…Made A Little More Complicated
Zephyr Breeze was sitting behind a large wooden counter reading a magazine he pilfered from the client waiting area. It’s been a slow day today, only two clients showing up in total so far, so he decided to catch up on some gossip regarding his favorite mane stylists. From time to time he looked at the wall clock, keeping track of how much time had already passed before going back to reading up on the latest celebrity drama.
It has been some 18 years since Princess Twilight Sparkle took over as the ruling body of Equestria and all of its provinces. Within those 18 years very little has changed for Zephyr Breeze and his immediate friends and family. Though he will admit, he hasn’t exactly been looking at what the new Princess has changed either. Spending most of his available time either running his business or helping out his big sister with whatever it was she needed.
Ever since the so-called “accident”, Zephyr had a new appreciation for all things he took for granted. It forced him to get a hold of himself. The first thing he did was renew his expired Mane Therapy license, something he pushed off for over a year, once there he decided to pursue a Mane Stylists license too. Nearly a year later he acquired both his certifications and immediately began job hunting, it took a lot longer than he’d expected but he managed to convince a hair salon owner to give him a chance as an intern. For the second time in his life he put all his effort into his something productive, he did so well during those few days he got hired full time with all the benefits that came with the job. After a few years and a couple promotions, Zephyr was now the proud owner of his own mane stylists slash mane therapy salon. His parents, may they rest in peace, were so proud of his achievements that he cried tears of joy when they told him.
Now though, he’s waiting for his assistant to show up. His eyes traveled to the clock once more before he started to mumble under his breath.
“Five, four, three, two, one-“
The front door to his mane salon burst open as a lanky young yellow pegasus mare with a long reddish mane stumbled in while yelling “I made it, I made it!” before collapsing on the floor panting.
“You’re late again, Whindy.” Zephyr said as he set the magazine down and walked forward to help the downed mare.
“N-no! I made it on time this time, see!” The mare, Windy, said. Pointing a hive to the clock on the wall, which said she made it exactly on time.
“You’d be right if that clock wasn’t slow in the first place. Remember when I told you more than once to correct it.” Zephyr offered her a hoof, one she took and stood up on, after a few more calming breaths before his words registered in her head. She was in fact supposed to do something about that, wasn’t she?
“Oh. Right. I uhh, forgot.” The mare admitted, brushing the sweat stricken mane out of her eyes as she surveyed the empty salon. “Huh, There’s no pony here? Thought it would be packed by now.”
“Maybe they're going to be late just like you.” he joked, chuckling at the scrunch he got in return. “So… what excuse do you have this time? Fought off a robbery? Invented a cure to some disease?” He took a step closer and whisper yelled, “Found a cute colt?”
“Uncle!” She yelled. “That’s not something you should be concerned with” she finished with a bit of embarrassment in her tone. Walking to her station and dropping off her satchel, she grabbed a brush to tidy up her mane in front of the mirror.
“I suppose you're right. Maybe I should put my focus on why you're late then, you know, for the third time this week.” Zephyr stated. She winced at that, knowing full well he’s right.
“Oh you’re just exaggerating.” She said looking at him through the mirror as she kept fixing her mane.
“Windy, it’s Wednesday. You’ve been late every time this week. This was the first time you’re late only by a few minutes, last time you were missing for half the day!” He exclaimed, walking to stand by her side. “Any other owner would have fired you by now, or at minimum deduct your pay by hours missed.”
“But you wouldn’t do that right?” She asked, finally looking at him. When he didn’t answer immediately, she used a very dangerous and ethically questionable method to the response she wants from him.
“Puppy dog eyes don’t work on me Windy.” He said, making her pout as a result. “But you’re right. We’re family so I can’t do that to you.” her expression did a one-eighth, becoming a satisfied smile. A smirk of his own coming to his features, “You’ll just have to make it up to working the weekends with me!” He said before walking back to work the front counter.
“W-what?! You can’t, not this weekend!” She followed him. Running around to get in front of him and staring him in the eyes, with her being about an inch shorter the task was easily done.
“Oh and why is that? Is it because you have a date with some coltfriend perhaps?” Zephyr joked while looking at her, expecting her to stumble with her words or get embarrassed like last time. What he wasn’t expecting were the averted eyes and growing blush. The smirk that was on his face slowly vanished as the realization finally dawned on him. “Wait. You DO have coltfriend!?” Zephyr yelled in shock. She took a few steps back at the loud proclamation, before she could say anything to contradict him, he added, “Look, I’m not your mom but I am family. I won’t go tattle on you because you have a crush.”
