Fledgling's Forbearance

Twilight never would've imagined the ramifications of her activities that one day eleven months ago. And the day after, and the day after that. The whole week, really.

Point is, she had a lot of sex with a lot of mares who clearly wanted a lot of foals, and her new equipment seemed both eager and devoid of any refractory period, so of course she was willing and able to facilitate those desires. Needless to say, she wasn't thinking with her head at the time, or at least not the right one.

Since changing back to her usual self, the stresses of estrus well past, Twilight had had time to let the prospect of motherhood, fatherhood, whateverhood sink in, and she was well to terms with the fact that she was going to be a mother. No, wait, father.

...parent. She was going to be a parent.

It was difficult to keep in touch with over forty mares through the entirety of each of their simultaneous pregnancies, especially when you didn't exactly get their names and numbers at the time what with how they were lining up, but Twilight had done her best to make sure that Spike kept fairly regular contact with all of them.

And sometimes, she even visited them herself. Today was one of those days, but rather than a social call, this was hospitals and screaming and dilation and labour. Derpy was rooms away, likely soon to progress to the birthing, and the only reason that Twilight wasn't with her was that the hospital was apparently so packed today. As such, Twilight ended up in a waiting room with Derpy's two girls, Dinky and Amethyst Star.

The former was excitedly jumping in her lap while Amethyst paced in small circles, almost looking as if she was attempting to chase her tail. "I wonder if it'll be a boy! I wonder if it'll be a girl! ...ohmygosh, I wonder if it'll be a princess?!" Dinky had more energy than Twilight and Amethyst combined, which must have been owed to the fact that until now, she'd always been the youngest.

Twilight couldn't help but snicker at the display, but it did get her thinking. Were all of these children technically part of a royal line now? Were they classed as bastards who had no claim to her throne or title? Also, looking at the two sisters, she began to wonder just how difficult it'd be to contend with forty little ponies at once, how hard it'd be to even learn their names.

She was a little ashamed to admit that it had taken multiple sessions with Spike and a high, colour coded stack of flash cards for her to even learn the details of the mothers. She wouldn't be surprised if the births called for a repeat.

That said, she was definitely excited. Twilight had a pleasant glow in her chest and a slight tremble to her hooves, eager anticipation of the life she'd helped bring into the world manifesting and growing. Like Derpy, many of the would-be mothers that approached her made it quite clear that while they wished for a strong stallion to sire their child, they weren't expecting full-time commitment, but Twilight wouldn't hear any of it. It might have been a large split of her time, it might take her a good while to get a suitable routine in order, but she wanted to be there for her children as much as she possibly could.

Still... maybe she overindulged just a modicum? Forty was a lot.

She was distracted from her pondering by a loud 'wheee!'. Dinky was attempting to do a hornstand, all of her hooves but one in the air as she took the last away. She promptly fell on her side, giggling. "Mommy says horns aren't for standing on, but I'm going to teach my new brother or sister to do it too!"

Twilight felt a flash of alarm at the idea, the images of cuts and scrapes and broken bones flashing in the back of her eyes. "You should listen to your mother, you know. If she says horns aren't for standing on, then she's right." It was difficult to know how far was too far with someone else's child before you were venturing into the realm of rudeness, so Twilight kept her annoyance at the idea out of her tone, reminding herself to bring it up with Derpy later.

Not that Dinky wanted to drop it, of course. "But how does mommy know? She doesn't have a horn, and the only reason I've got one is because my daddy had unicorn in his blood. That's what Amy says."

Twilight turned to Amethyst, who was still pacing. "Did you know Dinky's father?"

Her eyes briefly locked with Twilight's every mid-turn. "Saw him a couple times is a more accurate way of putting it. They never really went strong, they were more of a 'for fun and mom wanted another kid' deal, from what I gather."

"My new brother or sister is lucky that you came to watch them be born. My daddy didn't visit." Dinky didn't seem too affected by what she was saying, and that might have been the saddest part about it.

Well, Twilight already had forty kids on the horizon, and the bits of time she'd spent with Dinky had allowed her to grow fond... would visiting her along with the new baby be that much hassle? It wasn't much, but from the sounds of it, Dinky would really appreciate having another parent figure in her life, in some crude sense of the word.

"You're better off without a dad like that," Amethyst smiled, walking over to Dinky and giving her a light pat on the head. "Mom has always been there for you, and dads are only worth it if they're actually gonna put the effort in. I'd rather have a dad that left after his job was done than one that pretended."

