Standing atop the quantum thin barrier between timelines and worlds, I realize that this one I observe and relate to you had already branched away from that one. Yes, the one that one may be tempted to call the main world, or prime or true, the one viewed most often. It occurs to me it may have branched from it a long, long while ago, in fact, and had only seemed to run in parallel for a short while.

Rainbow and Rarity walked in on quite the reunion. Off in a corner, a pegasus, a unicorn and an earth pony, technically, albeit she was also the other two things as well.

“Oh, uh, hello, Trixie. And hello to you too, Night Glider. It’s good to see you again?” Not sure why she was here. Actually, Trixie either for that matter.

“Twilight Sparkle.”

“Oh, hey there, Princess Twilight! Where’s Starlight?”

“That’s right, Princess, where is Starlight? Was she not good enough for your oh-so-special A-Team!?”

“A-Team?”

“Are you still on that?”

“Yes I’m Still On That!”

Two pegasus and two earth ponies over to the side.

“Sho’nuff, you better watch out, Ms. Yearling, Rainbow- actually, is it A.K. Yearling or Daring Do?”

“Daring Do, Yearling is my pen name. Speaking of which, is Apple actually your last name? I gave you a cover name too, but I’d like to get it as accurate as possible.”

“Well, eenope. At least, I don’t sign no paperwork like that. I’m Applejack of the Apple Clan, but we don’t put no two ‘apples’ in yer name.”

“Fair enough.”

“Oh my, I didn’t expect to see you here, Tree Hugger. Are you a part of all this?”

“Heeeey, Flutts. Yeah, I kinda tagged along with them but I mostly was just there for moral support.”

“Oh good. I’d be very worried to find out you were in any sort of danger.”

“Nah, it was all good after I gave those timberwolves some sonic bliss.”

“I- what?”

And to the back, four ponies made up of two pegasi, two unicorns and four earth ponies, plus a dragon.

“And here’s the baby!”

“Oh my gosh, she’s a cutie! With her pitch black fur! And her purple hair! And her slit pupil… eyes… Cheese, is this who I think it is?”

“It can’t be. Zesty Gourmet is in Las Pegasus, last I heard.”

“Oh, nevermind then!”

There was a giggle from the crib while one silent voice looked dubiously between the two. “I- I trust you two to keep the baby entertained. I’m going to catch up with Twilight.”

“See ya, Princess!”

“So, if she isn’t Zesty, what other terrifying villainess reborn could she be?”

“That Sombra guy your friends blew up?”

“Sombra was a boy! And he wasn’t that scary. Now, she can’t be Gilda, I saw her a few months ago, and she was fine. Maybe Starlight? Oh my gosh, she was right behind us! When did she die!?”

“It’s just these things happen when you least suspect them, Pinkie.”

“But she was so young!”

One dubious voice of reason was left. “Are you two serious?”

“Spike, you’re in denial!”

“Little guy, you’re just going have to accept this as one of the hard facts of life.”

And then there was this little reunion happening at the door.

“Hello, Blueblood.” Rarity growled but felt a little giddy feeling Rainbow’s wing tighten, pushing her more firmly against Rainbow taut, firm flank. A glance to the side sent electricity up her spine as Rainbow’s hackles rose.

Blueblood just raised an eyebrow at all this. “Hello, you.”

“Wait.” Rarity’s eyes narrow and her face slackens in a confusion approaching something like outraged disbelief. “Do you not remember who I am?”

Blueblood grinned, “Should I?”

Rarity shook of the warm feathery embrace to get right in somepony’s face. “The Gala of two years ago? You used me as a pony shield for flying cake!”

Blueblood arched a brow. “Ah, I think I remember. You’re that jumped-up, gem-digging peasant seamstress, am I right?”

Rarity sneered. “You-”

“Oh, that is it!” Blue and feathers and angry body language stomped right past Rarity, making the prince back up. “I’ve had enough of you!”

