> Brain, Brawns, and a Lot of Ponies
>  by Damaged
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Second Contact
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The waiting hall was just about the most opulent that Belay had ever seen. He looked around at the gold trim everywhere and stared at everything. "I really can't believe all this. And look how adorable they all are!" One of the adorable ponies looked around at him and gave a wave. "Friendly too." He returned the wave.

"Belay, keep it down. We aren't even supposed to be on this planet. You know the rules." Dustin y Neil, or Dust to anyone but her family, shifted in place for what had to be the millionth time, or so it felt to her. "We need to get this all reported, ask them to stop messing with our ship, and dust-off. So get in… hey, they're different."

Both Belay and Dust were standing out a little, they were each in dark-gray, body-hugging outfits that covered their bodies from the bottoms of their hooves right up to a partial hood that kept their manes well hidden. Only their fur was visible around their faces. Belay's fur was the purest white, while his companion, Dustin, was a soft yellow. Each had the helmets of their "ship suits" hooked to one shoulder, out of the way.

Belay followed Dust's pointing and covered hoof toward the target of her surprise. "Wings and a horn? That is something special I think. Uh…" He watched as the purple pony in question walked past the huge queue to see the rulers of the country. "Guess she is something special."

"The real royal treatment, huh?" The mare's belly gave a slight rumble. "So what are we eating tonight?" Dustin lifted a hoof and rolled it in the air. "Synth steak, with some crispy as-close-as-possible-to-the-real-thing bacon? Or do you think pigs and cows talk too?" She shot a smile to Belay. Their words weren't the only ones in the hall, all the ponies surrounding them were talking, likely gossiping, or so Dust assumed.

"Ugh, don't even get me started, Dust, you know I don't like all that synth stuff. It isn't like it matters, all comes from the same nutrient vat, at the end of the meal it all goes in the same place. Besides, it isn't like you have eaten the real thing in your whole life." Belay shook her head. "Although I really have a craving for something sweet, now you mention it."

"Not going to go native on me, Bel? You remember all the rules and reg's on that, as well as I do. We have to maintain our own food stores until such time as it is confirmed that we can safely consume local produce." Dust was rattling off the short versions of the codes, since the full ones would take several hours, and a law doctorate, to understand.

Belay shook her head. "Oh fardles no, you know me though, I love new things, and you have to admit, this is a really new thing. But think about it Dust, we aren't much like we were, what if we have to eat the local food? Wait, why are you looking at me like that?"

" 'Fardles'? Really Bel? Firstly, no one uses that phrase anymore." Dust waved a hoof in the air dismissively. "Second, have you heard any of these ponies swear? Just once? I don't know how this many sentients of any species could survive more than an hour like this without one swear word or a bottle of very strong alcohol. Hey, if we are going to throw the rules and reg's away, we should totally find a bottle of their hooch, before we get whichever of them is in charge to poof us back and send us back on our way." Her gesture almost poked a pony waiting behind them, Dust pulled her hoof back down.

"Hey, what about that last planet? The one with all the worms." Belay swapped topics faster than anyone could usually follow. "Think anything will come of them?"

"You really do hope that every strange thing we find is going to one day become sentient and join the FSP. They were just worms, Belay, they have millions of years to get close to anything that has a real brain in it." Dust tossed the idea aside. "Look at this here, we finally have a sentient race, really sentient, and you start talking about worms again!" She turned fully to her friend, and regretted it. "If only the planet wasn't quite so… insistent about us matching the native species."

"You think they did it to us?" Belay flicked her snout at the ponies surrounding them, seemingly on all sides. "Lure space-travelers in, then bam, population increase!" She stopped and blanched. "What if they were all something else too? What if this is a plague and it hit the planet and… Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because you are going nuts. Come on Bel, you have been stable all this time, even with the worm thing, don't bug out on me now." Dust lifted a hoof and rest it on her friend's shoulder. "Just calm down, I am sure there is a logical explanation for it all, and that the magical telepathic black horse will just zap us back to normal and let us go."

"About that, don't you think it is about time we got 'in character' here? Ring the doorbell? Tell them who we are, or something?" Belay looked around for one of the ponies to address. "What about him?" He pointed at a guard, who's attention turned to the pair.

"I still don't get how you can pick their gender so easily. It is hard enough…" Dust shook her head and tried to approach one of the imposing-looking soldiers. "Kiera, can you activate the translator please?" 

"Of course, Dust, since you asked so nicely." Kiera's voice came from the implants in Belay and Dust's ears. "Just sub-vocalize and I will try to pitch shift it to your 'new' voice."

Dust ignored Kiera's little jab. "Excuse me, but how long is it going to be? We were invited to be here today and-"

"Sorry," the guard cut in on Dust's words, "there is a bit of an emergency, new creatures are supposed to be visiting today. Until they have come through, all business is on hold."

The words were sing-song, like the other ponies' they had heard, but both of the two oddly-dressed ponies could hear their own language echo in their ears. 

"Dust, they're talking about-" Belay had a hoof pressed to his snout, silencing him.

"Well," Dust began, "what are these new creatures supposed to look like? You know, in case we see them." She wore the most honest and open smile she could.

"Tall, pink, and wearing odd clothes." The guard's brows drew down a little. He examined the odd, tight-fitting suits the two ponies wore, the strange little devices pinned to them in places, the fact the suits had no seams at all and, finally, that each had a compact bubble-helmet hanging from a clip on their shoulders.

"Well, we were tall and pink. It was a bit of a shock, but we figured it would probably be best just proceeding with the mission." Dust tossed her bright green mane. 'I have always wanted to ask this.' She drew a deep breath, "Take us to your leader!" The result was anticlimactic in the only way such a request could ever be.

"Make way!" The guard bellowed loudly, making a hole for the two strange ponies. "The visitors are here! Make way!"

"I was actually enjoying just looking around. Why'd you have to get all pushy, Dust?" Belay poked the mare in the shoulder with a covered hoof. "Does that count as kicking, here? We are really going to have to get a baseline for social interactions."

"No we don't." Kiera's voice was clear in both Belay and Dust's ears. "Because the moment I can lift my tail-fins off this rock, and you two are back to normal, we are out of here. This world should be proscribed, watched to see if these creatures reach space-travel and, if they do, invite them to the FSP."

"You love this though. Forget the rules and reg's for a minute, Kiera, and just think of what this world is." Belay turned around in a tight loop, taking in the wonder of the huge vaulted halls. "We are on a planet that is full of real magic, and-"

"I still think it is a form of gravity." Kiera cut in on Belay.

"You need to see it, Kiera. Not through these little button-cams, but I mean really see it. It is magic plain and simple. I don't know how else to explain it." Belay had to trot to catch back up. As he reached Dust and the guard, the great doors before them opened, glowing with gold magic. "See?"

Dust froze at the sight before her. Stained-glass was something she had seen before, but this was something else. "That is so beautiful…"

"Shake it off, Dust. Turn so I can see them properly." Kiera sounded a little upset over the comms. Her frustration with her crew-mates ended when Dust showed her the windows. "Okay, I'll grant those are pretty amazing. How do they do that lighting effect through them?"

"It isn't just light. That is magic." Belay took a few steps into the room, advancing on the windows. His own horn started to tingle in sympathy with the magic trickling through. "Wow…"

"I don't think I have ever been stood-up by our windows before."

The voice, translated as it was, pulled Belay and Dust's attention to a great white pony. Like the purple one, she had wings and a horn. Kiera was recording everything, not just in visible light but every spectrum the little cameras she had on Belay and Dust would give her. "M-M-Magic… look at their mane and tail…" Belay and Dust turned to look at each other.

"Have you ever heard K stutter?" Dust watched Belay shrug his pony shoulders. "Hey, Kiera, you have to translate still, please?" A little burst of annoyed static assaulted Dust, before Celestia's words followed.

"Uh, sorry, Your Highness…" Dust heard the comms repeat her words in that odd language. "We are a little unfamiliar with your language and were fascinated by those windows." She gestured with a hoof at the glass. "We know of Princess Luna," she gave a bow that she hoped would be enough, toward the dark pony, "but we would like to know how we should address… all of you."

"Smooth." Kiera gave Dust another little poke of static.

"I, am Princess Celestia. This is, as you know, Princess Luna, my sister." Celestia gestured to Luna, but then to Twilight. "And this is Princess Twilight Sparkle, formerly my student. I believe Luna said your names were Dustin y Neil, and Belay?" She looked to each as she said their names, but had the order wrong.

"Begging your pardon, but I am Dustin, and she is Belay." Dust tried to puff out her chest, but failed at it.

" 'She'?" Celestia raised the eyebrow of the only eye visible to the two visitors. "And no apologies needed, you may speak freely with us." She smiled wide, the warmth of it radiating out like pure sunshine.

"We should probably start at the start." Dust smiled up and caught a wink from Princess Luna. "You see, we are not from this world, we are… from a very long way away."

"How much of this are you going to tell them? They might not even be aware of space-travel!" Kiera's voice was sharp in Dust's ear. "You are breaking protocols!"

"Kiera, protocols broke when they grabbed you out of orbit and turned us into ponies!" Dust stomped a hoof, glaring in the direction instinct told her Kiera was. "Okay, look, trust me here, please?" A little burst of static was her only clue Kiera had heard her. "Sorry, Your Highnesses, but this is a little irregular for us. Normally, we wouldn't approach a planet that hasn't… reached out to us."

"That was well put," Belay said, muttering softly into her comms.

"I understand the reason you are here is my sister causing some problems with your vessel?" Celestia carefully worded her reply, not wanting to put any blame on Luna, even if she might have been due some.

Dust smiled, glad that her words were accepted as-is. "Yes, her at… her adjustment of our position was quite surprising. Kiera was beside herself."

"You idiot," Kiera and Belay both said, at the same time.

"Who is Kiera?" Princess Celestia looked between the two. "Luna, you said there was only two?"

"That we could feel." Luna cast her mind back to the dream, "A male named Dustin and a female named Belay."

Celestia turned back to the two ponies before her. "The full truth, please." Her tone held no threat, not a trace, but she saw both of them look up at her, startled. "You don't need to give us your full origin, but it would be nice to hear a little more about it."

Kiera's laugh came through to Dust clearly. "You started this, you finish it. Personally, I think she would have out-positioned you no matter what. I like her."

Dust grumbled something under her breath. "Your Highness, then let me offer you a hand… hoof, of friendship. We are representatives of the FSP, Federated Sentient Planets. There is three of us here, Belay, myself-" 

"You are going to tell her everything." Kiera wished she could give Dust enough static to really annoy her.

"… and Kiera. The third member of our Exploration and Evaluation team is our ship." Dust tapped her comm button for emphasis. "Kiera, please say hello to the princesses."

"I apologize for not greeting you sooner, Your Highnesses, but it is not normal policy to reveal such things this early in negotiations. The reason your sister was unable to reach me, I believe, is that she works telepathically with the minds of sleeping people." Kiera spoke Equish perfectly, she had been monitoring it all morning and running it through her language synthesizers. She saw the dark pony nod mutely to her summation. "Thank you, the reason you didn't see me, then, is I don't sleep."

Celestia and Luna both looked confused, but Twilight's face lit up. "Are you a pony as well? I have tried to stay awake for a long time, but it never seemed to work."

"I am—as my two partners here were—human. But unlike their previous human selves, I am a shell-person." Kiera actually enjoyed ribbing her brawns about their recent change, even if it confounded her. "Which is something I needed to bring up. They were human, until they left my hull. It was strange, and each seemed to give off a strange radiation as they turned into the ponies you see before you. The oddest part, however, is that they… well, their genders are not what they should be."

"Huh…" Twilight tapped her chin, hijacking the interview from her former mentor. "It could be a recalculating of the physical/astral linkup matrix. If that were suddenly flooded with… you don't happen to come from somewhere there is no magic?" 

"How did she…" Dust looked to Belay. "How did she work this out so fast?"

To her two partners, Kiera gave a snort. "She is likely smarter than both of you put together. I have a feeling these ponies are not exploring space for wont of ability or knowledge." She adjusted her vocals to address the princesses again. "You are correct. Of all the planets known to the FSP, this is the only one on record with this particular radiation you call 'magic.' "

Twilight's eyes went wide, her brain practically exploded with questions. Only one managed to beat the swarm to her lips, "How many 'planets' are in the FSP?"

"Oh, now who was out-played by a pony?" Dust reached up and tapped his comms button. "You in there, K? Do you tell the nice pastel horse that she is one of tens of trillions of sentients across the universe, or do I?"

"There are," Kiera gave Dust a good-sized blast of static, "a lot of planets, each with a lot of beings on them." She worked hard to keep her voice even, but not sounding like an AI.

"Twilight, I am sure they will have a moment to talk later, but first I think we need to apologize, we are asking for more than you want to give, and we have pushed questions more than once in that direction. But you must understand, I have a nation, and a planet," Celestia tasted the word, it was a little strange, "to protect."

Belay was sick of being left out. "Thank you, Your Highness, I believe both my partners need to have their ears bopped for how they have handled things so far. As Dust was saying, before giving away more information than he had any right to share, we are not meant to be on the surface, save for Princess Luna sensing us. If you would please turn us back to our human-selves, we will leave your world in peace, and ensure it stays that way."

Celestia turned to Twilight. "I was wrong, Twilight. It seems it is your turn." She gave the mare a half smile of encouragement.

Feeling excited at all the prospects of what conversing with the strange ponies might bring, Twilight looked directly to Belay. "Well, I have actually had contact with humans before, through the mirror portal. Are you from…" She trailed off at the shocked expressions on the two ponies' faces. "Uh, mirror portal? Another dimension? You aren't from there, are you?"

"Dimensional travel?" Kiera's nutrients seemed to sour on her. She kept her voice from the princesses. "This is all myth and…"

"Magic." Belay kept her voice silent, but sub-vocalized the word, making sure Kiera knew what she was saying.

"Maybe we should start over." Dustin smiled at the three Princesses. "Hi there, I am actually a male biped nearly three times as tall as I am now, can you help me and my friend return to normal so we can leave your nice world in peace?"

Celestia lifted her hoof and giggled into it softly. "I think, if we are going to start over, we should meet your third member. It seems only decent."

"I really like her." Kiera's voice startled both her brawns.
> Greetings, Earth Ponies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I moved." Kiera's voice came to both formerly human ponies through their implants (that had amazingly survived the transformation). "Not far from where I landed initially, just enough to get out of sight of those railway lines. Such a delightfully archaic form of transport."

Dustin tossed her mane, a gesture she was getting more used to doing than she would like. "So… Princess," she looked at Twilight Sparkle, "how long will it take before you can undo… this." She poked her own chest for emphasis.

"Well, first I need to identify what caused the change, and why it made you a mare instead of a stallion. Honestly, it would probably be easier to reverse that first." Twilight quickly pulled out a book from her pack. "If I just reversed the… it might take a little study to work that bit out."

"How long?" Dust knew his voice was carrying some desperation. "I just… I figured… it was magic, you can do magic!"

"Dust, back off, she is trying to help." Belay got up from where he was sitting and approached his fellow brawn. "The Princess said—"

"Twilight, please just call me Twilight." Twilight blushed a little. "I only became a princess recently, and I still don't know everything that I need to about it. The worst part is, I feel like telling my friends that would be letting them down." She suddenly realized she was unburdening herself, dumping all her problems on the two important visitors. 

Belay reached out a hoof, raising it to the Princess' shoulder and gently resting it there. "You became a princess recently? It isn't a title from birth?" When his touch wasn't refused, he started to rub a little circle with it.

"Title? Oh, uh, I guess it can be, like my brother's daughter. But she is the first ever, most princesses 'ascend' by doing something associated with their destiny. I created an entirely new spell, well, finished one. But it was amazing!" Twilight's eyes lost a little focus as she stared into the past. "The spell fixes destiny. When my friends all lost theirs, it straightened things out."

Dustin murmured, "Destiny?" with a subvocalization.

"Don't you dare start. You are dealing with magical pony princesses, and you dare challenge their beliefs?" Kiera's words were soft, only in the ears of the two brawns. 

Ignoring his skeptical partner, Belay pushed ahead. "So you fixed their destiny with a new spell, and Princess Celestia rewarded you with becoming a princess?"

Twilight giggled. "No, it… it was the magic itself. It pushed me to another place, then gave me my wings." She ruffled the two appendages for effect. "Princess Celestia was there, but she was my guide, not the source."

"It sounds like you need to relax, just calm down. I am sure if you are needed more, that destiny will help you. Hasn't it done pretty well so far?" Belay wanted to poke his tongue out at Dust. 'It isn't like it is hard to keep open to someone's beliefs.' What Belay didn't expect was the horned-and-winged mare to push closer, rearing up and hugging him. There was nothing else he could do but hug back.

"Thank you so much. I just… I needed to hear that." Twilight's brain didn't click that she was hugging a stallion, she just felt a connection to the visitors. It was at that moment the train began to slow at the bottom of the Canterlot Mountain. "We must be almost there."

"You are about three-hundred meters from me. If you would disembark and head west-wards around the mountain." Kiera's voice came from both the brawns' comms buttons clearly. 

"How can you tell that?" Twilight looked to the two ponies. "It's not magic, so there has to be something you can do to…"

"Triangulation." Kiera relished the chance to show off her science, not that precise geometry was really science. "Before we knew the full nature of this planet, I released a few micro-sats… satellites…" Kiera fumbled for the words to use. "Little boxes that I can send commands to. In the sky."

Twilight furrowed her brow. "But how would… oh, do they tell you how far away something is?"

Both brawns stared at Twilight Sparkle in shock. Slowly, they turned to each other. Dustin was the first to recover. "Kiera, did she just understand spacial triangulation after a few seconds of thought and the roughest description I have ever heard?"

"If they had the inclination for space travel, something tells me these ponies would already be up there, and would have been greeting us." Belay poked his partner in the shoulder. "So just relax, they aren't primitives, they just don't value the same things we do."

"I get the feeling you are talking, but you aren't saying anything. Do you talk mind-to-mind?" Twilight got her bags sorted, ready for the little walk to find Kiera.

"Our speech method here is complicated." Kiera's voice, in perfect Equish, came from the comms buttons. "They have little sensors in their head that lets me hear what they are saying, even when they don't fully say it. It is called subvocalizing."

Climbing down from the train, Twilight pondered this. "Okay, so they can talk to you, but they seemed to be talking together?

"The sensors also let me communicate with them, so I relay what they want between them. It got a little more tricky for talking to you. They subvocalize to me, I translate and play back for you. Then when you reply, I translate back and whisper it to them."

Twilight smiled. "That is really clever, but doesn't that keep you busy?" The three walked together, Twilight following the edge of the mountain around until, at last, she froze in place. She wasn't sure what she had expected, but the enormity of "Kiera" was more than everything she had planned for. Like an elongated, flat ball, the hull of the spaceship was mostly featureless. There was a set of landing struts planted down against the ground, as well as two large bulges leading to the other end. "Wow."

"I have stored all our atmosphere from within the ship, and flushed it with Equestrian air. It should be safe for the Princess aboard." Kiera's voice cut into the moment, she could see twin images of the mare, one constructed from Dustin's comms button, the other from her own sensors.

Walking up to the ship in silence, Twilight watched a platform lower down from the belly of it, stopping just as it touched the ground. She took a step towards it, then paused. "Kiera," Twilight looked upwards, at the ship looming over her, "may I come in?"

"Aboard, Princess Twilight. And yes, you may." Kiera's tone was tickled pink at the question. Just to her brawns, she spat a raspberry of static.

Twilight looked down when she stepped onto the platform. Her hooves made soft clicks against the surface of it, it felt both soft and hard. Her mind began to race, thoughts bouncing around as to how each and every thing she could see worked. There was some kind of panel on the side of the box-like platform. 

"Breathe, Twilight." Belay stepped up onto the platform beside the alicorn. "If you want to ask anything, just do so. Kiera has… relented, regarding what you are allowed to find out. Weapon information is restricted, as is the details of FTL… faster than light travel, but everything else is on the table."

Dustin stepped up on the other side of Twilight, having to contend with a wing flying out when her partner mentioned "faster than light." She was just about to comment when the lift started to rise and Twilight started to wobble a little.

"Relax, please, this lift can handle a lot more weight than you three." Kiera's voice held a warm chuckle. 'So much easier talking with real equipment, those comms buttons are terrible.' Drawing her lift to a stop, she cycled the built-in airlock used her voice from inside herself to beckon the Princess inside. "Welcome aboard the KDB-one-three-two-nine. That is Kiera, Dustin, Belay. One-three-two-nine is the year I graduated."

Twilight followed the much more "alive" sounding voice until she was in what she had to assume was the control room of Kiera. There were two chairs—neither of which looked pony-friendly—and so many controls that her head spun just from looking at them. "H-Hello?"

"I am over here, Twilight Sparkle." Kiera used only the audio directly from her column. The mare turned and looked at her titanium-wrapped self. "It is good to finally meet you in person, as it were. It is custom to talk to my shell as if it were me, but if you are elsewhere in me, or are busy with something, I won't take offense if you don't drop everything to address me here."

Stepping up to the metal column, Twilight lifted her hoof and paused, when no warning was given, she touched the metal plate. "Are you… are you trapped in there?" 

Kiera would have laughed, but for the tone in the mare's voice. "No, I am no more trapped than you are trapped in your own body. The whole ship is me, linked directly to my mind through wires. I can see everything, hear everything, and with the last refit, feel the touch of everyone within me."

On the verge of nerding out completely, Twilight had to rein-in her excitement. "I really want to learn everything about… well, all of you. But first I have to restore your friends." She drew her hoof down the titanium column, dragging it down to the floor.

"When you are done, then." Kiera actually chuckled at the mare's enthusiasm. "How long do you think it will take to restore them to human?"

"Back to… well, it would undo all the changes and restore them, thaumically, to their original selves." Twilight lifted a hoof to tap her chin. "If that goes well, I think about a month, maybe two. I don't want to get their hopes up, so I am making allowances."

"They cannot understand you, Twilight; I am not translating for them. If you can't do this, tell me. I will break it to them." Kiera's tone was even, almost mechanical; she didn't want to let the real emotion, worry, color her words.

"No!" Twilight shook her head. "I can do it, but it is going to take time. I can probably restore their genders in a week, but they will still be ponies. Their race will take longer, but I am sure I can do it."

"Kiera," Dustin looked at the column, "what is she saying? I can hear her, but not your translation. Did something go wrong with the translator?"

"Yes, Dust, it conveniently broke when Kiera was asking Twilight about our treatment. Ugh, men." Belay shook his head, then froze and tittered. "Okay, that might be unfair. Can I just curse Dust instead?"

"Of course you can, Belay. I keep a log file that is full of just me cursing him." Kiera sounded more relaxed. 'It will be alright, the pony princess can save my brawns and we can be on our way, with a new potential member for the FSP. Mission success is still possible!'

"Are you two done?" Dustin gave one hoof a firm clop on the deck. Then she realized that the action amounted to a girl stomping her foot in exasperation, and blushed. "How big is this log file, anyway?" She had to ask, she just had to. It made her the straight-man… or mare, of the joke, but it was so perfect.

"Calculating…" Kiera used a deliberately mechanical voice, pulling one of her smaller artificial intelligence systems to make the audio. "Error, system cannot calculate numbers with sufficient accuracy." 

Belay and Dust both were giggling at the implication, but Twilight stared at the two confused. After a few moments, their infectious laughter caught her and the alicorn was grinning along too.

"For your information, Twilight said it would be a week if you wanted her to just correct your gender as ponies, or two months to get you back to human. I did push her a little about it, but she seems confident, and while it would be easy for someone to lie about such things…" Kiera trailed off, her own thoughts having trouble contemplating the mindset of this pony. She continued without translating for Twilight. "I don't believe she would even think to lie, not on something this important."

Twilight noticed a drawer open to one side and walked over to it. Inside she could see little discs of silver. "Oh, what are these?" She waited a moment before picking one up in her magic and examining it.

"Those are comms buttons. Through that," Kiera transferred her voice to the activated comm button in Twilight's magical grip, "I can talk to you, hear you, and see through it."

"Is that all?" Twilight started delving into the device as much as her magic would allow, but the thing seemed quite dense with what felt like glass. She turned it around and pressed it to the edge of her saddlebag that faced forwards.

"You can have a second one, too." Kiera made the light in the drawer flash once. "So you can take it apart and I can watch. You guessed right, they do detect other things. I don't know what this magic is, but I am going to try to scan for it while you work."

"Well, I should get started on this fix. Thank you, Kiera, for letting me see you." Twilight smiled brightly at the column. "I should probably get back to Canterlot before I lose myself and start examining everything."

Kiera couldn't help but gush a little at the manners and inquisitiveness of the Princess. "You are very welcome, Twilight. Now, will you need these two good-for-nothing brawns to help you? I can assure you, they are mostly trained, and can even do tricks for treats." This prompted Twilight to lift her hoof and snort through it.

"Hey, we aren't that bad, Kiera!" Dust's actual voice came from down the hall, not that Twilight could understand until Kiera repeated it from the little button. At last, each of the two brawns returned to the cockpit of the ship, their ship-suits gone to reveal their full colors.

Dustin's fur was a soft yellow, set off by a bright green mane that the earth pony mare kept reaching up to adjust. Of course her tail matched her mane, and kept flicking in worry. "I can't handle this, I am… naked… but not."

"Oh get over yourself, Dustin." Belay was pure white, with an exquisitely pale orange mane and tail. Unlike Dust, he was a unicorn with a proud horn on his head. "Even the Princess doesn't wear clothes, and this is a diplomatic meeting!"

"Should I ask?" Twilight looked to Kiera, then back to the brawns. "Anyway, we should go… if you are coming, that is?"
> Royal Visit
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kiera ran a system check. She spun tasks out to her coprocessors, filling them up with memory and data-channel tests, then she ran through her systems one by one. 'Life support is good, scrubbers are working at proper efficiency, oxygen processors are within spec.'

The shellperson hummed softly through her speakers, a wandering tune that had no writer and would never be properly recorded. Kiera threw patterns up on the main screen, continuing her checks all the way through to her sensor network. She flashed her lights through color spectrum, picking up all the hues perfectly. 'And here I am, both my brawns mutated by radiation I can't even detect, and hoping an inch of titanium will shield me.'

The thought, of course, soured her nutrients and Kiera followed a simple meditation to banish it, then set about restoring her own pH balance. Everything about her body was in order, her squishy one, and her ship one. 'Princess Twilight is busy working on her magic, methodical and precise, even though I understand none of it. Oh well, record it, run it through the language systems later.'

That moment she was switching over to peek on her brawns, Kiera's movement sensors alerted her that something was near the lift. Milliseconds later, her cameras were powered fully and feeding her directly. "Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, it is my honor to welcome you aboard the KDB-1329." She lowered her lift without thinking, opening the doors. "Please excuse me not having a brawn to escort you, I thought it best to let them explore a little."

Celestia's ears focused on the source of the voice first, then her head tracked to it and bowed a little. "Probably for the best, we have much to talk about." She stepped forward, onto the platform that had lowered, as if by magic. Of course the alicorn knew it wasn't magic, the whole ship seemed like a dead-spot in the flow of arcane life in the world.

"We do not require you to call us 'princess' all the time." Luna was caught between wanting to still be considered a leader, but also wanting to be able to talk in a more relaxed state. The truth was, she was extremely excited. "Thank you for inviting us on your vessel, Kiera."

Kiera felt the mass of each of the two royal ponies, she logged it all and filed it away. Every nanosecond of video was stored too. "Of course, Luna." She bit her metaphorical tongue before she addressed Princess Celestia the same. 'Was that the "royal we"? Am I over-thinking?' "Would Princess Celestia like me to address her the—" Kiera stopped when the white alicorn started to giggle furiously. "Sorry, but I had to ask, Celestia."

"It is perfectly fine." Celestia barely got her giggle fit under control. "How would you like to be addressed?" 

It was an offer and honor both, and Kiera knew it. "Just Kiera would be fine. My designation is KDB-1329, but that isn't really needed here. Welcome aboard… me." It was quite the treat to have royalty put you on first-name terms, and while Kiera appreciated it, she still wasn't ready to just relax her guard completely.

Luna stepped from the lift and paused. " 'Aboard me'?" She looked around the interior. "This is all 'you'?"

"It is, Luna. I am linked… bound, into the ship in a way that everything here is me. I can feel your weight on my deck. I can taste the air you breathe in and out. I can even see every photon of light bouncing from your fur." Kiera watched Luna's eyes widen a little.

"That is truly amazing." Luna looked around and spotted the lights pointing down a hallway. "Are we to follow this?" She was acutely aware of every breath she took and every step she made.

"Please, it will lead you to the control room." Kiera adjusted her voice, moving it down the hall before the ponies. "Is there something I can get you? Tea? Coffee? Something to nibble?" She paused, noticing the sudden raising of Luna's smile, the tilt of her eyes to Celestia.

"If you have some tea, and cakes?" Celestia was pushing her sister, trying desperately to loosen Luna up so she could relax. "Maybe… cheesecake?"

Luna could hold her laughter back no more. Her giggle turned into a bark of laughter, before she covered her snout with a hoof, eyes wide.

"You will forgive Luna, she was a little worried that she might have caused damage to you, during the incident, and I needed to help her relax." Celestia reached a wing out and hugged Luna to her side with it. "Speaking of which, exactly what happened?"

Kiera finished assembling the afternoon tea in the mini-fab in the cockpit. "Well, it started like…"


~~~~~+++++~~~~~


"Kiera, have you got the probes on their final test?" Dustin leaned back in the pilot's seat. The smooth synth music that bounced through the cabin was soft enough that it didn't impede their conversation one bit.

"Double and triple checked. Launching the first." Kiera adjusted her hull, sending one of her probes out and igniting its engine. Pushing the little device into a stable orbit, she engaged all sensors. "Oh wow."

The exclamation stole Dustin's attention away from his mini-synth composer. "What's up, Kay?" He looked at the control board as it glowed to life. "That… that is a castle. What is that?" He pointed at another section nearby the city. The display zoomed in smoothly to show a town. "Civilization!"

Belay woke at the yell, her head lifting. "Kiera? What is the shouting about?" She rubbed at her eyes, trying to shift the gunk that sleep left there. An image appeared on the screen beside her bed, it zoomed in to show structures, complex ones. "Life? Real… not wormy... life?"

"Real life. Buildings…" Kiera actually trailed off. "Definitely not worms, look at this!" The high-detail image focused in, panning along to a train that was powering along tracks. "Railway. They must be so close to space-travel it might even happen in our lifetimes!"

Belay was on her feet, pulled on her ship-suit and piled out into the hall in the blink of an eye. "Dust! What have you got? Kiera, record everything!" Her voice gained a sing-song quality that matched the beat of the synth playing. "Do you have an image of them?"

"Working on it." Kiera scanned around. "Plenty of farm stock, look like small horses… oh, no way!" Excitement flooded Kiera's voice as she made the realization. "They are our sapient species. Look, they resemble old-earth equines… sort of."

"They're not even slightly wormy." Dustin gave a wide grin to his partner. "Oh come on, that will never get tired. Kiera, can we bring up the pictures again?"

"I am sorry, Dust, had to delete them to make room." Kiera's voice stiffened a little, a sure sign to her brawns that she was lying through her speakers.

Belay walked over to the column, the outer part of the titanium pillar where Kiera physically was, and hugged it. "I still owe you, remember?"

"This is a conspiracy!" Dustin started rifling through his private data, looking for his own copy of the pictures of Belay trying to communicate with worms. Peripherally, he noticed night fall on the big city; then the whole ship trembled and shook. 


