Sometimes, it get really confusing living in Equestria.
I’m not talking about the kind of confusing that comes from being within a hundred mile radius of Pinkie Pie. I’m talking about the confusing stuff that all ponies just take for granted and leaves a former human turned genderless bug scratching its head.
Take the weather, nothing works the way weather is supposed to, even down to the basic science and hell...I’m not even sure the fucking plants would grow without earth ponies to tend to them. But then there’s places like the Everfree, and tons of open planes that don’t have anything tending to them, so...what’s up with that?
But my newest bit of confusion came not from the world of Equestria, but its populace. And upon getting confused about the whole thing, I kind of had to wonder why the hell didn’t I notice something wrong with all the ponies sooner.
The day began most like any other before me and Twilight started dating Rainbow Dash. Meaning that I woke up next to one pony instead of two. I also woke up a little worried. The changelings I had…looking out for my little ponies in a discreet way so they wouldn’t know about it reported that my little Dashie hadn’t slept well the night before. So of course I wanted to get back home as fast as possible to check on her and see what was wrong.
But since I was currently entangled with a purple pony princess, such worries came second to the morning attention Twilight would be needing. Like a few kisses and...probably a lot of tear drying.
Having already felt her stirring when I was still connected to the telepathic-internet, I knew Twilight was already awake. Or at least in that place between sleep and full awareness that happens before people really come to. So I rolled on top of her and gave the girl a quick kiss to the lips to bring her all the way out of la la land. Her eyes jerked open in surprise before a surge of motion sent us both rolling onto our sides, and I looked over Twilight’s shoulder to observe her morning wingboner. “Good to know I can still get a rise out of you beautiful.”
Twilight let out a little groan, and her wings slowly retracted with some obvious effort by the alicorn. “Why don’t yours do that anymore?”
“Five seconds of having muscle memory being sent into my brain to get them under control,” I told her with a superior smirk. Being a changeling had its usefulness.
The little reminder just got an eye roll from Twilight. “Almost makes me wish you could turn me into a changeling,” she said with a smile. “So what did you and Prin…Tia do last night?”
“The same thing we do every night Twily,” I told her while repressing the urge to say take over the world. Tia already kind of ruled it after all. I also let my humor hold down my guilt for as long as possible from the other little thing we kind of did. Kind of, because we didn’t really do it. I mean, you have to have bodie to kiss, right?
“We watched a movie, this one was about a racehorse.” I was strangely thankful for the fact that Celestia didn’t find earth horses attractive. Apparently, Saddle Arabians weren’t her cup of tea with their weird muzzles that were part of their heads rather than an extension of it like a mainland pony.
A bit of hesitation finally entered my mind, and Twilight probably picked up on it, because she frowned at me. It wasn’t an angry frown. I could Smell the concern on her. “What’s wrong?”
I gulped. “We um…we also talked some, and…kissed,” I admitted before bracing myself for the jealousy, hurt, pain, and all those other things that would come from letting that cat out of the bag. But after the whole relationship built on deceit thing, I wasn’t about to start keeping any big secrets of that type from Twilight again.
Instead of what I was expecting, I got a little smile from the alicorn. “You mean you’re finally moving past your intimacy issues with Princess Celestia?” Twilight asked in a happy tone and an ever growing smile on her face that just...didn’t belong.
My brain kind of stopped for a second. Then my mouth might have lost a little muscular action and flopped open, and the noise coming out of it went, “huh?” before I recovered and frowned back at her. “Wait, what?”
That wasn’t how people were supposed to react when you tell them you kissed another woman!
Yeah, we had set things up to try a real date with Tia, but that was about a week down the line! She was planning on swinging by for Summer Wrap-up and spend the day with the three of us. Apparently Luna stopped by the year before, and now Ponyville was considered the place to be for the End of Summer Festival. So, she could be with us as Celestia without raising a few eyebrows.
“Your intimacy problems with Celestia,” Twilight repeated before finally frowning at me like she should have been doing. “Don’t tell me you thought I didn’t notice. Your posture gets all hesitant whenever I talk about that the four of us are going to do together when the sun goes down.”
I tried not to think about how Twilight was already making plans for getting Celestia in bed, literal plans, with diagrams. So I focused on the conversation. She might have had me dead to rights, but I wasn’t going to just go out and admit it.
At least until she started getting a little fearful and gave me a kind of worried look. “What’s wrong Fae? Do you not…like Celestia…like that? I thought the date went okay. Well, before she threw up on you I mean,” Twilight said before she started trying to recover her fumble. “But that was an accident! We talked and laughed, and once Rainbow got her to stop with the test, I saw you had fun too. You did have fun, right?”
I took in a sharp breath at Twilight’s question, which didn’t do anything to help her mood. I mean, she was just about three steps away from hysterics. “Well um…it’s not that simple,” I said to buy myself some time to put my thoughts together. Panicky pony princesses tended to jumble them, and I needed to be sure I said everything correctly to avoid the potential Chernobyl that was in bed with me.
Not to mention that I really was confused on the matter of the bigger goddess. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy at least some of my time with Celestia, although the time spent with her and the other girls wasn’t really it. I had been too tense, waiting for the proverbial bomb to explode. The fact that Rainbow kept most of it under control by getting Tia to lay off while we were in the bathroom didn’t really help much because...they hadn’t filled me in on that little detail and...well okay, I might have gotten caught up in Tia’s recanting of Equestrian history a little too much and forgot to remember she had been wanting to ruin the date, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been in the back of my mind.
And that wasn’t even what was weighing on my mind at that moment. It wasn’t my feelings about Tia that I was wrestling with. Those had gotten put to the side when I noticed something odd when me and Celestia met up at the dream house.
After yesterday’s little talk with Shining Armor and how both Rainbow and Twilight got along so quickly, I understood there was a huge difference between how ponies and humans viewed romantic relationships. Which of course set me to try and figure it out.
Chrysalis herself said ponies were overflowing with love. So maybe it was just easy for them to form a committed relationship for some reason. Sapient or not, they still had some pretty animalistic traits. Twilight had done the whole scraping hoof, bull getting ready to charge thing more than once since I met her, and I had heard ponies whinny a few times too. So maybe there was some mating…thing that I just didn’t get.
And even if it was just normal human kind of attraction, it wasn’t like it would be hard for a pony to keep a relationship going. I already knew they were way more forgiving than any living being had a right to be. Which would allow for superficial attachments to become much more meaningful at an increased rate. So a pair of ponies working through their problems instead of calling the proverbial wedding off was probably more plausible than it was in human courtships.
But on the other hand, it wasn’t like there hadn’t been nothing at all to start with between Twilight and Rainbow. The two of them just didn’t wake up one day and decide to get together. They had been friends for awhile and the best relationships I knew of were friendships that got into a passionate relationship to the point of marriage.
But then there was the oddity of Cadence! The idea of someone just showing up and going ‘we’re getting married’ after five minutes of talking was a bit much for my mind to take. Which was apparently what happened with Shining Armor and Cadence’s new bed partner from her side of the relationship equation! At least Rarity had been on a whirlwind romance before sleeping with Shining, and gone to the Empire for the purpose of hooking up with them. From the way I heard things, the pink pony princess just took one look at a pony and decided if they were going to get hitched!
And then there was Celestia herself! The whole immortal that didn’t want to waste time thing was one idea, and still pretty viable but…maybe I was thinking about things a bit too human. In her perfect plan, Rainbow would have been with me and Twilight a month before anything serious came up with Celestia, after a few private moments snuck in between the four or three of us, if not just me and her to build that base of friendship everything else was supposed to be structured on.