She still looked unsure, eventually after a some time has passed with neither party saying anything “W-well, it’s a little more than a crush…”
“Oh so you two already went on a date then?” She was silent. “A few dates?” Still silent. “Already shared a kiss then?” She still didn’t say a word or looked in her direction. “… so you two are rutting then?” He said with a straight face, knowing (praying) that is not the case.
“UNCLE!” Whindy yelled in horror, finally looking into his eyes again.
“So that’s why you were late! Let me guess, you weren’t tired just because of the flight here, were you?” He half joked half interrogate.
“Please stop talking, it’s not like that!” She pleaded, waiting for another jokes or insinuating comments but nothing came. He just waited expectantly, “*Sigh* Yes I am seeing some pony, BUT I’ve known them since freshman year, he isn’t a bad guy.”
Zephyr nodded, not trusting her words alone but trusting his sister's intuition, because there was no chance in Tartarus his sister didn’t already know about her having a coltfriend. He took an empty chair and dragged it closer to her before sitting down at his counter desk. “Tell me about him.” She blinked a few times before taking the seat, she chewed her cheek for a second before she started from the beginning.
A good hour or so went by with Windy retelling all the events she had with this mysterious colt, since they first met in freshman year all the up to their up and coming senior graduates. Their dates, their similarities, their differences, their likes and dislikes, almost everything. The only topic she didn’t broach were any of the more intimate moments the two shared, something he was very thankful for.
“Huh, so you must really like him.” Zephyr stated by the end of her retelling, he listened carefully to everything and judged her words heavily throughout it all. Though he did everything in his power to not show it in his features.
“I do. Maybe we might even get married next year at this rate.” she said wistfully. A dreamily look on her eyes as she likely fantasized some sort of ceremony in her mind.
“You’re still young, you have plenty of time before needing to concern yourself with the idea of marriage.” He said, hoping that his words alone would detour that sort of mindset; even a little bit. Instead, she gave a blank stare in return.
“Uncle Zephyr, no offense but you’re already past 40 without any foals of your own or a marefriend. I think I’ll look elsewhere for that sort of advice.” She stated firmly, thought that did nothing to stifle the sting her words brought. Either his eyes showed it or she realized what she said because it quickly followed by “Sorry, that might have come off more hurtful than I thought.”
“Yea, just a little.” If she only knew how wrong she was.
Zephyr glanced at the clock. “Well, we’ve been talking for a while now and I don’t see any signs of other clients coming by. Why don’t I just close up shop early today, what do you think?” He said before looking back at her, she nodded enthusiastically at that. She flew out of the chair and over to get her bags to pack everything up, she stopped mid packing and pulled something out.
“Oh I almost forgot, I finally got my copy of the senior year book today! Want to take a look?” She offered said book to him, accepting it, he set it down on the counter.
“I’ll look through it in a bit. You know what, why don’t you go on ahead, I’ll clean up up by myself.” Zephyr said, already opening the register and dumping what meager bits he earned this day into a small bag he stashed in one of the counters drawer.
“Really!? Thanks Uncle Zephyr!” Whindy said as she hugged him, giving him a quick peck on the cheek before fleeing out the door with the same intensity as she came in, either to go somewhere faster or to make sure he doesn’t change his mind while she’s still there; any ponies guess. He simply smiled at that.
“Anytime sweetheart.” Zephyr said under his breath as he watched her fly further and further away through the glass window. He sighed and placed the sack of bits on the floor next to him, closing the register. Leaning back on the chair he stared at the ceiling of his little salon, just like every other time he gets the urge to tell her.
Windy doesn’t know who her father is. Even her mother, Fluttershy, doesn’t know. Heck, nopony knows who Windy’s real father is. Nopony except Zephyr Breeze of course. To them the stallion was only a name written on piece of paperwork inside the fertility clinic Fluttershy used to get pregnant. To him, that name brings him nothing but a butter taste in the back of his throat and a sinking feeling in his gut. Yet he’ll never tell anypony why, let alone that he feels that way. Because the consequences of his younger self may very well ruin the peace he build for himself and those around him.
.-,-.-,-.-,-.
Roughly around twenty years ago, Princess Celestia sought to combat the declining birth rates among Equestrian citizens. Due to the disproportionate gender birth rate, where one colt was born for every six mares, and the herd mentality already fading out of use, she needed to addressed this predicament quickly before this has a chance to make the next generations even worse off. She needed a quick short term solution to give the doctors and scientists a chance for a more permanently fix. So that is why the Princess, with the support of several high ranking doctors throughout Equestria, implemented a new program in the hopes of slowing or even reverting the population decline. It was called the “New Future Initiative”, it allowed the crowns treasury to directly compensate any healthy stallions who provide their sperm to any clinic within major cities In Equestria. They made sure each clinic was had enough bits for twelve stallions before send requesting more, a counter measure to theft most likely.
