Shining Armor smiled as he looked down at his daughter while she wiggled around in her crib. The little alicorn let out a mirthful giggle. “Hey there. How’s my little princess?” he asked Flurry Heart as she took her hoof out of her mouth and met his eyes.
Then, she let out a squeal of delight when Cadance walked up next to her husband and reached up towards the pink pony. “Mama!”
Cadance let out a tiny squeal of delight of her own at the declaration. “That’s right sweetie,” she said before picking up on Shining Armor’s distress out of the corner of her eye. “Now, can you say Dada?”
For a second, the foal looked ready to acquiesce to her mother’s request as she looked over to the white unicorn. But then she looked back to the pink alicorn and reached out with her hooves again. “Mama!”
“Well, I tried,” Cadance said before picking their daughter up in her magic before taking her over to the bed and laying on her side so Flurry Heart could nurse. “Just give it time Shiny.”
Shining Armor sighed and hung his head. “I know,” he mumbled before looking over to his daughter and wife. “It’s just...she’s been calling you mommy for a couple of weeks now. It’d be nice if I got some love from her too ya know. Sometimes, it’s like she doesn’t even care that I exist.”
The giggle that came from Cadance’s mouth didn’t make the stallion feel much better. “Shining, she’s barely more than a month old. Mama probably means feed bag in her mind right now,” the pink princess told her husband. It didn’t help much. “And if you want her to warm up to you, spend some time with her.”
“Doing what?” he asked.
Cadance shrugged. “Well, how about we...go to the park after lunch,” she suggested. “Just you me, and...Merry, just incase we need an extra pair of hooves with the baby.”
Although the thought of spending an afternoon relaxing with his family was tempting, the skeptic inside of him pointed out a little problem with that plan. Ever since the baby had been born, Cadance had taken to taking long naps in the afternoon. He didn’t want to wear her out. The Crystal Empire needed its princess.
Still...the idea of bonding with his daughter...the temptation was a bit too much.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Shining Armor asked cautiously. “You do need your rest.”
Cadance let out a dejected sigh. “It’s a bad habit I need to break. Just because I get a little tired after lunch doesn’t mean I can’t get through the day without sleeping half of it away,” she told him. “Don’t worry, everything will be fine.”
Despite his earlier reservations, Shining Armor had to admit that Cadance had been right. The time in the park as a family did them good. Even if most of it was spent lounging beneath a large oak tree that had been transplanted from Equestria to let Cadance relax in the shade instead of the two of them pushing a stroller around the path, Shining Armor still found that he enjoyed himself.
Especially since they had also brought along the nanny to handle the less...pleasurable tasks of fatherhood.
“She’s ready Your Highness,” the old earth pony nanny named Merry said as she handed the freshly changed foal over to the stallion.
Shining Armor took the little pony in his magic, and Flurry Heart put on an upset face before she began to struggle in the levitation field. “Hey now,” he told his daughter gently. “You like this. I’ve seen Cadance use her magic on you dozens of times. You never get fussy with her.”
Although it was probably his imagination, Shining Armor could have sworn he saw the little foal frown at him before letting out a little humph and looking away.
“Highness,” Merry spoke before reaching out with her green hooves. “If I may?”
Shining Armor looked over to the nanny and had to stop himself from pulling back on the foal. Cadance, he could take. Flurry Heart was her daughter after all. But, Merry Meadows was just somepony that Flurry had taken a shine to while Cadance and Shining had been interviewing nannies when it became apparent that raising a foal and running an empire at the same time was a bit too much. Seeing his daughter reach out for a pony outside their family, other than Pinkie Pie that is, just reminded Shining Armor how little he could connect with his daughter.
Eventually, Shining gave in and handed the foal over. It stung, but he didn’t want Flurry Heart to cry.
“Hey Merry, you’ve done stuff like this for a long time, right?” the unicorn asked in a dejected tone before he settled down on the grass to the sounds of his delighted daughter in somepony else’s forelegs.
“Sixty years, Highness,” the old mare replied as she let Flurry play with her hoof without letting it get close enough for the baby to suck on it.
Shining Armor tensed. “Is this...normal?” he asked. After seeing the old mare’s confusion, the unicorn thought a second before adding some clarification. “With foals and their fathers, I mean.”
“Every pair of parents is different, Highness,” Merry told him. “But...yes, I’ve seen it many times before. The father is too busy to spend time with his foal, and she or he bonds closely with the mother. But that’s what has to happen when the stallion isn’t around during the early years. She’ll grow out of it.”
The sounds of heavy hooves trampling across the ground drew Shining Armor’s attention and awakened Cadance from what was a very short nap. “Prince Armor, Princess Cadance!” the light blue crystal pony said as he galloped into the section of the park the rest of the ponies were steering clear of to give the royal family some peace. “Your Majesties, forgive me for disturbing you, but Princess Twilight Sparkle and her retinue walked into the palace a few minutes ago asking to see you.”
