Celestia extended a wing to gesture at the remaining human mirrors, smaller than the others, but still uncountable. "Do you wish to continue exploring?"
Umbra shook her head slowly. "I could look for years and be no closer to spotting one even like mine. Did I mention the one Twilight and I went to wasn't even entirely human?"
Celestia inclined her head. "Pardon? From description, they sounded similar."
Umbra stood up. "They were more like ponies standing up. They had cutie marks. They were brightly colored. Their world didn't explode in contact with magic. Not human. Human-shaped ponies." She fell back to all fours with a clop. "Cute, but not humans. No offense to them, got no beef with them. They seem neat even, but not human. Thank you, for letting me see these. I don't regret coming here."
She paused, feeling tapping. She missed the first few letters, switching on her internal morse code. "And the royal couple's wondering... when I come home I think." She turned to Anik. "Your family is extended."
"Extended?" He snorted in an equine way. New horse or not, he had a pony body, and it came with pony mannerisms. "What do you mean by that, mother?"
Umbra quirked up her ears. "So formal! It's nice in a way, but this just happened. Why are you so eager to--"
"--Because it is." Anik looked back over his shoulder at his new form. "I died. My last scrap of food given to a lady I barely knew. There are worse ways to go. This is a new being, a new world, with new rules! I'm excited to see it all."
Morning had her eyes on him, a little less suspicious, that turning somewhat to amusement. "He's eager, but has so much to learn. Better than an actual foal, if you consider it."
Umber snorted at that. "You're an actual foal."
"I'm a young adult!" she huffed, being no such thing. "I can take care of myself, mother."
Celestia gently fanned them all back towards the entrance of the mirror room. "This has worked out quite well. Equestria has gained another little pony."
Anik quirked an ear at Celestia. Was he small? This only became fuzzier as they left and he could see he was about on par with the guards they were passing. He wasn't small... She was large. Mother was also large. Still... "A giant sees small people all around it. A kind giant, stepping carefully."
Celestia perked an ear towards Anik. "You are full of elegant words and sayings. Wasted in that dreary place. I hope you find contentment here. There are ponies who will eagerly accept such offerings if you wish to share them."
Anik came up short. "I wouldn't want to bore them with random words... I should really think in my head a little more... I'm just very excited today, and it comes out."
Umbra set a hoof on his shoulder. "No, no, don't bottle that up. Money, remember that? Pretty words is another way to earn them." It clicked. "Wait... Survivor, born in blighted lands. Do you have any idea how to write?"
"Write? Not left?" He extended his right hoof. "Right."
"No no, the verb." He looked clueless. "You need to go to school, son. Your education was very good at keeping you alive, but that's a lot easier now. Time to learn other things."
"School?"
Morning smirked at the ignorance on display. "Is he going to join my school? He'll be the largest pony there."
Umbra carried one child and nudged the other along. "You have a lot to learn, but you have family ready to help with that. Are you ready?"
"Yes!" He colored faintly, perhaps embarrassed of how excitedly he had said that. "I'm... not used to so many people, mother... I was alone a long time."
Umbra flipped her ears back. "Ah, right... that makes sense."
Celestia tapped Umbra gently. When she was faced, she nodded at the smaller but far closer to her size princess. "You have quite a task ahead of yourself. One you gave yourself. I trust you will not regret it."
Umbra flinched back. "He's not some puppy you have to worry about me getting tired of. He's a person, with all the rights that comes with it. If he gets tired of being around me, I'll make sure he has a comfortable place to call his own. But I won't abandon him. Shoot... I'm literally the reason he exists... That's a big responsibility, and I knew that... option was there when I stepped in."
Celestia nodded gently. "I'm glad to hear you say it like that. One danger of many of those mirrors are the things we cause to be that create very real consequences that don't fade when the adventure is over."
Umbra flicked her head towards Anik. "What are you talking about? The adventure's barely started. Umbra Shadowheart, mother of two. Who knew? At least I felt it before." She willed a bottle into being... but no bottle appeared. "What?" She looked to where a bottle should have appeared. "Why can't I make milk?"
Celestia stared cluelessly a moment. "Oh." She shook her head slowly. "A mother pony only makes milk when they have a foal in need of it. Your daughter is old enough to enjoy solid foods."
"With pleasure," added Morning. "And to their dismay."
Celestia nodded at the foal. "When a mother has no child in need of it, that magic fades until the next one. It's a 'use it or lose it' situation. You weren't using it, so it went away. I do hope this isn't... bad news? Why did you want to make a milk bottle?"
Umbra hummed. "But what about Flurry Heart. I helped feed her."
Celestia nodded to the last guards of the mirror rooms on their way out. "But how long has that been? And has she been feeding on solids? I imagine that need has been waning..."
