Warmth basted Rosewater’s back while chill kissed her belly even under the covers. The familiar dichotomy of morning sensations when sleeping with a lover, but in reverse. It wasn’t often that she was the smallest step in the lovers ladder. Only one other pony had been able to be her big step.

It was remarkably cozy, despite the belly shivers as she woke to the sensation. Having her back warm made her realize just how much she enjoyed sitting with her back to a fireplace. An odd thing to think with Collar’s sheath pressed rather firmly against the raise of her tail.

Morning brain. She grinned lazily and used a spell to pull the curtain on the window slightly out of jar to get a gauge of how far along the day was.

White turned gray by the imminent sunrise spread out from her thin view out into the world. Sloped roofs held onto their snowy treasures by happenstance, the leeward side of them carrying more and thicker drifts than the downwind side, with thin streaks of snow stretching from roof decorations and crenelations in sharp spines, making those roofs look like closing traps.

On their own sill, a glint of white frost decorated the bottom edge, sparkling even as the exposure to the warmer air of their room began to melt it.

A foreleg stretched over her barrel, and Collar’s other pushed against her back as he flexed and yawned against her neck and into her mane. “‘Orning,” he mumbled.

Rosewater yawned and stretched all four legs out, catching the comforter beneath them and dragging it off of them entirely by accident—or so she told him with a teasing grin after he stopped cursing the cold.

He didn’t buy it for a second. “You just wanted all of my warmth when you’ve already got your own.”

“I confess,” Rosewater murmured graciously and rolled to her belly to ply his muzzle with a series of light kisses and nibbles. “There was so much warmth inside me last night that I desired more without as well.”

“Greedy,” Collar said with a laugh, then his expression changed, turning pensive and worried. “Do… you think?” He raised his head and studied her flank intently for several seconds, ears flat as if by the simple act of staring he could tell if she were pregnant.

“Far too early to tell,” Rosewater replied, shaking her head. “But cycles are often invisible to the outside, and as messy as my mind is right now, I’m having a hard time telling if my hormones are to blame or simply my situation.”

“Laying in bed with a lover, trying desperately to get pregnant to stave off a civil war?”

“That, yes,” Rosewater muttered. “Can you not put it like that?”

“Trying to have a child with the stallion you are madly in love with to start a new dynasty based on peace and cooperative prosperity,” Collar said in a lofty tone that belied the worry in his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t want to stop making love to you, Rosewater. Nowhere near that. I want to know as soon as possible so we can bring you here where it’s safe for you.”

“And I want…” She couldn’t admit that she wanted the same, because she didn’t. The moment she crossed that bridge with the intent to rebel against her mother, there would be a civil war. She wanted her mother to abdicate peacefully as soon as she knew Rosewater was with an heir to her legacy. She wanted the cities to unite on the promise of her heir alone. All nothing but pleasant dreams next to the cold reality of neighbors at odds with each other.

But she could voice those dreams, and did, and Collar listened quietly, stroking her flank with a hoof all the while.

“I love you,” Collar told her at the end. “And I will be there for you. So will Rosemary and Cloudy for that matter, and my parents. And all of Damme, once they know you as I’ve come to know you.”

Despite the gravity of her feelings, she smirked and glanced down at his loins.

“Almost as well as I’ve come to know you,” Collar amended with a roll of his eyes. “Now the real question is… dessert before or after breakfast?”

There really wasn’t any question in her mind. “After. A parting gift from you to me.” And a scent mark on her flanks that would tell anypony with more scent skill than a Merrie foal that she was rutting with a stallion. It was risky, but she needed to get the idea out there sooner than she was actually pregnant so the idea wasn’t as shocking to the public.

He nodded slowly, lips pursed as he likely worked through the same political calculus. “It’s a risk.”