Rarity flinched and stared. “Rrr- Rainbow, I don’t-”

Rainbow turned her head, brought her face awfully close to Rarity’s. “Don’t worry, babe-” An audible kiss laid right down on the jawline. “-I gotchyu.”

The rest of the room, dead silence. Had any of the other six been holding something glass, it’d be hitting the floor right about then but not a one of them had the sense of dramatic timing. Alas.

Leaving a slowly pinkening Rarity behind, Rainbow Dash stomped up to the Prince, her wings tightly held to her body.

“M’am, I would watch-”

“You piss haired, blue blooded pig snot! You disgust me!”

“Eh- excuse-”

“You make me believe in reincarnation because I can’t believe anypony could be as fulla horse apples as you after only one lifetime! How they allow the likes of you to remain in Celestia’s presence and live is absolutely baffling to me! I bet you spend all my taxes on sucking the botox out your flank to make that pretty colt face of yours! If your parents had any ounce of dignity left after they went through the utter shame of giving birth to something as totally worthless as you, then you stripped them of it with your every waking action!”

Blueblood backed further and farther up as Rainbow Dash pressed forward, pushing her snout in his face and just shouting to the top of her scraggly voice. He’d trip, falling on his flank and she pressed her advantage, looming over him, hammering him down. “You horrifying mud stain on the royal family, you make me wanna vomit! You get out of my face before I grab a lightning bolt and shove it so far past your cutie mark, I will use your eyes like a torch light!”

The prince scrambled to his feet on cue and bolted past the seething pegasus. He added a shriek to his departure right then as he dived between the legs of some towering, midnight blue pony.

Luna stood there, gaping, holding Starlight Glimmer upside-down in her magic with a similar expression. The two of them stared slackjawed at the assembled room but the lot of them were busy staring likewise at Rainbow Dash.

“Wha- what did I miss?” Starlight gasped.

Luna looked at her. “Honestly, what else was there to see? That was the single greatest thing ever.”

“I- how- wha-!?”

Pinkie finally looked at her and waved her forelegs. “Starlight, you’re not dead!”

“Seriously, what did I miss!?”

Celestia pursed her lips. “Twilight, I had no idea Rainbow Dash and Rarity were a couple. I almost would have expected you to tell me of this development, so I must say I admire your discretion on the matter.”

“Uh,” was Twilight’s well-worded and informative reply.

And Starlight, “What happened while I was gone!?” Still confused.

“But I really could have sworn Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were a thing,” Luna said. “Did you two have some nasty break-up?”

Rainbow raised her hoof. “Uh, actually, Princess, it’s not-”

Pinkie cut it. “That tramp Rarity stole her right out from under my hooves!”

Rarity pressed herself up against Rainbow Dash. “I’m sorry, Pinkie, but it seems Dashie has met a real mare.”

Rainbow Dash gave a flat, “What.”

Applejack put a hoof to her mouth and crowed with a grin, “Rainbow, ya heart breaker!”

Pinkie Pie was having none of that. “Oh, that’s it! Cheese, hold me ba- stop eating popcorn and hold me back, Cheese Sandwich!”

“Are you kidding? I usually have to pay for this kind of entertainment!”

Rarity clopped around the confused pegasus. “That’s right, Pinkie. She is now my valiant, chivalrous and dashing-”

“Haha, noice.” No matter what, Pinkie always appreciated a good pun. Cheese nodded next to her. “That was nice.”

“-mmhhm, thank you! She’s my dashing pegasus champion now!” Rarity emphasized the point by wrapping her forelegs around her chosen pony and kissing her on the cheek.

“Ugh, don’t get mushy on my now, Rarity!” Rainbow tried to push her off, but not too hard. “I already got rid of the guy!”

“That’s what makes this the perfect time, champ. Besides, this is rather tame compared to that lover’s peck you gave my neck.”

“What, I only kissed you on the cheek!”

“Then you missed, because you darn well nearly gave me a hickey.”

“Are you for real?”

“I bruise easily.”

“Uhhuh.”

Daring glanced between that and her farm pony companion. “So, is this what you and your friends do all day?”

“Nah, sometimes we have interpersonal problems.”