~~~~~+++++~~~~~


"That was me." Luna felt tiny, she watched the two humans thrown around inside Kiera's cabin, the one they were in right now. Dustin managed to strap down into the chair, but not before reaching out to Belay. "Can… can we skip this bit?"

Kiera realized just how right it was to trust the ponies, as one of their diarchs cried for her brawns taking minor injuries. She paused the playback. "Sorry, I can promise you, Luna, that they didn't suffer any wounds from it." Quickly, Kiera edited out the footage of Dustin throwing up from the high-G shifts. "You didn't know what we were, and no one is hurt."


~~~~~+++++~~~~~


Dustin wiped his mouth and shuddered at the horrible taste. "Kiera, what was that? Do they have weapons systems?" He reached his clean hand out, dancing it over the controls to play back the event from every possible sensor Kiera possessed. 

"We just shifted laterally, nearly half the length of the planet." Kiera's voice was shaky, her nutrients had run to acid again and she was halfway to a good panic. "Nothing picked it up, absolutely nothing. One minute we were in a stable orbit, then we were pulled into a geo-stationary one, right above…" 

"That city." Belay finished, pointing at the screen that showed the mountaintop castle now in darkness. "Hold about. Kiera, what just happened to the moon?" Jaw dropping open, Belay read the stats that showed not only had they moved, but a celestial body had as well. 

"Are they projecting raw gravity? How can… there isn't even a heat signature, nothing to show that enough energy to shift a moon was just expended!" Dustin was flicking through a whole heap of readouts. "Kiera, can you move at all?"

The ship rumbled, shook, then a soft sigh came from the speakers as the big engines wound down. "No, and I don't dare engage FTL this close to a gravity well." Fear was in her voice. Kiera was a brainship, untouchable in terms of performance and intelligence—and she was helpless.

She realized the futility of her situation. She worked to repair and balance her fluids, then started her little relaxation meditation. "Guys, whatever is going on, we can't do anything about it. Whoever has done this will either contact us, shift us elsewhere, or let us go. I have my sensors turned up to max to catch any of those."

It was a dismissal and both brawns knew it. 


~~~~~+++++~~~~~


"I don't know why I held you, it just… you looked… nice. I wanted to show you to all our ponies." Luna face had fallen about as far as it could, matching her mood. Then something caught the corner of her eye, something she intrinsically knew. A star-field spread out before her, vivid and strange. She was captivated.

"This is where we are from." Kiera lifted the star-field out with one of her holographic projectors. It now took up a cube in front of the screen. "This particular one is where I was born." A tiny star suddenly had a little arrow pointing to it. "I thought you might like to see more of the sky." The raw excitement in Luna's features was unmistakable. 'Gotcha.' 

"What about this one?" Luna lifted a forehoof up and touched near a dark section of space that had a double-beam of energy pouring out of it. "That looks really pretty…"

"It is… complicated." Kiera was just bringing up the black hole, when Celestia cleared her throat. "Oh, uh, yeah. I guess we should wait until after this." She felt just like she was back in school, and had been caught playing games during rest period; if a shellperson could blush, Kiera would have.

"This cake is wonderful." Celestia gave Kiera time to close the star-field down and get the display back on the events that transpired to have her planted on Equus.


~~~~~+++++~~~~~


Dustin was at the far end of his shift. He had sent Belay back to bed, and found his own eyes drifting closed now. "Kiera, you got this watch?" In response the pilot seat slumped back, cradling him. "You're the best…"

The moment sleep took Dustin, he jerked awake. He wasn't in the chair, he wasn't even on the ship. "What is going on? Am I asleep? What—" A pony floated down from the bright moon above him, a moon that hadn't been there a moment ago. "Hello?"


~~~~~+++++~~~~~


"I remember this bit." Luna cut in on the spoken log from Dustin, thankfully Kiera paused it the moment she started to speak. "I was a little worried they were invaders, you understand I was a little on edge after that changeling attack…"

"My brawns didn't report any aggression, just confusion that finally led to the invitation to meet." Kiera closed the playback, figuring that Luna had explained to Celestia the actions in the dream. "The only remaining thing of note is Dust and Bel's… change." She brought up the footage of the two humans climbing onto the lift.


~~~~~+++++~~~~~


Dust was excited. "A horse!"

"Pony." Belay shook her head. "And you know it. Keep those kinds of words down." She reached over and tapped the lift controls. The platform started to descend, smooth as silk. But something started to go very, very wrong.

"K-K-Kiera?" Dustin brought a hand to his belly. "I think something doesn't agree with us." He felt like his insides were twisting around. Looking to his side, Belay wasn't doing much better.

"Your suits are still sealed, nothing has breached containment!" Kiera was in a blind panic. Pulling the lift back up, she suddenly realized how helpless she was to help them. "Try to get to the med bay." She watched in horror as both Belay and Dustin's suits twisted and shifted, kinking in odd ways and changing. 

At last it came to Kiera, what was happening to her brawns. "You are turning into ponies…"
> Speechless
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dustin stepped off the train in Canterlot. She immediately felt every eye turn to her, staring at her nakedness. She froze as myriad pastel ponies turned in her direction. "B-B-Belay…" She hated that her voice trembled.

"It's the Princess!"

"Princess Twilight Sparkle!"

"Good day, Princess!"

"What has gotten into you, Dust? I have never known you to be this skittish before." Belay stepped up beside his friend. "Wow, she really is popular. Everyone knows her, or so it seems."

"I thought they were all staring at me." Dust covered her snout with a hoof to stop the embarrassing words from tumbling out. She turned to look at Belay, and instead of the derision she expected, she saw only sympathy. Tears started to well up on their own, and there was nothing Dust could do to stop them.

"Hey, don't—" Belay was cut off as the suddenly sobbing pony wrapped her forelegs around him. He lifted one leg to half-hug back. "Don't cry. This is the naked thing again, isn't it?" She nodded against him. "Thought so. But this is even better than if we came in with just the two of us."

"What do you mean." Dustin was now acutely aware that she was hugging her best friend and former lover.

"Look at them. Every single pony here is focused on Princess Twilight; do you think any noticed us at all?" Belay gave his friend another squeeze. "We are just two more ponies here."

"Hello. I am Twilight…" Twilight—not the princess—rolled her eyes. "Sorry, Twilight Velvet. Princess," a happy lilt touched her voice, "Twilight's mother. She asked me to give you a little tour of Canterlot while she works."

Belay and Dustin looked at each other as Kiera's translator did its work, quickly disengaging from the supportive hug. Belay noticed Dust shimmy around to the side, half-hiding herself. "The Princess really loves to get into her work quickly." It came as a moderate relief to hear Twilight Sparkle was such an attentive worker. "Where are my manners. My name is Belay, and this is Dustin y Neil." He stepped to the side, revealing Dust.

"It is a pleasure to meet you both." Twilight Velvet honestly meant it. She studied the less outgoing of the two ponies. "Dustin is an odd name for a mare—pretty though." 

Dust recoiled at first, but then noticed something that helped her relax; just like Belay and herself, Twilight Velvet was completely naked. Except for the fur. 'Why am I so fixated on this?' "P-P-Pleased to meet you," she had to mentally kick herself, "Miss Twilight."

"Please, just call me Twilight." Twilight beamed at the overly formal greeting. "Now, what do two young ponies want to see first?" The moment she asked, Belay's belly grumbled its dissatisfaction at being short on food.

"Colts will be colts, even when they are all grown up. You are just like my Shiny." Twilight Velvet only smiled more at the embarrassed expression on Belay's face. "We will definitely combine the two activities, somewhere nice for lunch."

Dust stuck her tongue out at Belay. "Greedy guts." She couldn't stop the prance in her step as she started after Twilight Velvet, following her out into the crowd without a second thought to her nudity. 

"Oh come on. Your belly rumbles all the time when you get too distracted to eat." Belay wasn't really in a bad mood, but he pretended to distract Dust from her modesty problem. "If you don't me asking, Twilight, where are we going for lunch?"

"I thought something light, yet uniquely pony." Twilight Velvet raised one eyebrow as she looked at Belay. "My little Twily told me some things." She smiled and turned them toward a small dining area that spilled out of an open-fronted coffee shop.

Lifting her snout, Dust felt a tremble of delight run from the tip of her nose all the way down her body to her tail. "Is that coffee? I have only ever had the real thing once, it is almost impossible to get anymore."

"That is because natural coffee is a class six stimulant." Belay couldn't deny how good it smelled though. "But I don't think I will make a log entry about this, if you don't? Last thing we want is to cause a huge rush of people swarming here for their beverages."

Twilight Velvet ignored the quick banter and greeted the shop assistant. "Hello there, Hot Drop." She grinned wide, delighted she remembered the barrister’s name. "Two coffees, a tea for myself, and three wildflower rolls, please."

Dustin let herself be led to a table by Twilight Velvet, and she took a seat. "So, are you a queen?" She wasn't quite sure how to ask in a less outright demanding way, so figured she would just go with it; Twilight was being informal, after all.

"A queen? Oh no." Twilight gave a nervous chuckle. "Why ever do you ask?" She settled in beside Dustin.

"Your children are both royalty." Belay offered, getting a nod from Dust. "Where we are from, only the children of a queen are called prince or princess." He shifted a little to get comfortable on the seat. 

"That isn't how we do things. Oh, there are ponies who gain their titles from more mundane deeds. Prince Blueblood, my own Prince Shining Armor." Twilight spotted the server on their way over with drinks. "But mostly, a princess is somepony who embodies a virtue so much they become an alicorn."

"Like Princess Twilight?" Dustin hadn't failed to notice the mare sitting really close to her. Reaching up with a hoof, she bumped her comm button. "Kiera," she sub-vocalized, "I am getting a vibe from Twilight Velvet. Do you have enough data to evaluate her reactions?"

"No, but use your head, Dust. Remember, she is the mother of two royal figures." Kiera didn't spare Dust much of her attention, she was too busy entertaining two heads of state.

"Thanks Kiera, toss me back on the translator." As Dustin asked, a soft bleep sounded in her ear. Just as she looked from Belay to Twilight, a mare brought their drinks to the table. All Dust's attention focused on the cup, but no sooner was it before her than she realized a huge problem with the arrangement. "How do I drink this?"

Twilight giggled softly. "Well, I could just feed you, but I think you deserve to know a little trick. Hold up your hoof for me."

Dust obliged, lifting a foreleg up and holding his hoof out to Twilight. Her horn illuminated with magic and floated a teaspoon over. She felt it touch against the underside of her hoof.

"Now squeeze down on these parts—your frog." Twilight held the spoon in place until she saw Dust's frog grip the handle. "There, see?" She smiled wide and levitated her own teacup up, taking a sip from it.

Turning her hoof around, Dust inspected the frog closely. "It feels like I have two fingers there. But they aren't really fingers, just big soft pads." Squeezing and releasing them a few times, she couldn't help but get completely distracted in the biology of it.

"I take it neither my daughter, nor anypony else, thought to educate the two of you in your…" Twilight Velvet fished for the right word, her hoof gesturing to the pair as she did, "your new selves? No lessons in how to hold things, social cues, magic?" She looked at Belay pointedly.

"Our… boss is probably the best word… she had a meeting with Princesses Celestia and Luna. Your daughter is busy working on fixing all of this." Belay took a deep breath of his own coffee. "So it looks like you get to be our teacher." As best he could, Belay nestled the handle of the cup in the frog of his right forehoof, and lifted it up. 

Twilight looked back to see Dustin lifting her own coffee up. The expression of bliss as they took a sip of the drink improved Twilight's mood even further. "Enjoying that?" She sipped more of her own tea, savoring the drink.

Nodding, Dust's mouth was practically singing the flavors to her. "This is better than the stuff I had back home. If Equestria joins the FSP, they could make a fortune just selling coffee…" She sipped more, feeling the tingling rush of the caffeine hitting her system.

"You have that right, Dust." Belay supported the mug with his other forehoof, holding it firmly. "What else should we learn, besides magic?" Inside, Belay was practically bouncing with excitement. 'I'm going to learn magic!'

"Well, money shouldn't be too big an issue, Twily said that anything you wanted to do—within reason—would be covered by Princess Celestia." Twilight Velvet sipped her tea a little more fully, savoring the taste. "We could go and see a show, but you will need some fancy clothes first." She looked pointedly at Dustin and traced the mare's form with her eyes. "You will look wonderful in a fine—" She halted the moment Dustin ran. "Uh…"

"Now you did it. Sorry, Twilight, but Dust is a little skittish about all…" Belay gestured to his barrel with a hoof, "this. It was worse for her, I think for all Dustin's talk about being in wild parties, she never really got out of her shell much."

"Will she be okay?" Twilight watched the mare's tail flick as she bolted from the cafe. Just like when she had mentioned a dress, she admired Dust's curves and lines.


~~~~~+++++~~~~~


Dustin's hooves clattered in time with her heartbeat. She wove through the street and ran from the confusion Twilight Velvet had instilled in her. Closing her eyes to squeeze the tears away, she found herself grabbed in a soft, squishy grip.

A deep voice asking what sounded like a question, brought Dust up short. "Kiera? Kiera what happened to the translation?" She looked around in a panic, but relaxed a little when the big, armored stallion set her back down. "Kiera?" In her haste she didn't even sub-vocalize, she actually spoke out loud.

"I am here, Dust." Kiera spoke only through Dustin's implant. "Reviewing footage now. You knocked your button loose about two blocks back, a filly has it now and is carrying it away." She let a little of her disapproval leak through her voice, until she noticed the spike in Dust's vitals. "Calm down, relax. Say Twilight Velvet's name.

Getting her panic under control, Dust looked up at the big stallion and opened her mouth. "T-Twilight Velvet?" As soon as she mentioned the name the guard brightened, smiling and saying something to her. She nodded, but knew she wore a look of confusion. 

"Dust!" 

Her ears perking at the yell of her name, Dustin lifted her head up. "Belay? Twilight?" She turned her head and ears, looking for her friends. The stallion lifted a hoof and pointed, giving Dust a direction to look. "Belay!" Her hooves were already moving, and she raced forward to hug her best friend.

"What happened, Dust? You ran off, and then Kiera started blasting me, telling me to move and find you." Belay hugged his friend. 

"Why am I feeling like this, Bel? I keep feeling my emotions swing around like mad. I think I want to go somewhere quiet and just relax for a while…" Dust trailed off, the desire in her voice was clear.

"Then we do that." Twilight Velvet smiled at the pair, now realizing that it was the little silver thing attached to Belay that was talking for them. Her memory brought up the first time she had seen Dustin, and she had had one too. "You lost your little language translator?"

"You really are Princess Twilight's mother, aren't you?" Belay shook her head at the jump of insight the mare had. 

"Of course." Twilight giggled a little at the compliment. "Now, then, why don't I take care of your friend, then you can still do some exploring of Canterlot. I am sure this handsome stallion here could find somepony to be your guide?" She flicked her eyes to the big guard. "These are Princess Celestia's special guests, after all."

"Oh, uh… yes ma'am!" The guard saluted to Twilight Velvet, then turned to Belay. "Where would you like to visit first?"

"Just relax, Dustin." Twilight Velvet's voice sounded soft and caring. "You can relax at home, maybe even—"

"Kiera, private link to Dust." Belay waited for a soft bleep of acknowledgment. "You have my ear, Dust. If you need anything, or if things get strange, just tell me." She shot her friend a brave smile.

Thought Twilight kept talking, Belay and the guard had walked far enough away that Kiera's comms button couldn't pick up her voice anymore, and the translation stopped. Dustin gulped and lifted her hoof up to tap her ear where Twilight could see. "Thanks, Belay. I trust her and all…" Dust took a deep breath. "Thanks."

Twilight smiled at Dust and pointed down a road, showing the direction to her home. Together, they walked off without another word.
> Miscommunication
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Kiera, I guess now would be a good time to work on learning their language." Dust followed Twilight Velvet back to her home, the sounds of ponies talking all around pinging in her ears. She waited for Twilight to open the front door and gesture before going inside. 

"I don't know if you can understand me, but I can't help but keep talking while somepony else is home." Twilight followed Dustin inside and closed the door behind her. "Why don't you have a seat on the couch and I will make us some tea."

Dust blinked a few times at the unfamiliar words. She had no idea what was being said, but when Twilight patted the couch she got the clue quickly enough. Twilight left her alone in the room, and suddenly Dust was confronted with an etiquette problem. "Kiera, can you scan your footage for any ponies sitting on couches?" The room was still silent, Dust resorting to sub-vocalizations to talk to Kiera.

"I have exactly zero images of such. Sorry Dust. What's the problem?" Kiera was interested to find out what was happening to Dust, she was a little on edge about her brawn being without much in the way of comms.

"Well, I have to sit on a couch. Twilight just left the room and I have no clue if I should sit on it like a human would, or if I can climb up as a pony and lay down…" Dust stared at the couch as if it were a monster ready to devour her.

Kiera gave a little pop of static to Dust's ear. "I don't think she will mind if you overstep a social norm. She seemed to have her head screwed on right. Why don't you fold your front legs to keep your hooves off, then flop to your side?"

"That is why you are the brain, Kiera. Thanks." Dust lifted her front end up, braced her forelegs on her shins and turned to flop against the couch. Wiggling her hooves over the edge of the couch, she gave a little giggle. "Perfect."

"Your vitals are almost back to normal. This was definitely the right choice." Kiera fussed over every number Dustin's implant fed to her, studying his vitals.

"I am amazed this still works, I guess magic is… magic. Oh, she's back." Dust turned her attention to Twilight Velvet as she walked into the room. Floating along before Twilight was a tea set and some biscuits, and Dust had no clue how more perfect the scene could be. She swapped to using her voice, since Twilight was. "Sorry, I didn't know how to climb up…"

Not understanding the more guttural language, Twilight took in how Dust was laying. "Have yourself nice and comfortable? Good, this tea will help you relax some more." She climbed up on the couch beside Dustin, and folded her legs under her. Due to the size of the couch, and how Dust was laying, this meant she was pressed against the other mare.

Dust watched Twilight as she settled herself. "Well, hooves on the couch doesn't seem taboo." Adjusting how she was laying, Dustin got into a more comfortable position. She gave a deep sigh and looked down at the cushion she was laying on. "I am sorry, I just really got freaked out back there. I don't—"

Twilight planted a hoof gently on Dust's mouth, silencing her. "I might not know what you are saying, but having raised two foals through their teenage years I know what you mean by that tone. It wasn't your fault." Leaving the tea set aside, Twilight leaned closer and hugged Dust.

Going stiff at first, Dust relaxed a little and closed her eyes. Lifting her forelegs, she hugged Twilight back. "I just don't know what to do! I don't know why this happened, and I don't know how to fix it. Even Kiera doesn't know!" Tears started to flow, and once they started she couldn't stop. Not matter how much she cried, Twilight held on. 

"Shh. Shh now. I wish I could just tap my hoof and fix all this, but that is for my little filly to do." Twilight kept hugging Dust, and set the tea down carefully. She held on tightly until she felt Dust fuss a little, then gave her some room to pull back. "Better?"

Dust looked directly in Twilight's eyes, studying them as best she could. Before she could think of how to respond to the comforting, Twilight's eyes closed and she moved closer. Before Dust knew what was happening, she got a kiss on the lips.

"Dustin, your heart rate is going up again, are you alright?" Kiera was only mildly worried. Dust might be showing a few signs of stress, it was nothing compared to what had happened during the attack earlier. "Tell me what is going on or I will blast you with static and fly there myself!"

The kiss lingered. Dustin wasn't quite sure what was going on, but it actually felt nice. Pulling back, she shook her head. "Kiera, I don't know what I did, but I think I might have given her the wrong signs… or something."

Kiera had to modulate her vocals, she didn't want to make Dust feel worse. "What happened?" She was proud of how even her voice was.

"She kissed me. I don't… she is looking at me with a smile on her face. Kiera, I don't really know what this means, what she means." Dust, in her confusion, hadn't even subvocalized. Before she could freak out anymore, a cup of hot tea floated up to her. Lifting her forehooves, she gripped each side of the cup carefully and felt the warmth soaking into her frogs.

Twilight Velvet's heart was hammering in her chest. She floated her own cup up and took a sip from it. "I am not even sure why I did that. You looked so lost, so down. I just wanted to do something to make you happy." 

The softly spoken words made Dust looked up from the cup, stared into Twilight's eyes. "Okay, I am pretty sure I know what she means now." She sipped the tea, the flavor welcome in her mouth and the wetness in her throat.

"You dolt. She likes you, Dust." Kiera didn't hold back on her tone now. "So… kiss her back."

"Kiera!" Dust jumped up and stared over the top of Twilight. "I… I am a human, not a pony!" She stomped a hoof in impotent rage. "And I am a guy, not a girl!"

Catching the teacup in her magic with all the skill of a mother used to foals who get distracted, Twilight watched as Dust had a conversation with the air. "I admit, it is a little odd having an intimate moment with somepony, when they are having a conversation with somepony else. You are a lot of puzzles." She sighed. "But Twily said that you were trustworthy… and I am curious."

Dust couldn't understand Twilight Velvet, but she was adamant about one thing. "Kiera, close this link. You know the rules and reg's on privacy." She was feeling hot and flustered just thinking that. "Are you still there?" She waited a few moments, but could only hear the thumping of her heart and Twilight's soft voice. "S-S-Sorry…"

Twilight understood an apology when she heard it. "You are most welcome. Please lay back down with me. I still have your tea." She offered the cup up to Dust.

"Oh… thank you." Dust was almost squirming. She decided that plopping back down and dealing with the situation was for the best. On her belly once more, she lifted the cup out of Twilight's magic. "I know you can't understand me, but I just don't know if this would work. Your daughter might solve the problem tomorrow…"

"Now just have a sip of that, relax. Once we get your translator thingy back, we can have a good chat about all this." Twilight Velvet sipped her own tea, looking into Dust's eyes, studying them as Dust studied her.

"You are kinda cute—even pretty…" Dust blinked as her words came out, tumbling from her brain without any filter. Not that she needed to filter her words, not with the language gap. "I have a lot of questions to ask you, and some to ask myself, but I need to be alone to ask those." She took a deep breath, held it, and slowly let it out again. 

Twilight sipped more of her tea, just watching Dust. "I wonder what Nighty will say, it was always him finding friends." She smiled at the thought of telling him. 

"Well, it isn't like she can understand me so I guess I can try to focus on this. I am a woman… mare. I don't think I should feel this comfortable like this, but I am comfortable. Why am I so relaxed?" Dustin sipped the tea and looked up at Twilight. "And I am comfortable around her, when I should be going crazy. She is a xeno, there are rules about this I think?"

"Well, why do I get the sense that you aren't really talking to me. I can hear a lot of questions in that, with no waiting for answers." Twilight sipped at the last of her tea. "Maybe I should kiss you again?" She immediately discarded the idea.

"This would be so much easier if I could understand you, or maybe it would be worse. I don't even know." Sipping the last of her own tea, Dust swapped to subvocalizing. "Kiera, can you patch me through to Belay?"

"I thought you didn't want me here?" Kiera was more amused than annoyed with her brawn. 

"Don't start. I just want to talk to her, privately." Dust knew that so long as the data hit Kiera's comms, she couldn't ignore it, but hoped that she would realize that Dust wanted to have a conversation with just Belay.

Kiera gave a little pop of static. "Alright, alright. I get it. Meatspace problems. Patching you through. Belay, are you there?"

"Oh… Kiera, I am a bit busy." Belay's voice sounded odd to both Kiera and Dustin. "Wait, is that Dust as well? How are you doing?"

"Twilight Velvet kissed him, and I mean kissed kissed him. I mean her…" Kiera couldn't stop her giggle from hitting the comms line. "I think she needs advice on what to do."

"Kiera, what did I say?" Dustin dropped her head to the couch, looking up at Twilight while talking to her friends. "Private line please."

"Spoilsport. Okay, it's just you two." Kiera did her best to avoid listening; she shunted the conversation to auto record and turned to the map of the solar system. "This really is amazing," her voice echoed through the halls of her empty ship, "this planet shouldn't survive like this…"

"I think she is gone. Okay Dust, what is going on?" Belay's voice was still oddly toned.

Dust took a breath. "She kissed me, and not like a mother kissing their child, or a playful kiss, or even a cheek-kiss in greeting. Bel, she kissed me on the lips and meant it."

"Sounds familiar." Belay's voice was suddenly clear again. "Look, Dust, we can talk about this later, but I am…" His voice paused a moment. "I have a really cute mare here, and I am a stallion, and I really don't know if I will ever feel this again. I need to sign off, but why not have some fun?"

With her heart beating in her ears, Dust heard nothing from her friend's mic. "He is busy making out with someone, and is going to… what is up with this world?"

"This from the guy who had a girl at every station when we were doing cargo runs." Kiera came in over Dust. "I happen to remember you running back to me, several times, with your pants in your arms and with their brothers or fathers chasing you."

Dust gave a huff. "That's different, Kiera. I was—"

"You were the guy, Dust. That is all that was different. Do you think Twilight Velvet is anything like those young ladies you dallied with?" Reaching into her databases, Kiera found her "old words to use" list, and marked off "dally."

"She is nothing like them. For a start, I chased them." Dust smirked a little. "But I am sure that she has someone just as problematic to deal with if something goes… awry. Her daughter and son are royalty!" Somewhere along the conversation, Dust had dropped back to actually talking instead of subvocalizing.

"You sound really worked up over something, and your blush tells me it is me." Twilight smiled for all the world like a predator. "Oh this will be fun, but we need to be able to actually talk before I can truly set my sights on you, Dustin y Neil."
> On the Grid
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Comfort and warmth welcomed Dustin to consciousness again, and she started to stretch and leaned back into the body behind her. The real world seemed elsewhere—not applicable to her present situation—and caring about anything but snuggling with someone else was simply impossible.

Dust floated with happy, foggy thoughts. She was a simple creature, warm, content, and it wasn't for minutes… hours… maybe even years (by her reckoning) that the first part of the new day began to intrude—the "part" was of course a snout. Light gray, soft as silk, and gently probing, it reminded Dustin of who he had been with the previous day.

Twilight Velvet didn't say a word, but she felt Dustin tense in the bed anyway. Relaxing back against the pillow, she gave the other mare every chance to squirm and climb out, but she didn't.

The "spell" of silence would not be broken, and as the moments passed Dust felt the tension relax a little. Little by little, she talked her strange body into calming down, to just enjoy the comfort and warmth again. Her head brought back memories of yawning once too often, of Twilight practically herding her into a bedroom and into bed. For the life of her, though, Dust could not remember Twilight climbing into bed with her.

Trying her luck again, Twilight nuzzled the back of Dust's neck, running her muzzle through the green hair. Again she felt Dust stiffen a little, but slowly relax into the attention. Good girl Twilight thought, not daring to say anything lest it spook her new friend.

A knock on the house's front door startled both mares, the sound echoing up from downstairs. "Blast." Twilight gave Dust's ear a little kiss before pulling back and climbing from the bed.

The kiss was oddly soothing to Dust, a reminder that despite her gender and form being mixed up, that affection was still affection. With the tableau of silence broken, she decided it was time to contact Kiera. "Kay, you there?"

"Of course I am. How was Miss Velvet?" Kiera's tone spoke volumes of what she thought the pair had gotten up to. "Is there another little princess on the way?"

"We are both mares and you know it!" Dust squirmed her way out of bed, got tangled in the covers and landed in a heap on the floor with a thump. "If you ask what that sound was…" The threat was both weak and unenforceable. 

"At a guess, and speaking from experience of you waking in girls' bedrooms before, I would say you were in a hurry to climb from the bed and something got tangled in the covers. How hard is the floor?" Kiera's smirk was practically audible.

"You know me better than I do right now…" Dust untangled herself from the covers and looked back at the mess she had made. "Kiera, I need another contact button, this… this is a mess that goes beyond bed sheets."

"Then you want to go and see Belay." Chuckling as she noticed Dust's vitals spike, Kiera watched from Belay's point of view as Dust clopped down the stairs of Twilight Velvet's house. 

"Nonsense, she has been a lovely guest." Twilight Velvet's ears twitched and turned to hear Dustin walking up behind her. "But she really needs to be able to talk, you have her little button for her?" She stepped to the side just enough to let Dust beside her at the door, but not enough that her guest didn't have to press against her side to do it.

Dust was past anger at being without her translation, she just wanted to get everything squared away. "Please tell me you didn't lose them on your way here?"

"Here you are. Don't lose this one." Belay used her magic to levitate one of the buttons out of the stylish little saddle bag she wore, floating it over to Dustin. "Kiera tells me—"

"Kiera!" Dust's yell startled Belay, but Twilight just chuckled at the extravagance. Pinning the comms button to her fur, Dust was about to subvocalize, but then stopped. "Kiera, please don't." Her tone had enough reluctant begging in it that she dearly hoped it would let her partner know how annoyed she was at everything. "Thank you, Dust. Now please get me out of here…" 

"Oh, you want to leave so quickly?" Twilight finally heard the extra words, the understandable words, come from the little button. "Why don't you both come in and have some tea?"

Dust inhaled deeply. "I need some time." She looked at Twilight Velvet, and could see the comfort and gentle attention in every line. Despite not being the right species, or gender, Dust could appreciate what she had done, and how she had handled the situation.

"It was delightful having you here, Dustin y Neil. I do hope you will come back, I owe you that cup of tea." Twilight knew her eyes twinkled, it was practically a specialty of her family. "I hope you slept well?"

Blushing a little, Dust remembered how wonderfully warm and cuddly it had been, and how slow Twilight had taken what little advances she had used on Dust in the morning. "Yeah, I slept well, and woke wonderfully." A smile pulled her mouth up. "But I need to work out some things."

"Perfectly alright dear." Twilight leaned toward Dust and before her target could object, she kissed Dust on her smiling lips. There was no insisting any further, Twilight just let their mouth's touch in a soft demonstration of affection. 

The world slowed down for Dust. She closed her eyes and let the soft touch of lips to lips continue. Nothing could contend with the simple thought This is nice. At last, she felt Twilight's muzzle pull back from her own, and Dust stared at Twilight Velvet.

"Dust?" Belay could have reached out to grab his shipmate as Dust beat a hasty retreat. "He isn't normally like this… she isn't…" She gave an ever-suffering sigh at Twilight's chuckle. "This is complicated. I will talk to her for you."

"No, please." Twilight's tongue crept out to taste what was left of Dust's lips on her own. "Talk to her for her own good, not mine. Excuse me." She started to close the door, leaving Belay to back up and leave her official guide. 

"Kiera, tell Dustin to stop… and tell me where she ran off to." Belay turned from the door of Twilight's house and looked into the street. In one direction, all the ponies seemed to be acting normal. Swinging his head to look the other way, Belay could see Dust round the corner at the end of the street, ponies scattering from her way.

"She seems really worked up. Was the kiss really that good?" Kiera had two threads of conversation going, but the second one was rather one-sided. "Dustin y Neil, stop this!" She grabbed the data-compressed version of the same words, converted them to raw sound and blasted the noise at her brawn directly though Dust's implant. 

