The Embassy

Chapters

Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 9
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Chapter 8
Chapter 10 (mature scene in second half)

Chapter 2

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 3 Saffron Ree

I'd never had so many tabs open in my life. I was on twelve different sites for parts, and two different system builder sites. But, I was almost done. I just had to decide between which was the best brand of video card, which should be simple, but I almost couldn't bear to make the choice.

Candy - Today at 10:24
still cant believe ur going

IronBlade - Today at 10:25
your still not over it?/

Candy - Today at 10:26
No!!!1 u ass! Im stuck in skool and u get to stay at home for national secruity

IronBlade - Today at 10:27
I wasnt going 2 turn down MURICA

IronBlade - Today at 10:27
sides, i get a new rig out of it

Candy - Today at 10:29
Ur really doin this for a comp?

IronBlade - Today at 10:33
yeah

IronBlade - Today at 10:33
takin a hit to my man card for a rig
gonna be the best tho

Candy - Today at 10:36
Biggest??

IronBlade - Today at 10:37
u no it

Candy - Today at 10:38
Im comin over 2nite
gotta give my hero a farewell kiss

I knew what Candy meant by kiss. While I flicked between the tabs for the two graphics cards I was thinking about, I also thought about her.

IronBlade - Today at 10:42
can I kiss you back

Our relationship had only moved from lifelong-friends to horny-teen-friends-with-benifits two weeks ago—which was the afternoon when I'd found out I was going to my sister's dream. Two weeks it'd taken me to design my ultimate monster PC—two weeks riddled with times when Candy would "kiss" me. She'd never let me return the favor.

Candy - Today at 10:47
mmmm
k

IronBlade - Today at 10:48
really?

Candy - Today at 10:48
long as u dont bite
and do wat i say

IronBlade - Today at 10:48
yes amma
*maam

Candy - Today at 10:49
❤ ❤

IronBlade - Today at 10:50
c u then

Candy - Today at 10:51
xxx

I leaned back from the computer and thought about what Candy'd just said. Tonight was going to be fun, but first I had to make this choice. Finally, I just gave up and picked the more expensive option. Saving the parts list on the website, I made sure to include the extra bits to make my perfect rig—cables, ties, everything.

The final touch was easy enough. "Share with…" I typed in the email address Jeff had given me, and hit send. I had the afternoon ahead of me, and being a man in the prime of my life, I had just one option. My hand reached out to the box on the desk and grabbed a rubber from it.

Three knocks came on my door, which earned a quiet curse. "Fuck it, Dad." Lifting my voice, I tossed the condom back in the box and leaned back in my chair. "Come in, Dad!"

Gavin was always complaining about his parents. They didn't knock, they just walked in. When I'd told him how my dad and mom would knock and wait, he'd called me a lucky bitch. Yeah, right. Lucky. Right when I wanted to get off.

The door opened and my dad leaned in. "Saffron, we just got word that the,"—I could see Dad's face try to keep even—"magic portal transmogrifier is working. They are testing mice at the moment, but we are probably going to have to move within a week."

It was big news. This was the beginning of the end. Well, I wasn't going unless they got me my damn rig. I let out a sigh. "So that's it? If the mice don't explode, they send someone over. If the person doesn't explode, they send us?"

I noticed Dad's eyes flick to the screen where my chat was still up. A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, Saf. We move when Mom says it's safe to." He nodded toward the screen. "Use a condom."

"I know, Dad," I said.

"Even just getting a blowjob."

"I know, Dad!"

"Do you want a dental dam?"

"I know, D—" I froze. "A what?" Too late I realized I'd asked for a birds-and-bees talk.

But Dad just smiled. All my life he'd been completely open about questions like this. It was fucking horrible! "Just a little rubber sheet to cover her while you go down. Keeps everything in your mouth from infecting her, and keeps everything in her—"

"I get it!" I said. I waited for him to leave or say something, but he just stood in the doorway with a raised eyebrow. "Alright! Get me a damn dam."

Dad left without another word.

I sat there on my chair and realized, not for the first time, that my dad was pretty cool about everything. At least I didn't need to worry about all that crap with stiff socks and stained sheets.

When he came back, Dad just tossed a pack that looked like big sheets of medical adhesive. "Just stretch it out over her, and do what you want. I'm sure she'll have tips."

I won't rise to it. I won't rise to it. I won't—

Dad pulled the door shut with no more comment.

"Now I'm not in the mood," I said, but my eyes drifted to the screen and the promise Candy'd made. "Well, maybe I am…"

Clair Ree

It had been a long day. Jeff's secretary had spent half the afternoon emailing me about how expensive Saffron's computer would be, then she'd nearly blown her top when Jeff'd told her we needed two of everything.

Add a press conference about the success of the spell (don't even go there, we already have enough letters piling up from religious groups either condemning or claiming responsibility for the ponies), then we had to organize the team of scientists who would be doing initial experiments with the—and I can't believe we let the press name it—transmogrifying portal.

Therefore, it was an utter relief to be home and sitting at the dinner table with a plastic plate and pizza.

"All the kitchen things got packed today," Philip said. "I'm sorry, Clair."

"It's all right, Philip. We knew this was coming, though it was a nice rut to be in." I picked up a slice of the pizza and nibbled at the end. At least it was a good pizza. "They're doing four rounds of mouse tests tomorrow. Twilight's people—ponies—are going to be charging the portal back up manually. Hopefully we get transmogrification and not discombobulation." Okay. I'll give whoever named those things credit, they were fun to say together like that.

Philip sat down beside me with his own slice of pizza. "And then?"

"Then we're sending a soldier. We only wanted volunteers, and we got a lot. Our advisers pointed us to one, he's—You're going to see all this on the news." I bit off a little more pizza, and we sat quietly for a few moments. "Jeff's approval is high enough after this that the next election is in the bag. Hardly a surprise."

"If it all goes according to plan? Your office said under a week."

"Six days at the most. They're going to recharge the portal for the first human test, but we need to wait the four days after that. Twilight doesn't want to risk a partial charge with so many of us on the platform." More pizza, more chewing. I was barely even tasting the food. "We raised our kids in this house."

Philip's strong arm was around me before my tears even had a chance to come. Everything had been planned. Even sale of the house was organized down to the letter. Despite all this expert choreography of events, I wasn't ready to leave.

I dropped my pizza and turned to Philip fully. His other arm pulled me closer and I hung onto him like a safety blanket. "The things I do for our country."

"You're not going to do it alone, Clair Ree. Never alone." Philip was a rock for me, but more, he was someone who'd matched his life to mine and always been there.

That was, of course, the best time for the front doorbell to ring. Despite my condition, I stood up to answer it.

Philip stood too. "I'll get it."

"No. If it's press I want the honor of telling them to,"—I quickly looked around for either of our children—"fuck off." I'd held off the waterworks, so my makeup wasn't smudged—or I would have had Philip answer the door regardless of who I got to tell to take a hike.

A quick look at the CCTV screen beside the door reassured me. "It's Candace!" I opened the door. "Hiya Candace. Come on in." Saffron's childhood friend was a regular—and had been more regular lately—of our house.

"Thanks Missus Ree. Saf's home?" It wasn't so much a question as a statement of intent.

I gestured to the kitchen table rather than the stairs. "Why don't we have a chat, Candace?" Turning my back meant I didn't get to see whatever expression hit Candace's face, but I heard her footsteps follow mine back into the dining room.

"S-Sure. Uh. What about?" Candace asked as she took a seat.

"You heard we're moving?" I asked and circled the table to sit beside Philip. "It's going to be for a while."

Candace looked like a field mouse staring at a pair of raptors. "Wait, we're not—"

"You aren't in a relationship?" Philip asked, following my lead.

When Candace shook her head, I breathed a sigh of relief. "Then go and have some fun. We just wanted to make sure this wouldn't lead to any heartbreak."

Blushing up a storm, Candace shook her head. "We're not—"

"Of course you're not," Philip said. "Go on up. Saffron's waiting."

If our Olympic team used this method for leaving the starting blocks, we'd win a lot more gold medals. As it was, Candace rushed for the stairs and was gone before either Philip or I could share a giggle. Though, we did—giggle that is. I plucked up my half-finished pizza slice and nibbled a bit more at it. "Oh to be that age again."

"No thanks. A little later than that, sure. We didn't meet until college, and I don't want to spend a moment without you," Philip said.

Philip's words earned him a cheese-and-tomato kiss on the cheek. "How's Riley doing?"

"With the news now out, she has been getting about ten texts an hour from different friends. She shot right to most-popular-girl-in-school and beyond. We'll need to get her settled in a new school quickly to adjust." Philip took his own bite of pizza and aimed a kiss at my cheek. When I turned my head quickly to take it on the lips he laughed into the touch. "Cheat."

"Diplomacy," I said. "The art of getting what you want." It was a misquote, but I didn't care.

We sat through the fourth round of footage. It was just like the previous three, but this time the cage was full of rats. The camera showed the whole test platform set on the teleport circle, then Princess Twilight's horn glowed in the background, and purple light filled the screen.

When the light faded, there were four rats still in the test cage, but now they looked—well—a little cartoony. Twilight herself had been easy to accept because there was just one of her, and after a day here she looked decidedly less cartoony than she had, but these rats were pristine, and when one crawled up to the camera-side of the cage, we got to see its fuzzy face and red eyes up close.

There was another flash of purple and the rats were just rats again. Then the video changed to the autopsy, and paused.

"As you can see, the test is a success," Princess Twilight Sparkle said. "We are ready to move on to the next test."

Everyone in the room—Twilight included—looked to Captain Frank Hollings. His rank had been reinstated for the duration of this mission, which meant he was in the uniform of a United States Navy officer.

Frank—he'd demanded I call him that the moment he'd found out I was the primary candidate for the role of Ambassador to Equestria—had a few years on me at 59, and was an ex-navy seal. To look at him, it was easy to tell he hadn't stopped his training when he retired. He was, without doubt, the best candidate we had for this.

"That's my cue, ma'am?" Frank asked.

Twilight nodded. "We're ready when you are. Your people have some equipment for you to take with you."

Frank didn't hold back his chuckle at the obvious understatement. "With respect, ma'am, I've seen what they want me to take. Estimated time until deployment?" As he asked, Frank's eyes twitched toward Jeff's.

"We have your mission as go on the hour, Captain," Jeff said.

"Thank you, Mister President. With your permission?"

"Dismissed, soldier," Jeff got and gave a firm salute.

With Frank out of the room, I turned my attention to Twilight. "It's working perfectly, then?"

Twilight's face pulled into a wider smile at my question. She nodded. "Clair, I wouldn't think of sending Mister Hollings unless I thought it was. I checked all the spells and calculations myself—the portal's transmogrification function works perfectly."

There was just something about Twilight that made me trust her. She was a magic, flying unicorn, and if you couldn't trust a magic, flying unicorn when it came to all things magical, then who could you trust?

My musings were interrupted by Caroline Rogers (Jeff's secretary). She burst into the room with a sheaf of papers in her hand. "Sir!"

Jeff had trained himself to know all the various levels of outrage Caroline could achieve—as had I—and he turned slowly to his secretary (this was a 3 out of 10). "What is it, Caroline?"

"This request is outrageous! Ms Ree's son sent these requirements, and it's going to cost eighteen-thousand-dollars!" Caroline Rogers said.

Lifting his thumb and forefinger to pinch the bridge of his nose, Jeff sighed. "Caroline, I will not break a promise. If we come out of this at nine-thousand a piece for Clair's children, so be—"

"That's each," Caroline Rogers said. "Thirty-six-thousand-dollars in total."

I snorted. I couldn't help it. Caroline was oh-so-careful about pronouncing the total—and I'll be honest, it was a ridiculous amount—but it was a tiny fraction of the not-bribes that happened every day to grease political wheels.

"I approved of this, Caroline. When I approve something, because of a promise I'd made to a young man who is stepping up to bat for America, I do not expect it to be questioned a second time." Jeff Miller, you honest bastard, I could almost kiss you for that. "That's not how I got elected, and it's not how I intend to be remembered."

It was speech-worthy. Caroline knew it just as I knew it. She looked to me imploringly, but I was not going to gainsay my boss.

"Alright sir." Caroline retreated from the room.

The moment the door was closed, Jeff let out a guffaw of laughter. "Eighteen grand? I'm happy to see your son taking after his mother and putting the screws on the president of the United States, but that is impressive."

"For that much, he won't be complaining about this move anymore." I checked over my notes, then checked the time. "If you'll excuse me, Jeff, I'd like to watch this one myself."

"Well, there's not much to see until they get back. We've tried a lot of things, but so far we haven't been able to establish any form of communication between realities. The other human world was a lot closer—transdimentionally speaking—than this Earth, but we haven't managed to send anything to there that wasn't through the mirrors," Twilight Sparkle said. "And even with those, unless something is a powerful magic artifact, it just can't make the trip. Seeing your equipment in Equestria is very exciting."

It wasn't so much a slip as a whole marina. My eyes twitched toward Jeff's, and he gave the slightest of nods back. "Well, I'm glad our world can be a little more of a trade partner in that respect."

"I look forward to seeing what you can offer us in return. Part of Clair's position will be the resolving of trade between our two nations, and securing friendship to last long into the future." Jeff Miller, everyone. Not only does he have a silver tongue when talking to any American, but the moment he sprung that last line, Twilight's eyes practically lit up. (Actually, they might have literally lit up. I wasn't paying enough attention to see if any magic was involved.)

I stood up, to stop Jeff from talking Twilight out of her tiara with promises of friendship, if nothing else, and made my way for the door. "I'll see you there, Twilight?"

"Oh! Right! I should go and prepare the portal for the next rushed teleport." Twilight stood up and walked with me to the door.

I turned back at the doorway, and stuck my tongue out at Jeff. He replied in kind with a huge smile. Confirmation that we were their first technologically advanced trade partner was literally the best possible thing we could have hoped for. "How long until we all go?"

"If Captain Hollings has a successful trip? I want the power crystals to charge fully, which will take four days here, then you and your family can go," Twilight Sparkle said.

"That's changed. The order of operations has left us with a security detail going with us. Four soldiers, then another four with each of the two staff teleports," I said. "Then we'll start moving gear."

"Oh. Definitely four days then. If we're sending eight people over, I want as much power in those crystals as they can get, and I'll use my own magic as a booster. That means at least four days between each of those following teleports." Juggling numbers and logistics just seemed to come to Twilight. "And I should probably warn you—"

"Warn me?" Ice hit my veins.

"About one of my friends back home. She's going to be pretty full-on wanting to throw you a party. Normally we'd let everyone experience Pinkie Pie for themselves, without warning, but I've seen the weapons your soldiers use—I am therefore warning you: the moment you enter Equestria a pink pony is going to rush up to you, then she'll have the biggest freak-out of all time, and leave. That's your party invitation," Twilight Sparkle said.

I wasn't surprised that Twilight was leading the way down the hallway. She knew the way to the annexed room where the teleport portal was located sufficiently well that I wasn't even completely sure of the last turn.

The portal room was a loading bay, and the portal itself was a large piece of slate around fifteen feet on a side. In the middle of it, a circle was inscribed. The whole thing was sitting on a foam padding directly on the concrete floor of the loading bay, and to one side was the strange stuff. Yup, the huge teleportation circle in the middle of the room might be the main attraction, but the banks of power crystals were what our scientists were most interested in.

Four huge chunks of crystal, supported by—nothing. The crystals hovered four inches from the base plates Twilight had put down. When they were active, there was a great show of lightning dancing between them—only it wasn't lighting. There's a lot of magic involved with how they work, which is why anyone who tries to explain them simply runs out of useful words—we just don't have them yet.

Right now, the big crystals were buzzing with energy, and I could tell (because I'd actually read the memos, and could see the color pattern in the crystals) they were almost twenty-percent full. I stood with the armed soldiers at the doorway into the room, and just to their side. "Can you believe this stuff?" I was probing. The soldiers at attention in the room were part of the team that would be our permanent defense force in Equestria.

"Ma'am. We believe what we're told to believe. But if you're asking directly, I would say yes, I definitely am told to believe," one burly soldier with C.Hendricks on his fatigues said.

I didn't need to ask the other steely-eyed soldier, P.Clark by his badge, the same question.

"You two are coming in the first group?" I asked, and got two nods. "I know the president has already thanked you, but as a mother, I want to repeat that. Thank you for keeping us safe."

"Permission to speak freely, Ma'am?" Clark asked.

I just nodded.

"Ma'am, this is our duty not only to America as a whole, but to you specifically. Where you go, we go. If you want to get out of or into somewhere, and you think a hail of bullets is the answer, that's your decision. I've heard that diplomacy is saying 'good dog' and holding a big stick behind your back? Fuck that, if you'll beg my pardon. Hold us in front."

The swearing was a bit of a shock, but I had given him permission. "I appreciate it. Can you pass on to your commander that I want a full report on all the soldiers who will be going, along with a time to meet all of you?"

"Ma'am!" Clark and Hendricks said together, and stomped a foot each.

I won't lie. Part of me wanted to ogle the buff, young soldiers, but that part was getting older and quieter each year. I turned around and watched as Twilight used actual magic to adjust the portal.

It wasn't like the psychic's hotline, or palm reading, or even shamanism. Twilight Sparkle's horn glowed purple, and little glowy bits of purple appeared here and there on the pad as she adjusted things I couldn't even see.

Walking up beside her, I stood and waited for her to be done. I didn't hold my voice because I knew distracting her at the wrong moment could cause a catastrophe, I bit back my words precisely because I didn't know. When the most powerful being on Earth nodded her head with a little satisfied grunt, and her horn stopped glowing, I figured it was fine to talk again. "Everything's alright?"

"I was just tuning some efficiency coefficients. Adjustments for larger cargo, as well as ensuring that the transmit from here is certainly bound to the destination pad that has the transmogrifier attached. I just made——" Princess Twilight Sparkle started describing things, aspects of magic and physics that I didn't understand.

After almost a minute of this, I lifted a hand placatingly. "Please, Twilight, I won't belittle you by asking you to explain all of that. I understand it's complicated, and very technical, but I just wanted a summary."

"Oh! Sorry. I guess I'm too used to having Starlight Glimmer around. The portal is working fine, and I made some tweaks to reduce energy usage." Twilight Sparkle managed to get a blush going among the soft fur of her ears. It was good to know some pony facial expressions considering I'd be spending a lot of time among them for the foreseeable future.

"Do we have any idea on what humans will look like in Equestria?" They were the same questions as asked before, but now I hoped there might be more of an answer.

"Mice became Equestrian mice, so if we're really lucky, humans might just become an overly colorful human. But we won't know for sure until Captain Hollings comes back," Twilight Sparkle said.

"My ears are burning." Captain Frank Hollings walked out of a side door. He was wearing his fatigues, and had a huge backpack on. There were wires coming from the pack to various points on his body, as well as a group of cameras both looking in toward him and out to the room around.

Behind me, Hendricks and Clark could be heard snapping to attention, and Clarks' voice rang out, "Officer on deck!"

"Ease back a bit, soldiers. This is just a routine scouting mission," Frank Hollings said.

I'd done enough research on our various armed forces to know that with Frank being navy, and the other two being marines, there was a bond of brotherhood, but no actual command structure between them. Hendricks and Clark were just showing respect, and Frank Hollings was being careful about not stomping on them.

I didn't understand all the macho posturing that some parts of the military upheld, or even some of their stranger traditions, but respect was important. I waited for Frank.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle, ma'am, are you ready to send me where no man has been before?" Frank Hollings said, flashing a white smile.

"Ready as ever. Please stand in the middle of the circle, and try not freak out if anything odd happens. This will work perfectly." The sheer confidence in Twilight Sparkle's demeanor was astounding. I'd worked with my fair share of scientists over the weeks since first contact had been made, and none of them would stand behind their findings as firmly as she just had.

Walking to the slate, Frank stepped up onto it and approached the circle. "Standing on these lines won't cause a problem?"

"No, Captain," Twilight Sparkle said.

Frank nodded to Twilight. "The brass said I need to keep up a monologue of everything I feel, so I guess now is as good a time as any to start. I can feel a slight tingling as I walk into the circle, like there is a curtain made of air—or one of those machines at supermarkets that blow air in a wall at the door. Now I'm past it and in the middle of the circle, and I can't feel it anymore.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle is looking at me like I'm crazy, but that's okay. Two shrinks told me I'm still sane, but I think anyone doing this must be a bit crazy. Her horn is starting to glow, and—"

Frank Hollings, Captain of the United States Navy and decorated former member of the navy seals, vanished.

The big crystals to the side were hovering much lower, barely an inch from the floor under them, and they crackled a lot less. My heart began to race as I counted the time. The mission was meant to take just thirty seconds.

I watched the big clock on the wall, the digital reading passing the thirty second mark after what felt like a year. There was no flash. Each second that ticked by felt like an eternity. Thirty-five. Forty. Forty-five. Fifty.

At fifty-three seconds there was a flash of light.

Frank Hollings looked like he'd seen a war zone. His clothes were ripped in places, and the pack he'd been carrying was now laying beside him. Nearly every wire that'd been connected to him was ripped free and hanging from the pack, and at some point the ring of cameras had gotten tossed—and was not in evidence.

I didn't wait for the marines to move, nor for medics. I rushed over to Frank and crouched down beside him. "Frank! Frank! Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Holy hell! That was fucking amazing! Tell me you got that on film? Did all the gear work? I had wings!" Frank jumped to his feet, only to reveal his pants had met with enough of a failure that they stayed around his ankles. "I was a pony, a pony with wings. I wanted to fly but—" Panting for breath, Frank shook his head.

Technicians and medics rushed out, but none got onto the slate to help Frank. I glared at them and walked with him to the edge.

"M-Ma'am. Can you pull the pack over?"

I glared at the technician who'd spoken, and as if he grew a backbone on the spot he rushed over, grabbed the straps, and pulled the pack off the side.

The medics made a grab for Frank, but he avoided their grip. "That was amazing! I felt so alive!" The medics stared at the big captain and stepped back from him. "I'm alright. I just need to come down from that rush."

Making heads or tails of the situation was almost impossible. I'd rushed forward to help Frank, but he was standing easily now, though he finally noticed his clothes.

"Frank! Why don't you get changed and we can debrief you?" I asked.

"Y-Yeah." Frank stepped out of his pants completely and strode off to the side door he'd first emerged from.

With the place calming down, I turned to look at a very surprised (in my estimation at least, I was still working on understanding all her expressions) Twilight. "So," I said. "Definitely turning into a pony. He seemed to take it well."

Twilight Sparkle stared at me, her mouth working silently.

"Well, it did work." I couldn't help myself, I guess if that was what it took to finally unbalance a pony, I was in for a tough job.

Author's Note

No questions?

So I do this "Ask X" thing. X can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and they will definitely, hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories, and they will answer the best question in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer. Try to keep it to one question per post! They will pick one question per chapter.

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Chapter 4 Saffron Ree

I shouldn't be angry. In the lead-up to this day I'd gotten so much attention from Candy I almost had to put a sign around my dick saying it belonged to her, I'd gotten to build two dream computers (both of which would be coming across with us soon), and Mom had let me tell any press that showed up at our house so many swear words their attempt at an interview was useless.

The high-life came with downsides, though. I looked at the slate covered in strange patterns and gulped. I wasn't faced with an adulthood of dealing with girls, or getting my own car, or any of that. Nope. I was going to become a pony. There's nothing to it, Saf, even that awesome soldier-dude had said it was amazing.

The video, with all the different angles playing together, ran through my head. The grizzled war hero was standing proud one minute, and the next he was squealing in excitement—oh, and he was also a fucking pegasus! A man who had killed with his bare hands, who had fired enough guns to make an NRA member blush, had stood in front of us and told us that it didn't hurt, that it felt amazing, and that we would become cute little ponies.

"Do I have to?" I asked.

"You got your computer. That was your deal, Saf." Dad was not helping. In the past few days I'd even had to ask him for more of the rubber sheets, and all he had done was smile and get me some. What I wanted to know was, why did he even have them if that was what they were used for?

My brain recoiled the moment it came up with the question. I really didn't want to know. "I should have gotten something bigger. Is it too late to ask for a tank to drive around in?"

"It is, Saf. Come on, don't make the girls look braver than us," Dad said, and walked up to stand beside Mom.

We didn't even get to wear our own clothes. Outfits had been hand-made for us that had stitching in them that would tear easily. Yup, I could totally just rip my pants off like a stripper. I want to know who even came up with that idea? "I guess."

Walking up beside Dad, we stood beside Mom and Riley. Mom was in her element. There were cameras on her, and anyone else would say she had iron certainty and rock-solid demeanor—or some shit like that. I could see the way she stood was her scared shitless but not going to show it look. She had it when Riley was in intensive care just after she was born, and she had it the night Jeff won the election.

There were a small group of reporters probing her with questions. When one asked, "What do you think your chances of survival are?" I walked up and imposed myself between him and Mom.

"Hey, Mom, are we there yet?" I put a little teenage-whine into my voice—it wasn't hard—and got a huge laugh out of the reporters.

Mom looked me in the eyes and I could see what it meant to her. "If you don't stop asking that, Saf, I'm going to turn this teleporter around. See that I won't!"

More laughs from the idiot reporters, and the asshole had been forced to back away by someone else who wanted to ask a question. The way the new reporter seemed happy enough to shove the asshole back told me they might have had some heart left. "What do you think of the prospect of becoming a pony?"

"There's what, four types?" I asked and got a nod from the journalists. "Two in four chances of being the horniest teenager ever? Pretty fucking good."

As I spoke, I could see the dismay in all the reporters' eyes. It was the mother of all soundbites, and none of them could use it. I decided to have some mercy (but damned if I know why). "But I'll be fine no matter what. Princess Twilight Sparkle and Captain Frank Hollings reassured us it is perfectly safe," I said.

That was usable, and a good one for them. All the reporters (except the asshole), smiled. Brave teen faces the unknown with jokes, praises war hero. I could practically write the headline myself.

I waited until the next reporter opened their mouth, and played the same gag again—because why not? "Are we there yet?"

By the time the laughs subsided, a man in a suit stepped out between the press and the barricade. "You'll have to excuse Mrs. Ree and her son, they have a very busy schedule."

"Thank you, Saffron." Mom pulled me close and kissed my forehead. It would have been totally embarrassing if I couldn't feel her shaking just a little.

I put my arms around my mom and hugged her back. "Whatever. I just wanted to swear on live TV for once. Are we going soon? I don't think the ponies will be as bad as this lot."

"Come on, let's get this done." Mom, with one arm still around me, stepped up onto the slate.

Following, because you don't just pull away from your mom when she's having a rough day, I stepped up and stopped when she did. We were both standing in the middle of circles drawn onto the slate. The patterns glowed softly, and I'd been told there was no way to scuff them.

Looking around, Dad and Riley were stepping up too, and approached the circles closest to Mom and me. Around our four circles were eight more. Two pairs of two soldiers stepped up onto their own circles, and big cylinder-shaped boxes were put in the last four.

Each of the soldiers had guns, and each was a modified M4 carbine with no trigger guard. Hooves or fingers, they would be able to fire their weapons. I read their name badges as they turned around: C. Hendricks, P. Clark, D. Roberto, and C. Bell.

Bell looked to be the most alert of the four. His eyes were everywhere, looking around at each person present at least twice. The rest looked alert, but mostly they were looking at Bell.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle," Jeff said and when he did, the whole room went quiet. "It's an honor to be the first president—first of any national leader—to thank you as a representative of Equestria for agreeing to abide by the laws put forward in the Diplomatic Privileges Act of 1708, and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961, as they pertain to interdimensional politics, and on behalf of America, I promise that we will abide by the same.

"Concerning these we send, I must thank you again for promising their safe passage, and for assuring they will be welcome as representatives of the United States of America, and humanity. I am assured by your own good will, and that of our representative, that relations between our nations and species will only improve."

"President Jeffrey Miller," Twilight Sparkle looked like she was about to explode with happiness. "Equestria welcomes all peaceful races, but in this union we are particularly excited to cement negotiations of trade and support. I pledge that as you have guaranteed my own freedom, Equestria will guarantee that of the Rees and their guards.

"Once they are safely across, the verification device will be sent back the moment my assistants are able, and your people will be shown every deference as due to them in the aforementioned diplomatic agreements."

Twilight turned to us. "Are you ready?"

"Sure. I guess," I said, in the most bored manner I could.

Locking eyes with me, Twilight Sparkle winked while everyone else in the room laughed. Yup, the last thing I say as a human for five years was a bored, noncommittal assent. It was fucking perfect.

"We're go, Your Highness," Bell said.

"Ready," Mom, then Dad and Riley said.

I watched as Twilight Sparkle's horn started to glow, and then everything stopped moving. Okay, it didn't stop, but it moved really slowly. I watched as the big storage crystal things started crackling, and I felt tingly.

Then it hit me—this is bullet time!

I held up one hand, slowly, and watched as it moved like the air was made of molasses. My fingers seemed to melt and stick together. I'm really changing into a pony, like really changing. I guess my hands would turn into hooves, and all the usual stuff that you see furries talking about online, but this was different.

My arms pulled back as I started to fall forward. The last bright flash of Twilight's horn caused the room around us to blink away. We were in a featureless void with no more slate and no one but the eight of us.

Odd crackling sounds met my ears, and I realized it was the sound of joints shifting and adjusting. My legs seemed to change too, and there I could actually feel them forming into pony back legs.

My arms kept pushing up and back, even while I fell forward. A prickling sensation started along one edge of my arm, and it got worse and spread all over the limbs. Turning my head a little, I watched as feathers popped free of what looked like chicken wings.

Ripping down its seams, my shirt quickly became so much useless cloth, and I got to watch two new limbs push out of my shoulders and down. Fully formed, these new limbs were pony legs in all senses. Thin, they ended in proper hooves—unlike Twilight's split hooves.

More prickling, but this time it started everywhere but my wings. I stretched the odd limbs out and waved them in surprise as something pushed out between my eyes. My new nose was white, but nothing like white skin—this was white-white. A lock of green hair flopped down over one eye, and I could see a dark pink highlight in it.

Thudding in my chest, my heart felt like it was swelling, but then I realized I was actually shrinking. The nearest carton of stuff was my best guide, and I watched it grow larger and larger. Pulling my head around, feeling like I was swimming through a vat of honey, I watched as Mom seemed to take on a stockier build than my own. She looked a little bigger than me, but she also was missing wings or a horn. Earth pony, Twilight had called it. Sounded like a nerf to me.

Mom was light gray, and she had hair the color of honey. It was actually really pretty, and that seemed a strange thing. Why would a pony look pretty?

Time seemed to slowly catch up, speeding, then I fell sideways and lost all control of all my limbs.

"Are you okay? Is anypony hurt?"

"Please, we're trying to help you! Wait, why did you bring so many foals with you?"

Philip Ree

Something was very wrong. Something apart from the fact I'd just turned into a little horse, that is. There was two ponies close to us, both unicorns, and both were shouting questions.

I had priorities. My head swung around to look for Clair—an easy task since she was now the most majestic damn pony I'd seen yet (at least I liked to think so). She was standing diagonally opposite me, and hadn't moved much.

God, she looked amazing.

To my left should be Saffron, but there was a little pegasus pony there instead. To my right would be Riley, but what I saw was a tiny foal hidden in the clothes my daughter had been wearing.

"Arffftggg?!" I said. Okay, horse-mouth is hard to use. Staring down and inward, I could see my brown furred nose crinkle up in annoyance.

Then I noticed something else—where our four soldiers should have been, four colts not much bigger than Saffron stared around at each other nervously.

The shouting from the two unicorns rose, but it was my daughter's cry that cut through it all. "SHUT UP!" Everyone—everypony—froze. "Loof, diff iff a mifftaff." My tongue kept getting in the way of the end of words. "Baff off, giff soff rooff!"

Standing taller than any of the soldiers, I walked around each. They looked frightened, honestly scared. Then one slammed their hoof down three times, and they seemed to banish all their fear. Four steely-eyed colts put themselves between the two new unicorns and us.

"Stop this, please. Everyone, put down your weapons. That's an order, Captain Bell." The voice didn't sound like a pony—it sounded like my wife.

I turned my head to see Clair's steely eyes staring out of the most adorable gray snout. While she glared around, the four marines (now colts) lowered the guns each held as best they could. "Excellent. Captain, please escort us off this platform."

"O-Over here," a unicorn with a pink coat and purple/aquamarine hair said. She directed us all off the platform and to a corner of the room. Then, with her horn glowing, she floated the four boxes after us. "Do you have the acknowledgment?"

Clair nosed around in what was left of her clothes and pushed a Rubik's Cube out of one pocket. Showing more daring than I was ready for, she sat down and lifted it up with her forehooves.

"What is she doing, Starlight?" the second unicorn, with a cream coat and three-tone red/purple/violet hair, asked.

The unicorn I now knew was Starlight lifted a foreleg to ward the other one back. "You remember what Twilight said, we let them settle down and they send one item back straight away."

Such a strange situation, but it gave me a chance to find my daughter and son and check on them.

Saffron was exploring himself. I'd ensured my son had grown up to buck the growing obesity trend, and it seemed he'd done so here, too. A spindly pegasus, Saffron's hooves were solid (unlike the split unicorn hooves), but the most impressive thing was his wings. Though, him being smaller than me was something a little confusing.

Riley was a different story. She was a stocky little earth pony (solid hooves, solid body), and had the most girly-pink fur imaginable, with straw-yellow-blonde hair cascading from her mane and tail.

Of the two, Saffron seemed to be alert and looking around, while Riley looked like she was ready to cry. Strange limbs be damned, I was going to comfort my daughter. Focusing on my tongue first, I tried for her name. "Riley?"

"Daaaa!"

Come on arms—legs, whatever—don't fail me now. Reaching out with one wobbly, left foreleg, I managed to get it around her belly and pull her closer and up. With my back propped against a wall, I managed to juggle my squirming filly so she was pinned to my chest and supported around her back.

"Something got messed up. But, Riley, you're a pony!" I said.

Riley's huge eyes looked up at me for a sec, and I could see the moment she recognized I was me and I was a pony. "Why are ooo so big?"

"Hey, Dad, what'd they screw up?" Saffron asked. "And how do I get these things to go down?"

"At a guess, age. Clair and I are adults, but even our escort seem to be—uh—foals." I watched Saffron trying to turn his wings this way and that. "Try relaxing the muscles, rather than tensing them."

"Why'd I get stuck with wings? I want to be a unicorn, like you!"

Like me? I looked down first, and noticed that I definitely had split hooves. Crossing my eyes, I tried to roll them as far back and up as I could, but I couldn't see a horn. I felt the ears atop my head perk forward to pick up the laughter of Saffron and Riley. "I'd like to see either of you see the horn on top of your heads."

"I have a horn?" Saffron and Riley said at the same time, and both did completely unsuccessful attempts at the maneuver I had tried.

"No, which makes it a lot easier for you both not to see one." I couldn't help the smug smile that tricking my children in such a silly way caused.

"Hey!" Saffron still hadn't gotten his wings squared away, and rather than waste the effort, he waved them to get Starlight or Unicorn-Number-Two's attention. "What's up with us being so young?"

All the soldiers seemed to stiffen at the question. Everyone, in fact, except Clair looked at Starlight.

"Uh. How old are you meant to be?" Starlight asked.

"Seventeen!"

"Twenty-nine."

"Thirty-three."

There were other voices, but those trailed off when the highest age was reached.

"That seems right. It's strange that they sent a bunch of foals to be your guards," Starlight said.

"Hold on," I said. "Just to get this right. What's the age a pony is when they reach adulthood?" I had to raise my voice a little to ensure I was heard.

"Around fifty. Why?" Starlight looked at me like what she'd said was the most normal thing ever.

"Fifty years old? So anyone under that—" I said.

Starlight cut in, her voice full of confusion. "Are children—foals. I don't understand, your previous guardspony was an adult."

Clair cleared her throat and made her way off the circle-patterns. "Captain Frank Hollings was a retiree. He was chosen for having spent most of his life serving his country. In America, a human is treated as an adult from age eighteen."

"Hold on. We're stuck like this?" one of the soldiers, I think it was C. Bell, asked.

"No. You're going back with the recognition pattern," Clair said.

"With all due respect, ma'am, that would be dereliction of duty, and there is no way we are leaving you here without guards." While it was hard to take what a cute, little unicorn said, I had to admire Bell right then. He spared one look at Clair before turning his attention back to the room.

"Captain, I—" Clair said.

"Ambassador Ree, you're out of order. Write them a note or something. Get 'em to send us Captain Hollings right away," Bell said.

"You're in charge of the guard detail, Captain." Clair pulled a notepad from her pocket, a pencil from another, and started writing by holding the pencil in her mouth.

The room was silent except for the scribbling. When she was done, Clair tore the page off and tucked it into the cube. When she stepped back, Clair looked up to Starlight.

"Okay, send it," Clair said.

There was barely a flicker. The slightest of blue lights and the cube and note were gone.

"We need secure lodgings," Clair said, and I could hear the lethargy in her voice. "Somewhere for my children and husband to rest, and where I can sit down and have a long discussion with you, Starlight."

"Moon Dancer, can you take them to the rooms Spike prepared?" Starlight asked. Bingo! I now had another name.

I looked at Saf, who was still getting his wings folded—he had one, and was trying to repeat the lucky break he had with that on the other—and Riley held against me by foreleg. "Sweetie?" I asked Riley. "Can you get on my back and hold on?"

