Revenge Is A Dish Best Served On A Cold Plinth
As far as Flurry was concerned, she was a perfectly normal filly living a rather ordinary life, and her Aunt Twilight had encouraged her to believe that based on the weight of accumulated evidence.
She attended a public school, because that was what her mother wanted. She had friends in her class. And because the Empire had seen a slow trickle of immigrants in the years since the Barrier had gone down, she wasn't even the only student who had to wear closely-fitted protective eyewear just to look at the blackboard without having a thousand wall-generated rainbows getting in the way.
Flurry studied, played, and mostly remembered to turn in some percentage of her homework if the playing hadn't completely taken over the schedule: an ordinary filly had to prioritize for the important stuff. Sure, her grades could have been better, but -- staying right around the middle of the scoring curve was normal and besides, she was almost fully sure that hoofball was much more important. She liked to play, but she truly loved to referee. Somepony had to effectively be in charge of the game, and a filly who did her best not to be bossy needed at least one outlet for telling other ponies what they were doing wrong.
Perfectly. Normal.
...all right, so her house was somewhat larger than the average. That just made it easier to have friends over! Besides, both of her parents worked for the government and that wasn't just utterly normal: it was boring. And...
...okay, so her entire life basically existed at the intersection of Horn Street and Wing Avenue. That wasn't her fault. Nopony could help how they were born. And it wasn't as if she could even really use them yet, because the wild magic Surges of infancy were well behind her and the slow return of capabilities brought by adolescence felt as if it was still a little too far ahead. She couldn't do anything special. Unlike Taaffeite, who had been the first in their class to rediscover her own power and no matter what anypony said, Flurry was absolutely not the least bit jealous of the crystal filly for that. So there.
Flurry, based on the balance of evidence, considered herself to be a rather ordinary filly. This stood in direct opposition to the opinion held by many of the battle-scarred shaking survivors of her infancy, who mostly considered her to be a rampaging engine of mindless destruction which had been put into a strictly-temporary biological time-out.
Flurry considered that to be utterly unfair. She couldn't help what she'd done as a foal: she didn't even remember any of it. Her infant self had effectively been a completely different person, and how could she continue to take the blame for what somepony else had done?
Even so, she'd offered to apologize to her former foalsitters. Personally. Her mother, who had been the first and only mare to hear that brilliant idea, had just muttered something about how having the palace paying therapy costs for life was going to get that much more expensive after a directly-induced flashback. And it had never come up again.
But really, what infant didn't go through Surges? The fact that hers had been kicking out three kinds of magic at once -- well, once again, see the part about nopony being able to help how they were born. And it wasn't as if she'd done anything like that since, nor did she intend to ever start up again. Unless somepony happened to really, really deserve the lightest hoof touch of her future capabilities. This clearly didn't include Taaffeite, and would strenuously continue not to do so for just as long as the crystal filly stopped boasting about all the stuff she could do. So hopefully any moon now.
Flurry was a normal filly.
Her parents were weird.
Especially her dad.
According to her Aunt Twilight, Flurry's father could be something of a moron. And the filly loved her sire -- but she also had a lifetime of live-in Shining Armor studies.
As far as Flurry was concerned, Aunt Twilight had a mostly-unintentional gift for understatement.
Flurry, just like every other perfectly normal filly, occasionally became nostalgic for the earlier, less complicated years of her life: this mostly represented the sincerely-missed preschool Time Before Take-Home Assignments. And there was a period lurking before that, but -- she didn't remember any of it, and frequently became weary when ponies pointed out all of the places where repairs were still being made.
On this utterly routine weekend morning, she had been in the middle of considering whether to bother attempting her homework. This had been followed by looking across her bedroom, moving her gaze from a rarely-used desktop to the central toybox at the base of the left wall. Flurry's home was a democracy and the contents of that box got a vote.
And then she'd wondered where Breyer was.
Breyer had been her favorite doll during those preschool years. She'd spent whole cumulative moons of her life with plush, sweet-scented company. Her mother had once said something nonsensical about declaring Breyer as an honorary Hero Of The Empire, because having the doll turn up at just the right moment had supposedly saved most of it. Flurry still took Breyer out of the toybox now and again, and sometimes she slept with the beloved plushie. Usually on nights after Taaffeite had been a little too boastful, because Flurry absolutely needed a confidant whom she could tell about the whole thing. Her parents didn't know about that. Aunt Twilight did and approved, although she insisted that the Smarty Pants line possessed superior stuffing.
Breyer was -- supposed to be on the shelf just above the toybox, close to the right edge without actually being on it. No chance of falling off, while still having a good view of the bed. And Breyer wasn't there.
How long had that been true?
...well, it was obvious that reassuring herself about the doll's safety was more important than homework. Flurry got up from her desk's bench and began to search.
It wouldn't take long. Breyer had probably just gotten into the toybox by accident. A single glimpse of lovingly-replicated Akhal-Teke metallic fur...
The second hour of the search found Flurry starting to feel somewhat... frantic.