"Shut up Kiera!" Dust didn't subvocalize, she wanted to run and run forever. She wanted to hide and never have to think about cute mares and their soft lips ever again. Screwing her eyes closed, Dust trusted the ponies on the street to keep getting out of her way, which of course meant that she plowed right into one that didn't.

"Dustin! Stop…" Belay trailed off his shout when he saw that Dust had collided with a very large stallion with close-cropped blue mane. "Uh… excuse me sir…" 

Red Rope looked down at the unicorn stallion who was running after the mare at his hooves. He looked down further to the mare. "Is he a problem for you?"

"Who?" Dust turned and looked at Belay and sighed. "No, he's not the problem at all. It's a mare…"

Belay started to move towards Dust, but the big earth pony stallion moved a lot faster, and imposed himself between Belay and Dust. "She's a friend. If you could—"

"Calm down." Red turned his head only half around to look at Dust, and kept Belay in his peripheral vision. "Are you sure he is your friend? Just say the word and I will take you somewhere safe."

Dust finally started to realize what was going on, and couldn't help but smile a little ruefully up at Red Rope. "He is a friend, he wasn't chasing me to hurt me." She got her shaky legs under herself and, standing up, realized just how huge the stallion she had run into really was.

Red narrowed his eyes and looked back at Belay. "Next time you chase a mare, make certain she wants to be caught, okay?" He gave a grunt, turned, and walked out from between the two ponies, back into the crowded street.

"You are quite fast on those hooves." Belay used his magic to reach out and straighten Dust's mane. "And the last time I saw you run nearly that fast from a kiss, you had the girl's brothers chasing you." 

"If Kiera hadn't distracted me I would still be running." Dustin gave a huff and shook herself off. "What is up with this place, Bel? I don't think I even tried to get Twilight's attention. She just—"

"She found you attractive, and smart, and liked both of them in one package." Walking slowly with Dustin at his side, Belay's thoughts flashed to the previous night. The mare Belay had found hadn't been the smartest little thing he had ever met, but she was very affectionate. "Is it really hard to believe someone found you attractive enough to want to chase? Surely you had girls seek you out before this?"

"Yeah, but I just… I keep feeling like I shouldn't be enjoying this. Like it is work." Dust waved a hoof up to the heavens, not even sure how she kept her walking pace. "We are shirking our duty. This system's amazing, and we're stuck dirt-side."

"I sent a probe closer to the magnetar, but there are even stranger things going on." Kiera's voice carried the inquisitiveness that she felt for the system's sun. "A planet managing to maintain life after its sun goes supernova is unheard of."

"Right, there should be so much radio energy coming off it to cook a planet even way out here." Dust loved the distraction Kiera provided. "Have you worked out what that is?" She pointed up at the "sun" in the sky. I don't care how powerful their magic is, they couldn't move the star here, and—"

"It's not the sun." Kiera had to shoot Dust with some static to derail her. "Could some… pony… who read my latest debriefing please comment?" There was only silence from Dustin and Belay. "Well, allow me to enlighten you. The planet is, as we thought, tidally locked to the magnetar. The grip the star has on it is immense, even this far out."

Both brawns were spellbound at the description, and both knew better than to interrupt Kiera while she was lecturing.

"Whatever radiation the star is giving out, nothing I have seems sensitive enough to pick it up, even though it blasted the opposite side of this planet to a wasteland. The 'sun' Princess Celestia raises is actually a very large asteroid, old too. The moon is similar, but a different composition. Something is making each glow in different ways, and I am still unsure how they are actually moving such large objects." Kiera's sigh was heartfelt. "And I know you are going to tell me it is magic."

"It is." Belay grinned to Dust, and got a wide grin back. "This radiation, could that be magic itself?"

"That is a concept I have already started to investigate, and the moment Princess Twilight Sparkle is done with your little fix, I will be begging her assistance in working out a way to measure it. This could be the find of the millennium." Kiera giggled into her empty main cabin, and had to shut down her engines and slow the ventilation system—sometimes her systems followed her moods, and she was really excited.

"There are other princesses remember. Maybe you could ask one of them?" Dustin felt her spirits buoyed up by the excitement Kiera was expressing. "Princess Luna seemed quite interested in space, we could ask her to visit if you like?"

