The Study of a Winning Pony

by Ponibius

Another Door Opens

I really wish there was a book that helped explain what I had come to to talk to Ditzy Doo about. Unfortunately, neither the library or Ponyville's bookstore had any books that dealt with the issue at hoof. It seemed that the subject of telling some mare you were only casual friends with that you believed your older brother was the father of her child wasn't a common enough topic to warrant its own bookshelf. For one of the few times in my life, books had failed me.

Shame I couldn't really find a justification for delaying telling Ditzy who Dinky's father was. Not when I had just about as good an opportunity as I was going to get to tell her, what with Sparkler and Dinky still in Canterlot. Once they had come back it was going to be much harder to meet Ditzy without the risk of one of her kids overhearing us. It wasn't hard for me to imagine that Ditzy would want to tell Dinky under very controlled circumstances who her sire was, and that time wasn't going to be when she was still digesting the news. So that meant that now was the time to tell her, even if this was one of the last conversations I wanted to have.

Taking one last moment to steel my resolve, I knocked on the nice, thick, reinforced front door of Ditzy's home.

"It's open!" I heard from inside. It always struck me as a bit odd to just enter somepony's home without the owner there to actually show you in, but it seemed to be a common enough custom in Ponyville. Maybe that was just one of those differences between Canterlot and Ponyville.

Still, I entered. "Ditzy?" I called out, not seeing anypony.

Ditzy poked her head through the entrance to the kitchen and gave me one of her bubbly smiles. "Hey, Twilight! Come on in! I was just cooking."

I closed the door behind me and made my way to the kitchen. Ditzy was wearing an apron stained with food, and it looked like she had managed to get some batter into her mane. The kitchen was as messy as its cook, and there was a stench of burning that was only barely being covered up by the aroma of muffins coming out of the oven.

"How are you doing?" I asked, trying to sound natural despite what I had come here to talk about.

"Oh, alright." She opened the oven and pulled out some muffins. The fresh wave of baked goods met my nose, and I felt my mouth water. "How about you?"

"I'm doing alright." Not wanting to risk me procrastinating what had brought me here, I dived into the issue at hoof. "Though there was something I wanted to talk to you about—in private, that is."

Ditzy's ears perked. "Okay, um..." She hastily put in another batch of muffins and then played with the temperature. "Alright, I've got an hour on that batch." She led the way to the living room and sat on the couch, while I settled onto a cushion opposite her. "What's going on?"

I took in a long breath before I spoke. "I've found out something that's probably really important to you." I found myself wringing my hooves and made myself stop. "Um, I think I might know who Dinky's father is."

There was a long, pregnant silence between us as we stared at one another. Ditzy's mouth worked for a few seconds before she actually asked, "Beg pardon?"

I took another calming breath. I had charted out the most likely directions this conversation was likely to go and had answers ready for any possible question I could think of given the topic of the conversation. "Last time I was here, I used a spell comparing the DNA of a hair I found on a brush in the bathroom and one of my own. There was a match.”

Ditzy wrinkled her nose in a confused look. "Um ... Twilight, I'm pretty sure you weren't there that night. I mean—the one thing I remember about him was that he was a he. So unless you're keeping some really weird secrets from everypony, I'm pretty sure you aren't Dinky's sire."

"No! I mean, uh—” I applied my hoof to my face as I replayed what I had just said in my head. I could really bad with words sometimes. “I mean there was a close enough match for me to be related to Dinky, but not for me to be the sire.”

Ditzy bit her lip as she mulled that over. “Twilight, could you please ... what are you trying to tell me? Who do you think is my baby's father?”

“I think my big brother,” I said barely louder than a whisper. “His name is Shining Armor. He might be Dinky's father. After listening to your story, I realized that he was going to the same school as you were when Dinky was conceived, and he is a white stallion.”

Ditzy put a hoof over her mouth. “How do ... oh my goodness. Um...” She rubbed at her face. “How do you ...?”