She couldn't locate Breyer anywhere. Not in her bedroom: nowhere near shelves, toybox, or closet. The plushie hadn't even slipped into the forbidden realm known as Under The Bed, which was where Flurry kept all the best evidence of a normal fillyhood until she could find a place to safely dispose of it. And she'd expanded the hunt, moving from her bedroom into the laundry just in case somepony had taken Breyer out for cleaning, but her confidant wasn't there...
It was like the time when she hadn't been able to find her notebook from the previous year's classes. Or that one outfit which she was almost sure would have still fit. Or the quill she most enjoyed chewing on --
-- Flurry was starting to feel like her stuff went missing a lot more often than she'd previously considered.
Her mother might have known what had happened. There was a chance that the slightly more sensible of her parents had sent the plushie out for minor repairs. But to do so without telling Flurry felt incredibly rude, along with being oddly traumatizing. And she couldn't ask her mother, because that parent was out of the country.
(Parents with government jobs could wind up traveling a lot. This was perfectly normal. Her mother's job currently required her to personally renegotiate some expiring trade agreements with Pundamilia Makazi's city-states and since the zebras had a literal hundred of the things, it was understood that was going to take a while.)
It left her scrambling through the house. Her hooves had gone through a lifetime of learning how not to skid out on crystal flooring, and it didn't seem to be helping her with the carpets. Teeth yanked on the grip of every drawer no matter where it was: Breyer probably hadn't somehow wound up among the kitchen's most rarely-used utensils, but there was a chance that the plushie had and Flurry was almost certain that it wasn't zero.
When the third hour started, she found herself on the verge of formulating a new strategy. Namely, all she had to do was look through every single place in the world, and one of them would contain Breyer. This was absolutely guaranteed to work, although Flurry understood it was going to take a while and she might wind up missing some school time. Still, it was about properly prioritizing. There was a lot of future time for classes and only one Breyer.
There was another choice, but that required asking the guards if they knew anything. Most of them had been staring at her as she passed them at full gallop, and a couple had tried to ask what was going on -- but she'd refused to answer, especially after skidding out into another wall. Flurry usually did her best to pretend the guards weren't there, because normal fillies really weren't supposed to have those. When it came to their annoying presence, she blamed her parents, and did so in full accuracy.
Search a planet, or ask a guard. Scouring an entire globe was clearly easier --
"-- Flurry?"
The single-word worried question had emerged from the freshly-opened doorway to an office, and the tones attached to her name had been warm, concerned and, just as much to the point, parental.
Flurry could occasionally ask her mother a question in some degree of safety, usually while desperately hoping that adult stupidity or shadowed muttering didn't get in the way. But when she was truly desperate (and she'd been there for well over an hour), distraught to the point where she might temporarily forget the stallion's most basic nature -- there was always her sire.
"Dad!" Flurry gasped, turning her head towards him and, in the process, completely neglecting to tell any of her four legs to consider a change in direction or speed.
Skidding occurred. Her wings flared to their full span, tried to catch the air while once again failing to serve as anything close to brakes --
-- pinkish light surrounded her body, carefully brought her to a stop, then turned her body to face him. The forward portion of her mane bounced in front of her eyes.
(Her father's corona was nearly the same color as that of her aunt: just a little lighter in hue. It was probably a family thing.)
"Are you okay?" was asked on the gallop: Flurry's sire was running up to her. "You look so upset --"
"-- it's Breyer! I can't find her! I've been looking for hours, she's lost, she's a lost toy, she should be on the shelf and I don't know where she is! " In full desperation, "Do you --"
And then she saw his face. The abrupt, heavy wince. This was followed by a saturation of upset, which quickly began to overflow his fur.
"-- I know where she is," her father said, and Flurry could hear the regret dripping from every syllable. "Calm down, Flurry. I'll go get her for you."
The relief started to flood through her, washing away the panic --
-- and then Flurry had a thought.
"If you know where she is," a normal filly recognized,"then either you saw her earlier, and didn't bring her back to where she belonged -- or you took her." Light cyan eyes stared at her sire with open shock. "Did she pop a stitch, and you were the first one who saw it? You didn't tell me --"
Her father sighed.
"I swear, Flurry," the stallion mournfully began, "I swear on Sun and Moon that I just thought you'd outgrown it -- her. That you wouldn't even notice. I never would have taken her if I'd believed --"
This instantly suggested something far worse than mere repairs.
He'd taken Breyer without notice. Without permission. Just because he could. Adult arrogance was endless: every normal filly understood that.
Plus he'd just called Breyer an 'it'. Flurry wasn't happy about that either.
As those who sometimes confronted her mother were known to demand, reparations had to be made.
"-- I want her back." Her left forehoof, still somewhat too small for truly impressive results, did its best to stomp anyway.
"I'll go get her," he immediately promised.
"No!" Flurry loved her father -- but there was currently a significant difference between 'love' and 'trust'. "Take me to her! I need to see that she's okay!"
He... hesitated. Didn't go anywhere at all, while Flurry stared at the motionless parent and wondered whether a double-forehoof stomp would help.
"I didn't want to show you this yet," he finally said. "It was going to be a surprise. For your next birthday."