"I'm scared, Daddy. Why's everything so big?" Riley's voice was compromised severely by her unfamiliar anatomy. I pieced together what she meant more by guess than by practice.

"Because it's not big, Riley, we're small." Saffron, his other wing now tucked at his side, stood up and shook. "Dad, put her on my back."

I stared at my son for a moment before I realized he was being serious. "Riley, I'm going to put you on your brother's back. You need to hold on tight, okay? And I'll be right beside you both."

"Are you ready to move?" Bell asked.

Lifting Riley up, I made sure she was pressed to Saf's shoulder before I boosted her fully to his back. "One second," I said. I was going to push her up, but that wasn't needed. Strong little hooves hauled her onto her brother's shoulders.

"I got her, Dad." Saf moved one foreleg, then the other, then moved his back ones as well. "You good, Riley?"

"Y-Yeah!" Riley had a shot of something in her voice that spoke of a strength rekindled. "L-Let's go."

"Carl, Dave—you two escort the family. I'll take Pete and keep on the quarterback. I don't care what you have to do, but work out how to carry your damn rifles. We need to look the part." Bell pointed with one hoof to indicate we were the family, and Clair was the quarterback.

The lighter colored unicorn, Moon Dancer, looked around at the three of us, and our two guards. "Can you follow me? I'll get you there in the shortest route. Spike thought it would be a good idea if you were in a room nearby the portal. Sometimes I wonder where Twilight'd be without him."

"Dave, you take point. Sir," the soldier I could identify as Carl looked at me, "I'll be right behind you. Ma'am?" Moon Dancer blinked in surprise at the address. "Please lead on."

Dave and Carl were the quickest to adapt to walking on four legs, but each of them somehow managed on three. Clutching their guns, the pair herded us along behind Moon Dancer.

After two long hallways of door-studded walls, Moon Dancer led us to a pair of double-doors that were open. "These are your rooms."

"Dave, sweep the place. Mister Ree, please wait by the door with me," Carl said.

We waited while Dave, the little earth pony with light gray fur and purple mane, searched around our rooms while clutching his M4 machine-gun. I found myself yawning, more than once, but it was Saf who eventually broke the silence.

"Stop moving, Riley. You're not the lightest filly, you know," Saf said.

"You're bigger than me! It should be easy!" Rily said right back.

"Riley," I said. "Climb onto my back. Saffron, you'll need to stand guard with Carl."

Saf's eyes widened, and as Riley pulled herself onto my back, I realized how seriously my son was taking the situation. He moved slowly around Riley and I, putting himself where I was standing, while pushing me to the more protected position.

"I can't see anything in there. And if there is a way in, I don't know it. They picked a windowless suite," Dave said as he walked out of the rooms.

"Okay. Move in and find somewhere comfortable. Can you all remember the turns we took to get here?" Carl asked.

Walking into the room, my mind raced to trace the hallway out. I nodded, and Saf nodded too. Riley was asleep on my back.

"Saf, pick a room and we're all sleeping in it," I said.

I could hear a sigh of relief from both soldiers as we walked toward the nearest room on the left. Reaching the door, I tried my hooves on the handle, but wound up having to use my mouth. I let Saf in, and closed the door behind us.

"Dad, what the heck's going on? Why didn't we just go back?" Saf asked.

Settling Riley down on the bed first, then I climbed up and scooted my daughter—my filly—against my belly. She curled into a tiny ball against me, and made soft, sleepy sounds. "We're here, Saf. This is what we signed up for."

"I'm tiny. You heard what that unicorn said. Fifty? I'm not even halfway to being an adult here!"

"Shh. Keep it down. I know it's confusing right now, but let's sleep on it and work things out tomorrow." As I spoke Saf looked up at me, almost like he expected me to laugh and tell him it was all a joke. "Please?"

"Okay, Dad." Saf climbed up on the bed and, despite his attempts at being the big, rebellious teen, shifted until he was laying curled up at my back.

Clair Ree

"This," I said, "is all messed up, but it's salvageable. How easy is it to send people and things back?"

Starlight Glimmer sat across from me at the table, and behind her were two of the biggest unicorns I'd seen. Big stallions, both white with blue hair, and each had glistening armor and a long spear. Behind me, however, was a pair of colts. Captain Corvinus Bell, a unicorn with light-brown fur and a shock of dark green for his mane and tail. Sergeant Peter Clark, a pegasus with soft, sky-blue fur and bright yellow hair for his mane and tail. Both my guards were naked, but had their M4s.

I know who I'd trust in a close and limited fight, though the unicorn's magic was an unknown. Not that I wanted anything to go that far. It was hard enough keeping my eyes open after the teleport, I have no idea how the soldiers are managing to do the same.

"I can send things almost every five minutes. The reason it takes so long to recharge on the other side is your ambient flux is so low," Starlight Glimmer said.

Starlight Glimmer was just about as unbelievable as Twilight had been. Pinkish coat with two tone hair that also had a highlight in it—light purple, dark purple, and aquamarine. Her hooves were, like Twilight's, split, and she had a leonine tail.

"I'd like to send another message then. As diplomatic communique, I expect you to send them as quickly as possible. Also, please excuse my curtness, this—" I struggled against the pull of sleep. I couldn't actually stop the yawn that exhaustion demanded of me.

"Teleportation takes from those using it, and it takes more the further you travel. This was all allowed for in the teleportation schedule. You can rest if you need it." Genuine concern, at least if Twilight's expressions had taught me anything, colored Starlight Glimmer's features.

She was right. But my request for Frank would kick all kinds of crazy into our schedule. Sitting, thinking, I realized my head was starting to dip. I pulled myself up straight.

"I think it would be better if I came back to it rested. But please send someone to wake me the moment anything comes through." I almost fell sideways at that point, but kept upright by force of will. "And could you please move our things to our rooms?"

"Of course. Right this way." Starlight slid from her chair and opened the door with her magic.

Back on Earth, Twilight had barely used her magic for anything, but here it seemed to be the default way for a unicorn to do everything. It gelled with the idea Starlight had said of Earth not having much magic, but here having a lot.

"Thank you." As I spoke, there was a rush of air pressure—almost like when a big storm was about to hit. A blur of pink told me that the moment Twilight had warned me of was coming. "Captain Bell, don't raise your weapons no matter what is about to—" I didn't get anymore out.

"Gaaaasssspppp!" the pinkest thing I'd ever seen said. She was a pony, of course, but she was entirely pink. Twilight had mentioned this, but it was still a sight to behold. All that pink pony seemed to frizz up at once, and was then gone again.

"Pinkie Pie?" I asked.

"That was Pinkie Pie. How did you know about her?" Starlight Glimmer asked.

"Princess Twilight warned me." I turned around to Bell and Clark, but the pair each had a rosy, pink kiss on the cheek, and they looked shell-shocked. "Captain Bell?"

"S-Sorry, ma'am. I don't know what came over me. It won't happen again," Corvinus Bell said.

"It's alright, Captain. We were warned about this, and it won't cost us anything at all to get a warm welcome out of it." I yawned again because it was impossible to stop.

"Right this way," Starlight Glimmer said.

I focused on my hooves, and found them to be unusually cooperative. I had no wings, no magic, so it stood to reason my four primary assets would serve me well. Bell and Clark were not doing so well. Halfway through the walk I'd demanded they give me their weapons, and even still they barely made it to the suite.

Captain Bell stepped up to the door on wobbling, split-hoofed feet, and tapped on it. "Thunder," he said.

The door opened. "Flash," what sounded like a dead-tired Hendricks said.

Roberto finished pulling the door open with his mouth, and even I could see the tired relief on his face. "Good to see you again, Captain."

I passed Roberto the two rifles, and turned to face Starlight Glimmer. "Please have your soldiers posted to guard our room. If anyone needs anything, we'll poke our heads out."

"We can stand guard, ma'am," Corvinus Bell said, only he yawned and nearly tripped over as he turned to finish saying it.

"Captain, sergeants, I am ordering all of you to sleep." My voice held no compromise and I could see grateful defeat in all four of the colts who were actually hardened soldiers. I was flying on empty, but someone needed to stand strong.

"Right away," Starlight Glimmer said. Her horn flickered, and the four big containers we'd brought with us made popping sounds as they appeared in the room with us. "You'll excuse me, I'll send your guards right away."

The door closed and four wobbly colts were already walking toward the first room on the left. When David Roberto opened the door, I could see my husband and children on the bed asleep already.

A magnet-like force pulled on every fiber of my being, dragging me toward the bed. I didn't want to walk over the soldiers, but they were slow enough I almost stumbled into Captain Bell.

The bed was just as soft and inviting as it looked, and I climbed up onto it, and fit myself against Philip.

The sound of four smaller bodies curling up on the floor was the last thing I heard before sleep pulled me closer to my family.

Author's Note

Saffron: Does he know if electricity, let alone internet, exists in Equestria? The best rig in the world is a paperweight with no juice.

"I have no clue. Seriously. You're probably best asking Riley about all this stuff, she actually watches all the sciency stuff the horse talks about, though I think she just does it because she likes watching anything about the horse." Shrugging my shoulders, I tossed the prepared notes on the floor. "I don't even care anymore. This sucks. So long as I can still play CoD, I don't give a shit what's running it."

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Lab

Chapter 5 Riley Ree

I knew I was having a nightmare. They wouldn't be nightmares if you didn't know it was happening and didn't remember them. So I knew it was a nightmare, and it was terrible because it was mostly true.

Princess Twilight Sparkle (still the best name I'd ever heard in my whole life), cast her magic and sent us to Equestria! It was just like when we'd come over, but this time I arrived as a little baby. Mom was there, Dad was there, Saffron was there (and wearing a pink bow, which lulled me into a false sense of security), and then I was there too.

Saffron bent over me and sneered. "Pfft, just a baby, and a human! I'm going to go and play with all my pony friends." He stood up, shook the bow out of his mane, and walked away.

"Come back, Saf! Help!" I said, but all that came out was baby noises. I was weak and useless and couldn't even use my phone to call for help!

All around me I saw the backs of ponies, their tails swishing. I wanted to run to them, hug them and laugh with them, but I couldn't move.

"Stop yelling, Riley."

Saffron's voice cut through the nightmare and my sleep. I felt my ears twitch and focus on his voice, and tried to pull myself closer to him. When that didn't work, I opened my eyes to mostly dark room. Mostly dark, because there was a light coming from somewhere behind me that revealed a fancy room, but it was the white pony in front of me that blocked me from getting to Saffron.

With white fur, bright green mane with a pink streak through it, they were laying down right in front of me and tried to hold on. "Want Saf!" I pulled up one of my own pony legs, braced it between me and the white pony, and kicked.

"Riley!"

The white pony, who I now realized was Saffron, flew across the bed and off it. My eyes widened, and struggling with the crazy limbs I had now I crawled over to the edge of the bed. "S-Saf? I didn't recognize you!"

"Crap, Riley, how'd you do that? You're like, half my size." Saffron seemed to be a mess of limbs. He got his hooves straightened out, but his wings looked like they were all over the place.

I couldn't stop a giggle from getting loose. The nightmare was banished with a wash of white fur and green-pink hair. "Where's Mom and Dad?"

"They're talking to everyone outside. Dad didn't want to wake you, so I promised to wait," Saffron said.

Blinking at him, barely believing what I heard, I reached down with both hooves and caught Saffron's shoulders. Pulling for all I was worth, I almost threw him into the air as I dragged him back onto the bed. I wrapped my arms—forelegs I guess—around him and hugged him tight (like a big teddy bear).

"R-Riley?" Saffron's voice sounded silly. "Riley?"

Silly, but worried. I let him go and looked at my brother. "What's the matter, Saf?"

"I couldn't breathe you idiot."

I knew he didn't really mean it, and he was just reacting to me squeezing him, but it still hurt. My view of Saffron got blurry as tears started to flow, and I sniffed loudly.

The softest thing in the world pulled around me and squeezed me to Saffron. Shoving my face against his chest, I couldn't stop crying and whining. "'S no' fair!"

"Tell me about it, Riley."

He used his tone that meant he didn't want me to tell him about it, but I decided to just ignore that and tell him anyway. "Stupid magic sposta make me a pretty p-pony princess." I squeezed Saffron again, but tried to avoid hugging him too tight. "M-M-Made me into a baby horse!"

"Baby horse that can kick her brother across the room with one hoof. Baby horse that can strangle me without even meaning to." Saffron kept holding me, only needing his wing and forelegs to do it.

"You've got wings," I said. It was stupid, he didn't have magic either, but it was important that I tell him he was better than me and that I was the one who had it worse.

"Riley, I don't have wings. I have arms I can't work out how to use, while I grew two new legs. This whole body feels wrong."

"Arms?"

"Yeah. It was fucked u—messed up. When we came here, did you have this slow-mo crap happen?" Saffron started rubbing my neck, which felt really nice. I nodded against him. "Okay. So when you started changing, what did your arms do?"

I wiggled my forelegs. "Duh. I got legs."

"Mine turned into wings. For a moment I was a two-legged horse."

It was impossible not to giggle. "From not enough to too many."

"That's the problem. If I try to do anything with my wings, my front legs move. If I do anything with my front legs, my wings move a lot. And just look at you, Riley. You might be small, but holy crap how strong are you?" Saffron's voice sounded genuinely impressed. "You could—like—suplex a car and shit."

I poked him, gently, in the chest. "That's two swear words. I'm gonna tell Dad."

"And I'll tell him you beat me up."

Saffron had never beaten on me, and he hadn't even roughed me up while being silly, but he was always bigger than me. Now I actually felt a little worry that he would tattle on me—mostly because it was true.

"One swear word?" I asked.

Shaking his head, Saffron booped my nose with one huge hoof. "How about I give you a ride outside, and we forget all the swear words, midget." It was about then I realized how adorable he looked as a pony. My big brother should wear a bow in his mane, just like—like the good part of the dream.

"No swear words, I get a pony ride, and you don't tattle on me… and I get to tie a pink bow in your mane," I said.

"No. Way."

"What about if I braid your mane?"

"Maybe."

"Pig-tails!"

"No, Riley."

I couldn't help it. I started giggling as I reached for his mane, only to realize how hard it was to actually braid with hooves. "This sucks. I can't braid your mane like this!"

"We'll get used to it, Riley." Saffron rolled off the bed himself this time and got a silly look as he slowly folded his wings down at his sides. "Get on."

My own trip across the bed was worse than Saffron's. My legs were fine when I focused on each one, but getting them working together was literally impossible. Eventually I made it across to him, and pulled myself up onto his back.

"Hold on tight—but not too tight," Saffron said.

Leaning forward, I wrapped my arms—forelegs—around Saffron's neck and tried my best not to choke him. When he took a step, I tightened my grip.

Saffron didn't ask if I was okay, he just kept walking. After a few steps, I relaxed my grip a little. The way he walked was a little odd, but I could handle it best by just flopping completely over his back.

"You look really pretty, Saf," I said.

"Hey, Riley?" Saffron asked.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up." He walked the rest of the way to the door, then tried to reach out to the handle with a wing.

Everything got messed up fast. When Saffron lifted his wing, he lifted his foreleg too, only he must have had his weight on it, because he started to fall over. Then, to stop from falling over, he reached out with a wing and his other leg buckled.

I had two options, either I could get crushed under my huge brother as he rolled to the ground, or I could jump! Kicking off from Saffron's back, I landed on the floor and rolled a few times.

"Uh! I hate this fucking body!" Saffron lay on his back and kicked his legs angrily. "No computer is worth putting up with this shit!"

Rolling over to my belly, I shoved downward with my legs until I was standing. With shaky steps I approached my brother, who was still saying lots of bad words. When I reached his side, I pushed one hoof against his foreleg and pushed.

Saffron was right, I was strong. He went quiet as I pushed him to his side, then adjusted myself and pushed him to his belly. "Come on, Saf. We said we'd come here, so let's do the best we can. Now, stand up!"

"It doesn't matter, Riley. I can't reach the door with my mouth. If I can't get it with my wing I won't be getting us out."

I rolled my eyes at him.

"Okay. Okay. Jeez." Saffron struggled to his hooves, and then spent an extra minute tucking his wings down. Personally, I thought he was getting better at it, but I wouldn't admit that to him. "Now what?"

I walked to the door and braced all four legs as best I could. "Get your butt over here, mister, and use my back as a step." I know I sounded just like Dad, I didn't care. When I didn't hear him moving, I turned my head to see him staring at me in shock. "What? Come on!"

"Shit, Riley." He finally started walking over and lifted one shaking hoof to my back. I could feel him putting weight on it, and finally stretching up higher, but it wasn't much at all—maybe I was really strong?

The sound of the door handle working made me smile. "You got it?"

"Y-Yeah. This was pretty clever, midget." Saffron stepped down off my back and moved back from the door.

Reaching out a hoof, I flung the door open and looked out into the brightly lit room. The light dazzled me for a moment, but I realized two other colts (a bit bigger than Saffron) were holding what looked like guns. "Uh. Hi?"

"Madam Ambassador?" one of the colts (a brown and green one) asked.

Mom—I don't know how I knew it's Mom, I just do—turned around and smiled. She looked so pretty! "There's my little girl. Excuse me a moment, Miss Glimmer."

I didn't wait for Mom to walk over. Since I'd mastered my legs, I decided to run over and hug my mommy. Memories of seeing horses run, majestic animals that glided over the ground, were all I needed. Taking off as fast as I could, I got halfway to Mom before I realized I really didn't know what I was doing.

One forehoof came down at the right time, but the second one came down and pushed me to the side. I wobbled, and suddenly the ground was coming up to say hello. Then it stopped. Actually, everything stopped.

The world had turned a shade of greeny-blue. I was glowing! I was flying! Wait, floating!

Mom rushed over to me and sat down so she could reach out and pluck me from the air. The light was gone, but I didn't care—I hugged my mommy tight.

"Thank you, Starlight," Mom said.

"Starlight?" I asked.

"Oh, it's no problem. Couldn't have your filly falling over and hurting herself." Starlight Glimmer (I remembered the name, and could work out who she was) smiled at me and waved a hoof. She was a real, live unicorn! She looked so pretty, with amazing hair and fur and a horn and tail and hooves and everything!

I squirmed in Mom's grip, trying to get down so I could go over and look at the unicorn some more. When she finally set me on the floor, I walked (avoiding the harder running stuff) around the room until I could see her.

Starlight Glimmer sat on the couch and looked back. She was basically a cuter pony than Saffron in every possible way. She had three colors in her mane, and she was pink! Like me! "Thank you!" I said.

"You're very welcome. You're Riley?" Starlight asked. I nodded back, of course. "Well, Riley, I think you need to work on your canter, but otherwise you did very well for your first time at running."

I jumped up with my front end to get on the couch, but considering the cushions started above my head, it was a losing battle—until more of the glowing magic lifted me right up beside Starlight. "That's so awesome!"

"You have children—foals—of your own, Starlight?" Mom sat down on the other couch, and faced Starlight across the coffee table.

Saffron Ree

I tried to ignore Mom and the unicorn—they'd be talking politics. Instead, I walked over to one of the other colts. I knew they weren't really colts, or young, but rather trained soldiers. "Hey," I said, keeping my tone relaxed. "This is kinda messed up, right?"

"Saffron Ree, isn't it?" the brown-furred unicorn marine asked, to which I nodded. "That depends if you are asking as the ambassador's son."

I shrugged. "I'm just asking."

"Then yeah, this is all kinds of SNAFU. Apparently we're too young to be guards here, but we can't leave without another guard group arriving, and now that we're here, we're the most knowledgeable and trained soldiers for this environment. Messed up is a good start, though, but hey, we're in this together. I'm Captain Bell, and this is Sergeant Clark."

"Worked out how to control those things yet?" Clark asked me.

"What, these?" I turned my head and nosed at my wings. "No way. Every time I take a step it feels like I'm going to snap them out again, and if I try to use 'em for anything, bam, I fall over."

Clark groaned. "Tell me about it. Still, they ain't takin' me home from this. I swore an oath to serve, no matter what, and I'll do it."

It was the strangest thing, they just spoke to me. Treated me like an adult. Everyone else I'd ever spoken to—except maybe Jeff—had always tried to talk down to me. Turns out I had to be turned into a pony to become a man.

Then an idea hit me.

"I saw a thing once, where looking at images of arms or legs helps amputees. Maybe the reason we can't get this worked out is because we can't see them?" I said.

Both soldiers' heads snapped around before returning to looking ahead. Sergeant Clark said, "That's a good suggestion, Saffron. Damn good."

"C-Can you just call me Saf?" I asked.

"Shit, Saf's fine. If you work out a way to get us moving better, I'll call you whatever the fuck you want." Sergeant Clark ignored his captain's glare to grin to me. "Sir, I know you don't want us swearin', but under the circumstances it—"

"Relax, Sergeant. Just try to keep the language on the down-low," Captain Bell said. "And, Saf, if you have any other ideas, let me know."

"Sure." It felt good to be useful, but I'd rather be useful and have my computer. I opened my mouth to ask if there was anything to do, when a knock came at the door.

Both soldiers turned and moved back from the door, and Captain Bell said, "Come in."

The door slowly opened, and a monster walked in. Standing upright, the creature was about twice as tall as I was, had a pair of bat-like wings, claws, teeth, and a smile. "Hey, everypony. I brought some drinks and some food."

"Thank you, Spike," the unicorn on the couch said. Her horn lit up, and I watched the tray in "Spike's" grip lift into the air.

My brain finally whirled the details enough to take a guess at what the big purple creature was. "Y-Y-You're a dragon?"

"What gave it away?" Spike asked.

I couldn't help staring up at him—he was huge. "Wings," I said.

Spike looked over his shoulder, seemingly noticing his wings for the first time. "Yeah, they really bring the whole dragon-thing together. Hey, you wanna hear how I got them?"

Turning, I looked at Mom—who smiled and nodded. I turned back to Spike. "Yeah!"

"Come on then. I was just restocking my hoard—books—in the library." And, with that, Spike turned around and walked out the guarded door.

Frozen in panic, I watched him move, all his muscled size, and realized how freakin' crazy this world was going to be. I shook my head, put one hoof out, and started walking after him. "How far away's the library?" I asked.

"It's on the second floor. So, what's your name?" Spike asked as we walked past the big Equestrian guards standing outside the rooms. Again I realized how big he was—Spike towered above even the stallions.

"S-S-Saffron, but you can call me Saf," I said.

"Like the spice? That stuff really brings a dish together. Your mom must really love food to name you after the some of the best." Spike seemed to slow down for me, giving me the incentive to fight my legs and walk faster.

"I guess. I hadn't thought of it like that before. Are there more dragons?" As we walked, I realized I could feel the faintest jolt to the floor each time Spike took a step. I half expected there to be holes in the floor behind us—dragon-foot shaped.

"Oh, there's tons. Some are tons bigger than me. You might even see Dragon Lord Ember if she visits you guys. She's the ruler of all the dragons." Spike marched right up to a huge staircase—a staircase I froze at. "What's wrong?"

"I'm still getting used to the whole walking-on-four-legs thing. Is there anywhere on the first floor we can talk?" I asked.

Spike raised an eyebrow and then looked up at the landing above us. "How much do you weigh, Saf?" Before I could think of a reply, Spike picked me up under one of his arms, spread his wings, and took off.

I stiffened for the first few flaps, but when I realized he was handling my weight fine, and had a good grip on me, I almost exploded. "You're flying!"

"Yeah," Spike said.

"And—And—" I was lost for words for the rest of the short flight to the second floor balcony. When Spike put me down, my legs almost folded up. "That was amazing!"

"What? You're a pegasus. You'll be flying soon as well." Spike started walking down the hallway nearest where we stood. "Come on, the library's this way."

"Uh. Actually…?" Now that my body was moving, I could feel things wanting to get out. "Is there a bathroom nearby?" Urgency entered my voice, and I could see Spike picked up on it by his nod.

Spike made an abrupt turn at the next hall, and thankfully my body seemed onboard with keeping my dignity intact. "Right down here. Second-last on the left."

I barely waited for him to finish talking. My hooves sped up, and as I reached the door I jumped to grab the handle with my mouth. I slipped, skidded on the floor, and barely managed to keep from making the worst mess of my life.

"I got you."

There was not a lot more embarrassing than not being able to work doors—particularly this door. I wasn't going to argue, and instead rushed inside.

The bathroom was a full one, surrounded with mirror-walls. There was a big white tub on one side, a shower on the other, and at the end was what looked like a little drain with a toilet flusher above it. Man up, Saf, time to poop like a horse.

There was only two possible ways to stand over the stall—at least for an adult pony. I picked the way that had me facing the flusher and stood there for a few seconds to get a feel for it. Okay, there was pressure at the back and pressure underneath. Back was obvious, as was underneath. What I had no clue about was what to do next.

It was about then that my body decided it'd had enough. Instinctively, my tail lifted and I felt my bowels let go and… it worked. Things just happened, with the loss of control behind, underneath followed. Everything seemed on automatic, and I managed to relax.

By the time behind and underneath both stopped, I felt both relieved and happy. I'd conquered part of this already, and I wasn't even a pony for twenty-four hours! Then I felt my tail start to lower—the thing was like automatic—and panic set in.

"Wait, wait, wait! I haven't cleaned up yet!" I tried to feel those muscles that relaxed, but just as I figured out at least what part of me was relaxing, I felt my tail touch my butt. Wincing, I struggled again and felt the muscle start to twitch. That had my tail muscle located, and with a force of awesome willpower, my tail slowly went up again.

Turning, I looked into a mirror on one side, caught the reflection of my butt on the other, and saw all the parts of me I didn't ever want to see. It looked odd, kinda puckered and sticking out, but it was clean. "Okay, and my tail is fine. Guess I just flush this thing."

There wasn't a chain, or a push button, but at last I saw the tile on the floor that looked different to the rest. Stepping on it caused a rush of water to cascade over the platform, and everything I'd been worrying about was suddenly gone. I'd never been so happy in my life as when I heard the familiar sound of water running down a drain.

Turning back for the door, I approached it and stopped. "Uh, Spike!"

The door opened slowly, though Spike didn't poke his head in. "You work everything out?"

I nodded, then realized he was purposefully not looking in. "Yeah. Things are sorted and—uh—do you know if I need to wash anything? Kinda new at this."

"Can I tell you a secret?" Spike asked.

Again I nodded. "Sure," I said.

"I have no idea! Dragons work different. Slow metabolism, lots of massive-carbon foods. I only need one good meal a month. Same deal with the bathroom," Spike said.

"Damn," I said. "Now I wish I was a dragon instead."

Reaching for the door with one foreleg, I shuffled awkwardly around the doorway until I got my head through the gap and shoved it open. I froze again and took in the scale of Spike the dragon. He was huge compared to me, but he certainly seemed awesome enough.

"How old are you, Saf?" he asked.

"Seventeen."

Spike held out his hand, showed off the claws on the end, then he lowered down until he was about half my height. "That'd make you a dragon about this big. I'm almost eighty, and dragon growth is even more complicated than this nuts conversion you've got going on.

"Dragons grow normally, but we have—well—a hoard. Once we reach about sixty, we can start growing just from our hoard. I had a bit of an accident—before I even got my wings—and turned huge. These days I have a hoard, but I understand the value of it, and what it means to me. So I'm still small, for now."

"So that's how it works? We have tons of movies and books about dragons back home, but none of them seem to focus on what life's like for dragons, and I don't think you're the same kind of dragon. So how big's your hoard?" I asked.

The hallways all seemed kinda the same, but Spike seemed to know the way. He pushed open a pair of double-doors, and I swear I heard a happy sigh rumble from him. "This," he said, gesturing into the room, "is my hoard."

I stepped inside the expansive room. It was huge, yet claustrophobic. "Where? I just see books."

"Don't ever let Twilight hear you say that." Spike laughed at a joke I didn't, apparently, get. "Anyway. This is my hoard. It was only one or two at first, and that helped me stay small, but then Twilight got busy, and I started looking after the place. Next thing I know I grow tall enough that my crest rubs against the ceiling of some rooms, and Smolder is asking me out on a date."

"You've got a girlfriend?" I asked.

Spike blushed—a fucking dragon just blushed—and nodded.

"Alright man! Put it there!" I held my hoof up, not realizing until it was too late that I didn't have the means to give a high-five—which is why I was surprised when Spike balled up a hand and bumped my hoof. I lowered my leg as if I had intended that all along.

Shaking off my surprise that guys were still guys here, I looked around the huge library. It wasn't that it seemed big to my smaller size, but that the place was massive. There were books everywhere, wall-to-wall, and stacked taller than Spike stood.

"Yeah. There's a lot of good books here," he said, somehow knowing I was so shocked by the size of the place.

"How many books do you have?"

"Uh…" Spike turned his head this way and that, narrowed his eyes, and then smiled. "Two hundred and fifteen thousand, six hundred and two."

"Exactly?" I asked.

"Yeah. I'm a dragon and this is my hoard. I know how many books are here, where each is, and even the ones ponies have borrowed." He walked over to the wall and lifted one book out. "This one was the first Twilight ever got. You should take it for your dad."

"What?" I was a bit confused. "Aren't dragons supposed to kill people for taking stuff from their hoard?"

"Kill people? This is a library. I like lending books out. I am a librarian after all." He walked down the row of books, hand out and casually brushing each book as he passed. Spike even hummed. "Anything you might be interested in? Maybe a history book?"

I scoffed. "History book? Man. And I thought you were cool."

"This one," Spike said, "Was written by a friend about a big fight that happened over thirty thousand years ago. She was there."

Despite myself I was interested—it wasn't like my computer'd be turning up for a week or so. "Hold on. How can you know her if it happened thousands of years ago, and you're not a hundred yet?"

To my horror, Spike reached for a second book. "Then you'll want this one, too. It wasn't written by Somnambula, but by Stygian—one of her friends. This one's signed, so please be careful with it."

"You're worse than my teachers and—uh…" I looked at the small stack of books he had, then turned and looked at myself. "Where do I put them?"

"I am a teacher, Saf. Twilight runs a school as well as her share of duties with Equestria. I've been helping out there, but Twilight said for me to come and make sure your Mom got everything she needed. So here I am keeping her son entertained." There was a load of sarcasm in his voice that was unmistakable.

"I bet he's pretty cool," I said.

"Who, her son? Nah, he's kinda lame and doesn't like books. Besides, he keeps complaining about how cool dragons are." Spike walked to one side and picked up what looked like a pair of old backpacks that were joined together.

I walked after Spike, curiosity getting the better of me. "Would he be less lame if he read books?" To my shock, Spike dropped the backpacks on my back. They hung evenly one both sides like they were made to be there. Duh. Of course they were made to be there.

"I don't know. Maybe if he said how awesome dragons are it might help his coolness." Lifting the books up, Spike put the smaller two into one side of the backpacks and the heavy one the other side to balance it.

"Alright. Hell. Dragons are cool," I said.

"Much cooler."

"And sarcastic."

"Also true. Wanna go back down now, or do some reading?" Spike really didn't seem fussed about either option.

Thinking for a few moments, I realized it was pretty cool to get away from my family, and he was right—dragons are cool and sarcastic. At least, all the dragons I'd met so far were. "I could hang out and read, I guess."

As I spoke, it became apparent which option Spike was actually happier to do, and I'd picked right. His smile grew, and without even looking he just reached out and selected a book off the shelf. "There's some comfortable couches and things down that way."

I walked in the direction Spike had pointed, getting more used to four legs by being careful not to trip with the books slung over my back. It wasn't far to the reading area, but by the time I reached it my legs were starting to wobble.

A clawed hand plucked the packs off my back and lifted them aside. "Which one do you want first?" he asked.

"The fight one. I'm not tired enough to sleep." I didn't manage to put dragon levels of sarcasm into my voice, but I managed to get a chuckle from Spike.

Spike waited for me to settle with my chosen book before he approached the big fireplace at the end of the room. He lifted a solid log of wood into it, then pursed his lips and blew. My book was forgotten as I witnessed a real live dragon breathing real (but not live) green fire. The log caught after just a second or two of breathing and started to crackle.

"Ho—ly shit," I said.

Looking way too smug for his own good, Spike curled up close to the fire and started reading his own book.

Opening the cover of the book, I read the title: The Pillars of Equestria vs The Terrible Sirens by Somnambula. I'd heard about sirens before, but my brain couldn't give me much more than them being sea monsters. I flicked past the opening pages until I found the story.

Author's Note

Equestrians: how do you feel that the colts probably have 30 years of active combat experience between them?

"Sir! I've not been given leave to have an opinion. Princess Celestia herself told me to come here and do as instructed, and to ensure nopony gets hurt. That's my job, and that's what I do well. That said, from what I've been told by Starlight Glimmer, these ponies are from another world—like the ones from the Mirror World—but with a slight hiccup in the teleportation system." The big white stallion hadn't blinked nor so much as looked anywhere but straight ahead the whole time he spoke.

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Lab

Chapter 6 Philip Ree

I raised my eyebrow at my son. "A book for children?" Never mind that I had no idea how to even pick it up, it was still confusing. "How will this help?"

"Dad, it's not just a book for children. It's a book for unicorn foals. It helps them learn to use magic," Saffron said.

How he was holding the book with what seemed to be just a hoof was the only remaining mystery, but now I was more curious about the book. "Okay. Where'd you get it then?"

We were sitting in one of the bedrooms of the suite we'd been assigned to. Clair was in the living room speaking to Starlight—still—and we were all just getting comfortable when Saf had brought back his load of books looking way too smug for the fact he was an almost-adult trapped in a child's body.

"A dragon gave it to me." He looked about a smug as any teen could. "He picked it out himself, and then we sat down and read some books while Mom was talking to Starlight. I kinda get the impression that Princess Twilight's kinda a big thing here."

"She has her own castle, her own staff, and runs a school. From what I understand, she was instrumental in securing the other human world's support, and has saved the world more times than you have limbs." As I worked up to the pun, and delivered it, I watched Saf's eyes roll in the tried and true teenager style.

"You haven't heard the half of it, Dad. I was reading about a bunch of ponies thousands of years ago who defeated and banished a group of sirens! Huge monsters that can control ponies with their minds. But the craziest thing? The ponies who did it are still alive. I haven't read how, yet, but Spike assured me it was true, and I have the book about that adventure." Saf was actually flushed by the time he got to the end of his explanation—I'd honestly never seen him so excited about something that wasn't a video game before. "Why're you looking at me like that for?"

"Like what?" I asked.

"Like—Ugh! All this pony stuff is getting to me. I'm going to practice using my wings." Saf turned and left the room.

I looked down at the book and rubbed my chin with one hoof. So far I'd tried to use magic just once, and after Moon Dancer had cleaned up the mess I'd made, I'd promised not to do it again. This was different, though.

Turning the first page, I looked through and realized this really was aimed at foals, but it was well written enough that I could see the exercises it got them to do. The first was easy. Feel my magic, breathe in and let it build, then just relax.

"This is just like Yoga. Focused breathing and concentration." I sat up, faced the wall, closed my eyes, and tried to focus on that strange energy I'd felt when I'd painted a room purple.

Inhale. Building my magic.

Exhale. Relax.

I tingled all over, but nowhere more so than my forehead. The place where my horn met my head practically buzzed, but not in a bad way. I felt raw potential build in me as I did the exercise again, then the exhale released it harmlessly.

Over and over, I built the magic up and slowly let it out. All my yogis and all their talk of vital energy were nothing like the real thing. I quickly lost count, relaxing into a slow rhythm of inhale and exhale that worked magic through me again and again.

"Philip? Dear, are you awake?" Clair's voice came from somewhere in the room.

I lifted my head, feeling more than a little spaced out, and nodded. Then I remembered words. "Y-Yeah. Wow. I tried some exercises for my magic, and it is really amazing." Even shaking my head didn't clear the serenity that I felt. I was calm, relaxed, practically sleep-walking, but fully awake.

"Do you want to come outside? The city is throwing a party for us."

"The city?" I asked.

"Well, the mare Twilight warned me about. She's been organizing this huge celebration that's supposed to encompass a party for us coming here, Twilight's success, and all of our birthdays rolled into one. If I had to guess, I'd say she snorts caffeine and sugar by the pound." Clair's voice got closer and closer until she nuzzled my cheek.

I turned my head so we could kiss, then we both giggled ourselves silly at the mechanics of kissing with snouts. "Well, we can't really skip out on over a hundred a forty years of birthday parties. Though, you are tempting me to."

"Philip Ree. We've been turned into ponies for just two days and you're already getting frisky?"

"Yes."

"Hold that thought until later. We'll go, have some cake and meet everyone, then come back and see what's different about tab A and slot B," Clair said.

That kind of language I couldn't ignore. Turning fully to face her, I could see Clair in the strong lines of her body, the way she held herself, but what sold me on the mare being my wife was her eyes. A shiver ran through me, and I climbed carefully off the bed. "Tab A?"

"Yes. Tab A. I'm sure you have one still, and unless something really strange happened since I last used the bathroom, I definitely have a Slot B. But that's not on the cards until after the party. Come on." She turned back for the door and opened it.

I took one glance back at the book about magic, and promised myself I'd come back to it. If there was even one more exercise half as relaxing as what I'd just done, it would be worth it. "Coming, dear."

Leaving the room, I saw Clair and Riley waiting by the front door. Clair gave me the look that said He's your son, and nodded her head toward a doorway.

Delivering my best smile, I headed for the room. I knocked.

"I said I'm not going!" Saf said from inside.

I knocked again. The problem with Saf being stubborn is he got it from both Clair and me. "I can knock all night, Saf."

The sound of hoofsteps preceded the door opening. "I'm not going, Dad. I don't have to go."