Or maybe they just cheated and there was some sort of magical moment with actual magic where loved just bloomed in an instant. It wouldn’t be the first time ponies didn’t play by the rules, even if such a thing did make Equestria a lot creepier if it was true.
Which of course made me want to stop thinking about it all together. It was bad enough I was with a pony named Twilight and had another pony that literally sparkled in certain parts kind of being interested in me, if imprinting also turned out to be a thing in Equestrian relationships, I was packing my bags and going home to escape this weird sparkling vampire-ish universe that I had stumbled into.
“What is it then?” Twilight asked me, her Scent and voice full of worry.
“It’s not that I don’t like Tia, or um…you know…think she’s hot,” I admitted with a blush. Which also meant I didn’t have much of a problem picturing her in some pretty lewd scenarios.
Many of which were kind of impossible, I had to admit. It had nothing to do about half the time my fantasies of having sex with Celestia revolved around doing it as a stallion when that still wasn’t really an option for me. Even if Twilight did figure out to make a male alicorn me, Tia was still twice as big as I was. Seven foot dream goddess was just intimidating, six-foot-plus-horn pony Celestia made the part of my brain that had aneurysms whenever I walked on a cloud shout ‘NOT HAPPENING’ due to the sheer size difference.
Even Tia had gone on about how none of the stallions in Equestria were…satisfactory.
And that wasn’t even beginning to approach the other stuff that came with dating a creature as old as Celestia! Most of which made my head hurt just to try and think about.
So I did the manly thing, and decided NOT to talk about it. It was an emotional thing, and men didn’t talk about their emotions. It was a pathetic defense as I had just spent half the previous day in a dress, but any port in a storm and all that. “But isn’t this all a little…fast? With Rainbow and Celestia I mean.”
I hated to complain about getting Dash in bed, but…what else could I say? A quick two days away, one date with Twilight, and she was already jumping in bed with us. Now that I had some time to step back and examine the situation, Rainbow going from hesitant to all in so fast also made me pretty worried about her motivation for doing such a thing.
Just because I hadn’t picked up anything the night of our communal first didn’t mean she wasn’t feeling pressure to perform. Hell, pressure to perform defined Rainbow Dash half the time.
Twilight gave me a bit of a confused frown. “Not really. I mean, we are well within the minimum time spent with another pony before romantic thoughts usually develop, and after I started looking at Rainbow like that…well, we went on that date and she actually took a little interest to everything before Discord came around, so much she even remembered it! It was just so sweet of her,” she replied as a hint of a smile formed on her face. “And Celestia…I told you. I’ve had a thing for her since I started noticing other ponies that way. When I was learning about sexuality, it wasn’t the book’s diagrams I saw in my head.
“Now, the fact that she actually wants to return those feelings…I…it’s like I’m fifteen again and I actually have a chance of making my dreams come true!”
And so, Twilight Sparkle smacked me with the guilt of possibly crushing her hopes and dreams of being with Celestia. Not to mention the fear of what would happen if I said no to the whole thing, and she still wanted to go after the goddess.
Or what it would do to Rainbow. I didn’t even want to contemplate that little disaster.
“I just…it feels like we’re taking things awful fast is all,” I repeated. I didn’t voice the concern that if we did get the point where me, Twi and Dash did something with Tia, everything would blow up in our faces like I felt it would.
“But we’re not! Celestia said we can wait…until…oh!” Twilight frowned at me again for a few seconds, and then I could practically see the light bulb go off above her head. “That’s what this is about!”
I blinked as she rolled over on top of me with a bright smile. “Huh?”
“We decided to wait a little while before our next real date, but you can’t!” Twilight exclaimed before she sat up just a little straighter.
“Uh…”
She just continued on. “And now you’re feeling guilty about having the princess to yourself! Especially since what we’re experimenting with this a communal relationship, and the two of you are together in one of the most intimate ways possible while me and Rainbow can’t join in!”
I stared up at her in confusion. That was nowhere near what the problem was. In fact, me and Tia had agreed to hold off on everything except for what we usually did…at least until we kissed.
Which was my fault for just asking Tia why she was into me. Then she kissed me, which led to us just…kind of…well…cuddling for the night before we talked about our day, the date and all the crap she had to put up with since the alchemists found out their supply of embryo sex-changing plant was going to go way down real soon.
Yeah, I could have stood up to her but…well, you don’t stand up to a goddess. You give her what she wants, as long as its not too much. A kiss and some time in close contact was nothing compared to what Tia could probably really get me to do with her if she wanted to.
Then Twilight let out a little groan of a sigh. “Is this that human guilt thing again?” she asked. “I swear, even Sunset’s got it. I’d think it was biological, but you’re not a human anymore.”
“Twilight! It’s not…that,” I assured her, but it was a rather lame reassurance. I mean, Twilight kind of had a point with how she thought I felt a little guilty over the whole me and Tia spending our nights together thing. Even if locking lips with Tia didn’t phase her, I knew something else did. Twilight had wanted the goddess’s attention more than anything for years, and I had the undivided kind every night.
“Then what is it?” she asked in an almost accusing tone. “You like Celestia, she likes you and me and Rainbow! Right?”
I took in a deep breath more to buy myself time than anything else. “Twilight, it’s not that, it’s…” Another breath for more time. “Look, humans…we take more time to deal with this stuff than ponies.”
The expression on the alicorn’s face turned to one of annoyance, and she let out a disgruntled groan before falling over onto her side. “You know, I jumped on herding with Rainbow Dash from the start, and you didn’t seem to be so reluctant about it then!”
That caused me to wince. Twilight had a point there. “I know,” I replied in a pathetic tone.
“And you were right!” she went on before throwing her hooves up in the air. “I love Rainbow Dash! Really love her, and the three of us together are perfect! She’s spontaneous when we need to be spontaneous, I can work out all the little details and get things done. It’s like Daring Do. When we decided to go find her I mean, before you…well, we thought you…you know…died.”
An old wound got a knife twist, and I reached over to join fetlocks with the alicorn in the pony approximation of a handhold. “I’m sorry about that.”
Twilight sighed and shook her had for a second. “I know, and I’m sorry for bringing it up. It’s just…Rainbow and I…together like we were then…it was perfect. And when we went to Galloping Ghost Islands, and when she taught me to fly and…so many things just add up to be perfect Fae, before I even knew it.”
I frowned at Twilight’s words, and remembered something Tia had told me the night before, and Shining Armor, and even Rarity for that matter. All of them had…rationalized their emotions. It was something I hadn’t noticed at the time, and hadn’t until the tale end of last night but now that I did…the whole thing made me feel a bit odd. I may have not been some Romeo guy that fell in love with a chick and did everything on pure emotion until it killed me, but ponies of all things talking about love with such reasoning behind it…
The whole thing just made me feel…off.
Of course a deep love should have some rationalization. That was what forged the real bonds, and not simple superficial attractions that had to do with things like lust and looks and delusions of thinking a girl was perfect before you even spent some real time with her. But pure rationalization made everything seem like they were falling in love with an online dating profile, not a person, not a personality.
On the other hand, I was dealing with a species that decided what they wanted to dedicate their life to sometimes before even hitting double digits. Not to mention how ponies could just deal with all the emotional shit that came into their lives rather quickly.
Well, at least most of them could. It was pretty obvious after meeting Berry Punch and seeing Sunset’s emotional state upon her return to Equestria, a few things lingered. But Sunset was dealing with her transformation far better than any human probably would have been able to from what I could tell, and Berry was still functioning normally in public.
With a bit of a disturbed feeling in my gut, I made a mental note to check up on the earth pony mom and looked over to Twilight. “Look…it’s just…I do like Celestia, it’s just…humans are different than ponies when it comes to this stuff,” I told her.