Flurry's breathing began to slow. Her father had -- possibly taken Breyer out to have her... measured? Maybe Miss Rarity was making a custom outfit. When it came to Flurry's sire and the upcoming birthday, that was amazingly unstupid. It certainly beat the Marble Madness set from two years back. Flurry had never been able to tilt the poorly-balanced board in the one way which made the marble roll to the end of the obstacle course, and trying to beat the dumb game still made her mad.
A new dress for her plushie -- that was understandable. She could forgive. But he really should have told her.
"I've been working on it for moons," her sire unwisely added -- and then kicked in a foolish smile. "Years, really. In a way, for your entire lifetime."
That... did not sound like a miniature dress. Miss Rarity could take a while to finalize a design, and Flurry's birthday was four endless moons away -- but the designer wasn't that slow.
"Show me," still had a significant amount of demand attached.
He hesitated again.
"I need a promise from you first."
That she wouldn't be upset? It was far too late for that. "What?"
"That you won't tell your mother," was immediate. "No matter what. She was going to find out on your birthday too. I've been trying to arrange everything as a surprise for both of you, and -- it hasn't been easy, sneaking around behind her tail." With an exceptionally weak smile, "Please, Flurry. At least let me see her face when she finds out. And... I'm sorry."
He raised his right foreleg, presented the hoof. Waiting for a promise press.
She loved her father. She wanted to forgive him.
She needed Breyer.
Flurry lifted her left foreleg. Pressed back.
He'd fetched a pair of saddlebags for her before setting out. It was a set with significant internal padding, because Breyer had to ride back safely. And then they'd gone for a trot, proceeding through increasingly-empty streets.
Flurry didn't recognize their current part of the capital. She sometimes believed herself to have explored just about the whole of the city, but... the Empire always had new facets to offer, and this was clearly one of the older sections. Something which was just about abandoned.
Her mother had explained it, carefully. Sombra's rule had -- done harsh things to the population. (Flurry's dam refused to provide details.) Numbers had gone down. The birth rate among the crystals was rising, but -- nopony in the new generation had reached adulthood, and there hadn't been that many immigrants. Entire city blocks were waiting for newly-minted grownups to move out, just so somepony could finally move in.
Normal fillies (and, if strictly necessary, colts) could potentially have a lot of fun playing in abandoned buildings, and that was only part of why the adults had forbidden it. Most of the rest related to structural integrity. Flurry personally believed the biggest reason to stay out was intangible, but also felt that the ghosts wouldn't mind hearing some sincere young laughter.
"I've been doing nearly all of the work myself," her father failed to explain. "In order to keep it secret. Finding the right place, cleaning it up, adjusting the spells -- it's just about been me all the way, Flurry. It's easier that way. I had a hard enough time meeting with the special consultants about some of the designs."
"Special consultants?" she asked, because maybe that would get a straight answer.
Another hesitation. "Rainbow's parents."
Flurry didn't remember having met them. Then again, she didn't remember meeting a lot of people, because so many of her memories had been lost within the dark void of foalhood. Fortunately, there was a reliable way to determine whether any encounter was a second-meeting-on-up. In Flurry's experience, anypony who reacted to seeing her through having their ears flick back while their tail went straight was definitely somepony she'd met before. Those who screamed at the top of their lungs and dove through the nearest window in a desperate attempt to reach safety? Acquaintances from infancy, just about none of whom wanted to stick around and hear about how it hadn't really been her fault. Or, for that matter, hadn't really been her.
Adults were very unreasonable. Especially when they were screaming.
"They had some ideas on presentation," her sire added. "Since they've tried something similar. On a smaller scale. Anyway, it's that building up ahead. The repurposed temple."
She looked at the ornate columns through her protective glasses, and then kept looking because some of the details on the crystal carvings were threatening to go fractal. "What's a temple?"
He explained.
"Okay," Flurry eventually said. "And what's a religion?"
That got a very long hesitation.
"You'll find out in International Studies," her father promised, because a lot of adults responded to awkward questions through passing them off to other adults. "The important thing is that no one's using it now, especially since Sombra never got quite that far in getting ponies to think he was -- anyway, it was available. And I'm putting it to a much better purpose. So let's go inside..."
The security was surprisingly heavy. Her father had to negate six spells just to get the main door open, and then they were moving through shadowed halls. Something which had its own natural associations with Sombra, but -- it was hard to keep shadows going in the Empire. Sunlight teamed up with quasi-translucent walls and kicked residual darkness in the face.
"I had to make sure everything was safe," her father once again not-quite-explained as they made a left turn, passing a sign which was too shadowed to read. Flurry had been trying, but there just wasn't enough light. All she'd been able to determine was that the building had been freshly cleaned, and fifty percent of the walls seemed to consist of shallow alcoves. Round shadows suggested smaller cousins of the outer columns lurked within.
"Safe," she said. Repetition didn't carry much risk.
"None of it can be replaced," he strongly declared. "Ever."
Breyer certainly couldn't. Breyer, who was in this dark building so far from home...
Another turn. Her dad hesitated again, this time in both speech and trot. Flurry barely got herself stopped in time.