"You'll make a mare sad." As soon as I said it, I saw one distinct eyebrow on Saf's face rise. "Starlight explained about her. Pinkie Pie is persistent. She won't stop pushing if she thinks you need a party. Besides, there'll be girls there."

Saf snorted. "Pony girls. And I don't care what—"

"Saf, come on. I read the damn book and everything," I said.

"You really read it? How'd it go?" This was the better Saffron than the belligerent teen. Curious Saf was easier to persuade.

"I got as far as the first exercise and nearly freaked out at how relaxing and amazing it is. Real magic feels so—so real. Now get your ass out here, Saf. I'm not going through this alone." As I turned from the room, Saf let out a groan and followed.

Starlight Glimmer led us outside the rooms where our escort waited. Four colts—trained military men—looked particularly annoyed. They were missing their guns. Each of the four glared in any direction but that of the two Royal Guard that looked as stoic as our guards should have.

"Captain Bell, this is a social event. You are off duty tonight." Clair gave Bell a look that I'd long since learned to nod along to, though he seemed resistant. "Ms Glimmer has assured me that we will be safe."

"Sir. Starlight Glimmer explained the situation. The Royal Guard normally wouldn't attend upon such an event—particularly not here—but if we are needed, you just need to shout," one of the big Royal Guard said.

Bell looked unsure, but then he marched up to the Royal Guard and looked up at him as if height didn't matter at all. "If you were in a foreign land, and your princess asked you to put your weapons down and leave her without defense, would you do it?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Would you like it?"

"No, Captain." The Royal Guardspony had a lopsided smile now.

For a moment Bell looked like he might say something else, but in the end he grunted and turned to his squad. "We're going in a strictly observational capacity. No fraternization and no distractions. Got it?"

"Yes, sir!" three voices called.

And with that, it seemed, we were safe to move. I fell in beside Clair, who walked behind Starlight. Conversation was nonexistent until we got outside. The light of a bright moon in the sky lit up the world with a pale, pure light that proved brighter than the magic lighting that seemed to permeate the castle.

Waiting outside for us was an amazing pony. She stood bigger than even our guards, and her deep blue coat was perfectly uniform all over. She bore cloven hooves and a horn like a unicorn, but she also had the wings of a pegasus and a solid build I'd come to associate with an earth pony.

Her mane and tail were astounding, capturing the night sky in flowing waves that could only be magic. The mark on her flank—that everypony but us had—was a dark black splotch with a white moon on it.

"Princess Luna! It's great to see you!" Starlight Glimmer practically bounced over to the bigger mare, bubbly and excited. What had jolted my little world was what her prancing gait had revealed.

Freezing for a moment as I realized how exposed we were, my American sensibilities tried to scream at me, compelling me to think one, horrible word—naked.

Clair covered for me. She leaned across and kissed my cheek. "You saw that too, Philip?"

I could only nod a little.

"She arches her tail more than even Twilight did. I'm surprised it took you this long. Oh. Don't look now. I need to go play diplomat. I'll be back in a moment." Clair kissed me again and walked after Starlight. Clair held her tail down, I noticed.

I turned to our children. "Saf, did you—?"

"Yeah, Dad. I saw it," Saf said.

"Saw what?" Riley looked about as if there was something she missed, then realized she'd missed a whole princess.

I reached out a hoof to gently catch my daughter, and distract her from a visiting head of state, but she seemed to plow past me without my attempts to stop her hindering at all. "Riley Ree."

Riley froze and slowly turned to look at me.

"Wait for your mother to invite you over. We might be having a fun evening, but she's here to work." My admonishment might have worked had not pony hearing been sharper than human.

Riley was walking back to me when Princess Luna caught up with her. "This is your family, Clair Ree?" Her voice was very careful and sounded like a princess' should.

"Of course, Princess Luna. This is my husband, Philip Ree, this is our son, Saffron Ree, and this is our daughter Riley Ree. Our four escorts are our guards." Clair made gestures to introduce each of us, and as Luna's gaze swept past, I had the vaguest sense of eternity in her look.

"I am pleased to welcome you to Equestria. My sister would be here, but she had a particularly difficult situation to take care of." Princess Luna gazed to Riley after meeting the looks of everyone else. She looked at our excitable daughter for nearly a minute—quiet. "Canst I race thou to the square?"

"What?" The words had disarmed Riley for long enough that Princess Luna took off at a gallop.

"She wants to race you, doofus," Saf said.

Riley's hooves were a blur of motion, and she was suddenly galloping after Princess Luna as fast as she could. I turned to look at Clair. "This is a strange place."

Clair Ree

"You don't know the half of it. It's a party, let's just…" I trailed off, fishing for the words to explain my feel for the event. I was at the point of mentally surrendering and begging Starlight to carry me back inside with her magic.

When Philip's lips met my cheek, however, the weariness faded. I nuzzled him in return. "Better?" he asked.

I nodded. "Much better. I think we can trust Riley's safety to Princess Luna. In the meantime, let's get to this party."

The walk to town was much more sedate than Princess Luna or Riley's, but we made it all the same. As we walked, I turned to Starlight. "How is it everyone can understand us?" I asked.

"Well, Twilight used a universal translation spell on herself when she went to your world, but we decided it would be best if everyone who came through the portal and was trans—What was that word again?" Starlight asked.

"Transmogrified," I said.

"Right. Everyone who gets transmogrified into a pony will have the Ponish language bestowed upon them. We just figured that would be the easiest way, rather than making you all learn it from scratch." Starlight Glimmer waved a hoof in the air as if learning a language would still only be a minor inconvenience.

"Was there anything else done as part of that?" I wasn't exactly angry—it was a useful thing—but a lack of transparency at this point was not appreciated. My tone wasn't chilly, just a little flat.

Starlight seemed to slump a little. "That was my fault. I totally should have had Twilight tell you about that. It was really such a minor thing, and I was completely focused on getting the main part of the spell right, that I forgot about it."

I raised an eyebrow.

"What? Oh! No, that is the extent of things," Starlight Glimmer said.

"Thank you, Starlight. I'll make sure to report that we were duly notified of such." It was a bone—a favor—but trading favors with high-ranking officials was part of politics. "Let's forget about it for now and enjoy the evening."

I had to wonder how politically involved Starlight actually was. The look she gave me made me think she truly thought that would be the end of things. Well, even if she weren't aware of the undertones, she would remember I did something nice for her.

Was I corrupting ponies? Was this how the evil of politics spread? They mentioned previous contact with another human civilization, surely they have encountered this before—Starlight must just be out of the loop. Which meant I was wasting my time using it on her.

"Princess Luna seemed happy to be here," I said.

"Oh yes. This was where Twilight Sparkle freed Luna of the influence of Nightmare Moon." Starlight seemed nervous about that, like there was more to it. "And she has had some—from what I've heard—good times here."

Fascinating as it was, I honestly did want to just unwind. It had been two long days so far, and even without anything to show for it, I needed to relax.

Our slow walk took us all the way to the edge of the party, which is where the ambush happened.

It began so quickly that none of us were prepared.

"There you are! Have a cupcake! Have ten! I baked them all myself!" Pinkie Pie had, as she spoke, produced no less than three trays of the most amazing cupcakes. I could smell literally all the wonderful flavors that I could imagine, and every single one of them looked to have more sugar than was probably healthy.

But Pinkie Pie had offered them, and I couldn't say no. Which brought up the problem of me not knowing how to hold things with anything but my mouth. I looked longingly at the cupcakes.

"What's the matter?" Pinkie Pie asked.

It wasn't that I didn't know there was some way to hold things with a hoof—Pinkie was doing it right now—but I couldn't work it out. "I've only been here a day, I haven't worked out how to hold things yet."

"Aww, well that's no good!" Somehow, Pinkie Pie set one of the trays to balance on her head while she gave her chin a good tap. I was still uncomfortably aware that she was balancing on one hoof. "Oh! I know the way to fix this. We use the patent-pending Pinkie Pie food-gobbling-face-plant technique!"

As I watched, she held up a tray of cupcakes and literally smooshed her face down into them. It looked like a mess—cake everywhere—but when she lifted her head up, Pinkie had somehow gotten them all into her mouth, and gulped them down.

"Now you try!"

"How did—?" I asked.

"No, no, no! Don't ask, just do!" Pinkie made an expressive gesture with the hoof that no longer held the tray she'd cleaned off, indicating the tray before me.

I looked down at a tray of cakes, and could visualize how silly I'd look if—if whatever magic she used didn't work on me. Well, silliness was its own way of fitting in. Opening my mouth wide, I dove at the tray.

"You did it!" Pinkie Pie had procured a small artillery piece that deployed confetti from somewhere, and fired it into the air.

As I closed my mouth, a dozen delicious flavors hit me. The most amazing cakes, wonderful icing, frosting that left my legs wobbling. Pure. Perfect. Bliss. But I had to gulp it down, something else that seemed strangely easy. "Those are amazing, Pinkie."

"Thanks!" The compliment seemed to inflate Pinkie's mood to new heights. "But we have important birthdayarrivalversary stuff we have to do now!"

From the corner of my eye I saw Princess Luna striding through the crowd purposefully. She had a bright smile on her face, and my daughter on her back. I drew my attention back to Pinkie Pie, and felt the world brighten as I did so—I was distinctly glad I wasn't diabetic. "Lead on!"

With Pinkie Pie taking charge, I quickly looked and saw Philip being left behind—a smile on his face. Who cares? Let him have fun his way, I was going to embrace this cultural moment.

"Everypony!" Somehow Pinkie Pie was heard over everyone present, and the whole town went quiet to listen. "Welcome to the third birthdayarrivalversary I've ever held. Tonight's is in honor of Clairilee, her family, and friends!"

I tried to correct her, but like they sensed it being the right moment, everyone cheered and stomped their hooves. Every face in the crowd turned to me as the stomping and shouting stopped.

It was time for some charm. I quickly adjusted my headspace to accommodate a few new things. "Hello everypony! Thanks for welcoming me and my family, as well as my nation! I'm so happy to be here tonight to make a lot of new friends!"

As the crowd exploded, hooves going wild and cheering amassing like a storm, I felt a warm sensation spread through me. This wasn't what I'd signed on for, but the raw excitement and exuberance was impossible to deny—they loved meeting new people and making new friends.

I was cheating, of course. Twilight Sparkle being the princess of friendship was a dead give away. Slipping everypony and friend into my little speech was simple, but it paid off. Dammit, Jeff, you were right.

"Okay, this one is going to be even more tricky." Pinkie Pie had slid back up beside me with a large wooden mug of some liquid. "Have you ever caught food mid-air?"

My brain made the connection. "Like cheez-its?"

"Yes! Now, CATCH!" As Pinkie Pie shouted, she banged the bottom of the mug with her hoof.

I watched the liquid inside the mug exit the top as a single mass. My reflexes pushed me, and leaning forward I opened my mouth and sighted down my nose.

The drink hung in the air. I lunged forward and snapped my mouth closed around it. Wild stomping and cheering came from the ponies around me as a spicy apple drink hit my taste buds. I gulped the drink down and realized it was a dry, aged cider.

Gasping in delight, I actually felt so happy I bounced on my hooves in excitement. Whatever else I could say about ponies, their mood was catching. "That was delicious."

"Ah'd say this's the first time somepony from another universe liked my cider, but it ain't." An orange-furred mare with platinum mane, who happened to have the thickest country accent I'd ever heard, tipped her hat in my direction. "But it's good t' see it ain't lost its touch. M'name's Applejack."

"You made this? It's wonderful," I said. "Hold on, Twilight mentioned your name once, one of her closest friends?"

"Sure am," Applejack said with a widening smile.

"My name—" I said.

"Clairilee. Ah heard. Welcome to Ponyville, Clairilee—Equestria too, Ah guess."

If I was going to fight this, now was the time. "Well, it's actually—"

"Darlings! Who do we have here?" A new arrival, a unicorn mare who shared Saffron's white fur but bearing an exquisitely pampered mane and tail of pure violet, blinked her blue eyes at me.

"Howdy Rarity. This here's Clairilee. She's the new ambassador Twi sent over," Applejack said.

I was undone. Everyone—everypony—would know me as Clairilee before the night was over. My despair must have shown because Rarity (the name rang a bell, possibly another of Twilight's named friends) reached out a dainty, split hoof for my chin and tilted my jaw up.

"What has you so sad, dear? You really should smile more." Rarity looked into my eyes, concern radiating from her in a flood of empathy that no amount of social differences could deny. She succeeded. "There you go. Much better. Now what had you down, Clairilee?"

It was impossible. A tidal wave of ponies all knowing me as Clairilee seemed arrayed and ready to reinforce the name. I was stuck. "I'm sure it's nothing. I'm pleased to meet you, Rarity."

Her reaction encompassed delight and acceptance. "A sentiment I share, of course." Rarity seemed on the verge of saying something, teetering back and forth, but then she made her decision. "Oh. I simply have to ask. Do humans wear clothes where you're from?"

Left field, here's the fly-ball!

I blinked away my confusion. "Yes. All the time."

"Just like the other one, then. It must be so wonderful!" Rarity seemed to trail off into her own happy-land, only to snap back sharply. "Oh, but I'm rambling. The other humans who came here kept complaining about a lack of clothes, and when Twilight sent word that you were coming—well—I might have made a few things for you."

Rarity got my full attention. It had been bugging me, but it had felt normal to just walk around. "H-How did you know our sizes?"

"Well, I didn't. I made a range of clothes in all different and varied sizes. I'll be able to customize any of them to fit, of course, and there's a range of things for stallions or mares. I admit I wasn't prepared for you bringing foals, or so many, but I can make something for them too." The more Rarity spoke about making clothes, the more animated she became.

"Thank you so much. I believe I'll be coming to visit in the morning. Is there something I can pay you with?" I asked.

"Oh no, darling no, no, no! When it is a fashion emergency, I will not have it be said that I failed to heed the call." Rarity waved off the very idea with one hoof, then flicked her mane. "Of course, should there be something later I might like, perhaps you could help me with it?"

I'd walked right into it. A careless step while offguard and I was indebted to a pony already. After promising to come in the morning, I couldn't very well just not. She had won, and proved to me in a subtle way that ponies did play politics. Or, at least business (which is just selfish politics).

"Well, of course we can, assuming it's not a national safety issue. Business is one element I am here to promote, after all," I said.

"Perfect. I'll see you in the mor—" Rarity was interrupted by the sound of thunder overhead.

Heads craned up just in time to see a wash of rainbow colors streaming across the sky. I know I stared, eyes fixed on the patterns that seemed to rush out in a circular wave from one point. As I looked, I saw the source of the rainbow pattern—a single pegasus.

Wearing some kind of skintight costume of blue, gold, and white, they buzzed past the gathering at a low enough altitude that some hooves were raised high enough for the mystery pegasus to clop their own against. When they swung back around, the daredevil seemed to be coming right at me.

I started to panic, and was ready to jump aside when I realized no one (nopony?) else seemed the least bit worried. Standing my ground, the blue-clad pegasus slammed into the ground in front of me, executing a perfect (if amazing) landing. "Hi! I'm Rainbow Dash!"

Another name I remembered from Twilight's chats. I put on my almost real smile for her.

"This here's Clairilee," Applejack said.

Rainbow Dash made a pair of awkward chuckles. "It's good to meet you, Clair Ree." The way she said my name was distinctly separated. Her eyes seemed to twinkle in the bonfire light of the evening.

With an articulate groan, Rarity delivered a haughty look to Rainbow. "No no, Rainbow, it's Clairilee, not Clair Ree. Honestly…"

"Huh? My mistake. Twilight told me all about you in a letter. If you need something, just ask for me." Rainbow Dash struck a pose as she made the pronouncement.

"Well there is one thing," I said. Applejack looked the happiest at my words, while Rarity and Rainbow just looked interested. "I don't know if you heard, but my son and one of our guards have turned into pegasi. I don't know if you have had any experience training people—ponies—but if you could help them learn to fly that would be great."

"Huh." Rainbow Dash looked puzzled for almost a second before her face lit up. "Teach some newbies how to fly? Are you kidding? I was born to fly. This'll be a piece of cake!"

"Will tomorrow morning be too early?" I asked.

"Are you kidding? I didn't make top solo flier of the Wonderbolts by sleeping in half the day!"

Applejack snorted loudly in derision, and Rarity shook her head.

Since I'd already won my concession from her, I decided it was time to let her gloat a little. "What are the Wonderbolts?"

Apparently, talking about the Wonderbolts was even more exciting for Rainbow Dash than talking about herself.

Riley Ree

"And you have a castle of your own, too?" I had to crane my head to look up at Princess Luna. She was big—bigger than Mom—and I was so small I had to run to keep up with her walking. She'd carried me around for a while, but then she put me down and told me I needed to get used to walking.

Princess Luna looked down to me, then she craned her head to look up. "I don't have a castle, but I have the moon."

Confusion reigned. I looked up at the moon now and tilted my head to the side. "You have the—?" My left forehoof caught on something and I started to tumble. Life was unfair, but ponies were awesome. I didn't even hit the ground before pretty blue light flared around me. "Thanks!"

"You're welcome, Riley." Princess Luna floated me back to my hooves, but she stopped and kept looking up. "Yes. It is my moon. Would you like to see it up close?"

I nodded, unable to even think of doing anything but agreeing.

Her horn flaring even brighter blue than when she'd caught me, Princess Luna looked up at the moon.

I couldn't breath, think, or say anything. The moon moved closer, growing larger and larger until it took up nearly three times as much space in the sky. "Wow. That's amazing."

"I'm glad you like it, Riley. I had better put it back before my sister notices. She gets upset with me if I play with the sky too much," Princess Luna said.

"She's your big sister?" I asked.

"Yes, Riley. My big sister." Princess Luna sounded a little sad, but also proud.

I thought about my own sibling. "Saffron's my big brother. He can be a real meanie when he wants to be."

"I was mean to my sister. We said things neither of us meant. We got in an argument and I lost my temper." Leaning down, Princess Luna looked directly at me. "Disagreements are okay, Riley, but don't say things you don't mean to important ponies."

"Yeah." I looked up at Princess Luna and chewed on my lip a little. "Besides, he's my big brother. It's my job to remind him he isn't all that."

Princess Luna's face broke into a smile. "I wish I'd had a diligent little sister like you back then. It might have saved me learning a long lesson about egos."

"Well, tonight I can be your little sister!" I said.

~~Princess~~ Big Sister Luna's eyes widened before she let loose a laugh. "Come, Riley! Would you like to fly?"

I tried to jump onto her back again, but my chances of making the jump were less than zero—without Big Sister Luna giving me a boost with her magic.

"Are you holding on?" Big Sister Luna asked.

About to ask how I would hold on with hooves, the breath was shoved from my throat by Big Sister Luna jumping into the air.

Saffron Ree

"Uh, Dad?" I asked. "Is that Riley riding around on the blue princess' back?"

"She was earlier. What's so—" Dad stopped talking and craned his head upwards in the same direction as mine. He focused on the same thing I did: Riley squealing and riding on Princess Luna's back high above our heads. "See? This is why I can't come to these things alone."

I watched as said princess did a loop-the-loop over our heads while all the ponies around us cheered her on. "Aren't we going to, I don't know, stop her?"

Dad had stopped looking up. "She's a princess, Saf. This is a Mom thing. None of our business."

Asking, But what if she falls? died in my throat. I remembered how Starlight had caught Riley earlier, and obviously Princess Luna was some kind of super unicorn or something as well as being a super pegasus and—

"Hi!" My train of thought was completely derailed by a blue pegasus pony. She looked at me expectantly.

I tried to think of what to reply with. She stood a bit taller than me, though not as tall as Dad, and she was wearing some kind of super tight outfit. "Uh, hi? I'm Saf."

"Saffron, right?" she asked. When I nodded, she started to walk around me. "Yeah, your Mom asked if I could help you learn to fly. I mean, I guess I can, but you do you want to fly, Saf?"

"Y-Yeah, but my wings—" I said.

"Your wings are fine. They're just a little twitchy is all. Can you spread 'em?" she asked.

"Every time I try to use them for anything, my legs mess up." I glared directly into the face of the mare's overconfident smile. "Alright. Alright. Hold on and be ready for my dirtnap." Bracing my legs as much as I could, I slowly started to unfold my wings. As soon as the joint I associated with being my elbow started to move, my legs wobbled.

"Stop. I think I got it. Fold 'em back up, Saf. You're kinda lucky, you know?" she asked.

From experience, I knew she was waiting for a sign from me to continue. "Why?"

"Because your mom got the best flier in all Equestria to help get you flying. Forget about your wings tonight, Saf, you'll be flying by the end of the week, or my name's not Rainbow Dash."

I snorted. "You're kidding, right? Best flier in Equestria? How can you even make a claim like that?"

"You see this uniform? They don't just hand these out to anypony. I'm the number one solo stunt flier for the Wonderbolts, which makes me the best flier—period. But hey, you've got some growing left to do. You might become second best one day, Saffron."

Ugh. She was worse than Gravy. I was about to open my mouth and say something stupid, but her look told me she wanted that. "I'll be a better flier than you one day, Rainbow Crash."

Her subsequent fall sideways to literally roll on the ground laughing caught me off-guard. I stared at her, completely disarmed until she managed to pull herself to her hooves again.

"S-Sorry, Saf, but you couldn't have picked a worse name to call me if you wanted to make me angry. Crash is my nickname. My first year in the Wonderbolts saw me crash into more stuff than anypony else in the history of the team. I'll see you in the morning, newbie." And with that, Rainbow Dash barely twitched her wings out and she shot into the air.

I craned my head to watch her rainbow tail zoom off into the night. She wasn't just fast. From what I saw, Rainbow Dash probably hadn't been lying.

"Dad, I—"

"I saw, Saf. I was right here. Looks like you're going to be busy tomorrow." Dad had a smile that I couldn't really get a read on—damn these pony faces.

To be perfectly honest, I did feel a bit wimpy just sitting around the castle. (Holy shit. How did that phrase become a thing?) Back on Earth I was used to going to the gym with Dad, Riley, and Mom twice a week. So far I had spent most of my time in Equestria sitting around reading, or trying to work out how to use my legs properly.

"Dad?" I asked. "You know what we really need?Like, a doctor for when people need to learn how to walk again. We need one of them."

"A physiotherapist? Not a bad idea. I'll ask Starlight about it tomorrow. You're actually doing pretty well here, Saf."

"Don't say that," I said.

"No. I mean it. You've made friends with a dragon who seems to have some of the best taste in books ever, you wind up with what I think is the pony equivalent of a gold medalist coaching you to fly, and you come up with good ideas for getting us all up to speed in these janky bodies." Dad sounded… proud.

"Dad. I'm like a little kid again. Look at me!" I stomped my hooves as I walked, showing off how lanky and uncoordinated I felt. "I have—like—twenty years before anyone will treat me like an adult!"

"Funny," Dad said. "That mare didn't treat you like a foal."

I wanted to growl, run to my room, turn some angry music up really loud and teach some noobs how to die in Battlefield. The best I could do like this, though, was grumble and stumble back to the castle so I could read a book and—and try not to cry. "I'm going over here, Dad."

Walking away from the crowd, I made my way to a big tree on the edge of town. Sitting down under it, I dropped my head into the shadows that the trunk offered from the light of the party.

And it was about then I realized there was someone—somepony—already here. I sat up and looked at the quiet pony. They seemed to be ignoring me. Instead of talking, introducing myself and striking up a conversation, I just lay back down and blew a snort out.

The night wore on, and my curiosity grew as to the identity of the big pony who lay in the shadows with me. From time to time I watched his eyes, green in the stray bits of moonlight they reflected, following somepony (crap, now I'm actually using it) around at the party.

It felt like hours passed, and maybe one or two had, but I couldn't stand it anymore. "Nice night out here."

"Eeyup," he said.

I almost asked if I was bugging him, but it was obvious I was. Without any idea what to say next, I just lay back down and waited.

"Y're quiet fer a pony," he said at last.

"I was angry. Normally I'd—I'd have other ways of calming down. Sitting down in a quiet place seemed pretty good." I didn't turn to look at him. We both just lay there and watched ponies breaking away from the party in ones, twos, and small groups. One pony started walking our way.

"Hey, Big Mac. Are you comin' home?" the mare asked. Standing the moonlight, I could see a light orange pelt, blonde mane and tail, and three apples on her flank.

"Eventually," my companion said.

I realized she hadn't even seen me in the dark. White fur I might have, but when there wasn't any light, white might as well be black.

"Well, y'all come home when you need to. 'K?"

"Eeyup."

The mare walked away, and I waited until my keen ears couldn't even hear her hoofsteps anymore before asking, "That your girlfriend?"

A bark of laughter erupted from the stallion. "Nnope. Sister."

"Maybe I should head back. I've got flying lessons in the morning."

"Eeyup."

As I pushed myself upward, my wings decided to shoot out to the sides, bending and flexing along with my forelegs' knees. Ignoring the errant limbs for a moment, I made sure to get my hooves down and legs stable first, then turned my attention to folding my wings.

Pulling my wings in a little at the time, I had to struggle to keep my legs from folding with them, but eventually I got my wings folded at my sides. Turning to face the (glowing) castle in the distance, I started putting one hoof before the other.

"If'n you ever want somewhere to relax without any noise, Sweet Apple Acres is pretty good."

I looked back in time to see the stallion stand up, and up, and up, and—Holy shit, he was huge. "S-Sure," I said and watched the monster of a pony walk away slowly in the opposite direction.

Looking back toward the castle, I started off again.

Author's Note

Shining Armor: Knowing that Earth's military is much more advanced and has much more combat experience, how does this make you feel in comparison?

"Uh, well, we've kinda been getting some good training in, what with repeated invasions and surviving them for over thirty thousand years, we've got this under control. Besides, tactically speaking, we have the best beachhead imaginable—one we completely control." Shining shrugged his shoulders. "But that's kinda academic. Kinetic magic shields, enchanted armor, spears that could split a boulder in half and not get dull—We've got our own toys."

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Lab

Chapter 7 Saffron Ree

I groaned as I stumbled out of my bedroom, looked around the main room of the suite, and almost did a double-take. Spike was serving plates of steaming hot pancakes onto the coffee table that my parents and sister were sitting at.

"Oh. Hey Saf. Hungry?" Spike asked.

Sparing not a thought for my wings being askew, or the fact I wasn't a unicorn, I practically magicked my way over to the couch and squeezed on beside Riley. Mom, Dad, and Riley all had their mouths full of pancake.

"Did you make this?" I asked.

Spike pushed a plate in front of me. There was a knife and fork, but I wasn't even sure how to begin at using those. "Uh, can I get some syrup on those?"

"Sure thing. What about some ice-cream?" Spike began applying syrup (I had no idea what kind).

"Ice-cream on pancakes? Sure!" I watched as he added a dollop of ice-cream on my pancake stack, and the heat melted it to dribble all down the side of them. It took just two seconds to work out how to attack the pancakes without knife and fork. I shoved my face down and took a big bite out of the stack.

Flavorsplosion was a word I could remember seeing in some kids breakfast cereal ad at some point, but until now I guess I didn't see the entirety of what it meant. Apparently flavorsplosion meant dragon-cooked Equestrian pancakes with mystery syrup and ice-cream on them.

"Saffron!" Mom said.

"Car taw, eafi," I said right back, my mouth full of pancake. When I looked over, I saw Mom taking her own bite, just as I had last. I wondered how she'd been eating them before that, but with the look of delight at my method working so well, she seemed to completely ignore any further complaints about my way of eating.

"You know," Spike said, "there's no better compliment to a cook than to silence his diners. Well, except for gemstones."

I chewed up and swallowed my mouthful and looked at him. "Gemstones? I thought your hoard was books?"

"It is. Gemstones aren't for hoarding, they're for eating." And with that, Spike pulled a ruby (it was red, I assumed it was a ruby) the size of my hoof out of nowhere, and he bit into it like an apple. He lifted it back from his teeth and I could clearly see the big bite mark.

"That was awesome. How hard are your teeth?" I asked.

Spike flashed me his best smile. Terror shouldn't have been my reaction, but this predator just showed me a huge array of teeth that could cut through a gemstone like it was an apple. I gulped.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. In some ways it's hard to get used to being a bigger dragon. I used to be about the same size as you when we first moved in here." Taking another bite of the gemstone, I could hear his teeth crunching away at it, reducing the ruby to—well—chewed up gem dust.

He just got the mouthful of gems down when he used his fist to bump his chest. Spike's eyes widened, and he quickly tilted his head away from looking at me just in time to let loose a broad green blast of flame.

A scroll dropped out of the fire of Spike's breath, and almost landed on my stack of pancakes. Spike caught the rolled up paper just in time. "Hey, this is from Twilight." He broke the seal and unrolled the scroll, then held it up. "I'm sending the next eight soldiers and Frank Hollings. On your advice, older soldiers were sent. They should be arriving within an hour."

I'd never seen Mom gulp down food so quickly before. She jumped to her hooves and looked around. "Can you send a message back?" she asked.

"Sure. I can even write it out for you," Spike said producing paper, an ink well, and a quill from somewhere. "Alright, go."

"Clair Ree, 28443194, you get that?" Mom waited for Spike to nod before continuing. "Please include a medic with physio therapy experience, specializing in amputation and prosthetic therapy."

"That's it?" Spike asked. When Mom nodded, Spike tossed the parchment into the air and blew on it. Green fire erupted from Spike's lips and incinerated the paper. The paper was gone completely. "All done."

"Thank you, Spike." Mom sat back down and took another big bite of the pancakes on her plate.

I got back to eating, and only just finished the last bite on my plate when there was a knock on the door. Passphrases were exchanged, and the doors opened.

"Hey. I'm here to teach some squirt how to fly?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Yeah. That's me," I said standing up. "We going now?"

"You just get done with a pile of Spike's pancakes?"

I nodded.

"Then come on. Daylight's wasting." She turned and trotted back out.

I looked to Mom and Dad. "Uh…"

"You'd better go. I spent a lot of effort talking her into this." Mom looked entirely too satisfied.

Keeping my wings tucked, I got up and turned to Spike. Carefully, I lifted a hoof and held it up to him. "Thanks for breakfast."

"Hey. No problems. Glad you enjoyed it." Spike stuck out his arm and closed his hand into a fist before it met my hoof. I don't know why, but it felt good to have a friend—even if he was like five times my age. "Don't crash too much."

I grinned like an idiot and and walked for the door. I didn't realize it at first, but when I passed the door way faster than what I intended, I realized I wasn't just walking—I was trotting. I'd seen ponies doing this, but now that my legs had found their rhythm, it just felt right.

"Hey. You're movin' pretty good there. What's got you're engine going all of a sudden?" Rainbow Dash slipped in beside me, her hooves easily matching mine.

"Just stuff that is better here. Back home I only kinda had two friends. One of them grew up to be an asshole, the other almost wound up being my girlfriend. Spike is—He's pretty awesome." I tried to shrug my shoulders, like it wasn't anything, but it broke the spell I had going. My forelegs lost time and I started to fall sideways.

A blue wing shot out faster than I could fall and grabbed my back. Rainbow didn't need much to brace against my mass, and she kept all four hooves on the floor. "Keep the gestures for when you aren't trotting. Or at least wait another twenty years before trying that again." It rolled off her tongue like she'd just said one year. It was an amount of time, but in the pony scheme of things it was nothing.

"Thanks." I got my hooves under me again and balanced on them. "How long until we start being able to balance on these?"

"You could be already if you didn't spend so much time reading books. Don't get me wrong, some books are totally awesome, but Spike has no idea what a good book is." Rainbow stepped up to the front door and pushed it open. "You're problem is you have new limbs now, I get that. I've even helped somepony else with hers.

"But your new limbs come with complications. Legs, wings—heck—even your tail is new, right?" Rainbow waited for me to nod. "So come on, lets get outside and move."

She didn't give me time to complain or say anything at all. Rainbow Dash took off at a trot and left me to catch up. I walked a few steps, and then trotting just clicked again. My wings kept wanting to spread out, but I kept them tight at my sides.

Rainbow Dash jumped into the air with ease and began flying backwards. "Spread your wings a bit. Don't try to open them, just stop holding them closed."

"I'll just fall over," I said.

"Maybe. And if you do, so what. Get back up and try again." Rainbow floated to my right side, her wings not just keeping her upright, but moving sideways at the same speed I was trotting. She used her forehooves to carefully tease my right wing away from me.

As soon as Rainbow got enough force on my wing to overcome my urge to keep it pinned down, both wings snapped out and began moving in time to my forelegs. "How is this better?" I asked.

"You can feel the air pushing back on your wings, right?"

"Yeah." It took a second for it to click what was happening. "Yeah, it is!"

"That should keep them a little out of sync with your legs, which should help train your brain to the difference between them." Rainbow Dash dropped back to her hooves and was immediately trotting at my side again. "Let's do two laps of town like this, okay?"

It was good to exercise, and better to have company while doing it. I nodded and tried to lengthen my trot a little as Rainbow Dash did.

After one lap of the town I barely felt like I'd been working, but by the time we swung back to the castle after the second one, my legs were starting to feel like they'd done work. Not to mention my weakly flapping wings.

We had a crowd of ponies watching us pull up after the second lap. And I mean crowd. I could see a pile of unicorns, earth ponies, and a few pegasi. One of the pegasi—a mare that everyone else made room for—stepped out front. "You're Rainbow Dash?" she asked.

"Yeah, gimme a sec to get Saf cooled down." Rainbow Dash pointed at the lake behind the castle. Beyond it was another big, crystalline building but I could tell she was pointing to the lake. "Get your butt in there and guzzle down as much water as you feel you need. Looks like the rest of my class is here.

"Now! Who's in charge of you lot?"

I ignored the milling mass—and Rainbow's loud voice—and did as I was told. My everything felt warm, and that water looked really good. I didn't stop as I reached the bank, just walked right in.

"H-Hello? You're one of the new people Twilight sent over, aren't you?" a female voice said barely above a whisper.

My ears had turned to track the voice, and I saw a yellow mare with pink hair doing her best to hide behind a bush. I stepped further into the water so that my wings were resting on the surface. "Yeah. My name's Saf."

"I-I'm Fluttershy. Rainbow asked me to come and teach you about wing care," she said, still not giving up the safety of her bush.

"Wing care?" I tried to lift a wing, and my foreleg on that side twitched. If I weren't in the water I would have fallen. "Like what?" I asked.

"Your feathers need to be preened, oiled, and checked. I-I can help you, but you need to learn how to do it on your own, too." Fluttershy advanced on me, apparently realizing that I was probably less capable of chasing her than she thought. "When you feel comfortable again, you can hop out of the water and I can show you what you need to do."

I moved slowly, not because I was trying not to startle her, but because the water combined with my tired legs forced the matter. As I climbed out of the water, I couldn't believe how much heavier I was. Water poured off me, but the weight of what was still in my fur was too much.

"Oh dear! You poor, poor thing." Fluttershy hadn't caught me in time from faceplanting on the ground. Soft hooves carefully rolled me to my side and probed my legs, chest, and face.

I had a flashback to Candy, and a little shiver ran through me as I relaxed. When she took her hooves away, I jerked to and opened my eyes. "I'll get used to these legs sooner or later."

"Well, nothing broken. Can I please take a look at your wing?" Fluttershy asked.

My brain had the consistency of a well-trained puppy at that point. I rolled over to my belly, secured my legs by dint of laying on them, and tried to stretch out my wing.

I could still feel my legs trying to move under me, but my weight (and the weight of the water in my fur) was plenty to keep them from dancing about. Not that I had much control over my wings. I could stretch them most of the way out, but flapping them didn't seem to do much.

"Look at the state of these feathers." Her tone had changed from concerned for safety to mother hen berating a chick. "The first thing you need to learn is proper preening. Lift your wing further forward, and turn your head toward it."

It was easier said than done. I tried to stretch the wing forward, like she asked, but when I turned toward it, my wing seemed to retreat from my face. "Ugh. This is impossible," I said.

Fluttershy giggled at my frustration and used her hoof to help push my wing forward. It would have been infuriating if she weren't so—so nice about it. "There. You'll get better at controlling them, but for now I can help. Look along your feathers until you find one a little bent—which seems to be all of them."

I stared in shock as she bit my wing. Okay, she didn't bite-bite it. Fluttershy closed her mouth around a group of feathers and I could feel her using her teeth and tongue to work at one.

The feeling was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. I hadn't noticed it before, but feathers were sensitive with a capital S. I only realized I was pulling a silly face when Fluttershy's giggles met my ears.

"Have a look at that, and try the next feather along," she said.

Shaking my head a little, I turned to look at my wing and it was painfully obvious which feather she'd straightened. The ones beside it had little kinks in the shafts, and I could tell now that she'd used her mouth and teeth to straighten it. "Alright. How do I know if I'm doing it wrong?"

"It's your feather, you will feel if it isn't right. Go ahead." Her every word was encouraging and soft at the same time. It was like she was the shyest cheerleader of all time.

Using my eyes, I guided my mouth down to the bunch of feathers and closed my lips around them. Too late, of course, I realized I was putting my mouth on the same feathers as Fluttershy had. It was practically a kiss.

Blushing, I felt around with my tongue and froze. Fluttershy's motions had been gentle, delicate. My own tongue felt like a wrecking ball.

"You should have seen Twilight when she first tried this. She pulled much sillier faces than you just did," Fluttershy said.

I pinched the base of the feather carefully between my teeth to hold it, and started working on straightening it. It took ten times as long as Fluttershy did, and I felt it start to feel wrong a few times, stopped, and tried again. Eventually, however, I released my teeth and lips and pulled back.