When Zephyr heard about this, he hadn't grasped the significance of why they wanted his spunk. All his young adult self saw were the bits he was bound to make. At the time he wasn’t greedy or desperate for money, all he saw was a whole lot of positives without any of the negatives.
He found a place to sign up, provided his medical history, went through registration, and after a few days an identification card provided by the New Future Initiative program was delivered to his parents house. The card allowed him to walk into any clinic, give it to the receptionist, be led to an empty room with a cup and a magazine, and a small bag of bits once it was all done; he didn’t even need to fill out any other paperwork! It was quick, easy, and simple. The bits he got weren’t anything to celebrate about but after three more sessions he would received about as many bits as he would have by working a week as a Mane Therapist, now that was celebrated about.
But by his fourth attempt, the receptionist stopped him. Even though he didn’t need to sign anything, the receptionist did, they kept records of each time he came and passed it on to other clinics too. A “precaution to minimize health risk for other ponies” they said, he didn’t believe them of course. Too self-absorbed to think about why they would implement this rule in the first place, so instead he whined and complained until they finally threw him out.
Now a normal stallion would just accept this and moved on with their life, or went to some unfortunate customer service pony to complain to. But Zephyr Breeze wasn’t like a normal pony, he just found a way to make money for doing what he normally does on a daily basis for the fun of it. Why would he pass that up? So a week later, while looking over his New Future Initiative ID card in annoyance, he had an idea. An idea his future self would end up regretting for the rest of his life.
Zephyr took his ID card along with all the bits he earned from the program and bought himself a card creating machine from one of the junk yards just under Cloudsdale. Apparently, one of libraries got a new one and discarded the out of date card maker, but instead of doing so through professional garbage workers, they threw it off the cloud without any pony seeing, where it was salvaged by the junk yards below. He only knew about this because the junk yard is where it acquired some materials for his makeshift art studio. He bought several blank cards along with all the supplies for what he needed. He spent most of his free time trying to perfect his new craft, putting all his effort for the first time in his life to make it work. Within a month he finally made progress. He forged an exact replica of his ID card, both front to back. During that month he learned that the ID’s become nothing more than souvenirs for the stallion once their tasks were done. It also came to his attention that the program was doing good so far and would remain active until further notice.
Once he was done comparing the two cards to make sure there weren’t any errors, only then did he start creating a third one, this time making minor changes to the information. The third card he manufactured has the exact same formatting as his original but had all its information altered. Name, date of birth, height, weight, home address, blood type, and cutie mark description were all different. The only things he kept the same were coat and mane color. Once he was was sure this card was good enough, he wanted to test it out immediately. So he shaved off his stubbles, changed his mane and tail style to something else, and finally added contact lenses to alter his eye color. These were more of a minor precaution, something to alleviate his paranoia of being caught. Only than did he finally head out.
Zephyr flew over to the clinic, a different one from the original, and went to the clerk at the register. He gave her the false ID card, his heart was pounding in his chest and sweat was building on his brow in anticipation. The mare at the desk looked through the information on the card before leading him to an empty room with the usual cup inside. Zephyr Breeze blew the greatest nut of his entire life, because unlike the countless others he did it, this one he earned through hard work and determination. With a satisfied smile, his fake ID, and a bag a bits, Zephyr flew home.
This would be the start of a year and a half long excursion where Zephyr made countless false identities and used them to visit nearly every clinic throughout Equestria. He used his skills as a mane therapist to temporarily change his mane style and color, sometimes using products to alter his coat color too. He wore the occasional jacket or coat to make himself look like a tall earthpony. But his artistic stills were also put to use, he painted over his flank to change his cutie mark appearance into something else, he can thank his sister for that one; telling him about Starlight Glimmer doing the same thing while she was some sort of cult leader.
He spent those years going through all of Equestria; Cloudsdale, Canterlot, Manehatten, fillydelphia, Stalionngrad, Appleloosa, Los Pegasus, and many other cities; small towns too. He visited every clinic that promoted the program and got paid in turn. Sometimes he would stay a month at a time, living off the bits he got from his misdeeds. He lost count of how many identities he used, how many times he went to what clinic, and his overall contributions to said clinics. All that he knew, is that these were the best two years of his life. Even his family didn’t know what he was doing, they didn’t even know he signed on to the program. They just thought he was goofing around and wasting his time like he usually did.