"When we go into this next part," he eventually said, "I need you to understand something. It isn't finalized. A lot of things are set up. Like the lighting system in the upcoming hall. I'll be able to trigger that. And the security was set before I brought anything in here, because it had to be. But I was still working on some of the finer details. Like the order to put it all in. So it's going to feel a little -- scattershot, because it is. There's no real sequence yet. Just know that it'll be a lot better when I'm done."
It would be a lot better when she had her plushie back. "Okay," Flurry said, because doing so got them that much closer to Breyer. "So where is --"
"-- just ahead," he told her, and began to trot again. The ordinary filly scrambled to keep up with longer adult legs.
They went through a tall crystal arch, and their hooves sounded muted music from the polished floor. Soft notes bounced from an overly-high ceiling, and the shadowed alcoves absorbed the echoes.
Her father, who was still in the lead, approached a fifth-sized column in the center of the space. Faint glints of light suggested a glass dome over the flat top.
"Light," he authoritatively ordered the waiting spells. "Centered."
Glow sprang into existence overhead, creating a small pool over what turned out to be a crystal plinth. Simulated metallic fur twinkled.
Flurry stared.
Then she saw what was written on the display plaque, and switched to staring at that.
"Hang on, Flurry," her father kindly said, because he hadn't noticed any of it and besides, he was busy with negating another half-dozen security spells. Light kept fizzling. "And that one's negated, and this tells it not to reactivate when the weight doesn't come back in an hour, and this one would have checked for counterfeits -- and there we go. And --" with full sincerity, "-- again, I'm sorry. If I'd thought for so much as a second that you were still using this..."
The dome lifted. Pinkish light ignited, surrounded and moved what had been beneath until Breyer's soft weight was resting in Flurry's left saddlebag.
Most of her was flooded with relief. A significant minority was still reading.
"'Hero Of The Empire'," she finally read aloud. "'The savior who shut down the Tantrum Of 1276. Also 1277 -- twice -- 1278...' Dad?"
The stallion now had a rising tide of red beginning to underlight white fur.
"Twilight's right," he half-muttered, while sounding fairly upset about it.
"Dad --"
"I really should have read that aloud after I wrote it. And before it was engraved. Now I'll have to redo the whole thing --"
"-- what is this place?"
His corona light carefully set the dome back down upon a now-empty plinth. And then one of the two ponies whom Flurry loved most in the world carefully turned to face her.
"Flurry," he gently said, "you're an alicorn. The first naturally-born alicorn on record. Your aunt changed, you know about what happened to your mother, and the sisters predate the records."
She was a normal filly, just like the sensible less-than-half of her class. (There were some other-species immigrants, and Mr. Will's daughter Crossbar was one of her best friends.) She couldn't help how she'd been born --
"Your entire life," her father proudly told her, "is a historical event. A endless series of firsts, one after the other. It needed to be -- documented. So, since the day you were born, I've been saving things --" and then he smiled. "No, that's not quite right. It's more like the photographs in the foal albums. All forty of them."
Flurry knew about the albums. She'd seen where they were stored. Her father was forbidden from taking more than three of the thick volumes down at a time, because a previous victim had gone to international court and gotten the Beastriality to classify excessive display as a torture implement.
"I kept everything," her sire happily announced. "Because I knew there had to be a record. And a place to store it."
Flurry didn't move. In many ways, she couldn't.
And then she forced her head into action. Light cyan eyes stared into alcoves. At plinths and domes and the shadowed objects within.
"Happy too-early-birthday," grinned her father. "Flurry -- this is your museum!"
The worst part wasn't having worked out why so many old things had gone missing. It wasn't even his insistence on showing her around, or how utterly happy he was about all of it. The worst part, for a perfectly ordinary filly, was everything.
Right up until the last bit. The last bit, once they finally reached it, instantly and permanently qualified itself for 'worst'. Forever.
"You probably don't remember this," he smiled as another dome lit up. "You went through a few of them. This was one of the more intact specimens."
She stared at the length of curving yellow rubber, and the little metal chain attached to the ends.
"What is it?"
"A binky," her sire educated. "'Pacifier' is another term. The important thing is that scientists figured out that ponies usually calm down when they're eating. Or just chewing. Because if you can stand in a pasture and just work on the grass, then nothing's threatening you, right? Everything's fine. So the rubber part goes in the mouth, the chain keeps it on your head, and foals chew. It's very relaxing."
"So that's why it has bite marks," she forced out.
He nodded.
"...and the scorching?"
"It didn't always work," he shrugged. "There's a reason we got Breyer. Several reasons. Starting with..."
He had to boost her up with his corona before she could see the object under the dome, and he made a vocal note about lowering the height of the plinths.
It was a small, circular piece of metal, and it stood out because metal wasn't all that common in the Empire. Two thin white lines crossed each other in the center. The ends of the lines had a rather jagged shape.
"The Croix De Crib," her father proudly pronounced. "We haven't given one out in years."
"...which is...?" Flurry made herself ask.
"It's a medal," he told her. "We gave them to the guards who watched your bedroom at night."