“I admit, it was a pretty long shot it was him, but it kept bothering me and bothering me, and I just had to know for certain either way.” Thinking it might help, I cast an illusion spell to create a life-sized copy of my brother. “This is what he looks like.” I sighed. “Sorry, I know this is a lot to dump on you. I've been working out how best to tell you, but...”

She stared at the image for a long time. Her eyes then widened and she let out a gasp of recognition.

My ears fell as the implications of that reaction took hold. “He looks familiar?”

Ditzy made a small nod, her skin going pale. “I ... oh. I never thought I'd ... I...” She leaned back against the couch, words failing her.

“It's ... yeah.” So there it was, most likely Shiny was Dinky’s father. At least as long as Ditzy’s memory wasn’t completely faulty on this.

“How did you ... I mean, how sure are you?” Ditzy asked.

“Fairly,” I said, fighting against the queasiness rolling in my stomach. “I only got to check with a hair. To be absolutely sure, I would have to use the spell with Dinky.”

“It's ... oh my goodness.” Ditzy pinched herself. I didn’t blame her for making sure this wasn’t a dream. I half-expected I would be waking up and finding out this was just the result of eating something that didn't agree with me at any moment. “I never thought I'd .... oh my goodness.”

“You're telling me,” I said with a sigh. “I never imagined a scenario like this. It’s so surreal.”

“You’re telling me,” Ditzy said, echoing my own words. She shook out her head. “I mean, I always wanted to know, just ... well, just because, but I never thought I would. It has been so long since I’ve had Dinky, that...” She suddenly stood up and trotted to the kitchen. Before I could ask her what she was doing, she pulled out an expensive-looking bottle of wine and a couple of glasses, then returned to the living room and promptly filled the glasses. “Sorry, I normally don’t drink, but I really need something to steady my nerves right now. This is just too much.”

“I completely understand, trust me.” I rubbed my foreleg, feeling decidedly uncomfortable. “I can understand why you would want to know. Why I came to you about this instead of … I don't know, covering it up.”

“Thank you for that. Really, I—thank you.” She took a long swig of her wineglass and then refilled it. “This is huge for me. You could have gotten away without telling me, but you did the right thing, and that means so, so much to me.” She blinked a couple of times. “Oh my goodness, she's your niece.”

I smiled sheepishly. “It hasn’t quite sunk in for me yet. Normally there is an eleven month period where you get to adjust to this type of information, and most of my thinking has been on what to tell you and Shiny.”

“I can understand that.” Ditzy sipped at her wineglass more conservatively than at first. “I'm used to her being a part of my life. Sort of a necessity, given, but you're not.”

“No.” I looked down at the floor, the sense of shame that had been building up in me now becoming too much. “I've been an aunt all this time, and I didn't even know about it. All those moments I missed out on. Birthdays, hearing her when she first started to talk, all of that.”

Ditzy got up and trotted over to me. She sat down and wrapped a reassuring wing around me. “Hey, I don’t blame you. I can see how much this is tearing you up, but you don’t need to beat yourself up over it. Really.”

I sniffed and rubbed at one of my eyes. “I guess, but now it's out there. I’ve said the most important thing I needed to say.”

“I guess so, yeah.” She gave me a comforting squeeze with her wing. “Are you okay?”

“I haven't had a panic attack ... over the last twenty-four hours,” I said weakly, trying to add some kind of levity to the conversation. “So I guess I’m holding up.”

Ditzy made a weak snicker. “So is that why you spent half an hour in the bathroom?”

I sighed and nodded. “Maybe a little.”

“I think I can let it go this one time.” She gave me a playful nudge.  “How exactly did you test it? I just want you to walk me through this so that I can understand it. It feels like I’m walking on quicksand here.”

I felt some relief over getting back to some familiar territory. Explaining how a spell worked was a far less troublesome topic than what we had been talking about. "The spell I was using detects how strong the blood relationship is between the target and everypony in the target area. The spell can be used in a number of ways, but one way to do it is for the target to glow if there is a link. The strength of the glow shows how closely related the two subjects are."

