//------------------------------// // Grand Epilogue, A New Era: Paprika and her wives ascended, it didn’t change much. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Kuril- I just watched as my kitten took care of her children, it made me sad in a way that she didn’t need my help nearly as much anymore. Jaded was officially a Queen with her own kittens now, ones that she can actually take care for a lot longer than the time she got with Icky Dress. Speaking of my granddaughter Icky, she sadly couldn’t visit us due to the possibility of destroying the entirety of the world through exceptionally odd causality loops. It was a little hard for us to visit her too and only a little bit more manageable, at least there was a decent pathway between Yakhalla and Icky on the hard to read road map to our corner of the universe. Eir the Valkyrie helps in that regard when she visits. She couldn’t fix Fizzle’s broken horn, but my little pony wasn’t as focused on that these days anyway. At least we could visit Icky’s daughter Harmony and Harmony’s daughter next to the school of friendship in Ponyville far easier, as they were only going to grow so large as to not become a problem to the world. They were all good and lovable transforming magical goddess trees. Back to my kitten, I was fairly proud of Jaded. Jade held little Silvers in the crook of her right arm and supported their back nicely, in her left hand she held two warmed up bottles of milk to Silver and Silvia’s hungry little mouths. Silvon just nuzzled her head into Jade’s chest fur while rumbling happily in a manner that sounded close to purring. I wasn’t exactly picky about my grandchildren, trees, a griffon and a chimera. I was quite accepting that my entire family had clearly gone entirely off the rails just like we generally do around here and I loved them all! Silvers started to squirm and Jade held them up looking a bit worried, she patted them gently on the back while putting the two front heads over her shoulder. Only it was Silvon who proceeded to belch, this led to the dragon head unleashing a huge blast of flames from her little mouth. A nearby chair got set on fire and Jade had a comically spooked look on her face, within a second Jacky pulled out a fire extinguisher and took care of the problem before things could get any worse. My little parrot always had an extinguisher on her, she had the right idea to be properly paranoid. Anyone who knew her would never question Jacky’s need to be carrying around a fire extinguisher at all times. Things that shouldn’t naturally catch on fire do so around her with alarming frequency. Jacky’s luck has only gotten vaguely better with time and thankfully little Gavin didn’t inherit her constant lifelong problem. I watched as Silvers clung to Jade and curled up against the warmth of her body. Everyone could easily trust Jaded with children, but it wouldn’t be too bad to maybe give her a few pointers if she starts having problems with their care. “Thanks Jacky and thank you for the milk Grace.” Jade quickly calmed down and sighed audibly as she tickled her daughters. “I certainly didn’t expect that... usually when gas comes out of the basement, it’s not nearly quite as explosive as that was.” “We’re sisters Captain, can’t expect me to forget to account for my family where my curse is concerned. It doesn’t just affect me, just primarily me overall.” Jacky sat down and Gene passed Gavin into her arms. I felt like crying as I saw my girls being motherly, I knew how to set a good example of motherhood at least. “You might want to look into fire extinguishers yourself, you know, because one of your daughter’s heads can already breathe fire. Don’t honestly know what you’re going to do when the unicorn heads magical surges start kicking in.” Jade paled quite visibly as she looked to Silver’s snoozing head, Silver had Fizzy’s mane and the same silver fur that the rest of Silvers body had. The silver pony fur meshed quite well into the silver Abyssinian fur of Silvia and the fur got wilder around the Silvon’s head. “Oh, it was no problem at all. I’m always willing to spare some milk… Maggie has milk too, but she’s always rather picky about who she gives it to.” The lovely Grace was the most peaceful being of Airship Mauled, she was currently eating some biscuits made from scratch filled with honey and strawberry jelly. “I for one think you’re doing an excellent job Jaded!” Even if Grace was dating someone that was highly confusing and was just as confused about life, Grace was always our calming voice of reason and one of our favorite neighbors that lives nearby. Maggie was practically living at the inn now and was trying to get some correspondence going with Haven’s Patch, the randomly teleporting town of cows, to get in touch with their old friend Calloway. Apparently she was keeping in touch with the Apple family in Ponyville in case they ever needed her help with something. Speaking of neighbors… I looked to Paprika, what is likely the world’s friendliest alpaca, resting her head on her right hoof and staring at Jade longingly, except she had no hearts in her eyes like she always had while looking at Arizona and Velvet. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t Jade she was looking at with a small hint of want, it was Silvers. It was very apparent that Paprika wanted little cria of her own, her wives would certainly be first in line for a test of my gender potion. I would even fast track it for them if asked, but only once we knew it was safe to use. I still haven’t gotten the darn potion entirely down yet, Zecora was actually curious and interested in seeing if it could work and was helping out immensely with the ideas for ideal ingredients. One ingredient that we agreed on that was important was a single sea pony scale or at least a scale from a sea pony that has transformed into a hippogriff at least once. Combine the gender potion with the same cross species spell that led to me having Jade, then anyone could have a family of any composition provided they had a unicorn or god that could do the spell. Any hybrid would definitely be closer to the mother in appearance than the father if Jade was anything to go by, she was barely a pony and yet her cutie mark told us that she got at least something from him. We still needed test subjects and Baast was willing to help with any fertility issues, but could only provide help to a male and female coupling. This is why we were looking into this particular angle to make a temporary potion for couples. What was I going to all this trouble for? My real motivation behind all this research is that it could simply get me more grandchildren to dote on. -Construction site, Arizona- “Now here we go, put your backs into it with the help you lend, we’ve still got work orders for several things to fix and mend~!”” I sang as I hammered planks into place on the ship shaped home I was helping build, it could even be my own or someone else would take it. “Building, building, building, building, building, we do it all day long~! “Building, building, building, building, building, it is what keeps us strong~!” The diamond dog construction crew sang back as they moved supplies around the ship shaped building. “Watch the sky and run away, hope that this is not the goddess Sekhet’s day, we welcome all to our home in this exact same way~!” “We now welcome you to our crash happy homes, isn’t it quite quaint~?” I sang as I hammered some things into place. “There’s always something dangerous around here, so don’t you dare faint~. Now someone get me another plank, maybe afterwards we can share some snow cones or simply something to drink~!” “This is our home of Airship Mauled, watch out for the sky so it doesn’t fall… stick around long enough and you might see an unusual sight happening quite near~.” The diamond dog construction workers sang leading into the final line of the heart song. “Thanks to the unexpected, we always have so much building left to do here~!” I continued to work on the building and I wiped the sweat from head, it was a bit hard to keep my strength under control. Didn’t want to break the entire wall of the boat house overdoing it. “Er… Arizona...” I heard a faint squeaking voice. It sounded like it was trying to shout, but was failing to do so. I finished hammering down my plank of treated wood and looked down at the ground to see three figures, two of which I was fairly familiar with. There was a drastic change to one, one I’ve only seen once before and the last looked a bit embarrassed to be here holding the hoof of the one that went through a drastic change since I last saw her. “Huh… Pom is that you?!” I shouted down at the lambkin who squeaked and burrowed her face into a hoof. “What the hay happened to you?” “Ancient lambkin bonding ritual…” Pom managed to squeak out, I barely heard that as I climbed down a nearby ladder and looked towards the two present longma. Tianhuo and Pom were definitely together by the looks of how embarrassed they were, yet they weren’t jumping away from each other or letting go of the other’s hoof. It reminded me that Fred and Oleander were off traveling the world together, both of them were absolutely looking for trouble to solve. They at least promised to drop in every now and then to regale us with their adventures. “Where are all of your beasties?” I asked, taking note of the lack of stupidly protective canines surrounding the sweet and ‘mostly’ innocent Pom. “I managed to talk them into staying home, it’s getting a bit hard to find transportation for all of them. I have a place in Huoshan now as a canine trainer and I’m actually part of the Huoshan guard now. The canine unit specifically.” Well that was nice to hear Pom, but there was one thing I really wanted to ask about. “Um… do you really have to stare at me like that?” “It is rather noticeable why you’re wearing a really nice dress.” How could I not stare? Pom was obviously shaved completely hairless, the yellow