“One I have to take. My ponies deserve to know that I’m not idly sitting by and let my sister take the throne after my mother.” Rosary had a reputation for coldness that their mother lacked. Roseate was a wildfire, seemingly as unable to control her impulses as a forest fire, and Rosary was an icicle, sharp and sharply contained, but no less dangerous should her ire be focused. “I need to open up to my ponies, Collar, and I plan on taking my entourage on a tour around the town, helping clean up after the storm in small ways. Heat spells, breaking icicles off, and the like.”

He grimaced but nodded and kissed her once more before sliding from the bed to stretch and tap his hooves on the cold floor. “Then bathing time first, and then breakfast. I’ll not have my wife smelling of hours old sex and lust while working up a sweat.”

“My thanks. My nose might not forgive me otherwise.”

Rosemary blew out a breath and set a hoof to the door, focusing her attention on what she needed to say instead of worrying about what they would tell her. She could hear them and smell them on the other side, freshly clean and only a hint of their last night’s escapades lingering on the undertones of their scent.

“I’m here,” Cloudy whispered in her ear.

With a nod, sharp and jerky, she lowered her hoof and pulled the door open to find Collar and Rosewater standing at the balcony railing looking out over the lower floor and the muffled rush of ponies going about the morning’s business.

Collar occasionally lifted his head to a pony below, and whispered their name to Rosewater.

“Good morning,” Rosemary called out.

Rosewater flicked an ear and stepped back from the railing, smiling to her with all the love she’d ever shown her. “Good morning, you two.”

“Mother, I have to say something,” Rosemary said in as clear a voice as she could manage. “To you too, Collar,” she added when he started to step away to give them privacy.

A moment later, a double-layered silence spell sprang up, pink and silver clashing for a moment before they glanced at each other, touched horns, and let their magic bleed together into one cohesive shell of silver etched with regular bands of pink.

That they did it seemingly without effort spoke to their skill as mages, not only as innate users of unicorn magic.

“I, uh…” Momentarily distracted, Rosemary lost her train of thought.

“Our relationship,” Cloudy whispered helpfully, a grin audible in her voice.

“Right, right.” Confidence and composure shaken, she pulled back together the threads of her scattered thoughts and faced Collar first. “I apologize, Collar, for making you uncomfortable with my advances. It was not my intent to make you feel pressured.”

He nodded solemnly, bowing his head for a moment and making Rosemary’s heart skip a beat at the seriousness of his bearing. “It is a recent thing that I felt uncomfortable,” Collar said slowly. “Before I married your mother, it hadn’t hit me yet that you would be my daughter-in-law. Things moved swiftly, and I am not quite so fast to adapt as events moved. You have no need to feel as if you did wrong.”

And I still do, because I should have realized it right away. “I… was fixated, Collar. I shouldn’t get so fixated on a lover I lose sight of the larger picture. You’re my father-in-law now, and I will never stop loving you for what you’ve done for us. But I understand that what I had hoped would be between us is…” Rosemary swallowed. “Too far. For either of our cultures.”

“It is, and I will never stop loving you for being a bright star in this gloomy war, and for helping your mother cope with all she has been through.” Collar stepped forward and nuzzled her cheek. “But please don’t call me dad. I’m too young to have a daughter as old as you.”

Rosemary smirked, and before he could amend his statement, she said, “Yes, father.”

Rosewater giggled and nipped his neck for her so she didn’t have to. “You walked into that one, my dear.”

“I did.” Collar sighed and glanced down the hallway in either direction. “Don’t you dare tell Dapper—or Lace! I’ll not ever live it down and I’ll have to stage a coup just to get him to stop teasing me.”

“I won’t tell him,” Rosemary promised, forcing herself not to meet Rosewater’s eyes and keep them locked on him, as much seriousness in her posture and set of her ears as she could manage.

“She’s good,” Cloudy said in an awed tone beside her. “I can’t tell that she’s blatantly lying at all.”

Relief flooded through her. They were still joking and teasing with her even after all the fraught come-ons and ignoring the warning signs Rosemary had missed for the two weeks since the wedding. Letting go of Collar was going to take time, though, and she still wished things were simpler and they could be together, but that should fade with time.