Ditzy hummed as she rubbed her chin. "So if I could get you more of Dinky's mane, you could do it again?"

"I could," I confirmed. "It isn't that hard to do."

"I'll be right back." Ditzy got up and trotted further into the house. I waited patiently until she returned with a manebrush with a set of golden hairs. "Okay, could you show me, please? I need to see it for myself."

I couldn't blame her for wanting to see the spellwork. It would probably seem more real to her seeing the spell in action than me merely telling her it I’d done it. "Right. It's pretty simple." I gently took the brush from her and then plucked out some of the golden hairs. "All I need to do is take these hairs, then include everything in the area to be checked for genetic similarities like so." I cast the spell while using the hairs as a focus. Both Ditzy and I took on a magenta glow, though Ditzy's glow was stronger than my own.

She looked herself over before returning her attention to me. "Okay, what am I looking at, exactly? Sorry, I don't know much about magic."

"The strength of the glow is relative to how much genetic material we have in common with Dinky's hairs," I said, repeating what I had told her before. While it could be annoying to have to repeat yourself, I couldn't blame her for being a bit frazzled. The little incident in Ditzy's bathroom was an embarrassing example of what this news had done to me. Besides, a calm rational explanation of the mechanics of a spell was making me feel better in its own way. "Since you're her mom, you have a strong connection, while as her ... aunt, I have a pretty strong link too. Now see what happens when I make you the focus of the spell."

I cast the spell on Ditzy this time, and only Dinky's hair glowed. Ditzy covered her mouth with a hoof, utterly speechless at the display.

"I'm not going too fast, am I?" I asked after the silence grew uncomfortably long. "I can explain everything again if you want me to, or answer any other questions you might have."

She shook her head. "No, that’s okay. I'm just trying to take this all in."

"Fair enough." I dropped the spell so that the glowing of the spell wouldn't be a distraction. "I know it took me a while to absorb it all."

"I..." Ditzy shook her head, this time out of disbelief. "I don't know what to say."

"You and me both." I took my wine glass and sipped at it while I gathered my thoughts. "I wrote a letter to my brother telling him that I wanted to talk to him, and asking when would be a good time for a visit."

Ditsy nodded. "And I need to figure out where to start telling Dinky about all of this. Sparkler too, for that matter." She pinched herself again, then moved to pinching her other leg, and then finally her cheek. "Ow. I should stop doing that. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be waking up now."

I couldn't help but chuckle. "If this was a dream, you probably would have woken up by now. Especially when you suspected that this might be a dream.”

Ditzy snorted. "Probably, yeah. Although there was the one time with the massive pony-eating muffin I ... um, well, never mind." She smiled sheepishly.

“Right, we better stay on task for now, and come up with what we're going to do next,” I said.

“Right, right.” Ditzy leaned her head back against the back of the couch and rubbed the sides of her head. “So, what comes next?”

“I'm figuring it would be best if I talked to Shiny about the situation before you get around to having you and Dinky meet him,” I said. “You know, to help keep this from becoming more of a drama-filled incident than it already is going to be.” Having Dinky run up to give him a hug while yelling ‘Daddy!’ was probably not the best way to tell him that he was a father. I could only imagine how hard this was going to be to explain to Dinky. No doubt she had always been curious about who her sire was. What kid wouldn't be under her circumstances? Of course, that underlined how important this was to make sure we got this right.

“That would give me some time to figure out what to say to Dinky, and when I should say it.” She cleared her throat. “I mean, I don't know what he has going on, but this would bring anything to a screeching halt.”

“That’s why I want to tell him in person instead of with a letter.” I was going to guess that telling somepony that they were a father in a letter was less than ideal. I may not be the most socially savvy pony alive, but I can guess the basics.

“Good idea.” Ditzy opened her mouth as though to say something, but then closed it. “Um ... well, never mind.”

“What?” I asked. “Not like we're keeping secrets at this juncture.”

Ditzy made a conceding nod. “She's going to want to meet him. Maybe not right away, but someday. Is-is that a good idea? He's—I mean, that's a hay of a big request.”

