Washing myself and Méng together ended up being a small struggle, primarily because Méng in no way shared his older brother's enthusiasm for being drenched in water. Satan, my old cat, would have struggled less when put in a tub. It took several times being slapped in the face with a wing, boxed in the gut by a hoof, and many times flattening my ears as Méng cried blue-bloody-murder, but after more than an hour, we finished the bath.
I didn't care if it was Lântiān or Josie who would be doing it from now on, but I decided I wasn't personally bathing Méng anymore. I was a pony with a temper and keeping it in check through all that had been difficult. I had to keep reminding myself Méng was only a small foal and didn't know any better.
With the two of us clean and him exhausted from his struggles combined with the hour, it was now time to get him to bed. The king-sized bed in the room made him look even tinier than he was. He'd be sharing it with his brothers, which there was more than enough room for, but not at the same time. It was a large four-post bed, and I had to levitate him up on it to get him up there. After getting him up, I briefly lost track of where the small set of steps to help ponies get up there was and briefly debated trying to blink up there—short distance teleport. I was recovering, but anything on the scale of a teleport was still out of the question. Luckily, I found the steps had been knocked over into a corner, probably by his brothers.
I put the stairs back in place and climbed up on the bed with Méng. I tucked him in, and he looked up at me with big eyes.
"<Song>," he begged in Mandarin. I'd add that word to his known vocabulary.
"You want violin music?" I asked. He just stared at me. He didn't understand a word I was saying.
"<Song>," he repeated. "Please."
I didn't have a speaker system to play him violin music, and I wasn't going to sit up here forever with my phone playing it. I needed to come up with something.
"Would you like a lullaby?" I asked. Again, there was no way he could know what I was even saying. He just stared at me.
I didn't really know any lullabies. Rock-a-bye baby he was too big for, twinkle-twinkle little star felt highly inappropriate for when the sun was up. I was at a loss. I finally decided on the first song I could think of other than those two that had a calming melody.
"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me."
I paused to see how he would react. He didn't seem upset. He appeared to be expectant now. I guessed that it was fine.
"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see
Was grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace, my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed
Through many dangers, toils, and snares
We have already come
T'was grace that brought us safe thus far
And grace will lead us home
And grace will lead us home
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see
Was blind, but now I see."
As I was finishing the last verse, he yawned and wrapped a wing over his head. I could hear him snoring within a second or two of that. Either he was pleased with the song, or I had bored him to sleep. At least he was out like a light.
Satisfied that he was properly tucked in and would be asleep until at least early evening, I carefully got down from the bed, shut the window, and exited the room, making sure the doorstop was in place to keep the door open.
As I stepped out into the hall was met by Lântiān.
"Before you raise a fuss about me singing something religious to him, I made sure not to mention God directly anywhere in the song," I said quickly, then realized something that was missing. "Where are your brothers and daughter?"
"They are in the large family room, ma'am," she replied.
I narrowed my eyes at her. "And they are unattended?"
She sniffed and responded as though I were stupid. "If they cannot be trusted to be left alone for five minutes, we have much more to be concerned about, ma'am. Méng will wake with no one there to supervise him. Do you think he shall get into trouble as well?"
That was something to be concerned about, and a concern I wasn't sure yet how to address. Lântiān might not have thought so, but I could imagine the youngest colt getting up and wandering into places he didn't belong in search of his family and me. Maybe I could purchase and put a baby monitor in the room.
That was something to resolve later. Right now, I needed to deal with the filly in front of me. "So why are you tracking me down?"
She gestured back at the stairs. "There is a rather demanding pony at the door, looking for you, ma'am."
I raised an eyebrow. "Demanding? Did this pony give their name?"
"Sapphire Sky, ma'am."
Great, Twilight Sparkle and Wild must have been trying to poke fun at me. I had only had one public conversation with Miss Sky back in Riverview shortly before the Cataclysm and had used her as a prop to drum up support for my project. She had to be the courier. I couldn't imagine she decided to just drop-in out of the blue or even knowing I was here to drop-in on. This must be some sort of trial.
"Tell her I will be down in a moment," I instructed. "I figure you can fly back to the door faster than I can walk, and I'm not running for her."
"Should I allow her in, ma'am?"
I thought about it for a second. "She can come into the entry hall, but she stays there.” There's too much chance she could attract a passing pegasus's attention if they saw her flank parked out in front of our door.