sundress and hat she wore really didn’t hide the fact that she was missing absolutely every inch of wool on her body. I decided to be blunt about it, no tact whatsoever. “So… did you enjoy every second of that ritual?” Pom’s face turned bright red and it wasn’t from the sun. Tianhuo stayed silent, but even her head was turning quite red as she looked away. “That is not what we are here to discuss, these two came to ask for help. I think you may be able to assist us in finding out where the information we seek is.” I looked at the other longma, the way her flaming hair seemed to flow like Celestia’s pretty much meant that she was a goddess. I don’t think we ever got her name or I might have forgotten it. “If you have forgotten me, I’m Jiutian. Longma Goddess of war, longevity… also excessive over the top love and sex. We’ve met briefly.” “Did I hear someone speaking my language?” Baast asked as she immediately zipped over to us and looked over Jiutian. “Oh, hello beautiful love goddess! How about we get fertile together, maybe you can even plant some corn in me… you’re a solid ten fields worth!” “Rice to meet you too.” Jiutian muttered audibly while slowly dragging a hoof down her face. “Why am I not surprised that I’d be getting pickup lines this soon?” The fact that Baast built a pyramid next to her sisters was not lost on any of us who live here, and yes, Baast was frequently hit by airships after officially moving in for those who were keeping count of the number of times... oh dang! “Incoming, everyone Scatter!” I bellowed while tackling both Pom and Tianhuo out of the path of a sudden shadow coming down. The diamond dogs followed my command immediately and were out of the path of the incoming crash. Whether they burrowed into the ground, ran in fright while holding onto their hard hats or simply dove out of the way, they all got clear of the most common disaster Airship Mauled faces almost on a weekly basis. The airship hit not only Baast and Jiutian, but also Sekhet who managed to dive underneath it just in time to be hit by it full force. Sekhet was still a masochist that clearly enjoys being crushed by airships, but I wouldn’t point that out as I’m the poster cow for domestic abuse when it came to Velvet and wasn’t one to talk about enjoying pain and suffering. I’m married to the example of both of those things. “Ow.” That was Jiutian’s only reaction to being crushed by an airship. The longma goddess’s visible hooves waggled helplessly from underneath the airship. “This feels oddly pleasing somehow.” “See, I’m not the only one that thinks so Baast!” Said a happily groaning Sekhet. “This is not anything like the joy from the pain of a successful childbirth Sekhet!” It seemed Baast was angry that her sister would make something like an insinuation. I heard a crunching sound as the airship dipped slightly and I heard Baast let out a moan. “Okay, maybe there is some merit to this… that kind of felt like a full deep tissue back massage. Sure my spine is now mulch, but this is kind of relaxing.” I rolled my eyes at the three goddesses under an airship and turned to both Pom and Tian. The boys would ask if the airship crew need medical help and or some repair work on their ship. At least the airship crash didn’t ruin our construction site, it only damaged the scaffolding a little. “So what brings you two here, it must be something important if Tian is not currently married to her job much less you for that matter Pom.” The two looked rather shy about it as I teased them. “We heard there was a way for us to have children? I made a prayer to Jiutian and she answered almost immediately, it was almost like she was eagerly waiting for me to ask for help… She didn’t even want an offering and said that helping us would be offering enough.” Tian looked out at the town and smiled. “Aside from our goddess being a horrible voyeur, I would ask why she thought it necessary to bring us here. Apparently there is a rumored method to us having children here?” “Yeah, Fizzle help reverse engineer a cross species breeding spell from the only previous successful result of it and eventually help to come up with a same gender breeding spell too. They don’t work together though. Same gender requires being of the same species, cross species requires a male and a female to work.” Seeing the disappointed looks, I couldn’t help but want to put some smiles on them. “Which is why they started working out a method to change someone’s gender temporarily, Baast might be able to help with fertility if the changed gender proves to be infertile.” “It is actually possible?” Tian stated with a hint of hope. “Yes, but the method is… very much untested and the potion everyone’s favorite local witch is working on isn’t exactly perfected. There’s also some attraction issues going on around here. Velvet doesn’t want to have sex with a male. Paprika thankfully doesn’t care about our genders and just wants children. I’m bisexual so I’m more open to the idea of being