An Unexpected Small Surprise
The Royal Guard stallion standing in front of Ponyville's Golden Oak library was very experienced, having been part of Princess Cadence and Prince-Consort Shining Armor’s security division for nearly a year now. He had survived the Canterlot Wedding Invasion with little more psychological trauma than the occasional nighttime screaming fit, the Crystal Empire Equestrian Games fiasco with no major physical injuries other than a sudden aversion to yogurt, and even a week-long detail guarding Discord after his release and reformation. He didn’t talk about that at all.
When Princess Cadence and Prince-Consort Shining Armor decided to visit Princess Twilight Sparkle in Ponyville, there was an immediate rush of volunteers among the Royal Guard due to the reputation of the small town and its inhabitants. Unfortunately for Private Redshirt of the Royal Guard, the rush was all in the direction of his fellow guards turning in leave requests for a sudden influx of expired grandparent’s funerals, immediate reassignment requests for polar penguin counting missions, and a veritable plague of sick leave requests due to Feather Flu, Coughing Croup, and Pony Pox outbreaks that nearly triggered a quarantine of Canterlot.(*) It was a problem he had experienced throughout his career, from his first experience escorting Princess Celestia to the Summer Sun Festival in Ponyville(1), to the present. Personally, he blamed his parents and their decision to give him such an eccentric name.
For those reasons and many more, when Pinkie Pie trotted up to the library door carrying a little colt in a baby carrier, the guard stood to one side and let her through even though he had already seen Pinkie Pie go into the building once already.
After all, it was not the weirdest thing he had seen(2) in the town. Although if he had seen what happened after the perky pink party pony went inside and closed the door, he may have needed to change that opinion.
* * *
“Oh, Princess Cadence! Guess who!” caroled a familiar voice from inside the front door of the library. Pinkie Pie stood on the welcome mat with an evil grin, looking at the four other ponies in the main room sipping casually from teacups, all of whom were looking in her direction with varying degrees of shock. Except for the Pinkie Pie at the table, who had put down her teacup and was looking at the new Pinkie Pie while tapping her chin in thought.
A flash of green changeling magic surrounded the pony on the welcome mat, revealing the Changeling Queen Chrysalis, cackling in joy as she luxuriated in the emotional turmoil emitted by her audience. “Surprise!”
“But you don’t look anything like Surprise,” said Pinkie Pie with a puzzled look.
“Chrysalis!” gasped Twilight Sparkle with her wings flaring out behind her as she glared at the intruder into her library.
“Oh, yeah! I thought I recognized her,” said Pinkie Pie with a happy smile. “You must have gotten my invitation for Cadence and Shining Armor’s one year anniversary party. You’re a little early, it won’t really get started until next month.”
“I’m not here for a party,” hissed the Changeling Queen, with a slight hesitation before asking, “It won’t have apples in the cake, will it? I’m allergic to apples.”
“Allergic. To. Apples.” Pinkie Pie wrinkled her nose as she wrote in her party planner book. “Got it. No apples in the cake.”
“What are you here for, Chrysalis?” snapped Twilight, charging her horn with arcane power.
“I brought your brother a little present, Auntie Twilight.” The baby carrier on Chrysalis’s back glowed green, and a little white colt floated out and onto the floor. A shock of electric-blue hair tended to fall over the little unicorn colt’s eyes, making a familiar contrast with his pure white coat. With a shake of his little head, the colt managed to toss the errant mane to one side, although at significant penalty to his youthful stability. He tottered around on weak legs for a few moments before plunking down on his diaper-clad rump and looking at Shining Armor with a happy cry, his little blue eyes filled with love and recognition. “Dada?”
Shining Armor leaned forward with wide eyes and looked at the tiny version of himself, accurate in all details right down to the cute little blue hooves. “Do you mean...”
“Yes!” Chrysalis threw back her mane and cackled, her unearthly voice echoing around the library needing only a rumble of nearby thunder to make the effect complete. “Those steamy nights of exquisite pleasure we shared before our wedding were more rewarding than I first realized. If it had been a filly, I would have kept her and raised her to be a true Queen of the Changelings. But since it’s just a colt, you can have him.”