“I knew Dash and I knew you. Or at least had some idea of what the two of you were like before we really met,” I said before the memory of what Dash told me at Rainbow Falls after agreeing to stick with the Ponyville team flashed through my head to contradict some of that statement. “But Tia is…she’s kind of a mystery. You’ve had your whole life to get to know her, get used to her, dream about her in a romantic way. I just started to think of the possibility of looking at Tia in that light and for the most part our time together just involves the two of us sitting next to each other watching a movie before she going on and on about problems at court, gets a backrub, or a foot massage. I tell her about my day, what you're up to, what Rainbow’s doing, that kind of stuff.
“And well um…” I gulped. “Celestia is…pretty intimidating.” I mean good God, she was the freaking goddess of the sun, another species, tens of hundreds of years old, physically superior to me in every way and...she liked me? How is that not supposed to make me feel...weird?
“Oh,” Twilight replied before she shifted around until she was on her back again. “I guess I can understand that. And you do have a human mind.”
I looked over to her and frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Remember? How long did it take you to tell me about your being a mare problem?” she deadpanned. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one learning about other species. “And I still worry about disappointing her too, and get kind of panicky, but I’m getting over it…sort of.”
But of course my big stupid mouth didn’t want to stop there. No, I just had to go on with our big sharing moment like a complete idiot. “And she’s over a thousand years old!” I exclaimed as I threw my hooves up in the air. “And…okay, I get that she used to have flings, but that was hundreds of years ago! She gave all that up, and now she’s wanting it again? What the hay happened to make her change?” Celestia was way too fucking stubborn for my logic to accept that she just fell for the new guy because he was new. She wanted me because I chose to be a good person?
Okay, I might have been able to see that if she was friendly with me afterwards, which I suppose she was, if a little too friendly those first nights before I…basically got used to it. Then there was the fact I didn’t spend all my time kowtowing to her, much was apparently a big plus in Tia’s mind.
But those things alone didn’t mean squat. There were plenty of guys better than me for the whole suitor thing.
“Well, she did break it off with Sombra not too long ago,” Twilight reminded me. “Celestia was kind of holding out for him since…I guess since Luna was banished, and…we told you about this, right?”
The reminder about everyone going to that alternate universe made me wince. “Oh…right,” I replied as the stories that I heard from Tia and Twilight intertwined inside my head to paint the picture about Celestia’s last boyfriend. The whole story kind of just left a bad taste in my mouth. Especially after I found out Tia had fixed the mirror before coming to her senses and not going after Good-turned-Evil Sombra on a mission to save her one true beloved, or something else just as stupid.
I gave a dejected moan over all the other stuff that went on before that. Pining for a guy for about a thousand years, and maybe taking up a lover or two to try and forget about him in the meantime just didn’t seem like…well, Celestia.
Or at least the picture of Celestia that I had painted for myself.
Which I had to admit, wasn’t exactly matching up to the reality in some ways. At least not all of the time.
In fact, the more I looked back on the time she and I spent together alone, the more ordinary she seemed.
Headstrong, sure of herself, kind and all that good stuff, but still kind of ordinary. I knew she was pretty lonely beforehand, I had seen that plain as day just a few nights into our chat sessions. But her ability to endure that loneliness, and even reach out to others knowing that they would fall to old age was one of the things that made her awesome.
The fact it wasn’t like that. The fact that she had actually just kept herself isolated to avoid those complications, or maybe had a cheap fling through the centuries…it made me sad in more ways than one.
So I let out a sigh and whined. “Can we stop talking about this now?” I was starting to get the feeling that I was something approaching a rebound boyfriend in Celestia’s eyes.
Twilight put on her thinking face for a moment, and nodded. “Okay, so what do you want to do?”
With an opening like that, I couldn’t resist. I rolled over on top of Twilight, and licked my lips. “You mean, besides you?” It had been awhile since I had Twilight all to myself, and hearing her squeal at climax was kind of hard with Rainbow’s tongue down her throat.
For some reason, Twilight got a little red-faced. “Um…I gotta pee.”
I sighed, and rolled off the talking blatter. That was one thing I didn’t miss about having no need for food. Or how Twilight would need to take a shower afterwards and…okay, maybe I missed showers a bit…and eating, if pony taste buds worked anything like a human’s…which I sincerely hoped they didn’t considering how they ate hay and flowers.
“I’m going to take a shower, and we’ll redo your magic disguise when I’m done to clean you up too, okay?” she called out from the bathroom down the hall.
I laid back down on the bed, and decided to see what else Tia was up to this morning.
I found Celestia trotting down the hallways of her castle, with the tingle of magic in her horn saying there was a little something in her magical grip. All in all, I was just glad I didn’t catch Tia in the shower.
And maybe a little disappointed at the same time.
Not that this whole spying on her everyday life was all that ethical, but…it wasn’t like I was really prying into her private life or anything. And it was her fault for not appearing in the show more. If bronies knew a little bit about Tia’s daily grind, my curiosity wouldn’t have forced me to be taking sneak peeks like I was. Not to mention all the times Tia told me about her day to wet my appetite, which were usually complaints.
If I wanted to get to know Celestia in her non-bitchy/slutty/funny glory, I needed to get a look at her in her natural habitat.
“And expect a visit from the Duke of Coltenhagen sometime today,” Luna’s dry voice rang in Celestia’s ears. “He’s very upset about the recent reports of Weed harvesting and was petitioning me to set its use aside for breeding purposes only to the noble families that have a history in the guard.”
Celestia nodded. “I expect we’ll see a downturn in a number of stallions protecting us as the years pass.”
“Why do we have so many of their number these days?” the other goddesses asked with a raised eyebrow. “I remember a time when it was mares that filled most of the uniforms. And how there were far fewer of those uniforms to fill.” The end came at a little grumble, which peeked Celestia's curiosity.
But it was the the question got a sigh from Celestia and her response. “It’s a horrid tradition of some of the lesser houses. They foal two or three stallions to fight for the right to inherit the right to either gain the best arrangement their family can provide. Usually, this is by gaining favor for their house through military service,” she replied before shaking her head. “While I’m not adverse to competition and being in the royal guard is an admirable thing, pitting siblings against one another in any way…”
“Say no more Sister,” Luna told her when it seemed that nothing else was forthcoming.
The silence continued for a few more moments before I caught a glimpse of Luna smirking through Tia’s eyes. “And here I would have thought you bemoaning the thought of losing our delectable scenery.”
Celestia stopped walking, and turned around to face her little sister all the way. “Sister please, I’m a one stallion mare now,” she said before a coffee mug floated into view before she took a sip. “With um…two mares on the side, of course.”
A sigh came from Luna’s mouth as she shook her head. “And I am supposed to be the crazy one.”
What felt like an actually ton or more of guilt crashed down on the bigger goddess, but was soon channeled into anger. Ground broke from Celestia striking her hoof into it. “You are not! You…it was my fault Luna. I should have… What was to be expected when nopony acknowledged your talent and hard work for so long? You…you just… I should have…”
Luna put on a concerned face and held up a hoof to touch Celestia’s cheek. “What is the cause of this new wave of guilt these past few days?” she asked. “I believed we were past such things.”
Celestia said nothing, and just looked down the hallway at a door further down. Luna looked up at her for a moment, then followed Tia’s eyes before turning back to frown at her. “The girl? I was led to believe she left of her own accord.”
“And whose fault was that?” Celestia demanded with a raised voice that made Luna take a step back before the larger alicorn’s eyes widened and she let out a dejected sigh. “I play the events over in my head again and again, and every time I do, I find some new fault to lay at my hooves. Was it my own rigidity that caused you to turn away from me in our final years together as well Luna?