"There! You did it!" It was the softest cheer I'd heard from anyone—ever—but it wasn't for nothing.

I now had one perfectly straight feather, and one that was mostly straight and covered in saliva, but at least it looked better than the rest. "Let me try that one again."

"W-Wait. Don't do that. Move on to the next one. You'll get better, and when you do you can come back and do an even better job on these ones."

So soft and quiet. Fluttershy wouldn't have lasted five minutes in a high school on Earth. I nodded to her and bent back to my wing, spirits lifted on yellow wings and soft words.

Philip Ree

I looked at the next instruction in the book. "Sparks. Not in here, little book."

The meditation methods were, without a doubt, the best I'd ever experienced. I'd tried yoga, T'ai chi, and several others, but nothing compared to feeling real magic flow through you. The meditation had focused on control and building the flow. I liked it a lot.

But, despite how much the little book for foals reassured me that sparks were every unicorn's first step, and that it was safe, I wanted to go somewhere without flammable coverings everywhere. I slipped the book into a pair of saddlebags and slung them over my back.

I left the room I shared with Clair, and walked into the living room. There was eight new ponies that all stood in a line along one wall. Another new pony was speaking with my wife. The pegasus mare Clair was engaged with noticed me, her eyes drinking in every detail of me in the fraction of a heartbeat that she did so, then looked back to Clair.

"Oh, there's Philip now. Honey, this is Colonel Maria Richards. Colonel Richards is here to be the head of our security detail," Clair said.

"Pleased to meet you, Mister Ree. Captain Bell spoke well of your decisiveness when—pardon my language—everything went to shit." The Colonel was a little taller than Clair, and sported orange fur and gold-blonde hair for her mane and tail—she looked like an inferno. "You'll excuse us?"

I'd never actually been told in quite so firm manner to fuck off before. Even Jeff hadn't excluded me in that way. I looked to Clair and smiled. "Oh, don't worry. I'll get out of your hair. Don't get your tail in a twist about little me." It was petty of me, maybe. One of the pegasi against the wall pulled his mouth into a half smile at my words, then quickly schooled it back to neutral again.

Eight plus one brass meant that nine had come over. I was willing to bet anything that the smiling pegasus had been Frank Hollings. Lemon-yellow fur and a dark pink mane made him look softer than I knew him to be. Everyone knew of Frank's record back home—he was the first human to leave our universe—but the contents of the record was limited after his acceptance to a navy base in Little Creek.

Clair's eyes said it all—the Colonel was a bitch. She wore her politicians' smile, and wore it well.

I left the suite to find our four original guards standing at the outer door, and from the look of them they were mid-conversation with the two Royal Guard that were present. They were good soldiers, on both sides, and I barely even saw them lean back from where they'd been chatting.

I closed the doors behind me and watched six pony faces relax. "Your new commander's a bitch."

No one spoke, though there was four silent nods.

Headed for the entrance of the castle, I got to where I thought it should be and instead had what looked like a mile of hallway. I turned around, intending to backtrack, and nearly walked into a mare. "Woops! Sorry, Moon Dancer."

She wasn't a soldier, a politician, or even someone of note. Moon Dancer, I'd found out, was just a very clever unicorn. She looked up from the book she'd been reading and holding in her magic and blinked a few times behind her glasses. "I-It's okay! I should have been keeping an eye on where I was going. Uh, where are we?"

My heart sank at her question. "I don't know. I was trying to find the font door, so I could practice the next thing in this book." I pulled the book out of the pack using my teeth.

"R-Right. You're learning magic from scratch. What are you up to?" she asked.

I tried to speak around the book (as I'd seen other ponies do the previous day), but when I did it slipped from my mouth—fortunately, right into Moon's magic grip. "I'm up to making sparks. I wanted to go somewhere less flammable."

"Magical sparks don't make fire. The book should have said it was safe." Moon Dancer's head dipped down as she flicked through the book.

It was obvious that the mare didn't need much of an excuse to attack a book. I cleared my throat. "I saw that, I just don't want to be the silly pony who has to admit to Twilight that I burned her castle down."

Moon Dancer's eyes widened in surprise. "A sensible unicorn? Someone alert the media." Her droll tone set off the hyperbole beautifully. "But I think I can help you move a little quicker. Did you do any of these exercises?"

I looked at the page Moon showed me in the book and nodded. "Most of the morning. Why?"

"I've done some tutoring of foals, and those exercises are the first thing everypony skips," she said, casually leading the way back whence she'd come.

"Are you kidding? They were great! I felt more alive like that than any other meditation I've tried. Magic is—it is life!" I was like a school kid, begging for teacher's praise. I didn't care how I sounded, I really did enjoy those exercises.

"This one. Where you channeled magic into your horn and then let it drain back out?" When I nodded to her, Moon Dancer raised an eyebrow. "Prove it then," she said, "do it while we're walking."

Trying to block out the feel of my hooves walking, I centered myself and breathed in. Magic rushed into me, and through me into my horn.

Moon Dancer looked at me critically. "Now push again. Let the magic flow out through your—"

Bright silvery sparkles shot into the hall before me. They rained down in an arc that looked like it would ignite everything. I stared in shock as the fountain went on and on, and only realized it was time to stop when Moon Dancer started chuckling. "Sorry!"

"I asked you to do it. No sense in feeling sorry. That was some good sparks. Try it again."

By the time we found a corridor we recognized I have a little sweat going from all the magic. It was the strangest thing in the world (I knew I'd be saying that a lot lately, but not quite so quickly) to get so tired from something seemingly non-physical.

Moon Dancer led the way to the kitchen where we could hear someone inside cooking. "Spike? Are you in there?" Moon asked.

"Yeah. Just making some lunch for—Oh! Hi Philip!" Spike was a dragon of exceptional culinary talent, or so I'd found, and he seemed to be practicing such right now. "What's up?"

"Our latest unicorn wizard here needs a four-pack of magic fuel." The way Moon spoke, it was clear this was an in-joke between them.

Spike reached for something and then held out a tray of cupcakes. "Lucky. I just baked a batch. They should be cool enough to eat quickly, and sweet enough to power your afternoon."

I stared at the cakes for maybe a second before one floated up—held aloft in pink-gray magic—and aimed itself at my mouth. It felt like he had fashioned a cupcake out of one huge sugar crystal. The frosting melted, the cake itself so light it danced over my tongue, and the flavor rushed through me. The fatigue I'd felt seemed to melt away for a moment.

"That's one. How do you feel now?" Moon Dancer asked.

"Like half a day spent doing magic was a lot less work than I know it was. I have to ask—how fast does a pony body metabolize sugar into energy?" While I spoke, my eyes noticed another of the cakes float off the tray. I had to speak faster to get the last bit out before Moon fed me another.

While I ate, my body breaking down the cupcake into fuel in seconds, Moon Dancer explained further, "It's mostly the sugar. Of all the races in Equestria, unicorns break it down fastest, closely followed by pegasi and dragons. Earth ponies bring up the rear of the pack. At least, that's how it works for the majority—there are some earth ponies that rival or beat the average unicorn's sugar metabolism."

The second cupcake was just as much of a hit of sugar as the first. Even as the last of the treat faded, I was still salivating for more. "You know a lot about this. Are you a trained nutritionist?"

"Go on, Moon Dancer. Tell him your qualifications." Spike passed me the next cupcake himself, leaving a suddenly wary Moon to glare at him. "Well?"

"I have a degree in food and nutrition."

Spike smirked a little. "A masters degree. Among others."

Clearing my throat by dint of gulping the cake down, I looked at Moon Dancer. "'Others'?"

"Well, once you've done all the prerequisite classes to qualify for four or five degrees, you already qualify for final-year of basically all of them." Moon Dancer's ears had a red tint to their inside that I realized was her blushing. "I have fifteen degrees. Five of them are masters and two are doctorates."

Numbers chased themselves around my head until I forced them to sit still in the corner. "With the messed up time difference thing, how long does a degree take?"

"Five years for a bachelors degree, seven for masters, and around ten for a doctorate. I'll point out," Spike said, "that one of her bachelors degrees is in medicine."

"Doctor Moon Dancer?" I asked.

Moon nodded, more red appearing in the visible flesh of her ears.

I smiled a little—for someone in their nineties, Moon Dancer seemed a lot younger. "Perfect. Any more questions I have will be coming to you. But on a serious note, how would you like to be addressed? Am I breaking any social rules by not calling you doctor?"

"J-Just Moon Dancer is fine."

"Why not Princess of Knowledge?" Spike assumed a dramatic pose bowed to Moon.

"Spike…" Moon Dancer said.

"I bet your wings are just lost in the mail." Wearing the smile of someone who couldn't be taken seriously, Spike apparently couldn't leave the joke alone.

"Spike!"

Stuffing the last cupcake in my mouth, Spike turned around to his prep area again. "Just remember who makes your magic fuel, Moon Dancer." Before Moon could get another word in, Spike produced a fifth cupcake and tossed it to Moon Dancer.

Proving how deft she could be with her magic, Moon caught the treat and started eating it. Turning, she swallowed the first mouthful while I was working on the whole thing the dragon had stuffed in my mouth. "Thanks, Spike."

"Don't mention it, Moon Dancer," Spike said.

I chewed as fast as I could, working away at the last of the four cupcakes as quickly as I could. Truth be told, the first three had filled my reserves back up—the last one made me actually buzz with energy.

Outside in the hallway, Moon Dancer led the way to a different room. "This will be your new home away from home. She threw open a pair of double doors and gestured inside. "This is where we practice our biggest magic. The floor, walls, and ceiling are all warded against damage or magic overflow.

"Now, let's see some sparks."

Clair Ree

"No. That won't work." None of the ponies, not Starlight Glimmer, not Moon Dancer, and now not Princess Luna could understand the point I was getting across. "To be a secure and wholly American embassy, the purchase needs to be made entirely by us—without any interference."

Princess Luna looked at me with her huge eyes and expressive face, and I could start to see a hint of realization dawning. This was only the fifth time I'd had to remind her that we would not accept any gifts to pay for our Embassy or any staff to run it. "Then you will need to survey sites when you reach Canterlot. We thought selecting one for you would be sufficient—the other human ambassador agreed to such terms."

I smiled, smiling was about fifty-percent of my job. Listening to comments about what "the other human ambassador" said or did was almost entirely the rest of it right now. Whatever world these other humans were from, they apparently didn't have as strict laws there regarding international embassies.

Nodding, I used a hoof to flick through documents. "Ah. And you have quarters for us until then, good. Might I ask what markets would be best to trade goods on? We are waiting to send back a message for the last group, to find out what will be suitable to import."

"I believe the best thing to trade, right now, is some of those computers." Princess Luna was very careful about enunciating the word, it was rather new to them.

I knew what she wanted. Princess Luna had been tasked with buying computers from us. My job was to get the best price possible for as little as possible. It wasn't like we could teleport over an unlimited supply. "How many do you think would fetch us…" I looked down at my notes. "…fifty thousand bits?"

"Five hundred should be equivalent."

She'd said it so evenly and so calmly that I didn't manage to keep my calm face in place. I opened my mouth to reply when she continued.

"Given the market value of the machines, I'd say one million United States dollars would match up quite nicely with the cost of a medium-sized building." Princess Luna held my gaze still, and I could sense she was going to continue. "That said, you will be providing the first such examples, so a tenth of that would be sufficient."

She was bypassing any attempt at haggling by making an offer I shouldn't refuse. Fifty laptops for fifty thousand bits. That put our dollar roughly at one bit. I wanted to just admit defeat and tell her she had about a hundred-to-one advantage on me in years, but Jeff hadn't given me this job to give her all the concessions. "The platform won't fit that much. If you were willing to—"

Luna's face held very little of the carefree mare I'd met the previous night. "I have notified Princess Twilight. Without needing to send people she could make another, quick teleport before you are due to leave. You could always accept this as a gift—"

"If Twilight says she can manage another transfer, she can. Fifty laptops for fifty-thousand bits." I took pains to keep any hint of annoyance from my voice or face, but she knew she'd outplayed me, and had done it ensuring we both got what we wanted.

"Was there any further business you needed to attend to?" Luna asked.

"Not business as such." My answer caused Luna to raise an eyebrow. "Thank you for taking care of my daughter last night. It gave me some time to help acquaint myself with some of Twilight's friends. I already had to put off Miss Rarity's appointment until tomorrow."

"You are new to this role, correct?" Luna asked. When I nodded, she continued. "Then some adjustment is expected. I was told to offer you the bits as a gift of friendship, but it makes me glad that you will not take it as such.

"Despite my sister's pacifistic ways, I have always valued strong allies—equal allies. There will be plenty of time for gifts later."

"You mentioned someone told you to offer us gifts. Princess Celestia?" It was a reasonable guess considering Twilight had hinted Celestia was the most senior princess.

"My elder sister, yes. She has a few years on me, so far as running a nation and managing relations with others. I defer to her." There was the hint of something strained in Luna's voice.

When sisters didn't see eye-to-eye, it was usually accompanied by catty behavior and angry words thinly veiled. I had little concept of what thousands-of-years-old rulers would do to each other, but I could guess that it wasn't minor. "You'll forgive me for asking, Luna," I said, stressing her name without the title, "but is there something I should know about you and your sister?"

"Jealousy of my sisters power and position—as ruler of the day—ate me up inside and made way for evil. She was right to banish me, she probably should have done worse. I returned still full of anger and evil, but it was a new mare who wielded the magic of friendship, and with her friends they drove the evil from me. I don't—I don't enjoy looking back at that time, but with my sister and my new friends, I have forged myself stronger. There is no way for the evil to return." Luna spoke in a stream, unbreakable and impossible to interrupt.

"Twilight?" I asked.

"She is as much my sister now as Celestia. She could have sent me back to the moon—in exile for another thirty millennia, but she chose to make a friend that day." Luna's smile broke the veil of darker emotions she'd been wearing. "I will not let her down, you understand."

I nodded solemnly. "Were there any other notions your sister had about dealing with us?"

"Clairilee,"—as Luna said the nickname I'd managed to pick up the previous night, she smiled—"I am not going to hand you an advantage on a platter. I have given you what would be common knowledge to anypony in Equestria. I'm just saving time you might have to spend prizing it out of them."

Somehow, I think I liked Luna's forthright way with words and devotion to the protecting of her country more than Twilight's open friendship and nerdy ways. "I wonder how the Colonel is doing with her exercise?"

It was a complete change in topic, and I saw a smile grace Luna's mouth as she contemplated the question. "She was the noisy pegasus?"

The description fit Colonel Richards to a T. "That would be her."

"Come. We can watch them from the balcony of the second floor. Rainbow Dash had promised she wouldn't actually harm any of them." Luna led the way out of the room. We picked up the four younger marines at the door and made our way out and up some stairs. When we reached a balcony, Luna stepped out on it and immediately had to cover a giggle.

The five guards and myself did likewise—stepping out and giggling.

Rainbow Dash seemed to be trotting along in a distance-gobbling stride that seemed likely to go on forever. Behind her, struggling to keep up, was eight marines and a beaming captain of the navy.

"I think the Colonel has—" Sergeant Roberto started saying something, but was bopped on the back of the head by Captain Bell.

"Trap shut, marine," Bell said.

"Keep in mind that Rainbow Dash already ran your son until he was ready to give in. This,"—Luna gestured with a hoof—"is Rainbow showing off."

"She seemed a little prideful when I met her last night. Quite eager to train Saffron and our guards." I watched the group led by Rainbow Dash head around the side of the town. "She won't run them to collapse, I hope?"

"The only time Rainbow Dash would disregard safety is to either show off or if somepony she cared about was in danger. What she's doing is neither of those." Luna turned to look at the four guards who were beside us on the balcony. "I wouldn't laugh too much. She'll be coaching you tomorrow."

"Speaking honestly, Ma'am, without the drain of teleportation in the same day, I don't think we'll have a problem. Also, since Ambassador Ree's son gave us the idea, we've been training when not on duty. She'll probably still run us into the ground, but we'll fight it all the way," Captain Bell said.

I let out a sigh. "Speaking honestly? Captain Bell, I wish you were thirty years older and a rank higher."

Hendricks, Clark, and Roberto all barked a laugh before Bell stared them down. He turned back to look at me. "Ambassador, I'm not cut out for that. Colonel Richards may be a little rusty and tight, but she knows what she's doing. There's a reason why she's a colonel."

"Well, Captain, how are you at spelunking?" I asked. When he served me a confused expression, I continued. "If you can maybe get up her ass to yank the stick out, we'd all be doing a lot better."

While Captain Bell danced around actually insulting his commanding officer, I considered where the woman was coming from. Sure she arrived here feeling fatigue and trying to get used to a body she'd never had before, but that didn't mean she had to insult my husband.

I was working on another good analogy for what could be the Colonel's problem when a trumpet sounded and ended with a loud shriek, a thump, and the remaining three soldiers in my detail turning to see what had happened to their captain.

"Don't shoot!" Luna's voice felt like it had thousands of years of leadership behind it. I'd heard stories of drill sergeants able to order civilians around with the power of their voice, but what Princess Luna used was that dialed up to one hundred and eleven.

Everyone froze.

"S-Sorry!" A gray-pelted mare untangled herself from Captain Bell, ruffled her wings, and then offered the soldier a hoof to help him up. "I can fly really well, but landings are always tricky when I have this much weight."

What she was talking about, of course, was what looked like the same armor the Royal Guards wore right down to the physical size of it. So fitted to a mare maybe two-thirds their physical size was quite a feat of fasteners and hope. She shook her whole body and sounded like a church bell.

Luna surprised me by approaching the mare and checking her for harm. "Miss Hooves. Please try to be more careful."

"Thank you, Princess Luna." Clanking followed every movement the mare made, and it suddenly struck me how quiet she'd been in the air.

"Derpy, what did we tell you about how heroes are to address princesses?" Using her magic, Luna lifted Captain Bell up and set him back on his hooves.

Derpy Hooves, an apt name only if one didn't consider her flying ability too, blushed around her ears. "Th-That we don't have to call you princess, Princess." Hero, "we"... things came together as I watched the mare attempt to straighten her armor—Derpy Hooves had apparently done something very brave.

Luna dipped her head in what I'd come to realize was a show of respect, then she went further and crouched down on one leg. "Correct, Derpy."

"B-But I have a really important letter! They said I had to be the pony to carry it, and I had to have my best armor on!" Derpy reached to one side and pulled a scroll from one of the bags hanging under her armor.

Groaning, Luna looked like she'd bit into a sour apple. "This is my sister's idea of pomp. Having somepony hoof-delivering a letter rather than having Spike deliver it. Very well, Derpy, please continue."

Bowing her head low, Derpy passed the scroll to me, but when I didn't immediately take it, she looked confused. "W-What's wrong?"

"May I, Ambassador Ree?" Luna asked.

No sooner did I nod than Luna's cobalt blue magic plucked the scroll from Derpy's hoof and unrolled it so that I would be the first to see it. The letter was everything I'd primed myself for. Princess Celestia spent five paragraphs introducing herself, another four congratulating us on our safe arrival, and then twelve extending us a warm invitation to Canterlot under the terms and laws Princess Twilight had already agreed to.

It was a perfect example of diplomatically-couched language, and it filled me with terror at what kind of pony Princess Celestia would be. "What would be the best way of saying yes?" I asked.

"Ambassador, are you asking for my advice on how to handle this gloriously written invitation?" The smile on Luna's face spoke volumes about what she thought of official documents like her sister had sent. "If I were to get a letter like this, I would probably reply with Okay."

"She'll know you wrote it," I said.

"You have the perfect excuse. If you wish, we could even provide you with some ink to blot on your hoof and to the page." As she spoke, Luna used her magic to teleport the items required right to her. Magic, used so rampantly, was still somewhat shocking. It reminded me that—or so Twilight assured me—Luna was the mare who shifted the moon every night.

She used a quill to scribe the word on the back of the scroll, then offered me a blotter page soaked in black ink.

Pressing my hoof to the blotter, I transferred it to the scroll and left a dirty black hoofprint on it. And then I left a hoofprint on the balcony. "Oops. Uh…"

Luna was already wrapping the scroll back up. "Miss Hooves, it is with great urgency that you deliver this back to my sister."

Derpy gasped and quickly took the scroll. Without another word (though she did make a clanging salute) she spread her wings and was off.

I waited for her to be well out of what I hoped was pony earshot before asking, "Hero?"

"In a moment of great peril, when Equestria was on a tipping point of being invaded, she acted to take a hit directed at Princess Twilight. Without Derpy Hooves it is very likely Equestria would not be here today." As she spoke, Luna's eyes never left the departing speck of shiny-clad pegasus.

The news, and the way Luna acted, was sobering. Derpy Hooves might seem like just another pony with perhaps an extra dollop of silliness to her attitude, but she was a hero here.

"Anypony can be the force that tips the scales, Clair Ree. Here and now it is you who must fill that role." Luna stared after the departed pegasus a moment longer before she turned to me. A sense of hugeness, of someone old enough to have seen the first human pick up a rock and shape it into a spearhead, seemed behind her gaze. Then Luna was just Luna again. "Now, about the training. You're going to need to learn how to use your body too."

"I don't have time," I said. "Besides, no wings and no horn."

"You believe earth ponies aren't every bit as magical as unicorns? Clair, you don't want to mention such a thing anywhere a fellow earth pony can hear. Fortunately, I have just the pony to help teach you about the particulars of earth ponies. She'll be arriving shortly." Luna looked entirely too satisfied with herself.

"What about Riley?" It wasn't that I didn't want the training, I just didn't see any need for it. We were only going to be here for a few years—it was the soldiers who would be long-term residents.

"Of course your filly will get training too, but she will also get that at school. You will not," Luna said. She turned to Captain Bell and his men. "Have you seen enough of your commander having rings flown around her?"

"I could go another hour of it, ma'am," Hendricks said with a laugh a moment before Bell elbowed him.

Luna enjoyed a smile at the joke, apparently whatever magic let us speak their language also translating jokes. "You realize she'll be taking you four next? And I can promise you, Rainbow Dash won't be tired one bit. I've heard of her flying or running all day like this."

Author's Note

Clair: Do you think it's important that your 'name' to the ponies isn't your official name?

"I'd rather they get used to our names. And, by our, I mean humanity's. They seem to have culturally diverse names themselves—I've identified several different naming schemes—and I think it was more just someone being too excited to realize what they were saying could cause offense. That's why I earn the big bucks, I can look a pony in the face and smile no matter what." The last I said, of course, with weighted sarcasm.

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Lab

Chapter 9 Philip Ree

That whole day of learning to use magic was amazing. Magic is amazing. As much as Saffron practiced using his wings, and Riley practiced growing things, I threw myself into learning magic and helping Clair.

The arrival of Major Richards had been the start of actual politics within our camp. She made every little detail a hundred times worse, but I'll never forget when Captain Bell showed me Rainbow Dash running Richards and her soldiers into the ground.

Clair arranged for the embassy in Canterlot to be purchased and had wrung a concession from Richards to use some of the marines for staff duties until we could hire staff.

I looked out the window of the train. The landscape moved by slowly. Trees and pasture gave way to rocks and switchbacks, and the train began laboring to get up the mountain.

"Now there's a man who has thoughts on his mind."

Turning my head a moment after my ears had located the source of the words, I saw Frank Hollings. Frank was almost as big a thorn in Richards' side as I was, though from her point of view she didn't have to ensure Frank's safety.

Frank Hollings was navy, which meant he was outside Richards' chain of command and was directly under Clair's orders. The difference between Frank and Major Richards was that Frank had never moved up the ranks to a field command role. He'd retired with more medals than Richards was ever likely to give out, and he didn't wear one of them.

"You know how it is, Frank, always something to think about. How're the wings going?" I asked.

"Much better once I realized your son knew more about getting the hang of actually having them than Powell would. There's some things being a physiotherapist can't teach you, and walking and using your wings is one of them." To demonstrate, Frank stretched his wings out and took a few steps—his wings didn't waver. "See?"

"You're doing better at it than Richards and her crew."

"Clark was the smartest one, he got me onto speaking with Saf about it. Clark uses his wings better than any of us but Saf himself. Smart kid you got, Phil." Frank stood in the aisle between the seats—he was just the kind of person who didn't sit. "What are your plans?"

"To stand behind Clair as much as I can. With this," I gestured up at my horn, "I can already write and file papers as well as I could back home."

"I read the reports, Phil. You were a stay-at-home dad. What's going to happen with your kids?"

"School—"

"Saf is seventeen going-on-twenty. Do you think he'll want to go back to school for another twenty years?"

"What're you getting at, Frank?" I asked.

"Your wife needs two people to support her. She needs a secretary and a head of household. I was never good at sweeping."

I rolled my eyes at the suggestion. "We can get someone who can manage the place—"

"But not someone I trust."

"Which rules out anyone under Major Richards?" I asked, but got no reply. "So we're going to shove Richards firmly into only handling security. I like this plan. It already pains me that we're going to have to draft some of her lot from the get-go. Maybe I should get Saf in on this?"

"Why we're doing it? I think if he needs to know, you should tell him. But does he need to know why he has a job?"

"You just said he's not stupid. He might look like a foal, but Saf's still an adult by my mind. If I'm going to do this and bring him on board, I'm going to tell him everything." I stood up and walked past Frank. "If you'll excuse me, Frank, I'm going to go talk with my family."

I found myself clenching my teeth as I walked down the train car—Frank was a nice guy, but he wasn't even safe from politics.

Using my magic to push the doors open, I stepped between cars while the train slowly dragged itself ever upward. As I stepped into the car, two ponies with guns at their sides focused their attention on me. When they continued their focus, I let out a snort of derision. "Oh come on? Clair isn't doing any sensitive business on the train and—"

"Let my husband through!" Clair's voice nearly shook the train car. "Major Richards, I told you—"

Major Richards cleared her throat. "Following my orders, ma'am. Every visitor to the—"

"My husband is not a visitor. Stand your soldiers down this instant." If I knew Clair, and I like to think I did, she sounded about ready to strangle Maria Richards with her bare hands. Fortunately for the Major, Clair didn't have hands.

The two soldiers—facing away from their commanding officer—had apologetic looks on their faces. I felt sorry for them in that they had Richards for their CO. I didn't feel sorry for them in that they were between myself and my wife.

"Are you going to shoot me?" I asked. When both soldiers—minutely—shook their heads, I stepped forward and kept going.

"Major, you've seen what these ponies can do. One of our guests last week lifts the moon into the sky every night. If they wanted to do something to Clair, our guns wouldn't stop them. You're supposed to be ceremonial—for show." Clair got up from her seat as I neared and tilted her head just right to catch my incoming kiss.

A month ago I would have laughed (or seen a doctor) at the thought of my heart thumping like this, or my blood burning hot. We weren't humans edging into old age anymore—we were a pair of barely-adult ponies in love.

My worries and fears weren't forgotten, merely pushed to the side while I enjoyed my wife's presence. Just when it seemed like we were stuck and lost in a kiss forever, we broke apart slowly. I looked deep into Clair's eyes and struggled to remember there was even a world around us.

"You're going to make good on that look later, right?" Clair asked me.

"Only if it's alright with the Major." My answer was low enough that I was reasonably certain that pony ears wouldn't have been up to the task of hearing it. "But I think we need a family meeting."

Clair's eyes danced with excitement. "We haven't had one since the Major arrived. Is this important or are you just tweaking her tail?"

"Important. The tail tweaking is a wonderful bonus."

"Major," Clair said. "I need some alone time with my family. Please don't take this as a suggestion." The steel in my wife's voice made the fur on the back of my neck tingle.

Major Richards lifted her head to reveal a bored expression. "Ambassador Ree, under the circumstances, a little family meeting is hardly—"

"I'm going to the next car. If any of your soldiers follow me, I'll be getting off the train and walking back to Ponyville. From there, I will contact Washington and kindly ask Jeff if he wouldn't do me the favor of seeing to it you are never stationed on the same planet as I am. Meanwhile, you can explain to the two ponies who move the sun and the moon why I left." The whole time she spoke, Clair kept her voice calm and even. She turned and started walking for the door that led to the car where the kids were.

There was utter silence in the car apart from the sound of our hooves as we walked. The soldiers didn't say anything as we transferred to the next car, and the major kept her mouth closed.

In the middle of the car, Sergeant Peter Clark and Saffron were having a wing-wrestle. Gathered around was the rest of the Young Corps as they were known. Riley sat off on a seat on her own sulking.

Of all the soldiers, Captain Bell and his squad resonated the best with me—and I'm pretty sure with Clair too. I cleared my throat. "Family meeting."

Saffron and Riley's heads snapped around. Saffron quickly turned back to look at Peter Clark, the wing-wrestle still on. To everyone's surprise, Saffron just pushed down almost effortlessly on Peter's wing and turned to us. "What's up, Dad?"

There was something different about our son. He'd always had his interests, but now life itself seemed interesting to him. He was more active, and over the last few days I'd even seen him walking through town in the company of other ponies his size.

"Captain," when Clair used Corvinus Bell's rank, it meant business, "you are to take your men and report to Major Richards. If she asks why you didn't refuse my request, tell her I threatened to jump off the train."

A fellow unicorn, Captain Bell smiled despite the situation we were putting him in. "Ambassador Ree, you don't have to give me excuses, and you don't have to give me orders. When you came through the portal thing beside us, you got stuck with us, ma'am." He turned to look at the other three young stallions (not including our son). "Come on, let's go get another dressing down from the major."

Saffron waited until the door closed behind the four soldiers before opening his mouth. "What's up?"

No accusation for ruining his fun. Where was the short-tempered teenager? "It's mostly about Major Richards."

"She's a bitch. The guys—" Saffron said.

"The guys?" Clair asked.

Saffron puffed out his chest a little. "They're pretty cool when they're not jumping around for the old bird."

And they were all in the same situation, give or take, as Saffron. "He's right. She is a bitch." The biggest gasp my statement drew was from Riley. "And if we give her an inch, she'll take it and never give it back. I was talking with Frank Hollings, and he thinks it's a bad idea getting any help from her."

"So why the meeting?" Riley asked.

My little girl. She had been growing up big and strong—as strong as any twelve year old girl—but now she was trapped in a tiny body. A tiny body that could easily bench-press me, I had to remind myself. "Frank wants to take on the role of secretary until one is sent, which means I can take over the day to day running of the embassy itself. Cleaning, cooking, all that."

"So," Saffron said. "Basically what you did back home?"

"Yeah. But in a house about ten times the size. At least that's what I think you said, dear?"

Clair nodded. "Give or take. It's a small mansion. I don't know exactly how much room a pony expects to take in the capital, but we're going to have a lion's share each."

"Which means I need helpers," I said.

Neither of our kids were idiots, they both knew what I really meant. "You want us to help?" Saffron asked. "'Kay."

"Saffron!" Riley poked her brother with a hoof. "We want an allowance!"

"What do you say, dear. Can the United States Government afford to pay to have its embassy cleaned?" I asked Clair.

"I don't know. The work would have to be up to snuff." Clair lifted a hoof and tapped her chin in contemplation. "What's the going rate for child-labor?"

"We'll have to work it out, but I think five bits an hour for good work should cover it?" I looked to Clair while I had Saffron and Riley's attention—she nodded. "Unless you want to haggle?"

"Don't look at me, Dad. Riley's the capitalist here."

Riley poked her tongue out at her brother. "I remember the last deal you made. We still haven't even seen our computers here."

"I didn't know the power wouldn't be the same. Besides, it's not like we have any free time right now. Maybe when Mom gets some more people working and we don't have to learn all the basic stuff, we'll have some free time again," Saffron said.

When had my son gotten a work ethic? He was always ready to do chores before, but they were always chores to him. This new attitude was stunningly adult.

Riley nodded to Saffron. "Okay. Five, but any trips we want to make to Ponyville are paid for."

"What's in Ponyville?" I asked.

"Bloom," Riley said.

"Fluttershy," Saffron said.

I didn't want to say Moon Dancer, but damn she'd taught me so much about magic. It felt, sometimes, like she was a savant when it came to anything related to unicorn magic. "I'm sure that can be included."

"You were quick to cave," Clair said. "What's your angle?"

"Well, they'll need a chaperon, and taking the train to Ponyville every now and again seems like a great way to be out of the line of fire." I reached a foreleg out to Clair and wound up pulling myself closer to her. To cover for my miscalculation, I kissed her on the cheek.

Clair pouted. "Will you take me with you?"

"No, dear. You have to run everything. All we have to do is look good for photo ops and run away from responsibility." My words earned me a laugh from Saffron.

"Okay. So we got this?" Clair asked.

"I'm the maid of honor," I said.

"Does that make Saffron the maid of dishonor?" Riley asked.

I couldn't help it. Coughing to hid my laughter, I nonetheless clung to Clair's solid shoulder to keep myself upright as our daughter's inadvertent gag took its toll on the seriousness of the moment.

"Why—" I stopped to get my breath back. "Why don't we just go with you can both be the hired help?"

Clair, beside me, was not just better at keeping her composure, she was quite literally a professional. "We got this, don't we?"

We all nodded to her.

"Got your back, Mom."

"We won't let you down!"

I kissed her cheek again to show my support, but when she tilted her head at the last moment it landed on her lips instead.

"Ugh. Can't you two get a room? What is this, college?" Saffron got up while making a gagging sound.

I felt Clair's lips curl up a little more at the admonishment, but what I felt even more was a shift in weight—the train was slowing. So far, the train had strained against the weight of hauling the cars up the switchback, but this was the first time it actually pushed back to slow us down.

Clair broke our kiss with a reluctant sigh. "I guess we reached the top."

"No rest for the wicked?" I stretched my neck and shook my head. My marriage to Clair had been a wild ride. We'd started off so into each other that sex had become my biggest aerobic workout for the day—which when you considered I enjoyed running, that was saying something.

As we'd gotten older, particularly post fifty, things had slowed down a bit. Running was more and more the thing that got my heart pumping, but coming here changed it all. I wasn't the man I used to be. Moving into the tail-end of life? Not anymore.

I wanted my wife, and I didn't care if my expression reflected that.

Clair looked at me with an expression of shock that fed my ego. One of her eyebrows raised and I nodded to her.

"Tonight," Clair said.

I nodded and watched her shiver. When she glanced back at me, I saw a hungry expression on her face.

"Definitely tonight," Clair said again. She turned and walked toward the door of the car.

Damn it. This place had sunk its hooks into me firmly. I watched her swaying rear depart and all the stalliony hormones bubbled and fizzed. If I was going to last a month here, I was going to need to learn restraint.

Only when Clair left the car completely could I think properly again. I let out a sigh. It was like having a bucket of cold water dumped on me. "Okay, kids, let's go be the perfect family and support Clair."

"You mean the ambassador, Dad? That's all they'll see of Mom." Saffron shook out his wings and folded them neatly at his sides again. He was still small, but he had an air of self-sufficiency that made all the other pegasi in our group look clumsy—even Frank Hollings.

Saffron reached a wing out to Riley and guided her toward the door. I'd seen him use his wings like that more and more. How many years here before that becomes normal for him?

I used my magic to pick up Clair's attache case with her papers in it. As I did, I was aware that I was getting used to the way things are here, too, and we've been here less than a month.

Clair Ree

I'd gotten all the concessions out of Colonel Richards that I was likely to today. I had a pair of soldiers flanking me, and one stepped off the train first only to look around and signal it was safe for us to move.

There were the hooves of three American ponies on the platform before I was allowed off the train. I stepped through the doors and onto the marble platform and my jaw fell open.

The Arthurian tales of Camelot had nothing on Canterlot. It was a city herded against the peak of a mountain by a palace, and though the palace shimmered with gold and marble, the buildings within the city itself weren't that far down the scale of impressive.

It was obvious the railway station was placed here for this effect, but I'll be damned if it didn't work great.

Wrenching my eyes away from Canterlot city, I looked at the ponies assembled on the platform. Well, pony, though that one pony made up for plenty of others. I could recognize Princess Celestia by the descriptions I'd heard of her, and she was standing alone smiling.

"Colonel?" I asked, knowing she wouldn't be far away. "It seems the ruler of Equestria has arrived without escort to greet us. I'm sure you would rather avoid an interdimensional faux pa, perhaps even loss of face, and allow me to greet her without mobbing her with soldiers?"

The sound of teeth grinding together told me I was pushing things again. "Ambassador Ree, I can't guarantee your safety if you continue to—"

"Colonel, the whole point of this mission is diplomacy. If I walk over to her with an armed guard while she has none, we will be showing ourselves to be weak. I don't care about egos here, only that the United States of America has whatever deals we can wring from these ponies." I didn't turn around, I didn't face the Colonel. "While this is still a diplomatic mission, I am in charge."

"Soldiers, be on the alert, but cease your escort of the Ambassador."

And now for the hardest bit of being a politician. I was correct in my assessment of things, and I had the right to demand that Richards back down and do what I order, but that didn't mean I should make her ass sting for having done it. "Thank you, Colonel. I only want this to go smoothly. By me risking my butt out there, it shows we are not just friendly, but confident."

"Alright. But this is going down as your decision."

I just nodded and stepped away from the train, from my guards, and toward the huge mare. Somehow, I'd expected her to be about Princess Luna's size. Luna had stood taller than me, enough that my eye level came to her jaw, but I could have just about walked under Princess Celestia and not had to dip my head.

As I neared her, her height became more and more apparent until I was standing about a ponylength (a strange unit of measurement, but one I could at least judge easily) away. Humans were mostly the same height—give or take a foot or two—but this was something else.