“Just a colt?” Shining Armor looked up at the Changeling Queen, bristling with irritation.
Chrysalis looked back, slightly puzzled. “Of course. Males are good for only one thing.”
Cadence nodded. “I can see your point.”
“Hey!”
Princess Twilight Sparkle held a hoof over her brother’s muzzle. “Hush, big brother. The mares are talking.”
The Queen of the Changelings purred with a lascivious look at Shining Armor. “Don’t worry, lovercolt. The next time I’m feeling fertile, I’ll just put on my disguise and slip back into your bed so we can try again.”
“Ooo,” said Shining Armor brightly, before catching a look from his wife and turning it into more of a “Eww.”
Princess Cadence stepped forward, her pink wings flared wide and brushing the library walls to either side. “You are not touching my husband!”
“Well,” started Chrysalis with one raised eyebrow.
“— without me there too!” continued Princess Cadence.
“Ewww,” muttered Twilight, looking away.
“What?” said Shining Armor in stunned disbelief.
“And Auntie Celestia,” said Cadence with a thoughtful look.
“Now just wait one minute!” said her husband.
“And Luna, of course,” finished Cadence with a firm nod.
“Hm....”
“I’m not quite following this—” started Chrysalis before she was interrupted by a pink streak of loving alicorn who zipped across the library floor and wrapped the changeling up in a giant hug of epic proportions.
“Because they all are going to hug the stuffing out of you! You are the best Changeling Queen! Ever!”
“Urk! Air!”
Cadence ignored the plea from the suffocating changeling, getting a better grip and adding some kisses to the hug. “You knew Shining Armor and I couldn’t have children, and you gave us one! I love you! Auntie Celestia and Luna are going to flip at having a new grand-nephew to cuddle! Thank you! Thank you!”
“Not so much love! Indigestion! Help!”
Twilight Sparkle leapt into the embrace and added her own hug. “You’re right! And now mom and dad will quit bugging me, no offence, to get a stallion of my own and have grandfoals for them to cuddle.” She giggled, running one hoof across Chrysalis’s chitinous skin. “I’m an ant’s aunt.”
“And I get to throw all of you all a party!” shouted Pinkie Pie, adding herself to the group hug. “A baby shower and an anniversary party and a new friend party all in one giant stupendous ginormous PARTY!”
Fighting to get to the top of the crushing group hug, Chrysalis finally managed to get free enough to give a queen-like belch while looking at all of her captors. “You’re all okay with this? I thought you would be angry.”
“Angry?” Cadence kissed the Changeling Queen softly on the cheek and nuzzled her up the neck. “You gave us the gift of life, a child we could never have by ourselves, born of my husband’s love for what he thought was me. How could it possibly be wrong?”
“Well, I did try to take over Equestria during your wedding to put you all into extraction cocoons.”
Cadence waved a hoof dismissively. “It was a Tuesday. Now, I have to know. Are you still lactating?”
With a slight blush, Chrysalis responded, “Well, yes, but—”
“Wonderful!” exclaimed Twilight Sparkle, with a quick glance underneath the Changeling Queen to check on the equipment in question. “I understand a mother’s milk is so much better for the baby than formula in the early weeks.”
“You’re right, Twilight,” said Cadence, relaxing her iron grip on the Changeling Queen to do her best puppy-dog eyes gaze that always reduced Shiny to a puddle. “Can you please come back with us to the Crystal Empire for a while until we get the cute little colt onto solid foods? Just for a few weeks. Please?”
“B-but,” stammered Chrysalis. “I thought after the invasion, I was still—”
Princess Cadence snorted and rolled her eyes. “Oh, piffle. That little thing?” Abandoning the hug for a few moments(3), she flung open the library front door and tapped the guard on the shoulder.
Pointing to the trapped changeling inside the library, Cadence told the guard, “See her? She’s fine. Spread the word, please.” The Princess of Love fairly skipped back across the library to rejoin the ongoing hug with a kiss on the lips for the Changeling Queen. “No problem.”
