"Habitat Eleven is twenty miles in diameter, right?" Cacha said, gesturing with her hooves. I nodded, then she continued. "Yet our only known exits are around the equator of the habitat. That means if Habitat Eleven is sitting on the ground of this planetary-body thing, our exits are ten miles up!"
"And not only would that be hard to get up to, or down from, but the air would be pretty thin up there too, like in the upper reaches of the life support chamber," I said.
"So, how are we meant to get out of it? Are we meant to grow wings and fly, or something?"
"If the habitat is of the correct weight, perhaps it could rest in a deep body of water. Of course that would mean finding a deep enough body of water at the intended destination. That wouldn't work if it was too heavy, as the exits would be under water, and if it was too light, we'd be back where we started, not to mention the problem of stability. Alternatively, perhaps it half-buries itself. Perhaps it is half-buried right now, as the ponies must have been able to walk into it in the first place."
"That would be a huge hole! Unimaginably huge! What would they do with all the stuff they dug out?"
"I think it would have been used to make the habitat. Somehow they have compressed matter to make the outer shell, the suspension plate and so on. You will never understand it as well as I do, because explaining it is hard to someone who cannot see it with their magic. It is sort of like if several ponies were all standing in the same place occupying the same space at the same time."
"You are right. I don't think I can picture it. I certainly cannot picture a world which would be large enough for a ten mile deep hole to be dug in it, either."
"As boggling as the possibilities are, it may be that it doesn't really matter, as the habitat never launched in the first place. We are probably sitting in that huge hole, or whatever it was that let the first ponies simply walk in."
"Did Kakuun's writings ever cover this?" Cacha asked.
"They may have, once, but volumes are missing, pages are faded and so on. There is enough written in them to worry us, without really giving us all the info we need. We know, for example, that we all once lived on the outer surface of a giant habitat made out of soil and rock, and with large areas covered in water. The writings suggest that there was no physical sky-dome, and that we could see the great nothing. Even so, the information appears to be second-hoof, as if the writer never actually saw these things them self. On the other hoof, the writings also tell us the names of the first queen's parents, what was served at various royal functions and other... less interesting facts."
"Oh, the really important stuff, eh?" Cacha said, sarcasm evident in her tone. "Were they some foal's diary, or something?"
"Yes, I believe so. They were in the rooms Kakuun frequented, after all. I suspect they were written by the royal filly, the missing daughter of the original Princess Moon Glow. I wonder if Kakuun will follow suit and is making a record of everything I eat," I said in a similar tone, although mine was, as always, pitched higher than Cacha's.
"Hang on a moment, while I make note of your conversation," a younger voice said. Again, sarcasm was quite evident.
"Ha ha, Kakuun. I didn't know you were here."
"I just arrived. Are the arrangements suitable for Your Majesty?"
"One presumes the royal hospital bed is the finest bed available, suitably selected for my royal butt."
"The absolute best there is." Kakuun smirked.
"It's the same as the bed in every other room in this ward, isn't it?"
"Well, yes, but this one comes with your favorite plushie," Kakuun said, pointing at Cacha, who was draped across the foot of the bed.
"Oh, not you too," Cacha groaned. "Maisie is bad enough."
"What's the problem? You have greater access to the queen than any other pony has ever had, perhaps short of Princess Moon Glow's own progeny. Other ponies and changelings are bound to talk!"
"...OUCH!"
"Ouch, what?"
"Contraction," I muttered, "now, if all you kind people would exit the room, and get me the medical staff!"
A stream of ponies and disguised changelings had been in and out of my hospital room over the last hour, offering congratulations, bringing small offerings and hoping to catch a glimpse of the main attraction, the creamy-yellow and deep-reddish-pink wonder who was currently lying in the crib beside my bed. General visiting hours were now over, with only direct family permitted to stay. For me, the hospital acknowledged just two ponies in that category, even though there was no blood relationship. While I was staying here, the main hospital in H'ven, I had instructions to abide by their rules, royalty or not!
"Say hello to your granny," Bittersweet crooned at the tiny, bundled pony. She was really getting into this. Even though she was pregnant herself, she had taken me up on my offer of being my foal's grandmother. Whether my own mother would have the opportunity to fill the role was yet to be determined. She still believed me to be dead. Over the last few months, when Bittersweet was with Cacha or me, her voice had become a lot more animated. She almost sounded like a regular pony. However, her monotone did return when she had to deal with others.
"Ma..." the foal managed, which was pretty good considering her age, something that could currently be counted in hours.