“Always barking orders, always demanding everypony act exactly as I tell them and never giving example or listening to compromise!” she went on. “Make friends Twilight. Ignore your curiosity Sunset. Lower the moon Luna!”
The smaller alicorn shook her head as her sister continued to bark orders in a dark tone. “You downplay my role in the affair while overstating your control of the situation,” she replied. “Much I suspect is the case with Sunset as well.”
I felt Tia glare at her little sister. “I am not saying she made bad choices, but mine were the greater by far,” the alicorn grumbled as she broke eye contact.
Luna let out another long sigh as Celestia paused. “Did something happen last night during your not-dream?”
The name got an eye roll from Tia. “I wish you’d stop calling them that,” she said. “And for your information, last night was better than usual. We talked, partook of another human piece of visual entertainment-”
“I’m beginning to believe those things are rotting your brain sister,” Luna interjected.
“And shared our first kiss,” Celestia finished before I felt her lick her lips.
“YOU WHAT?”
Celestia looked down at her little sister and raised her eyebrow. “I do not see what the problem is,” she said. “Omnifarious asked me why I was so interested in him, and what could I do afterwards but kiss him? It was a bit different than I remember. But that is probably due to being human at the time.”
I picked up a groan with Celestia’s ears, and watched as Luna shook her head. “Sister…I am ecstatic that finding love again after all these years has made you happy, but you divulge too much information!” she exclaimed before becoming dreadfully serious again. “And I also begin to worry about the great deal of influence your hopeful beau has on you.”
It was Celestia that let out the groan when Luna was finished. “This again? I think we have removed your fears that I was under his sway in such a way some time ago Luna,” she said.
“I also believe that was before you had the…hots for your former student, Sister,” Luna replied evenly.
Celestia cleared her throat, and looked away from the shorter mare. “Yes well, Omnifarious simply let me see the number of desirable qualities that Twilight has,” the larger goddess replied before she looked back down at Luna. “And besides, if the two of us were to keep the first image that we saw of our little ponies in our heads, we’d be picturing all of Equestria with diapers covering their plots. Twilight was a delightful foal, but now she is a mare grown, and I will both treat and think of her as such.
“And you worry over nothing Sister,” Tia went on before a bit of distaste entered her mind. “If I were to follow all of Omnifarious’s suggestions, we would be…harvesting stallion ejaculations and placing it within heated mares to impregnate them using magic to provide the delivery. The idea of his artificial insemination makes me just… Blech!”
“Because sharing a stallion with mares is so much better,” Luna deadpanned.
Celestia let out an indignant sniff. “I told you, the larger household provides a much greater income to support the needs of a fuller family. You might have missed the modernization of Equestria little sister, but the fact that ponies in Manehatten no longer try to birth four foals for every couple did not go unnoticed by me. Without an easily accessible crop to feed mouths cheaply, parents simply stop having children at two or three. And we must at least maintain the current population if Equestria hopes to have a future.”
A roll of the eyes preceded Luna’s reply. “Ponies in Manehatten are one thing, you are another. I still can’t believe you are chasing the tails of three mares,” she said before pointing a hoof at Tia. “And don’t try and distract me with claims the darkest one is a stallion at heart. Until Omnifarious can penetrate you with a lower horn, a mare is what he is.”
In response, Celestia giggled. “Oh Luna, I think somepony doth protest too much. And three seems the perfect number of wives for me,” she said. “Twilight’s magical interests, Fae’s duality, and Rainbow’s adorable admirableness, all three fulfill my needs so completely I want to kick myself for not bringing about family herding sooner. And I know that the four of us shall be nothing but happy together.”
Luna opened her mouth again for a moment, and then snapped it shut with a frown before studying Celestia for a few more seconds. Then, she spoke. “Be careful with your foresight sister, letting tiny urges and feelings guide you is one thing, but actively looking is tunnel vision of the worst sort.”
“I am well aware of that Luna,” Tia said before I felt her lips become a smirk. “That’s why I asked the expert.”
As Luna gave Celestia a confused frown, the larger alicorn trotted away. “Now, I think it’s time I woke my daughter up and see if she wants to join us in the breaking of my nightly fast. I’ll be seeing you in a bit Luna. Unless she’s changed more than just in attitude, my little sun will be putting up more of a fight than the one I just raised.”
I listened to the sisters say a few quick goodbyes, and then checked back in my own bedroom to make sure Twilight was still in the shower, which she was. Although the purple princess pony hadn’t taken much care of her wings before Rainbow Dash started waking up with us, the pegasus had put Twilight on a strict preening schedule that the alicorn had adhered to ever since.
Judging by the amount of ouches and curses coming from the bathroom, Twilight wasn’t doing too well when it came to doing things herself. I would have gone and helped her but…no changeling knew anything about feathered wing maintenance. The feathers we had just lasted as long as they were a part of us, and a quick flare of magic fixed any cosmetic problems.
So I left Twilight to her own personal torture before diving back down to sate my curiosity, and made it just in time to see Sunset laying on her bed with her knees propping up a book from under the covers and the sheets thankfully obscuring the rest of the naked girl. She was apparently scribbling in some notebook I had seen her with from time to time.
Just the sight of Sunset on the bed looked a little wrong. While the thing was more than big enough to let her stretch out, it was so low to the ground, along with everything else in the room, that it just make the human look slightly out of place. She looked about as wrong as I felt whenever going into Sunset’s room at Everfree Castle. With my whole four feet and a few inches of height, everything inside Sunset’s living place looked like it was sized for a giant.
“Oh Sunset, I didn’t expect to find you awake,” Celestia spoke before walking into the room and shutting the door behind her. “Did you have trouble sleeping?”
A slight movement and change in Sunset’s posture told me Tia hit the nail on the head, but as the alicorn was still feeling confusion rather than concern, I was guessing she missed the warning sign. In fact, I had to wonder just how much human body language Tia knew at all.
As for me, I knew what it meant. I doubted Sunset had gotten a wink of sleep past 5AM, and it was a pretty good bet she had woken up at least once during the night before then too. I was pretty sure the girl wasn’t being assaulted by nightmares, I had checked her sheets for sweat plenty of times while in Ponyville. But it didn’t mean she still didn’t feel stressed, out of place, at odds with herself, and a million other things that could lead to a restless night.
And I still had no fucking clue what to do about it besides tell Tia her daughter was having trouble adjusting to her disability.
Luna was no help either. The goddess of dreams apparently couldn’t enter the mind of a human, no matter how pony she was on the inside.
The girl gave the goddess a little smile that screamed liar. “Just a little. This bed isn’t as good as the one back at my-the uh, other castle.”
Celestia did manage to pick up on that slip tough. “There is no need to try and spare my feelings Sunset. I know you consider Ponyville your home more than Canterlot ever was,” she said before radiating sadness and dropping her head. “There, you have received far more love than I have ever given.”
“Mom-”
Sunset’s words were cut off by a sharp glare from Celestia a half a second before she spoke. “Do not try and defend my inaction again! I nurtured your mind, but neglected your heart. And it is a mistake I wish to see fixed so…” Tia cleared her throat, and looked down at the floor while she lifted a hoof to scrape the tip against it. “I was wondering if you would…um…like to spend time with me this afternoon. I could give my duties to Luna when she wakes from her sleep, and we could go…do whatever you want!”
Sunset shifted in the bed as Celestia finished a little too strong in tone, and I groaned internally when the sheets might have dropped to show her bare chest. I really didn’t want to see the kid I was taking care of naked. Tia didn’t give a damn of course. Stupid ponies and their no nudity taboos.