with a male, but don’t want to be a male myself as I get enough ‘miniscule’ jokes about my udders as it is. There’s also the fact that Velvet doesn’t want to look anything like her biological father, but we’ve been working to get her to come around to at least trying the potion once.” There was a problem or two with finding willing test subjects and I knew what it was. “Jade and her wives also have Velvet’s problem, they aren’t attracted to men and would have problems doing the full scope of the gender potion testing. Finding volunteers for it has been pretty…” “I’ll do it!” Everyone reeled back in shock from Pom, it was to the point that the various Diamond Dogs from the local construction crew were now staring at her along with the crew of the recently crashed airship. That’s the loudest I think I’ve ever heard Pom be. Pom clamped her hooves over her mouth, her entire body turned red and she promptly curled up into a tiny yellow ball of cloth. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind being the male… if it’s okay with you Tian.” “If you want me to, I could…” Tian started to say slowly, calmly and tenderly. “No, I’m doing it!” Pom said firmly and loudly, the second loudest I’ve ever heard her being while looking Tian in the eyes with a fire I’ve never seen in the usually cowardly or meek lambkin. She knows what she wants at least. “It is nice to see you being so brave once again.” Tianhuo stated while pressing against Pom’s shivering side. “Okay… once Kuril has her potion tested and it is considered safe for consumption for other species, I’m sure you could volunteer to be the first one to try it.” The smile I was getting from Pom was brighter than the sun and she seemed both outrageously happy and hopeful. “I’m not in charge of the project though, so you might want to run it by Cadence, Baast, Kuril, Zecora or quite a few of the others that are all working on this. It’s really complicated and well above my ability to fully comprehend what they are talking about half the time, but it’s not nearly as hard as figuring out how to heal the damage to Fizzle’s horn apparently. I’m sure those on the project would really appreciate you helping out. So it’s clearly not impossible considering I’ve seen Kuril turn ponies into mice, birds, rabbits and even a frog once, I’ve also been hearing some interesting things about two gay hippogriffs too if you want to hear about it.” “Do you know a place where we can stay Arizona? We don’t exactly know this town very well.” Tian asked as she stared at the many various beings wandering around town, Kuril’s restaurant was already starting to get its morning influx of visitors. It seemed Fresh Start was going to be exceedingly busy with the breakfast rush this morning. Kuril was better at the lunch rush and dinner rushes. Blade was always in a day long support roll. Brenda was picking up things nicely as an attractive diamond dog waitress and when Savanna wasn’t traveling around as a pirate with Jacky, she’d work shifts with what was her cuddly canine companion for life. “Yeah, the Helping Hoof Inn, I recently expanded its size and added more rooms...” I paused and looked between Pom and Tianhuo. “With requisite sound proofing, I certainly don’t want to hear how loudly Pom bleats at night.” The two started blushing heavily. There were also a large number of rooms for family added on, for Grace, Maggie and my wives to stay at in the meantime… including a foal’s room, best to be prepared for the inevitable if we can get Velvet to take the temporary gender potion after it was approved by various sources for use. -A few days later, Jade- “This feels kind of odd.” Stated Pom, being a ram lambkin in a dress would do that to you. “Take it from someone who can transform into a griffon for an hour or has accidentally been hit with a number of random animal based shape shifting potions, it probably could be far worse than it currently feels now.” That time I was a peregrine falcon was awesome though, thankfully I transformed back with my griffon feather or I wouldn’t have survived that fall. Cadence quickly checked a nervous Pom over and nodded to Tianhuo. “Now we need you, Tianhuo, to get a sample from him to see if this is working as advertised. We are not using the cross species spell on you yet to prevent any ‘really happy’ accidents from happening.” After she shooed the two lovers out of sight, Cadence turned a stink eye to me. “Why didn’t you get me to officiate your wedding?” “You’re still on about that Cadence? Twilight needed the confidence boost and what better way than to have someone she doesn’t know very well to put their trust in her to do a good job?” Not going to bat an eye here, but I was sure Cadence would have went overboard if I had asked her to officiate our wedding. I even said as much. “You would have gone far and might have attracted some rather problematic elements, that aren’t the now completely defunct GODLESS, that would have done some things to make sure I didn’t