"What's with the barking room?" Jess asked as she furiously dried her legs with a towel while watching us put a warning sign on the door. "I watched Starlight search the thing a few minutes ago, and now it's completely off-limits. Are you conducting some sort of experiment again, Auntie?"
I shook my head. "No experiment. I'm doing some work again, but it has nothing to do with this room, and none of it involves experiments. Just stay away from it until we have figured it out."
"You're doing mad mage stuff again?" Jess asked; she didn't even have a shocked tone about it. She could have been asking about the weather.
"I'm helping Twilight Sparkle figure something out, and the details of that are none of your business," I replied. I sniffed the air and smiled. "And by the way, you smell much better now."
"I didn't stink!" Jess shouted, throwing her towel down on the ground.
"You smelled like rancid beef jerky," I replied with a smirk.
Jess stomped in rage. "Starlight, tell her I didn't smell like that!"
Starlight shuffled her hooves. "Um… I don't actually know what rancid beef jerky smells like, but you did have a noticeable odor about you before. You smell quite nice now. Is that lavender?"
I sniffed again. "That is lavender, and it is much stronger than normal deodorant. Are you wearing perfume, young lady?"
Jess rubbed her shoulder. "It was a gift from my mom. She says I'm mature enough to wear it."
They could call me an old-fashioned xennial, but I disagreed. Jess was only eight and shouldn't be wearing that stuff yet. However, I wasn't Jess's mother. If Devon wanted to indulge the idea that Jess was that mature, I had no right to overrule her. Was I a hypocrite for saying she needed to wear deodorant but being unhappy that she put on perfume? I didn't think so; perfume and deodorant had two very different purposes, in my opinion. The next thing anyone knew, Devon would be teaching the girl how to apply makeup and all kinds of other things that may end up attracting the attention of the opposite sex.
My feminist notions, buried since my early days of college, decided to attempt a rebellion and say that the girl had a right to feel good about herself and shouldn't have to worry about what others think, but I quickly put those thoughts down. Jess had plenty of other things to feel good about without worrying about beautification.
It wasn't my concern though, so I would keep my trap shut.
"We should all head downstairs and try to grab breakfast if you can before they get here," I instructed. "The airport isn't that long a drive from here. I wouldn't be surprised if they were at our gates already."
"Not me," Starlight said. "I'm running behind as it is and need to get going. Keep Trixie out of trouble, and call me if anything else happens with that room. I will be back very late tonight, so don't wait up."
"Will do," I replied and wasn't able to add a goodbye before she teleported out. She must have been running exceptionally behind.
Jess and I were halfway down the staircase when there was a knock at the door. The girl practically trampled me to reach the door. I had to steady myself, so I didn't go tumbling down the stairs. By the time I was sure I was stable again, Jess was already pulling the door open.
The girl barely got the door open before she was knocked on her back and tackled by four night pony foals. Actually, it was her brother who brought her down and my grandfoals who quickly swarmed over her right after. That was fine by me. I'd been tackled by foals enough lately. Someone younger and less brittle taking the hit for once was something I wasn't going to lose any sleep over. Plus, she had almost stepped on me a moment before. She could deal with sixteen different hooves stepping all over her in retribution.
"Ow! Watch the boobs, guys!" Jess shouted.
"What's a boob?" Alfie asked as he began to examine the area around Jess's belly button, going so far as to lift her shirt with a wing to peek underneath.
Charlotte smacked her brother with a wing. "You're a boob, boob!"
Rosetta stuck her head in the door and glared at her foals. "Don't hit your brother!"
Robby, who was more than twice the others' size and taking up most of the space on Jess's chest, pointed at Jess's breasts. "These are boobs. My mom has them, and Tempest does too. I think Jessie's have gotten bigger since she came here. Actually, I think Jessie has gotten bigger overall."
"Well, she was always heavier than the rest of us," Tabby said knowingly while unknowingly planting a hoof right in Jess's pelvic area, making the girl yelp.
"You're supposed to say she's big-boned," Charlotte corrected her twin.
A tall black woman with a pink mohawk stepped in and crossed her arms. "Foals! All of you get off Jessica Middleton this instant, or I shall triple your exercises for today!"
"Get off me!" Jess shouted, loud enough to rouse the rest of the house. Everyone would probably be coming to see what was going on now.
The four of them immediately jumped off Jess, causing her to oomph! once more. I finished descending the stairs as Rosetta and Number walked in.
“Sunset,” Rosetta looked at me, blinked, then narrowed her eyes. "That color makes you even uglier than normal."