"Your Ma is over there," Cacha said, also staring at the tiny creature in its crib.
"You do know she's just making random sounds, don't you?" I asked from where I lay.
"She has to start somewhere!" Bittersweet said, then returned her attention to the new-born.
Giving birth had been nothing like I had expected, but then, all my preconceptions had come from when I was a regular pony. Hellite bodies were elastic. Even though my mare bits appeared to be flesh and blood, it was not difficult to change their shape to suit the situation. Adjusting one's lower extremities for an easy birth was foal's play. I felt fine, although perhaps a little tired. I had already reshaped my body to its pre-pregnancy state, and was totally free of any pain. Despite me saying that I was all right, the doctors wanted me to stay overnight for observation. They were also somewhat concerned about my little filly.
As the others continued to interact with her, I levitated the bundled foal from the crib, floating her across to my bed, where I embraced her with my forelegs.
"Show-off," Cacha said.
"If you've got it, flaunt it," I responded. It wasn't my fault I was a unicorn, so I wasn't going to take any flak over it, even in jest.
"And your foal has a horn too," Cacha said, smirking, "or, at least she will have when it pops through the skin."
"What if I bonk you on the forehead, young Cacha?" Bittersweet asked. "You'd have your own magical lump that way."
"I'll pass," Cacha said.
"Ma!" the foal said again. Maybe she really did mean it.
I levitated her up to my face, looking deep into her eyes. There was an intelligence in there, even if it was inexperienced, undeveloped. The tiny creature stared directly back. Her eyes were even the same color as mine, and that was both puzzling and a relief at the same time. So either she was my own foal, or the genes of the implanted embryo were so like mine it was ridiculous... yet there was something else about her that pointed to the pregnancy as being anything but ordinary. I had never met the donor, but the odds of her having identical colors to mine were infinitesimal.
"Um... Aneki?" Cacha asked.
"Yes?"
"The foal's wrap has just fallen off."
"Oh." The spindly legged bundle was now wearing just a diaper. Or was it the other way around?
"What's wrong with her? She looks like she is... deformed," Cacha said, her voice dropping off.
"She isn't deformed. She is special, so very special."
"I guess you could look at it that way, but there is definitely some sort of weird growth on her side."
"It's a wing. The little darling has wings," I said. "Perfectly formed, beautiful little wings." I wrapped the blanket around my unnamed foal again, resting her in my forelegs.
"A pegawhatsit?"
"A pegasus? No. She is so much more important than that."
"Why? Because she's the queen's descendant? Because she's royal? Or are you speaking as a besotted mother?"
"It's because she's the queen's descendant, and by queen, I don't mean me."
"She isn't part changeling, is she?" Cacha whispered. This hospital wasn't a secure Central establishment, after all.
"Oh, no. She's an alicorn. The only place the genetic material could have come from would be the former pony queen, Princess Moon Glow, or one of her ancestors or descendants."
"So how did you get pregnant, then? Two mares can't have a child, well, not unless Brainstorm has cooked up something. Besides, hasn't Princess Moon Glow been dead for generations?"
"That is a puzzle, isn't it! I suspect 2B3 is to blame. Stormie is looking into it, by royal decree, I might add, or 2B3 wouldn't share!"
Approaching hoofbeats stopped outside the door, and a nurse leaned in. "Your Majesty," she said bowing, "it is time for all visitors to leave for tonight."
"Okay then," Bittersweet droned. "We shall leave. Good night, Aneki. Good night, little one." Turning, she walked from the room.
Cacha put a hoof up on my blanket, gently touching my rear leg through the cloth, then turned and silently followed Bittersweet out.
I didn't mind the quiet. Some food and a good sleep were in order.
My sleeping mind was playing back a garbled version of the day's highlights, when my dream took on a new quality, something I had never experienced before. Occasionally I would be aware that I was dreaming, and could modify the dream if I so wished, although I usually didn't, as somehow that usually led to me waking. That I was even considering this now showed how unusual this time was.
There it was again, the feeling that had brought my mind into this state.
Ma?
My mind provided me with an image of my foal to go with the dream voice.
"Yes, little one," I answered.
Ma, Allie wants words.
"Words? You wish to speak? You are already speaking." Dreams could be weird.
Allie wants words. More. More words.
My dream became a lesson, and I, the teacher. I didn't activate any spells to jam the new language into my dream foal, instead teaching her each word as it came to mind, filling in gaps in her vocabulary as they became evident. Continuity held together really well, and I was just alert enough to think that one day very soon, I would be doing this for real with... Allie. Where had that come from? Had my mind named her in my sleep?