cause any more problems among nobility. With the decoy honeymoon we avoided a large beach ninja ambush, two different dueling guitar ninjas and anything-not-nailed-down-is-a-weapon ninja. There’s still having to deal with Perun’s Paladins too and they are almost entirely made up of nobles or jerks in general. Anyway, out of curiosity and on the subject, heard any news about how Blueblood has been doing recently?” “I… yes… I can actually see that now. Also Blueblood could be doing better, but at least he’s actually having to make an effort of it now instead of cheating the system entirely.” Cadence smiled and hugged me, said hug tightened to be almost unbearable. “Okay, where’s your kittens? I know you’ve had them with Maries, I can smell them on you! I want to be an aunty to them too!” Cadence violently shook me, this was making me quite dizzy and I worried for the safety of my kittens. Logically I knew Cadence would never hurt a child, so I eventually caved in. “Fizzy’s got them today, I swear!” I was quickly released and Cadence was happily bouncing off to see them, Flurry Heart was currently with Shining Armor back in the Crystal Empire and Cadence was apparently having parental withdrawal. Today was likely a free day from dealing with the stresses of life for the Princess of Love. -Airship Mauled Market District, Paprika- They were so adorable and small, it was hard to believe Silvers came out of Maries. At least I now knew why mom was always so big year round and seemed smaller after my newer brothers and sisters appear. I love all my brothers and sisters, but now I wanted to start a family of my own. I don’t think I would ever be able to support or have as many children as mom though. Fizzle was less hardened when Silvers, Maries or Jade were around, in fact she was really quite soft and caring when you overlooked her hard and stern exterior at times. She was doing some shopping while making sure Silvers didn’t crawl off or do something bad. It was around this time that I was perusing for supplies myself that a pink alicorn pounced on Fizzle and the generally quiet day at the market got a bit sillier. I shrugged and tried to think about other things, for a second I thought I saw the pink alicorn look in my direction curiously when Velvet and Arizona came to mind. My wives were less big on family, Velvet doesn’t love her biological family and prefers her adopted family exclusively. I can clearly understand the reasoning behind that. Arizona loves her mother, but tends to want to keep her at a distance as she was a, somewhat, grown cow. Arizona still looks scrawny and like a calf, but I think that’s due to all her compacted muscles. Not that that’s a bad thing that our Arizona looks cute enough to snuggle until the very heat death of the universe. I looked over Silvers some more. Their eyes kind of matched their mothers, all of them. Green for the Abyssinian head, bright blue eyed for the unicorn and yellow bar eyes of a goat mixed with the multiple slits of dragons made for a rather fierce look on the tail bound head. I was actually quite envious. I could play with them, I could take care of them and be their fluffy ‘hug obsessed’ aunt, but it left me longing for having the same thing with my own soul mates. I think I was being a bit too greedy about all this. “A bit for your thoughts oh scary one?” The one that drew my attention, Jiutian, came up to me looking a bit pensive. What was so scary about me that made her so wary? I’m really ridiculously fluffy and lovable! Making several motions with my hooves, I added some facial expressions to my gestures as I asked her why she seemed afraid of me. “To be fair, all the love gods are afraid of you, mostly because you could put us all out of our jobs by becoming the most powerful one of us. Most of them fled when you appeared in our domain, but thankfully you haven’t actually done ‘that’ yet.” What did Jiutian mean by ‘that’ exactly? I asked her and she sighed. “You have enormous potential and yet you haven’t ever wanted to grasp at power, it’s almost like you ignore it and just go with your heart no matter where it leads you. That has certainly upset all the death gods betting on how you would perish, which might not happen now depending on how things turn out soon enough.” If I died now, then that would make my soul mates and wives very sad. I gestured that I wasn’t doing that anytime soon. “Yes, that is fairly apparent, it’ll be even more so when you ascend and drag them with you into being the head goddess of your own little pantheon.” She sat down next to me and waited, I raised a brow at her. Was she expecting me to hug her? She didn’t seem to need one at the moment to me. “Every single bond you have ever truly made is insanely powerful and there was only ever the one being you could never like. Yet you never expressed outright hatred for them, only a mild contempt. You have an instinctive love of almost all life, yet being a love god might not actually be your thing.” I