The filly did a small trot away from me and then launched herself into the air and took off down the hall and then down the stairs. Once again, I envied her mobility as a pegasus. I began walking after her, deliberately taking my time more than I needed to.
I wanted to let that pegasus wait and stew. I appreciated her efforts helping get the fires out in the city after the Cataclysm, and I appreciated moreover her helping rescue my families' foals from their predicament. My niece might not have lived to be turned into a human if not for that pegasus's efforts. Those things outweighed the fact she added to the chaos that had escalated to the Cataclysm, and if I had to admit, her added disorder had forced Wild Growth into action, and that action had saved many. Sapphire could get a cookie for that.
But she was still a headstrong, arrogant mare, who wanted to take action as fast as she could fly without thinking about the consequences.
The doors of the hallway were still softly beating against their frames, giving the house an erratic heartbeat. It was unnerving, being surrounded by all those thumps and bangs. I added making sure all the doors were propped open with doorstops to my list of things to do before the day was out. I still marveled that even with the rest of the house being so noisy, the floors were silent. I could barely hear my hoofsteps. True, I was walking slowly and not trotting, but even in a newer house, my steps would have been more audible. I wondered what trick of acoustic construction kept the floor so silent.
I started walking down the stairs and saw the greyish-blue pegasus mare with a white mane that Twilight Sparkle chose to torment me with.
"Sapphire Sky, have you escalated any riots, caused any mudslides, possibly drown any people as of late, or have you been saving it all for me?"
She looked up at me with a smug look on her smug youthful face, a brief moment of confusion was quickly buried underneath a smug grin. "Sunset Blessing, yellow really suits you as a color. But you know for a disguise to work, you really shouldn’t keep your charming personality front and center."
I wanted to fire back an angry retort, but the damned mare was right. I reached the ground floor and took a deep breath. "I apologize. I shouldn’t shoot the messenger; you haven’t done anything to chastise you over—yet."
"I owed Twilight a favor," Sapphire muttered under her breath. "Okay, let's start over. I won't treat you like a fanatic megalomaniac, and you lay off barking at me. A fresh start, no expectations tainted by your past failings. Deal?"
Lântiān looked back and forth between us. "Ma'am, why do you two insult each other so?"
I gave my charge a raised eyebrow. Then flattened my ears. "Sapphire's reasons for disliking me boil down to a few things—not all of them my fault. I think our biggest shared point of contention is an incident that happened several years ago. Some people that tangentially worked for me pissed Miss Sky off. Miss Sky's rational and reasonable response was to drop a hurricane on a desert research town, causing massive property damage that I had to foot the bill for and endangering the lives of the people there. While I agree that what my former employees did was criminal, what they did in no way justifies her dramatic response."
“Oh, stop,” Sapphire responded with false bashfulness and waved a hoof. "You're making a bigger deal out of it than you should. The bill couldn't have been that bad."
My brow narrowed. "I'm sorry, I wasn't aware you were well-versed in the costs of replacing and repairing delicate scientific machinery, paying for surveyors, paying for resurfacing of areas that were washed away, paying for rezoning permits to accommodate that damn lake, and paying for all these workers to go out to the backend of nowhere and keep their traps shut. You know, things that have to happen when an entire valley is reshaped in a day, because people don’t magically take care of those things that you think are trifling concerns."
Sapphire rolled her eyes. "I'll apologize for causing you some bills if you apologize for what they did."
I stomped a hoof. "Fine! I'm sorry. I fired all of them right after, and it should never have happened. As the person who made the mistake of hiring them, you have my personal apology. Are you happy?"
Sapphire stuck her nose up. "Yes, and I'm sorry too."
"We're good then?"
"We're good."
"Good."
"Uh-huh."
Lântiān looked between us again and shook her head. "I'm going to go check in my brothers."
Sapphire watched the filly go before taking a deep breath. "Now that we’re done with that bit of drama. How are you doing, preacher?"
"What do you mean?" I asked in confusion.
She flattened a single ear. "I know what happened in Riverview must have hit you hard, and that’s very understandable. You've been off the grid since then. And with those Blessingists coming out of the woodwork and getting a lot of support, if you weren’t changed by what happened, you would have been everywhere supporting them. Taking advantage of the next big thing… But I haven’t heard you do anything with them. So somethings up, and I’ll ask again, how are you holding up?"