But the show was a short one, as Sunset took out a pen from the blue book she had been writing in and closed the thing to set it on the nightstand beside her while Celestia moved around the room. At first I thought she was going to hug and kiss and do all that stuff overly affectionate mothers do to their little girls, but when Sunset drew the covers up to cover herself again, a spike of emotional pain ran through Celestia’s mind. She backed off into a corner, a ball of guilt and nervousness.
As for me, I just floated in the back of Tia’s mind, wrapped in my own blanket of shock. Of course I asked Tia how she and Sunset were getting along, but she had always told me ‘well enough’ without any details.
It was pretty obvious her definition of the term and mine were very different.
From the looks of things, she just didn’t know how to act around the other woman anymore. The guilt and erratic levels of panic that made a seismograph registering an earthquake seem tame in comparison made Tia seem almost Twilight-like. Never having to deal with things of the like, not having a solution just come to her thanks to the endless years of experience Celestia possessed, I was guessing new experiences was not something Tia didn’t deal with very well.
“Well, I was-”
Before Sunset could say more, the door banged open, and Celestia looked over in surprise while a blue mare with silver hair and her usual starred attire walked in. Trixie must have had the worst tunnel vision in Equestria, because she completely missed the horse goddess standing in the corner of the room.
“Well at least those guards managed to tell Trixie where one of her benefactors is,” the unicorn said as she trotted up to the foot of Sunset’s bed before taking a little look around and still missing Tia. “Grander than the room Trixie was given, but she must admit that the daughter of Princess Celestia deserves such. Still, Sunny Skies did provide Trixie with better than her usual accommodations. Where is she by the way? Trixie must be going soon and…well…” An uncomfortable silence followed for a minute.
Sunset looked up at Celestia as Trixie looked down at the ground, and Tia raised a hoof to her lips in a shushing motion with a little bit of amusement passed through the goddess’s mind.
“Trixie would simply like to thank her,” the unicorn finished quickly, clearly not used to being in such a position. “But whenever Trixie asks where Sunny is, the guards simply give her odd looks.”
A little bit of a laugh came from Sunset’s mouth, but it looked like Trixie didn’t notice as Sunset reached for her magical piece of clothing that let Equestrians without knowledge of the English language to understand her. “Well you know how it is sometimes. Ponies don’t pay attention to what goes on backstage. Who’s going to notice Sunny Skies if she follows Celestia around all day?”
Trixie nodded. “True. Well, you will pass on Trixie’s message?” she asked before clearing her throat. “It has been some time since Trixie been able to thank another pony for her kindness.”
Considering her usual attitude, I didn’t wonder why.
Another moment of uncomfortable silence passed, and both the girls just stood and sat there. “So um…” Trixie said before she looked over to Sunset’s nightstand. “What’s that?”
Sunset looked over to her book. “Oh it’s just um…something I jot stuff down in to…pass the time.”
“A journal? Oh, or a diary!” the unicorn exclaimed before the book in question was snatched up by her magic and Sunset let out an indignant cry. “Oh come now, friends shouldn’t share secrets from one another, right?”
The human didn’t seem to agree. “Hey! Give that back! That’s mine!”
As Trixie flipped open the book with her magic, and Sunset lunged forward to get tangled in her sheets to land on the bed face first, Celestia cleared her throat and stepped forward loud enough that her golden horseshoes rang through the room. “That’s quite enough of that my little-oh my,” the goddess mumbled as she came up behind Trixie and focused her attention on the book in Trixie’s magic that depicted on odd diagram involving some oval shape and a dozen other things.
Out of the corner of Celestia’s eye, I saw Trixie turn and just stand there for a second before Sunset’s book was taken in the alicorn’s magic when her own faltered. “Paaa, Pri, Pre-pa…”
Tia looked away from the odd drawings in Sunset’s book and over to the unicorn. “Princess.”
“Pre-Prin, Princess…”
“Celestia,” said, continuing her coaching of the stunned mare as I picked up a guilty bit of amusement from seeing Trixie have her IQ drop to single digits in shock.
“C-Celestia, Princess Celestia!” Trixie exclaimed before dropping into a bow. “Forgive Trixie your highness, she did not hear you come in!”
Tia giggled a little bit. “That’s because I was here before you came barging in,” she said before Trixie went rigid. “If you’re going to wear that cape of yours everywhere you go, I would suggest folding the collar a bit, I think it hurts your peripheral vision.”
Sunset let out a groan and rolled over, which of course made Tia turn her head back to the butt naked teen and got a mental scream of ’NO BAD PRINCESS’ from me. “Fine, now give me back my idea book,” she demanded before crossing her arms over her breasts to bring the rating back to something approaching PG and scowling at Celestia.
The book in Celestia’s magical grip floated up, but didn’t fly back to the teenager. “Sunset, what is this?” she asked before looking back to the picture of a crudely drawn oval and a pair of circle with the Equestria words for ‘crystal’ written above them along with a page full of mathematical calculations and mystical formulae that I could barely understand. About all I could tell from the diagram was that the enchantments would work in tandem with something else.
“Ugh! It’s just one of the stupid ideas I get from time to time,” she grumbled.
I saw Trixie hop up on her hind legs to get a better look at the diagram, and then she fell back down to all fours. “If this is one of your stupider ideas, Trixie would hate to see a complicated one,” she mumbled. “Her brain might explode trying to understand it, and Trixie is no slouch at enchantments either.”
There was a swelling of pride and love in Celestia’s heart as she looked over the diagram some more, and then back up to Sunset. “If I’m reading this correctly, this enhancement would allow ponies to communicate via their reflections and…the crystals, one would detect sound, and the other create it. With two mirrors linked…ponies could communicate across thousands of miles instantly!”
“Yeah, it’s a theory for magical face-time,” she said before frowning at Trixie, whose face scrunched up in confusion. “It’s something humans have.”
As Trixie nodded in understanding, Sunset frowned and looked away. “But it would only work with a pair of mirrors, like those linked books you liked to use. Setting up a whole network would require something like a switch-board operator using two other mirrors as intermediaries, and…you have no idea what I’m talking about,” she said before groaning.
Celestia flipped through the book of magical designs in a mess of confusion, joy, and a dozen other emotions that varied from page to page. “Sunset this is… Why are you doing this? Why haven’t you shared this with anypony?”
“Like who? Twilight?” she asked before rolling her eyes. “Yeah, let me just sidetrack my one real chance of turning back into a pony on an endless road to build a bunch of junk.”
A tiny groan escaped from Tia’s mouth. “Well, I doubt she would simply abandon her current project, but…I suppose such thing would provide a distraction to her thoughts.”
“So why do it at all?” Trixie asked, and then immediately flinched when Celestia looked down at her. “P-Pardon Trixie’s rudeness your highness.”
Celestia nodded. “Of course my little pony,” she said before looking back to Sunset. “Although I do wonder that myself.”
For a second, Sunset just stared at them before throwing her hands wide. “Oh come on!” she exclaimed. “Magic is what I’m supposed to do! Do you have any idea what its like to lose that? If I didn’t do…something, I’d go insane! I thought it would be a little better now that I’m back in Equestria instead of stuck in a magicless environment but…now I’m getting it waved in front of my face everyday and I just… in some ways, it’s even worse! If I don’t do this then…what else have I got?”
Guilt rushed over Celestia again. “Oh Sunset, I-”
“No!” she ordered before holding up a hand and looking away from Celestia. “Just…no, stop the stupid blaming. Please…I just… It doesn’t do anything but make me feel worse!”