"I am sure she is entirely too busy…" Kiera trailed off a little, a habit she only showed when nervous. "Do you think she might?"


~~~~~+++++~~~~~


Dust and Belay had secured the meeting with Princess Luna, and had run through Kiera's request in short order. It was fortunate that one of Kiera's basic AI systems could handle translation, because the shellperson herself was busy preparing the notes she had built up, and translating them to Equish.

"Would we like to come and talk with Kiera more?" Princess Luna had risen early in the afternoon, and was extremely glad she had. "Nothing would please us more." Memories of starfields flashed back in her mind.

Dustin's mood was riding on an air of smugness like a hovercraft, but she remembered the etiquette, even if Princess Celestia had said to dispense with it. Bowing, she stole a glance at Belay. "Kiera will have things ready for your visit at your leisure, Your Highness."

Luna still enjoyed "the royal treatment" from her ponies, even if her sister had been trying for a long time to reduce it. "That is much agreeable to us. If you will please take your leave, we will be with her shortly." Butterflies danced in Luna's belly while she spread her wings and walked to the balcony window of the room. 

"You heard what Princess Luna said?" Belay reached up and tapped her mastoid (where her implant was situated. "You were quiet…"

"She is busy. If it was anything but spacial anomalies she would be making all kinds of comments. But you know how she gets when there is a puzzle box in the dark." Dustin watched Princess Luna demonstrate that her wings made her perfectly capable of flight. "Uh… so what do we do now?"

"We talk." Belay found a small pile of cushions in the room, and arranged them into a comfortable nest. "So talk, what has you so messed up over this?"

"About Twilight Velvet?" Dust didn't really have to ask, but thought it better to clarify. Belay nodded to her. "Well…"
> Soaring
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna should have been asleep. It was midmorning, the birds were singing happily, and Luna had spent the whole night overseeing the dreams of her ponies. Just the thought of her work made her smile, and Luna did a quick little turn around the castle spire nearest to her. 

Her greater wingspan put her comfortable altitude above most pegasi. Luna sailed slowly across a thermal draft, then spotted her target far below. Luna tipped forward and started to dive. Tucking her wings in tight, only the very tips affected the surrounding airflow. The edge of Canterlot flew by her, and the cliff of the huge mountain became her companion. 

The sleek ship below grew larger and larger. Luna's eyes were half-closed as the air rushed past, but she worked out the point at which she needed to pull her dive up. Turning slightly, she snapped her wings out against the hurricane of wind. Pressure strained at her muscles, but Luna was more than able to arrest her dive and bring herself into a lazy glide to Kiera's lift.

"Lady Kiera, you requested an appointment?" Luna tried to keep her tone warm, and it wasn't hard. Excitement and a love for the world filled the Princess of the Night, and it colored her words and her face. Smiling at the thought of another viewing of the "star map" that Kiera had shown, Luna still felt the butterflies of anticipation fluttered around her belly.

"I did, Princess Luna." Kiera was getting better at picking the moods of ponies, but she didn't need to have a diplomacy module feeding her the information to see that Luna was in a good mood. "Please, you are most welcome aboard."

Stepping onto the lift, Luna heard the soft clopping sound of her hooves on a solid surface. "You must forgive us if this is disrespectful, but you really are quite the marvel, Kiera." Luna tried to imagine a way for the lift to work without magic, and was coming up empty.

"Compliments are never disrespectful, Your Highness." The compliment would have had any of the shellperson advocacy groups raising eyebrows, but Kiera was comfortable enough in her own shell to not take such a minor issue as an insult. "Although other shellpersons might take offense at the reminder that they are constructed." Her tone was carefully upbeat.

Luna waited for the lift to stop, and stepped through the airlock and into Kiera. Each step reminded her of the miracle of engineering that made the starship. She followed subtle lighting until she reached the cockpit of Kiera. Turning directly to the dull gray pillar of metal, Luna dipped her head slightly. "It is wonderful to see you again."

Kiera was tickled pink by how quickly the ponies she had interacted with had adjusted to addressing her in her shell. Though Kiera still used the translation systems, she was studying the pony language herself, in a more direct sense. "Your Highness I—"

"Just Luna will do, when we are alone." Luna wasn't quite sure why she offered Kiera the use of her untitled name, but she got the distinct feel that she was a peer.

"Luna," Kiera tested the waters with the name, "I have been puzzling over your solar system, and I am interested if you can help resolve the conundrum." Kiera brought up a map of the solar system on the pilot's three-dimensional display, and trailed her voice around the room's speakers so that it was coming from the same console.

Catching the flash of light from her peripheral vision, and tracking Kiera's voice with her ears, Luna turned and her heart started to beat faster. Enraptured by the display that hovered in mid air, she stepped closer to it. "That's us…" She lifted one hoof and pointed at the representation of Equus.

"The existence of planets around a magnetar is not unknown. Where the inner portions of your solar system should be, is cleared most capably by the gravity of your star." Kiera used little arrows to gesture between the star and a region of empty space around the hungry, mountain-sized solar body. "But you have never seen your star—"

"We… I have." Luna's memories rushed on her, and she found her mouth moving. "Centuries ago… close to three thousand years. Discord showed my sister and I something like this," she gestured to the map of the solar system, "but much more crude. He told us that he was 'so done' with keeping what was left of the planet alive, and offered us to do it."

Kiera was lost in the story, she had no reference of who Discord was, or what had actually been reported. But dutifully recording everything, Kiera was rapt at the idea of a being thousands of years old. 

"We were just fillies, we didn't know what he… what it would do." Luna smiled at the memory of meeting the capricious being before he had gotten carried away in his games. "He took us to see the other side." Luna raised her hoof to the planet Equus, and to her delight it grew to a full size. Tapping the blistering red side of the planet, Luna continued. "The magic there is wild, beyond compare to anything I have ever felt. It was pure, and Discord's domain. He exposed Celestia and I to that power, and it took root."

"That is why you can move such huge things in the sky?" Kiera was trying to follow the story and assemble it into fact at the same time.

Luna paused and thought about the question. "It is true that the sun and moon are much larger than anything we could shift here, so it must be as you say. When we feel the potential in a pony to survive the process, we duplicate what Discord did to us, carrying the pony to the other side and imbuing them."

"It can't be radiation." Kiera was thinking out loud, although she was extremely glad most of her non-flesh processors had no access to her vocal processes. "Radiation would eventually soak the planet and affect everyone. What does magic feel like?"

Closing her eyes and focusing hard, Luna tried to connect with the power she always felt. There was nothing there, simply nothing. Opening her eyes back up, she relied on memory. "Like catching spider webs with my horn. Magic floats and snags, and the more I push the more catches."

"Perhaps a WIMP of some kind?" Kiera had to check her nutrient levels and adjust them to calm her adrenaline down. "Would you like to go on a trip?" The moment she asked, Kiera saw Luna's eyes widen in anticipation.

"You mean," Luna's voice was a little shaky with excitement, "up? Space?" She almost trembled in anticipation. "Yes!" She felt like a filly all over again, and danced from hoof to hoof in sheer excitement. "Err," sobriety had a fraction to attempt to take hold, and failed utterly, "yes please!"

Kiera inhaled. There was no other way for her to describe the process of opening her engine's intake ports, of pumping air into the intercooling system that would chill it down for use as an oxidizer. She inhaled deeply, and breathed out.

The gravity systems in Kiera accounted for the hard shove of her planetary engines shoving backwards, but the small twitches of turbulence were too swift to be accounted for. The screen before her—above the holographic three-dimensional display—flashed to life and showed the world slipping away. The ride was smoother than any flight Luna had personally made, and each second left her breathless in excitement and shock. Equus curved before her, the horizon of the planet outlined by what she and her sister termed The Astral Plane.

Keeping the ride steady, Kiera prided herself on how smooth she had transitioned from the atmospheric engines to her attitude thrusters, and how perfect she had kept the gravity generator in the ship. She didn't want to intrude on the moment Luna was experiencing, but as time dragged on, she felt she needed to say something. Just as she was about to intrude, she saw the tears trail from Luna's eyes.

"It's amazing…" Luna had no more words for the sight. To see the planet in such detail, the world she had watched over, stole every faculty she had. Tears of delight flowed freely. Without thinking, she reached out for her moon, and the special magic the Astral Plane had given her responded.

"Please stop that!" Kiera watched the asteroid zoom through space towards her, and the moment she barked the request it stopped. Her engines were already dialing up, ready to spit thrust to avoid the collision she had expected. "Sorry, Luna, but I don't want to hit that."

Hearing Kiera snapped Luna back to the present. "I will be careful." Luna reached again, and pulled her moon to just within half its diameter of Kiera. Her eyes widened as her moon took up the whole of the viewing screens. "Can… can you show me how large it is compared to you?"

Adjusting the second three-dimensional display was swift, and Kiera fed it the information to the controls. Her avatar on the screen started by taking up the whole display, then shrank. Smaller and smaller the little Kiera got, until the side of the asteroid was visible as an almost perfectly flat wall. "You see why I was worried?"

Luna could only nod in shock. "And that is really how big it is? How can I move that?" She waved a hoof as the display zoomed out further and further. When her moon was roughly half the size it was a moment ago, another huge rock-shape appeared. This one wasn't the pale white beauty of Luna's moon, it was a white-hot sphere of what seemed like light itself burning. "Celestia's sun… are they that close?"

"I am comparing them for size. The strangest thing is that the sun isn't actually burning." Kiera's sensors were picking up plenty of light, but while there was heat it certainly wasn't anything considerable with a fusion reaction.

"Hold on a moment." Luna reached back out to her moon, but not to move it. It felt warm to her touch, despite what Kiera had said. "I can feel heat in it, Kiera." She held her focus. "But it isn't heat like a fire." Reaching around it, she touched the opposite side and felt a rush of power that almost made her stagger. "Magic! Lots of magic!"

Kiera's attention was locked on the huge asteroid. "Does it feel like cobwebs?" All her sensors were straining, their gain turned as high as it would go. She got nothing.

"Yes… no!" Luna caressed her moon. She wrapped her magic around it and felt every square inch of its surface. "It is the same as the cobwebs, if the cobwebs were steel cables." She felt closer with her moon now than ever before. Banishment had seen her trapped in the moon, but she wasn't aware of it. "Thank you, Kiera."

Snapped from her focus by the raw emotion in the words, Kiera felt connected with the Princess of the Night. "You are quite welcome, Luna. So the glow is some reaction of magic with the surface." She was fairly comfortable establishing that, so long as she kept equating "magic" as "something scientific." 

In a state of almost complete serenity, Luna closed her eyes and felt her moon only with her magic. Touching it so closely, she could feel the power boiling off it as light and heat. She let it wash through her, over her, and around her.

"Can you trace the steel cables?" Kiera tried a different angle. "Can you feel for them and point where they are coming from, and going?" She watched Luna intently, and the mare nodded just a faction.

Feeling around her moon, Luna traced where it was cutting the cables, and followed the line of them. "That way." Her voice almost trembled as she pointed. "But they aren't straight." The further she reached along the cables, the more they curved. "And they are moving!" Her eyes snapped open at the revelation. "They are moving really fast!" Any hint of the Royal Canterlot Voice, or her archaic style of speech she still affected was gone. Luna couldn't be anything but completely open.

"Can you feel anything else moving that fast? Maybe one of the other planets?" Grasping at straws, Kiera felt like she was using Princess Luna like a sensor, one that was as inaccurate as it was important. But even inaccurate sensors can be used. 

Luna didn't have her magic, or she would have shown what the cables felt like. The only magic she possessed was that related to her moon, and she was very sure Kiera didn't want her doing anything related to that inside the ship. "They all curve." She reached further and further, but rather than growing weaker with range, her power seemed to become stronger. "It curves a long way… it curves around that!" Her hoof lifted, pointing at the display on the first three-dimensional display.

"You're pointing at the star, the magnetar…" Kiera accessed all her stats she had for this particular star, and cross referenced them with other reported magnetars. "It seems normal, I don't know why…" She trailed off, stunned. "Radio!"

"Radio?" Luna, assuming Kiera was done with her exploration of the magical cables, opened her eyes and released the vast power that was swirling around space. "What do you mean, 'Radio'?"

"A magnetar usually sends out a lot of radio radiation. There is a reason we called them 'pulsars' in the old days." Kiera was into her favorite topic, space. She loved spacial anomalies, and this one seemed just about the most anomalous ever. "Your star isn't producing the massive radio radiation it should be, but is generating a field of some kind. Because the cables are parallel, it isn't radiation but an actual type of field. Like magnetism."

Luna was eating up the description, her ears perked forwards and—despite how un-princess-like it was—wagging her tail a little. "Your model showed it spinning."

"Yes!" Kiera's voice was excited.

"And from what Princess Twilight explained, moving a magnet transfers its power through its field." Luna hadn't been to any of Twilight's lectures on the subject, but when Luna needed to sleep, listening in on Twilight Sparkle's dreams had no peer. "So our magic—"

Kiera was so excited she cut Luna off. "Is the energy of your spinning star, transferred through this field. The planet itself is shielding some of it, but the other side of it—" 

"The Astral Plane is receiving the full field!" Luna panted in surprise, shock, and not a little wonder at how she and Kiera had just discovered the origin of magic. Her earlier thoughts came back, and she smiled. "Princess Twilight is going to want to know about this."

"She really loves science and magic, doesn't she?" Kiera felt flush. She quickly checked her systems and found the ship was having a little trouble shedding heat. "Princess Luna," she used Luna's title to get the mare's attention, "could you move the moon a little further away please?"

"Of course, Kiera." Luna wanted to fly, but she kept her excitement to just moving her moon back to where it should be for the day time of Equestria. "This is so amazing!"

The huge asteroid zoomed away from her, and Kiera felt much safer without the giant object so close. "Now, would you like an orbit or two before we go back?" 

"What's an orbit?" Luna's question was answered when Kiera showed her a model of the ship, and the planet, then the ship spinning around it twice. "Yes please!" Her wings ruffled and extended slightly, but Luna barely managed to suppress the urge to extend them.
> In a Safe Embrace
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Alright. Now I am back in atmo', I need one of you two to get ready for some EVA work." Kiera's voice came in perfectly clear over both Dust and Belay's implants. "I have been talking with Luna, and she has given me permission to take a sample of the moon. The surface of it is highly reactive to the magic field."

Belay's attention was stolen from the coffee he and Dust had been sharing. "So you could make an instrument to measure the… Wait! Field?"

"Not it." Dust ignored the sudden burst of static she received. "Look, I have had to deal with an amorous mare that I had no idea how to handle, so cut me some slack."

" 'Had'?" Kiera's tone suddenly switched to highly inquisitive. "Dust, don't tell me you have decided to pursue a married mare? The scandal it would cause!"

"Kiera?" Waiting for the tiny burst of inquisitive static, Dust simulated the best raspberry she could. "None of your business!"

Belay giggled. "She totally is. I think they looked adorable together. The older mare, the young filly barely old enough to—" Even her subvocalizations became muffled by the hoof stuffed in her mouth.

"I already called it, Bel. Not it. Your job. You are better at EVA anyway, and you look better in a pressure suit." Pulling her hoof back, Dustin relaxed back into her seat. Reaching for her coffee, she lifted it up and sipped it. "There was something neat about being offline, if you catch my drift."

Belay scoffed. "Neither of you could understand the other."

"Yeah, but it meant we had to do a lot more showing, rather than telling." Reflecting back on her time with Twilight Velvet, Dust realized it was more nerves at breaking social taboo—her own and the Equestrians'—that held her back. "What I am saying is, you were right."

Staring at Dust, Belay reached up to tap her comms button. "Kiera, please tell me you got that? You did record Dustin y Neil telling me she was wrong?"

"You suck, Bel, you know that?" Dust rolled her eyes at her partner's jab.

Kiera broke into the conversation with a little static. "I definitely did. Don't worry, I am loading the recording into an FTL pod now. Soon, all civilization will know that Dustin y Neil can actually be wrong. This will revolutionize science more than the discovery of the first magitar!"

"You know what?" Standing up, Dust gulped down the rest of her coffee and started to make her way out of the cafe. "You both can go blow a ramjet." Lifting her hooves in an almost prancing gait, Dust made her way out onto the street. 

Real air, the air of a planet that wasn't recycled by chemical filtration thousands upon thousands of times, was an amazing thing. Kiera's scrubbers and air cleaning were state of the art, but despite all the careful chemistry done on it, it didn't stand up to a single breath on a planet. Canterlot was high on a mountain, which meant a thinner atmosphere, but at the same time a non-industrialized race left no impact on it either. In short, Dustin enjoyed breathing the air of Equus almost as much as drinking its coffee. 

After a light lunch, she wanted to look around town and find some sights that didn't include a particular mare that Dust realized made her warm up a little just thinking about. Ponies, of course, were everywhere, and even just that little fact was somehow amazing. Unicorns casually using magic. Pegasi zooming through the air. A touch of jealousy touched Dust's thoughts until she remembered that she could objectively study both without being too mired in the details. 

"Look who I have found." The translation from Kiera slipped through Dustin's implant, overlaying the words she could understand on top of Twilight Velvet's voice. "I was just out shopping and thought to myself, 'Is that Dustin over there?' " Twilight held up the apple she had been inspecting, making sure there was nothing wrong with it before putting it in her bag. A coin was exchanged with the merchant, and Twilight walked closer to Dust.

There was a million and one questions Dustin had for Twilight, and each was an excuse for why this was probably a bad idea. "I was worried that I would ruin things here. I don't even know the social rules enough yet not to make a big blunder an—" Her eyes widened, and Dust felt a moment of hesitation. Twilight Velvet's lips were soft, and the way she nuzzled around her own mouth she seemed a little hungry, needy. 

Without a moment to question anything further, Dustin committed to the kiss. Pressing back, she felt warmth flow between her and Twilight. Each movement of her own mouth translated into Velvet's, and back again. The slightest hint of Twilight Velvet's tongue running along her lips urged Dust to open her mouth, but the other mare was not ready to go further than just lips. 

The words, "Buck it," came to Dust's mind and she pushed with her own tongue. She watched Twilight's eyes for a hint she had done something wrong, overstepped some boundary, but tasting sweet berries and honey in the other mare's mouth, Dust could only see excitement in her eyes.

Twilight Velvet closed her lips down on Dustin's probing tongue. She gripped it ever so gently between her teeth and drew back from the soft and silky touch of her new friend's mouth. "Well aren't you full of pleasant surprises?"

Dust was hungry again. She kissed Twilight's lips with a little peck. "I realized something." Drawing her head back, she couldn't believe how beautiful Twilight's eyes seemed.

"What did you realize, Dustin?" Twilight turned a little, her body language offering Dust the chance to walk beside her.

"I realized that with your daughter working on fixing all this, I'm probably not going to get another chance to experience such a…" Dustin fished for a word to describe what she thought Twilight was offering. Before it dragged too much, she studied Twilight's face for an answer—and it came. "Wonderful pony."

"Dustin, you haven't experienced anything yet." A smile curved Twilight's lips, planted there by their kiss, watered with every glance that Dustin gave her. "The rest of the day will be ours, and I have just the way to spend it."

The silly fear tried to push back into Dust's thoughts. Tried to shove her mind into rejecting the situation. "Twilight Velvet, are you asking me out on a date?" The moment she asked she got a broader smile from Twilight, and the mare's eyes danced with excitement.

"It is normally the stallion who asks, I know. That is how things normally work, but who has time for normal?" Twilight smooched Dust's cheek again. "Come on, there is this lovely place I go to just dance and listen to amazing music."

Dust blinked at the logic and jump in topic. Inhaling a deep breath, she metaphorically dove in without checking the depth of the water. "Sounds great."

Laughing, Twilight set the pace to a trot and took them from the market square. Through city streets, and past buildings that looked like dancers and musicians were at work in, Dust and Twilight just laughed with each silly thing they did. Hopping through a plaza and not touching any cracks. Dancing down a street and not caring who was watching. Dust took all her cues from Twilight, and the mare seemed completely unreserved. 

Heavy, synth-focused music hit Dustin's ears and she swiveled them towards the source with barely a thought. A brief moment of levity touched her lips and she giggled.

"What's so funny?" Twilight led the way towards the best nightclub in town. The place was even better in the warm-up hours, when the DJ would sometimes talk to fans, and would take tons of requests.

"I was just thinking what it would be like to write a pony how-to guide. Chapter One: Understanding Your Ears." Dust giggled outright now.

"Chapter Two would have to be about language, with a little translator book for common words." Twilight waved to the big stallion at the door. She gave a slight nod to Dust, and the bouncer suddenly ignored their presence completely. "Understanding a smooch." She leaned up and kissed Dust on the cheek.

"I need this book." Having promised herself that she would not get flustered, Dust just nuzzled back. "Are all ponies this… affectionate? Girl… Fillyfriends I have had in the past ranged from reserved to…" Dust blushed, wondering how to mention more overt things.

"Sex?" Twilight laughed at the chagrin on Dust's face. "I have had two foals, Dust. Both are fully grown, I know what sex is." She leaned up, as if to whisper in Dust's ear. "It's fun, but not on the first date. That isn't a social rule, just one of mine."

"Doesn't last night count?" Dust couldn't believe she had asked, but the mock outrage on Twilight's face told her it had been received well.

"Dustin, you went from holding back everything, to very naughty all of a sudden." Guiding her new friend to the dance floor, Twilight Velvet didn't stop until she had crossed it and sidled up to the DJ booth. A white unicorn with flashing blue hair and pink shades was working the booth. The unicorn's head was bopping, one ear pressed to a single can of her headset. "Vinyl!"

Slowing down, Dustin felt the music all around her. The music was both familiar and completely different to the normal synth she liked, but it was growing on her rapidly. Her hooves began to move on their own, and her body twisted and gyrated.

Vinyl cocked one eyebrow behind her glasses. Looking from the dancer down to Twilight Velvet, she reached a hoof down and got a solid rapport back her fellow unicorn. Setting her cans down, she paused the progression she was working on. With only the thumping beat and sharp strikes of the currently playing track as a backing, she tilted her head slightly to Dustin.

"Her? Somepony I am enjoying more with every thing I learn about them. She started as a project for my daughter, but I think I am ready for some extra credit." Twilight followed Vinyl's gaze to the dancing mare. Something about Dust's movement seemed both fluid and alien. "Excuse me, but more of this if you don't mind." 

Grinning, Vinyl cued up the next few tracks in advance, but the third one was something she hoped the pair would enjoy. Slipping her cans back on, she returned to her creation-in-progress.

Dust laughed aloud when Twilight bumped against her. A pony's body wasn't built to be shoved around well, and being an earth pony that went double for Dust. But despite her solid build, she moved with the imparted energy, twirling around to return it with a gentle bump of her shoulder.

The comms button was useless. Between the jerking movement and sounds that maxed out the little microphone's dynamic range, Kiera was blind and deaf to Dust's antics. Images slipped through from time to time, however, and from what Kiera could see her brawn was having a great time. 

Changing from track to track was seamless, and the music didn't drop so much as a half-measure. One song slipped into the next, and then the next, but when a new one started Dust froze mid-movement. A slow number, complete with soft brass-like tones came from the big stack of speakers. Slow music was slow music, and nearly everywhere in the universe—where romance existed in some fashion—had similar implications for slow music.

Dust pressed herself to Twilight, and together they rose up into bipedal stances. Twilight's hooves moved, one taking Dust's while the other guided Dust's free foreleg down to Twilight's midsection. Dust had barely a second to realize that Twilight was taking the lead before the slow dance started. 

Rocking slowly from side to side, Dust leaned into Twilight and put her forelegs up and around the other mare. Left only able to stare into Twilight Velvet's eyes, they continued to follow the steps that were built in to any couple.

Vinyl's face was covered with the biggest grin as she watched the two mares dance close. The tune was way too slow for her normal tastes, but she had been getting to like slower and more classical things lately. The slightest hint of a base note reminded her of a cello, and she quickly moved the high-energy track she was working on from her deck and started something slower, something with a cello leading the rhythm.





"Dustin gets to have all the fun while I do the work." Belay was settled as best he could in the pilot's chair of the ship. Beside him—and Kiera in her shell of course—Princess Luna watched every movement his hooves made on the interface board. "At least show me what your button can see."

For the second time that day, Luna, Princess of the Night, left the planet of Equus. Kiera's skill with her own engines made the escape from the planet as smooth as a train ride on the Friendship Express. One of the screens showed the city of Canterlot fading below them, while the main screen showed the expanse of an endless night. Luna's magic was still gone, hidden from her horn by the shielding Kiera had told her about. "I would like to see your other assistant's situation too."

Dreams were Luna's forte, and she had found two mares dreaming some curious things the previous night. She blinked a little when Belay lifted a hoof up and back, but Luna had walked enough modern ponies' dreams to understand the gesture. Lifting her shod hoof, she gave the stallion's hoof a tap. 

"Outvoted. And I am sure the rules say that a princess counts for two votes." Operating the logging and service systems for his EVA gear, Belay gave a wink to Luna. "Come on Kiera, make with the picture.

An auxiliary screen lit, showing an image of light gray fur up close. So close, in fact, that the camera was pressed against the follicles. "Happy?" Kiera gave Belay a little jolt of static that roughly approximated a raspberry. Cutting the view, Kiera replaced it with a diagram of their orbit changes and eventual rendezvous with the same position as last time. "Luna, could you bring the moon as close as you had it last time?"

"Don't you want to land on it?" Luna was confused by all the mathematics scrolling on the screen. She could instinctively understand magic and flight, but these adjustments of thrust and angle were a little foreign.

"Wait!" A note of panic touched Kiera's voice. "Please don't move anything yet. We have too much delta-V and at the wrong angle to be able to land. How close can you bring it?" She was already adjusting her vectors.

Luna lifted her hoof and tapped a point just before the ship on the diagram screen. "I can put it a few pony-lengths in front of you, wherever you stop. But I thought everything was relative? No matter how fast you are going, I can push the moon before you."

"We are doing this wrong." Tapping his head with a hoof, Belay rolled his eyes. "Don't move the moon to us. Your Highness, can you move us to just a little above the moon and hold us there?"

Reaching out and touching the moon, Luna felt around what she now knew to be an immense shape. The cables of power that caught on it and pooled around it in expanding rings vibrated to her will. "Now?"

Kiera shut down her engines completely, even her attitude thrusters. "Okay, I am read—" She would never get used to the pull. A force she couldn't measure—yet—yanked her from her transfer orbit and pulled her, with both amazing speed and precision, so that she hovered above the huge asteroid that was Equus' "moon."

"Is that okay?" Luna barely felt challenged by the mass of the ship. It was akin to playing with a boat in your bathtub when you normally pilot huge ocean vessels. "Kiera?"

"Sorry, just startled." Kiera didn't need to admit it, she knew it. Her nutrients were suddenly too acidic, and there was a slight complaint in one of her neural interface circuits. Telling herself it was all psychosomatic, she calmly checked all her systems one by one. "Okay." She activated her attitude thrust controls. "Let go now, please."

"How do you do that? I can't feel any magic here at all." Belay looked up at Luna in awe, his eyes tracing the great starfield-mane. 

"There is a trick, but not one I could teach." With an even tone, Luna hoped that the mare would let that particular can of worms go. It was bad enough when a regular pony got it into their head to become an alicorn, but she knew Belay was probably the only pony that could attempt it. "Attempting it without being ready is… is fatal."

Belay heaved a sigh of relief. "So no wings for me, then. Time to get this into gear." Climbing from the pilot's couch, he started to make his way down the main coaxial shaft to where the EVA gear was stored. "Okay, Kiera, how are we doing this?"

Kiera, for the first time since her graduation, was unable to multitask properly. All her attention was on Luna, who looked like she had jumped from calm contemplation to a panic, and then to a dead run to the docking area. "Luna?!"

"DO NOT EXIT THE SHIP!" Luna deployed the Royal Canterlot Voice with full force, sending it vibrating through every bulkhead and pipe. "HALT IMMEDIATELY!"

His mind suddenly thrown into lockdown, Belay was frozen in place by the sheer force of Luna's voice. He stared back at the coaxial behind him and saw the Princess poke her head in. "W-W-What's wrong?"

Luna didn't want to risk anything. She rushed to Belay and pulled him back from the airlock. "If thee wend outside, thou would surely die!" Just the double bulkhead separated Luna and Belay from the "steel-like cables" of magic that would have ripped the unicorn to pieces.
> Careful Explanations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Too fast?" Twilight Velvet watched Dust's emotions play out over her face. "I can back off if you want, take things slower." They were still in the club, it was still just as empty, but their slow dance had ended and the two mares were left to talk for a moment.

Dust laughed, her own words coming back, echoed in the voice of her comms to overlay Twilight's voice. "S-S-Sorry. I am just so used to being the one to ask that. Now I sound silly. You were soft when I needed soft, but I don't think things are moving too fast, Twilight. We're both adults, I think we both understand what we want from this."

Twilight let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Not that there is a schedule or anything, but I figured if you wanted to get up to anything before Twily solves the problem, then we would need to hustle a little."

Finally, feeling comfortable with herself and Twilight, Dustin grinned and raised an eyebrow. "And what did you want to get up to?" Of course, she knew Twilight wasn't wanting to play tiddlywinks, she counted on it. 

"That," Twilight Velvet made her way for the exit and looked back over one shoulder, "is up to you, Dust. I simply have nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon." Twilight swayed her tail in the opposite direction of her hips with each step.

Spellbound by the sight of Twilight leaving, Dust never got a view of what she didn't want to show her. She couldn't move, couldn't think, and when a presence drew up beside her she barely noticed it.

"You idiot, go after her." Vinyl normally saved her voice for such moments. Turning back to her decks, she floated a record down in her magic and slapped Dustin on the flank with it.

Dust's shock at the soft words and sharp smack got her trotting quickly for the exit, only exclaiming once in surprise.

"You just made a horse noise!" Kiera was full of giggles and snorts in Dust's implant. "Here, do you want to hear it back?" Before any reply could be gained, Kiera played back Dust's whinny of surprise.

"Leave me alone, Kiera. Personal time." Dustin made it to the exit and looked around. Spotting Twilight's distinctive tail—attached to her pretty self—was enough to have Dust galloping after her. He knew the way back to her house by now, and was almost prancing with anticipation.





Belay panted heavily at the bulkhead. He hadn't appreciated the raw force of personality of the princesses, but Luna's had his limbs locked in place. He found himself tilting his head back up, not even aware when he had bowed.

Like a hammer breaking through the tense moment, Kiera's laughter sounded for two seconds before she realized what she was doing and cut her audio output until she had her circuits under control again. "S-Sorry about that. Okay, what was that all about? What would have killed Belay?"

"We…" Luna chewed back on her Royal Canterlot Voice and resumed, making sure to shove Belay away from the hatch leading into the airlock. "I remembered the force. It is stronger still than even the 'astral plane.' If you," she looked to Belay, "had gone outside, the magic would have ripped you apart."

Lifting his head to look up at Luna fully, Belay felt a rush of embarrassment at his obedience. "Th-Thank you, Princess Luna. Okay, well this was a bit of a wasted trip then. Let's head back to the surface and I will start working on something to pick up the samples you want, Kiera."

"Making something?" Luna was intrigued. "You are an engineer as well?" She looked at Belay with a new level of respect.

"Kiera is our chief engineer. She… he… has designed any equipment we have needed for unforeseen needs. Dustin is more suited to performing regular brawn duties, but I appreciate having both of them along." Kiera's pride in her brawns was obvious in her tone, the experienced shellperson leaking a lot of emotion into her voice.

Smiling at the praise, Belay gestured back towards the cockpit. "Well, given that mission is a wash, is there anything else we could take a look at while you take us dirt side?" The thick pressure suit was a lot easier to get out of alone with magic, although Belay still missed hands. 

"I still need a magic sensor." Kiera had never imagined she would ever say those words. "Something sensitive, but can survive the weaker field on the planet and stronger fields of space. And if possible have it externally mounted." 

"Internal, external, and a third one that is just heavily shielded." Belay climbed into one of the crash couches at the main console, and realized he had a problem. "Touch input is going to be hard…" 

"Dustin finally gave in." Kiera baited the hook and waited for Belay to bite.

Fumbling with the interface for a moment, Belay finally gave up on typing. "Oh?" It was all Belay could do not to jump up and down asking for Kiera to spill the beans, or indeed any other legume.

"I cut off my feed when Dust was trotting back to Twilight Velvet's house. To be completely honest, I am happy to see him… her… back to her normal self." Kiera started to return to her previous location on the planet Equus, pondering Belay's problem while she did. "You can hold small sticks, right? Why not do that?"

"That would take years. I am not pecking my way around a keyboard." Burning with the need to know more, Belay pulled his hooves back from the keyboard. "So, you made sure they aren't just cuddling, right?"

"Belay! You know rules and regs on this. Once it is established my brawn wants private time I am not permitted to intrude for anything but a class three emergency." Kiera had already poked at the requirements to declare a class three emergency, but she was quite sure that a quarter of the planet's population was not in immediate danger, and her own tail fins were quite safe.

"You know for certain that she asked for privacy? She is on record as asking, explicitly, for that privacy?" Belay was smooth when it came to bending rules and regs. "Surely just a quick peek, and if you find her engaged in personal activities…"

"You would spy on your assistant?" Princess Luna looked between Belay and Kiera's column. "This is most irregular…"

"Twilight Velvet." The moment Belay said the name he had Luna's attention. "She offered to guide us around Canterlot while her daughter worked on restoring us. It was friendly enough at first, but she really took a shine to Dust."

"Dustin finally gave up her struggle while you were getting ready to spacewalk. Twilight led her off like a puppy on a leash." Figuratively biting her non-existent nails, Kiera argued with herself over the morality of looking, as well as the rules. "Just audio."

Doing just that, Kiera had Dust's audio open for just a moment. "EEP!" She slammed the connection off, not even realizing she had exclaimed through her internal systems. "Oh… I can verify that all appropriate privacy locks are legitimately able to be enforced." She scrubbed the usual recordings that were kept of all comms, and even tried—in vain—to scrub the matched moans from her meat-memory.

"Alright Dust!" Belay spun his chair around, pumping a hoof into the air. He froze the moment he spotted Luna's surprised gaze. "Uh… is something wrong, Your Highness?"

"I made it clear about titles." Luna smiled lightly to set Belay's mind at ease. "But it still perplexes me that you are so happy that your mate found comfort with another?"

"We aren't… we were, I mean, but we aren't now." Belay rolled a hoof in the air. "Dustin was having a lot of trouble just fitting in, and she even had a panic attack earlier. Dust is… was… is a very confident stallion… guy… male. Becoming a mare confused her, scared her, and I think Twilight will be the best thing for her right now. Does anyone else have trouble with these pronouns or is it just me?"

"I can imagine that anypony documenting this will have just as much trouble." Luna rolled her eyes as if she had just made a huge joke. "It does confuse me just a little still. You did know that Twilight Velvet is married?"

Belay's eyes widened, and he suddenly ran out of ways to answer the Princess. "Err…"





Dustin's body was warm with the aftereffects of lovemaking. Unlike as a male, the buildup had been slow and involved more what she would think of as foreplay than actual sex. She squeezed her back legs together and rolled her thighs. Slumped on the bed with Twilight, both of them were focusing on their breathing, letting their afterglow slowly fade.

Twilight rolled over slowly, nuzzled against Dust's neck and jaw before giggling at the other mare's soft little exclamations. "Not quite yet. How was it?"

Dustin couldn't understand a word of what Twilight said, but the meaning was obvious. She was starting to catch inflection, and now realized she was eager to actually learn the local language. "Great. Really fun." The words just flowed out. Dust's feelings on sex were that sex for fun was what it was all about, and what they had done certainly filled that bill. "Strange, but fun."

Twilight tilted her head at the mix of tones.

"I've only been a pony for about a week, and only been a female for the same time." Dust's confidence was swollen, vying with her ego. Her ears still remembered the sounds of Twilight, mid-coitus, when they were both squealing for all they were worth. The sound of a door opening behind her surprised Dust, and she quickly rolled over and spotted a blue unicorn stallion standing in the doorway.

"Darling!" Twilight Velvet's voice rose to a surprised level. "You're home early!"

