The pleasant morning gave way to an equally pleasant afternoon. However, the party was starting to wind down as many of the guests, having eaten and socialized their fill, left. The Cakes had left first—Mrs. Cake not meeting my eye as they offered goodbyes—and after that, the rest had trickled out. Aloe and Lotus had been the most recent, with Lotus hugging me and insisting I come for another massage sometime soon.

Now the gathering just consisted of our closest friends, most of which were gathered around a single smoldering cooking pit—Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie, Octavia, Vinyl, Avera, Ebony, Primrose, Stacker, Sunny, Cadance, Twilight, and myself. Rainbow and Applejack sat off to the side along with Big Mac, all three sampling from the leftover barrels of cider. The crusaders and Spike were camped out in a sunny patch of grass, lost to the world as they dozed happily. Pyresteed had finally come outside with Spike, the former snacking on the remaining ribs while the latter nestled into Twilight’s lap.

A good amount of food remained, and we picked at it idly as we conversed, reminiscing about days gone by.

“No, I’m being dead serious,” I said, even as Twilight whined and blustered beside me. “Sunny had only been living with us for a week, and Twilight had already come up with a budget and was trying to convince me she had to leave. Because according to her, ‘she was eating too much food’.”

“I wasn’t wrong!” Twilight defended. “We were feeding another mouth on a budget meant for three ponies!”

“Twelve years!” I shot back to the chortles of our friends. “We were apparently going to go completely broke in twelve years. And that’s without any more bits coming in.”

Twilight’s cheeks puffed out. “Okay, I’ll admit I was being a little ridiculous. But I didn’t like how much attention she was giving you at the time!”

“I don’t remember any of this,” Sunny wheezed in my lap, wiping a tear from her clouded eyes. “Oh Celestia, that’s amazing.”

“Of course she would be giving him attention,” Avera snickered. “She just discovered an intelligent human.”

“I know, I know!” Twilight said, waving a hoof. “Looking back now it was silly, but at the time it was, I don’t know… important? I just didn’t like how it made me feel, okay?”

Chuckling, I reached over and scratched behind Twilight’s ear, earning a happy coo from her. “Water under the bridge now,” I said.

“Well, I think it’s positively wonderful that Ms. Sunny was in the right place at the right time to help you,” Rarity said. “Even if she was associating with a rather ghastly group of individuals.”

“They were the only ones willing to hire me at the time,” Sunny said lamely, her ears pressing against her head. “I needed the money and I’d always wanted to work with humans, so when they offered me the job as human handler for their group, I jumped at the chance. It wasn’t until later that I realized what was happening, and by then it was too late to back out. At least, not safely. So I was stuck with them until the Royal Guards started tracking us down.”

I hugged the sad pony tighter against my chest. “I, for one, am grateful for that. I probably wouldn’t be here if you hadn't been there.”

Sunny shook her head. “But I helped them do a lot of bad things!”

“And I’d say you made up for those bad things by helping us hunt them down,” Stacker said.

“Ponies and humans died because of me,” Sunny whined. “If I had just left sooner…”

“And ponies and humans were saved as well,” Stacker countered.

Sunny opened her mouth to respond, but I placed a finger on her muzzle, silencing her. “Ah ah ah, no. No more of this pity party. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” At the silence that followed my statement, I glanced around at the confused looks before facepalming. “It’s… it’s a saying back home. Humans rode horses. For transportation. Back home.” The confusion didn’t fade. “Look… it’s a saying that was supposed to convey that just wishing for something doesn’t make it magically happen, so there’s no use dwelling on what-ifs.”

“Oh!” Fluttershy blinked. “You mean like ‘if dogs could fly, all the trees would be bare’?”

“I… guess…?” I scratched my beard. “I’m… not entirely sure if they’re the same. Is… is that a fetching joke? Wait, no… whatever. We’ll go with that.”

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” Sunny said, “but I still think I didn’t make the best choices. Even after meeting you, I could have tried to do something. Anything. Maybe help you escape sooner or… or something!”

“You couldn’t have known he was intelligent,” Octavia said softly.

Sunny’s face screwed up. “But I—”

“Oh stop it,” Avera huffed. “Your first time meeting the big guy couldn’t have been any worse than ours,” she said, motioning between her, Primrose, and Ebony. “First day on bodyguard duty and we let him get beat up by a psychotic unicorn.