“Uhhuh.”

Luna darted her eyes between the lot of them. “So do wait, I find myself confused. Are Rarity and Rainbow Dash not a couple?”

“Nah.” Rainbow Dash made another attempt to shake off Rarity’s impression of Opal in her more affectionate moods. “It’s just, like, I really wanted to kick his butt but I thought I needed a real good- get off Rare -a real good excuse to do it.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Nah, I thought it still wasn’t a good enough excuse to whoop him in front of Princess Celestia-”

“I would have allowed it.”

“-heh, thanks. So I just gave him the drill sergeant routine.”

Spike raised a claw. “Actually, where the heck did you learn to do that, Rainbow?”

Rainbow fanned herself. “Oh man, so, this one time at-” She had to push somepony out from under her wings. “-get off Rare- this one time at Wonderbolt Academy, one of the recruits said she thought Spitfire was supposed to act a lot nastier. So Spitfire asked her if she really wanted to see Spitfire’s drill sergeant routine and she said okay. The recruit cried for hours and it was amazing.”

Still suspended in Luna’s glow, Starlight looked down at Rainbow. “What is wrong with you?”

Applejack opened her mouth, seemingly about to repeat the sentiment, when she paused and threw a dubious look at Starlight. “Not a whole lotta room to talk there, Starlight.”

“Wha- hey, what’d I do!?”

Applejack stared.

“I mean lately.”

“Define lately.”

“Girls!” Pinkie shouted, waving her forelegs. “Just forget about Rainbow stealing my woman, and come look at Luna’s baby!”

The silence’s spouse from earlier decided it could not live without its love, and tooks its life then and there. This second dead silence twitched horribly at the end of the noose in the middle of the room, where it hung until Night Glider awkwardly cut it down.

“Hold on, I thought you were with Rainbow Dash.”

Pinkie shrugged. “Meh, I’m like the town unicycle.”

“Unicycle?”

“Everypony tries to ride me but nopony can stand me!”

“Pffft, hahaha! I love this chick!”

“Princess Luna has a BABY!?” Clearly, Twilight didn’t appreciate the joke or maybe she had more important things on her mind.

Luna spoke, “Tangentially speaking-”

Her other half raised an amused look. “Oh, now you say it.”

“-shut up- but how did you know, Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkie looked at her dubiously. “Princess, it’s a pitch black alicorn baby with slit pupil eyes. Yeah, it can be so many ponies’ foal.”

“Touche.”

“Hold on, what? I gotta see this.” Rainbow’s sentiment mirrored the rest of her friends. Seven mares and a dragon using one of them as a footstool gathered around the crib, sticking their heads in to finally get a look at the gurgling little life that had brought them here in the first place.

“Oh wow, huh, that’s actually a pitch black alicorn, straight outta my fanfic.”

Glimmer was set down with them as the diarchs convened. “Yeah, except no red highlights like in yours.”

Applejack blinked and peered at Glimmer. “You actually read her stories?”

“Don’t you?”

“Princess Luna.” Rarity looked off, away from the crib. “How do you mean tangentially speaking?”

“Well, it’s not like I’ve taken on any secret lover lately-”

“Aw,” Rarity sighed in disappointment.

“-like my sister has.”

“Oh.”

There was a brief pause and then a third silence walked into the room. It tripped over the corpses and broke its neck. I mean, at this point, it was just getting morbidly comical.

All eyes turned in wide surprise towards the diarchs as that one got processed. All except for the baby, who is a baby, and Tree Hugger, who is Tree Hugger, who squeezed herself in next to Fluttershy.

“So, like, is now a bad time to mention the baby is Nightmare Moon or what?”

“Only tangentially,” Luna insisted.

There are too many bodies for this to be a mere coincidence, and the police have begun to suspect a silence serial killer is on the loose.

“Oh, so that’s who she is!” Pinkie said at last. “Cool, that’s was, like, my fifth guess!”

“I have so many questions.” Rainbow Dash gazed at the baby with a solemn blankness before taking account of her friends. “How about you girls?”