Dinky looked at her sister, eyes widened. "Are you only saying that because your daddy pretended to care?"

Oof, this was taking a rough turn. Amethyst went to respond, hoof raised, but she was cut off by the sound of the doors slamming open.

"Princess Twilight, Hooves family?" A plump nurse with a light blue coat waddled in, her eyes beady. "Your little brother has been safely delivered, and your mother is ready to see you all. However—"

"A brother?!" Dinky instantly jumped off of Twilight's lap, skipping and prancing around the unamused nurse. "I've got a little brother! I've got a little brother!"

The nurse cleared her throat with a pointed glare, attempting to quieten Dinky, but it only half worked. "However?" Twilight repeated.

"However, there was one complication with the birth, something we weren't entirely expecting... I think it's best if you see for yourself, princess."

That was definitely ominous. Twilight had told herself that she was prepared for anything that might have gone wrong. She studied birth defects and complications to the point of near obsession when she realised there was a chance that one of the children she birthed might have had some form of issue. She'd told herself a thousand times before now that no matter what, she'd keep composed.

But that was before being confronted with the reality of the situation, the all too real possibility that there might be something wrong with her baby, and that it might be down to her and her genetics. She needed to put a brake on her thoughts. There was always a chance that it was nothing, that she was simply overthinking again and that everything would be absolutely fine.

Sure, that's what everyone said preceding imminent disaster, but Twilight tried to ignore that all too present cynicism as best she could. Everything was going to be okay.

She couldn't fully mask her panic as she walked with the others through the hospital's corridors. It was laced with excitement and anticipation, the type that she'd never felt before for anything, save the strange, maternal feeling that had come with hatching Spike's egg all those years ago. Still, she'd been a child then, unable to comprehend the vast array of emotions fully, and now she was revisiting them in adulthood, they only felt that bit more intense.

"I wanna see him! I wanna!" Dinky was bouncing along in a way that would make Pinkie Pie jealous, her hooves only touching the floor for a millisecond at a time, Twilight's internal enthusiasm mirrored by her movements. It dawned on her then that over the coming weeks, she was going to go through this many more times with many more children, and that knowing the way she handled things, it would only become more intense with each instance.

Still, those children were thoughts for later. What mattered right now was Derpy's foal, who they were growing so much closer to approaching with each passing second. The nurse pushed open a pair of double doors, and Twilight almost felt herself pushing past Derpy's daughters to get through first. No one complained, they understood her urgency.

The next one to be unceremoniously knocked out of the way by her flayed wings was the nurse, who stared at her indignantly with her fat, sweaty face.

But Twilight barely noticed amidst the sight she saw. Cradled in a tired, faint Derpy's arms was a beautiful baby boy. Twilight couldn't make out his face yet, but she could see his rather large wings from across the room, almost looking like those of a matured pegasus.

A little like Flurry Heart's wings, come to think of it. He had a blue coat, but grey mane, retaining one of his mother's colours, and as Twilight came close enough to study his full profile, she noticed two very important things.

His shade of eyes was exactly identical to hers, and he had a horn on his head. Wings. Horn. Wings and a horn. He had both. He was a bloody alicorn.

Twilight had given Derpy an alicorn child! It was... it was staggering! Unbelievable, and what's more, the first male alicorn in history! This beautiful child, Twilight already knew that he'd be destined for wonderful things. She'd have to inform the princesses, to start teaching him to use his magic as soon as she was able!

...but first, she just wanted to hold him. Derpy gave her a weak smile, and Twilight ran a hoof through her mane, soothing her. "How are you feeling? Did he give you much trouble?"

A few huffs, and the ghost of a giggle sounded. "I-it took him about—huff—a minute during the delivery to fold his wings, but after that, smooth sailing..." She lifted her hoof a little, being sure to support her new baby's neck, and held him out to Twilight. "He's wonderful, isn't he?"

Confronted with a child, knowing that she'd become a parent, it was a lot for Twilight to take in, and she felt faint just staring at him. But at the same time, it felt right, and she couldn't take her eyes off of him if she tried. "Wonderful doesn't even begin to describe it... Can... can I hold him?"

"Of course, just be sure to be gent—"

ZEEYW, BKSHH went the sound of their new alicorn baby firing a laser through the delivery room's roof and zooming away at breakneck speeds.

