At Fancy’s wink, Witch smiles broadly. “Monkey! I got a surprise for you before we get to the main hall…” she says, dragging her friend away from her family and their hosts.
“Bwah?” Monkey doesn’t resist though, not that she thought she could successfully what with Witch’s increased strength and recent growth spurt, but that doesn’t stop her from voicing her confusion. “Witchy, what the-”
The rest of Monkey’s confused question dies on her lips as Witch shoves her into the sitting room, bringing her face-to-face with over a dozen very familiar ponies.
“Auntie Wrench!!!” A veritable herd of excited pegasus foals charge towards her, tackling the stunned mare with hugs.
“Wha- buh… How?!” Monkey stammers, much to the amusement of the older ponies in the room.
“Doctor Hour sent us an invitation along with Mr. Fancy Pants’ assurance that travel and lodging would be taken care of,” responds the oldest mare present as she gently nudges the foals away from Monkey and back to their respective parents, a bright yellow mare with green eyes. Her mane is sensibly styled, a golden yellow with a streak of orange and red on the left side. Her tail differed only in that the streaks through it were green and blue.
“But… Everyone?!” Monkey’s eyes scan the room, falling first on a blue mare with a short dark blue mane next to a pale blue stallion and two older fillies. “Saph, Winter, Topaz, Pearl…” Her gaze travels to the right, snagging on a tall red stallion with a short-cropped orange and yellow mane and tail who sits on a couch with a orange-gold mare and another filly. “Red, Sunset, Dawn…” Sitting on the next couch over, trying to corral the two young colts, is a golden yellow mare with pink streaks in her red mane and a grey stallion with black mane. “Goldie, Sil, Hal, Foil…”
“And me!” calls the forest green stallion as he pops up beside Monkey and throws an arm around her.
“Of course, you’d be here too, Pine…” Monkey adds with a resigned sigh.
“I see your doctor’s got good taste in colors. Green looks good on you, Monks,” he continues, almost seeming to ignore his little sister’s glare as he prods at the crystalline edge of her wing.
“Actually -” Witch starts, but Monkey quickly extricates herself from her brother to throw herself at Witch, desperately covering the unicorn’s mouth with her hoof.
“It wasn’t on purpose… Leave it at that, Witchy… None of us can understand your magical mumbo-jumbo jargon once you get going,” Monkey says quickly before releasing her friend.
“Well now that you seem to be out of the stunned phase,” comments a brown stallion with a short, bright red mane, “how about a hug for your old dad, eh?”
“Sure, Dad,” Monkey laughs, almost tackling him in a hug.
“Honestly, Monkey… We haven’t seen you since… Well…” Golden Nimbus starts as Monkey finally lets go of Rapid Strike, hesitating even as Sunlit Silver manages to get their two sons under control.
“In several months,” Sapphire Cirrus continues diplomatically. “We know you’ve got a good life going here but…”
“We missed our baby sister,” Red Sky adds, finishing the general line of thought as he helps Sunset Haze up from the couch. “Besides, having all of us here means we can tell you all at once.”
“Tell us what?” Monkey asks, voicing the general confusion.
“That,” Sunset Haze starts, smiling with a knowing twinkle in her eyes, “Dawn’s gonna have a little brother or sister next year…”
While the rest of her family cheered, and the foals started arguing over who would get to play more with the new cousin, Monkey just shakes her head and turns to leave.
“Monkey? Where are you going?” Witch asks, quickly catching her friend before she left the sitting room.
“I’m gonna go start training Leaf… He’s gonna need all the help he can get…”