Dusk Shine's New Gleam

“Oh wow.”

Gleaming Shield found herself amazed as she stepped hoof into the new crystal castle that had appeared on the outskirts of Ponyville.

“I’m thinking about calling it the Friendship Castle,” said Dusk Shine. “There’s even a sort-of throne room a few rooms down, with a throne for each of my friends and Spike.”

“Never mind that, where’s the washroom?” Gleaming asked.

“Again?”

“You try carrying a foal around who’s constantly pressing down on your bladder,” Gleaming retorted.

“Well, there’s one over there,” Dusk said, pointing at a random door amongst a row of identical doors.

“Good,” Gleaming said, casting a spell with her horn to leave a small bit of blue colouring on the door. Unlike her brother, she didn’t have a photographic memory capable of remembering which  door led where. “Point out to me every washroom you remember, so I don’t have to go searching later.”

It was sad, losing the treehouse Gleaming and Dusk had lived in for a little while, but the Tree of Harmony appeared to have outdone itself by giving the two ponies and Spike a new place to live. With the amount of room they had, Gleaming no longer needed to fret about finding a place with more than two bedrooms once her firstborn and Spike both grew up.

To her eternal lamentation, Gleaming was in the category of mares who had begun to show very early in their pregnancy, and had suffered for it as she was teased on a daily basis about the foal she was carrying. Now that she was eight months in, the teasing had subsided, but the way others fawned over her was just as embarrassing.

“Speaking of which, how is the little one?” Dusk asked as he pressed his ear against Gleaming’s belly, determined to hear the heartbeat of the foal growing in her belly. Something like that, for example.

“I’m fine, Dusk. Really, I am,” Gleaming insisted. “Discord made certain no harm came my way, or the foal’s.”

To Discord’s credit, not a single pony had actually died in Tirek’s rampage. That he had kept the mad centaur away from hospitals had been a significant mark in his favour. Gleaming had been visiting her parents at the time, and had hidden away in the basement, no longer in peak physical condition to go fight Tirek. She didn’t care to think about what would have occurred had she tried. Likely, she would have attempted to attack Tirek, only to have her magic sucked out, basically being completely ineffective against him.

“Don’t care, I’m going to do it anyways,” Dusk said, nuzzling her stomach some more.

Gleaming reddened at the open affectation, but didn’t push him away. “At least please try not doing that when Rainbow is around,” she said.

Dusk snorted. “After all the times he bragged about bagging a mare, it’s the least I can do to show him up. Maybe he’ll work up the guts and be brave enough one day to pop the question to the twins. You might even have grandfoals by then.”

Gleaming Shield chuckled at that. Rainbow Blitz was many things. Loyal was one of them, but notably averse to settling down was certainly another.

She trudged slowly along the hallways, Dusk walking behind her every step of the way, careful to catch her if she should fall. Honestly, I’m not fragile, Gleaming thought, but she didn’t give her brother and husband any grief over it. Dusk Shine was just honestly protective of his wife and foal-to-be, and Gleaming valued that protective instinct.

“But you know, I toured this castle as soon as it appeared, and I found a few curious things,” said Dusk.

“Oh? Like what?” Gleaming asked.

“Something like this, I suppose,” Dusk said, as he opened up the first door of a new corridor.

Gleaming looked in, and her jaw dropped. Of all things, it was a maternity ward. But instead of a large ward that she had seen in the clinics in both Canterlot and Ponyville, this was large enough to serve just a single family.

And there was a milking machine right against the wall, meant for a mare to milk herself to be able to feed a foal at a later time.

“And you know, I found a hallway of bedrooms earlier,” continued Dusk. “One large master bedroom with bathroom, but with four cribs in it. Then in that same hallway, there’s a bedroom that seems perfect for Spike, but after that, there’s twelve more bedrooms.” Leaning in, he whispered huskily, “Just about enough for a dozen foals to live in as they grow up.”

Gleaming froze up. The castle seemed to have sprouted from the ground personalised for Dusk and his friends, as he had earlier mentioned about the throne room. But it seemed to go beyond that, as the castle had also built enough bedrooms for all her future to live in.

Even the castle seemed intent on getting a poke in at Gleaming Shield.

“Oh, come on!” Gleaming shouted, looking up at the castle’s roof and shaking a hoof.