believed she was talking about Hollow Heart, he wasn’t very nice and didn’t know how to play with others correctly. I feel pity for him and was somewhat sorry for kicking him so hard, but hopefully he likes where he is now. Even shadow monsters needed friends too! “Your loving heart is a scary thing, you should be a goddess already and yet you continue to stay mortal. It’s probably better that you do stay mortal, otherwise having children might become a bit harder for you. I can definitely see them in your future.” She smiled at me after a moment and my eyes widened at what she just implied, I quickly pulled her into a hug and a few of her bones crunched under the force of my hug. “You have… the strength of a goddess… at least. Even if you might… only ever have a single cria… that should be enough… for you…” I nodded as I quickly let her go, she fell to the ground shivering. A cria with Velvet would be exceptionally floofy and beautiful, I’d still love them even if they weren’t. I would also want a child with Arizona. Truthfully I wanted a lot of cria, but if I only ever had the one I’d focus my heart on raising them right like my mommy did for me! Again I was being rather greedy, but I never asked much of my wives before and I’m only doing so now when it was something I really wanted. I still had a few vegetables to buy, I saw some nice daikon radishes from Neighpon a second ago that would be good for some soup. The Cat and Hawk service were really good at importing foreign vegetables and fruit, they were always really fresh too! I still don’t honestly know why they called it a black market, it seemed pretty friendly to me. I kind of wanted to buy Arizona a professionally made kanabo, but they were a bit expensive. -A day later, The Witch’s Fare, Velvet- Pom was back to normal after experiencing her time as a ram and I was currently buying lunch for her. I of course had ulterior motives and Pom likely knew as such, but I was going to treat her anyway even if I didn’t have motives for us to share a meal. My job as snow cone maker was going splendidly, especially considering how my snow cones were being used to beat the heat around here. The local Diamond Dogs loved them at least. I also wanted to get into making ice cream… because I most certainly did not have a problem and could watch my figure perfectly well on my own! Today for lunch, Kuril was making me a nice three cheese spaghetti with a sweet tasting tomato sauce, it was going to be a bit messy and while I hated being messy in general… there were times when I’d overlooked the possibility of being messy entirely. Provided that nothing gets on or damages my glorious floof of course. I’m still somewhat envious that Paprika can match me for being attractively fluffy despite not putting an ounce of effort into her appearance. I wasn’t going to tell Paprika this, because I absolutely cherished and loved her dearly. “I still feel sorry for you my dear friend, all of that lovely hair just gone… I can’t imagine losing my floof like that.” I put a hoof to my chest and ruffled my thick fluffy pride, Tinsel squeaked in agreement that it would be an utter tragedy. “So… how did it feel? My wives have been suggesting I go for it personally so I wouldn’t have to… be with a male. Arizona is already more than masculine enough for me, about as close as I ever want to get really.” “It’ll grow back eventually, besides… I… actually really enjoyed being sheared by Tianhuo. While we Lambkin are not like normal sheep or ewes, we do use being sheared by a significant other as a sign of trust and deep emotional bonds.” Yes, Pom, I could clearly see that much. Pom looked fairly adorable in that yellow sundress, I’m sure she’d still wear it even when her wool grew back. “I’m still working on a scarf for Tianhuo and it’s almost done. Once that’s finished and I give it to her, it actually finishes off the ritual quite nicely.” “No one can convince me to shear even a speck of hair off of my body unless it absolutely necessary and a last resort, otherwise I’d maim whoever dared try it with me! Still that’s a nice sun hat and a wonderful dress… where did you get them? You look cute in it.” I was actually curious. I’m completely aware that my wives were not made of money and I wasn’t about to drive them into the ground about wanting some of the finer things in life. I for one have come to prefer practical things to the ostentatious, but I still liked to have something fancy or at least nobler looking to wear for a nice outing. I’d think I’d look particularly nice in a silky ice blue dress. “I ask because I’m thinking of getting a nice dress for evenings out with my significant others.” “I got it through mail order from a unicorn mare named Rarity, she runs a lot of good boutiques throughout Equestria. Kind of reminds me of your hat crazy cousin Cashmere, at least the one in Fœnum that is. I waited until the dress arrive before telling Tianhuo how to perform the Lambkin bonding ritual so I could cover