All the confidence drained from Dustin in that moment, and she started trying to back away and slip from the bed as easily as possible. This, of course, resulting in her getting her legs tangled and falling in a heap at the foot of the bed.

Leaning across the bed, Night Light offered his lips to Twilight, and got the same kiss his returns always garnered. "Who is this, Twilight?"

"This is a new friend." Twilight had no way to keep any of the facts from Night Light. The smell in the room was plain to any pony nose, and the way the bedclothes were rumpled had only one conclusion. "She is from another world!"

"Not that mirror thing again? Shiny said he had to send the darned thing to Twily to protect it after the last situation." Night Light walked around the bed and reached a hoof down to Dust. "May I help you?"

Dust, somehow having hogtied herself in bed sheets, stared up at Night Light. "I promise, if I had known Twilight was married, I wouldn't have done this!" She was looking for escape routes, but with a unicorn standing over her bound body she had no chance. "Please forgive me…"

"Twilight, I can't understand a word she is saying. What is going on here?" Night Light rolled his eyes. "You didn't tell her about us, right?" Though he spoke to his wife, Night kept his eyes on Dustin.

Without words, Dust relied completely on Night Light's tone of voice for her cues as to when she was going to be set on fire. The complete lack of any accusation or anger in Night Light's voice, started to tip off Dustin that things weren't quite as she expected. "Kiera!"

Kiera gave a little tone, and then cut in via Dust's mastoid implant. "According to Rule one-one-seven-A, I have engaged audio. Brawn Dustin, do you—"

"Just turn on the translator, Kiera. I need to understand what is going on here." No sooner had Dust requested it than two voices chimed in over her implant.

"You didn't tell her we are open? Darling, that was a bit naughty!" Night Light said.

Twilight's reply was now understandable. "You weren't due home until next week. I was going to introduce her to the idea slowly." 

Night Light's words shocked Dust. She looked to Twilight and got an apologetic look from her, then to Night Light. "Open?"

"My wife likes to go fishing. She finds adorable mares and brings them home to play—normally while I am home—and we all have some fun. This is the first time I have stumbled into this, however." Night Light looked between the two mares in his bedroom. "What about we—" He stopped speaking, Dustin had finally gotten her legs free of the sheets and had taken off at a gallop.

"Darling, you need to follow my lead with her." Twilight gave a dramatic sigh. "Now I need to find where she ran to and calm her back down again."
> Adulting
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



As stated, this story will be making the transition to M + sex. With a little re-imagining of the plot, the story's planned development of Dustin is going to require bedroom scenes that can no longer be hand-waved. Given that McCaffrey herself wrote bawdy fiction, I feel a lot less qualms than what I would otherwise.

If this is a problem for you, I am sorry to have ruined the story. Now, without further ado, we return to the regularly scheduled confused mare.



Dust's exodus was curtailed in the living room. It wasn't a set of cunning traps, but the knowledge that she had reached an almost trope-like level of predictability. "This is stupid. He didn't come in blasting, and I don't think anypony here lies about anything." Her memory returned to the time she had spent with Twilight, and she couldn't keep a smile off her lips.

Turning, Dust walked into the kitchen and started making a cup of tea. The water was soon boiling, and so she carefully, using all the tricks she had learned in the last few days, brewed up a pot of the delightful stuff. 

"Didn't get far this time." Twilight Velvet walked into the kitchen, and tilted her nose up slightly at the smell. "Ohhh, and you have excellent taste." She paused as Night Light walked up beside her, and she offered her husband a cheek.

Disheveled from a short "welcome home" with his wife, Night Light nuzzled Twilight Velvet's cheek, and finished it with a kiss. "That was terrible of me. I am sorry, Dustin." Walking further into the kitchen, Night took a seat and held out another for Twilight.

"I thought you would be mad. When I have been… uh… caught in the act—before—the catcher didn't invite me to stay for seconds." Dust added milk to the tray, and placed the sugar bowl on as well. "To be perfectly honest, I usually had to run all the way to a ship."

"That would usually be me, and at least here you aren't expected to wear pants when boarding." Kiera's dry humor lasted barely a moment before she slipped her focus elsewhere. The translation system, of course, didn't need her constantly working on it.

"See? That twitch is how you can tell she just got a message from her friends. I don't know how it is all happening, but it certainly is clever. And now it looks like she is annoyed at either her friend, or us." Twilight smiled more and more as she explained Dustin's foibles to Night Light.

"Just Kiera making a joke. She rescued me on several such escapes." Dust carefully moved the tea set from the bench to the table, using her mouth rather than her hooves. Taking her spot, she was glad to see the glow of Twilight's magic start pouring the tea. "Thanks."

"We have a lot to talk about." Night Light decided to jump in before his wife, partly to give her time to serve tea, and partly because he wanted to show how much Dustin's feelings meant to him, too. "First…" He held out a hoof across the table, aimed directly at Dust. "My name is Night Light. I am pleased to meet you."

Dust reached out her own leg and gently bumped her hoof against Night's. "I'm Dustin y Neil. You can call me Dust, if you want." Dustin was a mile deep in customs that she hadn't understood when she was human, and it had her completely off balance mentally. 

"You have questions, dear." Twilight Velvet passed Dust a cup of tea. "Please ask them, and we will answer." She repeated the serving for Night, and then claimed her own cup; all while Dust was thinking of what to ask.

Puffing out her chest, Dust carefully lifted one cup and brought it to her lips. Delicious, hot, and soothing tea wet and loosened her tongue. "Did Twilight tell you about me? About where I am from?"

"She did not." Night looked at his wife, then back to Dust. "But if I had to guess I would say Trottingham? Your accent isn't perfect for there, but it is closer than any other I have heard in Equestria." Lifting his own cup in his pale blue magic and took a sip. "Wonderful tea, by the way."

"I am from another planet. This one, Equus, is one of thousands I have surveyed." Dust's answer to Night raised Night Light's eyebrows, and before Dust knew it the stallion was leaning across the table, excitement painted in a broad stroke across his face. "W-W-What?"

Twilight Velvet giggled. "What do you think drew me to you?" Carefully standing up, Twilight turned to show her cutie mark. "And how do you think we found each other?"

Dust looked at the three stars on Twilight's flank, and then her eyes switched to Night Light's; he had a pair of moons. "Okay…" Dust's eyes drifted back to Twilight's rear, and she couldn't help but admire it for what it was.

"We are both astronomers." Night Light was almost bouncing in his seat. "Are you really from outer space? What is it like? Can you see what the moon and the sun are made of? How do you breathe up there?"

The questions, so enthusiastic and honest, tickled Dust's nerdy side. Just as he was about to reply, Twilight cut in.

"Dear, this is meant to be where Dustin asks questions of us." A thin veneer of calmness covered the excited filly that lived inside Twilight Velvet. She sipped tea, and her magic quivered in its grip on the cup. "But—at a later time—if Dust wanted to explain some things…?"

"Of course!" Night Light struggled to get calmed down, although the tea helped. "Sorry Dustin, but it really would mean a lot to me."

"Sure. Well, I guess this answers my first question. The next one is to each of you: what happens now?" Looking between the two excited ponies, Dustin caught them glance to each other.

"That depends more on you, dear." Twilight was stacking up questions, all of them about space, while she thought on Dustin's own question. She gestured to Night. "We are more than happy to continue things, if you wish to?"

"I had a lot of fun. It is really different." It wasn't like she had anything else to do, after all, or so Dustin reasoned. She focused her attention on Twilight, first. "I think I would like to keep having fun, but I am not going to be so much of a pushover. We rushed to this, maybe a little fast, but we are adults. Let's do the right thing and go on more dates. Really get to know each other."

"And me?" Night Light raised an eyebrow.

"I have been with guys before… stallions… but that was with me as a guy… stallion." Dustin waved a hoof and rolled her eyes when she got to the second language conflagration. It made her pause for a moment when she realized she had used the Equish word for stallion.

Night Light looked towards Twilight Velvet. "There was something, I think, that was more important among the things you left out." He turned his full attention back to Dustin. "You were a stallion?"

"Yes." Dustin sighed. "It is a little complicated, but something about Equus—and magic—changed Belay and myself. Belay is my crewmate." She was quick to clarify her relationship with Belay. "Your daughter is working on restoring us."

Night Light smiled as softly as he could. "A lot more has become clear. Thank you for the illumination, Dust. Is it a confidence thing?"

"Partly, but it might be irrational. I just… I am scared of some things, is all." It took a lot of Dustin's borrowed confidence to get the words out and admit to her fear. She dipped her head a little and looked down at the floor, And almost missed Night Light getting up and circling the table towards her. "What—?"

A warm hug wrapped around Dustin. She wanted to pull away at first, but Night Light's gentle but firm grip held none of the fire that had scared her in the bedroom earlier. She leaned into him and closed her eyes.

"We go at your pace. I won't make any move on you without your okay." Losing the fun he thought he had gained upon first finding Twilight in bed with another mare didn't sting Night Light at all. "And if you ever need a hug, and need to be told you are a wonderful pony, you don't even need to ask."

With no hint of sex attached, being with another male didn't trigger Dustin's fear. She could relax in his arms and, she dared, trust him. "Mmm, okay. Slow, and this means more dates."

"She loved Vinyl's music. I think we could go there later, if you were both up for a long night?" Smiling wide, Twilight Velvet got a warm tingle up her spine at seeing Night snuggling with Dustin. 





Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, had been neglecting the immediate urging of her domain in favor of a much grander, and more important one. Lifting her snout back from the ancient book—that had been written by Star Swirl the Bearded himself—she tried to fasten the two parts of a spell she had found.

Causing her horn to glow a brilliant shade of raspberry, Twilight pushed magic through both shapes as carefully as she could. The first was a containment: meant to keep things sealed within, safe—she had disassembled a shield spell to make it. The second was like a vacuum pump, but for magic. Aiming at her measuring devices' probes, Twilight formed the two spell components together.

A rush of air, a loud WHUMP, and Twilight was shoved back across the room. She stared at where her spell-in-progress had been, and saw her probes were on fire… again.





It had taken Belay a week to build the probe—suitable to test the surfaces of the "moon" and "sun"—according to Dustin's specifications. He had started off using Kiera's fabricators, but there was still the matter of the power source for the tiny robot. But that had been what triggered his current project.

On the workbench before him, in a disused wing of the castle, was a very strange mix of metal and crystals. The odd sandwich of material he had made conducted magic in an exciting way; when the double-sided material was exposed to a magical field, it split that field into two flows of power moving in opposite directions.

The latest sample he was working on was just two centimeters long, and one wide, but he felt it was time to test it for its next property. Securing the sample using his hooves—to avoid exposing it to his own magic aura—Belay reached his magic out to grasp a stylus and tablet from Kiera. "Okay. Experiment number thirty-five. Testing compound L for charge when magic is exposed."

The basic potentiometer on the bench read zero, of course, without any connections. With careful movements, he attached the probes of the simple electronic device to each end of the sample material. "Exposing sample to strong magic field in three, two, one…" Using his horn, Belay pushed energy into a ball of potential around the metal. A fizzle, and a pop, and Belay watched the polarized magic run down the leads of the wires and straight into the meter.

A flash of white light later, and Belay blinked away the sparkles from his overexposed eyes. "That wasn't meant to happen." The wires were still glowing a little, ambient magic now saturating the sample and causing it to glow softly all on its own. "Test number thirty-five failed to yield a potential difference, but did turn test equipment into a banana."

Looking at the fruit, Belay reached his hoof out to a spatula, and carefully pulled the test wires from the banana. Making sure to note everything about the piece of fruit, Belay gave a sigh and climbed off the chair, and headed back towards the little forge he had built. "Time to make a sample for test thirty-six… Actually, I might take a break."

Turning off the gas on his forge, Belay left the study for the main room of the suite. Picking up a book with his magic, Belay pulled it over to the couch he had drafted to be his "reading couch" and curled up with the intermediate magic guide.





Dustin felt her mind relax back from the period of hyper concentration. The language primer Kiera's translator software had created made her ears twitch and neck tingle while it used basic hypnosis methods to train her in Equish, but she was perfectly happy to deal with that so she could have a little more privacy. 

Yawning, Dust turned over in bed, and nuzzled against Twilight's side. Her sleeping habits had been a little awkward at first, but there was harmony in the bedroom so long as Twilight Velvet was between her and Night Light. 

When Twilight's snout leaned over and pressed her nose to Dustin's, each of them smiled against the other's lips as a kiss took their focus. Dustin closed her eyes, and focused on the feel of Twilight.

A rocking motion in the bed was Dustin's first hint of what was happening, and she turned her head just enough to see Night Light making love to his wife. The look in Night's eyes, the raw energy he seemed to radiate, tickled intimidatingly at Dustin's mind. But the act exposed her worry too. Of course Night Light and Twilight Velvet didn't use any protection, they were happily married, and quite ready for more foals. Dustin felt a slight pang of panic at the thought, but it wasn't her he was atop, and he had never broken his word to her. 

Boldness and a desire to reward Night Light filled Dustin, and she broke the kiss with Twilight and leaned up. Night's lips were not as soft as Twilight's, but he was insistent. Hunger was evident in his every action, and despite herself, Dustin was turned on by it. 

Night Light tried as best he could to keep the kiss neutral, but he was in bed with Twilight, and was copulating with his darling at the time. Every drop of passion Night Light had washed into the kiss, and he was happily surprised by Dustin's acceptance of it. The oral embrace proved to last longer than he could, and as Night felt his body tense and start exploding, he could feel Dustin's lips against his.

Moaning loudly when Night's climax pushed her over the edge, Twilight Velvet stared up at Night and Dustin kissing. She watched as Dustin seemed more open to Night than ever before. Even with pleasure blasting through her body repeatedly, Twilight found herself smiling at the impromptu make-out session above her.
> Lunch
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight Sparkle was not a genius. Genius is a trait that lets a creature make great leaps of understanding without all the needed steps to get there. It was the stuff revolutionary discoveries were made of, but of course, Twilight Sparkle was not a genius.

She worked day (and when Spike didn't keep track of her, night too) after day on the problem she had assigned herself, and each step brought knowledge and understanding. It was almost abstract in its very idea, 'What happens when an organic creature without a history of magic enters a magic field?' It was absurd to her, at first, because everything on Equus was affected by magic. 

Canterlot Castle's science labs were extensive, and although Twilight was mostly the only pony working in them, she had seen another more often than not. Belay, to Twilight's surprise, was doing some amazing research into using magic itself to power electrical devices. The conversion of one energy into the other had never been looked into before, and in the few weeks that Belay had been on the task, it had grown from theory to prototype.

Twilight trotted into the lab for the day, and spotted Belay already at work. "Good morning!" She made a point of trotting over and talking to Belay every chance she got, it wasn't every day that an alien from another world decided to do some revolutionary research in the same lab as you.

"Good morning, Twilight." Belay reached a hoof up and rubbed his head with a hoof and looked at the Princess. Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, was without a doubt one of the most adorable mares Belay had come across. Not only was she brutally smart, but she was sexy, and the best bit was she was self-aware of neither. "Sleep well?"

Completely missing the fact that Belay was checking her out, Twilight nodded. "The beds in the castle remind me of when I was just a filly, studying here under Princess Celestia." She pointed at the small box Belay had before him on the bench. "Is this 'it'?"

"One of. I gave the other one to Luna to perform a test with it in space." Despite repeated coaxing by all concerned, it was hard for Belay to not use titles before names. In the FSP, and particularly in the military corps, titles and names were very important. "She and Kiera are going to be testing it both inside and outside Kiera, while I perform more tests on this one here."

"Princess Luna is doing research for you?" For the slightest moment Twilight felt a pang of jealousy, and while she tried to shove it away, it persisted. Irrational, the feeling was something she wanted to focus on later.

Belay so wanted to hit on Twilight it was almost eating him up. "The Princess just likes going into space. You should see how excited she gets when Kiera lifts off. I think my work is just a happy excuse for her to get away."

Twilight was a little shocked at the frank deconstruction. The little green monster died a horrible, sudden death, and she chuckled. "To be honest, I would like to get away for a little while, but I am so close to being able to reverse,"—she gestured to Belay—"this."

"What about lunch, later?" Belay's brain was yelling at him. Taking a princess on a date was just about the worst idea ever, but his voice had a life of its own. "Don't think I haven't noticed you skipping meals. A two-hour lunch break won't be a major drain on your time."

"S-Sure." Twilight blinked in surprise. A little voice in her head informed her that she had just accepted a lunch-date from a stallion (which made her a little panicked), but another part pointed out that the stallion was a creature from another world (which made her excited), and yet another added that the nice-looking alien that the other parts were referring to was also a fellow scientist (which almost made her melt into a puddle).

"Great." Alarm bells rang in Belay's head, and he tried to tell himself that just because he was going out for lunch, it wasn't a date. "I'll get these experiments set up and started, and we can go at midday?"

Nodding in reply, Twilight tried to find a safer topic before opening her mouth. "I might be ready to test this latest formula soon. I need to run it through the last few tests." A safe topic found, Twilight relaxed again.

"I'll see you then!" Belay wanted to thump himself on the head repeatedly. The moment Twilight retreated to the far end of the lab, he did thump himself by planting a forehoof on his forehead. "Idiot. Just go to a club and pick up a cute mare. Why do you have to chase a princess…?"





Dustin had been nervous about her lunch-date all day. Her morning had been spent with Princess Luna, teaching her about yet more of Kiera's systems, but even the illustrious company of the morning didn't take her mind off the pony sitting across the table from her.

Night Light looked distracted. His somewhat dark azure coat was brushed to perfection, and his mane was styled to within an inch of its life. Twilight Velvet had spent most of the morning on his tail, and after complaining about its terrible condition while she worked, she eventually proclaimed it passable. He was distracted, of course, because there was a cute mare sitting opposite him.

"Sorry I'm not quite as exciting as my Twitwi. I sometimes wonder how we even met, until I remember that she chased me down and put a bridle on me." Night picked up his cup of juice with a hoof, not wanting to distract Dustin too much.

"B-Bridle? Like the head-thing?" Snapped from her shock by a greater one, Dustin had the distinct feeling she was about to learn a little more than she might have wanted about her friends.

Setting his juice back down, Night leaned back in the comfortable little booth of the diner. "Well, we were both at school at the time, and my Twitwi wasn't my Twitwi yet. She and her friends, unbeknownst to me, had taken up a mission.

"You see, we had two Saddle Arabians in class that year, and they wore bridles everywhere. Theirs, it seemed, were to proclaim them as eligible, but my Twitwi learned about another kind." Thinking back, Night Light had to smile at the memory first meeting Twilight Velvet. "I didn't know a thing about all this at the time, of course, but apparently she had decided to stalk me."

Dustin was smiling at the story, and realized that Twilight Velvet's forwardness wasn't a recent thing, and certainly wasn't just aimed at her. "What did she do?"

"There I was, sitting under a tree with my homework, eating lunch and making an early start on it, when she pulled a betrothal bridle over my head. Apparently, in the old days of Saddle Arabia, there was a tradition for mares to hunt down and capture stallions of another tribe. Where she got hold of such a bridle, I will never know." Night had another sip, and hid his smile with the glass. "I felt the straps pulling tight around my head, and a bit pulled between my teeth."

"This sounds kinky." Dustin giggled at the mental image. Just then, their lunch arrived.

"Here you are." The waitress put a plate with sandwiches before each of her table's customers.

"Thank you," Dustin and Night both said at the same time.

Night waited for the waitress to leave again. "It really wasn't meant to be. I tried to call for help, but the bit on those things is designed to pin your tongue down. I was gasping and wheezing, and she not only fastened the bridle on, but gave a tug on the reins." He sighed and forgot he was talking to Dustin. "Then our eyes met."

Dustin was blown away by the description. "No way! Love at first sight?"

"No, I bucked around a bit, but she firmly yanked on the reins. Turns out those things have a bit of an enchantment on them too. I was struck by an instinctive relaxation, which was the enchantment channeling a little of Twitwi's magic. Took me two days to shake it off, but by then I was hooked on her." Lifting a sandwich up, Night took a good bite from it. "She realized what the bridle did, of course, and took it off. But the effect lingered for a few days, and she didn't want to tell Princess Celestia."

"Are you saying she kept you hidden for—for how long?" Completely distracted by the story, Dustin ate her food without really thinking about it. Her movements were natural now, normal.

"Four days. She fed me, washed me, took care of my almost unconscious self. She even did my homework and handed it in." Munching down on his sandwich, Night Light kept sneaking glances at Dustin, his eyes catching every curve. "And at night she read to me. She never once did anything inappropriate, and when I woke up I kissed her."

"What did she do then?" Dustin was fully invested in the story, and ate the last of her sandwich.

Night finished off his lunch too, gulping the juice down. "She asked me out on a date, I said yes. I moved into her room three months later, and when we graduated we got married and the rest is history."

It struck Dustin that weeks ago—when she first arrived—there was no way she would believe such a fantastic story, but knowing how extensively used magic was, she accepted it without a word against it. Not to mention she knew how close Night Light and Twilight Velvet were.

"How did you and Belay meet up?" Night could tell his question caught Dustin off guard, but it was only fair. He tried to wave down the waitress, and managed to get her to acknowledge him from another table. 

"I let you talk me into this, didn't I?" Not holding a grudge, Dustin smiled. "Kiera was in getting a refit…" She lifted a hoof to her chin to try to explain it better. "She was getting upgrades to her ship-self."

"Oh! Out with the old, in with the new?" As the waitress came closer, Night turned his attention to her. "Two bowls of your nicest ice cream. Caramel and chocolate."

Dustin waited until the waitress left the surrounding area, and then continued. "So Kiera was busy getting her refit, and she had some other shell-people to talk to, and I had the run of the base for a month. Before I go further, I will say I despise other brawns—that's the legs-part of a brain-brawn team—they seem so snooty sometimes. So I normally just go to the regular crew rec areas… bars.

"She was chilling in a bar, and when I walked in I could see her working on a design. Now, a mare—girl—alone is something I try to always help with, but when I found out she had a brain too—"

Night cut in. "Kiera? She is the brain to your brawn, right?" 

"I meant Belay was smart. Some people tended to coast through life doing the absolute minimum of work, and here I find somepony I can talk to and have fun with." Dustin kept mixing ponyisms into her speech, but she gave up correcting them after a while. "So while Kiera was being refitted, we had a little fun, and when her ride was about to leave I asked if she wanted a better job."

The waitress arrived with their ice cream, and Dustin couldn't help herself trying some right away. "Oh, this is good!"

"Next time we are going to Donut Joe's. If you think this ice cream is good, you should try the mango gelato he has." Swirling his spoon around to mix the two flavors, Night took a spoon full of his own and sighed in bliss.

"It's still the best thing I have eaten so far." Dustin tried a little more, just as her brain told her that she had somehow just committed to a second date. Blushing, she pushed back to the safe topic. "Belay was working as a cargo officer, so Kiera hired her on as that. We didn't take cargo, by the way, it was just a good excuse to help her train up.

"Over two years Belay not only took the brawn training, and almost passed it all, but she got a degree in engineering." Pausing for more ice cream, Dusting used it to cool herself down a little. "Personally, we didn't do so well. After a year we found too many things wrong in the bedroom, and agreed to keep it friendly."

"Just like that?" Night felt immensely skeptical. "So you stayed friends after that?"

"For a year we made things work, but it became more and more obvious that we just didn't like the same things." Staring down into the bowel, Dustin sighed. "She was fun, but she—" Dustin cut off sharply, and shook her head. "I am not going to talk about it, sorry, Night."

"I wouldn't push you to. What a mare likes in the bedroom shouldn't be table conversation." Quick as a shot, Night reached out his spoon and claimed some of Dustin's ice cream. 

The shock of the theft left Dustin blinking. Without realizing what she was doing, she reached out with her spoon and liberated some of Night Light's dessert. "But ours is?"

"If you want to talk about it, I am open to." Repeating the earlier maneuver, Night Light scooped up some of Dustin's ice cream and ate it. "Is it just me being a stallion?"

"What? No." Dustin blushed. "I experimented—more than experimented—and it was fun. I like mares, but you definitely don't turn me off." The blush got stronger as she realized she had just uttered an understatement. "It's me."

"Not used to being a mare?" This time, when Night Light scooped up some of Dustin's ice cream, instead of taking it for himself he held the spoon up in front of Dustin's lips. A hopeful look crossed his face, and he raised one eyebrow. At the last moment—before Night was going to reclaim his spoon—Dustin opened her mouth for him.

The taste of ice cream was somehow augmented by the fun of having it fed to her. Dustin made a slow slurp as the spoon was withdrawn from her mouth. "It's not even that. Technically, I have half of what I did when I had fun with stallions."

"But you have something extra." Night waited for Dustin to load up her own spoon, and then opened his mouth in waiting. Eyes closed, he smiled wide when he felt a spoon touch his tongue. Closing his mouth, he sighed and let Dustin pull the empty spoon back out.

Dustin smiled at how happy Night Light looked. "Yeah. I just—I just think it is a big plunge."

"What if I gave you my absolute promise to not touch you there?" Once more, Night loaded his spoon up and presented it to Dustin. There was no delay, Dustin claimed the contents of the spoon.

"You haven't broken your promise, and it isn't that I don't like being played with—there." Dustin saw there was only a single spoonful left on Night's plate. Quick as she could, she speared out, got it on her spoon, and claimed it for herself.

"You thief. So nuzzles and licks are fine, but everything else goes elsewhere." His eyes flashing, Night scooped up the last ice cream from Dustin's plate, and held it up for her. "I am sure we can both have some fun with that."

Dustin felt good about herself, but she was trusting Night Light with her fears, and as she tasted the last of the ice cream, she realized it was worth it. "Okay."
> Family
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Light hadn't started spilling in the windows yet. It was a chill night, which had meant even ponies with nice warm coats could snuggle close without getting too hot. The covers of the bed were pulled up around Dustin's neck, and she was comfortable. 

Pressed to Dustin's belly, facing her, was Twilight Velvet. Dustin could have snuggled with Twilight all day long, if neither of them had a job to do. She leaned just a touch closer and kissed the tip of the other mare's nose.

Dustin blushed a little. It was the second night she had put herself between Night and Twilight with the deliberate intent to let Night Light have some fun with her. Her blush intensified when she felt something press against her croup. It wasn't soft, at least not completely.

It was morning, and Night Light was a happy and content stallion, which meant that on occasion he was going to have "morning wood." More of him slipped free of his sheath, growing hard against Dustin's back until he was completely out.

As a human, Dustin had been with guys bigger than she was, but there was something more real about the moment because it wasn't her normal body. Nonetheless, part of her started warming right up at the feel of Night against her, and without thinking she slid her body down, then up. Her motion, repeated a few times, began to stroke soft fur and firm flesh against Night's stallionhood.

Dustin felt Night shift a little, pressing himself more firmly against her, and she felt a spike of bliss at causing him such pleasure while she was firmly in control of things. With her eyes closed, Dustin was surprised when Twilight's lips pressed to her own. A happy little moan left her throat, and she opened her eyes to gaze at Twilight Velvet. 

"You're intent on working him up in the morning? You know he is going to want something after this." Twilight stroked a hoof gently down Dustin's barrel, stroking all the way down to her belly. "I can slake him if—"

"No." Dustin had made up her mind. "We have a deal." She kept up the pace, rocking her body against Night Light until, finally, she felt one of his forelegs curl around her shoulders. He was bigger than her, and it showed quite obviously when he hugged her against him and Dustin nestled against him easily.

"Good morning." Night kept his tone even, but couldn't help betraying how happy he felt. Dipping his head down to Dustin's neck, he nibbled the tenderest parts. "What was this about a deal?"

"Today. Now." Her body singing, Dustin's back leg worked as if she were on a pushbike, cycling in the air and messing up the covers. "I trust you."

Night Light was gentle. He didn't even move until he had kissed Dustin's neck so much she sighed in delight. Dustin titled her head up, however, when Twilight slipped out of the bed. 

"You two have fun, I'm going to make breakfast." Winking to the pair, the last thing Twilight saw as she left the bedroom was Night using his magic to slather himself and Dustin's tail-hole in lubricant. Stepping down the stairs, her heart thudded in time with the noise now coming from the bedroom.

Mixing up some pancake batter, Twilight Velvet began to hum happily. She might not be getting her morning wake up from Night, but she wasn't so greedy she couldn't settle for a nooner instead. Just as she began to cook the pancakes, an urgent knocking came from the door. 

In an instant, Twilight Velvet's attention strayed to the sounds of pleasure coming from upstairs. A sound-wall quickly cast against the ceiling put a stop to that, and she walked toward the doorway leading to the front room. 

Opening the front door, her mind partly focused on flipping a pancake in the kitchen, Twilight Velvet blinked up at Belay. "Hello. You're a bit early to catch Dustin. She and Night are still in bed." No more needed saying, or so Twilight hoped.

"That's alright, my news can wait awhile. But it's exciting nonetheless." Belay followed Twilight's lead, and closed the door behind him as he entered the house. Glancing around, he saw two large couches in the living room, while two walls were covered by bookshelves.

Twilight got back to her stove, leaving Belay to sit or stand as per his preference. "Exciting news? Did something happen with the mission Kiera and Princess Luna had planned?"

"Oh. No. Their mission went ahead perfectly, and although they didn't get as much moon-rock as they wanted, they still got some." Belay almost melted at the sight and smell of cooking pancakes. Synth food wasn't terrible, but the real thing had—thus far—proved to be superior.

Turning to see why her guest hadn't continued, Twilight Velvet saw Belay staring at the fry pan. "Would you like some breakfast, dear?"

The question snapped Belay out of his stupor. "Wha—? Oh! Yes please!" He walked to the table and took a seat.

"Well?" Twilight was almost getting to the point where she would prod the stallion with a wooden spoon if he didn't spill the news.

"Well what?" Belay blinked in confusion for nearly two seconds. "Oh! The news! Twi—" He broke off, realizing who he was speaking to. "Princess Twilight Sparkle has come up with a way to undo the magic changes and turn us human again!"

Twilight Velvet almost cursed, and she would have if she had been twenty years younger. It was a watershed moment, of course, but she held her feelings in check as best she could.

Looking at Twilight, Belay could pick up emotional distress, and it wasn't hard to put two and two together. "You got close to Dust, didn't you?" Twilight nodded. "We may not leave immediately, of course. We have—"

"But you are going to leave." Twilight looked down at the pancakes, her excitement for the day waning.

"If I remember rightly, that was how you snagged Dust. Is it really growing to be more?" Belay used his magic to help, preparing a pot of tea. He waited for Twilight to nod again before sighing. "We are employed by Kiera, and she is under contract to Exploration and Evaluation corps. I don't like the idea of her flying back to regulation space alone."

The meaning of Belay's words took a few moments to percolate through Twilight's thoughts. She lifted her head and stared at Belay. "You want to stay? You can do that?"

"It's more like abandoning my life." Belay had seen Twilight work the teapot before, and assembled the tray of accompanying items to how he remembered it. "All my pay, all my possessions—the ones that aren't with me—are gone. Not like I can withdraw credit chips here."

"Would Dustin?" Hope was a powerful thing to any being, and for Twilight Velvet it was the smallest flame of the dying fire her new relationship had been. She looked at Belay closely, trying to read his emotions.

"I don't know." Belay shook his head. Pouring out two cups of tea, he took one for himself.

"But you want to stay regardless?" Twilight lifted her own cup up and took a sip. The hot brew was perfect, but the situation she was in was less so.

Belay just nodded. 

A knocking sound broke the conversation, and Twilight Velvet made her way through the house again, fearful of more bad news. Reaching the door, she opened it with her magic. "Twily?" She blinked at the sight of her daughter. In the weeks Belay and Dustin had been in Canterlot, Twilight Sparkle had been sequestered nearly day and night.

"Hi mom!" Despite obvious excitement to meet with her mother on her first free day in weeks, Twilight Sparkle had worked through the night, and had a bed presented itself, she would have had no willpower to resist its pull.

"Sweetie, come on in." Twilight Velvet ushered her daughter inside. "I have another visitor."

No matter how many times a pony moves around, or how many homes they live in, being back under the roof of the house they grew up in was always a coming home moment. Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, had her own castle to live in, but this little (compared to a castle) house in Canterlot was always her home.

What Twilight Sparkle hadn't expected, however, was to find her new coltfriend sitting at the family dinner table sipping tea. She froze in place and looked from Belay to her mother. "Why is Belay here?!"

Twilight Velvet sighed and turned around. "Twily, dear, you are doing the mane thing." She gestured to the first telltale sign that Twilight Sparkle (or Shining Armor for that matter) was losing their glass beads at an alarming rate: her mane had frizzed up. "Calm down. Belay came here to tell Dusty about your good news."

Freezing in place, Twilight Sparkle looked from Belay to Twilight Velvet and back again. "Okay." She stopped and counted to ten in her head, slowly, in base three. She got as far as twelve before her nose shot a nerve message to her brain that struck with the force of a torpedo. "Are those blueberry pancakes?"

The sound of hooves coming down the stairs was too much for Twilight Velvet's simple spell of silence to stop, and so everypony at the dinner table watched Night Light and Dustin enter the kitchen, nuzzling each other's cheek.

"We have some visitors." Twilight Velvet gestured to Belay and Twilight Sparkle. 

Dustin smiled towards Belay, and looked at the Princess. "Good morning." She hoped nopony noticed she was walking a bit stiff. "Princess Twilight Sparkle, Belay."

"Belay was just telling me there is some good news." Gesturing to her daughter, Twilight Velvet tried to soldier on with the best smile she could.

"Well, I may have worked out a way to turn you both back to human and suck all the magic out of your bodies. It's complicated, but…" She trailed off, getting odd vibes from everypony—and she really wasn't the best at interpreting complex social cues.

"So we can go home?" Dustin's voice held excitement. She actually started bouncing up and down before her hips and rear reminded her of what had just happened. "Belay! We get to go home!" In her excitement, Dustin swapped back to Galactic Standard.

Looking up at his friend, Belay tried to put on a supportive face. "Yeah. Going home." The delivery wasn't flat, but it was close to it. He stole a look from his fellow brawn to Twilight Sparkle.

Seeing her friend frown, despite trying to hide it, halted Dustin's excitement before it got far. She looked at Belay closely, then followed Belay's gaze to Twilight Sparkle. Realization dawned, brighter than the sun had not long ago. "Y-Y-You and Princess Twilight?" Her voice was hesitant, and still in Gal. Standard.

A mother's instinct hit Twilight Velvet like a hammer. She had been about to welcome her husband and their lover to the kitchen in as warm a way as she could with company present, but she got a vibe something important was just said. She turned, and looked at her daughter and Belay sitting beside each other.

"They make a cute couple, don't they?" Night Light kissed Twilight Velvet on the cheek and made his way towards his daughter. "Good morning dear. Congratulations on your project." He leaned down and kissed Twilight Sparkle's cheek.

Twilight Sparkle took the paternal kiss with aplomb, but stopped and turned to her mother. Twilight Velvet was staring at her daughter with a huge smile on her face. "Mom, wai—"

"Congratulations!" Twilight Velvet's sadness at possibly losing Dustin was set aside. She practically bounced across the kitchen and then froze beside Belay. Turning her most stern gaze upon Belay, Twilight Velvet tried to keep her voice mostly neutral. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Belay was suddenly on the defense. He shrank back, and tried to hide (which was impossible, of course). "I didn't… I mean we haven't… It's not—"

"We have been on two dates, mom." Twilight Sparkle used her magic to start dishing up pancakes, claiming one for herself. "Belay and I are just…" She took a breath and smiled. "We are just testing things out."

Night Light got close enough to lean in and kiss Twilight Velvet on the nose. "Darling, leave them be. You already have a grandfilly."

A wash of motherly emotions flooded Twilight Velvet from being reminded about Shining, Cadance, and Flurry Heart. Taking the easy way out, she started working with Twilight Sparkle's magic, preparing more pancake batter and cooking the last of the first batch. "How soon until you do—until you do the thing and become your old selves?"

Belay and Dustin could both feel the chill from Twilight Velvet's question. Belay looked to his fellow brawn. "We have a bit of time, Twilight—Sparkle—will need to set things up. I am going to help, but it will take a few days at least."

Now she was a little more steady—and not remembering Night Light's body quite so vividly—Dustin could see what the problem was. Belay had set down some roots, and his dreams of finding another sapient species was fulfilled. 