Her eyes went wide with horror. "There's guards watching my --"
"-- this was when you were still a foal, Flurry," he gently corrected. "You were... well, 'active' would be fair. Especially with the Surges. And your mother was one of the only ponies in the world who could try to counter everything you were doing -- but she still needed sleep. Staying in your bedroom constantly... it was exhausting. So we asked the guards to watch you. See if they could calm you down before they tried to send for her."
She managed a nod. Then she looked at the medal again.
"Why is it purple?"
"Traditional color for the wounded."
The white lines crossing the center abruptly flashed into sharp relief. As did the jagged ends.
"We wanted something representative of the experience," her sire proudly said. "Right down to the compound fractures."
"...compound..."
"It was only three of the forty-nine. Besides, you didn't mean to hurt them."
She hadn't meant to do anything at all. She'd been a foal: a living bundle of automatic, thoughtless reactions. The Flurry of the current moment hadn't even existed.
It hadn't been her.
"But they were so vocal about it, we decided to use that for the center image. And that led directly to the next exhibit!" The corona bubble bobbed slightly, and the edges constricted around her fetlocks: he was thinking about something. "I hope I put that one next. I did say I was still working on the order."
"The... next..."
Her father worked for the government, as normal daddies tended to do. To be exact about it, he was military. It gave him certain issues in daily life. Like vocal tones. Anything under a full shout tended to elude him, and anything over that was probably classified as being outside regulations.
He put small parts of world in order. Arranged sequences. Regimented seconds in precise temporal march. And he was good at that. It was only for just about every other aspect of his life where you might see the moron take over. Such as, just for example, the current failure to notice that the filly trailing in his happy wake was becoming progressively more upset with every plinth.
"It should be on the left."
It was directly behind them. He had to double the lumens before she could make out the names on the paper, and made another vocal note about improving the lighting.
"'Overcoming Flurry Heart'..." she carefully forced herself to read.
"You're doing better than I did," he smiled. "And you managed it without reading the translation on the plaque! That's not what I originally thought it said at all."
She hadn't been able to look at that part yet. "So what did you think it said?"
"'Overthrowing Flurry Heart'."
The ordinary filly slowly looked up at her father.
"In my defense," he quickly said, "it's horrible mouthwriting. And when we saw that most of the names on the list were palace employees, starting with your crib guards -- we went into action. Because we thought there was a conspiracy being assembled to overthrow you, in the event that you ever gained political power. Waiting and lurking. We didn't know who to trust. Your aunt got involved." Hooves scraped across crystal. "And then we found out it wasn't a conspiracy at all."
"So what was --"
"-- group therapy signup."
He brought her to the Crystal Heart or rather, the shattered pieces which rested beneath the dome. Then he quickly reassured her that everything she was seeing was a replica, based on a few scattered pictures which had been taken at the time: there had apparently been some faint hopes of just treating the whole thing as a giant puzzle. But the Heart had been restored, and so this exhibit was labeled as a reproduction.
The nearby vial of crystal dust, however, was entirely authentic.
(The Heart itself was presumed to be fine. Completely fine, and his eyelids only twitched the first time he said it.)
There was a crib exhibit or rather, the alcoves contained what was left of them. The foal hadn't liked being confined, and... well, her parents had gone through a few cribs. And walls. Palace wings. Possibly a whole palace, but they'd been visiting somepony else at the time.
A pull-out cabinet contained the petitions which had asked the palace to keep that thing under control. Her father was very proud of those petitions, because it had taken crystal ponies a long time to learn how to truly stand up for themselves again and when it came to a certain flying, spellcasting, almost randomly-appearing (and inflicting) foal, practically everypony had signed.
One hall almost contained assorted debris: the sheer amount had created overflow to the next section. Her sire offhoofedly mentioned that researchers were still studying the fracture patterns. Apparently her impact was unique.
He took her around, with the intent to show her a significant fraction of everything. He was so proud of having chronicled the full reign of destruction from her infancy. And the whole time, he completely overlooked the way her body had gone tight, the tension in every feather, and the way she just wanted to scream because that wasn't her, it had never been her, there had been an infant who'd barely possessed the beginnings of a personality and that foal was gone, with Flurry having taken her place --
-- and whenever somepony came into the museum, saw the carefully-preserved evidence of every disaster -- they wouldn't think of the infant. They would see her.
But he was so proud. And she forced herself to hold it all inside, to let him just lead her around as he smiled and laughed and relived it all with no more than the occasional full-body twitch.
Then they reached the worst part.
"Now that I'm thinking about it," her daddy regretfully sighed, "I put this in the wrong place."
She stared at the bundle of half-folded, oddly-stained cloth. It was hard to make out any further details. He was still working on the lighting.
"Where should it be?" just barely came out.
"The biology display."
"The..."
"Alicorn biology is a little different, Flurry." With a soft sigh, "There are ways in which it's more different than I'd like. It's why we've always been so worried whenever you get sick. We can never be sure what's going to help you..."
His head dipped, then lifted. She watched as he made himself smile.