She hoped.

“I’m hungry,” Cloudy said, rustling her wings. “I was up all night helping Rosemary calm down, because I knew it wasn’t going to be a problem.”

“I didn’t! And… I’d never want to treat a mistake like that as a non-issue,” Rosemary protested, putting as much earnest feeling into her words as she could manage. “I don’t want to be anything like my aunt.”

“You won’t be,” Collar said gently, letting his part of the spell fade, and looking up, surprised, when the silence bubble remained for another few seconds before Rosewater let go of her side of the spell, the mixed magic still taking a few more seconds to dissipate. “Interesting. I’ve not done too many magic melding spells, or practiced it much beyond the basics, but that seems odd.”

“You’re both powerful unicorns,” Rosemary said.

“They are,” Lace said from her left, coming up the stairs with her husband. “I felt the melding and came to investigate. It takes trust and skill in equal measures to so perfectly meld two spells of similar purpose together. Every generation has some ponies that can do so, but they tend to be not so skilled and steeped in magical ability as you two, and most powerful unicorn mages hoard their secrets like dragons hoard their treasures.”

“Were you able to?” Collar asked, glancing from his mother to Rosewater and back again.

“Once, though I lost that pony’s trust when I married your father. My father is long gone now, for the good of all, I must sadly say. It is my hope that you two will bring in a new era of cooperation, and we might see works of magic unseen since before the Battle of Two Nights.”

Rosemary glanced at Cloudy, then at her wings. “Can… unicorns and pegasi mix magics?”

Lace pursed her lips, seemed like she was about to shake her head, then cocked it and shook it. “I don’t know, Rosemary. There have been attempts to emulate Celestia’s power, of course, but none have succeeded to my knowledge.”

“I can’t imagine a goddess would take kindly to having her power usurped,” Collar said dryly.

“Indeed not. Some rumors say that is the cause of the battle, but…” Lace stomped a hind hoof. “History lessons can wait. I can practically hear your stomach growling, Rosemary. Our overnight staff is almost ready with breakfast, I believe.”

“Excuse me, but my stomach is perfectly polite and would not growl,” Rosemary said with a sniff. “Mother’s stomach, especially after such a vigorous workout last night, on the other hoof…” She glanced at her mother expectantly, brow raised.

When nothing happened, Collar coughed into his hoof and started off down the stairs, a silver glow around his horn winking out after a moment.

“Did you silence her stomach?” Rosemary demanded.

“A friend doesn’t tell,” Collar called over his shoulder.

Rosewater chuckled and leaned in close as she passed Rosemary. “They’re making savory oats with a side of fresh caught spiced salmon pastry.”

Rosemary opened her mouth to tell her it wouldn’t work when her stomach interrupted her with a loud, borderline angry growl.

Before she could do so much as growl at her, Rosewater and Cloudy laughed and bounded ahead to escape Rosemary’s nipping bites as she chased after them.

Stars, it felt good to have her family here. Together and unafraid of showing affection.

“What’s the plan for today?”

Collar looked up from finishing off his breakfast at Rosemary’s question. She was clearly hoping that today would be the day she got to go outside with an escort. Which might not be a terrible idea, considering most of the attention would be on Rosewater’s visit and its aftermath, but more attention would likely fall on her because of Rosewater’s visit.

He doubted too many ponies in the city had truly understood that Rosewater had stayed the night, but they would when he escorted her to the Rosewine bridge.

“Well… I wish you could go all the way to see your mother off, but you’ll have to settle for seeing her to the edge of the castle grounds,” Collar said, sparing his mother a brief glance, but taking the lead. “Platinum should be available to act as an escort for you if you want to stay out for an hour or so.”

Rosemary’s brows perked up. “Platinum? Really, you’ll let me go with her even after—” She stopped short, flashing a worried look at Lace.