...of course. Alicorn baby. Made sense.

Since graduating from Twilight's friendship lessons, Starlight hadn't expected that she'd have to spend so much time cleaning up her mentor's messes. Surely that was Spike's job.

Well... maybe this one was a little bit too delicate for Spike at his age. Explaining to him why his mother/sister/owner suddenly had forty-two children might have been more than a little bit difficult.

Yeah, that's right, forty-two. Two of the mares Twilight knocked up had twins.

And Twilight had been chasing them around, rounding them up, and otherwise attempting to slow down their destruction of Ponyville for half the day now. One minute she was putting out a chemical fire in the castle's library, the next she was fixing the hospital's magic power surge, then she was off chasing after the newborn that decided it was a good idea to race the train to the Crystal Empire.

Starlight walked into the castle's kitchen to find Twilight, her eyes bloodshot and seemingly devoid of life, teetering over the counter with a bottle filled with dark brown liquid hovering in her aura. Starlight only had to squint to work out what it was. "Twilight, are you-are you drinking whisky?"

Twilight limply nodded her head. "Yeah, I couldn't find a good cigar on short notice. Celebrating, right?"

Starlight arched an eyebrow, studying Twilight's dishevelled form. "Twilight, you don't drink whisky. You also don't smoke, and I'd love to say you don't mope. What the heck are you doing?"

Twilight stared at the bottle intensely, as if it was a mirror for her thoughts. "I'm... coping." Sighing, she set the bottle down. "I haven't even drank any, it's just nice to think about, you know? This day's going so terribly already, wouldn't it be nice to just say to hell with it and drink until it wasn't an issue anymore?"

Starlight shook her head, gently and carefully pulling the bottle from Twilight's magic into her own. Touching it brought with it a keen sense of the worry and exhaustion present in Twilight's mind. "Yeah, you could do that, you could drink until you passed out and probably laugh a little in the process. Hell, we could do it together. But do you know what would happen when we woke up?"

Twilight grimaced as she looked down at the floor. "Everything would be exactly the same as it was today?"

Starlight shook her head. "Worse. Everything would be the same as it was today plus whatever your new children managed to obliterate in the interim, and we'd be too hungover to do anything about it."

"But what can we even do about it?!" Twilight's eyes were panicked like those of a doe with a cart speeding towards it, the shakes almost second nature to her by now. "I've considered our options, and every possibility comes up blank! When we dealt with Flurry Heart's erratic magic, it took the combined ability of so many of us, and a composite spell that we don't even have memorised! I don't have the source texts for that here, I can't recreate it!" Shaking her head rapidly, Twilight took a breath. "And even if I could, that would only be enough to help one baby, how am I meant to get to forty-two before something terrible happens?"

"Well, has anything terrible happened yet?"

"That's not the point!"

Starlight cocked her head. "Isn't it? There's still time, and through all of that worrying you've been doing, there's one thing you didn't think to consider."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

With a bright flash, Starlight summoned a diary from her pocket dimension. "I keep notes of absolutely everything. I can recreate that spell quick and easy, but casting it is going to be a problem... I've probably only got enough strength in me for three or four repeat casts, then I'd need to rest."

Twilight had a hoof to her chin as she thought over what Starlight had said. "And your magical ability almost rivals that of an alicorn, plus you've had experience with the spell... Even if we had Celestia and Luna helping, we probably wouldn't be able to cast it forty-two times in succession, it'd be too much."

Levitating the whisky bottle over to her and grabbing a glass, Starlight poured one out, a double. "Well, maybe there's another solution? If we can't cast it that many times in a row, maybe we need one big spell that will serve as a blanket and make all of these alicorns' magic docile?"

Twilight's eyes shot towards the freshly poured glass. "But how are we going to get all of those foals in the same room? Is that even safe? With their combined power, they could probably tear a hole in this dimension!"

"We're not, you're just going to make sure that none of them leave Ponyville. Get the girls together, they'll help you out."

"What are you going to do in the meantime, then?"

Starlight levitated the glass up to her lips, then downed it. "This. I'm also going to work out how the hell to cast a blanket spell over the entirety of Ponyville without making a bunch of ponies' heads pop off. Should be fun work."

"...alright. Well, I'm going to go and look for the foals again, reassure the mothers, get the girls to help, rally the townsfolk, inform the princesses, and you're going to..." She watched as Starlight began to pour out another drink, giving her a quizzical stare.