"You've been fine so far," he noted. "But that doesn't mean we don't need to do research! So there's a biology wing and once the museum is open, I'm going to invite a few select researchers in to study the samples." And before she could say anything, "Fur, shed foal feathers, old mane clippings and hoof shavings. Things like that. In case we need that one day. It might even help your mother."
"You have my foal feathers," was just about all she could still manage.
"I saved everything," he proudly said. "Including this."
She squinted. It was still just fabric.
"What is --"
With something very close to joy, "Your first diaper."
Flurry stopped breathing.
"Used, of course," he added.
Not breathing was perfectly fine. She could not-breathe for all the time it took to make the state permanent, because that would be an improvement.
"But it's just meconium."
"...meconium..." said the last exhale Flurry ever wanted to have.
"It's something every newborn excretes," lectured a family tendency. "Before they ever have real food. Secretions from the intestines, added to traces of swallowed amniotic fluid. Very pasty, with a few embedded pellets. Sort of a dark brown-green. And it barely has any smell at all."
...oh. Well... if every foal did it, then... maybe...
"Most of the other used diapers should be in storage, waiting for the specialists," her sire added. "Except for the three I put on display. In chronological sequence. And you would not believe how many preservative spells I had to use to keep the contents completely intact for study!"
Contents... repeated a valiantly-firing neuron, which then consumed some of the final oxygen in order to think it again.
"Including the scent," said her father, and laughed.
Breathing had already stopped. Flurry's heart asked if it could go next, just to save her from hearing the next part.
But the beat went on.
"There's always been this rumor, you know?" he chortled again. "But I used the same bathroom as your mother before you were born, and then we got you. So I happen to know for a fact that contrary to popular belief, alicorn manure does st --"
In one sense, it turned out to be a rather unique day in Equestria's history. There wasn't really anything truly special about it, but -- across the full breadth of centuries, its newest ruler would only speak the relevant sentence once.
"Princess Twilight?" a retainer said as she approached the throne. "The Empire's telefacet is flashing."
The occupying mare sighed, then slowly got up. "Is it an emergency?"
The retainer frowned. "I'm not sure," the pegasus admitted. "It's your niece."
Twilight blinked.
"She looks upset," the retainer added. "And if it's important enough to use the facet..."
The ruler nodded. "You were just in the room. Can I teleport in?"
"We're still clearing the ponies who noticed it flashing," the pegasus advised. "Trot."
It left the aunt making her way to the contact room on hoof, thinking all the way. The facet? Because that was usually reserved for emergencies -- because if something went wrong, there was nothing Equestria could do to fix it.
The enchantment which let the telefacet work at all was rather complex, even for crystal ponies. A few had emigrated to Equestria since the Barrier had gone down, but -- as far as Twilight knew, there wasn't anypony in the capital who was capable of making adjustments or repairs. And given the distance between Empire and Canterlot...
In terms of described function only, a telefacet was simple. You stood in front of one carefully-smoothed crystal surface, and your image would appear in its matching twin. That reproduction would do exactly what you did, almost at the exact moment you did it, in what effectively amounted to realtime. And that would happen no matter how far apart the facets were -- as far as anypony knew, at least: the most which had been tested was a two-continent range. But it would only be an image because when it came to distance, sound faded out after a mere three gallops.
The contact room had polishing cloths, quills, ink, and blank sheets of posterboard on permanent standby.
Twilight entered. The palace staff left, and the aunt stared into the distant face of her upset, panicking, and utterly freaked-out niece.
"All right, Flurry," she automatically said, and did so as her corona went for the writing supplies: flares of careful light began to duplicate the words. "What is it?"
Her niece tilted her head away from the facet. Came back with a huge piece of paper hanging from her mouth, and Twilight began to go through the mouthwriting: something which was so densely packed as to have left just about no white behind.
The paper was dropped. Flurry came back with another sheet.
Then she did it again.
And again.
And again...
Twilight squinted. Blinked, tried to focus, and then made history.
"Slow down, Flurry!" the older alicorn half-begged. "I can't read that fast!"
"Your timing's a little odd," Flurry's father told his sister as the siblings (and offspring) made their way through empty Canterlot streets, taking the private trot just after dawn. Flurry, yawning heavily, was still trying to adjust to the time zone shift.
It was strange to see them moving together. Aunt Twilight was... tall, and Flurry was used to that. There were times when the older alicorn's mane seemed to be moving on its own, and single strands attempted to twinkle: equally normal. But her aunt had apparently been a lot shorter once, considerably smaller than her father. And when the stallion moved with the mare, he stretched every leg joint to full extension. There were times when he visibly tried to walk on the edges of his hooves. Making up some small part of the difference. It was the sign of a stallion who wasn't fully comfortable with the fact that his little sister wasn't so little any more.
"Odd how?" asked her aunt, rather calmly.
"Cadance is still traveling," Flurry's sire pointed out. "Which puts us both out of the Empire at the same time --"
"-- you've traveled together before and the Cabinet can manage to keep the Empire intact while you're gone, just like all of the other times," the tall mare reminded him. "They'll use the telefacet if anything truly happens. Besides, I need you for this, Shining. You and nopony else. Flurry's just here because I wanted to see my niece." Paused. "And I wanted her to see this."