“You had sex the night Collar and I had our time together?” Cloudy asked with an arched brow. “I don’t see why not. You don’t want to leave right now, either.”

Collar nodded, his cheeks warming faintly as his mother gave him a curious look. “She asked to be part of your escort pool. As did Sunrise, but, ah… political considerations mean we need to limit her involvement for now.”

“I did not just hear a guard lieutenant admit that one of her subordinates had sex with a prisoner,” Lace muttered. “By the stars, you are going to drive me batty worrying about violations of protocol.”

“If it helps,” Rosemary said meekly, “I’m the one who started it. For a friend.”

“Swear you’re going to give me a heart attack,” Lace grumbled under her breath and Dapper patted her lightly on the flank.

“Anyway,” Rosemary said brightly, sitting up straighter as if she hadn’t just admitted to sexual relations with a guard, even if that guard was more of a friend who visited her regularly and frequently. “So. I understand that Sunrise’s family doesn’t like mine very much at all, or at all at all. But I really would like to see about getting an exception to those rules so Cloudy and I can offer to go on dates with them on the palace grounds. Picnic before it gets too cold and windy, maybe making snowponies and decorating the trees for Hearth’s Warming.”

“Have sex with them without consequences,” Collar murmured under his breath, loud enough for his mother to hear.

“I mean, that should be understood,” Rosemary said diffidently and with a sharp sniff. Then she glanced across him to her mother. “Shouldn’t it?”

Rosewater tried, and failed to hold back a giggle. “Sweetie, you need to be very clear with Dammers about what you intend to do. For example. Collar, the next time we meet, I want to be on my side with my hind leg up against your chest and—”

“Oh my stars!” Lace cried while Dapper cackled and slapped his hoof against the cushion of his chair. “You just enjoy seeing me blush. That’s it, isn’t it? Well perhaps I will invest in some rouge and you can enjoy it whenever!”

“Collar, dear,” Rosewater said through a mask of mirth, “I think we ought to call a truce with your mother, elsewise we might find ourselves in need of tactical retreat without a pony to back us up.”

“Yes!” Lace cried, raising a hoof high in the air. “A truce! Please?”

“Terms?” Collar asked as he lifted the last of his salmon pastry to his mouth.

“Layered mint cake?” Lace offered, raising a brow. “For your eventual pregnancy announcement?”

“I dunno…” Collar mused, glancing at his wife. “Rosewater, I think—”

“Deal!” Rosewater blurted. “With silverthrush mint and a strawberry frosting? It’s damnably hard to get a decent stock in Merrie.”

Lace bobbed her head side-to-side, considering. “Done. It may have to wait until Spring, my dear. Silverthrush only grows in the Silver Mountains across the continent.”

After breakfast was wrapped up and Collar stood with Rosewater in the entry hallway to the palace, letting ponies from the staff and ponies coming into the palace with deliveries and messages see them huddling close and sharing nips and whispers and light kisses.

Collar was soundly resolved to enjoy his ability to show open affection towards his love for the few hours before word got back to Wing and all of Tartarus descended upon his head in a nagging scatter of pestering remarks from all of the allies he could pull out of their winter hiding holes on short notice.

There would probably be shouting.

He let the thoughts sweep away as Rosewater offered him an opportunity for another kiss, and instead of letting it be a short, sweet kiss like the rest, shifted and deepened the kiss, much to her surprise, and then delight as she closed her eyes and savored it.

When it passed, a flush crawled up his neck and he leaned in to cross his horn with hers, letting a trickle of magic flow from him to her, a gesture of intimacy and trust.

Sensations flowed back to him, a trickle at first, but then a steady stream, unnerving and foreign emotions of longing, deep enough to make his stomach tremble as if he stood over a pit, satisfaction that flowed through him like a syrupy sweet and thick warmth, languid and humming through his body, making him want to sink deeper into it. Suffusing the entire flow was a warm glow he could only describe as pink. Softer than vital red, more all-encompassing and accepting.