"Why do you think we have whisky, Twilight? It helps me think. Listening to you bellyache doesn't. Now go on, shoo. Come back to the castle in a bit and give me an update, I'll tell you how things are coming along."

Twilight nodded, and off she flew with haste. Good thing for Starlight, too, she was starting to think she'd never get to have a drink in peace.

Oh, yeah, and the planning to avoid total cataclysmic destruction thing. That was pretty important too.

Twilight seriously couldn't believe her luck. To think that every mare she impregnated gave birth on the same day, what were the odds of that? She adjusted the weight of the foal she'd just rescued from a ten foot tall, animate apple on her back. It was nothing short of a miracle, no doubt, but Twilight wondered if it had any scientific connotations. Perhaps alicorn pregnancies were always the exact same length? Twilight would have to ask Cadance when she next saw her exactly how long she was pregnant with Flurry Heart.

But then, two instances alone weren't enough to make up a fair test, she'd have to consider other variables and call for a repeat in future. ...holy Celestia, was she really considering creating more alicorn foals just so she could study the results? Twilight truly was a broken mare.

She was distracted from her reverie by a guttural scream, like something you heard in a horror flick, dark and foreboding. Zipping around, she squinted her eyes to locate the source of the commotion, only to find Discord. Well, most of Discord.

He was apparently missing his legs. That and hurriedly floating away from a pair of unintentionally murderous babies. "Twilight!" Discord all but screamed, rushing towards her and pressing his face against hers, his eyes swathed in fear. "I-I thought I'd seen everything, thought I'd dealt with the most horrible evils in this world, but these things are something else. I'm scared, Twilight, please make them stop!"

Twilight couldn't help but growl in response, backing away. "Those 'things' you're talking about are my children!"

"Well, that explains it, anything with someone as unhinged as you for a mother is sure to turn out questionably at the very least."

Twilight scowled at him, then looked to the ravenous twins chasing after what was left of him. "You know what? Fine. Enjoy babysitting, Uncle Discord."

"NoTwilightyoucan'tleavemehere!" Discord crumpled himself up into a small ball, fortunately dodging the pair of speeding alicorns just as they went to dive into him. "You can't, you're too good for that, you... they pulled my legs off, Twilight!"

Twilight didn't want to betray her alarm, as much as it was beginning to grow. "Why do you care? You disassemble your body all the time."

"It's different when somebody else does it!" Discord's teeth were chattering to the point that they looked as if they were about to fall out, and then they actually did. Growling, Discord scooped them up and put them back in place. "Cross my aortic pump, hope to achieve high velocity, stick a for sale sign on my property, I promise to repay your debt in kind if you can just take them off my hands. Please, I'm begging you here."

Twilight raised a hoof to argue, only to realise that that really wouldn't be conducive to what she was trying to achieve here. "Fine, but you owe me. I need to round up all forty-two of my children, and then—"

"Forty-two?! Did your womb become a hotel without my knowledge?" Discord floated over in his legless form, inspecting her. "Where did you put them all, is the entrance to Narnia between your legs?!"

Twilight chose to ignore the parts of that she didn't understand and simply retort with something childish. "Well at least I have legs."

"Well don't go on about it, I might decide it's only fair you shared." Discord gave his goatee a small stroke, his eyes settling on the two alicorns circling him, one eye moving in each direction. "Suppose you're going to cast the Fledgeling's Forbearance spell on them all? Seal off their nasty magic before it goes completely out of control?"

Sometimes it was difficult to remember just how intelligent Discord was. "Yes, actually. That's the plan, Starlight's working on it right now, and—"

"Then consider my debt already paid. I'll go and help her right this instant."

"Discord, I'm not sure that's a good idea!"

One snap, and Discord had his legs back. Another, and he was gone.

Leaving Twilight to contend with three baby alicorns who seemed to be trying to out-belch one another. It might have been cute if each of their burps didn't produce a psionic wave that almost knocked her out of the sky. Kids, eh?

Twilight limped her way into the castle's throne room, six children in tow. She'd scarcely had time to tell Spike to inform the mothers that their foals were being taken care of, just another measure to attempt to delay the town-wide panic that was sure to manifest fully soon enough. What she found inside did little to assure her that the worst was over.

Discord and Starlight were apparently sharing a second bottle of whisky.