It wasn't a bad name. It was feminine. It was...
It is what you call me. Allie corn.
"Oh, alicorn. Ali means to have wings. Corn means horn. You have wings and a horn, so you are an alicorn."
Is Ma an alicorn?
"No. I don't have any wings, so I am called a unicorn. It means one-horn. Do you want to be called Allie?"
Allie is Allie. Allie does not need a different name.
"Okay. Allie you are." I knew some ponies took on a new name later in life, but this was the first newborn I had ever known to name themselves.
Allie is sleepy. Goodnight, Ma.
"Goodnight, Allie," I said as my dream lost coherence, wandering off to play me a bastardized variation of the day's events. It had been an unusual day for me after all; I had borne a child. I was a mother!
Some time later, that weird feeling interrupted my sleep again.
Ma. Allie is hungry. Can Allie please have milk?
Could it be real? Whatever the case, my foal probably could do with a drink, so after struggling with my closed eyes for a few moments, I was able to force myself awake. The glow of the monitors and hall lights gave just enough illumination for a pony to be able to move around safely without the light level interfering with sleep. I looked towards the crib where my foal should have been lying, except she wasn't; she was sitting upright, forelegs hooked over the edge of the crib, staring at me intently as if she expected something.
"You are hungry?" I said, despite it seeming obvious.
"Arrie wonf miruk," the tiny pony responded. It didn't take much of an imagination to understand what she had said. So, she really did know words, even if she had not yet mastered the physical aspects of speaking them.
I uncovered myself, before levitating the foal across to my bed. Immediately she sought out my milk, settling herself as she sucked contentedly.
I wasn't going to have to find a name for her. She had selected Allie for herself... hang on, wasn't that all a dream?
"Allie?"
"Yeth, Ma?" she answered, pulling away from my milk for a moment.
"Were we really talking in my dream?" I asked. "We were, weren't we."
"Yeth, Ma. Arrie's mazik too weak to tork to you when you awafe."
I must have still been dreaming. This was just too weird.
"Ma, Arrie needs toyret."
Gentle prodding at my stomach woke me. Looking down, my eyes met those of my foal. Again I thought about the intelligence in there, although now while it was inexperienced, after last night's dreams, I wasn't so sure it was undeveloped.
"Ma, Arrie wans toyret."
Sweet Luna! My foal, not even one day old, was talking to me! That hadn't been a dream. What's more, my explanations during the night were enough to toilet train her! Win! Looking down, I was suddenly very relieved; little Allie wasn't wearing a diaper any more.
Carefully, I extracted myself from the bed, then carried little Allie into the rest-room, and placed her, straddled, over to the toilet. Her business done, she wobbled out again, hooves spread apart. Coordination was still lacking, but she was walking by herself.
"Aww done. Arrie wonfs a dzring now prease," she said to me. She was even trying different words.
"Okay. I wouldn't mind a drink myself," I said. "Let's head back to the bed."
"Why?" Allie asked, ducking under me and seeking out my teat herself. Oh well, whatever. My drink would have to wait. I could see I was going to have my hooves full with this lively little creature.
As I stood there patiently, somepony knocked gently at the doorway. Looking around I saw Cacha standing there, a slightly puzzled expression on her face.
"Come in, Cacha. Don't wait for an invitation."
"Your foal is mobile already?" she asked, bending down to see the little creature underneath me.
"Apparently so."
"You'd better get a diaper on her, with her gulping down the milk like that."
"No need. She already uses the toilet!" I grinned.
"No way! Don't say I didn't warn you when you get an unexpected shower. Anyway, I just saw Stormie and Miss Glowy in the corridor. They'll be here any second."
She wasn't wrong, because moments later the two people arrived, ponies not being appropriate because one of them was a disguised changeling. The again, being disguised, pony would suffice.
"Good morning, Miss Sent. Good morning," Stormie greeted me as she entered the room.
"Greetings, 1A1," 2B3 said, as she followed Stormie in.
"I see we are still on a first number basis," I said.
2B3 shrugged. "1A1 means the same thing as Your Royal Highness and it's a damned sight easier to say!"
"And it isn't like I know your name either," I said. "However, I'd like to know how Stormie found out mine."
"I met your parents," Stormie said, as she seated herself in the one chair in the room.
"What?" I almost yelled; almost, because I remembered where I was before I engaged my vocal cords.