Which of course made Celestia feel even worse, but judging by how she kept her face only slightly downcast, she wasn’t about to let it show. “From what I understood, you were getting better in Ponyville.”
Sunset sighed, and slumped. “I am…sort of,” she added after a moment. “Look, the bug tries, but Fairy doesn’t really get it, or all of it. Friends and all that stuff, it’s good, and the foals are a nice distraction, but…when it’s all over…I feel so worthless sometimes.”
“Oh Sunset,” Celestia said as I felt her heart nearly break. “I have lived for longer than Equestria has existed, and I have never found a creature in all the world that could be called worthless.”
“You’ve also never met a human before either,” the redhead countered without any of the usual fire in her voice.
Celestia took in a deep breath, and stomped her hoof as I felt her wrestle her emotions to the side while Trixie quickly backed away from the goddess and out of her view. “Now stop this at once!” she ordered in a firm voice. “You will be cured of your condition soon enough. But if you require proof of your value in physical form, then this is what you and I shall be doing today after court!”
The goddess held up her book and tapped the mirror diagram with her hoof before she looked over to the unicorn in the room. “Trixie, did you have any plans for the day?”
Once again the center of Celestia’s attention, the magician gulped. “Um…well, not really your highness,” Trixie replied. “Trixie was hoping to peruse Canterlot for things she could use to enhance her act.”
“Excellent,” Celestia replied before her horn lit up and a bright flash of light filled the room that…well, it didn’t affect Celestia’s vision all that much, really. But both of the other occupants looked away before one of those old fashioned stamps people used to mark letters with their personal seal floated in front of her. “This conjuration will last for the rest of the day. If you would be kind enough to accompany my daughter into town so she can purchase whatever she needs to complete her mirror, you can use it to buy whatever to like. Simply mark the bill of sale with this for the shopkeeper, and the funds will be withdrawn from the royal account when that pony brings the receipt to the castle. Just don’t go too overboard, and I will know what you buy of course.”
While Trixie just stared wide-eyed at the object in question, Celestia caught sight of Sunset becoming withdrawn again. “You want me to go outside, in Canterlot?”
Tia studied her daughter for a few more seconds, then sighed. “Very well, you can remain at the palace. I’ll send Sunny Skies to accompany Trixie, with a list of materials from you.”
“Doesn’t Sunny Skies have work to do?” Sunset deadpanned, her earlier hesitation quickly vanishing.
“The only meeting of note today is with Blueblood, and once that’s done…I’m sure the kingdom will not suffer too much with my secretary taking a few hours to do something that needs to be done,” Celestia replied before she looked back down at Trixie. “Now Trixie.”
The unicorn’s head shot up and away from the seal in her grip. “Y-Yes your highness?”
“Would you like to join my family for breakfast?” Tia asked. “I would love to get to know my daughter’s new friend.”
A second later, my real body detected something and I had to cut my connection with Tia before Trixie could do more than just look up with her mouth gaping open and senseless sound coming out of it again with an “Uhhhh.”
Sunset’s words had me kicking myself mentally at my own stupidity. Of course the girl wouldn’t have been happy just being stuck in a stupid schoolhouse and helping me learn magic between all the time she spent with Twilight trying to fix herself with the crystal mirror.
I might have guessed that ponies always had to do something, but the fact that I didn’t factor in Sunset’s fucking TALENT had me feeling pretty stupid. The majority of a pony’s life revolved around her talent! If a pony’s ability to perform it was taken away…it would probably be worse than a master piano player who got his fingers damaged in a war to the point where he couldn’t play.
Hell, Luna went nuts from no one even appreciating her skill in working the night shift. With that on my mind, the idea of Sunset turning into a bitch rather than just a brat back on Earthquestria before she put the crown on and went dark empress of the apocalypse fell a bit more into place. Even her damn lust for power tied back to her talent, she needed to be good at magic! It was part of who she was!
I just hoped that doing magic vicariously through Tia would be enough for her as I opened my eyes to see Twilight standing over me with a quizzical look on her face.
“Are you okay? I usually don’t have to poke you that hard to make you wake up,” the lavender alicorn said before becoming a little worried.
“Yeah I’m just…feeling a little stupid,” I admitted.
Unfortunately, it took a lot longer to get ready to leave that I was hoping it would. First off, the ponies had to eat breakfast. I didn’t get anything to munch on of course, Twilight was a little to worried about me not loving Celestia to concentrate on her love for me, and our little cheat that involved sex just wasn’t happening at her parents’ house.
Plus, I didn’t much feel like it after learning how much of a total failure I was with Sunset’s needs. I was supposed to be taking care of the girl and all I did was bury her problems with gifts.
Not to mention we had spent the night in Twilight’s old house. Her parents’ house. The parents that helped give her so many psychological problems I wondered for her sanity on some days. So...I wasn’t all that thrilled to be sitting across from them when it came time for breakfast.
Of course the night’s sleep and fact that Spike was going back to Ponyville did wonders for Velvet and Nightlight’s attitudes. Whereas dinner had been a pretty somber affair, the breakfast table actually managed a real conversation.
But of course, there was that underlying Smell of fear. It wasn’t as much as there was last night. The fact that I didn’t murder the ponies in their sleep apparently helped Twilight’s parents think better of me, or maybe Luna visited them in their dreams to calm their nerves. But whatever the reason, they were a little more…conversational than they had been the night before.
I also felt the lack of Shining Armor and Cadence almost immediately since they couldn’t just ignore me in lieu of talking about the fact Shiny was starting a herd.
“So I suppose you’ll be back tomorrow for some coronation business, what with it being yours and all,” Twilight’s dad commented.
I looked around at the oats and other things being levitated around the table. While I could at least pass the grains off as ‘cereal’ and not even care about the more human foods like muffins, fruits, toast, and eggs, seeing ponies eat hay made me feel just the tiniest bit awkward. Especially after hearing they didn’t eat grass.
I never did get a real explanation for that either. Which just made it all the more weird.
“Just what would you be the princess of if you don’t mind me asking?” Velvet asked right on top of the father.
The way the ponies were acting, like normal human parents of all things, threw me off long enough for Twilight to come to my defense. “Mom, Fae is just being crowned tomorrow! Even I don’t have an official title yet, and Cadence didn’t get hers until after that mess in the Crystal Empire.”
Twilight’s defense got my curiosity up and I looked over to her. “Wait, you don’t have a title? I thought you were the Princess of Magic or something.”
A little giggle came out of the alicorn. “That’s what some ponies thought too, but no. How could I even be the foremost authority on magic when Princess Celestia knows more than me?” she asked. “I finished an incomplete spell, I didn’t become an expert on a fundamental force of the universe.”
I would have said something to counteract Twilight’s modesty but even after living with her for awhile, I wasn’t sure about the rules when it came to alicorn ascension. But if Twilight said she wasn’t the Alicorn or Princess of Magic, then my guess was, she wasn’t.
After all, Cadence was the Alicorn of Love, and she sure as hell didn’t have any problem when someone called her that.
“So what’d I be a good princess of then?” I asked with a little smile, needing to get the conversation away from Twilight’s lack of an official title before she started freaking out about it or something.
Twilight got thoughtful for a few seconds. “Well you could just take over the Everfree.”
The suggestion got an eye roll from me. The Everfree was Twilight’s territory, not mine, and I didn’t have that much control of the area. Overall, the changelings held about a third of the place on the eastern side near Rambling Rock Ridge, and the northwest border that had the place linking up with Ponyville. There was also a few guards that patrolled the southwestern areas near the train tracks, but the animals of the Everfree had learned to stay clear of the trains a long time ago.
“Who says I have to be princess of anything?” I mumbled.