"Princess Celestia?" I asked.

"Madam Ambassador Clair Ree?" Her voice was soft as velvet, but had the depth of a singer (or someone who was just big). I knew the game she was playing, and I appreciated it for what it was. Princess Celestia was trying to reassure me with a larger title.

"We both have each other's measure, it seems. On behalf of my country, my family, and my escort, thank you for inviting us to your nation." They were general platitudes. There was an official guide for US ambassadors, but it didn't cover establishing initial missions in completely alien societies.

"Shall I show you Canterlot, or would you prefer to retire to your villa?" Princess Celestia gestured to the stairs leading from the platform. Each step was perfectly smooth marble with edging done in gold. "Of course, you'll do me the honor of a meeting this afternoon?"

"I could stand to see more of your magnificent city, and of course I'll attend." That dusty little booklet had my back so far as invitations were concerned. Social rules were a large part of it, but I had to show her what rules I would expect and what I would not be tolerant of. A meeting on the first day would help me establish that.

A pair of pure white unicorns stood in the middle of the street but made no move to approach us. As we drew closer, they moved forward and kept a safe distance such that Celestia and I could converse without their seeming interference.

I stopped, and Princess Celestia stopped with me. "You'll excuse me a moment, Your Highness, but I'll need to arrange my own guard to trail behind us at an appropriate distance."

Walking back onto the platform, I saw the Colonel arranging for our things to be unloaded. "Colonel Richards?"

"What is it now, Madam Ambassador?"

"May I request an escort of two to accompany the Princess and myself on a tour of the city?" I was throwing a bone. I could have ignored the two guards and gone on our little tour none the wiser, but I could see the Colonel's features ease just a little.

"Rodriguez, Carlson!" The colonel waited for a unicorn mare and an earth pony stallion to present themselves. "You have escort duty. Do as the ambassador says and keep her safe."

"Sir!" Carlson and Rodriguez barked. Both turned to me.

"Follow us. Keep the same distance back as the princess' guards keep in front. Look good and don't start anything," I said and led them down the steps.

Salvador Carlson, an earth pony stallion in muted brown fur and darker brown mane, approached me and drew up beside me. "Ma'am. Excuse the Colonel, she's a hard-ass, but she's a good hard-ass."

"At least half of what you said was true. If she were a good hard-ass, why is she still an active colonel at sixty one?"

"Because she's a field officer, ma'am," Salma Rodriguez said. She was a unicorn with almost-white fur and a blue mane with a light blue stripe through it. "I was in her first command. She's hard as a rock, but I've heard she's harder than one now."

So that meant I was at loggerheads with a woman who was good at her job and apparently just as stubborn as I was. In my own head I could swear and laugh at the irony of it, but it was the real world that I had to deal with her. "She could be the most brilliant battlefield tactician ever, but that won't help if what I want is an honor guard.

"Okay, see where Princess Celestia is? This is your standard distance. Hold at this unless I yell for you, and enjoy the sights a little—this city is amazing."

Salvador Carlson smiled and shook his head. "If it's all the same, ma'am, Colonel Richards would have my nuts in a vice if I didn't keep my eyes glued to you."

I couldn't exactly tell them how to do their job—any more than I already had—so I just put on my politician's smile and walked back to Princess Celestia. Her size, while intimidating to a species that had very normalized sizes, wasn't too big of a problem. Ouch, Clair, no more puns.

"Sorry, Your Highness, but I have to keep up appearances and follow protocol," I said.

"Absolutely understandable, Ambassador Ree." The title rolled off her tongue smoothly, but I noticed a slight raising of her eyebrow. Of course, it was the only eyebrow visible thanks to her breezy mane, so I didn't know if it was a single eyebrow lift or a double, but I had to go with single.

I could take the hint, she wanted less formality. "Clair will do."

"As will Celestia. Please, Clair, come and let me show you my city." She used a foreleg to gesture forward and stepped as I did. "You met Luna?"

"I did. She helped me with some correspondence and related some recent history to help me get up to speed with the modern Equestrian political situation." The story of Derpy Hooves was still an astounding one, but I could see how powerful it could be to show the citizens of a monarchy that they matter.

"She and I built Canterlot together twenty-seven thousand years ago, give or take. I'll try to avoid using exact years, Luna said your lives and history are a little shorter?"

I was almost starting to get used to the huge numbers, but then I'd keep getting the reminder that she was talking thousands of years and I hadn't even experienced sixty yet. "Just a little. Eighty is considered old age for humans."

Celestia didn't miss a beat. "You must pack a lot of living into those eighty years. We ponies take our time with all things." Her words were as politic as you could get. I wished I could commend her on it without revealing that I'd have struggled to put it as neatly. "But if there were anypony who could adapt to such a situation, it's Twilight."

Mention of the third princess (the first I'd met, of course) surprised me. "Why do you say that?"

"She had planned to visit your world for ten years. She notified me that finishing the current president's term and long enough to introduce our own ambassador would be more suitable." Celestia gestured to a huge archway that transitioned the square design of the streets around the station to a more curved one. I assumed circular. "This was the original entrance of the city. Since the introduction of the railway, we had to make some allowances for not just the station but those who would prefer to live near it."

It made sense. In a city as old as Canterlot, plowing a public transport system within its boundary would be too much. I tried to think of old human cities and all I could think of was Damascus, and the tiny streets at the heart of that would never allow for the addition of something so space-hungry as a train track and station. "I can imagine it would have been hard to plan for. On Earth we have some old cities—certainly not as old as Canterlot—but I could never imagine trying to fit stations into those."

"Here we have the first city square. You'll note there are five in the main circle of the city—one at each cardinal point and one in the center. These are set aside for merchants to sell surplus goods or entertainers to show off their skills." As Celestia led the way into the square, however, all such trading and show(pony?)manship ceased. All attention was on Celestia.

"Princess! Would you like to try some of our pears?" a merchant said as they rushed over with a basket to offer.

I took the opportunity to glance back at our guards. Carlson and Rodriguez were walking beside the two Royal Guard, and I could see them talking together. I fervently hoped that they were explaining that ponies running toward us with baskets wasn't something to get worked up over.

"Forelle Pear, I would love to try one. Are these from your latest harvest?" Princess Celestia floated two pears from the basket—one to herself and one to me.

I caught the pear from Celestia's magic and took a bite into it. Equestrian fruit had a lot of everything that just made them better than their Earth counterparts. I didn't have time to savor my first mouthful, however, as I was on the clock. "That tastes wonderful, thank you."

"This is from your northern orchard?" Celestia asked, only to get an excited nodding of Forelle Pear's head. "And this is only their second year of production. Would you mind delivering a basket to the castle?"

"Right away, Your Highness!" Forelle Pear looked ecstatic. I didn't blame her with how much specific information Celestia knew about her farm.

Either this was staged to put me off balance (and I couldn't ignore the possibility it was), or Celestia not only had the most amazing cognitive capacity I'd ever heard of, but enjoyed taking an interest in everything.

Okay, Clair, just file that away and focus on surviving this without offending anyone.

Author's Note

I loved the bit with the tree, such a polite filly earns the approval of her elders, yes?

"Yes," said the tree.

Support me on Patreon or fuel my writing on Ko-Fi!

Join me on Discord. Warning, said chat may contain NSFW material and should be considered adult in nature.

Awesome ponies who are already helping to keep me in keyboards and rum:
A.P.O.N.I.
Canary in the Coal Mine
Daremo
Dio-Drogynous
KFS Crimson
Sirion123
Vi Watch
Wind of the Skies

And special thanks to the following, for careful eyes and friendly words:
Lab

Chapter 11 Saffron Ree

Mom literally didn't care that everyone knew she and Dad were having sex. They weren't being loud about it, but it was so obvious that is what they'd gone to do I double anyone would think otherwise. It was at least ten kinds of horrible.

In protest, I decided to investigate the house we'd gotten. Approaching the marines carrying gear inside, I tried to get Frank Hollings' attention. Standing off to the side and trying to not be in the way wasn't working, so I decided the direct approach was needed. "Frank?"

Frank stopped and stepped out of the way of the others. "What's up, Saf?"

"Well, the whole needing an escort thing"—my words caused him to stiffen visibly—"does that apply to the embassy itself?"

"That's actually a good question, but it's for someone under Richards' chain of command. Bell!" Frank's shout would have startled me a week or two ago, but now it was just how soldiers would call to each other. When Corvinus Bell dropped out of his place carrying stuff, Frank gestured to me with a wing (and barely managed to not fall over). "Saf here needs an escort to explore the embassy building."

"Clark!" Bell's shout didn't surprise me either. "Clark, get your butt over here. You're on escort duty."

"Yes, sir." Clark followed me away from the soldiers carrying the stuff inside, and as soon as we were out of earshot of the work he smiled. "I'm not going to argue with the captain when I get out of hauling that crap. How you doing, Saf?"

"After today? Like shit"—the soldiers didn't seem to care if I swore or not, so I let it all out—"after we got chewed out. Figured I'd best get an escort to explore this place. You know, not rock the boat more."

Clark barked a laugh. "Honestly? You got our backs. Seeing Richards shouting at someone else for a change was a relief." We poked through a few rooms before he said more. "This place is huge, but everything's huge right now. Brass has no fucking clue what it's like getting this happen. They're all chill and happy because they're suddenly young. They don't have to deal with fucking puberty and—Sorry, Saf."

I held up a hoof to the soldier which he clopped with one of his own. "Preachin' to the choir, man. This is all kinds of"—I'd been waiting to use the acronym and this seemed the right moment—"fubar."

"You got that right. I can't wait to see how the next wave is going to take this. Probably another bunch of old bastards trying not to crow about how great it feels. The really messed up bit is what it's doing up here." Clark tapped the side of his head with a wingtip.

I had an idea what he was talking about, but wasn't certain. "Totally," I said.

"You get it too? Damn it, when I saw that pegasus guard that reported you two had been found—Her wings did it for me. I never thought I'd be into feathers on a girl, but when I saw the way her wings curled it was just—"

I remembered that feeling from back home. Candy had the most perfect ass I'd ever seen, and that she let me grab and squeeze it had done all kinds of things for my brain. I imagined millions of ways we could be together and I could do things with her.

Remembering Candy's butt now, though, did nothing.

What was up with me? Was this part of what he was talking about? My mind flicked through all the remembered images of my youth that had done so much for me. The dozens of pictures I had saved on my phone before we left—I couldn't for the life of me work out what I'd seen in them.

"I didn't realize—" I said.

"You're a bit younger still, aren't you?" Clark asked.

Standing beside him was enough to show that—I was about three quarters his size. I just nodded.

"Shit. If there's anything we can do to help, I'm sure the guys would do it. If we're going through hell starting at the start, it must be worse winding up before puberty." Hearing Clark state it out loud was akin to driving a hammer into the side of my head.

The worst bit was I didn't feel any loss. It just didn't matter at all to me. "Fuck."

Wandering in silence, we'd just found the second (and bigger) kitchen when Clark's radio crackled. "Clark, where you at?"

Reaching to where the radio was clipped to a strap around his upper foreleg, Clark bumped it with his hoof. "The kitchen. What's up, cap?"

That meant it was Bell who was calling. "Boss lady wants her boy. She said they need to get ready for a dinner party."

"We're on our way back. Thanks, cap." Clark removed his hoof from the radio. "Looks like we gotta turn around. Sorry, man, didn't mean to spring all this shit on you. You did me a solid with the wing exercises."

I shrugged my shoulders. "I know I should feel something about humans or ponies, but I just don't. Guess I have that to look forward to." We started walking back in the direction I hoped was right.

"Probably won't. You only have a few years. This extended life thing is pretty neat, but not from this end of it." Clark opened a door and I felt my ears twitch at the sound coming from down the end of a long hallway. "Not sure if I'm going to put in for a rotation back."

"Really?" I asked.

"Puberty sucked—still sucks—but this has the whole advantage of getting to do stuff all over again. Hell, I might put in for retirement and move here."

"Live out your days—centuries—as a cute pony?"

"Not so bad once I get to adulthood. Have you seen the wings?"

We both paused a moment then cracked up laughing. Our laughter, however, attracted the attention of someone at the other end of the hall.

Riley Ree

Mom had another argument with the soldier-lady. This time it hadn't been quiet words—they'd both been yelling for some time. Mom kept shouting that her guards could wait outside while the soldier-lady kept replying (equally as loud) that they would follow us everywhere.

Whatever happened, I got to wear my dress again. I looked away from Mom toward Dad, who was standing still with his ears tucked back. He was wearing a fancy black jacket that stopped about halfway down his back—it had been delivered along with the dress Mom was wearing a bit earlier.

"If that's the case"—Mom yelled—"then I want to send a message back to President Miller."

The request confused everyone. The soldier-lady looked really confused. "I'll have someone take it down. What do you want to send?"

"That I am being held under house arrest illegally, and to please send assistance." Mom's volume lowered and she turned around to face me, Dad, and Saf. "Back upstairs. We'll wait for relief from home and hope our captors will think to feed us."

"There's no need for these theatrics, Ambassador, we're not holding you against—"

"Then why aren't you letting me do my job?" Mom turned back and glared at the soldier-lady. "Care to take another letter?"

The soldier-lady's eyes narrowed.

"This one will be to Princess Celestia." Mom smiled. "Help. I'm being held captive. Please send—"

"You don't understand that if something happens to you, it'll be my ass in the fire over this. I don't—"

"Your ass? Your ass?! Colonel, you've exceeded your authority several times. If you aren't willing to take my messages to either be sent home or to Princess Celestia, I will have to consider your actions to be treasonous." Mom was winning the argument, I think, just based on how many times she cut in on the other lady.

"We are hardly at war with—" the soldier-lady said.

"You sure don't act like it. We aren't at war with the ponies. In fact, we're trying to negotiate treaties and trade deals. Your continued efforts to sabotage this diplomatic—diplomatic—mission are a threat to the future of our nation." Mom looked at the soldier-lady like she looked at shrimp. Mom really liked eating shrimp before, but I wondered if she still did.

"This will be reported as being against my recommendations." The way soldier-lady spoke made it obvious Mom had won.

"I can live with that. What I can't live with is armed guards following me everywhere at a state dinner. Assign whoever you want, but they will let me do my job." Mom turned to look at us, and I could see her face pull into a smile. "Honey, kids, come on."

Mom led us outside—along with four of the soldiers—where a pretty pony was waiting for us. She was pink, with pink mane and a pretty blue stripe through her mane. The best bit of all was she had the most amazing outfit on. She looked like a cross between a royal guard and a princess! There was armor, and a huge dress, and she looked so pretty.

"Princess Celestia cordially invites you to dinner and supper at the castle." And she spoke really prettily too!

Mom bowed to the other pony. "Thank you for the invitation. Will you be escorting us?"

"Of course, and please call me Flurry." Flurry was just about the most pretty pony I'd seen yet, and I'd seen a lot of ponies. She looked around at us, then to the four soldiers. "Your guards aren't required. I will assure your safety."

I could tell Mom liked her because Mom was wearing a real smile and not one of the fake ones she normally used. "Thank you, Flurry. My name is Clair, and our customs dictate I bring guards with me, unfortunately. They will wait outside while we dine. "

There was something odd. Normally Mom introduced herself to ponies with her full title, but she'd only used her first name. I tried to make sense of what was going on when Flurry turned and gestured forward. "Please, Ambassador Ree and your family, step right this way." She knew Mom's full name anyway! Now I was confused. "Would your little one like a lift? I've heard tell she enjoys a little altitude."

Sitting still was for suckers. I practically galloped up beside the pretty pony and was captured in a yellow magic aura. Lifted, I was set on Flurry's back. When she took a step, I felt her body and outfit move. There was more of the metal under her dress, and something else. "You're an alicorn!"

Mom, Dad, and Saf all looked at us with more curiosity—mom especially.

"Just Flurry?" Mom asked.

Flurry sighed. "I usually prefer to avoid it, since it gets all the wrong kinds of reactions, but my full name and title would be Princess Flurry Heart of the Crystal Empire." She sounded like saying her name was a chore—to be honest it kinda was with that much to it. "Please. For tonight I'm just another pony."

"Then I am just Clair. We can both be no one special tonight," Mom said.

Looking up at the castle, Flurry snorted. "I don't think there's much chance of that. Aunt Celestia has a banquet planned and has invited everypony who's anypony. You'll be stuck with your titles as much as I'm stuck with mine."

"Until we both have extra responsibilities, then." Mom walked beside us, keeping pace with Flurry. "What is the Crystal Empire in relation to Equestria, if you don't mind me asking?"

"It's fine. That's probably why Aunt Celestia sent me. When the Crystal Empire returned to Equestria, Princess Celestia sent Mom out to defend it from an old, evil sorcerer. Well, she did it, with some help, but everypony there saw her as their princess. Now she's kinda stuck, and between you and me she couldn't be happier. Dad too."

"The Crystal Empire is a city-state of sorts—I assume you want the more political version?" Flurry waited for Mom to nod. "It's a city-state, but also Equestria's closest ally. Mom toes the line on any mandates from Canterlot, and Canterlot does the same. What holds true as law in Equestria, holds true as law in the Crystal Empire.

"Economically, the Crystal Empire has two major things, tourism and crystals. Crystals can be enchanted to hold magic and perform spells on command—it's revolutionized Equestria's technology and has made Mom and Dad quite rich. Tourism is more a steady stream income. Anything else you needed to know?"

"Is there some way I could hire you?" I could tell Mom was only joking because she had her this is just a joke expression on, but at the same time I was sure she kinda meant it. Mom always had this look to her when she was memorizing every word said, and when Flurry had spoken she'd had that expression working overtime.

Flurry shrugged her shoulders as she walked. "You'd have to talk to Aunt Celestia. While I'm not part of the Royal Guard, she can order me to do something and I do it. She might be sharing leadership with Princess Luna, but the Guard are still pledged to Princess Celestia."

I used a hoof to feel Flurry's mane, and it was soft as a cloud! She and Mom kept talking all the way to the castle, but I kinda tuned it out because they never once talked about anything interesting. All the houses in the city looked really amazing. I mean, they all looked different to how we have them back home, complete with horses and love hearts decorating them, but combined they just made me feel like I was in a different world.

A really different world, I realized, when I looked at the castle. It. Was. HUGE! Also, I'm not a smarty-pants like my brother, but I'm pretty sure it shouldn't stand up. There were towers jutting out from places that overhung with nothing holding them in place. It was great!

"This," Flurry said, "Is Canterlot Castle. The seat of power of all Equestria. Please be welcome and come inside. If your guards are to remain outside, they can report to the guardhouse." She gestured to a large building to one side that—while it looked pretty—had nothing on the castle.

Mom turned to the four soldiers with us. "That was your cue. Princess Flurry has taken our safety upon herself. Try not to break anything."

"Yes ma'am. Just following orders, ma'am," one soldier said, but loud, then they all turned and marched off for that building.

"Now," Mom turned and looked between Saf and me. "Both of you will be on your best behavior. I don't want to hear about city-wide searches, wild adventures, or that you ate your own body weight in ice cream. I want you both to have fun, though."

"Mom, I'm pretty sure what you just said is mutually exclusive." Saffron, when I looked back at him, was rolling his eyes. "Besides, what can we possibly get up to at a dinner party?"

Mom actually groaned. "Saffron Ree, we both know you can get up to a remarkable—"

Flurry cut in. "Clair, if you'd like, I could find three mares who would be glad to keep an eye on them. They foalsat for me when I was younger."

That got my attention. Three ponies to keep an eye on us? Did we know them?

"That sounds wonderful, but only if it's not too much bother. Saffron and Riley have already made a reputation for themselves here, and I wouldn't hold it against anyone—anypony—to not want to stand in the same room as them." Mom winked at me while she spoke, and I couldn't keep from giggling.

"Come on, let's go ask them." Flurry quite literally just pushed forward, ignoring the guards standing outside (not that they tried to stop her).

I looked back to see Saf was following us, though he was looking around at the guards. By the time I looked forward again, I was shocked to see a face I knew. "Bloom!"

"Well hello there Riley. Come to the party Ah see?" Bloom walked forward and booped me on the nose. "Girls, this here is Riley Ree, ain't she just the cutest?"

I realized now that there was two other ponies with Bloom—a pegasus and a unicorn. The pegasus was wearing some kind of uniform that covered most of her body. Lightning seemed to be the main theme, and it was mostly blue. The unicorn was wearing the most fabulous dress I'd seen yet. It was huge, and she looked beautiful! With white fur and two-tone mane that was up in curls, she looked as pretty as—A sudden suspicion filled me.

"Are you Rarity's daughter?" I asked the unicorn.

"Sweetie Belle is Rarity's sister," the pegasus said. "I'm Sudden Turn, but if you wanna call me Scootaloo, that'd be fine too."

"I still can't believe you both went and changed your names!" Sweetie Belle looked at me. "Would you change your name?"

"Uh—" I said.

"I would. And I will when I'm legally allowed to." Saffron walked around Flurry and right up to Sudden Turn. "That's a cool outfit. Wonderbolts?"

I had no idea what a Wonderbolt was, but Sudden Turn posed with her wings slightly spread. "You better believe it! Best young flier, I might add, and in the reserves. Commander Spitfire said that if they need anypony, I get first call."

Saf fluffed his wings a little, and I could see him looking at Sudden Turn with a look that reminded me of the just a friend that kept visiting just before we left home. Now I had some ammunition to use later.

"Girls, I hate to ask, but is there any chance you could show Saffron and Riley around the party?" Flurry asked.

"Wait!" Saf took a step back. "I don't need a babysitter!"

"Pfft, hardly." Sudden gestured at a doorway. "But in there's a bunch of stuffy old has-beens that'd love to get you in trouble so they can use your behavior as a weapon against your mom." When her friends stared at her, Sudden shrugged. "Hey, when you're joining the Wonderbolts, you gotta learn about this kinda stuff."

"Gettin' all hoity-toity if you ask me," Bloom said.

"She's right, though. This has nothing to do with foalsitting and everything to do with keeping people from using a slip-up as a weapon against this whole thing." Flurry stretched out a wing and gave Sudden the wing equivalent of a thumbs-up. "So I need some clever ponies who know how to behave in these circles to protect you."

"Huh. Well, we gotcha covered," Bloom said. "C'mon, Riley, hop on!"

I didn't need any more encouragement than that. When the option was hang around with Mom during a snooty party, or hang around with Bloom and her friends, my answer was obvious. I jumped, soaring through the air like my brother couldn't, and landed on Bloom's back with a thud.

Saffron Ree

I waited for Flurry Heart to walk away before turning my full attention back on Sudden Turn. "Fluttershy told me her friend was in the Wonderbolts. I met Rainbow Dash once, but she wasn't wearing her uniform. What's it like?" The words tumbled from my mouth—nothing I could do (or wanted to do) would stop them.

"The uniform or the Wonderbolts?" Sudden asked.

I snorted. "Both. Wonderbolts first."

"Lots of work. There's two ways to join up—one is through military service in the E.U.P. Guard, the other is as a talented newbie. I went with the latter, but I'm starting to think I might sign up with the Guard anyway. Kinda backwards, but you can't get any higher than wingpony without it." Sudden walked beside me to the doors (behind her friends and Riley) and we walked into the biggest room I'd ever seen.

"Whoa." I couldn't get anything else out. This was like the time Mom took me to Uncle Jeff's celebration party—when he became president—only 10 times bigger.

"Pretty impressive, huh? Come on, let me take you to visit the rest of the Wonderbolts." Sudden turned to her friends. "Taking—Uh, Saffron, right?"

"Saf is fine," I said.

"'Kay. Taking Saf to hang out with some friends. You two have Riley covered?" Sudden waited long enough for her friends to nod, then started walking. "You coming, Saf?"

I didn't need to be asked twice. Sudden Turn was just about the most amazing pony I'd met yet. Fluttershy had been—well—impossibly nice, but when she admitted to being a hundred and fifty I almost freaked out. There was one thing I wasn't going to ask Sudden—her age.

Slipping through the crowd was easy with an adult pony leading the way, and doubly so for Sudden. Ponies didn't just shift aside for her, they made room. At some point she led me up to a V.I.P. rope, and someone unhitched it for her.

"He's with me," Sudden said when the big pony with the rope was going to turn me back.

I kept following, only to hear someone yell, "Hey! There's Strip! What's up? How were your friends?"

There was less crowd now, and Sudden Turn led me right up to a bunch of other ponies in uniforms similar to hers. "The usual. One's a genius at Celestia's school, the other's working on her dirt degree. I want you to meet somepony. Saf?"

"Hey! Saf is it? Planing to join the Wonderbolts when you grow up?" The mare talking to me had bright yellow fur and flame-colored hair. She sounded confident and looked it too.

"Saf here is the son of the new ambassador—you know, who this party is for?" Sudden spread her wing over my back and pushed me forward a bit. "In case you're wondering, Strip is my nickname."

"I-I'd need to learn to fly first." The words had tumbled out on their own. I don't know why I said them, just that once they were out a dozen of the coolest ponies ever looked at Sudden then at me. "I've only been a pegasus for about two weeks."

"You know, they say the commander here was flying as soon as she left her mom," A blue-furred pony said, elbowing the yellow one with a leg.

"I heard the commander wasn't born, she sprang forth fully grown and flying."

"Nah. Princess Celestia made her from spare pieces of the sun."

"Well I heard she—"

"Cut it out. Cut it out. Well, Saf, we can't have this. I promise you that by the end of the week, we'll have you flying," the captain said. "Look at Strip here. When I first met her she was older than you, and she couldn't fly. I yelled at her so hard she flew just to get away from me. Why don't you come out to the E.U.P. fields tomorrow, Strip'll show you where to go."

I had no idea how that had happened, but I was apparently going to be getting flying lessons. My brain tried to process the fact, but all that happened was I grinned like an idiot.

Sudden jerked me back to reality by giving me a little shake with her wing. "Think you broke him, commander. Hey! Saf! You want flying lessons from Commander Spitfire?"

Nodding was a good start. That's it, Saf, nod. Okay, now talk. "That'd be awesome!" Great, and I managed not to sound like an idiot.

"He's been talking to Crash too much, hasn't he?" Mr. Blue asked.

"Cut him some slack, Clipper. How'd you feel if you got turned into a different creature and dropped on another world?" Turning to me, Sudden Turn thumped me in the shoulder with a hoof. "I'll see you at dawn tomorrow, got it?"

"Y-Yeah!" I couldn't help feeling excited at this change. I was really going to learn to fly!

"Careful, Strip. Look at the gleam in his eyes. He'll be gunning for your spot in no time." Clipper (Mr. Blue) stretched a wing over my back. "You're going to want to have a light breakfast, so I'd suggest you eat well tonight. My recommendation is the pie à la Maud. I mean mode!"

"Soarin's got himself a new fillyfriend. Her last name is Pie, and he loves pies. It's a match made in—I don't even know. She's an earth pony with an extra helping of earth," Spitfire said.

"Soarin?" I asked.

"Clipper here's name is Soarin. Sorry, we use nicknames a lot." As one, the Wonderbolts fell in as Spitfire approached a table to one side. "He's totally right though, you gotta try the pie and ice cream."

Philip Ree

The stodgy sit-down dinner with old dignitaries I'd been expecting had yet to eventuate. Flurry led Clair around to meet older ponies, though she had words to say about each before introducing them. I was little more than an accessory.

"Hey, Philip, right?" a male voice asked from behind me.

I turned to see the most pristine and perfect example of a stallion. His fur was perfectly white, his mane nearly the same blue color the Royal Guards afforded, and he looked stuck in some kind of formal jacket thing.

"Uh, yeah," I said.

The stallion raised his voice and looked at Flurry. "Sweetie, I'm going to hijack Philip. I'm sure you'll get around to introducing us eventually, but take your time."

"Alright, Dad!" Flurry said.

Dad? Gears turned in my head. Flurry had said she was the daughter of the rulers of the Crystal Empire, that would make this… "Shining Armor?" I asked.

"Got it in one. Come on, all us spouses of leaders hide during this bit. You technically count." Shining led the way through the room—using his stature and importance to bulldoze a path—all the way to a pair of ponies who seemed to somehow be not involved with the party, yet still in the room. "Queen Prances, Lady Neighdine, this is Philip Ree, husband of the new ambassador and latest member of our club."

Queen Prances was big with a capital B, but perfectly proportioned for her height. She was a horse among ponies, and had a comparatively dull coloring of cream fur and brown mane/tail, though she was decorated from nose to tail in what would be called horse tack back home. The bridle and traces she wore bore little resemblance to the utilitarian items used to train horses, and looked entirely like jewelry.

Lady Neighdine was darkness personified (ponified?). Deep gray fur and a black mane that was styled into curls that hung halfway between her knees and her hooves. Just as immaculately presented, her tail was in a shower of curls and would have dragged on the floor if she didn't keep it arched high. She wore a torque around her neck that looked to be made of pure gold.

Both mares were akin to earth ponies (lacking horns and wings), though I wasn't sure if Queen Prances was some other species completely.

Going with the best behavior I could muster, I bowed my head first to Queen Prances (figuring a queen outranked a lady) and then Lady Neighdine. "The pleasure is all mine."

"You don't have to bow and scrape," Lady Neighdine had the thickest French accent I had ever heard—so much so it might even be a parody of one, "we're all equally just fashion accessories here."

"Quite so. Please, don't use our titles whatever you do—just Prances is fine between us." ~~Queen~~ Prances had a thicker accent, sounding Middle Eastern.

"Likewise; just Neighdine, please."

"Then I'm just Phil." Both mares smiled at my words. "So what are we supposed to do here?"

"Look pretty and not talk to anypony important about anything more interesting than the weather," Shining said. "But what we actually do here is gossip." He got a giggle from both the mares. "I heard you had things a little rough coming over here, Phil?"

"Oh dear, what happened?" Neighdine asked.

"Well, our world works a little different. We tried sending samples of animals first, and they didn't do well here." I couldn't foresee explaining the exploding mice as anything but a bad situation. "So Princess Twilight made something that would convert us when it transported us here. But that's not even the end of it. Our kind live to around eighty years old. My wife and I are in our middle to later years back home, but here we're just young adults."

"That certainly explains why somepony so young is in such a responsible role. Oh, but how are your little ones?" Prances looked genuinely concerned.

"Riley is handling it okay. She's barely beyond the point where a pony would be getting bottle-fed, and is surprising some ponies that she can talk at all, but it's my son—Saffron—who has it the hardest. He was on the verge of adulthood back home. Here, he's not yet into puberty." At my description of Saf's situation, all three of them winced.

"Was he the little colt I saw with the Wonderbolts?" Shining asked.

I quickly described Saf, and Shining confirmed it was him.

"He'll be fine with them. I might be biased toward the Royal Guard, but the Wonderbolts are probably the most tight-knit unit I've seen. If they've decided to help him, your son is going to have a bunch of big brothers and sisters who'll have his back."

Shining's vehemence reassured me that my children might be okay—at least for tonight. "So, what's the food like? All the events Clair took me to back home had tiny little plates with portions that wouldn't feed a rabbit."

"Princess Celestia wouldn't stand for that. If there's one thing that could make up for being dragged to these parties and paraded about, it's the food. Come on, I'll show you." Shining seemed so easy going I couldn't get my head around it. He was the husband of a princess who ruled an empire, how was he just so—well—normal?

I followed Shining, and realized Prances and Neighdine were both bringing up the rear. For the first time since being here I felt acutely aware that there was two pretty mares following me and both seemed to have their eyes glued ahead. It took almost a minute of such attention before my brain caught up and I realized I had found them pretty.

Of course you find them pretty, Philip, they're nice ponies and they are both dressed to the nines with expensive jewelry. Naked, Philip, don't forget they're both naked. My brain almost derailed as I realized everyone was naked. Everyone included me.

Stop. Don't go down that path or you'll wind up back home hiding under your bed. This is normal, these ponies are normal, and now you're normal. "So, Shining, what do you do with yourself when you're not stuck to your wife's side?"

"Captain Shining Armor—these medals aren't just for show. It's actually one thing that still binds the Crystal Empire and Equestria tightly. It means I have a lot of travel time between the cities, but it means I can be sure Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and my darling Cady are as safe as I can make them." As he spoke, Shining looked to inflate with confidence and pride. I couldn't blame him.

"And your daughter?" I asked.

Shining smiled wider than I would have thought possible. "Which one?" When I raised my eyebrow, he rolled his eyes. "Flurry you've met. She's doing well in the E.U.P. Guard—that is, the general armed forces. The Royal Guard is what I'm captain of, and while she'd love to join, there's a rather glaring restriction that she doesn't pass."

"Huh?" I asked.

With a dramatic sigh, Shining gestured toward a glut of ponies in the middle of the room. "Princess Celestia has a thing for white and gray/brown stallions. After the Cozy Glow incident, I managed to convince her to let me draw mares into her personal guard, but she still has a thing for aesthetic. Flurry is almost as pink as her mother and doesn't meet that standard."

"But she's doing well in the E.U.P.?" My question drew a nod from Shining as we reached a table laden with food. I looked at the array and was surprised. "I thought ponies were—well—that we didn't eat meat."

"It's cultural. It was mainly a pegasus thing, hence it being called pegatarianism, but there are a lot of mixed communities that add fish and other seafood to their diet. Officially, the combined Guard only cater to ovo-lacto vegetarians, but what ponies eat when not on duty is their own business." Shining used his magic to collect a plate and start loading it up with starchy foods. "Feel free to try some. If you come from a more—uh—varied diet, it might agree with you."

At one end of the table there was fish, prawns, and even several lobster. I watched as a pegasus nabbed one of the large crustaceans and ruffled their feathers in obvious glee. "You know, I think I might try a bit. Any other problems with it?"

"If you're not used to it, it'll give you the—ahem. I'm too used to the barracks, sorry." Shining added what looked like a Yorkshire pudding onto his plate. "You know about using your magic?"

It was nice of him to ask, but I proved my competency by picking up my own plate with magic. I picked up a plate with magic. The fact I could do that, the fact I could think and say it, was still amazing. "Yeah, I had a great teacher in Ponyville."

As I picked and chose some things (including a poached lobster tail), I watched Shining stack his plate higher and higher. By the time we turned away from the buffet table, he had almost twice as much food as I did. "High metabolism?"

"A little. I need a good amount of carbs to keep my muscle tone up. Takes a lot of work, but when armor weighs the same to me as clothes, it's worth it." Shining found a dining table off to the side of the party and settled down at a place. I sat opposite him, and both of us started eating.

"Work out a lot?" I asked.

"Like you wouldn't believe. You like to run?"

"You better believe it. I was running before even the earth ponies in our group." Normally, eating lobster was a messy affair at best, but with magic it was quite literally a piece of cake. Shining, to his credit, didn't bat an eyelid at me eating the fish. "Think we could slip away early and take a run around the city?"

"We'd have to dodge four alicorns, but I think we can manage it. It'll be a good to have somepony who can keep up." The smirk on Shining's face told me I was going to be in for a hard run if I wanted to keep up, but that had never put me off.

"Four alicorns?"

"Princess Celestia, Princess Luna (though she would probably let us go), Cady (she definitely won't let me go early), and Flurry. My darling daughter is many things, but she will tattle on us to our wives in a heartbeat unless we take her with us." Shining used his magic to deftly slice the pudding in half while he also poured gravy over it. "Best case is we get away without any of them noticing, but we don't have much hope of that."

"Are you trying to slip away?" Neighdine asked. "Perhaps we could be of assistance?"

"After dinner, though. Canterlot food is exquisite." Prances, with one of her big hooves, set down a plate stacked higher than Shining's had been.

"Of course after dinner. Also, if you want the best food a pony can be served, you must come to Prance." Neighdine closed her eyes and let out a little sigh. "We have our own chef, of course, but I love nothing better than slipping away and sampling the street food."

Prances nudged Shining with one elbow as she started the task of attacking her dinner. "The problem with Prench cuisine, Neighdine, is there is never enough of it on a plate to fill a mare, let alone a stallion."

"That's why I slip away." Neighdine gave an expressive and pained sigh. "Because you're absolutely right."

"After the dance, and when our partners introduce us, we all pretend we'd never met before. Each of us scatter in different directions and meet up over there." Shining pointed to a hallway door that looked unguarded. "I happen to know there's nopony guarding the kitchen hallway, and I've already bribed the head chef. We can sneak out into the garden from there."

His plan reassured me a lot more than his earlier words. All the usual requirements of hobnobbing would be complete by then, so it just meant we got out from under our partners feet—err, hooves, and could maybe chill a little. "Okay. Tell me when and what you want me to do."

"Just follow my lead. After we've all eaten, that's when our wives will ambush us," Shining said.

Author's Note

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Lab

Chapter 12 Clair Ree

"… and then after the dance, and we introduce our partners to each other, Shiny will pretend he's sneaking them all away from the party so they don't get bored in here."

Princess Cadance had teamed up with her daughter to show me around, or show me off as the case may be. I know she was trying to be nice, but she was also a head of state who had her own motives and interests atop those she personally held.

I had discovered that her empire was the source of the strange crystals that our scientists back home had put very high up on the list of research goods they wished to acquire. Even if I didn't enjoy talking to Cadance, I would still be sticking close to her.

"Will anyone actually discuss business tonight?" Everyone around me seemed to be bigger than me to the point where I could sympathize with Saffron and Riley. Alicorns, it seemed, grew big, but I wasn't prepared to meet King Sable of Saddle Arabia. He was big on a similar scale to Princess Celestia, but lacked the obvious additions of horn or wings.