“A son.” Shining Armor remained in the middle of the library floor, staring at his tiny counterpart drooling on the floor. “I never thought this would happen.” Lowering himself down, he laid down next to the little foal and chuckled as the little colt promptly began to climb all over him, looking and exploring this big new pony who looked so much like him. Shining Armor’s parents had always said how curious he was about the world, and it seemed as his son was just as active and nosy as he had been. Although hopefully less than Twilight, because he had lived through those years with his little sister, and some of those experiences made Discord look tame.
“Well, little guy. I guess — YOUCH!”
“Oh, darn. He’s hungry again.” Chrysalis fought free from the group hug and hurried over to where Shining Armor was clutching a very private part of his anatomy. “No, no, little one. Stallions don’t have milk there.”
Cadence promptly hurried to her side and helped pry the little foal away from her husband, taking a look inside his tiny, bloodstained mouth. “That’s so cute! Look, Shiny. He’s cutting his baby fangs(4).”
Twilight vanished upstairs with a flash of purple light, appearing moments later with a stack of warm towels. “Here you go, Chrysalis. Let’s find you a nice quiet place to nurse so we all can talk.”
“I’m bleeding here, you know.”
----*-*-*-----
A spasm went through the giant crystal-decorated bed as Shining Armor woke, blinking his eyes and trying to calm his racing heart. Their sparkling bedroom in the Crystal Palace was weakly lit by moonlight, but the reflections from all the crystal furniture and decor were something he was still getting used to seeing, especially in the middle of the night. The gentle snore from beside him, as well as the warm radiance and soft perfume of feathers, reassured him that Cadence had not been awakened by his nightmare, and he settled back down on his pillow with a smile.
Aunt Luna, you’re a warped and twisted individual. That dream you sent was just... wacked. I know you’re in a constant prank war with the rest of your alicorn relatives, but there are times I wish you would just leave me out of it. I guess I just need to get used to having alicorns with strange habits as relatives, since I not only have a wife, but a sister who—
A faint noise somewhere out in the Crystal Palace caught Shining Armor’s attention and brought all of his musing to an abrupt halt. Slipping silently out of bed, the stallion tiphooved down the polished shining corridor that separated the Royal Bedchambers from the rest of the Private Wing of the Crystal Palace. The noise happened again, a faint snort and yip of pain that settled down into a repetitive smacking noise that sounded vaguely familiar somehow. He slipped up to the guest bedroom door, gently swinging it open and stood shocked at what he saw.
Twilight Sparkle leaned up against the bed, cushioned by several towels as a familiar-looking small white colt nursed beneath her. Her green-eyed gaze, as well as a familiar leer at the stallion intruding into her private moment, made it shockingly clear just who was really allowing the foal to nuzzle at her udder, but the few moments of disconnection he felt until realization soaked in were something that would bother him for a long time.
“Hello, lovercolt,” purred Queen Chrysalis with an upraised eyebrow and a sensual licking of the lips. “Sorry for disturbing you, but the little one woke up hungry, and I thought I’d get him used to his new relatives. Nothing for you, I’m afraid. Yet.”
“Just... checking,” mumbled Shining Armor, shuffling backwards to get out of the room with what was left of his dignity intact.
“Why don’t you and that delicious young wife of yours go back to bed and cook up a little midnight snack of love for your houseguest?” called Chrysalis, as Shining Armor closed the door and began retreating down the hallway.
With a substantial application of willpower, he managed to avoid breaking out into a gallop, slowing his pace to a quiet walk with deep breaths and a phrase he would repeat frequently for the next several weeks, and longer.
“This could take a lot of getting used to.”
(*) Only rapid action by an experienced administrator at the Canterlot Center for Disease Control cancelled the quarantine order, after she got the full story from one of the affected guards who happened to be her brother.
(1) Where he learned the folly of direct frontal assaults upon evil alicorns who had promised to bring about Night Eternal. Also, his discovery about how badly the metallic Royal Guard armor performed against lightning.
(2) At least things that he remembered seeing.
(3) Leaving Pinkie Pie to carry on her portion of the hug in her absence, a position for which she was highly qualified.
(4) Worth 4 bits each to the Fang Flutterpony(5) if carefully placed under a nighttime pillow after being shed.
(5) A distant relative to the Tooth Flutterpony, only less social and with a higher payout rate for pointed teeth.
