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// Chapter 55: Love Happens 
// Story: Pandemic: Starting Over 
// by Halira 
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The colts were nestled to either side of me when I woke up at my standard time, just before dawn. There had been no more Dreamwarden visits through the night. I guess they just wanted me to get proper rest. 

I instantly realized that I had a small problem. I needed to get up and do work, but moving would disturb the two sleeping forms beside me, and I had no intention of waking them too early. They were growing ponies, and growing ponies needed proper rest. I wasn't even sure how late it was when we went to bed, but since everyone else had gone to bed already, it must have been after they should have been asleep. 

There was no help for it. I would have to get up and risk them waking up. On any other day, I might have been able to stay in bed and wait them out, but Rosetta and my grandfoals would be arriving today, likely not too long from now. Wild would be coming today, too, maybe Devon and Dusk. I needed to be up and ready for their arrival. I also had no idea if the Youngs were already stirring, and Paul had been up all night and would want a nap soon. There was also the matter that if I put anything off early, that would cut into my time to study Twilight's notes later, and I was on a tight timetable with that as it stood. There was a lot to do, which was good because work was good for the soul.

I carefully tried to shimmy my way out from between the colts, which was a challenge because they were both pressed up against me. I thought I was home free up until the moment Shǔguāng stirred and looked up at me.

"Auntie?" he asked sleepily as he blinked at me. 

I touched a hoof to his side. "It's okay, go back to sleep. I need to get up and do some work. Some new friends for you to play with are arriving today, and you'll want all your energy for them."

He yawned and laid back down, barely awake as he was. "Okay, Mama."

My stomach twisted as I bit my lip and sat there staring at him. That was the first time he had directly addressed me as his mother. He insisted I was his new mother often enough, but he never had casually called me Mama before. He might not have even realized he had done it since he had only been half awake. 

"Sleep tight, Shǔguāng," I whispered. I looked over at Líng, who had curled into a fetal position with me gone. I carefully moved the cover over both of them using my magic, ensuring both were secure and warm. "Sleep tight to both of you."

I crept out of my room and went first by Lántiān's room and stuck my head in. She seemed to be beginning to stir, but hadn't thoroughly roused herself yet. She seemed like she was at that point where she had woken up, but hadn't built up the motivation yet to get up. Her daughter was curled up next to her. I could see she had her phone on the charger as I required her to do every night. I trusted that she would get up soon enough. It was probably an old habit for her to get up early since she always had to care for her siblings in the past. 

I heard snoring from the next room and decided to check it as well. Starlight and Trixie occupied this room, and Starlight seemed to have a pretty bad snore. I'm surprised the rest of us had not heard it earlier and awoken. I had no idea what Trixie was doing in her sleep, but she was on her back, waving her legs around. Neither seemed to be in distress, so I moved on. 

I went room by room through the wing, checking in on others. Everyone in this wing seemed to still be in bed, and the only one that had shut their door was Jess. She probably felt the need to keep her dressing and undressing private, even though she was surrounded by ponies who wouldn't think much of it if they saw her naked. Then again… we were sharing the house with the Youngs, and they had two men who hadn't seen another female except for family in years, one of whom might look at Jess and see his first potential chance at a mate other than his sister. 

I shuddered. Everything about that was disgusting—the possibility of incest, the idea that it was a guy and his vulnerable teenage sister, the idea he might look at Jess, who, no matter how mature she looked, was at least a decade or more away from being ready for that kind of attention. I hoped it was all false suspicion, and there was nothing to worry about.

I wondered if that idea kept Paul and Devon up at night; the one that even though their daughter was eight, no one looking at her would believe that, and on top of that, she had all those teenage hormones pouring through her, but far less experience with situations of that nature than even a sheltered teenager would have. Add on top of that; the girl probably thought she knew better than adults just because she had far more academic knowledge and mathematical reasoning than ninety-nine percent of the world, despite having only a fraction of the life experience.  Good luck to them after she started attending classes, and all her peers were a bunch of freshly official adults freshly out of their parents' houses. I remembered Devon stressing out when Jess started high school, but at least she looked her age back then. She was a good-natured kid, but that girl was a parenting nightmare I did not envy. I would take dealing with Lántiān's drama any day before that. 

She was my niece, and if any man here or anywhere else ever tried to pull something on her, I would start severing body parts before Paul even got a chance. After what happened to Phobia, I swore that would never happen again to anyone I loved. They could lock me up and throw away the key afterward; someone was still going to die if it happened. 

A sudden revelation hit me. I loved my niece, as well as Paul, Devon, Robby, and Dusk. They weren't blood relatives, they were in-laws from Tonya, yet I held them as dear as any blood. That circle did not end with them. It stretched to my ex, who I still held some affection for, and I had confessed before that I still loved on some level, but that affection extended to his wife and their foals. This might seem a strange revelation to some, realizing I loved many people, but I had always been reserved about who I gave the designation of the term love. Finding I had these feelings about so many was earth-shattering. It was as if my understanding of the world had been turned on its head.

A new way of defining who I loved occurred to me, although not a wholesome one. Who would I be willing to kill and die for the safety of? There were plenty that I would be enraged to hear they were hurt and would fight for them to get justice, but only so many that I would be willing to do murder for without hesitation. Still, that circle was bigger than I expected, much bigger.