"—and then she asked me what the meaning of life was, which was funny considering the fact we were all dead, and I said to her: Luna, dear, if I had a bit for every time somepony had asked me that question, I'd have—"

"Forty-two alicorn babies to contend with?" Twilight interjected, drawing two sets of startled eyes. "No? I didn't think so. Nice to see that you're both so hard at work."

"Well, Twilight, after my horrible treatment at the hooves of your offspring, I decided I'd look for a better way to get legless." He jingled the glass before clinking it against Starlight's. "Honestly, your student does have good taste, why isn't she the element of magic? Or an alicorn, for that matter?"

"Just give it a season," Starlight slurred. "Bet you I'm an alicorn by winter, seems they're falling out of the sky right about now anyways."

"Well, if you count Twilight's many suitors' hind legs as the sky." The pair of them shared a chuckle between sips of their whisky, looking awfully dignified considering the circumstance.

Twilight had had enough. Hell, enough had been and gone already, she wasn't sure what she'd had, but she knew it couldn't get much worse than this. "You know what? Screw it, I'll have one."

Starlight shook her head vehemently, spilling a little of her drink in the process. "You don't drink whisky, Twilight."

"And why don't I drink whisky?" Twilight argued, honestly sick of being left out on this.

"Because the last time you did, you ended up impregnating half of Ponyville. Or don't you remember the bar after the public orgy? I told you to slow down but oh no, not until every mare in there had had a healthy dose of Mister Twilight Sparkle's seed!"

Oh yeah, the part of that day that Twilight tried her best to blot out. "Alright, fine. Probably not responsible parenting anyway."

"See, you're learning!" Starlight pointed towards the map table in the centre of the room, giving her a smile. "Besides, this is an actual celebratory drink. We've worked out how to fix everything, believe it or not."

No whisky in the world could've got Twilight more drunk than that statement. She was almost giddy as she pranced in place. "You have?!"

"A draconequus always pays his debts, Twilight!" Frowning, Discord held a finger up and shook his head. "Actually, no, we're notoriously bad about that, but I'm breaking the status quo here and coming through for you. See the Friendship Map right there?" Twilight nodded. "Well, with Starlight's help, I managed to jury rig it with a little of my signature chaotic magic. As such..." Discord snapped his fingers, and forty-two new icons flashed to life. "Ever seen such a wonderful family portrait, mother dearest?"

Twilight was at a loss for words as she looked over the map. Each one of these icons represented one of her children, and sure enough six of them were in the castle like they should've been! "So we can track every single one of them from here, make sure none of them get lost? This is brilliant!"

"Not just that," Starlight added, "but we can interact with them through the map too. Remember when I used the Friendship Map as a means to bolster Starswirl's time travel spell? Well, I think I can get the same amplifying effect out of this spell I've drawn up." Starlight clumsily thrust a piece of paper into Twilight's snout.

Looking over it, Twilight began to make a connection between the words on the paper and what they were attempting to do, but only barely. "Starlight, this is riddled with misspellings and the hoofwriting is barely legible. What are you going to be able to do with this?"

"Did you never even see Starswirl's handwriting, Twilight? All of the best unicorns write drunk, it's the editing we do sober. But I don't need to edit this, that's what Discord's for." Another Deus Ex Snapina, and the paper was neat and pristine. Suddenly, Twilight could actually understand everything that was written on it. "So, you need them all in a three hundred metre radius for this to effectively hit them?"

"Theoretically, but Discord can't just lock on and teleport them, their magic interferes with that. We need to gather them all together, somehow."

"But how can we do that?.. If magic won't work, maybe Rainbow Dash can herd them all together!"

Starlight bit her lip. "Do you really want to risk that? With those horn bolts flying around, she could get fried up there."

"Hmm... How about Applejack? She could wrangle them up with a lasso!"

"And potentially strangle them in the process?! You're a terrible parent, Twilight."

"Hey, I've only had less than a day's practice!" Twilight huffed as she moved to sit down, scarcely noticing the six presences in her castle moving further along the map. "Alright, so if Applejack can't do it, and Rainbow Dash can't either, what other options do we have left?"

Starlight raised a hoof as she finished off the rest of her drink before clearing her throat with all the gusto of an announcer. "Luckily, I've thought of a solution for that too. All we need is a really, really big kite."

Twilight squinted. Starlight's face remained deadly serious. She squinted some more. "Just how much have you had to drink?"

