In hindsight, I really should’ve seen the ambush coming. I can only blame the mistake on being emotionally worn out from how crazy the last few days had been. That, and the fact that my Aunt chose the most innocuous and naturally tempting bait imaginable.
She’d shown up at my house in the morning and offered to take me out to breakfast. Like any half-awake pony with an empty stomach, I didn’t ask too many questions when somepony showed up at my front door offering free food. She said something about how we hadn’t seen each other for a while and this would be a good chance to catch up, and I nodded along while trying to decide whether I wanted pancakes or waffles. Considering my usual breakfast whenever Eepy wasn’t staying overnight was an egg with cheese on a slice of toast, the prospect of something nicer lulled me into going along with her evil scheme.
We met up with Uncle Typhoon at a nice open-air cafe, made all the nicer because Rainbow had scheduled pleasant, sunny weather for the day. I wasted no time ordering the first full Canterlot-style breakfast I’d had in years: eggs, haybacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, baked beans, pancakes, hash browns, and a fruit cup. I cleaned my plate before my aunt and uncle were even halfway done with their own much more modest meals. I blame it on the pregnancy. Eating for two, and all that.
Once I was nice and relaxed with a full belly to lure me into her evil scheme, Aunt Wind made her move. It started with a polite smile and seemingly innocent question. “So, Cloud, is there anything new going on with you? It’s been too long since we’ve had a chance to visit, and I’m sure all kinds of things have been happening.”
I was about to answer when I caught the knowing gleam in her eyes and the mischievous smirk on her lips. I groaned and buried my face in my hooves. “Seriously? Dad couldn’t keep his mouth shut about it for one day?!”
Aunt Wind chuckled and sipped her tea. “Your father has never been very good at keeping things secret from me.”
“Tor tried,” Uncle Typhoon offered in my father’s defense. “Held out for nearly fifteen minutes, but Wind’s rather relentless when she sets her mind to something. Though she was down to just guessing at random and hoping she lucked out when he cracked. He twitched when she asked if you were pregnant. Hard not to when he’d just found out.”
“Ah.” I snatched away a bite of my aunt’s waffles to punish her for her prying. “So ... yeah. That’s the big news. I’ve got something that could one day be a kid in me.”
Aunt Wind nodded thoughtfully, leaning back in her chair. “How do you feel about that?”
I answered her with a suspicious glare. “That’s an awful ... psychologist-y question to ask. I’m pretty sure there are rules about not using your psychological powers on members of your own family. You’ll drive us all crazy. Just look at how Star and Storm turned out.”
She rolled her eyes in response to my perfectly reasonable point. “Cloud, stop trying to trick me into changing the subject. Also, for the record, I’m not giving you therapy right now. I’m just talking to my niece about a major, life-changing event. Like any aunt would.” She paused, and her gaze turned piercing. “Though I do find it interesting that you’re bringing up the idea of therapy without any prompting from me. Almost as if you feel like you need it. If you’d like, I could give you several good recommendations...”
I waved off her offer with a smarmy grin. “Nah, I don't need therapy. I prefer to deal with my numerous personality issues like normal ponies: lots of denial mixed with some deeply unhealthy coping mechanisms. Mostly sex. Lots and lots of sex with beautiful ponies.” I tapped my chin thoughtfully. “Which I suppose means that if I was mentally healthier, I would have less sex. Doesn’t give me much of an incentive to fix my issues, does it?”
Aunt Wind answered me with a flat look, her tone taking up a level of maternal firmness she usually reserved for whenever Star and Storm were picking on each other too much. “Cloud, I know when you're avoiding a topic.”
Damn, she was on to me. “You're not gonna let me slip out of this one, are you?”
My aunt nodded. “Normally I might indulge you for a bit, but a pregnancy is a bit too important to let you get away with your usual shenanigans. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you prefer to avoid difficult topics rather than confront them. Frankly, it’s past time you learned that running from your problems usually just makes them worse.”
“Really?” I shot back defiantly. “Since when have I avoided my problems?” I knew perfectly well what she meant, but I saw an opportunity to derail the conversation again. Avoiding discussing my problems by starting an argument about whether I avoid discussing my problems. Truly, I was a diabolical mastermind.
With typical Kicker stubbornness, my aunt argued the point. “It would have saved all of us a lot of grief if we had talked about you going to West Hoof and joining the Guard before you attended the academy. Or if you had come to us about your own doubts before doing something rash like leaving in the middle of your graduation ceremony.” She sighed and shook her head. “To be quite honest, I think it’s time you opened up more with us. We’re your family and we want to help you, but we can’t if you won’t tell us when you have a problem. Why won’t you ever communicate with us?”