“I'm pretty sure he will once he knows he's a father.” Once he was done having a heart attack, panic attack, or whatever sort of attack he’s going to have when I tell him the truth. “He's a good guy, trust me.”

Ditzy gave me a small, hesitant smile. “He sounds like it, the way you talk about him.”

“He is Captain of the Royal Guard, and my BBBFF,” I said. “He’s one of the ponies I trust the most in the whole world.”

“Captain of the—” Ditzy blinked in dumbfoundment before she covered her face with her hooves with a groan. “We’re going to have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Um, you okay, Derpy?” I was beginning to worry I might finally have dumped too much on the poor mare. It would look really bad if I ended up driving poor Ditzy into shock through too many major revelations, and raise all sorts of awkward questions about what exactly I had been doing with her.

Ditzy blinked a couple more times. “Yes! Sorry, yes.”

That decided upon, I decided to move onto one of the next points I wanted to bring up. “I'm sure my family can arrange to get you a bit more money to help raise Dinky, whatever happens. Even if—I don’t know. You and Shiny have difficulties due to everything.”

There was another long pause of silence as Ditzy shuffled in her seat. “That's very generous of you,” she said slowly.

As I worried might be an issue, Ditzy was probably reluctant to accept financial help after all this time. There were at least a couple reasons I could think of for that. “I know it couldn't have been easy to raise her alone, but I would like to make sure the two of you—well, three counting Sparkler—are alright financially at least.”

“Well, I had a lot of help,” She said modestly. “Rainbow, Cloud Kicker, Fluttershy, my brother, my parents...” Her gaze shifted to staring at the floor.

I frowned. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No! No, you're very, very sweet. It's...” Ditzy fiddled with her hooves before continuing. “I know I should say yes, and thank you for it. I just—I don't know how to put this.”

My ears wilted. “You don't want the money? Because of ... issues,” I ended lamely.

Ditzy’s eyes widened. “No! Yes! I—” She sighed as she recollected herself. “It's not about money. I'll accept whatever's fair, but I don't want it to be about money, or make it look like I’m trying to take advantage of the situation by squeezing money out of your family.”

“I think I can understand that,” I said. “Some ponies would take advantage of this type of situation now that I think about it.” Certainly there was a history of mares whom had been through whatever circumstances found themselves with the foal of an important noblepony and had proceeded to ride it for all it was worth.

Ditzy nodded. “And I really, really don't want to seem like I'm doing that.”

“We'll work something out once we've settled the more immediate issues,” I assured her.

“I want the best for my children, but I also only want what's fair,” Ditzy said firmly. “You've already given me so much, even before all of this. Your time and talent and patience for Dinky and her lessons... It means a lot to me.”

I smiled as the memories of Dinky’s lessons came back. “She has been a really good student.”

Ditzy smiled back. “She's had a very generous teacher. Really, I should be paying you for that. Instead...” She chuckled self-consciously.

I waved dismissively. “I don't need the money, trust me.” I suppressed a twinge of guilt over having led such a relatively carefree life in comparison to Ditzy. Sure, I had all my reports and assignments to do, and defeating evil now and again wasn’t exactly a vacation either, but those things were very different from raising two kids while working a full-time job every week. It wasn’t a big deal if I really wanted to take an afternoon off to hang out with my friends or read a good book. You couldn’t drop everything when you had kids to take care of. “And besides, I like teaching her.”

A maternal smile worked its way onto Ditzy’s lips. “And she loves learning from you, she really does. Sparkler, too. And I guess it's a little redundant now, but you're always welcome to come over and see her.”

I chuckled. “Thanks, that ... means a lot to me.”

“Of course.” She echoed my own chuckle. “Still, the door's always open.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” I said. “So, is there anything else we need to talk about? I think that covers all the big stuff I wanted to talk about.”

“Probably lots and lots of details, but those can come later.” Ditzy tilted her head as she tapped at her chin. “I guess there's one thing for right now.” Her smile widened as she pointed at some photo albums sitting on a nearby bookshelf. “Would you like to see what Dinky was like when I brought her home?”

