//------------------------------//
// Re: Birth (Re: Vised) 
// Story: The Royal Fillies REDUX 
// by blazikenking 
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Life is interesting. Life is amazing. Life is capable of changing the world and persisting through the worst of disasters. It can create just about anything, including things to make things that make things. Without life, a planet may as well be dead.

Life on Earth is boring. I wake up, feed my cat, Notch, and then get ready for work, running errands, handling some household tasks, or doing a whole lot of nothing. The day ahead of me was one of blissful nothingness, filled only with Notch, my collections (some serious, some casual), and some sketching. I couldn't claim to be a fantastic artist by any measure, but drawing out the basics for armor, weapons, and machines was fun. It also made for decent reference material on the occasion I chose to commission art.

My schedule of nothingness even extended to my online stuff. How people practically lived on social media with no apparent idea of privacy was beyond my comprehension. It was rare when I found enough reason and will to share anything on the few sites I was on, and while the generally positive comments were nice, they lacked something that actually hearing it conveyed.

Eventually, the day of nothing really productive came to an end, and it was time to go straight to bed. I did not pass Go and I did not collect $200, but I did find a quarter on the floor.

Notch, instead of sleeping in her bed in the other corner of the bedroom, chose to curl up next to me. I gave a single shoulder shrug to myself since she was in the way of the other one. Who was I to tell a cat what to do?





"Greetings, human," a booming voice said, taking me from asleep to fully awake. I immediately noticed two things: there was no sleeping cat near me, and the space I was in seemed like a pure void. Not black, not white, just pure nothingness. A black and white humanoid robot with a scythe and deep red glowing parts appeared before me. There was nothing that made the machine look friendly. "I am Death, and you are here for a reason."

Why Death looked like a custom Gundam instead of the usual robed skeleton had me confused, on top of trying to comprehend the void around us.

"It is time for you to leave this life and go to your next," he continued. "Before that, I must congratulate you. You are one of the few who avoided the various circumstances I had set up throughout the day by staying home. Crashes, bullets, fatal food poisoning, you avoided it all."

"Uh, thanks?"

"The cosmic powers that be wanted you dead, but since you avoided everything, I had to make a hard kill. Do you have any questions before I send you on your way?"

"What's going to happen to me?"

"You will be reborn as royalty. No, I do not know why you were chosen. I am just the courier." A moment later, the crook of the scythe blade was against my neck. "Our time is now over. Never again shall we meet, and never shall you remember me." He swung his scythe, and I saw stars go by as I felt myself fade away.





It's a warm, dark, and wet place, yet I feel safe, like nothing can harm me. Staying here forever would be nice. However, there's part of me that isn't in this safe place, and the space is getting smaller.

"Alright Princess, we can see the second one's horn. Just push a bit more and she should come out." The sound came from outside, and I felt pressure all over myself.

Finally, there's a single strong push and I'm in a cold bright place. Eyes shut, I started crying, wanting to go back to the comfortable dark warmth. Not even being wrapped up in something warm helped, since it was still so bright, and there was a terrible sound out there too.

Even being placed in what I can tell is a safe place doesn't stop the sound. All I could do was cry.

"It's okay, little one," a soothing voice from above said, but the sound didn't stop. "Mommy's got you and your sister. There's nothing to worry about."

I had no idea how long the sound went on, but it seemed to go away as I got more tired. When it finally stopped, I found the energy to open my eyes, and there were suddenly a lot of voices around me. I looked around and saw lots of faces and colors, but the light pink one above me made me feel safe, and I fell asleep.





After the filly wore herself out and fell asleep, a tired Cadence looked down at her. "Well, you had a lot of energy." She looked at the other one that had fallen asleep after only a couple minutes. "And you slept through it all."

Shining Armor, standing next to his exhausted wife, looked at the fillies. The first one to fall asleep looked a lot like Cadence herself, though darker and sporting Shining's eye color. While her mane and tail were mostly purple and yellow, there were traces of cyan mixed in. The one that had cried and cried and cried herself to sleep had a simple solid orange color on her coat and wings while her mane and tail were almost solid black, except for a few bold cyan streaks. For the few moments she was quiet and awake, she showed eyes of a slightly darker blue than Shining's. "What should we name them?"

Cadence looked upwards as she gently adjusted the sleeping bundles in her gentle hold. "Eleven months and I have nothing."

Shining looked out the window. The sun had set in the Empire, and the sight of Luna's night coming more alive brought back a memory only a few days old. It was the last time he and Cadence had gone out before she took to the castle's medical wing, and it was a late night picnic dinner. The meal she'd made for it was excellent as always, but it was the night sky that he remembered more. Specifically, it was one little spot. One of the stars had rapidly expanded and exploded as they watched the aurora. The event was at the forefront of his mind and wouldn't leave, so he drew inspiration from it. "Inova. The orange one is Inova."

"She is the same color," Cadence noted, remembering the event as well. "And the other one is. . . Skyla. I'm naming her Skyla." She yawned as the world of dreams beckoned her. "I'm not feeling creative."

"It's still a good name, sweetheart." He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "You rest up and I'll take care of everything."






*Canterlot Times*


Princess Cadence Gives Birth to Twins


At 7:18 PM on April 30, 1015 ANM, in the Crystal Empire, Princess Cadence gave birth to twin alicorn fillies, the first ones to be born in recorded history. These future princesses have been named Skyla and Inova. Reportedly, nothing interesting happened with Skyla's delivery, which was the first of the two. The second filly, Inova, cried for about thirty minutes after delivery, not even stopping when given to Princess Cadence. She seemed to quiet down due to exhaustion before falling asleep in her mother's loving embrace. Skyla slept through her sister's crying, despite the two both being held in Cadence's loving embrace.

The former bearers of the elements of harmony were all present outside the room. They all got to see the fillies after the two had fallen asleep. We asked each of them for a short opinion of the foals.

"They are both positively adorable," Rarity said.

"I don't know what to tell ya. I like them both," Applejack said.

"Um, I'd be willing to foalsit them," Fluttershy said.

"I think they're cool," Rainbow Dash said.

"I have extra curricular educational material planned for them already," Princess Twilight Sparkle said. She had enough books and scrolls behind her to make an accent wall in the maternity ward.

"There's some greater force at work here," Pinkie Pie said, before putting on a tinfoil hat and running around like a madmare and cursing an indecisive mollusk. We here at the Times love her antics.

We surveyed all of our staff members on this topic as well. General consensus is that the foals are adorable, we're curious about how they'll grow up, and that the bearer of laughter is crazy. That last one is more of an accepted fact than an opinion. Our reporters will conduct surveys throughout Canterlot for opinions among the populace, which we will present the results of in two weeks.