Umbra had worked herself out of that job. "Aw... They grow up so quickly..."
"I was very confused when you gave me one," added Morning. "It was the first milk I had in a long time."
Anik was listening, and likely thinking... "I am born to this world already fully formed. I will never know that simple pleasure."
Umbra swatted at him lightly. "Stop being so poetic! You weren't this poetic when I first met you."
Anik shrank back. "Sorry. I didn't meant to offend, mother."
"You're not offending." Her ears sagged, not meaning to get that reaction. "You're fine, more than fine. Thank you, Celestia. This was a great visit. Not sure if I'll want to dip my hooves in the infinite of infinites again soon, but glad I did this time."
"Have a safe trip." Celestia nodded and went on to other princess duties.
Umbra was left with her family, and some lessons learned. It was hard to say if the entire trip was good thing or not, but good things had come of it... "Like life."
"Hm?" Anik perked an ear at her, an unthought of reflex. "What was that, mother?"
"You're rubbing off on me." She thumped against hin on the way out of the castle. "Thinking poetry."
"Do you want to share it?"
Umbra considered that. "If you really want to hear?" Both her children were nodding. "This trip has been like a slice of life, with some good, and some bad. But, taken as a whole... it is a wondrous thing. I made mistakes, and found wonderful things. Like life, you take both. Learn from the mistakes, but don't wallow in them."
Morning nodded stoically. "Well said, mother. Mistakes are an opportunity to learn, if they didn't result in death."
Anik peered sidelong at Morning. "Is that a common problem? I thought I'd be more familiar with that than you."
"I watched my entire family, all umbrum I know, dozens, hundreds, die in front of me," calmly retorted Morning. "Unable to do anything about it. What do you know of death?"
But Anik did not shrink at that. "Death has ever been a steady companion. When I spilled from my mother into the cold snow, there he was, holding my hand and whispering gently. He would come, in time, for me and all the others, just over our shoulder. At first, there were some, a few families, together... But cold claimed some, accidents others. It was no single event, always over the shoulder, whispering gently. The end was just right there, where we could see it, but we marched on."
Umbra blinked at the picture presented. "Wow... And how do you feel about death now?"
"It's harder to hear him." He cocked his head, ear raised. "Still there, but feels so far away. He'll come, he always does, but it feels like he isn't just over my shoulders, and that is a relief... but it means I can't see him, and he may come all at once. He can do that."
Umbra shivered faintly, as if to shake that imagery away. "This is a land that isn't that cozy with the idea of it. I'm not even sure how long a pony is expected to live. They don't talk about it. It's just not really part of things." She considered that a moment. "That doesn't mean they don't get scared."
"Often," added Morning. "Especially if I have a say."
"They don't like being hurt, and know there is such a thing as being hurt too much and don't want that." Umbra wobbled a hoof, trying to get it in words. "Like that death you were talking about is far away, until it's not, and a pony gets very scared."
"This is a different world," he admitted a little breathlessly. "Mother, I want to know more. Why were you so... alright? You seem to know death. You seem to know humans. You know a lot, mother."
"She is powerful," noted Morning. "Worthy of respect."
"And I was that... A human that is. We're still not sure..." She shrugged at that, her body twitching with muscles under the skin, useful for shaking off flies. "How I got here, I mean. We know exactly how you got here. You had a say in it. I didn't. I don't regret it."
"You were human?" He inclined his head at the new idea. "Did you look like what I met you as?"
"Amusingly, no... I think coming here let me be what I was, on the inside." She put a hoof on her chest. "I was... It's... complicated... In those last days, I bet there wasn't a lot of talk of trans anything?"
"Trans?" Not a word he had to deal with. "Crossing something?"
"Yes." Umbra smiled. "But a specific thing. Trans people are people who are born one thing, but see themselves as another thing. We could call you transracial. You were human, now you are a pony. I was declared a boy." She frowned in memory. "But I fought long to be a girl, and then when I came here, I was one, entirely, inside and out. Good and bad."
"Huh..." He circled Umbra without much subtelty about it. "You are a girl." He could verify that. Not like Umbra was hiding it. Many ponies didn't bother with that, barring special occasions. "But you were something else?"
Umbra flinched at that. "You're entering dodgy territory..."
"Sorry, mother." Anik dipped his head. "I don't mean to insult or anything. I want to understand."
Umbra turned to put him ahead of herself. "I get that... Alright, so... If you took a look, you'd see a male, a guy. But I wasn't that, inside." She tapped at her chest. "Thankfully, now both match. Girl inside and out. You are a boy on the outside." That much was clear. "Are you one on the inside?"
"I never considered it could not be the same," he admitted, a bit baffled at the idea. "I'm a boy, mother."
"Good. But know your mother will understand if you ever start to wonder about your identity, which goes past that, to other things. Only you get to identify you."