I smiled as Ditzy made her gesture of kindness. “I think I would.”

Ditzy got up to retrieve the photo albums. “She was the most adorable little thing as a foal. Oh! And you should see the photos we took from her first birthday. I think there was more cake on her than ever got into her tummy.”

I relaxed as the tension of our talk subsided. At least that was one huge step to fixing this big mess. As long as no other big incidents came up over the next couple of weeks, I might even be able to get a firm handle on this problem.

“My brother is getting married in a few days!” I screamed at Ditzy as she tried to deliver the mail to the library.

Ditzy blinked in surprise and took a couple steps away from the library door. She nearly tripped on her mailbag and hopped a couple of steps to keep from falling over. “Um ... good morning to you too?”

“Sorry! Sorry!” I stepped away from the door, and shook my head. “I just found out today. Today! And the wedding is just a few days away!” I went about pacing around the library, my steam getting built up with every step. “You would think that as his little sister, my big brother would go through the trouble of telling me that he's getting married! Or even dating for that matter! Or that I'm going to have to do all the planning! He didn’t even have the decency to tell me himself, or even with a letter! No, he let a third party in Princess Celestia give me the news! I wouldn’t even have known there was a wedding and that I was organizing it if not for her! Oh, did I mention that I’m going to have to all of the said planning at the last minute! You’re supposed to get months to plan a wedding! Not three bucking days! Especially not for a royal wedding! This would feel like a joke if this wasn’t actually happening!”

Ditzy’s mouth was agape as she watched me pace the room. “Why don't you sit down? Um...” She hastily stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

“Sit down!?” I stepped over to her and pressed my muzzle to hers. “I have a train to catch, a wedding to plan, and an explanation to get from my big doofus of a brother who can't be bothered to tell me who this Mi Amore Cadenza he’s marrying is!”

“Twilight. Twilight!” Ditzy grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “Start at the beginning. You’re talking a thousand words a minute, and I’m not getting anything you’re saying. So please take a nice, long breath and explain to me what’s going on.”

I did as she asked me to, and took in the nice, long breath to steady myself. Counting to ten first, I said, “I was just hanging out with my friends for a picnic when Spike came with a letter from Princess Celestia. It said that Shiny was getting married to some Princess Cadenza in a royal wedding. And it's in just a few days, but this is the first I've even heard of it.”

“Um. Wow.” Ditzy rubbed the back of her neck. “Congratulations?”

“I guess,” I grumbled. “It would feel a lot better if I at least knew who he was marrying, or had gotten any kind of real advanced warning. If not for Princess Celestia, I have to wonder if I wouldn’t have found out about the wedding until the day before.”

“I guess I can understand that,” Ditzy hedged.

“Shame that makes a whole bunch of other things more complicated.” I let out a sigh before meeting Ditzy’s eyes. “Now what am I going to do where you and Dinky are concerned? Should I tell him right before his own wedding that he's a father? That sounds like a terrible idea, but so does telling him afterwards. I don’t see a winning scenario here.”

Ditzy winced. “Um ... please don't? If he's getting married, now's really, really not the best time to say it. I don’t want to be known as a homewrecker, or for him to think I’m trying to take advantage of him by dragging Dinky out during a time like this.”

I frowned, a dozen thoughts battling to get my full attention. “But what about you and Dinky?”

Ditzy gave me a reassuring smile and wrapped a wing around my back. “You're so sweet. Thanks—really, thank you. But we've gone this long, and I think he'd understand if you put it off for a while. Maybe not forever—that's ... well...” She shuffled in place. “I just don't want to come out of the blue this close to that, you know? No sense ruining his wedding on top of everything else. This is going to be hard enough as is. He could easily think I'm attacking him or something, and his fiancee... yeah, I don't want to do that to her. No mare should have her wedding ruined like that.”

My shoulders slumped as I thought over her arguments. “Maybe you're right.”

“There's a time and a place for it, but now's not the time,” she stated simply.