I shrugged, mostly because I didn’t feel like spelling out the actual answer. The thing was, whenever I’d tried that in the past all I got out of it was my twentieth lecture on all the ways I wasn’t good enough, which Mom seemed to believe was some sort of helpful advice on how I could address my numerous inadequacies as a daughter. She always seemed mystified by the fact that I didn’t like the ‘Here’s how you could be slightly less disappointing to me’ lectures I got whenever I told her about ... well, pretty much anything. Was it really that big of a surprise that I wasn’t too eager to open up after putting up with that for my entire childhood?
Aunt Wind continued on, channeling some of that good old Mom-ly judgement and condemnation. “At the very least, if you’d talked to us we could have come up with a solution that would have made you happy and probably have smoothed a lot of the ruffled feathers your abrupt departure caused.”
I shrugged again. “I guess.” I was starting to regret changing the subject. Sure, it had gotten me out of discussing my pregnancy, but this wasn’t exactly an improvement.
“We all make mistakes,” my aunt reassured me with a pat on the shoulder. “That's part of life. The best we can do is learn from them.”
I nodded and tried to close the subject with a bit of snark. “That’s what I try to do. Making the same mistakes over and over gets boring after a while.”
Aunt Wind smiled, apparently immune to my charm. “That’s why we're asking you to talk to us. You know we want what's best for you.”
I frowned, not exactly wild about her choice of words. “Excuse me, but what exactly makes you so sure you know what's best for me? I think I can make my own calls on that.”
My aunt met my gaze patiently, and waited several seconds before continuing, keeping her voice carefully calm and level. “Nopony here is trying to tell you what to do, Cloud. All I want to do is help you figure out what's best for you. We all know that this is your body, and how you handle your pregnancy is your decision. We're just here to help you make the right choice.”
“Let me guess,” I snapped back, “‘the right choice’ is the one you want me to make? Seems to be what everypony means when they say that. Everypony seems to be so eager to ‘help’ me by telling me what I should do.”
Aunt Wind’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Cloud, that isn’t very—”
Uncle Typhoon pointedly cleared his throat, cutting her off. “Even Honored Shadow needed counsel now and again. She listened to what everypony had to say, even the ones who had a strong opinion and wanted to tell her what to do. Then she made her own decision.”
I looked between the two of them for a bit, and started to realize that I’d probably jumped on them a bit too aggressively. I was just ... well, I could blame the hormones, but that wasn’t it. It just felt like everypony wanted to tell me what to do ever since I’d gotten pregnant, like how Fluttershy and Blossom had both jumped on me when I talked about not having the kid. Maybe I was being a little oversensitive, but everything had just happening so far. It had only been ... what, a few days since I’d found out? In any case, I should probably wait to see if my aunt and uncle were actually trying to be controlling before I went off on them for doing so. “Fine. I'll hear you out.”
Aunt Wind’s answering smile was a bit strained. “Thank you.” She took a couple deep breaths, and it slowly became more genuine. “So ... how are you feeling about the big news?”
I took a couple calming breaths too before I answered. “Still kinda...” My hoof circled vaguely in the air as I struggled to describe everything running through my head. “It's ... it’s just so big.”
She nodded and murmured sympathetically. “I think I understand how you feel. I've been there twice myself, and it took me a long time to wrap my head around the idea when I found out I was pregnant with Storm. And that was ... well, not as unexpected as this was for you. I suppose Star would be a bit of a closer parallel.” She sighed and shook her head, chuckling to herself. “As Storm is so fond of reminding her sister, Star was something of an accident. Not that it makes me love her any less, but I would have liked more than a few months to recover in between pregnancies. Waking up in the middle of the night to take care of a newborn is hard enough when you’re not carrying another child.”
I winced at the idea. I was certainly having an ugly enough time dealing with off-and-on morning sickness, and I knew from helping out Derpy that things were only going to get worse. The idea of putting up with all of that while also having to take care of a screaming foal was ... well, it explained why Aunt Wind didn’t have any more kids after those two.
My aunt chuckled and shook her head. “In any case, we were very happy when we found out I was carrying Storm.” She took Uncle Typhoon’s hoof and smiled at him. “Though I admit we were both very nervous about the whole thing. Having a foal is a massive responsibility, and I was worried I wouldn’t be up to the challenge. It just felt like there were a thousand and one ways things could go wrong. I suspect my training actually made things worse for me in that regard.”