Then it hit Dustin. She looked to Twilight Velvet, and to Night Light, and realized that the little "thing" she had with them would end if they returned. She didn't realize how stricken she looked until Night Light nuzzled her cheek. Without hesitation, Dustin pressed her snout into Night Light's mane and inhaled is warm, strong scent.

"It's okay, Dusty, we'll work something out." Night Light didn't know exactly what he could do, but he could give Dustin somepony to lean on.
> A Change in Plans
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"We all know what is at stake. But we need to make a decision." Dustin looked across Kiera's bridge at Belay. She turned and smiled to Kiera's column. "All of us. If we do decide to come back, we need a ride."

"Oh, sure, I am just a spaceship to you now. Is that it?" Kiera had dealt with "softshells" long enough that she knew how to inject sarcastic tones into her words. "Well, you both have pieces of paper. What am I supposed to write on?"

"You can be the tiebreaker. If we both vote different things, you can be the decider." Belay whipped out a pencil and floated the paper before his eyes. "The easiest way is S to stay, R return." His eyes locked with Belay's and they both nodded.

"Hold on!" Kiera's voice held some discordant tones underpinning it. "It is my official duty to make note of this attempted mutiny and remind all actors that by partaking in this vote they are already at risk of violating contract to Exploration and Evaluation corps."

Silence reigned.

"Your always-on recording systems have been faulty since the last refit, haven't they Kiera?" Dust flicked her tail in amusement. "At least, they should be. I remember pulling the cab—"

Kiera cut in over Dust. "I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, Dustin y Neil! Disconnecting such systems would be a gross… You're right, though." Laughing vocally, Kiera enjoyed poking fun at her brawns when she had the opportunity.

The joke Kiera had made did have one result apart from stirring mirth: it made both her brawns think about their duty. Dustin had to prop her paper on a hard surface, while Belay simply held hers in mid-air. Both folded their paper when they were done writing on it.

"Have you ever felt more at home, Dust?" Belay looked at his paper, staring at the physical result of his decision. "I just. If it were just me, and there was no consequence…" Unfolding his paper, Belay revealed an R.

After a few moments of silence, Kiera cleared her non-existent throat. "Dustin?"

Dustin, with less dexterity from her hooves than Belay had from his magic, unfolded her paper. "Return. They really drummed duty into us so much?"

"Guess they did. Think we could sue the corps for it?" Belay scrunched up his paper into a tiny ball.

"No chance. The only way to sue something as big as the FSP Navy is with a huge political group at your back. If we were part of a minority, SPRIM would have our back. But as it stands, even my family wouldn't stand up for us." Dustin scuffed her hoof on the floor. "We could poke them for a settlement, but I am fairly sure our contracts covered our training."

Belay laughed at that. "Well, we won't really care once we are back here anyway. So we go tell Princess Twilight that we are ready?"

Dust nodded. "Would be bad form to have had her work so much on a cure and then tell her we are staying, I guess." She stretched, and couldn't help but notice Belay's eyes latch on to her body. Dustin saw the kind of desire that many males get when they see a desirous female, and rather than cause a freak-out, she felt a little proud of it. 

It was hard for Belay to look away. His time spent as a stallion had definitely taught him to appreciate the female body a lot more (others' female bodies, that is), and while he let himself undress Dustin with his eyes, he couldn't help comparing her form to Twilight Sparkle's.

"Maybe you should take a holo'. It would last longer." Dust straightened up and couldn't hold back a laugh at Belay's sudden blush. "Come on, lover-boy, your girlfriend awaits our news." Leaving Belay to stare, Dustin walked out of the bridge.

Most of Belay's embarrassment came from having used a similar line on Dustin when they had first met. He grunted and shook his head. "You do have a great ass, Dust."

With her bridge abandoned, Kiera sighed into the empty room. "If either of them had…" She flashed a single character on the main view-screen: an S.





Riding the elevator down, Dustin and Belay kept silent for the most part. Kiera had been fairly quiet, too, and it caused them to fall into a subdued lull. A beautiful sunset was just about to occur on the western horizon, and the pony responsible—along with her former student, and her sister—was waiting for the two former humans.

Celestia's look was neutral, but at the same time her gaze implied that she knew the outcome of the vote already. She looked at Belay and Dustin, one eye covered by her mane, and was prepared to wait all night for their answer.

On Twilight Sparkle's face was the excitement of a scientist who didn't realize her latest creation would impact her directly, yet. She almost bounced up and down, a dramatic counterpoint to Luna, who looked up at the prow of Kiera with a stoic look.

Dustin opened her mouth first, beating Belay to the punch. "We decided to return to FSP, but only to end our contract so we can come back."

"And we will be back, you can be certain of that." Belay nudged Dustin with his shoulder. "So, let's just get this reversal thing over with and we can be on our way. The quicker we leave, the quicker we can return."

There was just one other pony present for the little ceremony: Night Light. He only had eyes for Dustin, and what he saw in her was a resigned sense of duty. "Twily, I have all your things set up." Night had volunteered to be his daughter's assistant for the procedure. His words drew the attention of everypony to the table beside him, and the arch that stood beside it.

Standing only a little taller than Princess Celestia herself, the arch was wide enough for two ponies to stand. Adorning the outer edge of the arch was literally the most complex magic rune-work in existence. Finely wrought lines traced around the wizened wood structure, each leading back to a massive crystal on one side.

The crystal—pulsing slowly—was lit green from within. The ancient gem had been mined from the caverns below Canterlot, and held so much power potential only because a princess, a changeling queen, and a unicorn magic savant had all poured power into it at some point in its life. It was the largest of the crystals that had been used to imprison Princess Cadance by Queen Chrysalis, and it held such echoes of power as to rival even the Crystal Heart.

"Okay." Twilight Sparkle put on her bravest smile. It had finally sunk in that she would lose her new coltfriend, and she struggled with herself to continue despite that. "Please come over here and drink these potions."

Belay and Dustin stepped forwards, following the Princess' directions.

"You won't forget me if I look different?" Belay lit his horn to levitate his own potion over, when Twilight Sparkle booped his nose. The distraction cut off his magic.

"Don't use your magic to hold this, it will neutralize the effect." Twilight drew her hoof back from Belay's snout and blushed. "I like you for you, Belay. I hardly think what you look like matters."

From anyone else, Belay would have doubted the speaker's integrity, but Twilight Sparkle had an honesty to her that made the words believable. He quirked his mouth up at one corner. "Then as Dust said, let's get this over and get back here sooner." Reaching out a hoof, he noticed Dust had waited for him so they could down the potions together.

The potion didn't taste horrible. Dustin looked at her own vessel. "Who made this? It actually tastes good!"

"A friend, Zecora. She is the best at brewing potions." Twilight practically beamed in delight. "Now, stand in the archway and we can get started with the rest of this." While Dustin and Belay walked around to the arch, and under it, Twilight floated over her list.

Looking down the intricate list of events, Twilight nodded and crossed off "Drink Potion" with a quickly manifest quill. Reading her own words back from the list, Twilight Sparkle gave a firm nod. "I got this."

Dustin's eyes didn't leave Night Light's. She felt an odd disconnect with something inside herself, and just standing still made her feel slightly nauseous. Opening her mouth to say something, Dust suddenly felt like part of herself was being pulled away in every direction at once.

Magic, Belay's constant companion since he had first worked out how to use his horn, seemed impossible to hold onto. He had heard enough of the theory of the machine Twilight Sparkle was using to know it was going to drain every ounce of the magic within them, but he didn't have to enjoy it.

Twilight Sparkle adjusted the huge crystal once more, strengthening the field of magic that wrapped completely around the two ponies within the arch. "Hold still, this is the last part!" Tweaking the magic field just slightly, Twilight managed to start it spinning.

The theory was sound, and Belay knew that the potion would leech his magic out, while the crystal field would pull it away. 

The magic of the past that had been used on the crystal had polarized the lattice within it. Like an iron rod in a magnetic field, highly structured crystal layouts tended to interact with the magic field the nearby star spun around, and with this particular crystal having been under the effects of three powerful beings it was almost as good at interacting with the magic field as an alicorn's horn—but there was a lot more of the crystal than the average alicorn horn.

Cotton candy, Belay thought. The whole contraption was akin to a big cotton candy machine. The ponies in the middle were like a cup of sugar, the potion the heat, and the spinning magic and crystal were the stick gathering up the woolly goodness.

More and more magic spun out of the two former humans, and as it did the pair started to change. What the presence of magic had wrought, the absence of it wouldn't have undone on its own, the magic had to be removed in a very specific way to reverse the changes—Princess Twilight Sparkle had figured out just such a way.

Writhing, Dustin braced her legs as it felt like her own flesh and bones came alive. Muscles squirmed like eels, and bones wriggled like earthworms. She tried to scream as her fur seemed to fall out, only to re-sprout elsewhere. Her back legs changed enough that rather than standing on hooves, she fell to her knees.

Belay was faring no better. He eventually lost his balance (when one leg turned to the consistency of a noodle) and flopped to his belly. Like a chain pulled roughly through a small hole, Belay's horn yanked back into his body, leaving him seeing stars.

Both Belay and Dustin were both squirming on the ground, their bodies having every drop of magic forcefully extracted. Fur gave way to pony skin, and soon that gave way to pink skin on Dustin, and a darker, coffee color on Belay. Their ears shrank, pulled down the sides of their heads, and the final touches applied themselves, restoring a male Dustin and a female Belay to their natural forms.

The moment the last of the magic was gone from their systems, Belay and Dustin both felt relief from the machine, though it was still operating. 

Dust lifted his head first and looked around. A chill wind that he hadn't noticed (with fur on) ran over his skin and stole warmth. He didn't have to look down to realize he was naked, or Belay too for that matter. "It—it worked!"

"Ugh, not so loud." Belay propped herself up on one arm and squinted at the darkening world around her. She looked at Dustin and immediately regretted it. "You need pants, and I need something to stop this headache."

"Headache?" Dustin felt good, really good. "I don't have any aches at all, really. Kind odd considering what just happened."

"I just had a quarter of a meter of horn shove back into my head. Keep it down, please." Belay winced even at her own words.

"Okay everypon—everybody,"—Twilight Sparkle quickly corrected her speech to match the changed visitors—"I am about to drop the field. Dustin, Belay, you should make your way to the ship as quickly as possible."

Dusting heard the words, and reached out to Belay. He bit his lip as he wrapped one arm around her, but ignoring how good she felt, he hefted her to her feet. "Come on Bel, let's get ready to run for the nice Princess."

Ignoring the accidental groping, Belay nodded (and regretted doing so immediately). "Le's do——"

The magic shielding field collapsed, and both humans dug their feet into the soft soil and took off at a sprint. Both got five whole steps before they stumbled.

Belay stumbled forward and landed, spreading out her full length on the grass. She stared ahead, reaching one arm out towards the lift only a few meters away. As she stared, however, Belay watched her forearm turn into a foreleg again. "No!"

Managing to catch himself in his own stumble, Dustin reached back down to Belay to help her back up, but instead of an arm reaching out to her, an odd feather-covered limb stretched from somewhere on his back. "Come on! This was worki—" His voice choked off as his face ran like tallow, forming a snout out of the formerly flat structure. As his legs changed, Dustin flopped to his side and felt not unlike what he imagined a lump of clay would, were a sculptor who liked ponies working on him.

Belay fell to her side and stared at Dustin. She watched as a second wing grew from his back, as his legs seemed to bulge and pop one by one, and finally his head reformed and twisted. That the last thing to happen was him to grow fur actually stole a laugh from her until she discovered a horrible truth of the universe: horns hurt growing out as well as in.

"Well, that wasn't quite how it was meant to go." Princess Twilight Sparkle looked at the two ponies that had just been humans, and ponies before that, and humans even further back (things were getting complicated). "Hold on, uh…" She walked around Dustin and Belay. "Dustin was an earth pony mare before, and Belay a unicorn stallion?"

"That is correct, Twilight Sparkle." Luna stepped up beside Twilight, looking down at the two new ponies.

Dustin shook out his legs one by one, and lifted his head. White-blue hair tumbled down over half his face, and when he lifted a hoof up he saw light-blue (though darker than his mane) fur covering it. Then he felt something move on his shoulder again, and turned his head to see two wings sprouting from his back.

"You're a pegasus, Dust!" Belay knew she had a horn again, but apart from that one feature everything else felt different. She was smaller, her mane looked to be a bright pink, and as she gazed down at her snout, she saw it was pure white.

"How am I even meant to control six limbs?!" Squirming around, Dustin got to his hooves with a lot less effort than the first time. He tilted his head forwards and looked under himself. "Oh hey, a penis!"

Night Light jumped forwards and clamped his hooves over his daughter's ears. "You're too young to hear this!" He couldn't stop a giggle as he did it, though.

"Dad! I know what a penis is. Belay showed me his—err." Twilight Sparkle shook out of her father's grip and looked down at Belay a little more closely. "Well, 'hers,' now."
> Resigned
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Okay. There has to be a logical explanation for all this." Twilight looked between Belay and Dustin. They were all standing in the bridge area within Kiera. 

Dustin and Belay looked most comfortable and relaxed of the ponies present. Each had to stop flashing the other knowing grins while awaiting Princess Twilight Sparkle's diagnosis.

Standing to one side, Night Light and Princess Luna were chatting back and forth, with Kiera interjecting now and again. Before the pair, a large display showed a hologram of the solar system Equus was in.

Princess Celestia was watching over Dustin and Belay with more smiles than Twilight wore; Twilight was almost frowning at the conundrum.

"The order of operations was that I removed all the magic from you in the same style as the world would put it in, but backwards." Twilight tapped her jaw with one hoof, deep in thought. "Then the fields of anti-magic dropped and you ran. Ambient magic should have taken much longer to reintegrate into your bodies."

Dustin's attention snapped away at Twilight's confused statement. "Uh, could it be that magic has been in us, and returns easier?"

Twilight shook her head. "That could be right, except I accounted for that with the extraction process. Your bodies were fully cleansed of all magic."

Less distracted thanks to Dustin no longer muttering, "I've got a penis," over and over, Belay tilted her head and thought on the matter. Then inspiration struck. "Wait a second. Magic is like a field, right? But also has fluid-like properties?"

Unsure where Belay was going with the question, Twilight nodded. "At its base quality, magic is a field. But taken in an environment, it has many liquid properties." She froze, her eyes widening as she stared at Belay.

At the same time, Twilight and Belay both laughed and exclaimed, "Cavitation bubble!"

As Belay and Twilight turned to the second set of control panels, science practically bubbling in the air around the pair, Dustin turned to Princess Celestia. "Is Princess Twilight Sparkle always like this?" He gestured at the pair in question with one hoof, and to his surprise the wing on that side extended as well.

"Twilight Sparkle? Only when she is working on a tough problem." Smiling at her former student, Princess Celestia turned her attention fully to Dustin. "This will take them some time. Would you like to retire for some tea?"

Heaving out a relieved sigh, Dustin turned to look at the column of titanium alloy at the back of the room. "Kiera, you don't mind if I leave this in Princess Twilight and Belay's capable hands—hooves?" He cocked a bit of a roguish grin at the slip of ponyist words.

"And leave me with a pair of engineers talking concepts I can barely understand, as well as a pair of admirers who would have me dusting off in seconds if they realized I would say yes? Oh, sure!" Sarcasm weighed down Kiera's words almost enough to make them seem complete hyperbole. "In fact, let me just slip out of my shell and join you."

Dustin stopped his planned acceptance of Princess Celestia's invite. He looked at Kiera's shell and a little worry-frown touched his mouth. "Kiera, are you alright?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. My conditioning is slipping, and I know my nutrients keep slipping out of tolerances. I thought if we could leave it would all go back to normal, but part of me was hoping to stay, too. There is something about the raw enthusiasm of these ponies that is missing back in Fed space." Kiera's voice was lowered, but she noticed Princess Celestia's ears twitch toward the speakers she had used. "I like it here, a lot, but for the first time in my life I find myself envying my brawns' ability to leave and walk around."

"Kiera…" Dustin walked forward, leaned against Kiera's column with his forehead and felt tears in his eyes. "If you could leave, if I had to do something to facilitate that, I would in a heartbeat. Let's go back to Fed, tell them to deal with me being a winged, colorful pony, and work out a contract to get you one of those remote bodies."

Kiera gasped. "No."

The word hung heavy between Dustin and Kiera.

"Not only no, fardles no. I don't care how fancy those Moto-Prosthetics things are, it would take half your lifetime to work enough of a contract to get one." Kiera felt her nutrients turn sour, a sensation that was frequently caused by what she would have called tears if she could still cry.

Kiera couldn't feel Dustin hugging her column, but she could see him, hear his soft sobs, and even chemically taste his presence. "Belay," Kiera said, but only to Belay. "Could you please come and hug Dustin for me."

Belay's ears turned, despite her not needing them to hear Kiera. "Hold on a second, Twilight." She turned to look for Dustin, and was already moving. "What's wrong, Kiera?" she subvocalized, keeping her words just for Kiera.

Raging at herself—for pushing Dustin to his present state—Kiera couldn't respond. She watched as first Belay, then Princess Celestia pulled Dustin into a hug. Her nutrients were see-sawing, and she knew she needed to do something to get herself under control. Setting one of her basic AI to regulate her nutrients, Kiera administered a sedative to herself.

Dustin didn't even see who it was hugging him. Legs, wings, and even some blue magic gave him gentle but firm squeezes. "Kiera, I'm sorry." His subvocalization went without reply. "Please don't—"

"Kiera needed some time to calm down. She programmed a mild sedative." The voice was more stilted than Kiera's, though it came through the implant in Dustin's skull. It was one of the AI, no one else could have access to that comms.

Rallying his faculties, Dustin opened his mouth. "P-Princess?"

"Yes?" Celestia held the foreign pony just as tenderly as she would one of her own ponies.

"Can we have some t-tea now?" Dustin barely got the words out, the strain of saying them too much. He was meant to support Kiera, to help her get through their missions. He closed his own eyes, trying to forget what the AI had told him. 





"Dust?" Kiera's voice was soft, hardly the bold and sure tones she normally used. "Dustin? You're almost awake. I want to apologize. I shouldn't have put you through that."

Warm, cozy, and with somepony pressed against his back, Dustin was slowly pulling his mind from sleep. He couldn't remember drinking the tea with Celestia, but there was a sense of tea still in his mouth, like it was the last thing he had drunk.

She had drugged him. He hadn't been as sensible as Kiera, or had he? "Kiera? You're still there, right?"

"Like I'd leave you behind and zoom back to Fed space." Kiera did a systems check on her engines, and let them give a puff of thrust—it was the closest to a sigh she could get. "Besides, nowhere else has ever made me want to leave my shell this much before. I don't know if I can leave, Dust."

"I am pretty sure it was a one-way trip, Ki. This is morbid talk." Moving ever so slightly, Dustin tried to work out who was in bed with him without looking down and seeing what color the legs were around his shoulders. 

Just as Dustin started to get an idea it was Night Light, the stallion lowered one of his hooves to stroke at Dustin's chest. Dustin felt a shiver of heat run through him. His mind pulled free of the last vestiges of sleep, and he felt arousal trying to get his attention.

"How are you feeling now?" Pressing his muzzle into the ruff of fur that was Dustin's mane, Night inhaled the other stallion's scent while his hoof kept slowly stroking down Dustin's front.

More than anything, Dustin wanted to just melt into the attention Night was paying him. His body seemed putty in the other stallion's hooves. "I was just talking with Kiera. She's awake." The massage stopped, and Dustin was both thankful for Night's sensitivity and felt like his mind was betraying his body's needs. "Kiera, what should we do?"

"'Should'? Dustin, we should do exactly what you suggested. But we aren't." Kiera inhaled—cycled her engines to take in atmosphere—and then breathed out with a blast of fire behind her. She didn't need to burn fuel so wastefully, but it was a good way to relax. "We let Princess Twilight and Belay work on their project, and if they manage to turn you human again for longer than five seconds we skedaddle out of here to tell Fed about this place."

"Then we come back?" Dustin tilted his head back and got a kiss on the cheek for his trouble. "Could we come back? It would be a prescribed planet."

"Of course we come back, but not until after I have talked with someone about my nutrients and… desires." It wasn't hard for Kiera to interpret the sounds coming through Dustin's mic, she could tell that there was another pony with Dustin, and that they were close. "It's what the regs would allow, mostly. We would have to sneak back, of course."

"Kiera, what does Belay think?" Dustin didn't hesitate in offering his neck for Night to nuzzle against, being male again seemed to have turned around his worries about close contact.

"Belay is in love, Dust. Can't you see how hard she has fallen for the Princess?" Kiera let out another sigh—she was now pulsing her jets regularly, counting out factors in the back of her mind as she did. "And besides, you're technically my brawn. Belay is just a crew-member."

"She almost passed those tests and you know it. She is as much a brawn as I am." Dustin had to lift his voice from the subvocalization he had been using. "Night, I need a moment to finish talking with Kiera."

"Do you want me to leave?" Night was as close as one stallion could be to another and not be sexually engaged. With his body pressed firmly against Dustin's, and his shaft hard and sandwiched between them.

"Dust, don't you dare use me as an excuse. I'll keep doing a full systems check to find out why my nutrients are so badly balanced, and you have some fun. Even with one of my AI driving it, things had been badly tuned." Kiera's tone implied as much finality as she could. She injected a little blast of static, and turned off the comms line.

"Sorry, Night. She—Kiera's like a sister to me. Maybe closer." Dustin wanted to forget his problems for a few moments, and with the promise Night Light made with his body, Dustin had a pretty good idea of a way to do just that. "Some brawns fall in love with their partners, others keep it strictly friendship."

"But you two found something else. I can understand that. What's a remote body?" Realizing he had Dustin's full attention, Night Light went back to stroking and teasing his special friend.

"What?!" Dustin almost pulled out of Night's grip. "When did you hear about one of those?"

"You talk in your sleep, Dusty." Pulling Dustin back down to the bed, Night kissed Dustin's neck until he let out a sigh and relaxed. "So when you say you have to talk to Kiera, and it is important, I believe you. Family is always important." He licked up from Dustin's jaw to his ear, and then nibbled on said ear.

Dustin had had enough foreplay. Using his hooves, he scooted forward a little. His mind was still thinking "mare" despite how fully his subconscious had welcomed the return to maleness, so rather than consider taking Night, he instead offered himself.

"You foalish stallion. You know the drill." Night's horn lit up as he cast a simple spell no adult unicorn should be without: prodigious lubrication. His hips twitched and pushed, and thanks to the spell Night Light took Dustin again.

Letting his higher thoughts be distracted in the hormones of lust, Dustin felt those strange new additions to his body start to wave: his wings flapping weakly and inexpertly. Each thrust brought Night Light deeper, and when Night began rubbing Dustin's chest again, he quickly lost himself further.

The world faded, all of life's problems narrowed down and seemed nothing. Everything that Dustin needed to focus on was Night Light's body moving inside his own. He groaned and puffed, and his own shaft was rock hard and jutting out under his belly.

A hoof took hold of his member, and Dustin almost squealed for joy. Each slow, teasing stroke on his penis belied the hammering Dustin's rear was getting, but neither was an island unto itself; the pleasure spread and mingled, and all too soon Dustin lost any hope of keeping back the hurricane of pleasure.

Kiera had lied, a little. She listened to Dustin's pleasure, tracked his body's vitals, and smiled to herself when she heard and sensed his peak. He hadn't told her to shut down the link, so according to rules and regs she was fine—or, so she told herself.

An odd feedback caused Kiera to run more diagnostics. It seemed her problems would be solved soon either way: from what she could tell, her shell was failing. Kiera wouldn't even survive the trip back to Fed central—where the only medical services existed that could correct problems with shells—for repairs.
> Friends
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight Sparkle had two pieces of chalk working at the same time. She was writing out the formula for the most complicated piece of magic she had ever worked on, which had been the restoration of Dustin and Belay to their original forms. 

As she turned around, Twilight Sparkle was pleased to see Belay was still watching her attentively, but there were more ponies present as well. Both her parents (Twilight Velvet and Night Light), Dustin y Neil, Princess Luna, and even a few students had crammed into seats of the lecture hall Twilight Sparkle had appropriated.

"The process of reversing the metamorphic field produced an expanding bubble of non-magic. This resulted in reduced pressure within the bubble, and spread it over a larger surface area." Twilight Sparkle didn't need cards, she had science. "When the velocity of the bubble's expansion resulted in less force than the pressure directed against it, the bubble began to collapse. Following VanDerhoof's laws regarding magical pressure, we can see that the bubble would have fluctuated much as a bubble of compressed air underwater. The magic cavitated."

Using her magic, Twilight Sparkle made two human shapes float above her. She added a sphere around them, had it grow larger and larger, and then suddenly collapse in. "And thus we have the reason why the experiment failed to achieve the desired, persistent effect." Gesturing to Belay and Dustin, Twilight Sparkle set a rueful expression on her face. "That isn't to say there weren't results. The process did reverse the metamorphic effects, and it was extremely interesting to see that with a return of magic to the subjects, their metamorphic result was not completely duplicated."

"Our little filly has a fillyfriend." Twilight Velvet kept her voice as quiet as possible (yet still loud enough to be heard by everypony), and snuggled up beside Night Light. That Dustin was on the other side, and was leaning slightly against his shoulder made her even happier.

"She had a coltfriend up until two days ago." Night Light was less quiet with his voice, but he cared a lot less about making noise: he was just too happy.

Trying to ignore her parents, Twilight Sparkle calmed herself by looking at Belay. Their time together had been fun, but now each of them found Kiera's change exciting and new. She tried to forget—at least for the moment—what Belay's tongue felt like, and just let warmth fill her.

"Further testing will be required. There are multiple avenues of study that can be extended from here, including moving the metamorphic field expelling crystal with the subjects, or using more power to create a bigger field. The first would mean a leisurely walk back to their ship, the latter would probably require them to run." Twilight Sparkle levitated some chalk up, pushed the filled blackboard higher and began writing new equations on the lower one. "As you can see, and would well know, the expulsion system must be oriented to the magical field. Without that, results will not be one-hundred percent.

"I would just like to remind everypony that I am still working on this, and I won't rest until—" Stopping in her wind-up speech, Twilight looked up at Dustin. "Y-Yes?" Nerves filled her, she had failed these wonderful creatures once already, and she felt it was something she had to fix.

"E-Excuse me, Princess Twilight." Dustin stood up so that he could be seen a little better, and so that Twilight Sparkle didn't have to talk to him while he was cuddling her father. "Maybe you should take a little break from this? It's been all you have worked on for weeks, and…" He trailed off, and looked to Belay for confirmation.

When Belay nodded to Dustin, he continued. "… and we are more comfortable this time. So please, take your time and don't wear yourself out on this."

Twilight Sparkle watched with confusion as Dustin sat back down, and her daddy put his foreleg around Dustin's shoulders. The strangeness wasn't her parents sharing somepony—Twilight Sparkle would hardly be the princess of friendship without her parents giving her examples of all the different ways friendship could work—but rather that Dustin and Belay seemed comfortable in their bodies. 

"Why the change of heart, if you don't mind me asking?" Twilight Sparkle already suspected what Belay's reason would be, but she was interested in Dustin's: he had been spending plenty of time with Twilight's parents, and he (formerly she) seemed to have fit in quite well.

Dustin looked aside to Night Light and Twilight Velvet. "I know this is a bit odd—believe me, I am the first to admit that—but I'm more comfortable like this, and I don't want to see you throwing months of your life away."

Her eyes slipping to Belay again, Twilight Sparkle examined her fillyfriend, and knew the answer would be the same there. "I guess I could work on other projects as well…" She trailed off, remembering the things Belay had made already. "Does anypony have any questions?"

Princess Luna cleared her throat. "Kiera, what do your rules and regulations have to say on the matter?"

"Due to recent system errors, return to Fed space is unlikely. Under the rules and regulations—" Kiera cut off sharply. For the first time in her life, Kiera had a headache. It was the worst thing she had ever felt, and it seemed to be a buildup of pressure at the back of what she thought of as her head. The nerves should be deadened, Kiera shouldn't have been able to get a headache, but here she was. "There are no entries that cover this situation. With no guidance from the official rules, I must—as senior member of the crew—insist that we don't pollute the resident culture with our own, and keep science revelations to a minimum."

Kiera had had enough. "Cutting comms to maintain system integrity." She cut off not only the comm button Princess Luna had worn for her, but also the implants in Dustin and Belay's mastoid bones.

Her ship was quiet, calm. She could use her engines fine, could work every system perfectly but one. Kiera examined the last report one of her AI gave her about her personal life-support. Her nutrients kept running acidic, and she had lost two of the thousand little implants in her head. 

There was another diagnostic she could run, of course, a direct scan of her own body within the shell. The interface was a simple one, she could instruct an AI to poke it and then skim the data afterward. Her mental hand hovered over the AI, ready to give it the command to see what damage had been done to her.

"I don't want to know." Kiera spoke the words to her empty bridge. She drew back her touch from the AI, and queued up some downtime. Setting an AI to wake her in ten hours, Kiera relaxed and let darkness push away the worries of reality.





"I'll go." Dustin y Neil disengaged himself from Night Light and stood up. He glanced at Belay, and watched her do the same. "You don't—"

Belay interrupted Dustin. "Yes I do. She's my friend, too. We'll both go." She turned her head from Dustin to Twilight Sparkle. "Sorry, Twilight."

"A friend is more important than my silly lecture. Go." Twilight Sparkle felt a pang in her heart at the worry on Belay's face. She was about to offer to help, when Princess Luna stood up.

"Belay, Dustin, I have a faster way than by train." Luna stepped into the thing aisle between seats, and spread her wings a little. The offer was obvious. When Dustin and Belay rushed over to Luna's sides, she closed her wings on them, and ripped her way through space with a cheery POMF.

When the dark wing pulled back from him, Dustin saw they were beside Kiera, and more specifically at the lift controls to get up to her. He strode first, taking the steps to put him at the lift. "Kiera, unlock lift controls." They all waited a few moments, but there was no reaction from Kiera. "Scratches, what's Kiera's status?" Dustin knew the names Kiera had given her AI, and knew Scratches had the highest autonomy.

Another hesitant moment passed, but the controls of the lift unlocked. 

Belay stepped up on the lift with Dustin. "Thanks, Scratches."

With a nod for Dustin and Belay, Princess Luna spread her wings and shot into the air with a mighty stroke of her feathery limbs.

"I hope she's okay. I've never seen her shut herself off like this." Belay tapped the controls, raising the lift.

As the lift reached the top, Belay and Dustin were plunged into the non-magic area imposed by the hull. Dustin took the lead, lifting a hoof to poke the controls for the air-lock. Both held any more words, and headed into Kiera.

The lighting was completely off, and both brawns had nothing to navigate the halls with but their memories and touch. "Scratches, can you turn the lights on?" Dustin's question got no reply, which meant that the AI probably didn't have enough privilege to do it. 

Feeling his way to the cockpit, a soft light seemed to radiate from the back wall—Kiera's shell. Dustin and Belay walked carefully up to the titanium column. "The light from her column's controls can't be turned off. Part of the same system that—"

"That makes it so audio and video are always fed to me." Kiera's voice sounded hollow over the tiny comms built into the column's safety systems. "I was trying to sleep, what's wrong now?"

"We're worried about you, Kiera." Belay moved around Dustin, so that each took a side of Kiera's column. "You cut us off before we could ask. I like to think we have become friends over the years…"

"You are my friends, silly ponies." A chuckle burbled up through Kiera's voice. She had the most basic of connections active, with all her other interfaces "cold." She was tiny, and alone, if not for Dustin and Belay. "You both have found so much here. I don't want to intrude on it."

"You are never intruding, Kiera." The moment Dustin said it, he grinned a little. "Except when you asked me what I was agreeing about last night."

"She does that to you, too?" Belay groaned a little, laughing. "Kiera, do you think either of us would tolerate this kind of stuff from anyone but a good friend?" She let Kiera have a moment to think on it, then continued. "So tell us what the problem is. You said the chances of returning to Fed wasn't going to happen?"

Kiera pulled the warmth of her friends around herself, mentally, like a blanket. "My life support is failing, and two of my neural interfaces have gone dark." Said out loud, Kiera realized how bad it sounded. "And you both know what would happen if we were traveling along and I… failed."

"We have to be able to do something." Leaning against the cold, titanium column, Dustin struggled to think about what he knew of the inner workings of a shellperson. Kiera's body was shrunken (her pituitary gland, among others, modified to stunt her physical growth), and her head would be mostly a mass of cabling and tubes. The nutrient tubes would be entering the tiny body's chest, while a set of machines kept the organic parts of Kiera fed, oxygenated, and interconnected to the ship. "What about if we pull you out into the magic of Equestria?"

"You think it will work?" Almost barking the words, Kiera tried to restrain her emotions chemically, but with the quality of her support systems on the decline, that was impossible. Old meditation tricks, taught when she was in training to get her ship, filled Kiera's thoughts. She focused herself down to a point, and let everything flow past her. "Sorry, Dust. What did you say?"

"I said, 'It might work, which is better than the chances you have if your support fails.'" Dustin lay down, pressing the tip of his snout to the column. "I'll carry you out of that tin-coated corset, if you ask."

"We both will, Kiera." Belay, mirroring Dustin's position, curled up for the long-run as well.

Dustin smiled a little at how Belay had mirrored him. "Yeah. It's your choice, but I hope you join us." 

"M-Maybe later. I don't—" Kiera took a metaphorical breath. "I don't want to die, Dust. If I try to leave… You know how closely I'm wired in; I might die before you even get me out to the magic."

In the darkened room, both Dustin and Belay could ignore the afternoon passing by. "We'll figure something out." Belay's voice covered the sound of Dustin's soft snores for a moment. "We're a team."
> Needs
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Dustin wasn't sleeping, enjoying a meal, or enjoying the time Kiera imposed he would spend with friends, he was studying.

The chemistry of a shellperson was a complex and delicate matter, and Dustin trusted Kiera to manage that side of things, but he wanted to learn how to help her more directly, which meant spending a lot of time with Teach. 

Teach wasn't "smart" like some of Kiera's more advanced AI, mainly because it wasn't configured to learn as it went. It was an AI with a single purpose, and that purpose was its name. 

Dustin was learning a very specific side of medicine that normally took years to study. He was compressing it down to the most practical parts, but it still might not be enough. He was studying how to operate on shellpeople, and in particular adjusting their implants and connections.

But right at that moment, he was laying with Twilight Velvet. Kiera had disabled his access to Teach for a set number of hours a day, and despite Dustin's every attempt, he couldn't bypass her. 

Stretched out, his belly to Twilight Velvet's back, Dustin had to admit that Kiera might be right about forcing him to take some time off. Of course, he wouldn't admit that to Kiera.

Reaching one hoof down, Dustin stroked Twilight's fur with the grain, sliding his hoof until he found the spot. Just past her last rib, Dustin started to wiggle the soft flesh under his hoof. The result was exactly what he was after.

Twilight Velvet squirmed and started laughing. She tried to knock Dustin's hoof away, but he seemed too adept at getting it right back to the most ticklish part of her body. "St-Stop!" She tried grabbing at Dustin's hooves with her magic, and only succeeded in forcing him to employ his wings.

Straining against her urge to squirm and squeal, Twilight rolled over and landed atop Dustin. He stopped tickling her, and started poking her instead, but it wasn't his limbs he was poking with. "Ready again?"

Dustin should have said no. He was noticing a lethargy setting in after sex that seemed far greater than what he had experienced as a mare, even given the male tendency to refract. But Dustin was literally a stallion, he had a reputation to maintain. "Do I feel ready?"

"You feel ready." Twilight Velvet slid her hips back slowly, forcing him to glide along her soft fur and miss all targets. "But you're not a big, strong earth pony anymore, Dust." She tilted her head down and nuzzled at Dustin's neck, nipping and mouthing at his fur.

It made sense for about five seconds, then Dustin had been mentally confused enough to distract him from the mare teasing him. "Wait. Hold on!" He felt Twilight stop, and her face gazed down at his with concern. "You mean to tell me as an earth pony I had more—Hey!"

Twilight relaxed her hips again, releasing the pressure on Dustin's shaft. "More stamina? Of course."

Dustin was prepared to pursue the conversation, but at that moment Twilight leaned forward and then rocked her hips onto him. A slew of neurons in his head fired at once, a signal to the thinky-thinky part of Dustin to shut up and enjoy sex.