I rubbed at my face as I tried to slow down my thoughts and grasp onto something more concrete. “So when is the time?”

“I don't know. I'm a little new to being a homewrecker.” After a second, she added, “Okay, that's not entirely true, strictly speaking, but...”

I shook my head. “That was never your intention. I understand.”

“Never in a million years,” Ditzy agreed. “Like I said last time: I want what's fair. But fair isn't ruining a marriage that hasn't even gotten started yet because of things that happened years ago.”

I groaned and nodded. “This is a mess.”

She gave me a sheepish smile. “Sorry.” The library was quiet for a long moment. I think both of us were thinking of how to proceed. Though now that I thought about it, I had kind of brought Ditzy’s mail rounds to a screeching halt. Oops.

“Maybe ... maybe we should meet your parents sometime?” Ditzy suggested. “After the wedding,” she added hastily. “So it doesn't ruin it for them, but I think if we both talked to them, we could work something out?”

It took me a few seconds to really comprehend what she might be suggesting. “You mean secretly? Without my brother knowing?”

“For now, at least.” Ditzy lifted her wing off of me so that she could face me. “I hate to go behind his back, but it wouldn't be fair to his fiancee if he knew about it now—even privately. This isn’t something you just dump on somepony. Especially during a time like this.”

“Maybe,” I allowed reluctantly. “But I don't like the idea of hiding this.”

“Me neither, but...” Ditzy searched for the right thing to say. “Well, do you have a better way of going about it?”

I sighed and shook my head. “I’m afraid I don’t at the moment.”

“That's why I think we should talk to your parents—to get a better feel for that. Between you and them we should be able to get a pretty good sounding board on what to do next.”

I hesitantly nodded to the suggestion. “That might not be a bad idea. At the very least you will get some money to help you out.”

Ditzy rubbed back of her head. “That's fair. I'll trust you to do the right thing. Maybe one day, Dinky could meet them too.”

I gave her an encouraging smile. “I'm sure they would like to. Especially when Shiny and I are getting into that stage of life where the parents ask when they’re going to get their grandfoals.”

Ditzy chuckled and returned with her own small smile. “She'd love them. Hay, she loves you, and as far as she knows, you're still just her tutor.” She rubbed her chin as she thought. “A few months from now, maybe? Three, six—something like that? That would give us a little more time to plan, and think about just what the hay we'd say to them.”

“Maybe a couple months for my parents,” I allowed. I didn’t want to procrastinate on this forever, which was something I worried Ditzy might be inclined to do. Not to mention keeping this secret bottled up inside of me was likely to make me explode at some point.
 
Ditzy nodded. “We'll keep in touch, then. Dinky still loves learning from you, so it's not like we couldn't anyway, right?”

“We can make it work, I'm sure,” I agreed.

Ditzy hugged me and I returned it. “It'll be fine, okay?”

“I guess,” I said, not feeling as sure as I was trying to make myself sound. “It's just that it has been crazy as of late.”

Ditzy gave me one of her bubbly smiles. “As opposed to Ponyville on any other day .... how?”

I chuckled. “True.”

Ditzy dug into her saddlebags and pulled out a muffin that she offered to me. “Muffin? I find they always help after a rough day. It's banana-nut. Dinky's favorite.” Her mouth spread into a maternal smile. “She made it.”

I smiled and took the muffin. “A muffin sounds great.” I bit into it and hummed with enjoyment. “Mmm, this is good.”

“See? A little better already,” Ditzy said.

“It's hard not to feel a bit better after eating something so delicious,” I point out, taking another bite.

“The trick's to mix white and brown sugar, half and half. And to add a little love.”

“I wasn't aware love was an ingredient,” I said with a grin.

Ditzy snicked. “No, it's just a nice idea.”

Once I was done eating the muffin, I hugged her. “Thanks, for everything.”

“Any time, Twilight.” She squeezed as she returned my hug. “Or should that be Aunt Twilight?”

I smiled as my heart felt lighter. “Aunt Twilight works.”