My uncle shot her a teasing smirk. “Always worrying one mistake would leave the girls with some kind of problems. Like a hypochondriac, except it was with our daughters and worrying they’d have psychological issues.”
Aunt Wind cleared her throat, her cheeks slightly flushed. “Yes, well, it’s a mother’s duty to worry about her children.”
“Worry, yes,” my uncle agreed. “Seemed like for a while when they were teenagers we couldn’t go a week without one of them having a new diagnosis. Storm having trouble making friends in her first week of high school? Schizoid personality disorder. Star getting into a fight with another filly at school? Antisocial personality disorder. Storm being a bit of a perfectionist? Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. Star is—”
“Thank you, Typhoon,” my aunt growled out, hitting him with a glare that promised many nights sleeping on the couch if he didn’t shut up. Being a fairly intelligent and perceptive stallion, he didn’t say another word.
I swooped in to my uncle’s rescue. “In any case, it seems like you did a decent job with those two. I mean, they’re more lovably eccentric than outright crazy, and they’re both holding down good jobs and acting like functioning adults in most respects.” Even their sibling rivalry was mostly restricted to harmlessly poking fun at each other; the only time it had gotten a bit nuts was when Rainbow, Sparkler, and Twilight had all gotten sucked into it. And even then, it had been a lot of fun to watch from the sidelines.
Aunt Wind smiled and nodded. “I like to think I did a decent job with them. That’s not to say there weren’t some rough patches—having two teenagers under the same roof made that inevitable. Not to mention all the other little problems that cropped up over the years.” Her ears drooped a bit. “I remember one time when Storm had a big ballet performance she’d spent months getting ready for. I was swamped with work that week, and misremembered what time it was. I showed up an hour after they’d finished. Storm was ... very upset.”
“Wouldn’t talk to Wind for a week,” Uncle Typhoon confirmed.
“And of course, I was worried my mistake had ruined our relationship.” She sighed and shook her head. “I made it up to her by buying her a nice dress, then started wondering if I’d set a bad example by trying to buy her forgiveness.” She ran a hoof through her mane and shot me a weary smile. “Fair warning, being a parent means spending a lot of time worrying that you’ll make a mess of things and ruin your children. And that was just Storm; Star added her own list of things to worry about. We were still adjusting to having our first child when we learned that another one was on the way. There were all sorts of complications from having two children so close in age.”
“Not to mention it must've worn you out,” I chimed in. “I mean, Derpy was pretty wiped out after she had Dinky. You'd probably barely gotten over having Storm when Star started growing in your belly.”
Uncle Typhoon grinned and wrapped a wing over my aunt’s shoulders. “Wind wasn't exactly the happiest mare in the world. Kept grumbling about how it was all my fault.”
My aunt grinned and playfully hoofed him on the shoulder. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t have gotten pregnant without your involvement. In any case, you trying popping out one kid after another. I started to feel like some sort of broodmare near the end.”
He just grinned and kissed her on the cheek. “Putting up with Wind’s moods was worth it. We did get two wonderful girls out of it, after all.”
“But then no more kids, ever again,” I smirked at the two of them. “I’m not inclined to think that was a coincidence.” If not for the fact that they were my aunt and uncle, I probably would’ve made some remarks about using protection. But they were, and thinking about them having sex, safe or not, was just weird and gross.
“Two was enough for us,” my aunt agreed. “That's something every parent has to decide for themselves, though. You might be fine with just one, or you might decide you love your children so much you want an entire brood of them.” She chuckled and shook her head. “Not that you can plan everything out to perfection. As I’m sure you’re well aware, you can end up with some unexpected bundles of joy. Once that happens, you have to deal with the consequences. That’s just part of life.”
I hesitated a moment, then brought up the alternative. “Unless you decide you don't want the kid. I mean, it’s not like anypony can force me to carry the kid to term.”
My aunt frowned pensively. “That’s true, yes.” I couldn’t help but note her words were a lot more measured now. “Were you considering not having the child?”
I shrugged, then nodded. “Well, it's not like I planned to have a kid. Or am in a good position to raise one. Or would be very good at the whole motherhood thing. Or even wanted to do any of that right now. Or ... well, you get the idea.”
“Having a child is a huge commitment,” Uncle Typhoon agreed, nodding sympathetically. “Not something you should do unless you’re sure you want to. Be a bad thing to end up resenting your own child because you didn’t want the responsibility of being a parent. Be sure before you decide to go ahead with the pregnancy.”
