Correct, mi hija!” Morgan praised. “Now...the blue. That’s me.” Morgan cheered, holding up a plain blue card. “All my shit. Oh, you think I should add a color for you guys? I’ve been thinking about it.”
“Nah...too confusing.”
“You think so?”
“Mom, this table looks like the meme of that guy trying to explain why there’s no secretary in HR.”
“...not exactly what he was doing, but I’m touched by the effort.” Morgan admitted. She went back to the index cards. “Glad you brought up memes though. That’s what pink is.”
“Wait, you organize memes into this?” Lilac asked. She picked up a pink card that had ‘thirty fucking seconds’ written across it in black.
“And tumblr posts.” Morgan cheered.
“Why?”
“Cause they make sense.” Morgan reasoned. She plucked the card from Lilac’s hand, putting it back on the table.
“What kind of powers will I have?” Lilac asked her mom.
Morgan shrugged. “Anything. You could get new powers fit to this universe, or your dragon abilities will transfer over. This is the first time we’ve brought an Equestrian there. Your dad too. It’s gonna be a wild ride.”
“My dragon powers worked in Doctor Who.” Lilac pointed out.
“Yeah, but they didn’t in How I Met Your Mother.” Morgan countered. She was writing something on a colored index card. “So who knows?”
“But How I Met Your Mother was a more...mundane world.” Lilac reminded her mom. “Doctor Who was more open to oddities. MCU should be too.”
“...I both hate and love that you’ve got that brain.” Morgan sighed. Morgan glanced at a wall clock. “Shite. Babe what time were we supposed to be there?”
Thorax paused. “2 o’clock.”
“It’s 1:30!”
“I know, that’s why I made baggy sandwiches.” Thorax floated over two such packed sandwiches to Morgan and Lilac.
Morgan huffed. “Alright. I’ll finish this after. Come on, Lilac. Bee, get my sister.”
“Sure!” Thorax ran off upstairs.
“Where are we going?” Lilac asked.
“Did you not hear?” Morgan grinned. “Rarity was making our outfits.”
Lilac’s eyes bugged out. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes.” Morgan grinned. She threw her arm around Lilac’s shoulders. “Nope, nu-uh. You signed on for this, kid, you gotta deal with the fallout.”
“But we don’t even know how I’m gonna look there!” Lilac whined.
Morgan laughed, the way a mother does when she knows her child can’t reason their way out of something. “Of course you’re not getting your outfit yet, Lilac, that’d be ridiculous! You’ll get your’s much later. I doubt you’ll be older than a teenager over there. For now, you’re going to watch us get outfits.”
Lilac groaned. While not worse, it was so boring to just sit around for hours while other ponies were given outfits.
This was her punishment for insisting on joining. She was sure of it.