my… erm… yeah.” Sighing while looking at the table, Pom slowly looked me in the eyes. “As for how it felt to be a ram… it was… weird, excessively weird. Not something I’d be willing to do twice unless I direly want children, and I do, but it wasn’t all that bad really.” I’d hate to tell Pom this, but the Cashmere in this world was a one for one match to the one from Fœnum and her ice sprite was just as equally odd here as it is there. I should probably get my cousin to meet Rarity and we’ll make a day of it. “Do you think I’d make for a nice stag?” My query must have been fairly obvious as Pom smiled at me shyly. “Just temporarily mind you.” Paprika didn’t even need to drop hints, I knew she wanted a cria of her own and I was willing to do it. No matter my distaste for the method requiring me to become something I’m not, I’d absolutely do it for her and even Arizona if I could completely get over my revulsion of the idea. I don’t even know if Arizona wanted children honestly, but Paprika certainly did. “It won’t hurt to try it Velvet, it certainly didn’t hurt me. Tianhuo was very gentle with me.” Shouldn’t you have been the gentle one Pom? No… wait… this ‘is’ Pom we’re talking about here, becoming male apparently didn’t change her endearing personality in the slightest. That… actually makes me feel better about possibly doing it. “I’ll consider it when I hear that…” I started to say when Dr. Bones came up to us, that diamond dog was always grumpy when something bad happens to us. I know she cares even if she doesn’t show it too well. Zen in particular hated how physics defying Arizona’s given biology was when compared against her mother’s implausible ability to survive being in the center of powerful and deadly explosions without so much as a scratch. The fact that Grace and Calloway almost vaguely shared similar traits was something of a mild concern, I did not want such a thing as being an ‘explosive nutcase’ to be contagious. “Pom… you were fertile, exceedingly so. I know there’s some form of divine intervention on the samples I studied.” That was apparently good news from Dr. Bones and Pom hugged her with gangly legged enthusiasm. “I wouldn’t put it past them to do something to help things along, we tend to have a lot of nice gods around here... the injuries from the constant airship crashes sure are annoying though. At least it keeps me in a job.” I heard someone cough loudly into their hoof for some reason and glanced in that direction. Wasn’t that Ms. Jiutian that came here with Pom and Tianhuo? Given that she’s a goddess… well of course she was meddling in the affairs of mortals, but it didn’t seem to be for anything too bad if the mortals were actually asking for help in that regard. What was she getting from Pom and Tianhuo for this though? They never made an offering and she was practically jumping at the chance to help them. It seemed it worked… did that mean I could really do it? Could I swallow my pride, toss my beauty away and give my wives something more precious than words. I felt a tug on my floof and turned my gaze to Tinsel, he hovered in front of me looking at me with a friendly smile filled with both worship and love. Tinsel spread his arms out and created a hollow heart made of ice. He filled in the heart with snow and then turned it all into a snowball before chucking it at my face in a playful manner. I smiled after being struck with the snowball, all ice sprites were far smarter than any reindeer would ever give them credit for as our ever loyal familiars. -A day later, The Witch’s Fare, Tinsel- She was truly a goddess of hidden warmth, she was now showing her true form and it glowed with raw power! I was a true servant of the mighty ones we are all beholden too, mine was going to be the greatest of them all! “Coo!” The little winged guardian agreed. I will continue to serve you loyally forever mother! -Jade- “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.” That attracted attention to what I was looking at. Not only were Arizona and Velvet glowing, but so was Paprika. Said alpaca was being the most unusual out of the three of them, given Paprika was magically hovering between them and glowing with a large amount of raw power. “Oh stop showing off already Paprika!” After Arizona said this, the glow down and Paprika returned to looking like a normal alpaca albeit with a faint glow. “Meep!” Exclaimed Paprika with a cheerful smile. “Do I want to ask?” Not much really changed about them, though they all seemed a little bit… different. “Apparently we’re all minor goddesses now or something, I wouldn’t know as I already broken the laws of physics at least three times before whatever this is happened.” I think Arizona was taking this with her usual completely nonchalant approach, it was an agreeable way to take this kind of thing. This was nothing too interesting, especially when they can dial down their divine power to a bare minimum as if they didn’t have it. “What’s going to be different about me