“Yeah, especially since I don’t think giving the kid away would be an option.” Blossom wasn’t a huge ball of unresolved issues on account of being an orphan, but I was pretty sure she would hit the roof if I suggested putting our kid in the adoption system. For that matter, she’d been pretty strongly opposed to the idea of just not having the kid at all. “So yeah, gotta figure that one out.”
Aunt Wind leaned back in her chair, her eyes measuring me. “Well then, let’s break the issue down and try to find an answer. What’s bothering you the most about the idea of having a child?”
I took a deep breath and tried to figure out what exactly was bothering me the most. I certainly had no shortage of options to choose. Finally, I settled on, “Everything’ll change.”
My aunt nodded. “It certainly will. Having children will redefine your life and add enormous new responsibilities. It can be rather frightening to realize that all the comfortable certainties of your life are suddenly going to be yanked away from you. Your responsibilities, your relationships, your daily routines ... all of it is going to change. So much of your life will revolve around your child, in one way or another.”
I sighed and shook my head. “Yeah, I saw all that with Derpy. Kinda made me even less enthusiastic about the whole motherhood thing when I see how she’s been handling it. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a great mom, but now she’s panicking over the idea that her kids are growing up because that means one day they won’t need her anymore.” I ran a hoof through my mane. “It’s not just about me the ‘raising a kid’ thing either. Everything with Eepy and Blossom'd change, too.”
“Ah.” My aunt’s eyes lit up, and I suspected that if she’d had her psychologist notepad handy she would’ve been busily jotting things down. “You’re right, of course. Having a child together is a massive change for your relationship. It’s a much larger commitment than ... well...”
“Just getting together for wild, passionate sex on a regular basis?” I suggested. “You’re right about that. Thing is, I like what we have. We spend time together, have a blast, and get to keep this nice, happy, uncomplicated dynamic. And have I mentioned how good the sex is?”
“Well...” Wind delicately cleared her throat. “Not to get into too many uncomfortable details, but Typhoon and I have been quite happy with all aspects of our relationship despite having two children and raising them to adulthood. What makes you think that having a foal would threaten what you have with them?”
“‘Cause it’ll complicate things,” I answered, glancing up at the clouds and vainly hoping Rainbow or somepony else would come along and provide a convenient distraction. “They'd wanna move in with me, or maybe even get married.” I’d been privately dreading the prospect that one or both of them would propose to me the next time I saw them. Probably why I’d been semi-avoiding them for the last couple days.
“Why would having them move in with you be such a problem?” my aunt asked, pausing to nibble at her haybacon. “After all, you’ve been with both of them for quite a while now. And in the past you’ve had no issues with them spending the night, or even rather extended stays with you. Didn’t Blossomforth live with you for several weeks that time she caught the feather flu?”
“Yeah, but that was just a temporary thing until she got better.” I struggled to come up with the right words to explain it all. “It’s just, there's a big difference between somepony spending the night or staying over for a bit compared to living with me full-time. We’d have to divide up the closet, and I’ve got a lot of stuff...”
My aunt answered me with a flat, unamused look. “Cloud, you can’t really expect me to believe that this is all about you worrying you won’t have enough room in your closet. What’s the real reason you don’t want them living with you? Are you worried about your relationship? Afraid that moving to something more intimate will cause new problems? Or perhaps existing problems that you’ve been able to ignore so far.”
“What? No! Things are fine with Blossom and Eepy!” I took a moment and tried to make myself sound less defensive. “It’s just ... why rush into things?”
“It’s not as if they were proposing after your third date, Cloud.” My aunt paused to sip her coffee. “You’ve been together for—what was it, two years now? I don’t think very many ponies would consider that rushing. Especially considering you knew them both reasonably well before you even started the relationships.”
“Well, it feels that way to me.” I groaned and ran a hoof down my face. “I mean, we have a perfectly good setup right now. I’m totally, one hundred percent happy with things the way they are. Why does everypony think we need to change our relationship or move on to some sort of arbitrary next stage? Isn’t the whole point of a relationship to be happy together? And if we’re all happy with the status quo...”
“You are happy with the status quo,” my aunt stressed. “Have you sat down with your partners and asked them how they feel? You aren’t the only pony in this relationship, after all. Do they feel the same way about keeping things as they stand? Have you told them why you don’t want to live together? Because I can tell you right now that they will not understand if you don’t explain it. If they think you’re rejecting them...”
“I’m not rejecting them!” I hastily blurted out. “I mean, you of all ponies should understand that. It’s not like you love Uncle Typhoon any less just because you two never got married.”