"That's not relevant, just hear me out. Babies love mobiles, right? They calm them. So imagine a really big mobile mobile, one that floated through the sky and got all the babies to follow it into one area? Not only would they be distracted from whatever mayhem they were causing, looking at it would make them docile, and a lot easier to cast the spell on!"

Twilight gave that around twenty seconds thought if only for how ludicrous it was. She couldn't think of any better option. "...alright, provided that somehow worked, where exactly are you planning to get a huge kite slash mobile with moving parts?"

Discord gave a little wave.

"Oh yeah. Right. Well, guess I'll go get Maud."

"Have fun! We'll be here!" Discord turned to Starlight with a grin. "A toast to Twilight and each of her glorious monsters! First one to stop drinking has to tell her what happened to Rarity's boutique!"

Twilight stood in the crater where Rarity's boutique had once been, looking out to the horizon. Shadowed by the setting sun was Maud, her gait as measured and emotionless as ever as she carried the mother of all kites between her teeth, the thing drifting high in the sky above Ponyville. According to all known laws of aviation, there was no way that it should have been able to fly, but Discord's kite flew anyway because it didn't care what ponies thought.

Coming up and around it from all directions were alicorn foals from each corner of the town, all of them seemingly mesmerised by its colourful and iridescent moving parts. They drew ever closer, and for a moment, Twilight began to wonder if everything was going to go off without a hitch, if they would simply calm themselves just from staring at it and the spell would be the easiest part of this long, tiresome day.

Then, the foals started to attack it. Flying up in formation and throwing themselves against it, blasting holes through it with their horns and tearing it with the edges of their oversized wings.

Twilight looked from the chaos over to a barely standing Starlight. "Cast it cast it cast it!"

"A-alright, lemme just—hic!—gimme a sec..." Starlight chose that moment and that moment precisely to fall over.

"Oh for pete's—Discord, can you make her sober please?"

Discord almost looked offended. "Twilight Sparkle, what you're asking me to do is the very antithesis of chaos, I can't in good conscience—"

Twilight's glare was sharper than a scalpel. "If you don't help me, I'm going to send you up there with the damn kite."

"Alright, alright, snap."

And as was probably no shock, Starlight suddenly appeared a good deal less inebriated. "Okay, ready." She stood slowly, stretching her legs out and angling her horn towards the gathering gaggle of foals before firing a steady stream of bright blue magic over the designated area. The magic from her horn formed into a cone that gently washed over each of the foals, slowly stripping them of their offensive, out of control magic and reducing them back to calm babies. It was only when the spell was in its final phase that they all simultaneously realised the big issue with their grand plan.

The foals couldn't use their magic anymore. They were dropping out of the sky like lead weights.

It was a mad dash to snag every last one of them in magic or limb before they fell a hundred metres, but through perseverance and a good measure of freakish Maud strength and agility, they managed to save every last one of them. Setting them down was like putting a great nightmare to rest, and once they were finally on the ground, safe, asleep, causing no more havoc, Twilight was finally able to appreciate just what parenthood really was.

Hell. It was hell on earth. But their adorable faces just about made up for it.

She could only shudder at what they might be like in adolescence.

Twilight, Starlight, Discord, and Maud looked over the scene, and each of them had an equal smile on their faces—even Maud. It was one of placidity, relief, and above all, exhaustion.

And then Starlight began to cry. She was looking down at the babies as they huddled together in their sleep, wrapping wings around one another and snuggling tight, a perfect scene and definitely a moving one, but it still struck Twilight as odd. Never had she known Starlight to be a crier, and now that she was openly shedding tears, Twilight couldn't help but ask why. "Starlight? Are you okay?"

A few more open sobs, and she finally stifled one. "Y-yeah, I'm alright, Twilight. More than alright, actually."

Twilight walked over to Starlight and gave her a short hug, feeling the fatigue in her own muscles just from taking a few steps after the adrenaline had finally left her body. "Then what's got you all worked up like this? We did it, Starlight, we saved all of them, and we stopped anything else from happening in Ponyville. Everything's going to be okay, I promise."

"I-I know, it's just..." A small chuckle as Twilight patted her wither. "I'm just so glad that I convinced you to pull out and finish on my face that night at the bar, that's all. Could you imagine if I'd ended up stuck with one of these things?"

Discord scooped the pair up in a tight, constricting hug. "Three cheers for emergency contraception!"

"They're not things!"