"Hey, I wanted to get samples of their DNA. How else was I going to do that?"
"And I suppose you told them their long since incinerated daughter was now the queen."
"I did, but they told me to shut up and get out, well, your mum did anyway. I can't say I blame them though. It isn't as if their daughter took time out in these last few months to go and visit them, and let them know she had survived."
"As heartless as it may sound, I wasn't sure I was going to," I admitted. "I was trying to not get them involved with this hectic and dangerous life of mine. Nor was I sure what they would think of me now I'm a Hellite. Anyway, I kept putting off the decision. Now, thanks to you, I don't have much choice in the matter, as they will be plagued by the possibility I survived and will get no peace until they verify it for themselves. I may as well go show them their granddaughter, too. I presume you also told them that I was a Hellite?"
"I did, but I think they were too busy noticing I was a Hellite to absorb that detail."
"Noticing, or panicking? You weren't wearing a disguise or clothes, then?"
"No. Why bother? Ponies have to get used to seeing us, sooner or later. Their reaction was more a case of curiosity than terror, so no need to panic about that. Anyway, where's your kid?" Stormy indicated the empty crib.
Allie answered that herself, by partially emerging from under me, her head poking out between my front legs.
"Oh, there she is. She's a lively one, isn't she. So, what are you going to call her? How about Heaven? She could be Heaven Sent!"
"That is so not happening," I said.
"What about Inno?"
"That was my aunt's name. Dad is Con Sent. His dad was Lou. Trust me, the stupid names were a bit of a tradition. Fortunately, my mother named me."
A small voice interrupted us. "My name is Arrie."
The room fell silent, all eyes turned to the small creature that was standing between my legs.
"Am I hearing things, or did the foal just speak?" Stormie asked.
"My name is Arrie," Allie repeated, staring up at Stormie with determination in her eyes.
"She really did speak. Arrie, was it?" Cacha asked.
"Ma?" Allie prompted, her failure at pronunciation bothering her.
"Her name is Allie. She chose it herself," I said. I could feel the foal nodding enthusiastically.
"A self naming foal; that's a first," Stormie said, "but one could argue that Allie the alicorn is as bad as Inno Sent."
"I am still Arr... Arl... Allie," the foal insisted. "Ponies will call me dat eben if it ithn't my name."
"I think you have given birth to a genius," Cacha said.
"Of that, I have no doubt," I said. "So, Stormie, what did your investigations turn up?"
"May I remind you that this is all meant to be queen's eyes only ," 2B3 said as she closed the door.
"May I remind you that those present know of this, or are the direct result of it," I said.
"I can cast a curtain of silence around this room if it would make you feel better," Stormie offered.
"Please do," 2B3 said. A paranoid changeling to the last, this 2B3 was.
Stormie returned to the closed door, touching her horn to it. From that point, a pearlescent sheen spread, creeping along the wall, spreading to the ceiling, floor and other walls, until the whole room shimmered. As the sheen grew, the noise penetrating our room from outside dropped until we were left in a room totally silent, apart from the noise we were making. Suddenly our breathing became notably audible, as did every rustle, gurgle or other noise our bodies made.
Apart from these audible annoyances, the effect was really quite pretty - and a much more suitable wall covering for royalty!
"So, who was Pearles Sent?" Cacha asked, staring at the subtle rainbow effects of the spell.
"Grandma. Spelled it Pearl though. It was her name before she married into the madness."
"Done. Now we can speak," Stormie announced.
"What about her?" 2B3 pointed a hoof at Cacha.
"2B3, give it a rest, would you. First, Cacha is CIBO, which is a higher rank than you, and she is my constant companion, so if you don't tell her, I will; queen's prerogative, and all that. You need to remember that the political structure has changed. The former changeling queen no longer has a say in matters. Her old goals are irrelevant. She cannot punish you for breaking her old laws. What I say is what matters, and as such, I command you to accept that everypony in this room is privy to this discussion. All five ponies in this room. Cause me any more trouble and I will revoke your status and turn you over to Queen Kakuun to deal with." It wasn't much of a threat, but maybe, just maybe this silly changeling would respect changeling authority even if she didn't respect mine.
"Uh... I'm not a pony..."
"You look like one at the moment, so close enough. Now, please proceed. Did you show Stormie your work, as per my instructions?"
"I did," 2B3 said. Good. At least she had obeyed me.
"Stormie?" I asked. I expected some serious answers from her. Stormie was an expert at genetics and modifiers, after all.