"Nice to see you too, Rosetta," I replied dryly. "Are those new tattoos on your wings?"
Rosetta spread her wings proudly and smiled. They were covered in every inch by what looked like a mix of Egyptian hieroglyphs, Sumerian cuneiform, Phoenician letters, with Phobia's cutie mark placed near the center of each wing near her thumb. "Yes, they are. I finally got everything I wanted finished. It was painful, but worth it."
"I'm going to get my wings done too when I grow up!" Charlotte happily declared.
Rosetta snapped her wings closed. "A little early to be deciding on that. If you don't stop hitting your siblings, you might not make it that far." She then pounced on her lookalike daughter and flipped Charlotte over on her back.
"Ack! Mama's going to eat me up!" Charlotte yelled with a giggle, flailing her limbs exaggeratedly. Rosetta then proceeded to blow into her daughter's tummy, eliciting even more giggles.
The tall woman with the mohawk turned her attention from the foals to me. "Your disguise is substandard, Sunset Blessing."
It took a second to register who that was. "Tempest… you're… taller than the last time I saw you. How is being human treating you?"
She gave a half-smile. "I'm relearning how to fight properly, but otherwise, all is well. It feels like a relief, and a burden has been lifted. I should thank you, our discussion before your arrest helped set me on this path."
"You're welcome, I guess," I replied.
Number turned around and started giving orders to someone to collect up the luggage and bring it in. Jess got back to her feet and then promptly went over to her brother, squatted down, and pulled him into a big hug. The two of them then started whispering, and I did my best not to listen.
Rosetta sighed as she stepped away from Charlotte. "Okay, you three, you can go hug your grandmare now. I know you missed her. No need to be gentle."
I didn't get time to react before I was bowled over by a trio of seven-year-old night ponies who were all shouting and giggling with excitement. I was becoming convinced this was how I was eventually going to die—smothered by foals.
"Granny, why are you yellow?" Alfie asked. Why did a foal always have to ask that question?
"We missed you! Why'd you go away?" Tabby asked as she hugged me.
"She probably wanted to get away from your icky bug friends," Charlotte told her sister.
"They aren't icky!" Tabby shouted, and like that, a brawl broke out between the twin sisters on top of my belly. Somehow Alfie got involved, and I then had three ferocious fighting foals furiously flailing fetlocks at each other on top of my fragile female parts. Did my three bastard grandfoals actually plan this each time they tackled someone? I loved them, but God damn, that hurt!
"Foals! You are injuring your grandmother!" Tempest yelled. "You are getting triple exercises. Stop now, or it will be quadrupled!"
Tempest wasn't fast enough because a new set of voices entered the fray.
"Hey! Don't hurt our new Mama!"
The next thing I knew, four more foals collided with the three who had been attempting to get off me. Each somehow managing to step on me as they went. Now an epic battle was taking place between the seven, with much screaming and smashing of hooves.
"Leave Miss Pretty Unicorn alone!"
Oh God, no! Please make it stop!
Yinyu's foals received reinforcements from the two younger Young children, and we now had a full-fledged war that involved every child in the house but Jess. Adults were shouting and unsuccessfully trying to break up the fight. I was still gasping for breath from being trampled. What else could possibly go wrong?
"The Great and Powerful Trixie knows how to break up this fight!"
God, why do you hate me?
Something hit the floor, and now smoke was filling the room. This added some coughing to the mix, but did nothing to stop the fighting. If anything, now that no one could see, it had become a free-for-all match of every kid against every kid. Alliances were broken, and blows were now thrown with no concern for who they connected with.
This needed to come to an end. I pulled myself to my hooves, still coughing, and lit my horn. I might not be powerful, but the smoke wasn't that heavy. I pushed all the smoke up so we could all see again, and focused my eyes on the mass of kids who had adults trying to pull them apart.
"Stop!" I shouted. I was ignored. "Stop! I said stop!"
No effect whatsoever. They were wholly committed.
Jess had gotten to her feet and was now scowling at her pint-sized peers. "You heard her, STOP!"
My ears rang at the unnaturally booming shout, and I winced as I covered them. As I opened my eyes, I saw everyone else had done the same. The fight had ended; hopefully, we weren't all deaf now.
"Can everyone still hear?" I asked. I got a collection of weak nods. "Good. You can see I'm not hurt. No one was trying to hurt me. Shǔguāng, I think you qualify as the instigator of this. All of you need to apologize to one another, but I think you should be the one to start."