With Dustin right where she wanted him—in more ways than one—Twilight decided it was time to get where she wanted her to be. Using her magic, and a trick not a lot of unicorns even believed was possible, she levitated herself up, turned around, and dropped back to the covers.

Afforded a great view of Twilight Velvet's plot, Dustin tried to compliment her on picking a position he was fond of, but she began to rock atop him. Laying on his back, Dustin watched Twilight move in place, changing her angle repeatedly. When Twilight turned to look back at him, Dustin saw mischief dancing in her eyes.

Twilight lamented that the angle made for too little penetration to feel Dustin all the way inside her, but the different position let him stroke parts of her that normally went untended. Turning away from Dustin's grinning face, Twilight tilted her head up and squealed from sheer enjoyment.

Despite his body's enthusiasm, Dustin really was feeling a little drained, and with Twilight Velvet practically doing all the work, all he could do was lay there and flap his wings weakly. She milked at him, her strong pelvic muscles squeezing at his shaft, but he strained to hold back the inevitable tide.

A yell, sharper in pitch than Twilight's normal squealing, caused Dustin to smile. The weight of Twilight Velvet, her body twitching and jittering like she was being tickled, fell to Dustin's barrel. "I'm not the only one to overestimate my stamina."

Struggling against her raging orgasm, Twilight tried to pull herself under control, to—at the very least—get Dustin off too. She was forced to admit Dustin was right, but just as that thought was making its way to her mouth a pair of wings closed around her sides and she was picked up, shoved, and penetrated more satisfyingly deep. 

Closing her eyes, Twilight Velvet smiled, her mouth hanging open slightly, and panted. The weight of Dustin on her back wasn't just good, it was amazing. The air stirred up by his flapping wings only added to the rush of pleasure as he took control.

Mid coitus, Dustin's body had ambitions it would not be able to back up under normal circumstances. He drove himself forward, pulled sharply back, and rutted with Twilight as hard as he could. Not that he could stop. His body wanted its prize, and it wasn't listening to his brain. 

At that moment, Night Light opened the door and watched Dustin riding his wife. His eyes widened a little, and he just stared in amazement at the almost animalistic sight before him. The sounds and smells of sex assaulted his senses, and without realizing it Night became aroused. 

Dustin's body reached its peak relatively quickly, and it seemed like one moment he was a jackhammer, the next he felt an electric rush through his groin, and then suddenly found himself slumping onto Twilight's back.

"Sweet Celestia! Is this what you two get up to all day?" It was a line Night Light never got tired of delivering. He walked across to the bed where his wife was pinned beneath another stallion, and crawled across the covers toward them.

"All day?" Twilight was trying to focus on the full feeling that Dustin's heated issue was giving her, as well as her husband's words. The fact she was still getting little, post-climactic aftershocks was just cream on her cake. "Of course not. For the other half of the day, I ride him." Dustin's shifting caused her to almost squeal out a word.

Dustin barely registered when a snout came in from the side. He turned his head slightly and caught Night Light's kiss on the lips. "'m sorry if I don' talk—mmm—much." A second kiss almost caused him to lose focus and just embrace Night. If he had more energy, it probably would have.

"What'd you do to stir him up like that? I don't think I've ever seen him quite that…" Night Light fished for a word to describe the scene he had witnessed when he first entered the bedroom. He gave up after a few seconds, instead just cuddling up beside Twilight and Dustin. "I call next."

"Not it." Twilight and Dust both said at the same time, then started giggling.

Night Light rolled his eyes. "You two wore each other out, and now I come home and there is no pony for Night to—" Night's silly tirade was caught short by a kiss from Twilight Velvet and Dustin y Neil at the same time.

Pulling back from the kiss long before Twilight and Night seemed inclined to, Dustin traced Twilight's cheek up to her ear and gently nuzzled at it. "Maybe we could find somepony else? Spread things around a little more?" As soon as he had said it, Dust blinked in surprise at the look the couple gave him. "What?"

"Not may ponies are this free with their love." Night Light gestured to himself, then to Twilight and Dustin. "Monogamy is built-in with most."

"What?" Dusting looked from Night Light to Twilight Velvet, although being on Twilight's back, still made looking her in the eyes impossible. "So the reason you are together is—"

"Love. But shared interests helped a lot." Twilight picked then to squeeze down on Dustin's shaft inside her, the grip of her muscles the nicest way she could ask a stallion to hop off.

"Shared interests, and inquisitive college ponies." Night Light recognized the look of distress and lust on Dustin's face, and reached a hoof up to help him stand. 

Twilight laughed as Dustin dismounted her. A yearning emptiness drew a soft sigh from her, and she was about to run to the bathroom to clean up, when hot breath poured over her nethers, and then a tongue caught the first of Dustin's issue leaking from her vulva. She turned her head and saw her loving husband cleaning her up. "Young mares wondering if they like mares. Stallions thinking they were sure about the same. As well as both chasing after Night Light. I like to think we taught a generation to share."

Dustin had raced to the en suite, and made his way directly into the big shower. Turning on the taps, he groaned in delight at the cascade of water over his fur and wings. "But you said they aren't—"

"Aren't interested in playing around, anymore. Dust, dear, we filled our bed most satisfactorily, but our friends all paired off, and soon we had to do the same. Finding you—!" Twilight moaned loudly, feeling Night's tongue journey into her sensitive vagina. Words failed her, and she let every bit of concentration leak from her body, seemingly slurped out by her naughty husband.

The way Twilight's voice sounded, Dustin knew the conversation was over for the moment. He focused on getting lathered up, and started to rinse off his fur. He was so focused on cleaning that he didn't spot Twilight slip in beside him until her fur brushed his wing. 

"Is this seat taken?" Twilight Velvet nuzzled at Dustin's neck. "Sorry about that, Night was tending to his husbandly duties. Where were we?"

"Well, I was on top of you, and you were—" Dustin laughed when Twilight splashed his face with water from the shower head. "You were talking about how awesome it was to find me."

"Call it a sense. Some ponies can tell when their luck is changing, others can sense impending disaster." Rubbing more suds into Dustin's back, Twilight Velvet was using her magic to help speed their cleaning of the various scents of sex.

"And you can sense when a pony is open to—" Dustin had to pause when Twilight used her magic to clean under his belly. He waited for Twilight to finish, enjoying her ministrations completely. "… Open to—uh—openness?"

"Bingo. I guess it's more of a hunch than an actual sense. You should see one of our Twily's friends. If a drop of rain is going to fall on somepony in the same town as her, she knows about it." Swapping to her own hygiene, Twilight started soaping her own fur up. "I picked up a sense of it, and made some moves."

"And I bit. I couldn't believe it. I thought…" Trailing off, Dustin y Neil tried to remember what he had thought. "A very pretty unicorn pony was interested in me. I had you trying to stick your tongue down my throat."

Twilight Velvet scoffed. "I was hardly that forward." She paused a moment. "Well, not quite that forward."

"And then I had Belay—who beat us to the punch—urging me to relax and live a little. Then Night Light came in and scared me half to death." At a touch to his wing, Dustin obediently lifted it for Twilight to start tending to.

Stroking feathers was one thing, but when Dustin felt Twilight's magic ease all the way up to his wing and start to carefully wet each feather, he nearly folded down to the shower floor. Only locking his legs stopped the sudden mellowness from overwhelming his ability to stand.

Twilight kept quiet. She had been with pegasi before, and knew quite well how sensitive wings could be. Relied upon to pick up the slightest changes in wind and pressure, the tiny feathers weren't the bits that were sensitive, it was the nerve-filled flesh they were attached to. She carefully tended to Dustin's wings, and only tried to converse when they were fully done.

"Speaking of Belay, you were having lunch with her, right?" Twilight, having finished washing Dustin and herself, nibbled lightly on Dustin's ear under the spray of the shower—it was the best way she had worked out to wake him from a stupor such as grooming his wings caused.

"Huh? Belay? Lunch?" Lifting his head, Dustin nonetheless tilted it so one ear was within Twilight's grasp. "Yeah. We were going to discuss—"

"Kiera." Twilight, rather than nibbling, kissed Dustin's cheek. "How is your study going?"

"Slower than I want. I have to learn this operation. I have to save her." When he felt Twilight Velvet's foreleg wrap around his shoulder, Dustin leaned against her for the obvious comfort he needed so badly. "I will save her."
> Training
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Kiera's situation declined, so to did her journeys into space. When she no longer had enough working interfaces to safely control her ship, she voluntarily grounded herself. 

Dustin wasn't coping well with the news that not only wasn't he likely to learn the surgery in time but that now it wouldn't help. He sat in a coffee shop in town, sipping a soothing tea across from Princess Twilight and Belay. 

Sipping at his tea, Dustin let out a sigh. Twilight Sparkle and Belay seemed so good together, not that his own relationship with Twilight Velvet and Night Light wasn't going well, but since reality had crushed his dream of saving Kiera, Dustin had felt detached.

"We may have come up with a process that will help give more human-time." Twilight was almost bouncing in place. "The issue really was the cavitation bubble. The rate of return to a new pony shape is proportional directly to the rate of initial purging of the pony pseudo-matrix."

The jargon caught Dustin's attention for one fact. "I could spend longer as human?"

"That's what she's saying. Dust, this would give you a shot at a hail-Mary. If we can judge things just right, you could unplug Kiera from her systems and carry her out of the shielding of the ship." Belay's horn was just slightly lit with magic, though the only other evidence she had a spell active was a slight glow over the curve of her eyes.

"Then I'll be your guinea pig. Test it on me and I can get more used to the changes too. I'll need to be able to work even as bits of me are changing." Cutting a little short, Dustin looked at Twilight's confused expression. "What's wrong with it?"

"Why would you call yourself a guinea pig? Aren't they the cute little animals that just…" Twilight trailed off, looking between Belay and Dustin—both were restraining giggles. "This is another culture-shock thing, isn't it?"

"Yes, dear." Leaning sideways, Belay planted a kiss on Twilight's cheek. "Dustin wants to let us test this on him."

"You know that will only mix you up again?" Twilight tried to ignore her excitement for both experimentation and Belay for just a moment. "Each time you change to human and back you're going to get—get shuffled."

"I can keep shuffling after, right? Once everything is sorted out?" The idea of changing a lot of times didn't appeal to Dustin, but his mind was already made up on the matter. Anything he could sacrifice for Kiera would be a justified price for him to pay.

"There might be a limit, but our testing will show that pretty quickly." Leaving Twilight with a clear head (by way of not nuzzling her further), Belay flicked her magic gently and brought up displays of their notes in her vision. She double-checked that fact, and gave a little nod when she did.

"So when can we get started?" Dustin tried to ignore the magical light dancing in Belay's eyes, but his curiosity got the better of him. "How's the HUD going?"

With the topic turning to her favorite topic, Belay practically dove on the opportunity to show off. "It's going really well. I can record and playback, as well as scan patterns into it."

"We could start this afternoon, if you feel up to it." Twilight barely got the words in. Despite Belay's ability to get completely distracted in a topic (or perhaps because of it) Twilight had to sometimes be quite careful about cutting in.

Belay turned to Twilight and nodded enthusiastically. She knew full well she sometimes got carried away, but so did Twilight—knowing when to stop the other was something they were both learning. "Right. So. Today then?"





"Kiera, I'm going to help you." Dustin sat at the bottom of the column of titanium. "Princess Twilight and Belay are going to work out a way I can stay mostly human for about five minutes. If I can last that long I can disconnect you in here and carry you out."

"That could kill me, Dusty." Kiera's voice wasn't sharp and full of its usual lilt; she was dedicating as little effort on non-essential items as she could. The more she used her neural interfaces the faster they failed. "But I want you to try. As long as it doesn't hurt you."

Dustin looked down at his hooves and tried to do some math. "How long have we been together, Ki?"

"Fifty six years, Dust." She didn't need any logs to know that number, Kiera held her fondest memories from those years.

"That's longer than the Gal-standard marriage contract." Focusing on his breathing, Dustin stretched his wings out and wrapped them around himself. "You're not just a friend, Ki."

"I know, Dust. Which is why I don't want to hear you hurt yourself trying to help me. What did Belay say about the tests?" With her synapse links fading, soon Kiera knew she would be locked off and all alone in her own head. Even if her fluids weren't failing too, she would be driven insane in complete sensory deprivation.

"She thinks I shouldn't push it. She and the princess think they can reach the duration needed, but even if they can't…?" Dust trailed off, unable to finish the question.

Kiera made a soft sigh through the speakers. She didn't dare interface with her ship more than absolutely necessary, but right now seeing Dustin's face was just that. She looked on the huddled pony at the base of her column. "If they tell you that you should only do one more, you come here and do one more. For me."

Dustin let the tears fall down his cheeks. "I love you, Ki." He pushed his legs under him and stood up slowly.

"I love you too, Dusty." Kiera was glad that her voice wasn't carrying her emotion; she feared that if Dustin heard her fear he would not leave.

Making his way from the bridge, Dustin y Neil was resolute. He stepped into the lift and poked the controls with a wing. "Scratches, can you take me down?"

"Of course."

The similarities between Scratches' voice and Kiera's struck an extra blow for Dustin. The moment the lift cleared the bottom of Kiera's hull, Dustin stepped off it and spread his wings. Flying was just about worth everything that had happened, just about.

Through a series of updrafts Dustin gained altitude. He didn't need to flap his wings more than a handful of times to reach the city of Canterlot that reached out over the mountain it was attached to. Gliding on a warm current of air, Dustin spiraled slowly down to the lab Princess Twilight and Belay were working (and living) out of.

Each feather on his wings had a job to do. Some feathers were just to sense the slightest change in air movement, while others were for lift, and yet others gained Dustin control. A pegasus was truly a creature of the sky as much as any bird, and Dustin reveled in that freedom. 

Four clopping sounds announced Dustin's arrival at the front door of his destination. Tucking his left wing to his side, Dustin opened the front door with the right and made his way inside. "Twilight! Belay! I'm rea—" Dustin froze. The two mares in question wore goggles; long, heavy aprons; and had special face shields over the top of their goggles.

"How's Kiera?" Belay used her magic to flip her mask up and step toward Dustin. She didn't hesitate for a moment to hug him, and was relieved that he hugged her back.

"She's struggling, Bel. You know what shutting down all her synapse connections will do to her." Dustin squeezed Belay and then stepped back. "So let's not waste time. The sooner you get this working, the sooner I save Kiera."

Twilight stepped up beside Belay and gestured to the test chamber she had prepared. Ringed on three sides in clear glass, the room only had a single large crystal inside. "Come on. The first attempt will be to try for a minute of transformation time on each end, with a variable being the amount of time you will be perceptibly human. Are you ready?"

Dustin just nodded and walked into the test room. On the floor was four large dots, and it wasn't too hard for him to work out where to stand. "I guess I stand on the circles?"

"Yes please, Dustin. We should be able to charge the crystal twice every day, so it means we get a shot morning and afternoon. Are you ready?" Twilight's horn was glowing, her magical grip adjusting controls in response to the readouts before her.

"Yes." Nodding too, Dustin felt magic touch him again. That is to say, powerful magic. Twilight Velvet and Night Light had proved to him that magic was definitely useful in the bedroom, so he was used to casual (and intimate) touches, but this was something different. 

Magic flooded the room, and all of it seemed to focus on Dustin. His body trembled as ropes of power coiled around his limbs and even within them. He wanted to scream, or at least yell, but instead he clamped his jaw shut and started to count in his head. 

One. 

Two. 

Three. 

Four. Dustin felt a tingle start at his extremities (of which he had seven). His wings began to shake a little at some unseen pressure rubbing them, and despite his best efforts his legs gave out.

Dropping to the floor, Dustin watched his forehooves as they twisted and, amazing him, his fingers started to push out the bottom of his hooves.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight. Pink and soft fingers split apart from each other, and Dustin could feel with them again. The change, however, hadn't spread any further than his knees (or what would be elbows and knees soon).

Nine.

Ten. Fire errupted in his tail. Bones simply dissolved into magical potential and joined the swirling mass. 

Eleven.

Twelve. Dustin's wings started to literally dissolve. Human bodies had four limbs and none of them were configured as wings. He squeezed his eyes closed and tried to keep counting.

Thirteen.

Fourteen.

Fifteen.

Sixteen. A sharp tug on Dustin's back legs made him open his eyes again and look back at them. Bones seemed to twist and reshape, pushing his legs out into straight, human-lines. 

Seventeen.

Eighteen.

Nineteen. Just before Dust counted twenty in his head a gurgling started in his belly. He bent around himself in pain as it felt like his insides were becoming outsides. He lost count, time seemed meaningless when everything hurt this much. 

"Forty seconds, Dustin. Can you stand up yet?" Belay asked.

Just as he tried to reply Dustin felt his face start to twist. Knowing he didn't want to feel this part, let alone see it, he closed his eyes to save him at least one problem. It felt like a great big hand closed over his snout and just push. 

"Fifty. The changes are nearing completion, Dust." 

It was Belay's voice again. Although with his ears shrinking, Dustin felt the world's volume dial down to about half what it had been as a pony. 

The twisting in Dustin's belly seemed to ease, and all pain but a few muscle cramps left him. He coughed and spluttered, and held up one hand. One human hand. Dustin's eyes widened as he beheld what his ancestors had believed set his kind apart from everything else they knew. 

"I'fff—" Dustin jerked his head back as he bit his tongue sharply. Everything moved wrong, everything wanted to act as a human body should, but Dustin was too used to being a pony.

It took him six tries to stand up, and even then he was holding to the wall tightly. 

"How're you doing in there, Dust?" Belay left the monitoring booth and stepped close to the glass that let her see into the test chamber. "Dust?"

"Gimma a thanth. Not woothed thoo oofmam mowf." The words, silly as they sounded, made Dustin smile a little. He tried to stand a bit straighter, even bare naked, but still needed the glass for support. "Think ith nawth—"

Pain lanced through Dustin's belly. He fell to the floor and onto his side.

Belay tapped the glass to make sure Dust looked at her. "Okay, so you had a full minute as human there. Hold on Dust." 

His face pushed forward again. The process seemed to reverse itself perfectly. Sharp prickles in his mouth made him pull his tongue back from the edges of his growing snout. 

The feeling of his legs and arms starting to reshape, however, was completely overwhelmed by the feel of wings growing back in. The pain seemed to be nothing, and Dustin smiled in spite of the changes to his face. He would be able to fly again.

His fingers and toes started pulling back into his hands and feet. His legs shifted the most, bones adjusting back into a pony-design, while his fingers were lost to their hoofy prisons once more. Only the feel of his tail sprouting distracted Dustin from the feeling of his wings growing out.

But something was really wrong. As a pegasus, Dustin had good-sized, feathery wings. The appendages he stretched from his back lacked a single feather.

"Dustin, are those bat wings?!" Belay's face was glued to the glass. She longed to enter the chamber, but even if she didn't use her magic she would put the delicate sensors out of alignment. She watched as Dustin's wings grew almost twice as large as they previously were, and his new coat colors seemed to be dark gray fur and black/blue mane and tail.

Dustin shook himself and looked down at what had happened. Four legs: check. Snout: slightly rounded and slim (she knew what that meant). Wings: like someone had glued bat wings in place of her pegasus ones. It didn't take the glance under her belly to realize she was a mare again, but it still had to happen. 

Then Dustin pricked her tongue on one of the new, pointy teeth she had grown. "Okay. What's up with this?"

Twilight Sparkle's eyes widened. Despite all her requests, Luna's bat ponies had all refused to be examined. Dustin, however, was right here. A giggle escaped Twilight Sparkle's lips—she had work to do!
> Practice
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bat pony. Pegasus. Unicorn. Pegasus. Earth pony. Dustin was starting to get tired of the transformations, but each one told him something unique about the species. Earth ponies definitely had the best stamina. Pegasi were fast, but bat ponies had better reflexes. Unicorns were almost universally bad at physical things, although Night Light and Twilight Velvet had given him demonstrations showing that unicorns can train to correct that.

Dustin, an earth pony stallion, was waiting in the transformation booth again, ready for his next change. This time, however, he had a series of puzzles to work on. Lifting his head, Dustin nodded to Princess Twilight.

"Remember, you don't have to solve all the puzzles. This is training, not a test." Running down her test procedures, and made sure that all her equipment checked out. "Starting up in five, four, three…"

Focusing to avoid tension, Dustin started to work on the puzzles. He was halfway through putting the right shaped pegs in the right holes when Twilight started the spell. Each time the spell worked it started and progressed slightly differently. Dustin's face changed, his vision narrowing slightly while the snout on his face pulled inward. He finished getting the last peg in the right hole.

With a hoof that elongated out into a hand, Dustin pulled the color-pattern toy next. Bopping the crystal on top, it repeated a pattern among four other crystals. He poked the crystals in sequence only to be shown a longer pattern.

Twilight Sparkle watched as Dustin performed the puzzles as his body changed. Legs changed to arms, tail withdrew completely, and his spine adjusted itself to an upright body. All Dustin's fur just magically disappeared, and he was soon left naked in the chamber.

Dustin's body looked too familiar to Twilight. She stared at his naked form, that she was familiar with from other tests, and found herself blushing. "Okay, Dustin, if this follows the same trend you should have four and a half minutes."

He wasn't completely human. Dustin still felt little shifts and movements inside him, but he was getting closer. A twist in his gut, as he did a forty-color sequence on the crystal box stole his focus, and he messed up the last few colors. He moved on to the next toy.

"Not at apogee yet." As he spoke, Dustin could still feel his insides shifting. Outer appearances were the fastest to change, he had discovered, while internals seemed to be the last. At least sometimes. Then, as he solved the next puzzle, things felt complete. "Human fully now."

Twilight pressed the button on one of the magic clocks. "Starting timer. How are you feeling?"

"A little cold, slightly short of breath. As normal. I know you can't do anything about our altitude, but can I at least get some kind of heater in here?" Stacking blocks, Dustin finished the pattern and moved onto the next test—which was actually a test.

Dustin started crossing off answers in the multiple-choice. "You wrote this one, didn't you? With your hoof."

"I needed to practice!" Twilight felt defensive. "While this spell is running I didn't want to use any magic for fear of contaminating the transformations. Added to that I still need to talk and I had to get better with my hooves."

"Keep working on it." As he worked, Dustin shivered a little. He was soon past the multiple choice questions and into an essay. His hand flew across the page until he noticed something odd about that hand. "Transformation's starting again. How long was the apogee?"

"Four minutes and twenty-three seconds. That's almost enough time, Dustin." Twilight stared at Dustin's hands, watching talons appear as several fingers merged together.

"Don't know what I'll be this time. Three claws and a thumb… Griffon?" His hand still held the quill, so Dustin ignored the changes and kept working.

"Could be. There are a few—" Twilight gasped in surprise at the latest change: Dustin's feet had become pony back legs. "Scratch griffon. Hippogriff is the only species with that configuration. There go your wings."

The changes weren't painful, but they did leave Dustin feeling stretched and distorted. New limbs grew on his back, and because he lacked both fur and feathers they were the silliest, naked wings yet.

Prick by prick, feathers started sprouting along Dustin's wings. He stretched them out and gave them a few flaps. "I don't think I remember that one. Hippo is pony, right?"

"Hippogriffs are a pony, but featuring aspects of a bird. So you get talons on your forelegs, a beak, and bird wings." Twilight was already relishing doing a full physical on Dustin—she hadn't had a chance to do a full workup on a hippogriff yet.

"So the front end isn't mammal at all? Great, bird-bits." As Dustin spoke, his tone shifted to a higher register. The changes involved his face and neck now.

Growing a beak was a singularly unique experience for Dustin. His lips twisted and started to harden, then fused back into his skull and jaw. Still there was no pain, but the feeling of his hardened lips stretching out into a beak made Dustin cry out in surprise. 

Twilight winced at the sound. "Dustin, are you okay?" 

Trying to reply, all Dustin managed was an annoyed squawk. His tongue was still stretching, making matters worse for any attempt to talk. In the end he just held up his hand, curling his thumb and his finger together.

With a soft, warbling sigh, Dustin returned to his tasks. Writing with bird claws wasn't impossible, but his center of balance was shifting. Fur began to grow on his legs and arms, with a little prickle of it starting on his face.

"Wow, that's a vivid purple fur, and I love the blue and silver mane." Twilight's eyes were wide, the effect of Dustin's coloration put him quite close to her own pattern, except for the silver streaks. "Can you give me a percentage estimate?"

"Triii." Dustin clamped his beak down. Wiggling his tongue, he tried again. "Twiiii—" Walking to the window of the chamber, Dustin breathed on it as much as he could. In the resulting foggy window, he wrote a backwards twelve.

Not being able to talk was annoying. Dustin ground his new beak a little in annoyance. Pressure grew at Dustin's rump, and he turned just in time to see a plume of color sprout from his tail-nub. As intensely purple fur spread over his hips, he got to see the same effect Twilight had just described about his mane.

A trembling between Dustin's back legs, familiar now, was all the warning he got or needed that his penis was shrinking away. Female, now, wasn't the terror it had been the first time for Dustin. The shifting of his sex was almost pleasurable in the same way everything else was almost painful.

While Dustin finished off the essay answer, she could feel the new body cavity grow inwards. For any man it would be a singularly shocking and surprising sensation, but it was one she was growing used to.

By the time Dustin set the essay aside, her insides were starting their dance. "Changes moviiii—" Dustin clamped her beak shut. She realized it was a particular sound that her mouth got stuck on. "Changes gone…" She pointed at her midsection. "Can't pronounce… Iiiiii— Getting stuck."

"Vocal reproduction problems shouldn't be unheard-of. So far you've only had pony or human mouths to work with." Twilight kept scribbling notes with her hoof. "Limb test, please."

Dustin put down the blocks she had been trying to stack in a special way. Lifting her right foreleg, she tested all the joints, right down to her odd fingers. "Works okay." She repeated the test with the other foreleg. 

Back legs were more of a standard test, with Dustin lifting and turning each in all their ranges of motion. She gave another okay for them. Then she moved to her wings. Stretching them proved a problem: with her feathers fully grown, her hippogriff wings gave her a longer wingspan than the booth was wide.

"Problem testiiiing wiiiings." Dustin wrenched her beak closed each time, starting to get the hang of her mouthparts wanting to screech. "Thiiiis iiiiis worse than when I was a bat pony. Okay, tail check." She flicked her tail left and right, then flagged it. "Seems to be workiing."

"Getting better with that beak. Keep talking if it helps. Female again?" Scribbling down Dustin's replies, Twilight Sparkle was still excited about the side-project of getting to know different species better.

"Yeah, mare again. Thiis is all prettyy normal now. Belay, how's Kiera?" Dustin shivered as she felt more of her insides shift around. She waited a few moments further. "Belay?"

Scratches voice came from the comms button. "Dustin, you need to come quickly. Kiera's losing her synapse links faster now."

The bottom fell out of Dustin's world. She stared at the wall in panic. "H-How long does sheee have?" She was already moving, even with only four of her six limbs at all familiar, grabbing her comms button and her little saddlebags.

"At present rate, fourteen hours. At present rate of decay, six hours." There was a hint of emotion in Scratches' voice, but being an AI they didn't have access to a more natural speech synthesis.

"Wait, Dustin!" Twilight teleported herself to the doorway of the booth. "What's wrong?"

"Kiiiera's fading, Twiiliight. How soon can we do this again?" Dustin hated the interruption, but knew Twilight needed to be told.

Twilight could hear the urgency in Dustin's voice. She ran the numbers quickly in her head—it was Dustin's second transformation process for the day. "We should wait until tomorrow—"

"I don't care if I get stuck, or mutated, or what. Can you set this up at Kiera within an hour?" Dustin clamped down on her voice, managing the first full sentence without squawking.

Biting hard on all the scientific arguments she could use, Twilight gave the only answer a friend could. "Yes."





Heavy work with hippogriff claws was very doable, Dustin discovered, but much finer than wielding a quill was much worse. Still, less than an hour after first finding out about Kiera's decline, Dustin was helping Twilight carry her equipment off the train. 

Twilight had a lot of her things floating in her magic, but she could see the pain on Dustin's face (even with her hippogriff features), and gave her something to carry. "You know the risks. We have no idea what might happen if you transform again without your aura having time to settle."

"But you're going to do it?" Dustin's muscles strained under the weight of the heavy crystal she was carrying. When Twilight didn't respond, Dustin turned her head to look the Princess of Friendship in the eyes.

"Yes." Twilight mentally added, Because if I don't, Kiera will die alone in the dark. She didn't want to say the extra words out loud—just thinking them hurt her. "I will."

Reaching the lift without any further words exchanged, Dustin put the crystal down for Twilight to start building the transformation rig. "Kiera? Belay?"

"I read you, Dust. You sound different." Belay's voice was clear through both Dustin's implant and the comms button. "Kiera managed to play her unlock tone. You just need to come up now and unlock—"

Dustin took a deep breath. "Negative. My code is: two, five, five, seven, one, zero, zero, zero, nine, eight, five, seven. Repeating—" 

"I got it, Dust. The column's open. Ready when you are."

"I have the lift ready." Scratches' tone was neutral again.

Dustin reached one claw up and touched the lift. "Okay everypony, let's do this." She turned back to see Twilight powering the machine. "Princess, are you ready?"

"I'm ready. You have all your tools?" Twilight saw the shocked expression on Dustin's face.

"I'm getting them out." Belay's voice was sharp, as if she were moving around already. "Get started, and they'll be ready when you get here."

Dustin walked over to the machine and stepped onto the marker where the probes were. "Okay. Hit it." She felt the bloom of magic around her, like usual, and felt it sink into her body. "Tell me the moment the spell is done."

Twilight watched as Dustin's face started to change—beak pulling inward. She could only nod and turn all her attention back on the controls.

It felt, to Dustin, like every part of her was changing at the same time. It was different than all the rest of her changes, even as all of those had been different. Her forelegs changed to arms, talons to hands, wings pulled in completely (as did tail), and her back legs restored to their human shapes.

"Okay, the spell's finished!" Even as she yelled out, Twilight could see something fundamental had changed: Dustin was still female as a human.
> Unleashed
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dustin was so focused that the realization that she was a female human barely registered. She was naked, however, and even the lift rising up into Kiera's hull was chilly. "Scratches, how is Kiera?"

"Estimated loss of all synaptic linkages in sixty-five minutes, fifteen seconds. Kiera has survived partial sensory deprivation for up to an hour. Dustin, please save her." Scratches sounded markedly less AIish and had clear emotions in the last sentence.

"Roger, Scratches. Can you get all her lighting up to bright levels for me?" The lift stopped and the doors opened into the airlock. Dustin got cycled through as quick as she could and stepped into the ship proper. Kiera felt absent, still. "Belay?!"

"I'm at Kiera's column!" Belay had been careful to lay out all the tools Dustin would or even might need. From surgical equipment to engineering tools lay on trays in an arc around the column. When Dustin rounded the corner, however, Belay gasped. "Y-Y-Your female?"

"If that's the only hangup for the day I'll be happy." Dustin wasted no time, walking up to the opened column. While she looked inside, she felt hooves tying something around her hair—pulling it back and neatening it up. "Thanks, Bel. I know you can still hear, Kiera, I'm going to get you out." 

The more input Kiera tried to take in the faster her synaptic links burned out. She couldn't turn off the last audio input, however, the one that was hard-wired into her shell. It wasn't the first time in her life that Kiera envied "soft-shells" their organic interfaces, but it was the first time she truly wished she had them.

Each sound of Dustin's work echoed in Kiera's mind. She could identify the screws being removed from the main interface panel. The click of high-bandwidth interface cables disconnecting her from her ship—her body. A little flicker in the back of her mind was a warning that external power and nutrients had been disconnected.

Time stretched. Between each click, each sound of metal on metal, years seemed to pass. It would cost her in the end, but Kiera had to ask—to beg—for more sound. "Please talk to me."

Kiera's voice sounded scared and pained—Dustin took a deep breath. "Kiera, I'm removing the structural supports now. You are disconnected from the column. Once I have your shell, I'm going to open that too." She spoke as she worked, getting two of the main supports loose. "I'm removing the third shock-mount from your shell. When I lift you out, you might notice the audio change with the room's harmonics."

There was a gyro in her shell, but Kiera could tell from the sounds—just as Dustin had promised—that she was now out of her column. She listened to Dustin describe the process of releasing the safeties on her shell one by one. Kiera was terrified, but there was one thing that helped her hold together in the dark: she was in the hands of a life-long friend.

Dustin had kept up her dialogue as she worked, but now things would start to get really odd. "I'm unfastening the last retaining bolts. I can feel myself transforming back, but it's within bounds. I'll get you out of this, Kiera, you'll see." 

Pain assaulted Kiera, the intensity of which was unlike anything she had felt before. She had only experienced her body—her actual body—having sensations twice before in her long life. All feelings of her body were meant to be numbed to near complete loss, but this pain cut through the chemical blockers. 

The girl inside the shell was small. Dustin ignored the shock-dampening fluid that stained her arms, and started unfastening Kiera from the last of her life-support. "I'm draining your shell and unhooking you from the—" She gasped a little when she saw things that weren't part of the shellperson process.

Kiera had tiny little black legs, like a pony. The dark coloring had spread up her neck and was spreading over her head. None of her above the neck had changed shape yet, but Dustin could assume that it was the transformation interfering with Kiera's implants. "O-Okay. Kiera, I see the problem. Magic must have gotten past all the shielding. You started to transform in your shell."

Panic joined fear and pain. Kiera wanted to yell at Dustin to stop, to put her out of her misery, but her last synaptic link was showing signs of degradation. Then, with heart-stopping suddenness, the world was gone. 

Kiera was alone with herself in the dark, silent expanse of nothing. She could feel pain, still, but it didn't give her a sense of anything but agony. But agony meant she was still alive. The pain rolled, shifted, and moved. Then everything became so painful that Kiera stopped being.

Dustin was carrying Kiera. On Dustin's back, wings were growing, slowly. The shielding of the ship hadn't been taken into account with their calculations, but right now it was their safety margin. "She's not breathing. Bel, hurry."

"Doing everything I can. Scratches, you still in there?" Belay had entered every override code she could into the lift.

"It's quiet in here…" Scratches' voice was soft, sounding like it had more emotion than any AI should ever have. 

The pain pulled Kiera from the sleep it had driven her to. She wasn't sure how long had passed, or what was happening. She could feel nutrients flooding into her—warmth too. For the first time in her life Kiera opened her eyes. Blinding light assaulted her, causing her to immediately close them again.

"Kiera? Kiera?!" Dustin had seen Kiera's eyes flicker. In her arm, Dustin watched as what remained of the stunted, human body was washed away with black. "Breathe, Kiera. Please breathe!" Her own body was changing too. White hooves now cradled Kiera's monochromatically opposed, black body.

On instinct, Dustin shifted Kiera from the crook of her foreleg so that the tiny, pony-like creature was laying on its belly over it, then Dustin brought her wing down against Kiera's rump.

It wasn't pain, but Kiera's body reacted without her input. She coughed, spluttered, and wailed at the unfairness of life. The motion seemed to kick start a host of processes. With breathing started, her body began to work.

"H-Help, please?" The voice was clear in both Brawns' implants: Scratches. "We're all alone."

"Shit, the AI. What do we do?" The lift was halfway to the ground. Dustin was approaching full transformation, and the little filly in her forelegs was too.

"You can fly?" Belay asked, and got a nod from Dustin. "Okay, get down there yourself. I'm going to do what I can." Now with the ability to use her magic, Belay quickly programmed the lift to start going back up.

"I won't let you go, Kiera." Rather than leave it until the last moment, Dustin y Neil stepped off the side of the lift and spread her wings.

Kiera squirmed and tried to move closer to the source of warmth. She was used to flying—had flown further than any pegasus ever would—but she was used to flying with high-tech sensors and the biggest thrusters she could strap onto her ship. Of course, she was used to flying in her ship—her body. 

Dustin glided as safely as she could, and kept Kiera tucked against her. More than anything, Dustin wanted to study Kiera's body, to work out what kind of pony she had become, but safety was more important. So, when Kiera began to squirm and shift like a tiny eel, Dustin wrapped the tiny pony tighter.

At the top of the lift, Belay stared at the double-bulkhead of the airlock. Each of the doors incorporated the shielding system that wrapped Kiera's former body. She punched the codes into the airlock door, entered the chamber, and then passed through to the ship itself.

A feeling of dread filled Belay. She looked around at what had been Kiera. With a shellperson at the helm, a ship—even a station—felt alive. But this ship was dead. Kiera was gone. There was two access paths to get into the ship's datacenter: a series of locked and secured doors and panels, or a—usually impossible—direct path through Kiera's column.

Climbing over the remains of Kiera's support systems, Belay only had to kick one panel open to get through to the tiny, cramped datacenter at the heart of the ship. The feed of hing-bandwidth cables coming from the column terminated in an entire rack of extremely specialized machines—this wasn't what Belay was looking for.