"And yet," the older sibling suspiciously said, "you won't tell me what it's for. Why you wanted me here."
"It's not an emergency," Aunt Twilight smiled, nodding politely to one of the first ponies they'd seen: an early commuter, who looked somewhat startled by both sight and gesture. "And I didn't want to wait for your birthday. Besides, this won't take long. We're going into that building up ahead. The one with all the marble columns. I'm sure you recognize it."
Flurry's father blinked.
"The Museum Of Military History?" he softly said. "Yes, I know it, Twilight. I've been in there enough times. Trotting with the greats." With open hope, "You didn't want to wait for my birthday... did you find an artifact? Something from one of the old battles, and you thought I could verify --"
"-- it's better than that."
Flurry, trailing in their wake, did what Aunt Twilight had told her would be the hardest thing. She kept her face perfectly straight.
Her father's eyes had gone moist, and the blue twinkled through a thin coating of barely-repressed tears.
"My own exhibit," the stallion just barely breathed, and then read the sign over the locked door to the hall again, with generations of statue soldiers watching in silent judgment. "My very own... Twilight, everypony who comes up through the ranks dreams of this, and..."
He stopped. Marshaled himself, straightened, then smiled.
"It's probably going to be a permanent one," Flurry's aunt said as she moved towards the door, horn already ignited and corona projecting forward to work on the locks.
"Permanent..."
"You've certainly done enough, haven't you?" Aunt Twilight smiled. "But I had to put this together in a hurry. That's part of why I wanted you to go through it with me. Check over what I used, before I put it on public, permanent display." The locks clicked. "Luckily for us, some ponies save just about everything. Let's go in."
It was dark in the hall, and Aunt Twilight had to explain that. She wanted her brother to see each exhibit in turn, and had been wondering if it was best to have it that way for the public as well. Leave them moving between pools of light. Flurry's father liked the idea.
"So the first one is just ahead," the older alicorn breezily said. "I know where I'm going. The museum guide would, too. So just trail me. I'll light up each one as we approach -- there we are..."
The first spotlight activated.
"I had to dig for this," Aunt Twilight said. "But if the military does anything, it's saving! Ponies and paperwork. Actually, I'm not sure you've ever seen this sheaf before --"
"-- I haven't," her father respectfully cut in. "They'd never show any of it to us, on principle. But I recognize the mouthwriting. That's from Emery Board. And if this was written by my drill sergeant, then those are my --"
"-- recruit evaluation papers," Aunt Twilight nodded. "That mockup plaque quotes the most relevant passages." A long horn indicated the proper direction.
Flurry's father stepped forward. Read the words.
Then he kept reading.
"It's something, isn't it?" the older alicorn smiled. "How he had you pegged from the start."
Silence. But a streaked blue tail lashed.
"Flurry, I know you can't read it from that far back," Aunt Twilight called out. "So I'll just quote it the best bits for you. Starting from where the Sergeant called your father an 'absolute moron'. And still recommended letting him into the ranks, because the world was better off not leaving him unobserved and besides, if he was surrounded by the right ponies, he might have the chance to become, and I quote, 'a useful idiot'."
Just a little too softly, "...Twilight..."
The older alicorn didn't seem to notice. She was already moving.
"Now this is where I put the bedsheets," Equestria's ruler happily said. "The ones you were using while Chrysalis was around, because everypony knows you were sharing a bed with the mare who was going to become your wife. Or the one you thought was your wife. Anyway, notice all of the little rips? That's from chitin moving against fabric. Many ponies agree that it would take an utter imbecile not to have noticed that kind of changeling evidence --"
"-- look," Flurry's father abruptly said, "we barely knew that changelings existed, and you might happen to remember that I was sort of hypnotized --"
"-- and this," Aunt Twilight announced as she merrily moved on, "is the first draft of an artist's recreation for one of the most important moments in the Empire's history! The instant a military tactician decided to try solving the Sombra problem by -- what was it you did? Oh, right! -- flinging his spouse at it. You're very lucky to have such an understanding mare at your side, Shining. Or occasionally pressed between your forelegs. Anyway, I know it's a rough sketch, but that's what it's meant to be." Her hoof rapped on metal. "This filing cabinet, however, contains six hundred pages of very small critical writing, all provided by Equestria's current military tacticians. And the amazing thing? Every last one of them came up with a better plan. In under ten seconds."
"Twilight," Flurry's father said, which did a lot to cover up Flurry's giggle.
"But of course, this sort of exhibit is about an entire life," the tall alicorn told the local part of the world, and did so as the next case lit up. "Flurry, did you know your father used to be a musician? Even though he didn't have a mark for it. He had his own band! I'm not sure any of them had musical marks either. But that's part of how your mother fell in love with him. And this is the sheet music he played at the little concert which somehow convinced her to start going out with him. I've had six musicologists study it. None of them can figure out how any one note is supposed to lead into any of the others. But they all agreed that being exposed to the results in direct proximity might lead to long-term madness. As I've recorded on this mockup plaque." The pause was cuttingly brief. "They're talking with the psychologists. There's some worries about having the marriage come apart once the insanity wears off."