“That’s true.” Aunt Wind smiled and kissed my uncle on the cheek. “Though admittedly, it’s not like we refused to marry to protest arbitrary social constructs. We just ... never quite got around to it, until we’d put it off for so long that doing it would have felt awkward.” She shrugged, then chuckled to herself. “Honestly, by this point it would ruffle more feathers for us to get married than it would for us to keep things as they are.”
I was about to draw the obvious parallel when she lifted a hoof to cut me off. “The difference is that this is something Typhoon and I discussed repeatedly and have agreed upon. Like I keep trying to tell you, you need to communicate with the ponies in your life. Maybe even make a few compromises instead of insisting on having things your way.”
“What?!” I rose out of my seat, planting my forehooves on the table. “That’s—I compromise all the time! I mean, the whole thing that got me into this mess was when I was feeling nostalgic for a good stallion-bang, and instead of going out and finding one, I went to a lot of trouble to get potions for Blossom and Eepy so—”
“More information than I needed, Cloud,” my aunt quickly cut in. “But that’s just in one area. Surely if you can compromise in the bedroom, you can do so elsewhere. I understand you’re nervous about changing a relationship you think is perfectly fine the way it is, but if your partners don’t agree I would give serious thought to going along with their desires.” She shot me a quick reassuring smile. “I expect they might want to move in with you to help you through what’s going to be a very difficult time in your life. Pregnancies are never easy, and trying to go through it all by yourself isn’t something I would recommend. Would it really be that terrible to have two ponies who love you available for support?”
I sighed, slumping down into my chair. “But that’s part of the whole problem. The pregnancy thing, I mean. Only one of them can be the sire. Well, unless it turns out to be something like me having twins with each of them siring one of the kids, but that sounds like something out of one of those terrible romance novels ponies only read for the steamy bits. Bottom line is, one of them’s the sire and one isn’t. I would like to think I can recognize a future problem before it blows up in my face.”
“It certainly is a complication,” Aunt Wind conceded. “But quite frankly, it’s one you’re going to have to address regardless of what course you choose.”
Uncle Typhoon nodded along, then actually spoke up for the first time in quite a while. “No use crying over spilt milk. Not moving in together won’t stop you from being pregnant. Even getting rid of the foal won’t change the fact that you were pregnant by one of them, and not the other. Can’t avoid the issue forever, unless you never see either of your partners again. Dealing with the issue isn’t something you can avoid—the only thing left to you is to decide how you’re going to deal with it.”
I sighed and reluctantly signalled my concession. “Okay, I get your point. Cat’s out of the bag as far as all the potential jealousy issues go. I guess the only point to be made in favor of not keeping the kid is that it might make it easier for the whole thing to blow over. I mean, if we have the kid around it would be a constant reminder, but ... yeah, not having a kid just for that reason sounds really petty and wrong. Plus it seemed like Blossom and Eepy really want to keep it. Sure, I’m the one carrying it so I get the final call, but...” I nodded to my aunt. “Like you said, if both my partners really want something, I should think very carefully about overruling them. I’d rather not replace jealousy issues with ‘We’re incredibly pissed off at you’ issues.”
Aunt Wind nodded approvingly, leaning back in her chair. “And how does that make you feel? Them wanting to keep the foal despite your own concerns?”
I scowled suspiciously at her. “'How does that make you feel?' That's an awful ... psychologist-y question. And that’s the second time you’ve broken out the head-doc games on me.”
My aunt hit me with another one of her flat looks that probably did wonders at getting Star and Storm to stop horsing around when they were kids. “Cloud, right now I'm your aunt who happens to be a psychologist, not your psychologist who happens to be your aunt. I've already told you this isn't a session. What I'm trying to figure out is how you feel about everything, because I want to help you.”
“Yeah, but you’re using your psychologist tricks to help me.” I tapped my skull. “Trying to get inside my head and stuff.”
Aunt Wind crossed her forelegs over her chest and hit me with the full force of aunt-ly disapproval. “I apologize for caring about your feelings and trying to show consideration for your thoughts about your own deeply personal issues. Please forgive me for loving you and trying to help you during a difficult time.”
“Ouch, right in the guilt trip.” I smirked at my uncle. “I don’t suppose you have any bandages handy? Maybe some ointment for those burns?”
My aunt’s glower turned less annoyed and more speculative. “Cloud, do you always use your attempts at humor as a way to deflect attention from uncomfortable topics?”