To the left of the column's interfaces was the eight racks that should have housed the AI. Belay's eyes widened as she looked at the organic lumps that looked like something from a space-monster-horror movie. Triggering her implant, Belay directed her comms toward the ship's computers. "Are you guys okay in there? Teach? Scratches?"

"It's too cold in here. We need more—more magic." Scratches voice sounded weak, vulnerable.

"Dustin! When you find Twilight—Princess Twilight—can you tell her to find me as fast as she can?" Belay began climbing out of the datacenter. She had no idea what else to do than what Scratches asked.

Adjusting her wings, Dustin swooped down a little faster. "Will do." Kiera seemed to squirm around more until they reached the ground. "Princess! Please go to Belay as fast as you can. She needs your—help…"

Twilight Sparkle teleported before Dustin was fishing speaking. She knew that teleporting into the ship would be hard, and use much more energy, but she didn't end up within the ship. Belay was just stepping out of the airlock. "What do you need, Bel?"

Belay could have kissed Twilight on the spot for arriving so fast. "Kiera is out, but something odd's happening with the AI. I think magic leaked into there enough to do something to them. If we don't get them out of the ship, they're done for." Slowing down a little, Belay pointed at the airlock behind her. "This is the weakest part of the ship's shielding. Can you rip those doors out?"

Sticking her tongue out, Twilight focused as much as she could on her magic. There was countless spells to do exactly what she wanted, but she wasn't one to experiment blindly. Reaching with her magic, she felt the first door and, with it open, could reach inside it too. Feeling out the metal of the door, and where it connected to the rest of the hull of the ship, Twilight built a teleportation spell in her head.

Belay had seen a lot of magic done, and as a unicorn she got to really appreciate how hard it was to do intricate magic. She watched Twilight Sparkle form the spell in the most intricate and detailed magic patterns she'd ever seen. She stared in shock as more and more appeared. The tiny threads of magic danced as Twilight worked them, and soon a single thread reached out and touched the bulkhead.

Three different automated alarms sounded when the outer airlock door, its frame, and a small section of mounting hardware that fixed it to the bulkhead was suddenly not there anymore. Belay gaped at the alacrity and effectiveness. "That's great! Do that again!"

Twilight examined the second door and poked her hoof at it. Magic reached the metal of the door, but no further. "I can't get a grip on this! Can you open it?!"

"Scratches, Teach? Can either of you help open this airlock door?" Belay herself started working on the terminal, her magic working the keys faster than her human self ever could. There was a pretty big problem, however, and that was the safety override computer for the airlock. "With the airlock cracked open like this, the computer that controls it won't let us open the inner door."

"Can I blast through the door? Is there anything sensitive on the other side?" Twilight might have used a lot of magic to teleport the heavy door away, but she was an alicorn—Princess of Friendship—and her present task involved helping a very close friend. Her domain burned inside, replenishing her magic faster than should be possible.

"No! Practically everything is behind the door. If you blasted it, your blast might ricochet around inside the remaining shielding until it has destroyed everything. There has to be a better way!" Belay kept working at the console, trying all her bypasses (legal and illegal) again.

Looking away from the door, Twilight Sparkle watched Belay work. "Wait a moment. You said there's a computer that is stopping you from opening the door?"

Belay just nodded while her magic punched codes into the keypad.

"So what happens if I blow up the computer?" The moment Twilight asked her question, Belay stopped typing. She knew her special somepony had gotten an idea—Twilight had spent enough time with Belay to know her tells.

"Scratches! Where is the computer that manages the airlock?" Belay looked around the airlock, hoping the answer would be, "It's the panel beside you," or, "Just behind that plate."

"Armored… box… in wall…" Scratches felt themselves slowing. Without magic to sustain them, and changed enough that the ship's computers no longer could, they were dying.

"An armored box in the wall!" Belay was back on the terminal, typing and bringing up a plan of the airlock. She pointed a hoof at the wall just beside the terminal. "There!"

Twilight Sparkle had never studied pure, destructive magic in her time at Canterlot—she'd had a great teacher who'd encouraged her to rapidly learn and become a master: Tirek. But too much magic, she knew, was worse than not enough. Twilight aimed her horn directly at the spot Belay gestured to and started to push her power at it.

The wall was the first thing to melt. Then Twilight's beam of purple magic hit the shielding of the ship. Twilight narrowed her beam down to a tight, tiny, and coherent thread of magic. She could have spent power all day, sinking it into the hull of the ship, and never made more than a scorch mark. A tiny little thread of power, however, could overwhelm the shield in just one spot.

Once the little thread of magic had speared through the hull, Twilight simply whipped it around inside—she wouldn't have been more effective had she used mono-filament wire. The door's lock audibly clicked, and Twilight cut off her magic.

Belay kicked with all her might, and the door retracted into the wall with a sigh.

Like questing fingers, the magic fields' lines of force bent around and wrapped inside the ship. Within, eight black pods trembled, stilled, then burst open.

Scratches was climbing through Kiera's old column by the time Belay reached the cockpit.

Coming up behind Belay, Twilight Sparkle froze as she saw the shapes climbing out of the disassembled column. "Changelings?!"
> Reinforced
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dustin looked at Kiera. Black chitin covered Kiera from the tip of her horn to the bottoms of her hooves. There was a small patch of iridescent green on her little back, that almost looked like a saddle and girth strap. Her wings were small, insectile, and folded neatly to her back.

"What am I?" Kiera asked, but it wasn't her mouth that moved and only Dustin heard it.

Reaching one wing up to brush Kiera's mane of cerulean, silk-like hair, Dustin noticed stray strands of glass fiber mixed through it. "Whatever you are, you brought bits of your shell with you. I guess this ends our mission?"

Kiera couldn't stop herself, she broke into giggles. She snuggled against Dustin a little more, feeling warmth and more radiating from him. Opening her mouth—instinctively—she inhaled the warmth.

Shivering, Dustin didn't notice what Kiera was doing, but the feeling of being drained made Dustin clutch Kiera closer. "What's going on? I feel really cold."

Snapping her mouth closed with a startled gasp, Kiera stopped feeding on Dustin's love and hugged against her. She still couldn't get the hang of her mouth, and continued using Dustin's implant—not that she knew how that still worked. "I'm sorry! It just felt right to do. I just really needed something and you have it and—"

"You don't look so good, Dustin." Twilight Sparkle landed, having escorted Belay and the five new changelings from the ship. It was Kiera that held most of her attention now. "They're changelings, which means they feed off love." Of course, she had no way of knowing the conversation Dustin and Kiera just had, but she did recognize signs of changeling draining in Dustin.

"Love? You're kidding, right?" Dustin looked up from Kiera to Belay, and the five changelings with her. "You're not kidding. I can't believe I'm asking this, but does it harm me if she feeds off my love?"

"It will leave you confused and weak, but it shouldn't do any lasting harm." Twilight was only quoting what Thorax had told her about changeling feeding. "She's not a normal changeling. Those,"—Twilight gestured to the five changelings wobbling along behind Belay—"those are regular changelings, but she's a queen."

"A queen?" Kiera looked between Dustin and Twilight, her eyes struggling with the process of changing focal length. "What does that mean?"

"It means, Kiera, that you can have some more if you need it. Just leave me a little love in the tank, okay?" Dustin sat down and cradled Kiera.

Looking in awe at Kiera, Scratches approached her and Dustin first. "Kiera?"

In Kiera's head there was a distinct echo. Scratches'—she somehow knew that the changeling standing before her was her brightest AI—voice came directly into her head first, then via Dustin's implant, and finally via her own ears. She focused on the first sounding. "Sorry about this, Scratches. Looks like we are flying separate from now on."

Realizing there was a direct link to Kiera, Scratches practically pounced on it. "Never! Where you go, we go."

"Right!"

"Yeah!"

"1"

"1"

Kiera and Dustin were swamped in hugs, the five changelings grouped around them and leaned in. 

"I'll send a message to Thorax, he might know something about all this." Twilight Sparkle turned to Belay. "I need a full account of this, from everypony. And we need to find out what can be salvaged from—" She managed to bite back on mention of Kiera's old ship. Her old body.

"You said her feeding will leave somepony drained. How long will that feeding last her? And what of Scratches, Teach, Wallow, JOAT, and Switch?" An odd noise caused Belay's ears to twitch and focus on the group of changelings and Dustin. She could hear soft chirping. "I don't think she'll be too upset at us for salvaging her hull, but let me do the asking."

Dustin wasn't sure when she wobbled and started to fall. The changeling behind her caught her, picked her up and carried her out of the little pile of snuggles. "But Kiera needs more love…" Her voice sounded slurring, even to her. 

Teach balanced carefully on their back legs, carrying Dustin over to where Twilight and Belay stood. "Our queen is well-fed, thank you, but we can take care of her."





"You're awake? I was starting to get worried. Twily had said you might sleep for a few days, and I remember how Shiny was after Chrysalis got to him, but three days is a bit much." Twilight Velvet lay on the bed beside Dustin, one hoof still holding the book she'd been reading.

Blinking away at days worth of sleep, Dustin reached her forehooves up and rubbed at her eyes with only mild confusion. She'd had dreams of Kiera as a huge, ship-sized black bug-pony, and others of more mundane things, such as Night Light and Twilight Velvet waking her gently at intervals and feeding her, carrying her to the bathroom. 

Dustin turned her head and rolled toward Twilight. She only needed to get to her side to be close enough for a kiss. The moment her lips connected with Twilight Velvet's, Dustin wanted and needed more. Starting with just the lightest of kisses, Dustin inched her way over the covers to snuggle up against Twilight.

Sighing happily, Twilight pulled Dustin as close as she could, until their bodies were touching from barrel to flank. She loved the way Dustin kissed: slow and long, with a lot of snuggling. But Twilight was responsible for making sure her lover fully recovered. "Mmm. Dustin, are you hungry or thirsty?"

"Is Kiera alright? What about the AIs?" Flicking out a wing, Dustin wrapped it around Twilight and held her close. Nuzzling in under Twilight's jaw, Dustin just held tight.

Twilight pulled her legs behind Dustin, holding her as close as she could. "She's recovering. Her drones, too. Princess Luna arranged for them to be looked after and have their own quarters." 

"Princess Luna?" Dustin was mildly surprised. Her body, pressed so tight against Twilight's, let her feel the gentle thudding of Twilight Velvet's heart. One thing Dustin would never fully get used to was how sensitive all of a pony's body was.

"You would have to ask her yourself. I don't pretend to know the motives of alicorns," Twilight Velvet said.

"Except your daughter."

"Of course."

"And your son's wife?"

"I have been known to meddle a little."

"And their foal, Flurry?"

"Young ponies all want the same things: sweets, hugs, and stuffed toys. What are you getting at?" By now Twilight was fighting off giggles—and losing.

Dustin giggled along with Twilight, their shared mirth combining to expand into a little squirming and tickling, but before it could become more, Dustin sighed. "I need to go see her."

"You do. Want me to come too?" Not getting an immediate reply, Twilight Velvet began nuzzling and licking around Dustin's cheeks until she agreed.





Princess Luna had an entire tower of Canterlot Castle to herself—normally to herself. Today she had guests, and guards, and friends. Her tower was normally quiet, calm, but at the moment it was busy. 

Turning her head, Luna looked at the tiny changeling queen sitting on a cushion beside her. Across from them was a very colorful creature: King Thorax. Between them was a tea set, and brewing in the pot was the darkest black tea known to ponykind. The tea itself was grown by zebra and imported to Equestria at the highest cost, but Princess Luna drank it exclusively—the zebra who supplied her (free of charge) raised their prices to the public further because of this. 

"She's not beholden to you or your ways, King Thorax, unless she wishes to be. Before we start, I want to make it absolutely clear that Kiera and her drones are under my own and Equestria's protection." Luna wanted no mistakes or diplomatic arguments to arise from the meeting.

"Perfect," Thorax said and smiled wide. "I was worried I'd have to offer you sanctuary, and then have all the problems of admitting more drones to the hive—let alone a queen—and just when everything is settled after the Chrysalis business. Having her exist as part of Equestria, officially, is going to be easier for all concerned."

Kiera wasn't an expert in Equestrian politics—she had no idea what had just happened. Both Princess Luna and King Thorax were smiling, and not in the way that said, "I have a use for you." She opened her mouth to talk when there was a knock on the door. She turned her head, tilted her chin upward, and then felt excitement spread through her. "It's Dustin!"

Standing between the two bat pony guards—with Twilight Velvet standing at her side—Dustin waited for a voice within to invite her. What she got instead was the door flying open and a small queen changeling charging at her. "Ack!"

"Dustin! I learned how to use my legs, and I stopped biting my tongue, and I can talk!" Kiera didn't care that she was a two-hundred-year-old-filly, she was little and she knew Dustin would let her get away with being silly. Besides, she felt so full of life she couldn't help doing everything that came to mind.

Sprawled on her back, Kiera sitting on her barrel, Dustin smiled up at the little dark shape. "I'm glad to see you too, Kiera." Spreading her wings and reaching up, Dustin snuggled Kiera to her barrel and hugged her for the second time ever.

Twilight Velvet left the pair to their greeting and walked into the room. "Princess Luna, King Thorax. Is that The Night's Own tea I smell brewing?" She knew the answer—Twilight Velvet stocked the same stuff, though she drank it rarely. 

Luna tipped her head toward Twilight Velvet. She'd always respected Princess Twilight and Prince Shining's parents, if not because they raised two amazing ponies, then because they were excellent company and unwavering loyalty to the crown of Equestria. "Would you join us?"

Walking around, Twilight intended to sit at Luna's side, but when Kiera (leading Dustin by riding on her back) chose that side, Twilight Velvet sat beside King Thorax. She tilted her head and looked up at the large changeling. "Your Majesty. You'll forgive me for sitting at your side, I trust?"

Thorax blushed as green as his cheeks would go. The rumors of Twilight Velvet and Night Light were the stuff of legend, but despite all the strange things said about the pair they were held in the highest regard by everypony—himself included. "Oh! Of course. You know what they say: more grubs, more cozy."

"Where were we? Oh yes." Princess Luna began pouring the tea, smoothly summoning extra cups for her guests. "Queen Kiera has been granted the title of Princess in Training by Princess Celestia and myself. We're sure she'll find something grand to turn her time to, but there is a small matter of suitable tutors.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle is undertaking the task of finding these tutors, and suggested yourself or a trusted changeling to teach her the way of her species." Luna sipped at the tea. The hot fluid spread in a wave through her body, the caffeine washing away any hint of tiredness, while the tannin's sharp taste reinforced the overall flavor of the brew.

"Sure!" Thorax floated his own cup up, and barely stopped himself from just drinking it all down. Changeling tradition involved consuming as much as possible as fast as possible with the assumption being it might not be there to drink in five minutes. Breaking from traditions was hard, but it had become somewhat of a habit for Thorax. "I have just the changeling for the job. Princess Twilight personally taught her, and she has been teaching the changelings at my hive the ways of friendship."

Twilight Velvet's lips curled into a smile. "Ocellus. A good choice, Your Majesty."

"That leaves somepony to teach her her duties as princess, which I will be undertaking, and somepony to teach her the magic of friendship. I think Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, might have some designs on that job." Looking toward Kiera, Princess Luna couldn't help but smile at the adorable changeling nymph slumped on Dustin's back. Her own motives were clear, Kiera had given her the gifts of knowledge and understanding, and a few private rides to see the moon. "If that suits Your Majesty, I think we can call business done."

Thorax visibly relaxed. "Thank the hive. My back was aching from sitting up so straight."

"I thought you did wonderfully, dear." Leaning across, stretching up (although not so far now he wasn't stiff and straight), Twilight Velvet gave Thorax a little kiss on the cheek.
> Fin
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'm moving," Belay said.

Dustin was caught by surprise. She set her teacup down carefully. Beside Dustin was Twilight Velvet, across from them Belay sat beside Princess Twilight Sparkle, and at the end of the table was Kiera—this was just their normal morning tea at the local coffee shop. 

The rushed transformation had left Dustin stuck firmly as a pegasus mare, not that she minded. Things had settled since Kiera was freed of her shell.

"To Ponyville, I gather?" Twilight Velvet's lips curled into a knowing smile as she glanced between her daughter and Belay.

Belay had spent some time finding what she wanted to be. Each morning she'd appeared as a random species and sex until she had gotten what she wanted—what he wanted, now. Belay nodded his head and gestured beside himself to Twilight Sparkle. "I can do my research in Ponyville, and I'm assured there's a good view there."

Now a dusty-orange unicorn stallion, Belay wasn't all that different from when he'd first arrived in Equestria. Except that now he had the eye of a princess on his blue-maned self. 

"That's only a short train trip, right?" Kiera's voice was high-pitched and chirpy. So much of her had changed that she was practically a slave to her body's sensations. At that moment she was practically swamped with food—food made her chirpy.

Twilight Sparkle nodded with enthusiasm. "That's right. The trains pass Ponyville several times a day, and I have plenty of room if anypony wants to stay overnight."

"It'd be nice to see a bit more of Equestria," Dustin said. "But I think I've finally found a port to call home." She turned her head to look at Twilight Velvet and felt a bubbling spring of warmth inside.

"Took you long enough." Kiera's vision was more and less than it had been when she'd literally been a starship. She couldn't probe deep into infrared or ultra-violet, but there was a new pair of color patterns that registered to her. Magic was the first new and vibrant part of the world she could see, and the second was emotion. Kiera watched as love flowed between Dustin and Twilight Velvet, with lesser links binding them to Twilight Sparkle and Belay—when she looked at the latter two, they burned hot with shared love. "You wouldn't believe how he—she—was back then. The moment she landed on a planet her toes would get itchy."

"Planet? I'm sure Dustin didn't feel right unless we were in FTL." Belay used his magic to lift his cup and take a sip. "I guess I was always looking for somewhere nice to settle down, but I didn't expect Dustin felt the same."

"Oh sure, tell all the stories that embarrass the pegasus. I see how it is." The laugh Dustin let out removed any ambiguity that her words were anything but a joke. "But you're right. It just feels right here. Could we have been traveling all over known space in search of this?"

"Lucky we made it. There's a lot of space out there," Belay said.

"I wonder if our message will reach FSP?" Dustin sipped her tea and spread one wing around Twilight Velvet's back.

"Who knows. It was sub-light, so we'll never see hide nor hair of them in our lives." Belay watched the way Dustin hugged Twilight Velvet and for a moment was jealous—then Twilight Sparkle's wing circled his back. When Dustin looked at Twilight Velvet again, he got a little wink from her.

"I should be going," Kiera said in her adorable voice. "School starts soon."

"Are you actually attending Princess Celestia's school, or teaching there?" Dustin asked.

Replying with a giggle, Kiera nodded. "Yup!" She dropped off her stool and trotted out of the coffee shop.

"She does that to you on purpose, you know." Twilight Velvet loved the feel of feathers hugging her, and could tell that her "future son-in-law" did too. "We should probably be off too."

Ruffling her wings, Dustin inadvertently gave Twilight Velvet a little snuggle. "Yeah. I need to go see a doctor about something for this belly ache." One hoof reached down to lightly touch her sensitive tummy.

"Something you ate?" Belay asked.

Twilight Velvet turned to Dustin and pressed her muzzle up to one of Dustin's ears. "Or somepony that ate you?"

Dustin's smile and blush combined to make her forget the cramp in her belly. "P-Probably."

With hugs all round, Dustin and Twilight Velvet parted ways from Twilight Sparkle and Belay. Walking toward Canterlot City Hospital, Twilight Velvet turned to Dustin. "When did this start, anyway?"

Not wanting to jostle her belly, Dustin walked rather than hovered beside Twilight Velvet. "It's been coming and going for the last few days. It's normally gone by about lunch. I hope it's not an ulcer."

Twilight Velvet suspected it wasn't an ulcer, but she believed in making sure. "I'm sure the doctors will know."

"Yeah." Dustin kept up her pace until they reached the hospital. The rest of their conversation had been about meaningless things like weather and sporting games. Marching inside the hospital, Dustin walked up to the front counter with Twilight Velvet at her side.

"Hi there. What seems to be the problem?" the nurse at the counter asked.

The professionalism reassured Dustin. She tried to smile through a cramp that threatened to squeeze her insides up her throat. "Feeling sick."

The nurse scribbled some notes down on her paper. "Well, that's no good. I'll have a doctor come and see you in a moment. Do you consent to a magic exam?"

When a form was thrust in her face, Dustin took it and began filling it out. "Magic exam?"

"That means a unicorn doctor, dear. Perfectly fine, but some ponies take a little umbrage to using magic for such things." Twilight Velvet reached a foreleg over Dustin's withers and pulled her into a hug once the form was done.

"Huh? Oh, sure!" Dustin enjoyed leaning into the hug. "It'd be no different from normal magic, right? I mean the, uh, transformations wouldn't do anything to it?"

The nurse blanched. "If you have any major transformational magic in your past, you would be better off with a non-magical exam." She quickly made a note on the form.

"This sounds like a job," a male stallion in a white coat said, as he walked up to the counter, "for Doctor Horse!"

"Doctor! Perfect timing. Miss Dustin here needs an exam. Stomach cramps." The nurse raised one eyebrow at the doctor as she said the last word.

"Right this way. Is your daughter coming?" Doctor Horse asked, nodding to Twilight Velvet.

"We're—uh—partners. She can come if she wants." Dustin looked to Twilight Velvet only to see her already moving. It made Dustin smile more despite the pain.

In a private room, Doctor Horse—an off-white-furred earth pony stallion with dark brown mane—patted the examination bed. "Up here please, Dustin. Have you had a pelvic examination before?"

"P-Pelvic?" Dustin's head spun to look at Twilight Velvet.

"You're a mare, dear. You might as well have your first right now." Twilight Velvet could already sense the doctor's assumption—she approved. "Doctor, I think we should warn you that Dustin was affected by transformational magic that left her the mare she is today."

Dusting blushed a little, but nodded. Following the doctor's directions she lay on her back and expected the worst. The cramps came on full force when he felt around her lower body, but he didn't do anything she'd expected, just touched her belly with some tools.

"Everything seems fine, this is perfectly natural." Doctor Horse couldn't help having a huge grin, but only after he looked at Twilight Velvet—and found her looking hopeful. "Is this your first?"

"First?" Dustin lifted a hoof up to rub the side of her head. "Doc, I've had these cramps for a few days now, today is hardly my first."

"Foal, ma'am. Is this your first pregnancy?" Doctor Horse asked.

Dustin froze for a moment. Words had just hit her brain, but they refused to make sense. She turned, slowly, to look at Twilight Velvet. Hopeful and happy was all Dustin could read on her lover's face. "Pregnant?"

Even as her own mouth said the word, Dustin couldn't believe it. It was the terror she'd faced within herself when she first became a mare and had relations with Night Light. There should have been terror inside, but Dustin was having trouble finding where she put it. Searching her feelings, all the word pregnant seemed to do was tickle at happiness.

"Pregnant, Dustin." Twilight reached up and rubbed one of Dustin's ears. "How do you feel?"

Dustin took the time to do a quick once-over of her body. Cramps were still crampy, but everything else felt fine. "I don't feel pregnant."

"Not what I meant. How do you feel knowing you're pregnant?" With her magic, Twilight Velvet gently lifted Dustin enough to turn her on her side—toward Twilight of course.

"It's a lot to take in for just a single word. I guess I'm okay. I don't feel bad, or terrified like I used to. I think we all need to talk about it." Dustin didn't want to say how nice it felt, how excited she was growing at the prospect, but a little giggle slipped out. "I'm going to have a foal."

"We, darling." Twilight Velvet kissed Dustin on the nose. "We're going to have a foal. Don't for a second think you are alone in this."

"Oh gosh, I need to tell everypony," Dustin said.

Turning her attention to the doctor, who had withdrawn from the private conversation, Twilight Velvet couldn't suppress her own smile. "Do we need to do anything else, doctor?"

"I'd suggest some more appointments. We need to make sure foal and dam are both in tip-top condition." Doctor Horse turned to Dustin. "The cramps will fade. There are going to be a lot of other changes. If you'd like, I could book you a class so you can talk to an experienced mare."

Dustin shook her head and looked up at Twilight Velvet. "I think I have that bit covered."

"Great! If you'd just see the nurse on your way out, she'll arrange your appointments." Years of medical training, to treat ponies that were often not at their best, always seemed worth it when Doctor Horse got to give such happy news. He finished writing up his report and couldn't shift the smile off his own face—not that he wanted to.

"We need to make prenatal appointments." As she spoke, Twilight Velvet made eye contact with the nurse, then flicked her eyes toward Dustin.

That's wonderful news! became a phrase Dustin heard a lot of over the course of the day. Despite how important she felt it was to tell the friends she'd made about her pregnancy, she still had cramps until early afternoon.

The big moment was coming when Dustin and Twilight got home. They waited for Night Light to return. It seemed to take forever, and Dustin ended up drinking more tea than ever before. The cramps were gone, thankfully, but Dustin had to run to the little fillies' room.

When Dustin returned the living room, Night Light looked confused, and Twilight Velvet was doing her best to keep her snout closed.

"There you are. Twilight said she wouldn't say another word until you were back. What's going on?" Night Light asked.

Dustin took a deep breath. Then another. She closed her eyes and counted to ten before opening them and looking at Night Light. He was as much an amazing stallion as Twilight Velvet was an amazing mare. "I'm pregnant."

The even tone of his lover's voice belayed the fantastic news Night Light had just heard. He actually teleported across the room to kiss Dustin. He watched her eyes flutter and close as they explored one another's lips. But he couldn't keep kissing her.

When Night Light pulled back from Dustin, he saw the huge smile now plastered on her face. "That's fantastic!"

"Say it, Night," Twilight Velvet said.

Night Light's head snapped around to his wife, then he turned back to Dustin. "I love you."

Twilight Velvet had to catch Dustin in her magic. She floated Dustin to the couch and set her down before looking up to a giddy-looking Night Light. "Well said."

On her back for the second time that day, her head dizzy at the words shared, Dustin looked up at Twilight and Night. "I love you two—too."
> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waking up was never a chore for Dustin. It was a slow process, but one she enjoyed precisely because she was so rarely alone in it. A hoof brushed her cheek, and without a thought she kissed the frog and smiled.

The room was mostly still, and the large bed three ponies lay on twitched moment to moment as one or another of them moved. Light streamed through the curtains, Princess Celestia only having just raised the sun for the day had barely gotten it above the horizon. The covers were loosely draped over the three ponies tangled together on the bed.

Dustin could tell by the shape of the hoof that it was Night Light's. After her kiss she nuzzled at the harder part of the hoof playfully. "Today's her big day."

Lips touched Dustin's, but they weren't Night Light's. Twilight Velvet was an amazing kisser—so said anypony who had the experience to know. She put emotion into every movement and every flex of her lips. Dustin tried to catch up to Twilight's skill, to put more of herself into each kiss—and she felt she was improving after thirteen years of wonderful practice.

Twilight Velvet appreciated the work Dustin had put into her kisses. "Good morning," she said when they finally broke their lips apart. "How early do we need to leave?"

A brush along Dustin's belly made her muscles tense in anticipation. "I think we have enough—"

"WAKE UP! WAKE UP!" a filly with blue coat and a darker blue mane said, pronking into the room. A swirling ring of stars adorned each of her flanks.

The feeling of arousal was banished as quickly as it stirred. Dustin felt her daughter jump onto the bed and start bouncing. "Good morning, darling. Where's my hug?"

Dust Off launched herself at Dustin and hugged tightly. "You're all awake?"

"We are now." Night Light leaned across Dustin and Dust Off to give Twilight Velvet a kiss on the cheek.

"Do I get a hug too?" Twilight Velvet asked a moment before Dust Off landed on her. "Wasn't there something we had to do today?"

Having seen this game before, Dust Off kneeled up on the bed with her forehooves planted on her hips. "You know today's when I start school at Celestia's!"

Dustin tried in vain to hold in a giggle at the earnest and forthright manner Dust Off used. "I thought this was your first day at Canterlot West School?" A look to Night Light earned Dustin a wink from him.

"Oh yes. Our little filly has her first day of school with all the other little foals," Night Light said.

"Noooo! This is big-filly school!" Dust Off began bouncing on the bed for effect and to show her parents this wasn't a joking matter. "I'm going to Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns!"

"Really? But you're just a little filly!" Night Light managed a look of shock for his daughter's benefit.

"Daaaad!" Dust Off jumped and landed beside Night Light. Once beside Night, she began bouncing in place. "I'm a big filly!"

"I'll make breakfast," Dustin and Twilight said at the same time, causing them both to break out into giggles. 

"We'll both go make breakfast, it seems," Dustin said. "What about if you try to persuade your father that your a big filly by helping?"

Dust Off's eyes lit up and she bounced off the side of the bed. "Breakfast! Breakfast! Breakfast!" she chanted with each pronk after her mothers.

Night Light was thankful his two lovers had made the excuse for him. Pulling down the covers, he did his best to not think of the things he wanted to do with them before Dust Off had come in. "This is your fault, Night. Come on, just relax."

Downstairs, Twilight and Dustin kept Dust Off from investigating Night and his morning wood. Pancakes were the first order of the day. Dustin used her wings to mix up the first batch, had Dust Off pass the mixed bowl to Twilight Velvet, and Twilight started pouring out the mixture into the two fry-pans she had.

"How many eggs?" Dustin asked.

"Two!" Dust Off said, her voice overflowing with eagerness.

"And how much milk?" Speaking out the side of her mouth as she held the whisk between her teeth, Dustin was the picture of domestic bliss. Her left wing reached for the milk while the right offered Dust Off the measuring cups.

"One and fwee quarters!" Dust's horn spluttered only a little as she levitated two different measuring cups up. She squealed in surprise when Dustin poured milk into both—doing her best not to spill any.

"Into the bowl with them. Can you get the caster sugar?" Dustin measured the vanilla out herself and dropped it in the bowl to mix in with the milk and eggs.

"We have some special visitors coming for breakfast, Dust," Twilight Velvet said.

A moment later there was a knock at the front door, and a thunder of little hooves heralded Dust Off's rush to answer it. "I got it!"

Dustin looked across to Twilight Velvet and smiled. "We didn't have time, did we?"

"A mare can hope." Twilight Velvet turned just in time to see Dust Off open the door to a princess, her prince, and their little colt. "Dust, invite your nephew and siblings in."

Staring up at the Princess of Friendship, Dust Off made careful note to close her mouth from how it gaped. "Mom said you can come in." She squeaked in surprise when a purple magic field wrapped around her and levitated her into the air. "Mom! I'm flying!"

Twilight Sparkle stepped into the house and had to focus to keep her wings folded by her side. "Good morning Mom," she said to Twilight Velvet, then turned to Dustin, "and Mom." As a princess, and being related to Dustin now, Twilight Sparkle knew how old her new mom was, but it was hard to pin seventy years of life on a mare that didn't look middle-aged yet. Not that she wasn't happy to call Dustin mom, particularly once Twilight Sparkle saw how big a smile Dustin put on her parents' faces. "I brought someponies to say hello."

"Dustin, Missus Velvet." Belay moved with the confidence of years spent as a stallion, having to learn on his hooves as his relationship with Twilight Sparkle had built. His eyes watched as Dust Off floated through the air, and if it weren't for him spotting the bag of caster sugar tipping the breakfast might have been ruined. "Whoa!"

"I've got it. Thank you, Belay." Twilight Velvet floated Dust Off's sugar into the kitchen. "Breakfast's on the way. Please sit and relax. Was it a long ride on the train?"

Hearing the commotion downstairs, Night Light was satisfied he wouldn't induce any heavy questions and made his way down. When he saw Twilight Sparkle, his little filly, he lost all his composure. She stood proud and tall, her mane waving in an unfelt wind. When she turned to face him, Night Light lost control completely and approached his eldest daughter and pulled her into a hug.

"Dad! Good morning." The hug felt a little wrong to Twilight Sparkle. She reached down to hug her father, the stallion who had always seemed biggest to her. Even when she stood up to Sombra, and then Tirek, part of her had assumed Night Light was bigger than both of them.

"Good morning, Twily. How's Ponyville?" Night Light asked.

Squealing as she landed on her hooves, Dust Off turned to face the other foal in the room. "Hi Shining," she said to Shining Starlight.

"Hey. You're starting today too, right?" Shining Starlight looked at Dust Off, then at each of her parents. Spotting which of the trio were Dust's biological parents was easy enough, but he knew that already. His own fur was light green, and he sported a darker green mane that was parted at the front by his horn. He looked nothing like either of his parents, but he had the family stars on his flank in a half-circle.

Dust Off couldn't stop herself from pronking in excitement. "Of course! Isn't it exciting?!"

"I guess. When do—" Shining cut off and spun around when there was a knock at the door.

"Now. Who could that be?" Dustin reached down with a wing and pushed both foals toward the front door.

Dust Off marched ahead of Shining Starlight. It was her house, after all. With her horn sputtering a touch despite her attempt at steely focus, she flung the door wide and gasped.

"Well, look here, the two most awesome little mages in Equestria." Wearing her armor after her morning guard practice, Flurry Heart had her helmet under one wing. "Who wants to go for a fly?" She looked over Dust and Shining's heads to nod to Twilight Velvet, Twilight Sparkle, Night Light, Dustin, and Belay—only some of the most powerful unicorns and alicorn in all Equestria. "If it's okay with your parents?"

Dust Off started vibrating in place in excitement chanting, "Aunt Flurry!" as loud as she could.

"Don't take too long," Dustin said. "These pancakes will be done in about five more minutes."

Shining Starlight had managed to suppress his excitement far beyond his normal efforts, and surrendered to the moment. "Eeee!" he said as he followed Flurry and Dust outside.

"You certainly named him right, Twily-dear." Twilight Velvet used her magic to keep working the stove while she spoke. "If our little Shiny could have, he would have sprouted his own wings and flown."

"How's Shiny and Cadance doing?" Twilight Sparkle asked. "I haven't had a chance to see them since Hearth's Warming."

Twilight Velvet gave Dustin a significant look, and nodded.

"You didn't hear it from me," Dustin said as she whisked the pancake batter with her wings, "but I think Cadance's sides might be looking a little wider than usual, and I'm sure it's not from eating too many crystal berries."

Twilight Sparkle giggled in glee. "Shining always wanted a big family."

"If Shiny wants a big family, he only needs to visit here a little more often." Twilight Velvet floated out two plates of pancakes and served them to Belay and Twilight Sparkle first. "A little birdie whispered to me that my wife might be looking to have another foal herself?"

Dustin gasped. "Who, me?" She put the latest bowl of pancake batter beside the stove for Twilight Velvet to cook. "What makes you think I want another?" Despite herself, Dustin was smiling—of course she wanted another foal.

"Then it's probably the best time to tell you," Twilight Velvet said, surreptitiously looking around the room. "I'm—"

"Mom?!" Twilight Sparkle had to teleport herself across the room—nothing else would be fast enough. She pulled Twilight Velvet into a tight hug, then used one wing to snag Dustin and the other Night Light—pulling them into the hug.

"… pregnant." Twilight Velvet had given up being surprised that both her foals that had grown up were bigger than her, but being caught in a hug by her Twily, and finding that there was so much hug that Dustin and Night were caught up in it too, was surprising.

"Twilight," Dustin said, managing to breathe somehow in the loving hug of an alicorn, "that's wonderful."

Night Light nuzzled and kissed both his wives, raining attention on them with all the enthusiasm he could manage. "T-Twily? A little room dear."

"Oh!" Twilight Sparkle drew her wings back, and stepped back from her parents. "Does this mean you won't?" she asked Dustin.

"Another foal shouldn't be a problem. Right?" Dustin asked.

Twilight Velvet didn't hold back from kissing Dustin with all the desire and warmth she could. "Never."





Flurry Heart felt naked without her armor. Ever since her dad had gotten it for her at the start of the year, she had worn it everywhere. Princess Celestia had been strict, though. She lifted her head as their big group approached the familiar school. Flurry had been attending for three years now, and this was her fourth.

Turning to the foals at her side, Flurry Heart leaned a little closer to them. "See Princess Celestia up there?"

"No. Everypony's taller than us," Dust Off said.

Shining Starlight, the memory of flying on Flurry's back still at hoof, jumped at her side and scrabbled with his hooves to get up. "Oh! There she is!"

"Where?" Dust jumped after Shining, only made it halfway, but got a hoof-up from her nephew. "There she is!"

"Well, come on then!" Flurry narrowed her eyes and took off through the crowd at a gallop with two squealing foals on her back. 

Turning at the last moment, Princess Celesta energized her horn and caught Flurry Heart, Dust Off, and Shining Starlight before they collided with her. "Princess Flurry Heart. I'd say something about galloping in the school, but we aren't inside yet. I see you've brought me two new students."

Flurry was about to say, Yes Princess Celestia, but remembered (for once) the myriad requests from her regarding names. "Yes, Celestia. This is Dust Off, and Shining Starlight."

"You're supposed to call her Pwincess Celestia!" Dust said, admonishing Flurry. "Mom said so!"

"Yeah!" Shining Starlight said in support of his niece (or aunt, he wasn't actually sure).

"I asked her to call me Celestia, and that goes for both of you, too." Princess Celestia almost buzzed with delight. Welcoming new foals to her school was just about the best thing in all Equestria for her. "Do you think you can do that?"

"Yes Princess Celestia!" Dust and Shining said at the same time. 

Flurry Heart, however, just giggled.

Just beyond the crowd gathered around Princess Celestia, Night Light turned to Dustin and nuzzled her cheek. "You mentioned wanting another foal?"

Dustin kissed Night Light's jaw. "With you and Twilight? Absolutely."