"Do you have any idea about how reproduction works, at a cellular level?" Stormie asked.
"I have enough of an idea. Covered it at school, in sex education classes. Each of a mare's chromosome pairs is split, one of each pair ending in the egg. Same goes for the stallion and his sperm. The two combine, creating a new set of pairs, the result being a fertilized egg."
"That's good enough for this discussion. What the changelings did was to remove these pairs from a fertilized egg, and replace them with the pairs retrieved from an old cell taken from genetic samples of the last alicorn they had access to. They prepared hundreds of eggs like this, allowing to them to start maturing, then freezing the successful ones until they were needed."
"Those samples would be a few hundred years old, wouldn't they?" I asked.
"Correct, and every last one of the genetic samples, thus embryos, suffered damage. Some could grow a little longer than others before they would abort, but ultimately they were all non-viable."
"And one of these damaged embryos was implanted in my uterus, wasn't it?"
"Yes, you already know I implanted the clone embryo in you," 2B3 said, "and it vanished. I could find no trace of it. I concluded your body had totally rejected it, or the modifiers had destroyed it."
"So, you wrote me off for termination..."
"Yes," 2B3 said in a voice so soft that it would have been inaudible if not for Stormie's curtain of silence blocking out any masking noise from outside.
"But that clearly wasn't the end of it," Stormie stated. "You did give birth to an alicorn, and there is nowhere else that those alicorn genes could have come from."
"It isn't as simple as that, though is it? What color was the old queen? She can't have been identical to me."
"She was a very dark purple in color. Her mane was paler, and was probably what she was named for," 2B3 said.
"So what 2B3 and I have concluded is that your modified body recognized the significance of the embryo, tore it apart, and replaced all the damaged sections with DNA from you. It may have even done it the other way around, and created a new embryo from your own DNA, splicing in the parts relevant to an alicorn," Stormie said.
"That sounds very convenient, to the point it is hard to believe," I said.
"It may have been extraordinary luck, but we don't think so. 2B3 and I have discussed it in depth, even going as far as to have another look at the Hellite modifiers. We think it was a built in contingency, an automated back-up plan programmed into the modifiers in the first place. 2B3 tried impregnating you for something like that reason."
"Explain."
"I found some old writings on the subject, suggesting that the use of a Hellspawn as a surrogate was a viable emergency measure, although the details were missing. All I had was an overview, and an excerpt. What I believed would happen was that your body would be able to take a viable alicorn embryo to full term, where as it would have a much greater chance of failure in any other type of surrogate. I did not know my embryos were damaged. I did not know your body could correct that damage," 2B3 said.
"So when the damaged embryo vanished, you assumed failure."
"Quite so."
"So, Stormie, what did you conclude from all of your DNA samples? If you were sampling my parents, you must have been looking pretty closely at them."
"I think your body made a clone of you. Little Allie is a replica of you in most respects, only the critical alicorn genes having been used in her genetic makeup."
"So, ultimately, she really is my own foal?" I asked.
"Yes, even more so than if you had bred normally," Stormie said.
"Thank Luna for that! One thing does puzzle me though," I said. "If Hellite bodies can correct genetic damage, how is it that the genetics for the sexless continue to propagate?"
"I think it is because those embryos are viable. A live foal will result, even if it has undesirable genetic traits."
"I am sorry, but theories are all we can offer you in the way of an explanation. Too much information has been lost to us over the years," 2B3 said, "but there is absolutely no doubt that the foal is the result of my experiment. That she will, one day, become the queen is a more fitting fate than the one Iridescence had planned for her. Now, if you will allow it, 1A1, I would like to resign from my position and take up duties that are less stressful."
"You will retain your rank and ID," I said, "and with it the responsibility to maintain your silence, however, you are free to seek out a new career, or take on a family, assuming you don't already have one. You will leave us with a method of contacting you, should we need to."
"Thank you, Your Majesty," 2B3 said, bowing, before she turned and opened the door, dispelling Stormie's curtain of silence in the process. She hadn't called me 1A1 that time.
"Oh look, the door's open now," a familiar voice said. An orange maned, yellow head poked through the doorway. "I'm told there is a pony called Aneki Sent in this room. Oh, there you are!" The voice became one of pure delight, and the stallion to whom it belonged almost skipped into the room. "You really are alive!"
"Hi, Dad. The rumors of my incineration have been greatly exaggerated, although, as you can see, my coat is somewhat blacker than it used to be."
"As if that matters. Our daughter is alive! Hang on while I fetch your mother!"