making physics cry harder now? Don’t really care about it all that much, but it feels right at least. We’re not going to worry about it too much at the moment.” “All three of you having divinity actually makes very little sense in the grand scheme of things, considering two of you didn’t show or seem to have any before-hoof!” Jiutian looked at Paprika with twitching eyes and sighed. “Though I am definitely glad that Paprika is not a Goddess of Love, more so the Goddess of Commitment, Snuggles and Fluff. She still terrifies me on a level I cannot even begin to comprehend, but at least she’s not going to bother us in our domain…. too much.” “Don’t feel any different, more powerful sure, but I’m going to do what Arizona is doing and ignore the elephant in the room and will move on with my life.” Velvet stated as she sat down with Paprika between her and Arizona. Nobody was going to look at the super thief elephant that was actually in the room with us at the moment, even I was trying really hard to ignore its presence or the fact that it managed to escape Canterlot’s dungeon. “Three chimera sized specials please, I feel like we’re going to really need it today… oh and a five pound tub of ice cream, any flavor, please!” -?- It wasn’t long after that day that we discovered that despite the fact that Velvet was the one that should have gotten both Arizona and Paprika expectant. The ones who were actually expectant were Paprika as expected and somehow Velvet herself, which made absolutely no sense as to how that was even possible. As you can imagine this was to everyone’s disbelief, given that Velvet was the male during the given time frame that such a thing could have happened. That was far more interesting than the fact that all three of them somehow ascended in the process, this world of magic really did work in mysterious and impossible ways. More testing needed to be done on this before Fizzy or Jade would consider children personally. Paprika, Arizona and Velvet would prove to still be mortal, with all that being mortal entails, probably at least up until they all died. When they died from living their mortal lives, who knew what would actually happen to them then. Celestia kind of jumpstarted Twilight’s process into being a Goddess of Friendship, which happened when Celestia couldn’t remember her past life as Bennu and was relatively upset with herself for her hoof in it after the fact. It would be at least five or fifteen years until Twilight started going full flowing mane and being a goddess of her aspect. Arizona’s group refused to get the same kind of jumpstart that happened to Twilight Sparkle once it was explained and Celestia defended their decision knowing personally that it was entirely unavoidable at this point. It was also a little too late for The End of Immortality to actually do anything. This shouldn’t affect them too much until their mortal lives were over with. At least Arizona, Paprika and Velvet still had their mortal lives left to come to terms with their immortal ones right after it. Twilight wasn’t getting the rest of her mortal life as she was already slipping into immortality while quickly losing her mortal coil. All in all, the bickering duo and their loving alpaca didn’t change much at all, only Arizona was starting to fret about building a home for all of them. Arizona was also a little more worried about Airships crushing her wives, but apparently whatever made airships target gods around here wasn’t affecting them… at least not yet anyway. The Arid Paca La Perm herd were choosing to live in the friendly town of Airship Mauled as a home, but their adventures were far from over. They still liked to travel and fight in tournaments, one could never tell who would win whenever they were pitted against one another. If asked to help with something, then Velvet, Arizona and Paprika made for a wonderful team of friends that could take some serious beatings. In completely unrelated news, three vigilantes that resemble the Power Pony comic book characters could be seen occasionally running around beating the stuffing out of people in costumes. Tianhuo and Pom eventually gave Jiutian exactly what she had been hoping for and working towards for most of the past few thousand years, bringing adorable fluffy longma children into the world! The lambkin and the longma pair would live a happy life protecting the streets of Huoshan together, with a hoard of canines that Pom personally trained outside of her numerous familiars. Incidentally Huoshan is now apparently a dog lover’s paradise. Oleander would continue to be a free agent that travels the world helping people wherever she could with the power of dark magic, she would become a famous wandering hero and even Luna would eventually teach her a few things that Fred himself couldn’t. Oleander and Fred would eventually become good friends with Twilight Sparkle, who was completely and utterly jealous of Oleander’s close relationship with her beloved demonic book.