“Nah, I’ve got other methods,” I shot back. “But most of them aren’t the kinds of things I could use on my aunt. Though Fluttershy and Blossom find them very distracting.”
“And now you’re trying to deflect me by discussing sex in the hopes that it will make me uncomfortable,” Aunt Wind responded as calmly as if we were discussing the weather. “Why do you try so hard to avoid talking about your problems? Is it just that you're just not used to talking about them with others?”
I shrugged and wished I could still drink cider. Yeah, it was early in the day for alcohol, but I’m allowed to make an exception to the normal rules when my aunt has me pinned underneath a magnifying glass. You’d think there would be a psychologist rule somewhere about not pushing things when the patient doesn’t want them to be pushed. “I like to take care of myself.”
Aunt Wind nodded understandingly. “Of course you do. Your mother was the same way. But like I always told her, just because you can handle everything on your own doesn’t mean you have to. Or that it’s even a good idea. Nopony is an island.” She sighed, then placed one of her hooves on top of mine. “You never felt comfortable discussing your problems with Nimbus, did you? How could you? You’re both fairly private ponies.”
I couldn’t really disagree. “Yeah, Mom was never the kind of pony you went to when you needed somepony to do the whole ‘love and support’ thing. I mean, it’s not like I think she didn’t care or anything, but ... she wasn’t somepony who’d make you a mug of hot chocolate and listen while you got things off your chest.” From my own occasional efforts to reach out to her, she was more inclined to explain exactly how all my problems were my own fault, and a result of my failures as both a pony in general and her daughter in particular.
My aunt wrapped one of her light blue wings around me and sighed. “I noticed. I tried to lend a hoof where I could but ... well, there were boundaries I didn’t want to cross. I wouldn’t have wanted it to look like I was trying to replace Nimbus or imply that she wasn’t doing a good job.” She tucked that wing a bit more tightly around me. “I'm sure that made it hard on you at times. Not being able to ask those questions you really wanted to ask, but felt you couldn't.”
She grimaced and shook her head. “It ... doesn't feel right to talk about her this way. Not when she isn’t here anymore. I know she wasn’t—she really did love you, even if she had trouble showing it.”
“I know.” I sighed and slumped down, pulling her wing a bit tighter around me. “I just wish she'd...” I couldn’t bring myself to even finish the sentence. “Never mind. It’s not important. And like you said, don’t speak ill of the dead and all that.”
Aunt Wind’s wing gently squeezed my shoulders. “Perhaps it would be better if you got it off your chest. I don’t need my degree to guess that your worries about becoming a mother might be related to some of your issues with your own mother.”
I took a deep breath, then said it. “I wish she'd been a better mom.”
My aunt’s eyes flicked down to the table, and stayed there for several seconds before she finally answered me. “She tried her best, she really did. Every parent makes mistakes, Cloud. I know Nimbus made some that hurt you, but what you have to understand is that ... well, she didn't really have the advantage of having good parents to learn from growing up.”
I frowned and tried to dredge up what I knew about Mom’s family. “She never did mention—I mean, I never really—well, her side of the family was always kinda just...” I waved my hoof through the air as I tried to think of something worthwhile to say. “I guess they never really came up, beyond a couple little things. Like, I knew she was from House Cumulus.”
Aunt Wind drained her water glass, then took a deep breath. “That's because she wasn’t on the best of terms with her biological family. Her parents were never a solid base in her life. Nimbus barely got any direction from them. In the end, all children crave a certain level of order in their lives. They want rules and structure, and their parents laying those things out for them means that they love and care about them. Nimbus never really got that growing up.” She rolled her empty glass around in her hooves, trying to catch a waiter’s eye so she could get a refill. “I'm pretty sure that was a big reason why she ended up joining the Guard; it gave her a lot of what she missed growing up. For the first time in her life, there were clear rules and a structured daily routine to follow.”
A sad smile flickered across her face. “Nimbus was so different when I first met her. I’m sure you wouldn’t have even recognized her back when we were roommates at West Hoof. Out until curfew almost every night, and usually coming back to the room smelling like alcohol, sex, or both. It always amazed me that she managed to find the time to get most of her schoolwork done. I know her grades were a bit of a mess, though her practical skills usually made up for her bad academics.”
I cocked my head to the side, trying to comprehend what I’d just heard. “Seriously? Mom was a wild and crazy party girl back at West Hoof?” Yeah, Dad had mentioned something about how my skill at playing the field came from Mom, but... “I thought she believed fun was ... like a form of weakness and evil or something.”