Twilight laughed again. “Well you already are the leader of the changelings, but you need a territory of your own, right?”
Nightlight cleared his throat. “What is it about these changelings anyway?” he asked in an even tone.
The sweet Smell of fear and unease coming from Velvet deepened. “Darling, let’s not…um…”
“What do you mean?” I asked, already knowing what he was going to get at. If I had to guess, it would probably be something along the lines of what he had been going to ask me about last night before Spike and Twilight’s eruption, followed by Shining and Cadence’s big distraction involving Rarity.
Real family drama took precedence over the new guy finally getting his introduction. Considering how Nightlight had been pouring himself a drink when we were going to have our talk and I might have been the least bit leery about him poisoning it when I was offered a swig, I was more glad than hurt my time in the spotlight got shoved to the side.
“It’s…nothing,” he finally said, which got a frown from me.
“No let’s hear it,” I said evenly.
Of course that just made the tension go up, and Twilight looked over to me. “Fairy-”
I held up a hoof. “No. This is what you wanted to talk to me about last night, right? So let’s hear it.”
Twilight leaned in close. “Do you have to do this now? Again?”
Nightlight averted his eyes, and I looked over to Twilight. “What?”
“It’s just like the Crystal Empire,” she whispered back. “Ponies get nervous, and you get offended. Can’t you just…not do this, this time?”
While Nightlight and Velvet getting antsy around me didn’t bother me like it did with the crystal ponies, Twilight’s attitude did. “Hey!” I replied at a slightly higher volume. “That is not this! This is…” I took in another breath, which of course gave me time to focus on the growing unease coming from Twilight’s parents.
That made me look back to them out of the corner of my eye, and then I glanced at Spike as he sat on the other side of Twilight. I let out a sigh, and my shoulders slumped before I turned my head back to face Velvet and Nightlight. “Sorry for getting…like that. I just…”
I took in another breath, and Twilight thankfully didn’t butt in. “Look, I um…scared you the first time we met, and I’m not angry about that or anything. I caught you off guard with the whole changeling thing, but now that that’s out in the open, I promise I won’t…get offended,” I said while doing my best to keep my words as far away from violent examples of my raged responses as I could.
Silence blanketed the room for a moment as the two non-winged ponies shared a nervous look.
Then Spike spoke up. “What makes you so different than um…whatshername. Old changeling queen?”
That got a roll of the eyes from Twilight. “Seriously? You mean besides Fairy’s actions and her not trying to take over Equestria? Actually loving another pony instead of stealing it, and everything else she’s done?”
Once again, Nightlight cleared his throat. “I think what Spike means to ask is, what is the cause of these actions?” he asked Twilight before looking over to me, a little calmer than he had been a moment ago.
And Twilight rushed to my defense, again. “The changeling’s have changed Dad.”
“Well, not really,” I said evenly, drawing a little bit of a frown from the alicorn, which made me wonder if I was getting into something that I shouldn’t be. “All the instincts are still there, the parts of our brain that make causing pain and suffering enjoyable. Every changeling is raised on it, and I’m just at the top of the monster hierarchy.”
While Twilight’s friends knew about my past, the vast majority of ponies didn’t have any clue that humans existed, and a good amount of Ponyville citizens were clueless to the fact that I had been one. So I got the distinct impression telling Twilight’s parents that wasn’t the best of ideas.
“Not helping Fairy,” Twilight grumbled. “And you can’t seriously be saying you’re the same as Chrysalis!”
I sighed and looked over to Twilight. “Hey I’m just one changeling, and yeah, I’m different from the overwhelming majority of them are still the same creatures that attacked Canterlot, and I’m not going to be telling any pony, much less your parents, otherwise. They want to truth, so I’ll give it to them.”
Velvet spoke up. “So what makes you so different then?”
“Fae is kind, and loving and-” Twilight went on as I tuned her out to try and think to myself about that question.
When she finished, I let out a sigh and slumped my head a little bit before I went on right on top of her. “Honestly? I’m not really all that different from my mother,” I told Twilight’s parents, which of course made them nervous as hell and got Twilight to glaring at me again. “We’re both pretty deceitful, violent, greedy, and very conceited. But there was one key difference.
“I love Equestria. I love it just the way it is, with you ponies running around being happy and everything. It’s bright and fun, and…perfect. If we had taken over, all of that would have gone way.
“I mean, sure I could have mind controlled ponies to do what I wanted, made them dance and sing songs for me. I could have made Twilight love me along with any other pony I wanted,” I went on while the image of the Mane Six laying at the feet of some thrown with a bunch of slave collars on passed through my mind to make me a little sick. “But it wouldn’t have been the same, it wouldn’t have been real.”
I cleared my throat and looked away. “An um, about what Twilight said…yeah, I do love her,” I told them before looking back at the parents. “And I want to be worthy of that love, and everything else my friends give me, and the faith they put in me.
“And that’s the difference between me and my mother, and the rest of the changelings,” I added after a few seconds. “They…feed on emotions that we can induce by putting a pony in a sack of goo. They take it. I want the stuff that’s freely given, and I want them to know who they’re giving it to. They want to eat, I want to be loved. That’s it, really. It’s selfish as my mother, but in a different way.”
The parents shared a look at that, and then put their attention back on me. Velvet licked her lips. “I wouldn’t say that,” the unicorn replied in the warmest tone I had heard her use in front of me. “In fact I think we’re not all that different. Some ponies say that our greatest fear is being alone and unloved by others. So I can understand why creatures such as yourself would take the easy road with such an option open to them. And…I am happy that you didn’t.”
Twilight gave her mother a half-lidded expression. “Yes Mother, you and all of Equestria.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said before hanging her head low.
Nightlight was quick to pick up the conversation as the other Twilight in the room was cowed by her daughter’s expression. “I think what Twilight meant to say is,” he began before stealing a glance at Twilight Sparkle. “We are glad that you got to know our little Twily, and the happiness you two share with each other. And if you would like to come back and visit sometime…I think we would like to get to know you too.”
To be honest, the offer just…rubbed part of me the wrong way. We humans are big into the whole first impression thing after all, and…both the first and second, as well as a good amount of the third hadn’t been all that good. They had left me with more than a bit of a distaste for Twi’s parents that just…made them feel like the sort-of friends you saw at work. If you ran into them, you were cordial, but you sure as hell didn’t want to be coming over to their house anytime soon.
Not to mention the crap Twilight had let slip about them while we were on our date. That little bit alone made me want to shout at them about how they had scarred their daughter for life and needed to be paying for her therapy…if Equestria even had such a thing.
But they were ponies, and Twilight’s parents, and knowing the alicorn, she just wanted us all to get along. So I did the very changeling thing of swallowing my desires to see them with a few missing teeth, and smiled as nicely as I could. “I think I’d like that.”
As long I didn’t have to be in the same room with them more than once a week, I could deal with it.
Of course Twilight looked happy about the whole thing. Smelled it too. So…it let me swallow the bitterness of the pill that was getting along with her parents. But hell, they were Twilight’s parents and…as much as it made me nervous just to consider them in such a light…nobody was actually supposed to get along with their in-laws. Even ponies couldn’t fix that fact of life.
It was about ten thirty by the time we made it to the train station and found the other royal couple waiting for us like a letter Spike burped up saying they would be. Of course, it also mentioned that Sunset was staying in Canterlot for the weekend, which actually brought Twilight a little down. She was the only person the alicorn could talk shop with after all.
“I can’t believe we had to wait for the cargo train so we could ride back to Ponyville,” Twilight mumbled as we watched the last of Spike’s stuff get loaded. “Just how many comics do you own anyway?”