So it was a bit of a surprise when he got an invitation to go to Ponyville by none other than Fluttershy herself. This was during a lull in his activities, where he would spend in his parents place like usually, for even he can’t keep going on non-stop. He needed to let his poor tool rest too. He flew with his parents to the little town on the scheduled date, stopping in front of a little gingerbread house turned bakery. Inside were a few ponies, such Fluttershy’s friends and the bakery owners. His eyes immediately landed on Rainbow Dash and he spent most of his time flirting with her, even with his increased confidence he still had no chance with her and she let him know that. He didn’t even know how much time passed before Fluttershy herself called everyponies attention, compared to a few years ago he could not have imagined her going in front of a crowd of any kind, she really did get better in managing her shyness. She stood up on a small rise on the floor and cleared her throat.
The next words out of her mouth put a pit in his stomach. He will never forget them.
“Hello everypony. I ask all of you here to make an announcement.” She took a deep breath before quickly exhaling “About a month ago I made a life changing decision, I wanted to have a foal of my own.” The entire bakery applauded and congratulated Fluttershy for her choice. “With the help of Twilight, I already went to one of the fertility clinics in Canterlot.” She quickly added. The applause halted and room fell into dead silence. “I- uh… I’m pregnant?” She more asked than stated, not sure if that’s how she should have ended her speech. The room was quiet for a minute, making her uncomfortable with all the eyes staring at her. That was until one of her friends, the pink one, jumped on stage, hugged her, and screamed in joy. That broke the spell, the rest of her friends and family charged up to hug her and cheer. All but him.
Five words kept repeating themselves in his head, stealing all of his focus away from what’s going around him. “Canterlot”, “fertility Clinic”, “month ago”. Because a month and a half ago he spent his time there doing exactly what he has been doing for the past year. He sat at the bakery table for what felt like ages, he snapped out of it at some time during the party and headed over to his sister. He needed to confirm something before he spirals again.
Fluttershy was talking to a blue unicorn mare wearing a weird star filled purple cape. “Hey uh.. Fluttershy, got a minute?” Before his eyes went towards the unicorn. “Alone?” The unicorn looked at him oddly, glancing at his sister for input. She nodes and the unicorn shrugs, taking her leave.
“So, I know you said you were- uhh. Were..” he now knows how his parents and sister feel like, always being unable to get their words out no matter how badly they want to.
“Pregnant?” She finished for him, looking confused as well.
“Y-yea. Do you by chance know the-“ he swallowed, feeling how dry his throat was. “The donor by chance?” He finally managed.
“O-oh! Well, no. I never met him. The clinic only keeps their uhm…” she blushes without finishing her sentence.
“Yea but they offer some sort of information, no? For uh, health reasons right?” He asked, remembering the exact words they used to stop him before this all started.
“W-well, yes I do. Twilight chose them for me, she said they were the best candidates based on their information.” She says, her brother waiting with bated breath for her to finish. “I think his name was Blue Blazes? Yes, Blue Blazes. You’re going to have to ask Twilight for more information, I wasn’t exactly paying attention. I was just so happy to finally be a mother.” She said, smiling at the idea that she was going to bare a child of her own. To teach and raise, to care for and to love all the same.
Meanwhile Zephyr Breeze nodded at her, turning to the direct of Twilight Sparkle and leaving his sister to her thoughts. He walked towards Twilight Sparkle, who was talking to some of her own friends, and he walked right past her, heading to the bakeries bathroom.
Zephyr spent the rest of the party vomiting and dry heaving into the toilet. He knows exactly who Blue Blazes was, he made that identity just before his excursion through Canterlot, that one and three other. A month and a half ago. The chance of him there being another stallion with that name, in Canterlot, using the clinic around the same time frame?
Zephyr Breeze was not a smart pony back then by any stretch of imagination. But even he knew the insurmountable odds of that happening are nigh impossible.
He went home earlier, choosing not to tell anypony. He spent his time collecting all the ID cards he ever made over the years and throwing them all in various trash bags, shortly followed by the card crafting machine. He took several trash bags filled with his guilt to the dumpster behind the house, throwing it to the darkest furthest corner he could find. By the end he only had one card left in his hooves.
Blue Blazes
Zephyr snapped it in half and threw it with the rest. He spent the rest of the week having an internal crisis.
.-,-.-,-.-,-.
That’s the story of how Princess Twilight Sparkle got his sister pregnant with his own sperm. Well, that’s the simplest explanation which is missing a lot of context but it is still an accurate explanation nonetheless. He dubbed that incident as the “accident” because there is no way in his right mind would anypony would allow something like that to happen had they known.
