“You wanted to see us, Thorax?”
“Ah, yes, Fang, Trochanter! Come on in! The paperwork is completed!” As they sat down at the small table, I took a pair of scrolls and set them in front of the couple. “Now just sign here and here, and it’ll be official!”
One by one, they took the quill provided for the purpose and did as instructed. I checked the signatures and added my own, gave them one copy of the scroll and set the other aside for the archives, and turned to the other pair, much younger, sitting at the table.
“Ecdysis, Mayfly, meet your new daddies! Congratulations, all of you!”
The nymphs pranced into their fathers’ grasps and the surge of love coming from all four of them was so rich it could daze any non-changelings that happened to be in the area! It certainly dazed me! I grinned at the new family. Right now, it was easy to forget all the pains and hardships of being a leader; moments like these made it all worth it!
“Wanna play chase?” Trochanter asked Mayfly.
“Sure thing, daddy!” she said; the sweetness in her words was to die for!
“I want in, too!” Ecdysis exclaimed.
The four ran off squealing and laughing, though not before Fang paused to tuck the adoption certificate under his elytron. I sighed contently as I watched them disappear behind a vine curtain.
Something slamming onto the table snapped me back into hard reality.
“Did you conspire about this?” Pharynx growled.
“Huh?”
He pointed a hoof at the copy of Canterlot Times he’d thrown onto the table.
I took up the newspaper and found the cause of his ire right on the front page. The title of the article read: Shift in Royal Power Announced - Celestia and Luna Retiring, Canterlot Throne to Pass to Twilight Sparkle!
I glanced wide-eyed at Pharynx and read the article. It didn’t go into too much detail - no matter, I could ask my friends about those - but the gist of it was that Celestia and Luna felt it was the right thing to do after Twilight and her friends had proven themselves more than capable of handling every threat that had popped up over the years. Twilight herself hadn’t commented on the ruling, but the reporter expressed his confidence that she was ready and determined to prove herself a worthy successor to the royal sisters. The next several pages consisted entirely of many reporters’ speculations about the process of the transfer of power, Twilight’s leadership style, how she’d handle herself in the early days of being the sole leader of the most influential country in the world, how the change would affect an average citizen, and so on and so forth. I only glanced through those pages; I could always read them later if I wanted to, but knowing Twilight personally, I hardly felt it necessary, not to mention that I could easily add a theory or two of my own to the pile! None of it mattered right now, anyway; I knew why Pharynx had brought this here.
“I didn’t know anything about it,” I told him.
“Then how in the name of eggshells did they come up with the exact same idea for a royal succession as you?”
“I don’t know-”
“Did you discuss your plans with them?”
“No-”
“Did Celestia and Luna tell you about their yet-to-be-announced plans for Twilight? Is that how you got your idea?”
“How would they tell me? I haven’t seen either of them since Ocellus went missing!”
“Didn’t Luna come to silence your nightmares almost every night for a while?”
“We talked about other things, and she never stayed long enough-”
“Twilight said nothing?”
“No…”
“The dragon?”
“Pharynx, what’s the matter with you? Okay, yes, their idea is uncannily similar to mine, so what? They must have had enough of ruling after a thousand years so they went with the obvious choice to replace them!”
“The timing is awfully suggestive!”
“A few weeks after my ‘breaking with tradition’ as you called it?”
“Yes!”
“So?”
“What?”
I groaned. “Pharynx, why are you so upset about this?”
He clenched his jaw and looked into the distance. “...it’s like they’re trying to give your move some validation just to annoy me,” he grumbled.
“You still haven’t gotten over me not looking for a wife, have you?”
“Are you sure you don’t want one?” he asked back. “I still can’t believe a guy with an aura like yours can’t find something in it that a wife would like…”
“Things weirder than an asexual king have happened,” I said. “Yes, I’m sure.”
He sighed. “So, that’s it, then? No nephews and nieces?”
Wait, that was what the whole deal was about?! Or at least part of the whole deal?!
“I never said that,” I countered. “There probably will be, now that some of the pressure is off my back, but unless something drastic changes, they’ll be adopted.”
He smirked and a spark lit up in his aura. “Then you might want to hurry. At the rate your subjects have been adopting nymphs, there won’t be any left for you anymore pretty soon, and then someling will need to have a tragic accident so you can adopt theirs.”
“Pharynx!”