Cadance, who was much more my size than Celestia's (but still bigger than me), shook her head. "Nothing serious. Maybe a few appointments might be made, but no real business. Ah, here's Princess Luna. Have you two met?"

"Actually, Cadance, we have. Welcome to Canterlot, Clair. I hope my sister hasn't been too much trouble?" Luna's relaxed tone almost distracted me from the fact that she'd talked me into giving Equestria a pile of computers practically for free.

How was I going to get through this without looking like a laughing stock back home? But then I realized something. I wasn't in this to make such destructive deals as Equestria never wants to trade with us again. My mission was to make peaceful contact with a race who—at any time—could call off the deals and send us home and never make contact again. Jeff had sent me to make an ally of Equestria, not dominate them.

The night wound on just as Cadance said, with no talk of actual deals. We eventually found our partners and herded them to the dance floor for a slow dance, but I noticed Prince (or Emperor, I still hadn't sorted out titles properly) Shining Armor and Philip exchanging knowing looks.

Neither of us new the dance, but it was the kind of rocking slow dance that you didn't need to really know. "What's going on, darling?" We shifted around the room facing each other, keeping time with all the other dancers doing the same thing.

"Whatever do you mean?" Philip smiled the smile of a husband that knew he couldn't lie worth a damn and hoped I wouldn't ask the exact question that he'd have to answer.

I felt generous, after all, he'd come to another world to be with me. "With you. You seem so distracted. Is it this party?"

The relief on Philip's face threatened to make me giggle. It took every ounce of my stonefacedness to keep from telling him I knew his plans.

"Well, partly. I struggle to fit in here, but then I met someone who has had to deal with a lot of the same problems. We're going to do morning runs together." Philip's answer wasn't what I'd expected. I'd been rubbing elbows with political contacts while he'd made friends.

I had to stop and remind myself that this evening had been specifically work for me, but not for Philip. "Maybe we could all join you? I happen to remember a particular president who liked to have you along for a jog each day, and that definitely worked out well."

"Shining isn't Jeff. He seems—" Philip stopped and blinked. "How old is he? If Flurry is an adult, and Shining and Cadance had her—"

"Oh, sure. You can freak out all you like over a pony who's probably into his low hundreds, but I have entertain mares for whom a thousand years is a good amount of time to plan breakfast." I kissed my husband with the kind of silly abandon we did thirty years ago. "I know it's not easy, but we just have to do the best we can."

"You don't understand. If he beats me, it'll be terrible." Philip tried to make his case sound at least somewhat of a disaster, but it failed to garner him any sympathy from me. "I'm going to have to make sure I beat him, either way. I can't believe I forgot about the age thing. I just figured he'd be the same age as me."

I kissed his cheek this time and got an answering kiss back. "Well, do you think you can put up with this youthful life for a few years before we head back home?"

"Well, I happened to like our life. It was a good life. We're old, love, that's what happens when you raise and love a family." As he spoke, Philip leaned his head forward and down (which I mirrored) so we at last had our foreheads pressed together. "I'm okay with that."

"We were getting slower," I said.

The music slowly trailed off though we kept moving in the slow dance for a few more steps.

"That was nature's way of saying we'd had a good life. This? This is different, but not bad. I still look forward to going home and cuddling you properly."

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Princess Cadance with her wing out holding ponies back from approaching us. I had no idea what her game was, but I appreciated it nonetheless. "Every cuddle from you is improper."

Philip made a little growl-groan in the back of his throat that I took for his normal animal noise of approval. "They're watching us."

"Yes, I know. Cadance seems to be keeping the wolves at bay." I kissed his cheek and leaned back. "But now we have to face them. This is the bit where I introduce you around to all the leaders of neighboring nations like my trophy."

"Shining explained it, and for the record I prefer prize stud to trophy."

Philip Ree

Just like Shining had predicted, Clair had been required by propriety to show me around to all the others, and just like he planned each of us—Shining, Neighdine, Prances, and myself—slipped off into the crowd with apologies to our partners.

I made my way to the hallway door he'd mentioned only to find I was the first there—of our group. "This is the way to the little colts' room?"

Princess Flurry Heart raised an eyebrow that spoke volumes as to how likely that phrase was to work on her. "What'd Dad put you up to? Are you the diversion or part of the group sneaking?"

"Flurry! Don't grill the newbie about my plans." Shining slipped out of the crowd behind me and up to my side. "We're being each other's distraction. Scatter and rendezvous tactic."

"Just the two of—Nevermind." Flurry backed through the door behind her and made way for Prances and Neighdine. "But you only get to skedaddle if I get to come too. I hate these parties."

None of us needed a second invitation. Shining led the way through the door, and I let the two mares pass before slipping into the hallway myself. "I don't think anyone saw us." I followed after the others at a slow trot. Shining turned right out of sight and as I rounded the same corner I was greeted by a pair of smiling Royal Guards and the night air.

Canterlot was a city over a thousand feet (or ponylengths, I still had no clue how their dimensions worked) above sea-level, so nights were a little chilly but having a fur coat helped a ton. But the air was crisp and suited me just fine.

The guards, I realized, were manning the door. What reminded me of the safety of the situation was that they both saluted Shining and snapped a little stiffer. Right, he had the rank of captain, so he was probably above rank and file guards.

"It's so good to be out of there!" Flurry shoved her wings out in a display that still surprised me. Having people who could just fly at a moment's notice was still an amazing thing, but then I could do magic just by thinking the right way.

"You've got that right." Shining didn't have wings, but he looked like he'd have them out if he did. Nose raised, gazing into the sky, he looked the picture of health. "Philip, you made my wife almost squeal with that stunt earlier." He turned and looked at me with a big grin.

"I, uh, what?" Confusion reigned. "What do you mean?"

"Non! Stop, Shining." Lady Neighdine held out a hoof to silence any interruption from Shining. She turned to me. "As somepony who knows what it means to be new at court here in Canterlot, I can explain this better. Alicorns all have a thing they're princess of. Princess Celestia is the princess of the sun, Princess Luna of the moon, Princess Twilight Sparkle is princess of friendship, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza—Shining's wife—is princess of love."

My look of confusion must have tipped her off that I needed more of an answer. "Princess M—Princess Cadance is not just princess of love in name, she embodies love. It's her special talent."

"Oh, right! You probably didn't get the full explanation of this stuff. A pony's special talent isn't just something they're good at," Flurry said, "It's something they're amazing at. Mom's the princess of love, which means she can see it in other ponies and she can coax it higher. When there was an invasion by love-sucking monsters, Mom made a blast of love so big it threw them out of the country."

Then it hit me what they were getting at. Princess Cadance wasn't looking at us with her goofy grin back at the party, she was looking at the love Clair and I shared. What it said about how crazy-in-love I was with Clair that the princess of love got all gooey eyed around us, I don't know, but I guess it was kinda a big compliment.

"I'm going to need to teach you all so much about all this, aren't I?" Flurry asked.

"Hey, you signed up for the job." Shining Armor thumped his daughter on the back with one big foreleg and she barely even twitched at the heavy impact of camaraderie.

Flurry turned on her father. "What do you mean, 'signed up'?"

"Yup! You were born with wings and a horn, cadet. Once an alicorn, always an alicorn." Jumping back, Shining only narrowly avoided Flurry's back legs as they lashed out at him. It looked practiced, something father and daughter had done a hundred times before. "Missed me."

"Please, don't let it bother you. Princess Cadance is—She just has a powerful special talent. She certainly didn't mean anything bad by it." Queen Prances (who had been rather quiet up until now) distracted me from the father-daughter wrestling match going on.

"Hold up!" Flurry looked between the two mares and her father. "I know where this is headed, and with all propriety I decline to participate. In regular speak, heck no. Not even listening." She turned around and carefully stomped her way back over to the two Royal Guard at the door we'd left through.

Shining had a silly grin—one I recognized as a father who had managed to ick-out one of his children (possibly one of the finest pastimes of fathers in both our worlds, apparently).

"It's okay. Different world, different culture." And heck was it different, but all the same. Creatures being parents, being children, being friends, being lovers—That some of them could fly, some could do magic, and all of them had double the normal amount of legs I was used to was beside the point.

Neighdine groaned. "You don't have to tell me that. When my husband found out that Equestria's stallion relief stories were true, he panicked and wanted to call off our first visit here. It should be a mare's role to ensure her husband is properly satisfied."

Caught on a different track, my brain froze in surprise at the statement. "St-Stallion relief?" I asked.

"Or a mare could invite a friend around. There is no shame in allowing a fellow mare—even your sisters—to help you so long as no foal comes of it. Although if it were a sibling, that would make adoption far easi—" Neighdine said.

"Hold on!" I said, cutting in. "What do you mean? Is this some kind of hazing gag?"

"It's not really done as much in the city," Shining Armor said, "But if a stallion is a little backed up, it's perfectly fine getting some help from another stallion."

I had no words for how to take this. My brain was too busy dealing with the logistics of it to realize that ponies here might not have any notion of gay and straight at all, or maybe they had too good a notion of them.

"Now you've broken the poor dear." Prances stepped up to put herself defensively between myself and the other two. She was huge, which meant she was extremely good at ensuring I had no view of them. "Clearly a more civilized approach is what he's used to. Stallions are not to be let to roam loose to frolic with each other. A group of mares will often seek the attention of the one they desire and work together to ensure he is given what he needs. I'm sure you do a similar thing where you're from?"

Okay. Brain, time to do what you're supposed to and get things in order. One nation has mares help each other in ensuring their stallion is satisfied, another entrusts a stallion's extra needs to his own stallion friends, and a third is run by—by harems.

"Clair is all that I've ever needed, and all I'll ever need."

The most expressive and heartfelt sigh I'd ever heard left Neighdine. She dodged around Prances and reached down to take one of my forehooves. "To hear that kind of devotion and love in a stallion—It's magnifique!"

"Not to say you are lying, or that you don't have the devotion, but stallions are—Stallions are nothing if not vigorous and hungry. Talk to your wife about this, Philip," Prances said.

"Ladies? Can't you give the guy some room?" Shining used his magic to gently lift both mares casually (and easily) to the side so that he could walk up to me. "I'm in the same club. You can do it, buddy." He held up a hoof in a manner I was familiar with.

Lifting my own forehoof (that had been freed of Neighdine's grip), I clopped it against Shining's. "Where I'm from, monogamy is normal. P-People get together and live together for—" I was a little caught up by not wanting to lie to their faces, "—well, they hope to live together for their entire lives."

"Of course," Prances said, "My wife-sisters and I would not dream of leaving Sable. He is our stallion."

"But you're queen?" I asked.

"I organized my wife-sisters, I am the highest born of us all—Of course the throne is mine, but our husband I share with my wife-sisters gratefully. No mare—with the exception of the wives of those present—has the time needed to devote themselves to satisfying a stallion. The princess of love is an easy exception to make, Shining, but I must admit that your Clair must be an amazing mare to keep you all to herself."

Great one, Philip, you just marked Clair as some kind of legendary super-powered pony among—I don't even want to try to classify how this worked. I'd have to talk to the guys back at the chancery about this, as well as Saf. Now there's a pair of conversations I really want to have.

My brain, however, couldn't let go of one particular thing Shining had said. "You said it's not really done in the city?"

"Well, you know how it can be. Cities are busy, sometimes a stallion doesn't know enough ponies to really get the relief he needs. There's places you can go to to get it. All stallions, no infidelity, but they know what they're doing and enjoy their work." He was actually blushing by the end of his rambling description.

"Well, I hear there's somewhat of a rite of passage," Neighdine said with a sultry smile (that I could identify a sultry pony smile meant I was probably going native), "Where a father takes his son to such places when they come of age. Has somepony make it a special time, teaches the young stallion how—"

I cleared my throat. "I don't need to know about any of that. Saf—No, I don't need to worry about this." Was I saying this in the hope that it was true? So far, Saf hadn't shown any interest in mares, and given his age I think he was still per-pubescent for a pony. We only had a few years here, six or so at most—unless Jeff's replacement left us here.

"Saffron's your son, right?" Shining asked.

"We're not going to be here long enough for it to matter, I don't think."

"I read the reports on the time changes. It's hard to get my head around, but he was practically an adult, right?" Shining seemed to be trying to nudge me away from the mares. "Has he—uh—sown any wild oats?"

I thought back to the girl that'd come around to wish Saf well before we left, and nodded.

"And now he's stuck without any urges at all? A few years of that, and then things are going to hit him." Shining walked off from the others (Neighdine and Prances had retreated to talk with the two Guards at the door) and stood by a huge hedge maze. "He's going to need an outlet, and I'm telling you that in Equestria we have an outlet. Dad—"

I waited for him to continue because right then Shining Armor looked like he needed to keep talking.

"I guess I was a bit awkward. The other guys—even the really nice ones—weren't doing it for me. Sometimes I couldn't even get off. But then I met Cadance. I haven't gone anywhere else but to her," Shining Armor said.

It'd cost him to tell me all that. I could imagine how much scrutiny got placed on him for his bizarre (to this world) tastes in matrimony. "Clair was graduating from her college. I was just a cleaner there. I liked to keep fit, and I met and talked to a lot of clever people, but I'm not so clever myself. She saw something in me, and I couldn't even think about another woman—or mare—since she'd kissed my cheek." My history had only remained a secret so far as Clair had been an advisor only, but when she'd been announced as an ambassador to Equestria, everyone had searched for what ivy-league school I'd attended.

"You're no idiot, Philip."

"Compared to Clair I am. She was everything to me, then we had two amazing children. I'm so glad they took after her. What I'm trying to get at is that I know—I think—where you're coming from. It's a gallant man who promises himself to one woman and stands by both promise and woman."

"Definitely no idiot. If you stay here longer, at least talk to Saffron about this. The urges of a stallion are no joke, and if he doesn't keep on top of it he may embarrass himse—" Shining Armor froze mid word.

I lifted my head to see Princess Cadance and Clair both storming across the lawn toward us. "Good luck."

"Same. Sometimes I wonder if I don't survive just by burning so much energy trying to keep up with Cadance. That might be both our secret." Shining stood straight and saluted his wife. "I was just showing—"

"Oh give it a break, Shiny. You all slipped away for a little time, and we had to put on a show of searching for you. Flurry told me where you were, so we searched here last." Cadance kissed Shining's cheek when she finished her explanation. "Too stuffy?"

"You put us in a room filled with nobles who wanted to see the strange new ponies and ogle them. It was everything I could do to have the few hidden guards in the crowd keep the nosy neighs away while I organized the breakout." Shining pointed at me. "Philip and the girls came along for the ride."

Clair pressed her cheek to mine. "I've been getting the strangest advice about you," she said, her voice low. "We'll talk about it later, but Cadance has been giving me advice. She seems—" Clair drew back and lifted her voice, "—I'll talk more when we get home. Shall we go inside and find where our foals are?"

We didn't get a chance to discuss matters before bed. Just reaching our bed had been a trial and once there other things than talking took all our focus. Maybe Neighdine and Prances were right and stallions had an overactive sex drive and needed to find other outlets, or maybe Shining had the right of it and a loving couple could keep things focused.

I stretched in our bed and rolled over to see sunlight streaming in through the window—these thoughts were too heavy for such a wonderful morning. I looked at Clair—at the woman I loved so much—and leaned in to nuzzle and nibble her neck.

Clair giggled her way awake and let out a happy laugh. "Cadance was right. Absolutely insatiable." The words had stopped me dead. "What's wrong?"

"I talked with Shining, Neighdine, and Prances. Insatiable is apparently right in all the wrong ways." I pressed my snout firmly against Clair's neck and inched my way up to her mane with my nibbles. I couldn't even keep myself from getting in the mood. "Every pony society has different ways of dealing with it."

"Sex drive?" Clair's voice still held a little hint of laughter. "I married one man, and he promised he'd stand by me, and I him. If you need more time with me—like that—you'll have it." With that said, Clair rolled in place so she was on her back.

It wasn't hard to slip over the top of her, but alignment still took more than casual effort. Hooking one leg over hers so I pushed her down firmly and had her legs pinned took a little more doing. Belly to belly, I pressed myself against Clair and entered her.

"I don't know if it's real or if it's just being so young again. It could literally be a fiction invented by stallions to get a little more than they're getting." As I reached the end of my statement, I pushed forward and my belly met Clair's.

"If it's real—" Clair's voice was light and breathy, "—then I think I'm okay with it."

It was impossible to hold back a laugh, or my libido—controlling the latter was another thing entirely. Sex was fun, there was no doubt about it, but for me it was only fun if Clair had fun too. Sharing these moments meant a lot, but it wasn't the center of our relationship.

Despite sex being something to just feel good and have fun, it was also a singularly intense moment when we could both be alone and completely focused on each other. Now was no different. Mares, I'd found, had a quick trigger, which was good because stallions had one too. It was almost like sex for ponies was hard-wired to use as little time as possible in complete opposition to their extended lifespans. In the moment of climax, I had the odd thought that there was probably a sociology paper in that.

"Why are you laughing so much?" Clair asked.

"Because this world is silly, and it's nice to laugh at politics rather than cry." The downside I'd learned to pony post-coitus snuggling was that a stallion's shaft being so far up their underside meant that unless he was much bigger than his mate, he wouldn't be kissing them when still inside them. I looked up at Clair's smile and knew I was smiling just as much. "What if we got a house somewhere in the city?"

Clair looked down at me with shock, then surprise, then her face split into a huge grin. "You're going to give the major apoplexy. She'll want to send guards with us, and will—We can just tell her no, can't we?"

"A wiser stallion than I said, 'Eeyup.'" I nuzzled into the fur of her barrel and kissed one of her hooves when it came close. "It would make our private life private again."

Laughing now, Clair tried to lean down to kiss me but our position and anatomy made it impossible. "Get out of me so I can kiss you!"

Saffron Ree

"Hey! Commander Spitfire! That colt you mentioned is here!"

The E.U.P. Guard headquarters was huge compared to even the castle. There were hundreds of ponies all over running, doing practice fights, and magic! It was as if a little girl suddenly wanted to be a tomboy and went hardcore.

The gate guard I'd asked had turned and shouted, and not a few moments later the mare I'd been speaking to last night came walking up. She was wearing a different uniform now—something closer to the fancy uniforms soldiers back home wore for ceremonies.

I had one of the marines with me—of course—and I could almost sense excitement from Sergeant Clark. This was his bread and butter, but it was also pretty cool. Of course he was just here to "guard" me, and not totally get points on how to fly.

"Hey there, recruit. Let's get you using those wings." Spitfire wasn't just confident, she was like you took twenty confident people, ground them up, and put them in an espresso machine and made a shot of distilled confidence. "Who's your friend?"

"Ma'am, I'm Sergeant Peter Clark, United States Marine Corps. Here under orders to keep Saffron Ree safe." Sergeant Clark looked the part of a protector almost as much as my sister did. He was still a foal himself.

"I've been briefed on your status, sergeant. I think of everypony you'll meet, we here at the E.U.P. Guard will sympathize with your situation the most. You've nothing to fear regarding Saf's life while he's under my supervision, but you're welcome to join us in practice." Spitfire gestured into the training grounds with a wing.

Sergeant Clark seemed to relax a bit. "Thanks, commander. This deployment has had its ups and downs, but I'm looking forward to flying—if I can figure my wings out."

"You're taking care of them? Give me a look—both of you." Spitfire's tone made me want to react quickly to her command. I'd seen this kind of thing in movies, but didn't think it'd work like this in real life. When we both held out our wings (mine were steadier than Clark's), Spitfire examined them. "You both need to work on your preening, but it isn't your wings that're keeping you stuck on the ground."

Spitfire turned her attention to our faces and reached up to the side of mine, then bopped me just below my ear. "It's what's in here. You were both born as creatures that can't fly, so neither of you have what it takes to just know how to fly. Even if your bodies are perfect and your muscles weren't weak, you'd still never get into the air." She stepped back from us. "… Without help.

"But that doesn't mean we can neglect your wings. You've never flown before, but have either of you tried gliding?"

I raised one wing, remembering how the unicorn mare had tossed me into the sky.

"How sore were your wings after it?" Spitfire asked.

That had been yesterday, and both wings twitched with the remembered soreness. "I could barely lift them for most of the rest of the day. Rainbo—"

"Yeah, Crash told me she basically ran you lot around until you passed out. Did she show you how to do wing-ups?"

I groaned, but Clark didn't.

"Yes, ma'am. I've been doing as many as I can each morning and night." Clark sounded pleased with himself—proud.

"I take by your groan you don't do any, Saf?" Spitfire's attention was entirely on me and I felt regret that I hadn't at least tried to do more with my wings. "That changes today. Morning and night—like the sergeant—you are going to get your wings up to strength, Saf, that's an order." And it sounded like one.

"Now, come over here and let's do a dozen."

My whole morning became wingups, running, a lecture about wing preening, and more wingups. We didn't even get to flap our wings once all day.

"That was pretty cool," Clark said as we walked away from the training grounds. "I didn't know birds spent this much time looking after their wings, but I hope it'll pay off. I wanna fly so fu—badly."

"Me too, but this is a ton of work." I kicked a stone with my hoof and it bounced along the stone road. "I just want to—you know—fly."

Nudging me with a wing, Clark made a disgusted sound. "Your dad said you worked out back home. Said you were into fitness."

"I liked to stay fit, but this is more like doing weights than just running. Can't I just fly and use that to get the exercise I need?"

"Saf, you gotta be able to fly to be able to get exercise from flying. The sooner you get your wings up to where the commander wants them, the sooner we can both get into the air." Clark stopped at a stall and used his hoof to fish some coins from a little satchel tied around his foreleg. "Two apples, thanks."

"She's really not going to teach us until we have this sorted, is she?" I grabbed an apple that Clark tossed to me out of the air with my wing, holding it carefully in my feathers despite how weak the limb felt. "The grooming too."

"Preening, and yeah. I need to spend even more time on that. We both have things we have to work on, so let's get this done. I kinda want to be flying before the colonel." He bit into his apple, taking the fruit in half.

"So let's help each other with it. When do you do your wingups?" I bit into my own apple, though my mouth wasn't big enough to get as much in as Clark did.

We walked together for a while, munching on our apples. Clark didn't say anything until he was finished—while I was still eating my last third. "I get up at dawn and do them then, then again at dusk. You with me?"

"Alright. We can both work on our wings after that."

Author's Note

Celestia: Why the coat standards for the Guard? There will inevitably be a lot of potentially outstanding recruits left out in the dust for something that seems fairly simple to fix with a bit of magic or dye products.

"The Royal Guard are more than just excellent ability, they are ceremony, they are a statement, they are a symbol of strength and unity." Princess Celestia gestured to the stallions who stood around her throne room. "They are excellent defense, and part of that is their look. Are the Royal Guard the best combat unit in Equestria?"

Celestia cleared her throat and raised her voice. "Are you the best combat unit in Equestria?"

"Your Highness, no!" a dozen voices barked in perfect time.

Celestia smiled. "I have it on good authority that your world has its share of such units. Surely every nation has its honor guards—its warriors chosen to uphold a standard as well as their duties. The Royal Guard are such in Equestria."

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Lab

Chapter 13 Riley Ree

Ponies shouldn't be boring, living with ponies shouldn't be boring, and I was pretty sure it was illegal that being a pony was boring, but it was all was! And for a whole week! I pushed the broom down the hallway again, turned, and did it again. Boooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiinng!

"Ugh, this stupid hallways always gets so dirty," I said as I got to the end again and turned around only to see Dad standing right behind me. "I can't sweep with you standing there, Dad."

He yanked the broom out of my grip with his magic and held it to the side. "You can't sweep without a broom!"

While I stood there staring at my idiot of a dad, he turned and galloped down the hall I'd been sweeping and around the corner.

"Dad!" I took off after him, and despite how silly he was acting and bored I felt, I was laughing. When I rounded the same corner he did, Mom was standing there too with another pony beside her. "Uh…"

"This must be Riley. Gosh but she's a little filly. Are you sure she's ready for school?" the strange pony, a mare, asked Mom.

"I believe you'll want to test her before finding her a class." Mom's tone sounded like she was annoyed at having to repeat herself.

The mare looked back at me, then to Mom. "But she's just a—"

"Apparently I'll need to find another school. If you cannot accommodate my daughter with some simple tests to find her aptitude, I'll find a school that will." Mom turned to me. "Sorry, Riley, I thought we had this sorted."

"Wait!" The mare looked between me and Mom as if she were trying to say something but was holding it back at the same time. "I can't believe I'm doing this. Okay, what's one plus one?"

I looked up at Mom, saw her pleading expression, and sighed. "One and one is two. Two and two is four. Four and four is eight. Eight and eight is—"

"Oh, so she knows basic math." The mare looked a little flustered now. She opened her mouth, but I'd had enough already.

"Two times two is four. Four cubed is sixty-four. Do you want me to do long division? Because if I need to do long division to get out of doing chores, I will!" I glared at the mare, then turned to look at Mom. "How many other schools are there in Canterlot?"

"Two plus one," Mom said with the deadest deadpan stare I'd ever seen.

"Can't you, like, get me a tutor to homeschool me? Then they can actually just work out what I need to learn to catch up, then I can keep going from there." I looked at the mare who was now gaping at me like I'd grown an extra head. "Homeschool. H O M E S C H O O L. In a sentence: I want to be homeschooled because you're the third teacher who can't get their head around me being stuck in this body!"

"That's not a bad idea, Clair," Dad said (because he's awesome). "We have special requirements, and she deserves the best teaching we can get her."

"I can take her at our school, but I—"

Mom actually stepped between the teacher and me. "That won't be necessary. I'm sorry, Miss Booksworth, but it appears my daughter is smarter than all of us combined. I don't suppose you could suggest a private tutor I could hire to teach her?"

Miss Booksworth was completely gone from view now. "W-Well, I could suggest one or two, but I said we'd take—"

"That was a clever idea, Riley. Come on, we're going to see a special pony to ask her if she can tutor you." Dad sounded sure of himself. "But we have to take the train again. Thankfully, Ponyville isn't far."

"Who's in Ponyville?" I asked.

"The smartest unicorn I know. Well, she tried to tell me Princess Twilight Sparkle was smarter, but between you and me, I think Moon Dancer might be a little better read than the princess." Using his magic, Dad picked me up and set me on his back.

I hadn't seen much of Moon Dancer. All I knew about her was that she'd taught Dad how to use his magic in a really short time. I guess if you go off stories of wizards, it takes aaaagggeeeessss for them to get good at magic, so she must be a good teacher. Also, if Dad thought she was good, I'd probably not go insane just being in the same room as her.

"'Kay," I said.

When Dad reached the front door of the embassy, the soldiers there shuffled around and tried to stop him from leaving without talking to someone else, but just kept walking and we left the impossibly-re-dirtied-every-hour floors of the embassy behind.

Sitting up on his back, I looked around at all the ponies doing normal things like shopping, chatting, and just walking around, and it felt like home. Not home-home, but this just felt nicer than home-home, and we'd been here for ages now.

"Is this who you were trying to find the other day?" When I turned to look where the voice came from, I spotted the mare who'd taken us to meet Rarity's friend. I tried to remember her name, but nothing came to mind.

Dad stopped and turned to the mare. "I take it you met my daughter when she was off having an adventure? Philip Ree," he said, "And this—if you didn't know already—is Riley Ree."

"Hi!" I said, mostly because I knew Dad would want me to say something.

"Shimmering Silk." She dipped her head with a little blush. "Her and her brother were up to something, but they mentioned Miss Rarity, and knowing her personally, I decided to take it upon myself to see they were delivered to her shop. I take it everything turned out well?"

"Absolutely, thanks to you. We're just heading out to find Riley a tutor. She may look like a tiny foal, but my little girl's actually quite a bit older—an accident with magic, you know—and none of the schools here proved they would overlook her little issue."

"I could suggest my sister. She's actually looking for a teaching position right now." Shimmering Silk had gotten Dad's (and my) full attention. "I—uh—do assume you have the bits to pay for a personal tutor?"

"My mom's the ambassador!" I said, wanting to make sure she knew who we were. I still liked the mare, she'd helped us find our parents again after all, and she seemed really nice.

Dad booped my nose with his magic and had me giggling. "That might not be a bad idea. I was going to find a friend and ask her first. What about if I drop by tomorrow?"

Shimmering Silk looked excited. Smiling wide, she almost bounced on her hooves. "Oh! I can definitely organize for a luncheon for tomorrow! Would Mrs. Ree be coming?"

"I can't promise that, but I'll see if she can make it. She's been run off her hooves with meetings this last week. That and trying to organize school for our foals has made her schedule rather a mess," Dad said.

"Of course, of course. Well, I'll make sure my sister makes it, but please, don't let her work for free."

It confused me. Back home Mom had had a person working for her that she'd said didn't want pay, but she'd insisted. I wondered if they were like that, or was it a pony thing.

"It's okay. I'll make sure she's paid for her time. I just want to talk with my friend before I commit to anything, you understand?" Dad, I had to admit, was almost as good as Mom when it came to saying something but trying not to. Maybe he'd just learned from Mom—she was really good at it.

It took dad nearly ten minutes to get out of the conversation. He hustled it and nearly ran all the way to the train station. The ride back to Ponyville was short, probably because it was almost all downhill. Or is that downmountain?

We got off the train, and though Dad offered to carry me, I wanted to walk. It'd been tiring to walk at first, but with a little of that magic Applejack had taught me, I was fine to go all day. So I trotted at Dad's side as we walked through town toward the castle in the distance.

"How's it really going?" Dad asked.

"Me?" When he nodded, I continued. "If I didn't learn the cool magic Bloom and Applejack taught me, I'd be pooped by the end of each day. Probably sooner. Haven't you noticed I keep stealing your cupcakes?"

"Duh." Dad looked as surprised to say it as I felt at hearing him say it. "Well, yeah I noticed, but I just figured you were doing other stuff with your magic. Race you to the castle?"

I didn't have a chance to say anything—Dad was already running. Feeling for my magic, I sent it to my legs and my hooves, leaned forward and charged off after him. Dad might have all that flashy unicorn magic, but I had my own magic that worked perfectly for me. It wasn't pretend, and it wasn't a kids game—it was real, and it made me run fast.

I pumped my legs as hard as I could, feeding magic into them to make sure I could catch my Dad—and I did. Running side-by-side, we were both laughing too much and almost plowed right into the front door of Princess Twilight Sparkle's (still the best pony name I've heard) castle.

Dad wasn't panting, but he did look like he'd had to properly run. He used his magic to lift me up and hold me close to the big front doors.

Still giggling, I knocked on the door with my hoof, remembering at the last second to stop forcing magic through it so I didn't kick a hole in the door.

When the door didn't open for aaaaages, Dad lifted me up to knock again. Another forever passed, and I was just about to knock with my magic, when I felt movement through the ground. I turned first, then Dad turned, but what would have terrified most people made me grin. "Spike!"

I rushed over and jumped as high as I could, only to have him catch me out of the air with one claw and put me on his back. "Spike! Spike! Spike!"

Spike's whole body rumbled, like a big purring kitty, before the words finally made it all the way from his belly to his mouth. "Riley. How's Canterlot?" He spread his wings out on each side of me so I could pretend I was riding him properly—which was amazing!

"It was terrible! I had to sweep the embassy every day! All because me and Saf went on a bit of an adventure when we got there. It sucks." I pronked in place a few times, which was usually how I let Spike know I wanted to fly, but he remained grounded.

"We came to find Moon Dancer. Have you seen her?" Dad asked.

"Nope. She went back to Canterlot a few days after you. I figured she might at least go and say hello, but this is Moon Dancer we're talking about." Spike didn't take off, but he did bounce around—which was almost as good. Dragons moved kinda like alligators, but twice as flexible and ten times as awesome. I'd even told Spike that when he first gave me a ride on his back.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Until Twilight asked her to come here to research some things about the portal, Moon Dancer was happy to hide in her house or the Royal Library. Seriously, you didn't notice that about her here? How many times did you see her in Ponyville? She's worse than Twilight." As Spike spoke, he settled down from his bouncing to a more sedate walking. "You two want a lift back to Canterlot?"

I couldn't help myself, I started bouncing in excitement.

"You could lift both of us?" Dad asked.

"Unless you were eating a lot more cupcakes than even Pinkie, yeah." Spike spread his wings, which made me instinctively grab on tight. "C'mon. She'll either be at home or the library. I can take you to both."

"So how're you going to—" Dad cut off as Spike jumped forward and wrapped his forelegs around Dad's belly. "Hey, wh—"

One beat. Two beats. Spike was amazing! He didn't even seem to work hard as he shot into the sky, and underneath him Dad was shouting something, though I couldn't hear it over the wingbeats.

"Just relax! I've got you!" Spike shouted.

Spike had given me the serious talk the first time he'd taken me up. Flying on his back was serious, and I had to stay close to his shoulders and hold onto a back-fin, but at the same time it was so cool! I kinda envied Saf, even though he couldn't fly yet, because one day he'd be able to fly like Spike.

When we reached the top of the trail that led to Canterlot, Spike landed and set Dad down. "There you go. Bet that beats an hour or two of train ride all the way up!"

Dad didn't look so great. For a brown-furred pony, his face looked really green. He dropped to his belly on the grass beside the road and just lay very still.

"Is Dad okay?" I asked. "I don't think he's flown like that before."

"Ponies are pretty hardy. He'll get over it. Hold on—" Spike craned his neck around and managed to look at me with one eye, "—'Like that'?"

"Well, we've been on planes before. You know, jets?" I asked. When Spike shook his head, I tried to work out how to explain. "Big metal tubes with wings. Holds lots of people, a few hundred at least. Can fly from one side of the world to the other without stopping."

"Sounds pretty cool. Is that the kind of stuff your Mom's trying to sell to Princess Celestia?" Spike gently prodded Dad with one claw-tip, only earning a groan from him.

"Well, I only heard little bits, but it's mostly computers and stuff. Mom was saying how Princess Celestia wants education to be the most important thing." I slowly slid off Spike's back and dropped to the ground beside Dad. The moment my hooves touched down, I felt everything around me. Earth pony magic might not be flashy like unicorn magic, and I might not have wings like Spike or Saf, but I could feel everything like this, and it was amazing!

I could feel how tight Dad clutched at the ground, I could feel his belly gurgling, and I could feel each of Spike's heavy footsteps as he neared us.

"Sorry, Mr. Ree, but I figured you'd get over it quickly. Most ponies do."

"It's alright—" Dad made a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a burp, "—Spike. I just don't fly all that great at the best of times."

That surprised me. "But—"

"Riley, every time you've seen me in a plane, I've been dosed up on travel sickness meds. Please, let me enjoy something that doesn't move for a few more minutes?" Dad didn't even lift his head.

I turned back to Spike. "Can we go for a circle around Canterlot while Dad gets better?"

Holding up his claw, Spike made the gesture I knew meant he was going to help me onto his back again. But when I ran at him, instead of lifting me onto his back, he held me against his chest. "This way you can look down."

Boy did I look down. As Spike beat his wings and jumped into the sky, the ground dropped out from under me and I gasped. Now I realized—maybe a little—how Dad felt.

Canterlot looked amazing! There were ponies everywhere, and pegasi kept flying beside and below us. I stretched my forelegs out and laughed as Spike took us through twists and spins that would have thrown me off his back.

It was so much fun I didn't realize what Spike was doing until he crashed us into the ground and set me back on my hooves. Up and down were still a bit mixed up, but after shaking my head to clear the confusion, I turned to look at dad. "Did you see us?!"

Dad looked a lot better now. He was standing up, and walked over to me. "I wasn't doing a great job of seeing anything, sweetie. Thanks for giving me a moment, Spike, but next time it'd be appreciated if you asked first."

"Sorry, sir. I'll definitely make sure to ask before I foalnap you again."

It took me a second to work out what he meant by "foalnap", but it turned out to be just another of those odd words that ponies use instead of normal ones. Foal being the pony word for a kid meant that foalnap meant kidnap.

"Where did you say Moon Dancer will be?" Dad asked.

"Well," Spike said, "It's daytime, so she's either at the library or she's asleep. Since I've been kinda forcing her to stick to regular hours, she probably hasn't gone completely off the rails yet."

Me and Dad started trotting along beside Spike. I only listened to them peripherally because with my hooves back on the ground, I could feel everything again. Each hoofstep Dad took, each time Spike's feet touched the ground, even my own movements were something I could feel.

"Is she really that bad? She seemed so normal back at the castle," Dad said.

They kept talking all the way across town. I watched ponies walking by—all of them making room for Spike and Dad. By the time Spike pointed at a big building, my legs were getting tired, but it was nothing a little kick of super-awesome-pony-magic wouldn't fix!

Sticking my tongue out one side of my mouth, I focused on the magic inside me and—instead of the little flow I'd wanted—I got a huge rush of magic. Giggling, I trotted along to what seemed to be a huge library.

Philip Ree

Turning to Riley, I was about to offer her a ride inside when the words died in my throat. There was a trail of green grass that'd followed Riley back as far as I could see into the crowd. Quickly lifting her up with my magic, I set my daughter on my back. "Having some trouble controlling your magic, sweetie?"

Riley shook her head.

"Look behind us," I said.

"M-Maybe a little…"

Spike's throat made what I'd learned was the slight rumble before he spoke. "It's alright. Foals messing up a little magic is common here. Some grass growing is not going to upset anypony."