Primrose growled. “I was not part of that, thank you. I showed up after the fact.”

“My point still stands,” Avera said. “If you keep looking back at what could have happened in your life, you’ll miss out on what can happen.”

Before any more could be said, I felt a tugging on my sleeve. Looking down, I found Pyresteed looking up at me. “Alpha bone?” she asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Alpha bone Pyresteed?” Her blue eyes were wide and innocent. “Alpha bone good? Bone Pyresteed, yes?”

I stared at her blankly for a moment before glancing to my other side. Reaching down, I picked up my plate that was stacked high with discarded rib bones. “These?” I asked as I offered it to her.

Pyresteed chirped happily as she took the plate. “Bone Pyresteed mouth!” Grabbing one of the ribs that still had some barbeque on it, she slid it into her mouth before, with a gulp, a large lump slid down her throat.

“Did you just…?” Sighing, I rubbed my forehead. “Jesus Christ, at least chew it, Pyre.”

She made a gurgling sound, several bones already sticking out of her mouth.

“Is… is she going to be alright?” Fluttershy asked.

I waved a hand. “She’ll be fine.”

“Are…are you sure?”

“She’ll be fine. It’s not the worst thing she’s eaten.” Watching for a moment as Pyresteed stuffed more and more bones into her already-packed maw, I shook my head and returned my attention to the group. Before more could be said though, there was a flash of magic followed by the sound of teleporting.

Two new arrivals stood at the main gate.

“Auntie!” Cadence cried, sitting up with a smile.

“Princess Celestia! Luna!” Twilight joined in, eyes wide. “I… I didn’t think you were going to make it.”

“We apologize for our tardiness,” Celestia called as she opened the gate, wearing a pair of saddlebags across her withers. With a flash of her horn, a small box emerged from the bags and started to float beside her in a cloud of golden magic. “We had planned to be here earlier but we were—” she paused, glancing at Luna “—delayed.”

“We shall get up when we feel like it,” Luna grumbled, dark rings under her eyes. “We don’t see you up and running around at three in the morning. Besides, you still haven’t started preparing for the Griffon ambassador next wee—”

“Regardless!” Celestia spoke quickly, interrupting Luna’s grumbling. “We are here now, and we hope that we are not too late to partake in the festivities.”

“O-of course not!” Twilight stammered. “There’s still plenty of food left! A-and we can cook up something fresh if you’d like! Hayburger? Kabob? Something else?”

“Goodness, no. This looks more than acceptable, Twilight,” Celestia said, her gaze drifting over the fruit table. “Oh, these look positively mouthwatering. Mangos and pineapple and cranberries!” She took a step toward the table only to pause. “Oh! I almost forgot!” Turning, she handed me the box. “A little something special for you, my little human.”

As she and Luna raided the food table, I adjusted Sunny in my lap before opening the box. Inside were three frosted cupcakes; one with Twilight’s cutie mark on it, one with a handprint, and one with a small purple and green dragon. Someone had also drawn a caricature of the tree-brary on the inside of the box, the roots at the bottom, and the foliage drawn on the unfolded lid.

“Aw, that’s really sweet,” Cadance cooed, looking over my shoulder.

“What is it?” Sunny asked, running a hoof along the outside of the box.

“Cupcakes,” I informed her. “Three of them.”

“Correct,” Celestia said. Circling the cooking pit, she settled down in an open spot and started picking at her plate, a rainbow of different fruits adorned upon it. “A little something from us to you, to commemorate the first of hopefully many years to come.” Luna sat down beside her, her own plate loaded with nothing but pineapple bits.

Picking up the cupcake that bore a handprint, I eyed it before smiling. “Thanks. This was really thoughtful of you.” The first bite was startling—a mixture of creamy frosting, moist chocolate cake, and a fruity cherry filling that I didn’t realize it had until the sticky ooze dripped onto my fingers. Before I could stop myself, the first cupcake was completely demolished, and a second one quickly followed the first. I consumed the Spike one next and decided to save the Twilight one for later.