Shǔguāng pointed at Tempest. "But she said they were hurting you!"
Charlotte flapped her wings. "We didn't do nothing wrong! We shouldn't have to apologize!"
"Yeah! They attacked us!" Tabby yelled.
"I'm not saying I'm sorry to them!" Líng declared. "They hurt you!"
"Enough!" I shouted, bringing them all to silence. I then took a deep breath. "Shǔguāng, I understand your passion to defend me, but you made a mistake in this case. These are my grandfoals. They were doing the same thing the rest of you do when you get excited to see me. They don't want to hurt me. They love me like… like you do. Do the right thing and say you are sorry. Good colts admit when they were wrong."
He didn't seem happy, but he turned towards the trio of demons. "I'm sorry for attacking you."
I nodded. "Now you, Líng."
"Does Mèng have to apologize too?" Líng questioned.
I frowned and shook my head. "He wouldn't even know how to do it, but you aren't three years old, so you don't have that excuse."
"But they did hurt you, even if they didn't mean to," Líng pointed out, looking for an excuse for why he was in the right.
"And the three of you ran right over me trying to get them. At least one of you stomped on my face in the process. That hurt too," I reminded him.
Líng hung his head. "We're sorry. We didn't mean to hurt you."
"And they didn't mean to hurt me either. I forgive you. You all messed up, and it is over with. Say you're sorry to them for the misunderstanding and for trying to hurt them," I said firmly. "You don't want to hurt anyone when they didn't mean to do anything wrong, right?"
He huffed and turned around to face the demons. "I'm sorry. I messed up."
"Now the three of you can apologize," Rosetta told her foals.
"What did we do?!" Charlotte protested.
"We didn't do anything!" Tabby protested in agreement.
Rosetta started tapping out their sins with a hoof. "One, accidentally hurting your grandmare. Two, allowing yourself to be drawn into a fight with helpless other foals who haven't been trained to fight. Three, directly disobeying Tempest and me when you were told to stop."
Tempest raised a hand and started holding up fingers as she added to the count. "Four, completely forgetting everything I taught you. You three fought in a disgraceful manner. No coordination, horrible technique, utterly no defense used. Do you think I teach you all that as a game?"
Rosetta turned and looked at Tempest in confusion. "You were judging their technique through all of that?"
"Weren't you?" Tempest asked in response.
The night pony mare's mouth hung open for a moment, then she shook her head and looked back at her foals. "I'm waiting to hear some apologies."
The three demons turned to Tempest. "We're sorry, Tempest."
"Not to her!" Rosetta yelled, then facehoofed. "I'm perfectly fine with your mischief the majority of the time. I practically encourage it. When I say you crossed a line, then you know you messed up."
"We didn't think we would hurt Granny," Tabby protested. "You said not to be gentle. We thought that meant she would be fine."
Rosetta's ears sagged, and she fluttered her lips. "Fine." She turned and faced me. "Me telling them not to be gentle was out of line, and I have no excuse for having said that. I was wrong, and I ask your forgiveness."
"Do you forgive me for what happened to your mother?" I asked.
She scowled. "No, and I never will."
"Fine then," I said with a grumble. "Without forgiving me, do you accept my apology and believe me when I say I'm sorry for it?"
Her scowl deepened. "Yes. I can do that much."
I nodded. "Then I accept your apology too."
"Wait…" Charlotte said in confusion. "How do you both apologize to one another, but don't forgive? I thought you were supposed to forgive if you accept an apology."
"No, an apology isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card," I explained. "An apology is a sign of repentance. It means you recognize you did something wrong and that you regret your actions. It doesn't obligate anyone to forgive you, even if they accept the apology. Accepting the apology just means they believe you recognize what you've done, and they believe you regret it. It doesn't mean they forgive. Forgiveness can take time, and in some cases, when someone has done something really horrible, it might never happen.
"Sunset, Rosetta, do you two think you should be trying to teach this kind of stuff right now?" Paul asked from behind me. "These are seven-year-olds. It might be a little over their heads, or worse, get taken out of context."
"Everything is a teaching moment," Rosetta said calmly.
"Agreed, it is an important life lesson," I said, smiling at my daughter-in-law. "Want some coffee after these foals finally say their apologies? I can introduce you to everyone after, and then you can tell me at length how much of a scum bucket I am, like old times."
Rosetta calmly nodded. "That does sound lovely." She turned to her foals and scowled. "If my little heathens can hurry up and apologize."
The three hung their heads. "We're sorry."
I love my family.