Reassured, I walked up the steps of the library with Spike at my side. Any second I expected to have someone rush up to me and protest him entering the library. When Spike stepped inside—his long body brushing the doors I held open for him, there was a gasp of surprise at the front counter. Here it comes…

"Spike! It's been—Oops, I should try to keep it down. It's been too long since I last saw you. Did you read that treatise on breezies I sent?" The mare behind the counter had to be one of the librarians. She had her curly mane up in a bun and had a pair of reading glasses hanging low on her snout. A pegasus, she had a light pink coat and sky-blue mane that had a second, darker-blue stripe in it.

Rolling his eyes, Spike reached one foreleg up to lean on the counter. "Of course I did. I read every book you send me, Stamp Duty. Well, I actually read every book anyone sends me. That way I can recommend the right book to the right creature."

Stamp Duty (the mare's name apparently) blushed a little and leaned on the counter so that she had to look up at Spike. "What can I help you with?" She looked like she was flirting, but that couldn't be right—Spike's a dragon, not a pony.

"We were looking for Moon Dancer. Is she in?" Spike asked.

"She is." The way Stamp Duty said it made her sound disappointed. "Her usual spot. She got in a few hours ago, so at least you know she'll be awake."

Spike lifted his foreleg off the desk and extended one claw to boop Stamp Duty on the nose. "Thanks. I'll be back to talk books when all this is under control." My head spun—he had flirted back! What the hell was up with this world?!

"Is she Spike's girlfriend?" Riley whispered in my ear.

Great. Riley could whisper to me her questions, but if I tried to be the good dad and answer them out loud, I'd be making a scene. "I'll tell you later, sweetie. So—" I raised my voice a little, "—where's Moon Dancer?"

If pony looks could kill, the mare behind the counter would be facing stern questions about inter-dimensional diplomatic incidents. "In the research section. Third desk from the rear—the one with the thickest-padded seat."

I left Spike at the counter and went searching for Moon. As it turned out, she wasn't hard to find at all. The library was somewhat empty, and her mane stood out prominently enough that finding the research section was the hardest part. Walking up to the table, I used my magic to pull two more chairs up. "Moon Dancer?"

Her head actually shot up from the book and she stared at me for several seconds before she shook her head and smiled. "Philip, it's good to see you again. And you brought Riley too?"

"Riley's actually the reason we were looking for you." I lifted Riley to one of the chairs and sat on the other. "You see, we've been trying to find a school that will accept her and not try to put her into an age-appropriate class."

"Huh? That shouldn't be a problem, surely. I remember Twilight being accepted into Princess Celestia's school despite her being nearly a decade too young." Moon Dancer settled a bookmark into the heavy tome she'd been reading and closed it. "Though you can't go there—it's only for unicorns. How bad has it been?"

That Moon Dancer was addressing Riley instead of me made her even more perfect, and I could see Riley perk up at the focus on her.

"They were going to try to teach me how to read and write. I was almost out of middle school!" Riley blew a very equine snort and looked to the side. "They didn't even want to talk to me—treated me like a baby."

"It's hard for them. They look at you and see a filly most of them would still have in diapers. As far as they're concerned, you shouldn't even be in school yet." Moon looked to me then back to Riley. "You want me to mentor you?"

Riley looked shell-shocked. "How'd you—?"

"Riley, Moon Dancer was my first choice because she's smart." I looked at Moon Dancer and had remind myself that I was a unicorn talking to another unicorn about schooling for my little filly. Once I had the situation squared away again, I could continue. "So?"

"You have, according to Equestrian education standards, thirty more years of schooling for basic level, or another ten to twenty on top of that for advanced. Now keep in mind, when you go back home, a lot of what I'll teach you will be useless."

Spinning, Riley pinned me with a look that asked me what that meant exactly.

"We're only here because it's Clair's job, Riley, and Princess Celestia lets us stay here. Jeff isn't going to be in office forever—the new president might not want Clair here." The more I spoke, the more Riley's face dropped. That she knew this already didn't soften it. I'd just told my little girl I was going to take the magic away.

"So," Moon Dancer said, "Knowing all that, do you still want me to teach you?" She looked only at Riley.

Riley stood up on her seat and glared at me for a few seconds before turning to Moon Dancer. "Yes!"

Someone nearby made a hushing sound.

Author's Note

As such, Princess, what IS the best equestrian combat unit?

"That would depend on what you mean by 'combat'. If you're talking about stand-up fights, E.U.P. Guard Regulars are without a doubt our finest fighting force. Asymmetric warfare? It depends what side of it you're on. On one hoof you have the Monster Hunters, experts in their craft of dealing with irregular threats. On the other hoof we have my royal guards here—trained to be an impenetrable wall against even an enemy army, if I should ask them to be so. There's the Wonderbolts—don't mistake them for just a bunch of stunt fliers." Princess Celestia blinked what seemed to be her only eye. "But the strength of all of them is nothing compared to how effective they are when working together. That is where ponies will always be their best."

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Wind of the Skies

And special thanks to the following, for careful eyes and friendly words:
Lab

Chapter 14 Saffron Ree

A full two weeks since Commander Spitfire had started in on us. After the first four days, it no longer seemed odd to get up so early anymore. Clark was pretty awesome about it, even when I couldn't do a quarter of the amount of wing-ups he did.

Dad always told me it wasn't what the other guy was doing about fitness, but what you did about it. Well, I had to work twice as hard to reach the same level, Clark was, and he put up with getting ribbing from the other guys about constantly poking at his wings.

We were a team.

When we reported in—same as always—the sergeant at the gate waved us through.

All the exercise with my wings had done a great job of making them very distinct in my head from my forelegs. Not only could I keep them nicely tucked at my sides, but I could reach and use them without tripping or even twitching my legs.

The sound of droning reached us from overhead. When I looked up, I saw Commander Spitfire and two other Wonderbolts speed past us with the distinctive noise coming from their flight suits. Sudden Turn was one of the pegasi with Spitfire, while the other I didn't recognize. Like three missiles they aimed themselves and shot toward us.

Spitfire, Sudden, and the unknown pegasus practically crashed into the ground, but rather than looking harmed by the impact, all three were standing proud and looking at us.

"These're the two newbies you told me about? C'mon, Commander, give 'em another year and they might be worth looking at." The third pony was a mare with a bright yellow mane showing through her uniform and had pale fur. She shrugged and started to turn.

"Maybe for the Wonderbolts, Slowpoke, but these two have never flown at all before." Spitfire waited for her companion to turn back. "You're our best trainer for the Young Fliers, you've gotten foals I'd have given up on into the air and doing stunts. I want your honest opinion."

"I gave you my honest opinion." Slowpoke looked over us again, then walked up and used her wing to grab mine. I thought she was going to pull it or twist it, but she seemed to know exactly how a wing unfolds as she extended my limb to its full length. "Push down." When I didn't do it enough for her, she grunted. "Harder. Like you're doing wing-ups."

Okay, that much force I knew. Shoving down as hard as I could, I heard a soft, surprised sound come from her.

"Yeah. What about your friend?" Slowpoke let my wing go and walked over to Clark's other side to repeat the test with him. "Alright, you should be in the air already."

"Wait!" I glared at her. "So I don't get to fly? That sucks! I've been working my ass off every bit as much as—" I faltered in my anger at the snort of laughter Slowpoke made. "What?!"

"You'll be flying by the end of the day if all it took was guts. Come over to the edge and lets see how you do." Turning and walking, Slowpoke made her way (with all of us following) to the edge of the training ground—which was also the edge of the huge plate that Canterlot sat on. "Okay, Tough Guy, if you think you can fly, walk off the edge."

I turned to look at Spitfire and Sudden, but both offered nothing but neutral expressions. Clark was my last refuge, and he shrugged at me. "Just walk off?"

"You've got wings. You think you can fly." Slowpoke took a step off the edge and spread her wings as she did.

It looked so easy.

"This is crazy." Snapping my wings out, I stepped forward.

Okay, it was easy—falling was really easy. All I had to do was not think about what would happen when I hit the ground at the end.

"Open your wings! Catch the air!" Slowpoke shouted.

Sure. Just open my wings again. The pressure and weight of my fall hit my shoulder joints as I did what she said. Memories of that day when the mare tossed me into the air hit me, and with my wings spread wide and catching air—I flew.

"I'm flying!" Joy hit me harder than the air had hit my wings. There was a million things I was feeling through my feathers, all of it I had Fluttershy to thank for. I felt little breezes that tried to push me aside, lift me up, shove me down—I didn't know what to do with the information, but I knew it!

Slowpoke was coasting along at my side. "Flap!"

We'd gotten lessons in flapping. Flapping involved lifting the wing while twisting flight feathers, straightening the feathers out, and pumping your wings down hard. We'd practiced it, and I'd felt some lift, but this was kinda different. My wings—my feathers—were what stopped me falling to my death. Simply twisting my feathers would stop all the lift my wings gave me.

So I did it anyway, because I'm the kind of pony who steps off cliffs.

"FASTER!"

She sounded like Spitfire. My second flap was faster than the first, and I felt something boil up inside me at the feel of my wings pumping. Excitement, raw and wild, poured through my body and into my wings.

"Go! Go! Go! FLY!"

I didn't need Slowpoke's encouragement, but it was good to know she thought I was doing it right. Each pump of my wings shot me faster and higher. I closed my eyes and trusted my wings to feel the air around me, which is how I managed not to hit the underside of Canterlot.

The air around me twitched and moved with everything nearby that affected it. I wanted to do all kinds of stupid stuff, but the possibility of falling to my death was still strong enough in my—Fuck it!

Tipping forward, I drew my wings in a little and was in a dive. Faster and faster, I shot toward the ground below so quickly that the whole world seemed to slow down to watch what I'd do. Snapping my wings out fully, I angled my feathers to use that speed to send me into an arc upward.

Just as I was getting what I thought was enough speed to roll over and finish my first loop, I stopped. All my speed and all the air that had been guiding me was gone. My human instinct was to scream and fall—but I'd learned how useless that was.

Feathers tilted, wings up, feathers straight, flap.

"Ha! There you go. You learned the first important lessons of flying!" Hovering beside me, Slowpoke looked like she was barely even trying to fly. "Let's head back up so your friend can see if he needs his plot saved."

Looking up, I groaned at how far it was before actually laughing at myself. Dad said this day would come—when I would realized how stupid-lucky I was. Here I was able to fly, and I was already thinking about complaining at having to fly up.

"Race you!" I shouted, and began pumping my wings hard to give gravity the middle fing—feather. Slowpoke, despite her name, kicked my ass, but I was laughing at how awesome it felt to really fly.

Landing on the field beside Spitfire and Sudden, I folded my wings at my sides and only then realized how sore they were. Not really hurting, but like the time I'd gone from jogging each day to running. "Flying is amazing!"

Behind me, Slowpoke walked off the edge with Clark.

"How're your wings, newbie?" If Spitfire recognized personal space, she didn't show it. She walked up to me and used one of her wings to grab my left and unfold it. "As I thought. Keep them unfolded and hit the showers. Cold shower. "Strip, make sure he follows orders. Damn stallions thinking they're indestructible and——" Spitfire kept grumbling as she walked away.

That she'd called me a stallion, on top everything, made me want to strut beside Sudden Turn on the way to the showers. I couldn't help but catch glances at her—pony eyes were good for that, since they were kinda turned sideways a little.

The tight bodysuit clung to all the right parts, parts I wouldn't have considered could be right parts a few months back. She was lithe and slim, and each step Sudden took was like a dancer.

"You checking me out?" The words cut through my daydreaming like a knife. Sudden, however, had a smile rather than the angry expression I was expecting.

I'd dealt with this before. Puberty had been behind me and I was searching for the deeper meanings of life before I got sucked along on this ride. "Yeah. Hard to forget what it was like back home."

"Yeah, I heard about that. Look all you want—I'm not one of those prudish townies." She pranced with her steps, showing off for sure. "But you're a bit young for me, Saf. Nothing personal."

"I'm a bit young for me too. Don't sweat it, I don't even know if this tackle works yet. Being this young is so messed up." It might not be working yet, but if there was ever a time it might—in a pony my age—it would be now. "Do you have a guy—err, stallion. I mean, are you seeing somepony?" Their words were creeping into my head, but I suddenly didn't care so much.

"Nope. Too focused on being the best flier I can be to want to settle down with some stallion who probably wants to fill my belly so full I can't fly. I was born to fly, Saf, and I intend to keep doing it." Sudden Turn had led me to a building with just a single door. She flicked it open with a wing and—walking in first—gave me a view that would probably stick with me even when I was home. Human girls don't tend to let you see everything until you've been on at least a date.

Following her into the showers, I found the inside consisted of… showers. Nothing but showers. Nothing between the showers, either. "I gotta ask, though I swore to myself I wouldn't. How old are you?"

"I turn eighty-three this year."

The words weren't as much a hammer blow as they could be, mostly because Sudden was peeling off her flight suit. And here was I thinking that ponies being naked most of the time would make undressing completely uninteresting, but watching her strip the tight suit off was struggling against the lack of urges my body had.

"By your lack of words I figure either your brain futzed at the number or your attention is focused on something else." She turned—now naked—and looked at me. "Oh, the latter."

"When I found out how old Celestia is, I kinda got a little perspective. But yeah, eighty years is oooolllllllddddd for humans. We're normally adult at seventeen." I almost said twenty-one, but she said she knew all about me, so I figured I might as well toss in that at least I considered me adult.

"I heard eighteen, but that doesn't matter. You thought you're an adult up here—" Sudden walked up and tapped the side of my head, "—and that's all that matters to you, right?"

She was bigger than me. Taller, heavier muscled, and even longer-limbed. "Yeah. And you're totally out of my league. A foal my age would be what, playing at finding a girlfriend and kissing where adults can't see us?"

"I take it you've gone a little further than that? Back home, I mean."

I snorted and then yelped as the cold water hit me. Jumping from hoof to hoof, I was about to make a run for it when firm feathers grabbed each of my wings and stretched them out to the sides—Sudden only managed that because she was standing directly behind me and over me.

As the icy chill soaked through my feathers and into my muscles, it stole the soreness from my wings Sudden Turn's presence had made me forget I even had. "Oooohhh…"

"Out of all the pegasi you'll ever meet, Saf, I'm the only one who'll know that feeling." She held my wings out for me, though she didn't need to. Cold water didn't really have the same ache it would back on Earth, and the way it soothed my muscles would have left me standing with my wings out anyway. "I wasn't able to fly until I was almost forty-five."

The admission was startling enough that I turned to look at her out of one eye. "Forty-five? You were—"

"About seventeen in your years, Saf."

Damn. Now if that didn't put her friendship in a new light, nothing would—and it definitely did. I hadn't even known what I was missing, but Sudden would have seen all the other pegasi flying. "That would have fucking sucked."

Her snort wasn't forced. "Eloquent, Rarity would say as she looks down her nose at you. Ponies don't swear a lot, Saf."

"Yeah, I know that. I was just surprised."

"No one ever says that word, and only Crash says sucked." She let go of my wings and backed off to her own shower.

"Actually there's one pony I've heard say that word, but I can't tell you who." I wanted to tell her, I wanted to tell her so much, but I said I wouldn't, and I don't think ratting out Fluttershy'd be something I could live with. "But she heard it from a whole bunch of places."

"'She'?" Sudden broke into a laugh when I groaned. "Don't sweat it, Saf, her secret's safe with me—whoever she is."

What stung the most, I think, was how much I liked Sudden Turn without the sex appeal affecting me. She was a nice pony, and we'd somehow already shared something nopony and no one else ever would. "You really don't care if I stare, do you?"

"What? I wouldn't put on a tight flight suit and flash everypony my underbelly if I wasn't okay with being looked at, Saf." Sudden was enjoying her hot shower by the look of it, fluffing her wings out and preening her feathers under it.

My feathers were totally soaked, but that didn't mean I couldn't preen them. I nibbled at one that had gotten a crimp in it from something I'd done, before I replied, "That's not what I meant and you know it."

"Saf, I got a full briefing from Princess Celestia—along with Commander Spitfire. She told us both that you're only going to be here for a few years. A few years that you won't be mature by. The way I figure it, Saf, you're going to get to look at a lot of ponies, but you're only going to take home the image of one burned into your retina. Am I right?"

I blew out a long sigh after my mind chased through her logic. "Yeah. You are."

"And you'll remember flying."

"Fuck yeah." I didn't care about swearing taboos, flying was better than anything. "She had to yell at me a lot, but Slowpoke really knew what she was doing. I tried to do a loop."

"Did you make it?"

Starting to shiver, I decided I was done with the cool shower and stepped out from under it. "Nope. Thought I had it, but I stopped—"

"Stalled. When your forward speed doesn't overpower the drag of gravity and wind resistance, and you stop."

"Right. I stalled, panicked for a second, and then just flapped my wings." I stretched, arching my back and reaching far out to each side with my wings, and then I shook myself dry like a dog. It felt great.

The sound of both showers stopped. "Good instincts. Some pegasi'd do that, panic, and then need to be caught."

"When I was little, I was scared of heights. I don't think it really applies here, though. I mean, no matter how high up I am, all I need to do is spread my wings." An annoying feeling in my right wing made me lift it forward and turn it so I could get at the feather that wasn't sitting right. I used my teeth to straighten it and then flicked the wing to make sure it was sitting right.

"Right," Sudden said. "The higher you are, the safer you are. You'd get more injured falling off a ladder than falling off Canterlot. Nice work with that preening, by the way. You're getting the hang of this stuff quickly."

Okay, now I felt like preening more, but not because my feathers might be out of place. Sudden Turn's age seemed insane to even contemplate. I wasn't even twenty yet—she's over four times my age. Well, like she said, I've probably got a few more years here, and I wanted to make those years where I spend as much time in the air as I can. Right now, however, my wings were still a little sore.

"They're still a little tight," I said. "Guess flying really uses those muscles?"

"Yeah, but there's one other thing you need to work out." Sudden walked over to me and, when I didn't move, leaned in so she was touching me down our sides. Setting her wing over my back, she hugged me closer.

A little uncomfortable with it, I opened my mouth to ask what was going on when I felt the first rush of magic. "What the—?" Another pulse of it halted my words. The next wave made me push against it, and I felt magic of my own flow.

"Now push that into your wings."

"How?"

"Just imagine it. It's magic—it knows what you want it to do."

Okay, magic, go into my—

My thoughts derailed as my magic—my magic—rushed along to my wings. The soreness was washed away and I felt ready to fly again. "Fuck."

Sudden stepped away from me and left me to stand on my own. It was hard to focus on anything but—My wings were flapping. I looked down and realized I was hovering a few feet off the ground. "Figured this'd be the case. You're in the body of a little foal, but you have the magic of an adult pegasus. Chalk it up to magic being magic. How's it feel?"

I looked from one wing to the other. Neither felt strained, and flapping them was easier than ever. "Amazing! How am I doing this? It should be harder to fly than this."

"The easy answer is that it is harder to fly than what you're doing. Even the slightest trickle of magic to your wings makes everything easier, but it costs you your magic reserve," Sudden Turn said. "Go on, ask the next question I know you're dying to ask."

The way she'd said it implied that my next question should be a smart one. Right. Smart. I was fishing around for what to say when it hit me. "Why didn't you teach me this first?"

"Bingo! We have a flier that can think." Walking to the exit, Sudden beckoned me. "You see, we could have taught you to just burn magic to fly, but there's a great reason not to—it's a crutch. A while ago—twice actually—all the magic was getting sucked out of Equestria. Now, we got it all fixed, but could you imagine how nasty that would be if all you could do was use your magic to fly?"

"That'd only affect the ponies actually flying at the time, right?" I had a feeling I knew the answer to this. Flying was the defining thing about pegasi.

"You haven't been to Cloudsdale yet, have you?" When I shook my head, Sudden lifted her wing and pointed one of her primary feathers nearly straight up. A huge cloud bank was looming over Canterlot. "That's Cloudsdale. C'mon, I'll tell the commander we're going to take a look at Wonderbolt H.Q." She grabbed her uniform out and held it in one hoof.

"Isn't this where you practice?" I followed her until Sudden spread her wings and practically bounced into the air as if her being on the ground was the wrong part. Planes, helicopters, rockets—Everything I'd ever seen fly that people'd built looked like it struggled to get into the air. Not so for Sudden.

"Sometimes. But Wonderbolt's H.Q. is in Cloudsdale." She turned toward the figure of Spitfire—who was looking over the edge of Canterlot with a grin. "Commander! Permission to show the newbie Wonderbolt H.Q.!"

Spitfire turned to look at me, and one of her eyebrows raised. "Using flight magic already? Tell you what, kid, if you can make it to Cloudsdale proper today, I'll invite you to join the Young Fliers Program."

So much of my attention was on Spitfire I didn't notice that Sudden Turn was putting her flight suit back on. When I noticed her, she was pulling her wings through and had her back arched and—This was another etched in my mind moment. Thanks, Sudden, for making my eventual return to Earth and the first time I get off the most awkward moment of my life in advance.

"Well?" Spitfire asked. "What are you two waiting for, your nanny to fly back up here?!"

My brain took a few seconds to catch up with my wings. When Spitfire shouted something, you did it first and asked questions after—which was exactly when I realized that she'd literally just given me the chance to slip away from Clark and have the day to myself.

With my wings pumping hard, however, I couldn't very well fly back down to thank her. "Remind me I owe Commander Spitfire a big one."

"If I know the commander at all, she'll never call it in." Sudden didn't seem to be working half as hard as me, but she didn't make a show of it. "It's how she operates. Like you're going to disobey the orders of somepony you owe a big favor to. Or twenty.

"Over here, Saf. Stop pumping your wings and just cup the air… HERE!"

We reached the spot practically at the same time, and it was like a huge pair of hands grabbed my wings and shoved upward. A warm breeze caused all my feathers to twitch as it carried us upward faster than we could have flown.

"This is awesome!" The thought of curbing the enthusiasm I felt for flying, like I would have back home, came and went. How the fuck can I possibly not be excited to fly?! "Is this a thermal?"

"You got it. Warm air finds its way through the colder air like the opening of a balloon. You gotta be a bit careful, but most of them are fairly calm like this one. Swing out this way and I'll show you how to feel for them." Sudden led me out of the thermal in a slow arc, but she didn't set about flapping anymore. "Okay, so you can only feel the air temperature around you, right?"

"Yeah. So how do I feel the heat?"

"You don't. That's the trick. You literally can't feel the temperature of the thermal on our right, so what can you feel for instead?"

I closed my eyes, keeping the sensation of Sudden's movement through the air beside me, and focused on my feathers. The slight disruption of the air Sudden made barely registered, probably something to do with her fancy flight suit, but it was there. My feathers told me I was slowly going down, since there was air going up, but they also told me there was a constant flow along the edge of the thermal—almost like it was a pillar in the middle of the air.

Snapping my eyes open, I couldn't keep a grin off my face. "The cold air flows around the thermal like it's an object. I can feel it bulging and shifting."

"That bulging is the best warning you'll ever get about a whole bunch of things. If something big is moving really fast or if you want to learn to blind-fly, that's your go-to feeling to know when you're going somewhere bad. Since we can't see anything huge and there's no wall, that means it's a thermal." When Sudden finished, she dipped her right wing just a little and we slid back into the rush of warm air.

Letting out a shout, I watched the clouds above fall down to meet us and, when we were above them, I saw Cloudsdale. "Holy shitballs."

The city of Cloudsdale was insane. It was literally clouds with houses and buildings and factories built on it. If Canterlot was an insane place because it couldn't stand out as it did without magic, then Cloudsdale was that on steroids.

"Why isn't everything falling through the clouds?!"

Sudden snorted and aimed us toward a nearby cloud bank. "Fly over here and I'll show you." And that's when she did the next insane thing—Sudden Turn landed on the fluffy cloud and sat down. "Come over here and aim some of your magic to your hooves."

I did that, and lost the strength in my wings. Gliding I could still do, so I came down slowly onto the cloud with my magic buzzing around my hooves. Then I landed on the cloud. Opening my mouth only resulted in Sudden jamming her hoof in there.

"Lay off the swearing before we get into Cloudsdale, okay?" She asked.

Nodding, I waited for her to remove her hoof before simply saying, "Wow."

"Cloud walking. It's another things mostly unique to pegasi. Unicorns can do a spell that works a bit like it, but it only does half the work. You see, while our pegasus magic lets us stand on clouds, we can also buck 'em." Lifting her back hooves up, Sudden turned around on her forehooves while using her wings to balance, and then she kicked down.

The cloud snapped in half like a cheap bit of wood. One half went flying downward while our part just stayed level. I rushed over to the edge and watched the falling cloud disappear to sight. I was about to shout something, but remembered the hoof. "Cloud bucking?"

"Cloud bucking. Unlike cloud walking, you need to give a shove to your magic to get it working."

"So I don't need to keep using magic on my hooves?"

"Nah. A little zap to them every day or so is enough, but I'd suggest giving your hooves a little jolt every hour or so. Come on, let me show you Wonderbolt H.Q.!"

Author's Note

Ree Family: when the time comes how do you think you'll answer the offer to stay in equestria?

"If I get a choice? I'm staying," Saffron said.

"If he gets to stay, I wanna stay!" Riley said.

"Riley, Saffron's an adult, by our standards." Philip looked from his daughter to his son. "We'll discuss this."

Clair cleared her throat. "Well, as you can see, we're a little divided. What will have to happen, however, is I must go back from time to time to report in person to our president. When my duty here is over, I'll likely have to write a large report on it—and if you think for a second I'll do that by holding a pen in my mouth, you have another thing coming."

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Lab

Chapter 15 Clair Ree

I was just finishing the last of the paperwork Flurry had gotten for me when the door to my office burst open. Setting the pen down and freeing up my mouth, I looked up to see Colonel Richards looking ready to start an interdimensional war (which is to say her normal appearance). "What can I help you with, col—"

"They've kidnapped your son!"

A slow breath was in order. I'd already sent word home that the colonel was to be replaced at their earliest convenience, and I'd gotten a hand-written note from Jeff telling me she'd have a transfer within a month. All I had to do was keep my cool and dissuade her from ruining our entire species' chance at peaceful relations with another sentient creature. "I know. Flying lessons. It was all Saffron could talk about today."

Richards looked about ready to blow a gasket. "You don't understand, Madam Ambassador. The marine assigned to watch over him just came back and reported that—"

"Colonel, remember the meeting I had with Commander Spitfire last week?" I waited for her to nod to my question before I continued. "The one where I gave her official permission to begin this new step of my son's flight training?" She didn't nod this time, I hadn't invited her or any of her soldiers into the meeting. "Well, I gave her that permission enthusiastically, and you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because she assured me that no matter what happens, one of her Wonderbolts will be with Saffron at all times. These are Equestria's most elite flying soldiers, I'll add, and if they want to teach my son to fly properly and not give him the chance to try it on his own and break his neck—" I'd built up a good bit of volume and momentum as I'd delivered my reasoning, "—then I not only welcome their assistance, but am very thankful for it."

Leaning my head back down, I picked up my pen with my lips and went back to writing the report for Jeff. It had been awkward at first to write with my mouth, but the dexterity of pony lips had surprised me, and thanks to plenty of practice I was actually quite neat with it now. Though painfully slow.

Something, or rather someone, was still intruding on my thoughts. Lifting my head back up, I rolled the pen to the corner of my mouth. "Yes, Colonel?" I let my pen drop to the desk again.

"You're having me transferred back."

"Yes. Not that the contents of diplomatic pouches are for your eyes. You don't fit this mission, colonel. You know that and I know that."

I waited for her to fire up and challenge me, but Colonel Richards just heaved out a sigh and seemed to slump a little. "There's regulations and requirements. I'm trying to enforce them, but it's not working. Do you know who they're sending?"

"No."

"Tell 'em to shove their choice. Captain Bryant is your man. Tell the brass to promote him and give him my job. You're not using half of my soldiers—might as well reduce the ranks a little. I'll forward you a letter for my replacement." She looked defeated. Utterly and completely undone.

"Colonel—Maria, wait. This was the wrong job for you from the start. Things were rushed, I know, but you shouldn't have been shoved into this." She'd accepted her fate, Clair, what are you doing? Duh, I'm doing what any good diplomat should. "There's no reason this needs to be the end of your career."

"My career was already over, Clair. You don't stay a bird colonel this long without getting to general before the end of your career. I'd hoped this would be the thing that got me there, and that playing it all by the book would do it." She let out the sigh of someone who didn't see a way out of their situation. "Truth be told, I don't know how to do things any other way."

"This was never going to be straightforward. Any other embassy—on Earth—and you would have had established patterns and rules to follow. This wasn't that kind of mission. It's not your fault, colonel, whoever tapped you for this fucked it up." I would normally never swear, but under the circumstances someone earning more money than both of us put together had screwed up her life.

Colonel Maria Richards wasn't a bad person, she was a patriot in the wrong place at the wrong time—though maybe this place would never have a right time for her. I resolved to add a little more to my letter to Jeff.

"For what it's worth, I think you're perfect for this job. I haven't had as much push-back from a civvie since I made first lieutenant." The colonel turned for the door and made her way outside.

Looking at the time, I realized I could expect my (new) weekly update from Moon Dancer and Riley at any minute. Plucking back up my pen, I finished the report and added a final paragraph regarding the colonel.

Whomever decided on Colonel Richards needs their ass kicked, Jeff. The only two things right about that woman for this job is that she's within the age bracket and of sufficient rank. She's a troop commander. Find her a job directing a few thousand marines and she'll be the happiest colonel you can find. Give her a promotion and she'll keep fighting for her country until the second she dies of old age.

Consider this a formal suggestion she be assigned to a general overseeing actual combat, and be evaluated for promotion. Give her the chance this post stole from her.

She suggested Captain Jason Bryant take her position. I don't know Bryant as well as I should. I'll give my evaluation of him in a week with the next goods shipment.

Things are moving slowly, Jeff. That's how ponies work. One thing's for sure, and that's that we've integrated into their capital and are making connections. Princess Flurry Heart is showing a greater and greater interest in computers, I'd like to make a formal gift to her of one with a solar setup to power it. Get Caroline to organize that (and make sure she doesn't cut corners).

Riley and Saffron are doing well, Jeff. Thank you for persuading me to do this. They're really taking off.

I barely got the chance to sign the bottom of the page when there was a gentle knock at the door. "Come in."

Moon Dancer opened the door with her magic, but it was Riley galloping in that had my attention. Jumping to my hooves, I barely got around the table in time for her to leap up and latch her forelegs around my neck in a hug.

"What's gotten into you?" Scooping one foreleg around Riley, I hopped back to my chair and sat down with her still attached.

"Remember how I had her do a series of standardized tests?" Moon Dancer asked as she took a seat at the table. "She passed everything but magic studies, history, and the compulsory languages. But that's not the point. You want her to continue her high school classes?"

Riley squirmed around my neck a little. "I only need to learn about ponies and magic and growling, right Mom?"

"Thank you, Moon, having her continue her high schooling would be wonderful. Is Equestria's education far behind Earth's?" I watched Moon Dancer as I asked my question, curious to find out how the two institutions stacked up.

"Yes and no. Here in Equestria, specialized training is often sought once schooling is finished. We have schools for training pegasi in flight or weather; earth ponies in rocks or horticulture; and unicorns in magic, as well as smaller institutions that will cross train ponies if their own specialization isn't found for their pony type. Pony schooling is taken slow, with an emphasis on everypony finding their special talent.

"That said, history and magic are our two biggest subjects because they are what we use to inspire ponies to find where their talents lie. Some of us do pursue subjects outside the strict focus of our special talent." Moon Dancer had a growing smile that showed she was likely talking about herself and her favorite topic. "And there are some for whom learning is their special talent, but I don't think that's where Riley's future lies."

"I wanna do magic!"

I barely managed to catch Riley before she climbed onto my desk. "Riley Ree, this isn't a holiday. You will finish out the 7th grade, and you will do everything Moon Dancer asks."

"But Moooooooom!"

"No buts young lady. You didn't like what the other schools were teaching, and Moon Dancer has agreed to offer her time so that you can learn. Learn you will." I looked up at Moon Dancer.

Lifting books from a saddlebag she wore, Moon Dancer set two on the table. "It's not the magic classes she's upset about. You were gracious enough to lend me some textbooks from your home, and I think she's allergic to them." The tomes were big, thick textbooks—how they fit in her saddlebags was probably literal magic. I'd learned not to question such things. "I don't think she should be in the 7th grade. Between the few human textbooks you've supplied and our Equestrian counterparts, I think I can push her up to 9th grade with some faster paced learning. She will be getting one-on-one schooling—why not take advantage of that?"

"What's so bad about that, Riley?" I asked.

Riley let out the most heartfelt sigh I'd ever heard from her. "It means I need to go to classes five days a week!"

I looked at my daughter with a single raised eyebrow.

She sighed again. "Mom!"

"You know how many days I'm working at the moment, don't you?" I kept my attention on Riley, but I could see Moon Dancer trying to square away a smile. "Well?"

"But Mooooooooom! I want to do stuff like Saf!"

"You don't have the wings for it, Riley Ree. And if you use that tone again I'll ground you for whatever days you aren't in school." It was a light threat so far as they went, but Riley would know I'd not hesitate to back it up if she pushed. She wanted to haggle. "Exactly what will be the syllabus for each day?" I asked Moon Dancer.

"Morning each day will be spent on history—a mix of Earth and Equestrian—or math. Early afternoon will be devoted to magic and language—English, Ponish, and another of her choice. Late afternoons are where social studies and science will be the main two subjects, with some touching on personal biology." She passed over a set of notes with her magic that detailed the course structure and what she was going to teach Riley. "This is ridiculously fast-paced learning for a pony, or even a human, but after a week talking to Riley I think she can complete it."

Honestly, I'd never really sat down with a teacher to discuss this kind of tailored learning. My children had gone to public schools to learn what they needed to in order to reach college—should they want it. "And how will this leave her for next year?"

"If we can keep this pace, Riley will complete her 10th grade level by about eight months. We can move right into her 11th grade. There's no reason to break things off exactly at mid year, so long as she can pass her tests," Moon Dancer said.

"Riley?" I looked at my daughter. "You wanted to be recognized for the smarts you have. Moon Dancer wants you to pass your Senior year before we head back home."

"Wait!" Riley froze and looked at Moon Dancer. "That'd mean I'd be… 15? And graduating?!"

Moon Dancer just nodded.

"That'd be pretty awesome, but I want to have fun while I'm here. I can't do that if I'm stuck in school every day." She folded her forelegs over each other and blew out a snort of pre-teen disapproval. Then she looked up at me hopefully.

"I think I can ask a question that will clear things up," I said. "How many hours a week will she be learning about magic and magic things?"

"Well, considering that's two different subjects, I think it's safe to bet at least ten hours."

Riley's eyes widened in surprise. She reached out a hoof and pulled the syllabus toward her and started reading through it. "That's way more than math. What kind of science will there be?"

"Human and Equestrian. Physics, chemistry, biology, and thaumology." As Moon Dancer recited the subjects, Riley's eyes began to narrow—but then she reached the last one. "Thaumology is magic science."

Bouncing in her seat, Riley grinned as she read through the paper. "Why do I need to learn English and Ponish? I mean, I know one already, and Princess Twilight Sparkle's zappy-thing gave me the other. Can't I use that time to learn more magic?"

"My spell doesn't work long-term. If you went back to Earth and didn't speak Ponish ever again, you'd lose the ability to speak it in a few months. Speaking it and using it keeps it in your mind, and should have it fully ingrained after a year or two of use, but you have to use it." Moon Dance tapped the sheet Riley had been looking at. "If the class is too easy for you, I'll push you ahead in that one."

Riley blinked in surprise at the last bit. "But then I'd be ahead on one subject. What happens if—" She cut herself short before Moon Dancer could stop her. "Oh. Right. It means I learn that faster and graduate that part sooner."

Moon Dancer held up a hoof and rocked it side to side. "Partly correct. It means you can devote the extra time to other subjects, but the result is the same."

Looking thoughtful, Riley tilted her head to the side a little. "I'll do it on one condition."

"Name it," I said.

"Cupcakes. Really yummy ones."

"Those will be after every magic and thaumology, perhaps if you've been good too," Moon Dancer said. "Magic burns calories. Cupcakes are a great source of quick energy to replace them."

"Deal!"

I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe buying my daughter's affection with cupcakes would seem like a bad idea back on Earth, but if she's able to keep even roughly near Moon Dancer's pace, it'll be worth it. And I don't doubt Riley will be able to burn off the extra energy. "I'm glad negotiations worked well. Are you ready for tomorrow, Riley-dear?"

"For the move? Yup!"

"I'll leave you both to it. I've got yet another class to prepare for." Moon Dancer let out a sigh, but winked to Riley conspiratorially. "If you're moving tomorrow, I'll expect you for your first class the day after."

We both waited for Moon Dancer to walk out and close the door before Riley and I turned to each other. "Well," I said, "You're sure you can handle this? She's going to push you—"

"Mom, I said I'd do it. No need for all this. Moon is the coolest teacher ever, and if she's bringing cupcakes, I'll bring my brain." She sat up on the chair opposite me and barely managed to look over the edge of my desk. "Whatcha working on?"

This was an old game we'd played out hundreds of times. "Stuff," I said.

"Stuff?"

"And things. What's up?"

Riley examined one of her hooves, which kept her from being able to look me in the eyes. I'd seen through my daughter's tricks for long enough to know she was about to ask something she already knew the answer to. "Why doesn't Saf have to go to school?"

The ultimate answer to this wasn't mine to give. I just raised my left eyebrow.

"He's not an adult yet here, so why doesn't he have to study all the Equestrian stuff?" Riley asked.