As the royal sisters got settled in, the discussion returned to reminiscing. Several more ponies threw in their stories—Rainbow hyping up the fight with the timberwolves, Rarity and our soirée at Scratchers, and Twilight mentioning our Nightmare Night escapades. It wasn’t long before Celestia and Luna both started adding their own tales to the mix.

“We mean, out of all the things that could have teleported into our hooves, a human was the last thing we’d have expected,” Luna said. “Twas certainly the most interesting thing to happen at Night Court in a while. Even if it pushed the stick a little further up the nobles’ flanks.” She popped a piece of pineapple into her mouth. “We did not mind the intrusion, although we were surprised all the same.”

“No more surprised than I was when he suddenly appeared in my bed chamber one Nightmare Night,” Celestia interjected. “One minute I’m reading, trying to unwind for the day, the next I have a human in my lap. An armored human… cold armor… against sensitive parts.” Several mares were sporting blushes on their faces.

“I had no control over where I was going to end up,” I defended before pointing at Luna. “Blame her for the sudden nipple freeze. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Us?!” Luna balked before pointing a hoof of her own at Rarity. “‘Twas her that startled us!”

“Moi!?” Rarity gasped at the accusation. “How dare you! I had nothing to do with it. I was just the conduit so that Max could share horror stories from his world! I had no control over what I was saying at the time!”

With eyes back on me again, I pointed at the pony beside me and immediately threw her under the carriage. “Twilight wanted to hear them.”

“Hey!” came the indignant squawk.

I joined in the laughter that came from the back and forth, only to pause. There came a slight twinge in my stomach: a small bloating sensation followed by a light burning sensation in my throat. I tried my best to ignore the small annoyance, but as the minutes crept along, the uncomfortable feeling only got worse. Finally, after twenty or so minutes, the feeling peaked suddenly, and I let out a large belch.

“Excuse me,” I said sheepishly when everyone briefly glanced over. “The food is not sitting well with me apparently.” Thinking some water might help to alleviate the indigestion I was feeling, I reached over to pick up my nearby glass, only to miss the mark slightly and knocked it over. Or at least, that’s what I thought had happened when I reflexively tried to catch it. When I did, I froze when I heard the glass clattering against hard keratin when it struck my hand. Unable to find a grip on it, the glass fell down into the grass shortly after with a light thump, splashing water all over myself.

When I looked at the end of my now-wet arm, I was completely dumbstruck at what I saw: my hand had been replaced with a horse hoof, a light brown nail starting about where my knuckles should have been. A quick glance at my other hand showed that it suffered the same fate. I stared at both of them in shock, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Was I asleep? Was this another dream about to become a nightmare? Was I completely hallucinating?

“What in Equestria…?” Twilight gasped, just as baffled as I was when she caught sight of the hooves after hearing the commotion.

Sunny started running her own hooves over one, a confused look on her face as she tried to figure out what was going on.

Looking around, the box containing the last cupcake caught my attention, and I stared at it in growing horror before my gaze flicked over to Celestia. She was sitting across the grill pit and was watching me intently with a mischievous, shit-eating grin. Upon seeing that I noticed her, her horn lit up and her saddlebags opened, dumping a pile of scrolls out onto the grass beside her. Picking one up with her magic, she lifted it to her lips, took a deep breath, and blew a torrent of crimson fire from her pursed lips. The scroll disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

A moment later the feeling of indigestion flared up into a searing pain, far worse than the most agonizing case of heartburn I’d ever had. Unable to stop myself, I belched again, and a gout of fire escaped my lips with a pained yelp. The scroll dropped onto the grass in front of me.

Before I had a chance to recover, Celestia was already blowing on another scroll. This one too came out of my mouth in a burst of flames, along with a third and fourth one, all while I was gasping and wheezing in pain the entire time. Twilight and Cadance were in a tizzy, jabbering loudly with Luna. The others were torn between trying to figure out what was going on and being concerned for me.

Placing Sunny on the ground, I coughed and hacked at the burning sensation. “C-Celestia!!!”

From across the firepit, Celestia chuckled before blowing fire on another scroll. “Maybe next time you’ll think twice before getting a mare’s teats pierced without her consent.”

The belch of scrolls materializing from my lips was almost drowned out by the volume of Twilight’s cry. “He did what?!”

Author's Note

End of Season 1 of Your Family and You