Love, he realized after a long moment of letting his attention focus solely on that color and what it meant.

The more he explored, the more he found. Minute trickles of other emotions, threads of what might be thought. Incredibly complex and shifting from moment to moment like a whirlwind of color through his mind.

After what could have only been a few seconds, but felt like an hour swirling in her emotional state, she cut off the flow of magic, but kept her horn resting against his.

She bit her lip, eyes locked on his, waiting.

What can I even say?

“I… had no idea emotions had colors,” he whispered.

“Fear is a deep purple,” Rosewater replied softly.

It took him only a moment to take her meaning. The first time she’d saved him from Roseate, her magic had been a sickly, greasy purple. Tangible fear.

“I didn’t feel any fear from you.”

“I’m not afraid of you. I don’t want to be.” Rosewater kissed his nose lightly. “Here, I feel safe. But going back to Merrie… I’m not afraid, but I am worried. Anxious. But it needs to be done.”

“It does. I wish I could go with you.”

“Someday. Perhaps soon.” She gave him a bright smile as she backed away. “Maybe…”

‘Maybe I’m already pregnant.’ Neither of them needed to say it, but he still wanted to.

“I hope,” he whispered.

“Me too.”

They gave up the kissing game and instead waited quietly, leaning against each other while they waited for Platinum to arrive and for a little more of the ice and snow to melt as the sun rose behind the clouds still streaming by outside.

It was remarkably calming, Collar found, simply standing still for a while watching the rest of the palace move around them and know he didn’t need to move from his wife’s side until for at least a few minutes.

Cold winds swirled around Rosewater’s mane as she stopped at the edge of the palace ground’s grassy pathways, only the shallowly sloped curb of gravel separating her from the main road following the path the old fortress walls had followed, studying the ponies streaming by as they studied her in turn and then hurried onwards. It was her, she was certain that they hurried away from.

Lace and Dapper stood beside her, Platinum and Rosemary on her other side, and Collar spoke to a patrol of Dammeguard that had diverted to offer additional protection to their procession.

“I wish I could go all the way to the bridge with you,” Rosemary said, raising her head, her mane streaming out, unbound and catching the dappled light flickering across the land as the low clouds scudded by quickly in increasingly thin cover. “I want to see the city again, talk to ponies outside the palace, and feel…” She tossed her head and her mane flicked in a wave of golden light. “This. Freedom.”

“It won’t be long, sweetheart,” Rosewater replied, ducking her head through the wave of gold to kiss her cheek. “We’re getting close.”

“I know. It feels like every day now drags.”

“Because you know the end is near, sweetie. You’ve been cooped up for so long and now that the door is almost open, you’re anxious to use it.” Rosewater nudged her cheek with a light touch of her nose. “If this is the course you truly want to take, be patient for only a little longer.”

“It’s one time,” Rosemary said softly, raising her head and staring with her bright pink eyes at the whole of Damme. “I can be patient.”

And the next time, Rosewater didn’t add, leaving a kiss on her daughter’s cheek before turning back to watch her husband chatting with the Dammeguard amiably. She couldn’t hear them with the wind carrying their words almost directly away from her, and she didn’t dare use an aural spell to bring the words to her, but they didn’t seem alarmed by Collar and Rosewater together.

After another minute, they exchanged salutes, and the patrol marched off in parade synchrony until they were sure Collar was out of sight and returned to a more normal cadance of steps.

“I apologize,” Collar said to them. “I forgot the patrol patterns after the first snow changed. We’re all set to go, Rosewater.”

“What was that about?” she asked as she followed him up onto the road and trailing after the patrol by a good distance.

“Dammeguards trying not so subtly to get ahead of the gossip,” he replied, chuckling. “I might have dropped a few hints about our relationship.”

“Oh?” Rosewater tagged his flank with a flirt of her tail. “Do tell. I can’t be ignorant of the gossip spread by my very own fiancee.”