And it included Yinyu's foals. 

There was work to be done, but I felt the need to talk to someone, but who? Everyone was asleep except Paul and…

Well, crap.

I went back down to the second floor and to Lántiān's room. The filly had just gotten out of bed and was in the process of putting her phone on, and her daughter was sleepily feeding on a teat. She looked up at me as I entered and frowned. 

"Is there something you need, ma'am?" 

I closed the door behind me and nodded. "I need someone to talk to, someone I can trust to give me honest advice without worrying about protecting my feelings. You don't have to say ma'am to me during this conversation."

"I still will, ma'am. It would be improper to address you by name."

I felt like growling. "When do you ever care about addressing me properly? You have been directly rude on more than one occasion."

She lowered her eyes to the floor. "I apologize for my disrespect, ma'am. However, you did not come here to discuss how I address you. What do you wish to discuss?"

I walked next to her and sat down. "Your brothers, maybe you to a lesser extent, but primarily them. I know you and they have very different feelings about me."

Her face hardened, but she nodded. "This is true, ma'am."

I took a deep breath. "Shǔguāng addressed me as Mama a few minutes ago. He was barely awake, so it might not have occurred to him what he did, and he might not remember it later."

She pursed her lips. "If you are asking me if he should be punished—"

"Why would I punish him?" I interrupted in shock.

She blinked. "You have expressed you wish for him to address you as Auntie or Auntie Sunset, ma'am. This is disobedience. Not disobedience I think deserves punishment. As you said, he likely will not remember it. Punishing him will only confuse him. Forgive me if I make presumptions about what advice you are seeking."

"You're the one who is directly disobeying me about the name—" I shook my head. It didn't matter. "I'm not considering whether he should be punished. I realized a few minutes ago how much I care about your brothers and you. Now I'm confused about what to do."

Lántiān seemed confused about what I was getting at. "I would hope that our guardian would care about our health and safety, ma'am."

"Not just like that," I said in frustration. "I care like a parent, an actual parent, like a mother caring for her foals."

She grit her teeth and swallowed. "Perhaps I'm not the best person to discuss this with, ma'am. I do not accept you as a mother, and I never will. I do not return your affection if you have it for me. I do not say this to be deliberately hurtful, but you required me to be honest."

It felt like a kick in the gut, even though I knew how she felt. "I know. Thank you for your honesty. What about your brothers? Should I try to be their mother and not just their guardian? It seems so soon."

She scowled. "Shǔguāng is a colt with firm dedication. Once he has decided upon something, it is almost impossible to sway him. He has made his decision. You accepting it and embracing him as your own would go over well, and you have no reason to fear he would change his mind unless you did some ruthless betrayal. I do not believe you would be cruel to him, ma'am. Adopting him would be beneficial to you both."

I nodded. "And the other two?"

"Líng is likely to follow Shǔguāng's lead in anything, but this is because he is often unsure of himself and looks for others for guidance, ma'am," she explained. "You could adopt him, but I advise to give it more time for him to come to such a choice on his own rather than follow Shǔguāng's lead. Tread more cautiously, and avoid trying to suggest he should do a particular course of action. He wishes to please others rather than consider his wants. Please, do not abuse that fact. Encourage him to explore what he wants and to learn to separate his will from others. This is also the danger of adopting Shǔguāng; it can make Líng feel obligated. This is why I am unhappy with Shǔguāng's declarations. Not for what he feels, but for how he influences his brother."

"You honestly aren't upset that Shǔguāng wants me to be his new mother?" I questioned in disbelief. 

She licked her lips. "He is young and in need of a parent. I cannot fill this role, and our mother… As long as he acknowledges her as well, I have no objection. Anything else I feel is a personal prejudice, not what is best for him, ma'am."

"That is very mature of you, and I think that makes you a great mother," I said as I looked her in the eyes. 

A ghost of a smile appeared on her lips for a moment, just a moment, then vanished. "I shall try to be, ma'am. As for my youngest brother. A parent adopting him would be good for him. He is young enough to form a full and honest attachment, but beware of him spending too much time with any one foalsitter. I do not like how he has attached himself to that night pony mare. This is not me condemning her, for she has done nothing wrong, but recognizing what can happen."

"I noted that as well earlier today," I replied. "I may be forced to switch Josie to every other day, so she isn't with him so many nights in a row. I'll be looking into another sitter to support her. Thank you for your advice, and I will not make any decisions until I'm sure of how Líng feels. I'm going to talk to your mother about this as well."

I got up to go, and as I was getting ready to walk out, Lántiān called out. "Ma'am, I need you to know I do not hate you. I'm just… I do not know how to express it. I see the love you give my brothers and know it is good for them, but so much is changing, and my feelings about my mother are complex and hard to describe or understand. I may not love you, ma'am, but I can respect you, in my own way, even when I disagree with you. I appreciate the trust, the trust by your definition, you have given me and shall not abuse or forget it."

I smiled at her. "The feeling is mutual. I'm still going to do everything I can to help you be a successful mare now that you're starting a new life in a new country. I'll always be here for you if you need me and may give you help when you don't want it. You'll just have to put up with me caring."

A real smile appeared. Not a smirk, not a condescending one, but a genuine smile of happiness. "I will endure it, ma'am."