"Twilight," was ignored.
"And this..." came across as the happiest words which had ever been spoken.
The last plinth lit up, displaying an object under the most spell-protected glass dome which had ever been created by ponies.
Flurry looked at the artifact, and failed to work out what it was.
It was... glass. A double-walled cylinder, with two hollows. One ran between the walls, and had a few stray drops of water clinging to the sides: it was apparently meant to be filled with liquid, and had been improperly drained. The other opened at the far end, allowing something else roughly cylindrical in shape to be placed within the softly-padded portion.
Her father stopped breathing.
"Mom and Dad," Aunt Twilight proudly said, "saved everything. Especially what you poorly hid, forgot about, and left behind."
Flurry didn't get it.
"You see those white bits of dried crust?" the tall alicorn merrily asked. "They're the originals. I've been talking to some spell researchers about a new working. I want to try and restore the smell --"
The next words meant that her father was breathing, and that was a good thing. They were also barely a whisper.
"...I'm going to kill you," her father told his sister.
"You'll try," Aunt Twilight buoyantly declared.
"I was a Guard. I know every secret passage up to your bedroom..."
Flurry was still trying to work out what the thing was. The white crust suggested cake batter or icing, but the glass couldn't be squeezed.
"Rig the passages," her aunt breezily said. "Got it. Anyway, Flurry, I don't want to go into any real details because you're a little young for that, but you should think of this as your father's best friend. The friend he had before your mother may or may not have gone temporarily mad --"
The streaked tail stopped lashing. Dropped, and went between her father's back legs.
"-- those are things from -- a pony who doesn't exist any more. Horrible, embarrassing things. That's a pony I don't necessarily want to remember. Nopony should ever -- why are you doing this, Twilight? Why?"
All of her aunt's mirth fell away at once.
"Because I wanted you to understand exactly what it was like," the tall mare quietly said. "After you did precisely this to somepony else and didn't even notice -- it felt like the only way you might find empathy was by going through it yourself."
"...somepony... somepony else?"
Aunt Twilight sighed.
"Step over here, Shining," said the younger sister. "Please. Because now that you have a basis for comparison... we need to talk."
It went on for a while, and they kept the tones low. Flurry occasionally caught fragments, mostly from her father. There was a "But I'm proud..." and "...it might be important..." Aunt Twilight mostly shook her head, whispered words back.
"...give me something," reached Flurry's ears near the end. "Anything. She's my daughter. Let me have what other fathers have."
"Exactly that, then."
The volume dropped again. Negotiations opened, continued, then concluded. And finally, the siblings stepped forward.
"No museum," Aunt Twilight announced. "He can save everything he's already taken -- under lock and key, out of public view. You can decide what to truly keep when you're grown up, along with whether or not you want anypony else to ever see it. And he has to ask you before he takes anything new." Paused. "You can also go through the inventory to see if you need anything back."
"We may still need the medical samples," a ordinary filly's sire quietly said. "I worry, Flurry. Let me have that, at least. It's what fathers are supposed to do. And... I'm sorry." His head dipped. "I am."
A very normal pre-adolescent gently nodded.
"Okay, Dad," she softly said. And then she stepped forward, gave him the nuzzle meant for family. He nuzzled her back. Aunt Twilight watched, smiled, and finally joined in.
The family stepped back. Looked at each other.
"Is that what you got?" Flurry asked. "The medical samples?"
"No," her father said. "Your aunt agreed those were necessary. I get what every father should get." And somehow, he managed a smile. "I get to show off my photo album."
"The Beastriality --" said his daughter.
"Just one," stated her sire. "I promised. Just one."
"And now," Flurry's father proudly said, with the words echoing oddly in the huge crystal auditorium, "I can show you the second moon of her life."
The three new diplomatic guests collectively trembled in unison. It was the first thing they'd agreed upon since their arrival.
"TEAM!" the military stallion barked.
Ten ponies wearily trotted to the end of the current page, which was rather prominently marked as #17 Of 650. Thirty body lengths of passage allowed them to get a tooth grip on some small part of the edge, and then they forced themselves to go all the way back.
Multiple drastically-enlarged images of a very young infant curved by. And diapers. There were always diapers.
"Which means we aren't quite at the Crystalling just yet," her father confidentially mentioned to a previously-abandoned building: one which had been chosen because the central hollow was roughly stadium-sized.
Flurry, who had hidden herself in the highest portion of the seating with Breyer at her side, held back most of the sigh.
She loved her father. But he was very much like the parents possessed by all perfectly normal, downright ordinary fillies (which obviously and forever included Flurry): namely, he possessed what seemed to be an endless, completely unknowing capacity for embarrassing himself -- and probably everypony else. It could be tempered, banked, redirected, and put into constraints which the Beastriality was still evaluating -- but never fully cured. In that sense, he was truly an absolute moron, and always would be.
"Wait until you see the Crystalling...!"
But as her mother had gently pointed out, when it came to mentally battering a trio of visiting first-time envoys into submission well before the actual negotiations began, he was a rather useful sort of idiot.