The dragon looked away from the alicorn and played with his claws. “Well uh, I might have ate light for a few days and used the gems to get a few…dozen…boxes of comics,” Spike said as Twilight’s frown became a glare. “Oh come on Twilight! It’s not like we don’t have room now! We live in a castle!”
I quickly backed away from the incoming lecture on nutrition, proper use of allowances, and about a dozen other things, and looked over to Cadence and Shining Armor. “So you are staying in Canterlot for the day, or…is a certain mare in Ponyville going to be getting a visit from the Crystal Royalty?”
Shining Armor gave a nervous laugh. “No, But Rarity said to stay out of Ponyville until she could-”
“SHINING ARMOR HELP! LITTLE BROTHER IN DANGER!” Spike cried as he ran past us with Twilight on his heels.
As I found myself alone with Cadence a few seconds later, and wondering why Twilight just didn’t magic Spike immobile if she was really teed off with him, I looked over to the pink pony and cleared my throat. “Um…hey,” I said in the most…kind of awkward way possible.
Cadence smiled back at me. “Hello Omnifarious. I’m glad to hear that you and Twilight’s parents are getting along now…more or less.”
Since one such thing deserves another, I handed out my own praise. “And um…thanks for last night, with Sunset. That was…um…you and her.”
The pink alicorn stopped me with a sigh. “I have a lot of time that I need to make up for with my new cousin,” she said before shaking her head.
Completely lost, I decided to switch topics. I had Cadence in front of me at the moment, and really didn’t know when I was going to get another chance. “Hey Cadence, how does love work with ponies?”
“What?” she asked with a confused frown.
“Well it’s just…” I tried to voice my question as best I could, explaining my confusion about how ponies could practically explain in every little detail why they were in love with another pony, and how it sounded like love literally just hit them in similar matter to how their cutie marks worked.
Cadence just giggled and shook her head. “It’s not that simple,” she said before looking down at me. “But you can’t honestly tell me that you haven’t had a moment when you look at a mare and just know the two of you are perfect for one another? That everything about her is perfect? That you would do anything for her?”
I looked back at Twilight for a second as she pinned Spike to the ground and began tickling him with her wings. “Well…okay, I’ll give you that,” I said before looking back to Cadence. “But from the sound of things, you did it in about ten seconds when you saw Rarity.”
“Oh that,” she replied with an all too guilty grin. “Well...I cheated.”
A very dark and angry thought stirred in my gut as I imagined Cadence putting some kind of love spell over Rarity and Shining Armor because of those words. The fact that my best friend by default had just been…heart raped by the pony in front of me just… Something very bad stirred in the back of my mind as I began thinking of way to kill Cadence and get away with it. “You. What?”
Cadence apparently didn’t pick up on my killing intent, because she just gave me a little smile and a shrug. “I know, I shouldn’t have used my foresight like that but…I’m the Alicorn of Love and…look, every single pony that approached me and Shining about herding just want to…they weren’t a good idea. But when I looked at the possibilities that sprang from Rarity…”
The legs of the alicorn wobbled a bit, and she turned a loving gaze over to Shining Armor. “I saw babies,” she whispered before clearing her throat and blinking some tears out of her eyes. “I mean…I saw other ponies that were smitten with Shining giving him foals too, but…our love became…twisted because of it. Whenever another mare gave him babies, our love line became dark and usually vanished all together when the second mare became jealous, and tried to use his children to take Shining away from me. And…I would never make Shining pick me over his own foals.
“But Rarity… No matter the gender, or the number of foals she bore him,” the love goddess continued while the tears threatened to overwhelm her ability to blink them away. “Every possibility I saw had the three of us standing over their cribs together, and Rarity teaching them to call me Mommy as easily as they did her.”
She looked back at me and smiled. “After that, how could I not fall in love with her?”
And just like that, the Goddess of Love pretty much killed the last little bit of that voice that said I needed to end her life. Although the fuel she gave to fuel my curiosity meant I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Wait, you can see the future?”
After thinking about it for a second, Cadence shook her head. “No. It’s more like a form of…super subliminal math. But sometimes, it does paint a little picture for me too. Of course I’m no Celestia, so it only works with questions of love but-”
“Wait,” I interrupted with a raised hoof. “You mean Tia can see the future too?”
Once again, Cadence shook her head. “You’re making it sound a lot more…definite than it really is. She told me once it’s like…odd feelings when a moment of destiny is at hoof, or something needs to be put in place like…well…Spike.”
That non-answer completely destroyed the little bit of comprehension I thought I had on the whole thing. “Spike? What does he got to do with anything?”
Cadence smiled. “Oh, well…back when Twilight was just a filly and I learned about her entrance exam. Auntie said when it came time to chose the test for that year, she got an odd feeling while looking through her vault and decided to roll out the dragon egg test, despite nopony ever being able to pass it before.”
“And then Twilight did thanks to the Rainboom, which got Celestia’s attention, and she made Twilight her student, putting everything in motion,” I finished for her.
Although, from Cadence’s explanation…Tia’s ability sounded a disturbing amount like a Pinkie Sense, if in a more mature version. To be honest, I didn’t like it.
I mean, what was next? Luna being able to talk to animals like Fluttershy?
As my dissatisfaction with my latest bit of Equestrian lore apparently killed our conversation, Twilight and her brother trotted up to us with the lizard following close behind. “Well, that’s the last of the loading. Everypony ready to go?”
And of course, before I could voice my yes while my brain reminded me Rainbow Dash had apparently had a rough night with the two of us gone and made me want to get back to Ponyville all the faster, a tug on my tail made me look back to find Spike standing there. “Something you need?”
“Um Fae, can I ask you something real quick?” he asked, which kind of annoyed me due to the fact it was a question on if he could ask a question and…okay, maybe I was harboring some lingering hatred for the dragon now that he was back to not crying at me.
Still, I managed not to frown as he added, “In private.”
Me and Twilight shared a confused look, and then I stepped off to the side to talk to him.
Five minutes later, I came back with the kid on my back and a slightly annoyed frown on my face. “Hey Twilight, you go on back to Ponyville and meet up with Dash for…uh…you know, that thing,” I said, barely remembering the fact that Spike didn’t know about Rainbow sleeping with us in time not to blurt it out.
Twilight gave me a confused frown. “Uh…okay. But…what’s going on?”
I repressed the urge to groan and looked at my purple pony in the eyes. “Oh it’s just some errand Spike forgot about that we need to take care of for Princess Celestia,” I lied. “We’ll catch the one o’clock train and everything will be fine.”
“Well if there’s something Spike needs to do for the princess, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to go with him and you go back to Ponyville? Your changelings are going to be doing the unloading after all,” Twilight pointed out.
However, I was ready for Twilight. “But you’ve got that thing with Dash,” I pointed out, which got a questioning eyebrow-raise from Twilight. “That think you need to get her ready for.” I inclined my head towards Spike just a bit.
“Oh!” Twilight exclaimed as her eyes went wide. “Right! That thing, with Dash! I’ll umm…okay, better go take care of that. Yes. Going right now.”
Twilight quickly ran into the train car a few seconds before it closed, and Shining Armor looked over to the two of us. “So what’s really going on?”
“Nothing!” Spike said right in my ear, reminding me why I didn’t like critters sitting on my back. “Now come on, we need to go see Princess Celestia.” A tug on my hair also reminded me why I didn’t like things that could think for themselves on my back.
As I walked away from the confused couple, I glanced back at the dragon. “Are you really wanting to talk to Tia about this?”
“Well, she does know the best shops in the city,” the dragon pointed out.
I just sighed and trotted on towards the castle while hoping this stupid shopping trip wouldn’t take all that long.