Uncle Typhoon nodded to confirm my Aunt’s story. “Believe it or not, there was a time when all of us were just as crazy, young, and stupid as you used to be. Tor and I even used to do a lot of the things you’d expect two young, dumb stallions to do.”
“Don’t remind me.” My aunt finally got her water refilled, only to empty the glass again fifteen seconds later. “If I had to make an educated guess, I would say that she started off as a party girl as a way to rebel against her parents and get them to notice her. It’s common with children who feel neglected. By the time she reached West Hoof, it had become something of a habit for her.”
I tapped my chin thoughtfully as a few ideas popped into my head. “Y'know, that actually explains a couple things about why she was such a hardflank with me. She didn't want me making the same mistakes she did.”
She nodded along. “Exactly. To tell you the truth, her drinking was on the verge of being a problem for a while. West Hoof is usually pretty tolerant of a little partying as long as you perform your assignments and don’t show up drunk or severely hungover. The one-night stands obviously died out after she hooked up with Tornado, but she didn’t stop drinking until she had you. She swore off the stuff while she was pregnant, and thankfully by the time you’d been born she’d decided she liked being sober.”
She ran a hoof through her hair. “It scared her half to death when she saw you becoming like her, even if it wasn’t exactly the same. I think sometimes she missed the ways you weren’t like her when she was your age. Her grades at West Hoof were ... far lower than what she was capable of if she’d applied herself. I think on some level she assumed the same was the case with you, even though you were actually working hard and performing well in your classes.”
Aunt Wind sighed and shook her head. “Naturally, she wanted you to have a life with all the structure and discipline her childhood had lacked. And since most of her experience with order in life came from the Guard, she drew upon that when it came to raising you.” Her eyes flicked guiltily down. “Tornado and I ... well, the Kickers are a big military family. I suppose we didn’t realize how much she could overdo things. Not until it became a real problem. I just ... you need to understand that the closest she really got to having a proper mother herself was your Grandma Kicker. The two of them were really close.”
“Granny?” I smiled wistfully. “I barely even remember her...” Just a few little things, like the way she made cookies for me and smacked Dad’s hoof away whenever he joked about stealing some of them. And I could vaguely recall her funeral, back when I was younger than Alula and Storm was still a newborn. It had rained that night, like the clouds were crying too.
Aunt Wind smiled fondly. “Mom was one hay of a mare. She had to be, raising Tor and me while also being in the Guard—especially after she was hurt and we lost Dad. If you think you and Nimbus were stubborn ... oh, Mom was something else. She loved us, but often that love came in the form of a swift kick to the plot to make us stop being silly.” Her smile shifted to a faint frown. “Maybe that was also part of what threw things off with Nimbus. I think she tried to imitate your grandmother’s style, but ... well, what worked for Mom with me and Tornado didn’t work for you. I think her tough love had too much tough and not enough love. Mom could be as hard as steel, but she usually knew when her kids really needed a softer touch.”
I shuffled in my seat, trying to wrap my head around all the new information I’d just been given. It was all so ... big. “I kinda didn't know my family as well as I thought, did I?”
“You saw it from the view of a child, Cloud,” my aunt answered. “And that really colors how you see things, trust me. Your parents always seem larger than life when they’re raising you, and it can take a long time to realize that Mom and Dad are really just ordinary flesh and blood ponies with the same flaws and problems as the rest of us. I can guarantee you that Storm and Star see me a lot differently than you do.”
“I guess.” I sighed and ran a hoof down my face. “Mom ... I guess all this time I kinda resented her for not being—I dunno. Not perfect, I guess. But she was really just in the same boat I'm in now. Scared to death she's gonna screw up and let her kid down.”
Aunt Wind nuzzled me. “She tried her best to give you the life she thought you deserved, and she made a few stumbles. After your graduation ... she was pretty devastated. She blamed herself for what happened, for not seeing that you were in trouble before you ran out, and then for driving you further away after.” She sighed, and her shoulders slumped. “I was actually relieved when I found out she was carrying Alula, because when I caught her going through morning sickness I thought she’d taken up drinking again.” She grimaced and shook her head. “We all make mistakes. Especially parents. I know I've made my fair share of goofs raising my daughters, and while Tornado asked me to never tell you this, he did drop you once while you were a baby. Thankfully not too far.”
Uncle Typhoon cleared his throat. “We all want to do what’s best for our kids. The problem is actually knowing how to do that, and balance that with everything else in our lives. Wind and I did have to hold down jobs as well as raising our girls. Sometimes it was hard to be a good priest and a good father at the same time. Only so many hours in the day.” He swallowed the last bit of toast on his plate. “Nopony likes making mistakes or letting somepony else down, and it hurts the most when it involves our kids, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try and do the best we can. It’s fine to be scared of making mistakes—Wind and I certainly were—but you can’t let that fear hold you back.”