“You’re much nicer than your reputation allows for,” Collar said, winking at her. “You don’t eat foals for breakfast, you don’t grow ten hooves taller when I’m not looking. You know, that kind of thing.”

“Collar!” Rosewater laughed, skipped a pace ahead and bumped into him. “Tell, me, love. For real, this time.”

He chuckled and bumped back against her. “It seems that the rumors I started yesterday evening are already spreading with the morning rounds. They asked if I was intending to marry you. In a roundabout way, anyway.” Collar flicked his ears and glanced around, giving Rosewater the excuse to do the same and count the eyes watching them and ears pricked their way.

They weren’t shouting, and the wind wasn’t helping, and even one miscaught word out of ten might spark the wrong kind of rumor. Or the right kind. That was the problem with scattering sparks into the wind. Either she sparked the torch or set the forest on fire.

“We do need to talk about it more,” she admitted after they passed a few more expensive homes, their larger lawns out front sporting small gardens being hastily covered after the surprising ferocity of last night’s storm. She recognized the crest over the door. One of the branch Primline families, the Cuffs, if she wasn’t mistaken. “We should make an announcement to quell the rumors. It can only hurt us if we keep it quiet for too long after letting it slip.”

Collar followed her gaze to the garden workers only half paying attention to their job. “We should. But when? And when should we get married?”

Rosewater had an idea for when the public ceremony should be, but it would need to wait until she was well and truly confirmed to be pregnant with her heir. “I… I don’t know. I’ve always thought the winter is beautiful, can be beautiful here. When the river’s frozen over and ponies decorate the bridges for the winter festivals and the farmers from the Hollows come back to town to visit distant relatives. It feels like the cities are fuller than ever of life.”

Collar continued walking as he listened to her, his head bobbing slowly.

“In Merrie, it feels full of our way of life. The foreigners have all gone home for the winter, but there’s new faces all the same that don’t stare and blush at every loose kiss.”

“In Damme, too,” Collar added after a longer pause. “There’s more to Damme life than being ‘Canterlot away from home,’ and it feels like sometimes our tourists don’t truly understand that. There’s a flow to life here that they never seem to be able to fit into quite right until they’ve been settled for a few winters and understand the bustle to get everything prepared for the next winter.”

“That’s something we share.”

Collar chuckled. “This winter, then?”

Rosewater hesitated before nodding slowly. “I’m not sure when. I’m trying to settle into the Garden still and taking up some duties to help lessen the burden of having another permanent mouth resident in the villa.”

“Are you going to sell your estate?”

Rosewater immediately shook her head no, then reconsidered. “No. Not yet. It’s been in the family for generations. I have too many memories to let it go. Rosemary wouldn’t forgive me, for one. And it’s never come up in negotiations with your mother. What would she be able to do with… my house?”

The idea came and flashed through her thoughts faster than she had a chance to think about it. Why not? It would still be in the family, but she could sell the estate at an exorbitant price to the barony on paper, and immediately use the proceeds to pay off Rosemary’s debt without any actual money changing purses.

But it couldn’t be that easy, could it? Rosewater shook her head to dislodge the hope the idea had sent whirling through her scattered thoughts.

“What is it?” Collar asked.

“Nothing. But maybe everything,” Rosewater said softly, shaking her head slowly. “You’re a genius, Collar.”

He blinked at her owlishly before raising his head and adding a prance to his stride. “I am. Aren’t I?” He promptly slipped on a patch of ice he’d have seen if he’d been looking down.

It was several streets before Collar stopped laughing at his folly and Rosewater stopped giggling.

Author's Note

Hello again, everyone! After a long hiatus, I'm back. I took some time off to work through a stressful time at work. Things are going smoother now, thankfully, and we're going into a bit of a slower period of time coming up, so hopefully my mental state will be still rather less stressed.

I can't say that I'll have an update schedule, but I haven't abandoned this story and I still want to see the end of the story myself. So, thank you everyone for reading and being patient with me.