Even now nopony other than he knew that Windy was technically his and Fluttershy’s daughter, even Fluttershy didn’t know, and he had no plans to ever tell them. He will take this secret to his grave. Since she was born he spent as much time with her as he was able to get, he technically was the deadbeat uncle at that time, so his family wanted him to place his focus on his life instead of Fluttershy’s foal. Not to mention he didn’t want Windy to remember him like that, she was the catalyst that pushed him to the success he built for himself. Once he made sure he was financially stable, he offered to help in whatever Windy or Fluttershy needed without asking for anything in return. From watching her, to playing with her, all the way to paying things Fluttershy couldn’t afford. He still remembers the day she accidentally called him daddy, he cried and cried to no end. Yet he was forced to correct her, say that he was her Uncle instead. Though that didn’t put a damper on her spirit. She loved him regardless who he was, because he loved her and he always showed it.
Zephyr smiled at the happy memories, he so badly wants to be her father but knows the consequences of revealing the truth would be felt by everypony involved; Windy included. So he will remain as the loving uncle that he has been since her birth.
But, even if he takes the title of uncle, his parental instincts still kick into overdrive. Zephyr leans back down on the counter and starts skimming through Windy’s senior yearbook, looking for one particular colt. It only took a few minutes but he found the name.
“Aha! There you are. Now let’s see if you are good enough for my-“ his words were caught in his throat. He kept looking at the picture of the colt, or stallion to be more accurate by age of the pony, rereading the name Windy said in the faint hope this wasn’t the one. Yet, no matter how long he watched the picture or how many times he reread his name, nothing changed.
The stallion in the yearbook photo, Soft Sight, didn’t look extraordinary or very different from any other pony his age, yet he kept seeing similarities that he prays are just coincidences. Zephyr remembers something that he has in his office, grabbing the book with his wings, he storms towards the direction of his office door. Once there he pushed everything off his desk without a care before slamming the book down on it, flipping through the pages till he got to the right one. He turns around looking at a framed family photo hanging on the wall, he yanks it so hard it’s a wonder that the frame didn’t break. He placed the family photo right next to the picture of the stallion when he started to scrutinize them both with a terrifying intensity.
The family photo was taken about 20 years ago, before Zephyr’s brilliant dumb idea. It contained both of his parents smiling with content towards the camera, his sister hiding half her face behind her mane while hugging a little bunny. Lastly, yet the focus of his scrutiny, was a younger version of himself. He was comparing the pictures of the two stallions and marking down all the similarities and differences he could find. After what felt like hours, Zephyr felt his heart gripped in horror with each passing minute. The two stallions were a mirror image of each other, apart from Sift Sight’s coat color being slightly more blue and having a different mane style. They were nearly identical.
Zephyr fell onto his rear at the realization that Fluttershy was most definitely not the only mare who ended up using his donor sperm. With how often he provided, how would she be? He remembers using more than several dozen other identities and visiting what he can only guess to be over a hundred other clinics throughout Equestria. With the bits they paid per sample, they likely used each and every single one! His younger self he couldn’t think of any downside to this scheme, pleasure and money was all his idiot self ever saw. Now this is the consequence he couldn’t have fathomed in his lifetime.
Now here he was, learning that not only did he have a son, but his daughter was unknowingly dating her own brother! Not just that, but now it finally dawned on him that there could be even more ponies who are his biological children throughout the entirety of Equestria! Something his subconscious must have blocked to prevent his own mental state from going on a downward spiral; like right now in fact.
He is trying to remember every clinic he went to, how many times he’s been there, and the likelihood of his donation being used per location. He was doing mental gymnastics on the probability of each possible child he may or may not have, even going back several times and second guessing himself time and time again. He felt like passing out once that number got past triple digits. His breathing intensified, heart racing a mile a minute, his eyes losing focus as he finally-
*SLAM*
Zephyr slammed the book close.
He took a deep breath, held it in, then let it out slowly, shakily. He repeated this a few times until his breathing was smooth and stable again.
He stood up slowly, grabbed his family photo and went to the wall it once hung. He tried to place it back but realized the nail was torn from the wall during his haste, so he calmly rested the picture on the adjacent table.
He went back to his desk and placed everything back to where it once was before he knocked it down. Once it was nice and tidy again, he took the year book and left it on Windy’s workstation. He took the bits from the floor next to the register and put it into a safe in his office. He started cleaning the hair salon without uttering a sound.
Once finished, he put on his jacket, turned all the lights off, flipped the sign to “Sorry, We’re Closed”, and finally locked the doors.
Zephyr took one final deep breath before exhaling, turning to the direction of his house, he started to slowly walk back home. He wants to enjoy a calm and relaxing stroll as the natural spring wing blows through his mane. He really needed something to help keep his mind clear.
Because now he has more secrets to take to his grave.