I nodded along. “Yeah, I know this sermon, Uncle Typhoon. Can’t be so scared of failure that you never try anything.”
“Exactly,” Aunt Wind agreed. “And despite all our fears, I like to think we did pretty well with Storm and Star.”
Tempting as it was to be a smartflank about how both my cousins were delightfully eccentric, I decided to play nice. “One’s the leader of the princess’ bodyguard unit, and the other’s a newbie lieutenant in the Lunar Guard. I'd say they're off to a good start.” After all, being posted to a princess’ personal guard was usually seen as the career fast-track. Well, as long as you did a good job and didn’t do anything to piss off said princess. After all, if a happy princess can send an officer shooting up the ranks, a mad one could bump a lieutenant down to shoveling manure.
Typhoon beamed. “Oh yes, we're very proud of them. Storm getting Shadow’s Armor was ... I couldn’t be more pleased. My daughter bearing the legacy of Honored Shadow herself is incredible. But as much as I like to brag about my girls, right now we’re here to help you.”
“Exactly.” Aunt Wind turned a piercing gaze on me. “Are you feeling a bit better, Cloud?”
I thought about it for a moment, and to my surprise found myself nodding. “Yeah, I am.”
“Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?” She smiled and leaned forward, looking almost conspiratorial. “Being a two-time mom, I have a bit of experience for what you're going through. And what you have to look forward to.”
I chuckled. “Sorry, too late. Derpy already gave me a pretty good run-down of all the nasty things I have to look forward to. Not to mention I got to see a lot of it first-hoof when I helped her through having Dinky. Granted, I wasn’t there for every moment, but...”
She chuckled and patted my shoulder. “Cloud, sweetheart, you have no idea what you’re in for. Trust me, seeing it all from the outside does nothing to prepare you for what it’s like to be on the receiving end. Though don’t worry, it's not all bad.”
I frowned suspiciously at her. “You've got nostalgia glasses on. Personally, I'm just glad I seem to be keeping my breakfast down for two days in a row.”
Aunt Wind smirked. “Don’t get too used to it. Morning sickness can be rather unpredictable. Sometimes it leaves you alone for a week, other times it’ll hit and keep on hitting until you’re dry heaving. Oh, and despite what the name says, it’s not limited to mornings. Don’t worry too much, though—after a couple months it should die out, and then you get to the nice, magical part of the pregnancy. Followed by the ugly, bloated, sore part of the pregnancy.”
“Gee, you really know how to sell the whole childbirth experience.” My hoof dropped unconsciously to my belly. “It's weird. I still haven’t decided to keep the kid, and whenever I actually think about whether I want to, I know I haven’t made up my mind. But I keep talking about pregnancy prep and stuff, making sure that I know what’s coming if I do have it. Is that some kinda subconscious thing saying I’ve already decided?”
My aunt shrugged. “It could be, or you might just be figuring out as much as you can about pregnancy so you can make an informed decision about whether or not you want to go through with it. Considering what a life-changing choice it is, and there’s nothing wrong with making sure you know what you’re signing up for. For what your aunt’s opinion is worth, I think you’ll be fine if you decide to go through with having a child.”
Uncle Typhoon nodded along. “You're in a good spot to have a foal if you want to. A lot better than a lot of parents that find themselves having a kid. You’re financially secure, you have two partners to help you raise the child, plus other friends who would be happy to help if you asked. Not to mention your family: Storm’s right here, and the rest of us are just a train ride away. Oh, and don’t forget you’re on good terms with Princess Sparkle—I’m sure she would be willing to lend a little royal aid if you needed it. It’s hard to imagine a better situation for rearing a child.”
I nodded hesitantly. Yeah, I wasn’t sure about myself, but I did have a pretty awesome support network. If nothing else, Blossom, Eepy, Rainbow, Derpy, Twilight, and the others should be able to stop me from screwing anything up too badly.
“Well then, that just leaves one final bit of business.” My aunt smirked, and a mischievous light entered her eyes. “Star and Storm haven’t heard the big news yet. I hope you’re prepared for lots of doting, excited squealing, and hugs. And perhaps an argument over whether or not they qualify as aunts.”
I sighed and mentally girded myself for the upcoming ordeal. “I suppose it’s not the worst thing I’ll have to deal with.”