That question was a hard one to answer, and it took me off guard because I didn't expect a legitimately caring question after we had just been at each other's throats.
"I'm… focusing on just a few things, primarily taking care of Yinyu's foals, and soon this project assigned to me by Twilight Sparkle," I replied at last.
Sapphire glanced at her saddlebag. "Figured the second part, given she sent this stuff, whatever it is. Want to tell me what’s up with this?"
"It's related to transformation magic. I'm trying to help fix something another of my former employees did," I answered. "I trust they already asked you to keep this private."
She nodded. "I wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t be trusted to keep this private. Doesn’t sound like something I really need to know all the details about. And the foals, how are they holding up?"
I shook my head. "God only knows. Well, God and the Dreamwardens, but good luck getting answers from any of them. The foals are being very brave about it and trying not to show their pain."
"The filly seems like she has a bigger stick up her butt than you do," Sapphire observed.
"She's taking it harder than her brothers, I think," I replied. "She and I have gotten into some… disagreements. She boxed me pretty well yesterday."
"Somepony decided to box you? Get out of here," Sapphire chuckled.
I flattened my ears at her. "I'll let that one slide. Because I was out of line, and I deserved what I got." I looked towards the family room and got an idea. "If you have some free time, maybe you can spend some time with her. Help her unwind. She seems to be a good flyer, at least as much as I can tell as a ground-bound unicorn. Maybe someone pushing her a little in an activity like that will help her release some stress. She still needs to get her flight in for today."
"You sure she would want somepony joining her?" Sapphire asked with a skeptical raise of a brow.
"I think she will. She doesn’t have anyone to be a pegasus with, and I don’t think she’s ever really had peers," I answered. "She’s in need of praise. I'm in no position to give her legitimate praise about her flight skills or help her develop them. You can show off a little then give her pointers."
Sapphire seemed to consider it, even though I could tell by her expression she had already decided to agree. "I did have a job opportunity I needed to look into..."
"Please?"
She nodded. "I'll do it. But you’re going to have to take these saddlebags off my back. It’s all yours; bags are part of the package. No one else can even open them. Twilight said they are keyed to your magic."
I lit my horn, undid the straps from around Sapphire, and lifted the bags off her and then onto me, grunting lightly as the weight settled. "Figures that she would know my magic signature. Not sure how she learned it, but not my concern. Stay right here; I'll fetch Lântiān."
I walked over to the open door leading into the family room. I saw Lântiān supervising as Malcomb worked to plug in the arcade games and the colts worked together at pushing a chair close to the machine. Lântiān's daughter was perched on the side of a couch, giving her own quiet supervision.
"Lântiān! Come here, please," I called out.
She turned and walked over to me and flicked her tail. "Yes, ma'am?"
"I know you still need to get a flight in for today. You may do that now. Sapphire will be going with you. Behave yourself with her, and be polite. She is a very accomplished flyer and weather pony. Perhaps she can teach you a thing or two."
She flicked her ears, but otherwise remained expressionless. "Perhaps, she can." She glanced backward briefly, then stepped close to me to whisper. "I do not trust this Malcomb Tibbs, ma'am."
That made both my eyebrows rise. "Malcomb? Why?"
She shook her head. "I have caught him giving me hostile looks, ma'am. He is all smiles and friendliness when you are watching, but I have seen the looks he gives me when he thinks no one is looking."
I had no reason to suspect her of being paranoid. I would need more than her say-so to be deeply concerned, though. Still, it would be foolish on my part to disregard her warnings. "I will keep an eye on him. Thank you for alerting me. You may take an extra hour on top of your normal hour for today. I'll be here with your brothers."
She bowed her head. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am." She then hurried back out towards the front door.
“I’ll try not to teach her anything that’ll flood your new house,” Sapphire teased as she turned to leave with Lântiān.
“You do that,” I trotted into the room and grabbed Qīng Yǔ with my magic. The filly didn't resist as I placed her on my back and went to get a closer look at what was going on.
Malcomb finished what he was doing, and the Street Fighter arcade cabinet flared to life just as the colts were finishing pushing the chair up against it. They gasped with excitement as they climbed the chair and got a closer look at the screen. I wasn't sure how I felt about them playing such a violent game, but I supposed it was better than Mortal Kombat. I doubted they would be able to get much mastery over the controls anyway and would become bored soon enough.