Shining Armor got an uneasy feeling in his gut. He had no idea his little sister was supposed to be coming up north, and Twily never did anything without letting everypony know at least a week in advance, complete with a full itinerary. The fact that she had just showed up with no warning was more than a little troubling.
“Okay, let’s get going.”
Despite the fact that it really wasn’t the best place for it, the royal couple met Twilight and her friends in the throneroom. Neither Cadance or Shining Armor took their proper seats though, that would have been a little too formal. Even if they were all royalty, the three of them were family first...and the rest of the girls were...well, they were close to Twilight. That was all that mattered to Shining Armor.
“Twilight, what is it?” Is there something wrong? There’s something wrong, isn’t there?” Shining Armor asked fearfully before motioning to Merry to take the baby in the stroller back to the nursery.
A tiny bit of annoyance showed on Twilight’s face for a fraction of a second before she rolled her eyes and giggled. “Nothing’s wrong Shining Armor,” she told her big brother. “We just came to see the baby.”
Cadance cocked her head to the side. “That’s it?” she asked with a raised eyebrow before motioning Merry back over.
The green pony looked over to Twilight, and after the purple alicorn nodded her head, she turned the stroller around and brought Flurry Heart over to see her au-“Dada!” Flurry Heart said as the baby carriage got close to the purple mare.
There was a moment of mental disconnected as Shining Armor heard his daughter refer to Twilight by the title that rightfully belonged to him. As for his little sister, she let out a delighted giggle and reached down into the crib with a single hoof. “Oh! One month old, and you can already tell. You are a smart one, aren’t you?”
“Uh...Twilight?” Cadance spoke up.
Shining Armor was...less reserved. “OH COME ON!” he shouted. “It...you...seriously?” he asked...either his daughter, or Twilight, in all honesty, Shining Armor wasn’t too sure. “Cadance and the babysitter I could take, but...this? I mean...come on!”
“Dada!” Flurry Heart spoke, adding insult to injury as Twilight lifted her up and the baby nuzzled her aunt fiercely.
Twilight...giggled. Not her usual giggle, it sounded...off. Wrong. Almost...dark.
A worried look crossed Cadance’s face. “Twilight?” she asked.
“Give me a moment,” the purple alicorn asked before she let out another little laugh. “It’s just...I’ve been planning for this for so long, and now that it’s here, hehehehehe, I just want to take a second to savor the moment.”
Shining Armor’s look came to mirror Cadance’s own. “...Twilight?”
“Oh come now Shining Armor,” Twilight said in a much deeper, darker voice than Shining Armor’s sister was supposed to have. “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out.”
“Dada!” Flurry Heart cried out again.
Shining Armor’s body seized up with fear as Flurry Heart called out to him. “N-No, “ he mumbled.
“Chrysalis,” Cadance breathed in fear before dropping her plot to the floor and raising her hooves. “Okay...okay, you win. I surrender. Cocoon me, attack me, feed off me, do whatever you want to me. Just...just don’t hurt our baby. Please.”
The pony that only looked like Twilight Sparkle stared back at Cadance for a few seconds while the rest of the ponies Chrysalis gave a collection of evil smiles. Soon after, the changeling queen joined in with the rest of them. “Oh come now Cadance...do you honestly think I would have waited until now to take my revenge if I had simply wanted to kill you?” she asked. “How unoriginal!”
“Dada!” Flurry Heart cooed again before nuzzling her captor.
Shining Armor stood frozen as he tried to think of what to do.
“After all, I am a changeling,” she said with a little cackle that made Flurry giggle in delight. “My kind assume the form of a loved one to penetrate deeply into the most private of sanctuaries. If I had wanted you dead, I would have done it...oh...eleven months, two weeks, and three nights ago when I had you all to myself for the whole night.”
Cadance frowned. “What’re you talking about?”
As for Shining Armor, he quickly did the mental math gasped. “Wait...you…”
“Dada!” Flurry Heart said again.
And it all became clear.
So horribly clear.
“No, no it’s not true,” Shining Armor said as his eyes widened in horror. “That’s impossible!”
“Hehehe,” Chrysalis giggled with dark glee. “Yes! There it is! That look! That’s what I wanted. Killing the two of you would have been easy, but this. The joy I feel I as I watch that realization enter your eyes.”
Cadance looked back and forth between the two ponies in confusion. “What?” she asked. “What is it? I don’t get it.”
The lack of a realization on Cadance’s part put a frown on ‘Twilight’s’ face. Then she rolled her eyes and sighed. “Very well idiot, I’ll spell it out for you,” she said before a plume of green flame washed over the purple body to replace Twilight’s body with a male one that had a shining white coat and a blue mane. “I. Am. Her. Father.”