She got a general murmur of assent from the rest of the girls, except Pinkie and Twilight. Pinkie seemed pretty content so far with what she knew and didn’t know, and Twilight was having a nervous breakdown.

“Wha- wha- wha- wha- wha-”

“So, Princess Celestia-” Rarity fluttered her eyelashes. “-you have a lucky special somepony?”

Princess Celestia tilted her head. “Not- well, this isn’t precisely how I wanted this secret to come out.”

Princess Luna shook her mane. “Honestly, I thought these seven would know about it already. Twilight is a master of discretion, it seems.”

“And everypony else in the room?”

“Mm?” Luna looked around. “Ah, yes, I forgot about the B-Team.”

Trixie let loose a primal scream.

“Whaaaaaaa-” Twilight kept on.

“Princess Twilight Sparkle, return to us,” Luna said softly. “I know this is a shock, and Nightmare Moon hurt you deeply-”

“I mean, not really,” Rainbow said with a shrug. “You were pretty tame in trying to stop us up to the castle. I mean, the cliff and the manticore were pretty dangerous but like- Starlight and Discord were a lot worse than you.”

“I- buh- wha!?”

“I took their cutie marks, locked them in a room and tried to brainwash them into rejecting everything that made them special,” Starlight clarified. “I was- uh- I was pretty awful.”

Pinkie nodded. “Heck, Trixie tore off my mouth that one time and enslaved Ponyville. She was hardcore!”

Trixie perked at what might be a compliment. “Darn right!” Her companions on the B-Team looked at her dubiously.

Luna cantered on her hooves. “I- I nearly ended the world!” She said, desperate to get her villain credit back.

Starlight smirked knowingly at her. “No, you didn’t.”

“You shut your horse mouth!”

Princess Celestia sighed, moving in to put a stop to this nonsense. A gentle hoof was placed on her protege’s shoulder. “Twilight, I know this may come as a shock to you-”

Twilight flinched out of her brain fizzling meltdown to look at Princess Celestia with shocked eyes. “You’re darn right this is a shock!”

“-but I assure you, Nyx is not-”

“I didn’t know you were dating!”

“-daaaiiiii- excuse me, Twilight?”

Princess Luna had been winding up to wallop Starlight Glimmer good and proper without being too obvious about it, but actually saw it far more proper to put a halt to it for this. “‘Tia. ‘Tia. Do you honestly mean to tell me you forgot to tell your surrogate daughter about your new would-be consort?”

Celestia closed her eyes, making a noise like a hum and growl being thoroughly juiced to make a pulpy noise drink. Twilight glared right up at her, cheeks puffed and a similar noise vibrating in her throat, except this cocktail was pureed with a scream.

“Celestia, Solaria, did you really just pull a Shining Armor on Twilight Sparkle?”

“Well, this is awkward,” Fluttershy very quietly observed.

Time for a field trip.

A whole lotta mares, one stallion, one dragon and one very long hallway lined with stained glass windows. These ones depicted single subjects rather than events, as many such windows most guests were used to. Now Twilight, she recognized many of these figures. Indeed, Twilight knew who these were and recognized why the Princess had insisted they, that she, come through here.

Daring Do took up the role of tour guide without thinking. “The Lane Of The Light’s Lost Lovers, each of these windows depicts one of Princess Celestia’s late spouses. They are all po- people that the Princess loved and was loved in return by during their brief time on this world.”

“Very good, Ms. Do.”

“Ah!” Daring Do reared. “Princess, I’m sorry! I-”

Princess Celestia looked back at her with a wry grin. “No, no, my adventurous little pony. It pleases me to know some ponies remember them. It does well to remind my little ponies that I am no virginal princess.”

Twilight grimaced. “Princess, I’m-”

“And no apologies from you either. Even among those close to me, this mistake seems to be made quite often. I’m told I have a bit of an aura. Right Luna?”

“You’re everypony’s mother and nopony wishes to think about their mother doing that.” Luna snorted while shaking her head. “Sometimes I think that’s part of why half your marriages were to non-ponies as much as any openness to them.”

Celestia huffed good naturedly before turning to Daring Do again. “If there is any offense I would take, it is referring to me as ‘the Princess’, when there are quite a few more of us now, especially my sister, but I imagine many ponies are still getting used to that. Now, Ms. Do, can you name some of my late spouses?”

“S-sorry. Um-” Daring Do nodded and nodded again towards a couple windows. “I recognize the pegasus mare there as Lieutenant Paper Mache and over there, that hominid, is Gareth ‘Grey Spear’ the Hunter.”

Twilight piped up. “And that earth pony mare there is Blazing Saddles and the diamond dog there is Spike The Ornery.”

Spike the dragon patted at his neck. “Well, he’s got a spikey collar, I guess.”

“Supposedly, he wore it as a message to Princess Celestia, that though she had bound him, she would never truly tame him.”

Luna rolled her eyes. “Actually, he was trying to say to ‘Tia was, ‘Put me on a leash and take me for a walk.’”

Immediately, Pinkie and Rainbow cracked up at that one, Night Glider and Starlight following right behind when they realized it was safe to do. Other ponies seemed hesitant still or just uneasy, none more so than Twilight Sparkle. Spike didn’t get it.

“Oh, you think that’s good for a laugh, wait until you hear about this character,” Luna drawled as they drew to the end of the hall. Here. one window stood in the middle, depicting a mottled gray pegasus with huge, spread wings as if he stood vigil over the rest.

“Princess Celestia’s first spouse,” Daring Do said from memory. “Gosling The Swan Prince.”

“More like peacock,” Luna huffed. “No, no, peacad.”

Rainbow snorted with anticipation for the next dirty joke. “What’d he do?”

“Luna.”

“No, ‘Tia, let them hear about this, your precious prize peacock!”

…

More than a thousand years ago…

Out on a balcony, the Swan Prince sat, surrounded by three enormous stallions. They- they don’t matter at this junction. Suffice it to say, they sat in silence, watching the sun dip beneath the distant mountain of Canterlot. The enormous earth pony turned to Gosling, observing silent for a moment before he spoke with a voice like gravel.

“You seem thoughtful, Gosling.”

“Yeah, I was just thinkin’, gents.” Gosling’s accent was the grandfather to the Manehatten inner city dialect.

“Mmm, what is it?” The pegasus had, at this point in time, a voice like a stiff breeze with distant, passing thunder.

“If I nutted all over Celestia’s face, would anypony notice?”

The unicorn of the three giants tried to hide his snickering like the soft burble of a steam, but then the dam broke and cackling laughter flooded out. The earth pony grunted, any laughter he had had been depleted like a stripped mine a while ago. The pegasus choked and coughed, the perfect cover for the sound of two alicorn mares doing the exact same thing just a balcony below.

…

On the floor, dead, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, with Cheese and Night Glider trying to help them up and not get dragged down with them. Applejack had her hat pulled down over her face, embarrassed and trying really hard not to laugh too, something she oddly had in common with Celestia and one wing. Rarity, Trixie, Fluttershy and Daring Do looked a bit shocked and mortified to varying degrees, but none so much as Twilight Sparkle. Starlight Glimmer did her best to keep her teacher from keeling over from shock. Tree Hugger was utterly placid, far more attentive of the bundled baby alicorn in one foreleg, and Spike just didn’t get it.

Luna was smug.

“Let’s- let’s just keeping move, everypony,” Celestia said as she lowered her wings. “Come, let’s meet Gathaga.”

Author's Note

Penstroke still created Nyx, that hasn't changed.

Kudzuhaiku created Gosling and Soulpillar created Gareth. All three have been used with permission. The idea of Celestia having a long line of spouses also comes from Soulpillar.

Paper Mache is a reference to Vavacung. Blazing Saddles is also a reference, but I dunno whom actually owns the characters. Both are just name dropped references, so I hope that won't be a problem.

Any concepts you see in here and like, feel free to take. You might execute them better than I.