Her question wasn't actually that bad, but the answer was ultimately an easy one. "He's seventeen, Riley. Eighteen in three weeks. I could force him to start studying, but he'd only walk out of it as soon as he's eighteen."

"But—"

"Riley, I have this under control." She didn't look convinced. There was probably some psychology-related detail here about children believing everything they want to believe and needing proof for everything else—Come to think of it, that's how adults were as well. "If you must know, Saffron is enrolling in a school right now."

"Whaaaaaat?!" Riley's hoof became significantly less interesting to her. She jumped forward with her forehooves braced on the desk. "Where? How'd you do that? What school would take him and not make him feel as poopy as I did?"

"What time do you get up in the morning, Riley?"

"What's that got to do with it?" When I raised my eyebrow again, she knew I wasn't moving on until I got an answer. "About eight. Why?"

"Saffron has been up at five every morning for the last week. He's exercising his wings, going for a run, and is back and goofing off by the time you wake up. He—" I leaned forward to boop my daughter on the nose with a hoof, "—hasn't just been sitting around doing nothing. Commander Spitfire had a chat with me, and wants to see somepony so dedicated to flying try out for her Junior Wonderbolts. He doesn't realize this, but school is involved."

It wasn't a risk. Riley could tell Saffron all she liked when he got back, but by then he'd either have agreed to the deal or turned it down. The way Spitfire had spoken led me to believe it would be the former.

Riley giggled. "So he doesn't know he's signing up for school?"

"He doesn't. Now come around and give me a hug, and let me get back to work." I waited for her to do so before picking her up and hugging her to me. It was different, not having hands, but every inch of a pony's body was just about as sensitive as hands were. "Do you have everything packed?"

Poking her head up, Riley looked at me with evidence on her face that I could have relied on in court. "I thought I'd finish in the mor—"

"No. We're moving first thing in the morning. You need to pack up now. Everything but your bed." I almost stumbled and told her to keep a change of clothes out. That part of the pony mindset had sunk in quickly, and I couldn't help but wonder if I'd slip when we get home again and just head up to the White House naked one morning.

Thanks, brain, now I know what nightmare from forty years ago I'll be having tonight.

Philip Ree

My morning run was always a time for introspection and self-reflection.

Shining Armor had told me he was having to head home again. It was a touch annoying—having him around for a week had shown me a side of Canterlot that probably would have been closed to me. While I didn't have a royal prince by my side as I explored Canterlot on my morning and evening runs, I did have the good will that came of all the ponies that'd seen me running with him.

I got waves and smiles, and never hesitated to wave back. What was better was it had become a routine enough that Colonel Tight-Pants hadn't realized I didn't still have Shining Armor with me on my runs.

The rush of a well-built body moving through the chill morning air was a joy for me—no matter if I was pony or human. What had seemed so strange when I first got here was now me with enough familiarity that I could walk, trot, canter, and gallop without even thinking about my limbs. My body shifted and stretched like it was my body.

It was my body.

Since arriving in Equestria I'd gained muscle mass and become a much fitter pony. Unlike earth ponies and pegasi, unicorns had a unique hoof with two toes. The rest of our legs were just as solid as any of the other tribes, barring a certain amount of leanness.

Apart from feeling physically younger and the great sex, it was nice to see women—mares—turn and look at me as I ran by (as well as a few stallions). I might feel older than I appear, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying the "complements".

The male attention was a little harder to square away. The advice and ribbing Shining, Neighdine, and Prances had given me all conflicted and made resolving things harder. That the stallions who checked me out were probably married made it worse, not better.

What was nice was knowing that Saffron was now too young to get into that trouble, and Riley was so young she hadn't even noticed anything was missing from her life.

Curving around, I had to come in from the edge of the city to run past the walls protecting the castle, and then turn inward to the chancery.

Clair was standing out front ordering a group of moving-ponies as they loaded up a huge cart with what items we'd come to call our own here. "They arrived early?" I asked.

Turning to look at me as I trotted toward her, Clair looked haggard. "Of course. Riley was only half packed, so she's rushing to get her things boxed up so we can move her room last. Saffron was all packed and ready—that's his stuff in the wagon. Do you think you coul—"

She stopped talking while I kissed her, something that took the better part of thirty seconds.

"—could help Riley? Your magic is so helpful for this kind of thing." She barely missed a beat.

"Of course I can. How's Colonel Tight-Pants taking all this?" I kissed her cheek again, unable to resist one more little peck before I headed toward the door.

Clair, when I looked back at her, seemed to have a great weight on her shoulders. "We have an understanding. She knows, Philip."

"I'll try to keep out of her way and not antagonize her, then." Heading inside, I passed the two armed guards at the door and nodded to each. There were still people living here, but the chancery no longer felt like our home.

"Riley?" I asked when I reached her bedroom door. "You want a hand with your things?"

At that moment Riley was sitting on the floor staring at a box as if she could fill it by will alone. "I can't go."

Smiling, I stepped into her room and used a leg to pick her up and hug my little girl close. All the time she was squirming. "Look, I know it can be hard to adjust when we keep shifting around like this, but this one will be—"

"You don't understand!"

I set Riley down in surprise at her vehemence. "You don't want to move?"

"I want to move!"

"Well, what's the problem?" I picked up the empty box with my magic just in time for a big spider to practically jump out at me. I squealed almost as loud as Riley did, and used my magic to grab the spider and drop it in the box again. Quickly, I sealed the box up.

"Now you understand?" Riley asked.

"Yeah." I stared at the box with all the intensity Riley had when I'd first come in. "What do we do with it now?"

"We can't squish it. You remember how Miss Fluttershy was when we swatted a fly? How would I be able to look her in the face if I squished a spider?" Riley stood up and walked over to where the other boxes were sitting—mostly packed—and picked up a sharpie in her mouth.

Saffron's stuff

I giggled. I giggled a lot. "That's my girl. Let's get the rest of this packed, okay?"

"Just thinkin' inside the box!" Her joke had be giggling more, and together we got her things packed just as the moving-ponies came up to the door.

One of the ponies knocked at the door and poked his horned head in. "Sorry to bother you, but we've got the rest of your things. This is the last—Oh! You're packed?"

"Just got done with it. It's perfect timing, I'd say—Be careful with that one marked Saffron's stuff, it's a little delicate." I looked at Riley, and she looked at me, and we nearly broke into laughter.

"Snake or spider? Or is it one of those little lizards that seem to be hanging around the city?" The delivery pony didn't miss a beat.

"Spider," Riley and I said together as we walked out of the room.

The change in my daughter since we'd moved to Canterlot and gotten her a teacher was astounding. She looked more confident, despite her diminutive size, and if she'd gotten tired doing something I certainly hadn't seen it. Though on the other hand—hoof—she was eating like two ponies. The days where she wanted to ride on someone's back were gone.

"You two all done? Did the movers find you?" Clair asked when we left through the front door.

"Yup!" Riley pranced down the steps and bumped her head against Clair's leg. "Dad's magic is really handy!"

I plucked up Riley and set her on Clair's back. Despite the indignity of being picked up with my magic, Riley lunged forward and wrapped her forelegs around Clair's neck. "You were pretty helpful yourself. I'd have never survived that first box without your help," I said.

This got Riley giggling again.

"Where's Saf?" I asked.

Clair lifted her hoof and pointed upward. "Somewhere up there. After his morning exercises, he took off for school. He'd packed all his room so I figured he deserved it. Did you know there's an entire other city up there?"

"I'd heard about Cloudsdale from Shining Armor. He didn't say it was here at the moment." At Clair's blank stare, I had to backpedal and try to work out what she didn't get, but couldn't find it.

"'Here'?"

"Oh!" Well, I guess that was confusing for me when Shining had first mentioned it. "It's mobile. Pegasus magic or something. They push it around mostly during the turning of the seasons. No clue why, they just do."

She looked at me like I'd sprouted—You know what, I think that saying doesn't work here.

"Maybe it's something you should talk to Flurry about?" I asked.

"That's a list I'll never reach the bottom of." Clair walked beside me as we meandered along the ring-road leading to the far side of Canterlot.

The looks I'd gotten only scant hours earlier were different now. Mares looked at me, but they didn't see the stallion out for his morning run—they saw a married couple with their daughter. The stallions, however, still looked at me.

For all Equestria had some odd things, I still liked the place.

"Are they looking at you again? It's a compliment, Philip." Clair's voice held an edge that threatened to break into actual laughter at any moment. When I glanced back to see where Riley was, Clair snorted. "You're daughter's not going to save you from this talk. She wanted to run ahead."

"It's just so different here. Am I too old to adapt, honey?" I didn't even know if I should try to slouch or look uncomfortable, or if that would only encourage them more because they'd think I wasn't happy with Clair.

Clair leaned over and kissed my cheek, something that always made my worries melt away. "Philip, more ponies will be staring at a couple as young as we are already having a foal of ten years—let alone if they knew Saffron was ours too—than will be looking at your well toned butt."

I couldn't help myself—I started to prance. "You think my butt looks good?"

"On this one topic I am probably the only expert in any of the worlds we've lived in. Your butt is toned, and tight, and—"

"Mooom!" Riley was running toward us as fast as her legs would carry her. "I found the nice mare who helped me and Saf!"

Author's Note

Celestia: hypothetically speaking here, what would you do about the Ree family were they to remain in Equestria permanently?

"It would depend on several factors. If they wished to of their own will—like all ponies—they have a home here. It might shock you, but we've had friends who've tried to outstay their welcome by force before, though Princess Twilight, Princess Cadance, and Shining Armor have always been wonderful about explaining to them that it's time to leave." Princess Celestia looked very smug and the smile on her lips reached all the way up to her one visible eye.

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Lab

Chapter 16 Saffron Ree

I'd only started flying yesterday—this was insane.

"We don't normally accept anypony mid-season, but this here's something special. Everypony, I'd like to introduce Saf." Slowpoke, or Sergeant Surprise as was her normal name and title, was in charge of the (apparently new) Wonderbolts Young Fliers. "Saf, why don't you tell everypony your history, and how you came to be signed up?"

A little trickle of magic to my hooves reaffirmed my ability to stand on the cloud-like floor. "About a month ago I arrived in Equestria, and—"

"Where were you before then?" A filly at the front asked. Like all the other Young Fliers, she was bigger than me. Taller, wider, bigger wings, and older. Some of the ponies here were double my age.

"Boring place called Earth." Three of the ponies gasped at my mention of Earth. "So we came here and I had to learn how to walk all over again. Then two weeks ago, Commander Spitfire said she'd train me to fly."

"You've only been flying for two weeks?!"

"Class!" Slowpoke's voice easily bested the noise that'd started up after my story. "Saf, tell them how long you've really been flying."

She was totally going to dump me in the middle of this, but I said I'd do what she told me to while I was here. "I first flew yesterday."

I was as ready for Slowpoke's shout as anyone. "Silence! In your seats this second!" She waited for everyone to sit down. "Saf's parents asked if we'd consider him for training, but you know what? I'd have told Princess Celestia herself I'm not training a fool who can't fly, but—" Slowpoke walked over and stood in front of my desk, "—I've never seen a pony so young using their flight magic that well."

Slowpoke turned and looked around at the class. "He not only flew for the first time yesterday, but after exhausting himself, he used his magic well enough to be able to fly up here. And look at him today—he should be crushed by the work he did." She paused a moment and looked back at me with a half-smile. "Basically, I saw somepony with promise, and now I want to see what I can make of them."

Turning around, Slowpoke marched back to the front of the class. "Okay, everypony open your books to page seventy-three. We're all going to learn what Saf did with his magic."

By the end of the day I was more exhausted mentally than physically. Lunch had been brief and to the point with a sandwich each, then Slowpoke had us fly laps of the main airfield—after explicitly telling me not to use my magic—before we'd showered and gone back to the classroom again.

While picking up the magic stuff was a little hard, it was amazing to learn not just what I'd done, but how to do it better. I didn't even realize I was still sitting in the classroom at the end—reading a fucking textbook—until a wing poked my shoulder. Jerking my head up from the book, I spotted Sudden Turn drawing her wing back from me.

"You know, this is the one thing it's actually cool to be nerdy about, right?" Sudden Turn asked. "Well, this and Daring Do books, if you believe Rainbow Dash."

I blinked up at her and closed the book with a flick of my wing. "Is that class over for the day? Do I get to fly again now?"

"You still want to fly after all of today? Okay, but no magic. Come on." Sudden stepped to the side. Like yesterday she was wearing her flight suit, but she dropped something on my desk. "Put this on first. You're in the school, you should look the part."

"This isn't normal, is it?" I grabbed up the uniform and started pulling it on.

"What? A twenty-something foal getting into the Wonderbolt Young Fliers program, or you showing real talent at flying? First hasn't happened before, second happens every now and again. Commander has made part of her job finding ponies with real talent." Reaching a wing out, Sudden held my suit while I squirmed into it. The thing was tight, and hugged me like a second skin. "Okay, now just poke that little tab at your neck and it'll do itself up."

Looking down, I had to tilt my head to the side so I could see the part she was talking about. Bending my foreleg, I tapped at it with my hoof. "Gah!" The suit tightened, and the open seam down my belly melded together like a magic zipper. "That's kinda neat. How much of all this is because my mom's the ambassador?"

"Get your goggles on too."

I looked down at the pair of eyewear and slipped them over my head. With a little adjustment (using my wings) I had them comfortably in place. "Well?"

"Honestly speaking? Just the start of it. Commander Spitfire took me to see Princess Celestia, and she asked us to give you some flying practice and teach you enough so that you don't break your neck. Your mom had a meeting with us to ask pretty much the same thing. That deal ended yesterday." Sudden turned for the door and started walking, leaving me to play catch-up. "Everything that actually got you to today was all you."

"You said you were in the reserves. Why's Commander Spitfire—" the title and name just rolled together for me, it was probably for the best, "—hauling you around everywhere on what doesn't seem very reserves-like stuff?"

"Asking a lot of questions there, Saf. If you must know, the only other foal that got as much of a push through Wonderbolts' training—" Sudden Turn spread her wings and gave her first flap, shooting into the air, "—was me!"

I laughed and spread my own wings. No magic, I'd promised, so although I rose quickly into the air, it wasn't as easy as it could have been.

Being in the air made me hyper-aware of everything around me. It was like cheating in a game using a radar hack. I was constantly feeling the air, trying to feel for those thermals before I got too close to one.

"Come on, Saf! New class today." Sudden was gliding in a lazy circle above me that I had to pump my wings hard to reach. "That's it. How's the wings today?"

"It's harder flying up this high," I said.

"You've missed half a year of school, Saf. If you hadn't, you'd know that is because the higher we go, the thinner the air gets. Flying up here makes your body work harder to just keep you in the air."

"What happens if you use your magic and keep going?"

"You pass out and fall. Don't do that." Lifting her foreleg, Sudden gestured way down to the spires of Canterlot below. "We're going to dive. Can you see that little bit sticking out behind the palace?"

It took all my focus to pinpoint what she was talking about. "Yeah."

"I want you to dive to there, but aim about ten mareters away from it. Arc up when you pass it and dump all your speed. Got it?" Not waiting for an answer, Sudden tipped her snout down and tucked her wings in tight—all but the last few primary feathers. I studied them as she plummeted, and watched as she used them to change her angle.

"Well, looks like I'm crazy." Mimicking what I'd see Sudden do, I tipped forward and started flying down at first—slowly pulling my wings in closer and closer. It wasn't hard to realize what the goggles were for, now that I was diving so fast that the wind was screaming past my body.

At the bottom of her dive, Sudden Turn stretched more and more of her wings out. It wasn't a fast process, though. She came just level with the outcropping and then shot back up and into a loop.

My attention narrowed down to me, my wings, and that mark just ten yards from the outcrop. As I got closer I began to slowly extend my wings and then—at the moment I reached the target—I tried to angle my wings up for lift, but it didn't work. Panicking, I shoved magic into my wings and finally got the shove upward I wanted.

Movement below me was Sudden Turn—her speed and direction matched with mine as she zoomed along inches from my belly. "You got it?!"

"Had to use magic!"

"Figured you would! Dump that speed and meet me at the Guard Fields!"

With magic coursing through my wings, I easily pulled a set of quick loops that ate up my speed until I was practically gliding again. Relaxing off my magic, I felt out my wings. They felt great!

Spotting her again on the ground in the Guard Fields, I flapped my wings to get a bit more speed and landed beside her. "That was amazing! But I couldn't get out of that dive."

"That was the lesson, Saf. I'd have been amazed if you had gotten out of that without using magic. Your instincts were good. That's exactly the right time to use magic." Sudden buffeted me on the back with her wing. "You can go home from here if you want."

I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. "Wait, the lesson was to know when to cheat?"

"Yup."

"But you—I thought—How's that playing fair?"

She lifted a hoof and tapped the side of her head. "Saf, when your life's at stake, there is no playing fair. Nothing is worth losing your head over. How's the uniform feel?"

"Pulls a little around my legs. Feels like they're trying to pull up to my belly. Rest is just really tight." I shifted around a bit to verify my thoughts.

Sudden Turn nodded. "That's how it's supposed to feel. If you have to fly for twelve hours, that tightness around your legs will be your second best friend."

"Hey! Scootaloo!" a male voice called, "Got a new recruit? Taking them a bit young, aren't you?"

It took my mind a moment to dig up the name and remember that Sudden Turn said she'd changed hers from Scootaloo. The stallion, when I turned to face him, wore an ornate set of armor over his nondescript orange pegasus body. He was maybe a little more bulky than most pegasi, and his bright red tail really stood out.

"Hey, Flash Magnus, still training up the ground-pounders? Why don't you get on our level?" Sudden asked before both of them broke into laughter and clopped their forehooves together firmly. "Saf, meet Flash Magnus. Flash, this is Saf. He's the newest Wonderbolt Young Flier, and he—" she pointed her wing at Flash, "—is a thirty-thousand-year-old has-been that knows more about kicking butt than anypony else I've ever met."

The age stunned me a little. If this was back home, I'd know it was some kind of joke. Here, in Equestria, I had to wonder if she wasn't telling the truth. "Uh, hi."

Flash seemed way too upbeat to be normal, and for a pony that was saying something. He had a big smile, and was looking over Sudden Turn like he was checking her out. Then it hit me that he was checking her out. He turned back to me. "Hey there, little guy. Where you from?"

"Earth." I rolled my shoulders and shifted a little in place, still trying to get used to the suit tugging at my legs. "What about you? Really thirty-thousand?"

"Yeah, but I was frozen in time for most of it. Kinda boring if you ask me. Where you two off to now?" Flash's question was directed at Sudden.

"No clue. Saf said he wanted to take me for a fly and then a walk." Sudden stepped closer to me. "What about you, Flash? Got yourself a new mare to chase?" Mixed signals or what? The way Sudden spoke sounded like she was trying to let him know we were dating.

"Oh, uh. Y-Yeah. Kinda. It's complicated. Well, you two, uh, have fun." Flash's reply was so deflated and defeated I could barely process what had just happened.

I waited for Flash to start walking the other way before asking, "What was that all about?"

"Flash Magnus thinks he's Equestria's gift to mares. He dates a mare just long enough to ride her, then skips out and finds his next girl. I think it has less to do with what he doesn't like in a mare than what he doesn't understand about himself." Fluffing her wings, Sudden Turn started walking for the exit of the Guard Fields. "He's been trying to hint to me for a long time that he's interested. I may have just freaked him out a little, but he deserved it."

Wheels clicked in my head as I put it together. "So he thinks you're dating me?"

"Maybe? Who cares?! Like I said, I respect that you're an adult and kinda stuck like that, Saf, but it would be too weird for us to actually date."

I gave a sharp snort.

"What?" Sudden asked.

"You're too old for me anyway." I gave her a wink as I said it. Her face flashed first to humor, then indignation. I kinda knew what was coming, and started pounding the ground with my hooves as I broke into a gallop.

"Saf?" Sudden asked, her mouth practically beside my ear. "If you want to get away from a pegasus, you need to fly. If you want to get away from a Wonderbolt, you need to teleport." She was, of course, flying.

Instead of stopping or continuing my run, I instead spread my wings and jumped up to soar along at Sudden's height. "This is what I get for having a primitive monkey brain. Working on it, though."

"Well, where are we going? Lead on!" Slipping back a little, Sudden Turn shifted her position so that her nose was level with the leading edge of my wing. It reminded me of fighter jets flying in formation.

Since I'd been with Dad when he'd found the place, I remembered how to get their reasonably well, though with a little altitude it was going to be much faster than walking with him to reach it. Houses, yards, and streets flicked by under us. When we neared the house, and I gestured to it with an outstretched hoof, Sudden pumped her wings to come level with me again. "That's it!"

"Figured. Where do you want to land?"

I pointed to the front of the house as we circled around. "That will do. Was that formation flying?"

"Sure was. Tight formation, at that." Sudden broke off as she pulled herself up with her wings—and a bit neater than I did. "This place is pretty big."

"It's about the size of our place back on Earth. Come inside." I trotted up to the front door and opened it with a wing. "Mom! Dad! I'm home!"

It looked like they were mostly done unpacking stuff. There was two big sofas in the living room, a bookcase that took up nearly a whole wall, and a big rug on the floor. Four boxes of books sat by the shelves.

"There you are! How was sch—" Mom froze when she actually left the hallway and saw me. "What on earth are you wearing?"

Sudden Turn stepped forward and offered her hoof to Mom. "That, ma'am, is a Wonderbolts Junior Fliers flight suit. Not saying it's as cool as a full Wonderbolts uniform, but it comes pretty close, right Saf?" When she turned so that one of her eyes looked at me, she winked—at least I think it was a wink.

I literally couldn't avoid such a perfect setup. "It feels like I'm wearing nothing at all. Nothing at all. Nothing at all!"

Mom laughed, but Sudden just looked confused.

"It's a TV thing," I said as if that explained thirty-something seasons of the Simpsons and everything else ever on TV. "What do you think, Mom?"

"It looks a little silly, but who am I to judge?" Mom cleared her throat a little. "Saffron, could you introduce your friend?"

"We've met before, Ambassador Ree, but I was wearing a dress uniform at the time. Sudden Turn, ma'am!" Snapping her hoof on the floor, Sudden straightened up and saluted with a wing.

"Oh! That's right. The mare who was with Commander Spitfire. Well, it's lovely to meet you, I don't suppose you'd like dinner? We'll be eating early." Despite what she said, Mom showed no reaction at all that she actually had recognized Sudden for the second time. Then it hit me what was going on—this is Mom with her work face on.

"I was just giving Saf his last class for the day and figured I'd fly with him until he gets home—orders and all, you understand." Sudden backed up and started to turn. "I guess I'll see you at H.Q. tomorrow, Saf?"

"Hold up." I gave mom an annoyed glare and chased after Sudden. She'd gotten just out the front door before I reached her. "Mom's just trying to be careful."

Sudden blew out a sigh. "Yeah, I know. Just not keen on being told our uniforms look silly and get a look as if I'm not worth the dirt on her hooves, ya know?"

I stared at her for a moment. "It's not that at all."

"Well?"

"Mom's a politician, Sudden. She has to put on a neutral face when dealing with people who might be politically involved with those she has to deal with."

"She, uh, needs to work on 'neutral' then. That wasn't exactly neutral. Neutral, for a pony, is a smile. I'll see you tomorrow, Saf." Spreading her wings, Sudden poured magic into them and shot into the sky faster than a bullet.

Well fuck. I turned and walked inside, closing the door behind me.

Mom was standing inside, a small—apologetic—smile on her face. "Sorry, dear, but I have to be careful ar—"

"Mom, sometimes you can be too up yourself. I'll be in my room." It wasn't that I hated Mom, it was that I still loved her despite her making me look like an ass.

Riley Ree

I kinda expected classes would be hard, but I didn't expect this. In school back home, if I didn't understand something, I kept quiet and just guessed it on tests. I still got Bs. By the end of the first week of Moon Dancer teaching me, I felt like a wrung out sponge.

At the end of each day, Moon Dancer would ask me to explain back to her the main bits of what she'd taught me, and if I didn't know it, she made a note and we'd basically repeat the class again. After the first three times, I made sure to tell her in class when I didn't get something.

My easy B days were gone. When Moon Dancer taught me something, I had to pay attention and really learn it, and it wasn't the easy fractions and stuff I'd been doing back home—Moon Dancer knew I knew about them. She was teaching me way more algebra than we'd started to even look at, and all kinds of graph stuff. It was hard. But I was getting it.

And it didn't stop at just math. All my physics and stuff were harder, too. Moon Dancer had said we'd focus on catching up to grade 9 for the first two weeks, then start on Equestrian subjects too. So, one week down, one to go, then I get the fun stuff!

It was Friday afternoon, and Moon Dancer had just finished grilling me on what she'd gone over for the day. This was my second day of not missing anything.

"You're definitely catching up well, Riley. I can't believe they had you in 7th grade." Moon Dancer was putting her books back on the shelf where they lived using her magic. There was a lot of stuff that felt the same as being at home, but magical unicorns teaching me math wasn't one of them—not when they casually use that magic for everything.

I just shrugged my shoulders and closed my book—an English textbook. "I kinda didn't pay much attention in school. It was sooooper boring. Still got Bs."

Moon Dancer raised one eyebrow. "And what about this? This isn't too boring?"

"Well, yeah. But I kinda have to think and focus on this or you'll make me learn it all over again after we're done. Besides, I want to get this out of the way so I can learn about Equestria and magic!"

"You will! And I'm very happy with these results. I—" Moon Dancer cut short as Mom knocked and opened the door.

Mom had a tray balanced on her back, something I'd seen other earth ponies do to carry stuff while walking. She reached back and revealed it had several cupcakes on it. "Hope I'm not interrupting. Did either of you want a cupcake?" After a moment she chuckled. "Philip made them, not me."

"Then I'll have one!" I shouted and jumped down from my seat.

"How's my little scholar doing?" Mom asked a moment after I stuffed the better part of half a cupcake in my mouth.

"Catching up fast. For these first two weeks I'm pushing her through 7th and 8th grade. She knew nearly everything from 7th already, so I'm going to give her a test on Monday to finalize that." Moon Dancer used her magic to lift a cupcake off the tray and break a little piece off to chew on. So small, in fact, that she could keep talking around it! Talk about inefficient! "I'll have her doing the same for 8th grade in a week's time."

"Would you mind writing a report on this? I'd like to understand how your system works, and I'm sure some people back home would to. I can arrange payment for—"

"You're already paying me, Mrs. Ree. I don't need more."

"Exactly," Mom said. "I'm paying you to teach Riley. Let the government pay you for your research."

Moon Dancer chuckled and held up a hoof to waggle it back and forth. "Okay, but on one condition."

"Name it."

"I don't want to be paid in bits—I've got plenty already—I want a computer as well as copies of all your information you have stored on them." Moon Dancer sounded completely serious. When she saw Mom start to giggle, she even tilted her head to the side. "What did I say?"

"Well, last I heard, nearly a third of our world's energy went into storing data on computers, and size-wise, you'd need an area about triple the size of Canterlot. I can, however, get some very specific parts of it. Public data, of course, but I think it will be a good start." Mom seemed to have recovered from her giggles. "Would that be a good start? Information for information?"

"That sounds perfect. What sort of information will there be, and how long will it take me to get through it all?" Moon Dancer paused for a second and then shook her head. "This is another silly question."

Mom still sounded like she wanted to laugh. "Yeah. I don't know the specifics of it, but I was planning on getting you a thing called Wikipedia, if I can. I believe there's more general information there than you could read in your lifetime."

Moon Dancer looked kinda hungry, though she'd stopped eating her cupcake.

"Can I go?" I asked before either of them could say anything else.

"Sure, honey, you've earned it."

I wasted no time getting out of there. Mom and Moon Dancer could talk all they wanted, but I wanted to check on my tree. Knowing better than to clatter around the house, I kept my pace to a trot (hooves on wood floors are noisy!).

"Hey, squirt, what's up?" Saf asked. When I turned I saw him walking into the kitchen, Saf still had his flight suit still on.

I had to jerk myself free of the daydream seeing him wearing that cute outfit always put me in. Big brothers shouldn't look like cute and cool ponies! "Finished class for the day. You too?"

He smiled. Saf was doing that a lot more lately. I guess he liked being a pony as much as I did. "Yup. More classes."

"You're going to school more here than we did back home," I said.

He laughed. "You too, squirt. Where's that bored little sister who couldn't pull her nose away from her phone gone?"

My phone. I'd brought it with me, of course, and it had lost charge in about two days. I couldn't work out how to charge it or turn it on, anyway, with these hooves. "Phones are boring. Want to see my tree?"

"Sure." Saf followed me as I headed to the back door. "But then you have to listen to me talk about flying for a bit."

It wasn't the best trade, but with him looking so cute I couldn't resist it. "Sure."

Houses in Canterlot, even big ones like ours, didn't have much of a backyard, but what this one did have I was making use of. Walking over to the sapling, its whippy stem reaching up to the sky with hopeful and green leaves,

I walked right up to my tree and leaned my head against the branch and asked it what was wrong—nothing. Nothing was wrong. Giggling at the tree's answer, I leaned against it with my magic and felt it stir excitedly.

Everything seemed to slow down, which was odd because everything around us sped up. I heard Saf asking questions so fast I couldn't understand him, but what I understood was the tree. "Here." I pushed a little more and felt the tree start to sing in my head.

When the tree couldn't pull enough water in and ran out of stored food, I stopped. The world seemed to rush back in around me, and I could even feel Saf's wing resting on my back. I shook myself to break out of the funk that always came after talking to my tree.

"You looked a bit cold. I—uh—figured you could use some…" Saf said.

"Thanks, Saf. I wasn't cold exactly, I just tremble a little when I'm doing my thing with magic. Anypony'd think I wasn't meant to have all this magic while this small or somethin'."

He raised an eyebrow just like Mom would. "'Anypony'?"

"Yes! We're ponies, Saf, time to act like them—us—err." I guess I just proved Moon Dancer right about needing to learn more English or Ponish or whatever we're actually speaking. "Hey, Saf, can you speak English?"

"Duh. Of course I can, I—" He stopped and went cross-eyed looking at his snout. "What about—Is this—Maybe we should talk to your teacher."

"Moon Dancer would know!" I turned for the house and stumbled a little. My magic felt like a shallow pond instead of a deep lake, but a little trickle into my legs was more than enough to steady them.

"Get on, squirt." Saf didn't give me any further warning. He picked me up with one of his wings and dumped me on his back. His flight suit felt slick and smooth, but I kinda liked having the weight taken from my hooves. "Your tree is pretty awesome, you know?"

I could feel both my ears shoot forward to listen. "Really? Thanks!"

"Mom!" Saf walked back into the house with me on his back, and I was reminded how much taller I should have been. I felt, well, I felt my normal height on his back. He poked his head into the living room, then the kitchen, and finally found her in the hallway. "Mom, we can't speak English."

"What do you—You just—" Mom stopped speaking for a moment, closed her eyes, and looked focused on something. "Okay, this is—That got it. It's not easy," Mom said in English. The language sounded a little odd to me, but by the time she got to the end of the sentence it all made sense. "Moon Dancer? Before you go, can you explain something for us?"

Coming from my classroom (the bedroom Mom had designated my classroom), Moon Dancer was still tucking books into her saddlebags. "What do you need explained?"

"I'm having trouble remembering how to speak English, and Saffron and Riley can't at all."

"I can now—" Saf said in English, though he sounded funny doing it. "Talk more."

"Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." As she spoke in English, Mom seemed to get more confident with the words. I tried to focus on them as best I could.

"That's helping. Riley, you try," Saf said.

Screwing my eyes closed, I retied to focus on what I should sound like in English. "It's hard, but I—" I opened my eyes in surprise at having spoken English. "Hey, I got it!" But dropped back to Ponish. "Damn. I had it."

"I think you've got the key to it. Perhaps an hour each night where you only speak English to each other?" Moon Dancer asked.

Mom turned to her. "Were you aware this might happen?"

"No. At least, we've never seen this effect of the spell. It might have something to do with you being from a low-magic world. I'll write a report on it and pass it on, though I expect the four of you will have a better idea of what's going on once you get your heads around it," Moon Dancer said. "I best be going. Someone gave me a pile of homework to do."

Mom laughed. "Thank you, Moon Dancer. It's wonderful to have a pony I can come to for answers and get them. Refreshing even. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get answers out of people back home."

"Where's Dad?" Saf asked.

"Afternoon run. He'll be back to start dinner soon. You could do some prep if you want to eat earlier."

Saf took a step back as if something dangerous had just appeared. "I'll take Riley for a fly first." I blinked in surprise, but didn't want to argue in case I got talked into doing extra chores. "You still want to right, squirt?"

"Yes!" Did I sound too eager? Better dial it back. "You promised."

With Saf turning around, I tried to look as excited as I could as he walked back through the house and out into the backyard. "Good thinking. Mom didn't suspect a thing."

I giggled. "Do I get to fly still?"

"Hold on." Saf spread his wings and I barely got a good grip around his neck before he jumped upward about twenty yards.

Gasping in surprise, I soon turned to squeals of excitement as he began to fly around. "This is amazing, Saf!" He wasn't doing any really crazy stuff, but just being able to fly had me in awe of him.

Not that I could tell my big brother how cool he was, but I wasn't hugging just to hold on.

Author's Note

Celestia: do you only have one eye?

"No, I have two, but last time I cut my mane short to use both at once, the nation's hairdressers sued me for ruining their business—and Equestria spiraled into a century-long depression. An overly flashy mane has its disadvantages, but encouraging my ponies to emulate my mane is a safer bet than being able to perceive depth," Princess Celestia said, and the warm smile on her face only reinforced the realization that this could be a thousand-year-old joke.

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Lab

Chapter 17 Philip Ree

Another evening turned into morning. We'd spent more than just an hour speaking together in English—describing our week to each other and talking about how strange our lives had become, yet normal at the same time.

Now, in the early morning, and after my run, I was walking beside my darling to the chancery when we saw Frank's equine face smiling at us from the front door. It wasn't unusual for Frank Hollings to be waiting for us, but it was to see him smiling.

"Good morning, Captain Hollings," Clair said. I always let her take the lead when it came to matters at her work—because that was her job.

"Madam Ambassador. News from home." Frank's smile seemed to widen. "You'll never guess what."

"Inside please, Frank."

"Have fun at work." At my words, Clair looked back at me as if I were insane. I stuck out my tongue at her and turned for home.

The air in Canterlot always had a crisp bite to it, no matter the time of day. Altitude, I was sure, played a part, but I had a theory it was all the magic concentrated in one spot. Compared to Ponyville, Canterlot was brimming with unicorns. If you looked at a group of ten ponies, odds are nine of them were unicorns.

That was my theory, anyway. I'm no scholar, nor a wizard (being able to say that—even in my head—makes me giggle), but I know what I feel.

Unlike my morning run, I took the time to wave to ponies I'd seen regularly. They all waved back, and I even found myself stepping over to a stall selling apples. Clair had arranged for half her pay to be in bits, which meant I could— "I'll take three apples, please."

"Howdy there! Sure thing!" A gold-hued stallion with orange mane and tail (with gold highlights) and the most startlingly green eyes I'd ever seen. "Not many adults Ah see runnin' around without a cutie mark, stranger. Ah don't suppose yer one o' the out-of-towners muh cousin Applejack done talked about?"

I hadn't had much to do with the Apple family in Ponyville, but Clair had spoken about Applejack and her sister Apple Bloom.

"That'd be me. She spent some time with my wife and little filly." Lifting my forehoof, I offered it to the stallion to shake, only to have him dart around the display in his stall and hug me. It was brief enough that I didn't have time to actually react before he'd let go.

"Hey, where's my manners?! M'name's Braeburn, and any friend of my cuz is a friend o' mine!" Now he shoved his hoof out toward me.

Reaching out to clop his hoof in return, I was left wondering if he was offering something with the hug, or if I was being rude by not hugging back. Shining had been comfortable as heck to talk to for one big point—Shining Armor was monogamously married. "My name's Philip Ree."

He seemed to pause a moment to consider the word. It was—refreshing. Most people you could tell them your name and they'd continue as if you hadn't just told them the single most identifiable thing about you. Braeburn seemed like he was both committing it to memory and taking the time to think about how it sounds. "Well, Ah'm happy Ah met ya, Philip Ree. Tell ya what. Those apples're yours—no charge."

Was this flirting? Damn it, Shining, you didn't help at all! "Thanks, but I really shoul—" My attempt to rebuke the offer was cut short by Braeburn's hoof on my snout. I froze, staring down my nose at it.

"Nah, friend, Ah can't have ya turnin' down my hospitality. Take 'em."

I didn't know what else to do. I picked up the paper bag of apples with my magic and nodded to him in thanks.

"Y'all come back anytime if ya need anythin'!"

Would it be wrong to break into a gallop? Probably. But I stopped and turned back around to face Braeburn. It was time to sort this out. I carefully set down the apples. "I'll be honest—I really need some help." Who else did I have to ask? A perfect stranger this friendly and open would seem completely odd back home, but here he felt like a refuge.

"Well now. You just let Brae know what yer problem is an Ah'll see what Ah can do."

"It has to do with, well, being here. My wife and I are happily married, and monogamous, and—"

"Hol' up there. Ya been talkin' to one of the ponies from around these parts, right?" Braeburn asked. When I nodded, he continued. "Canterlot's got itself some odd things that happen. Ah think it comes from havin' too many unicorns in one place. A lot of the stallions here have a thing goin', and while Ah completely respect that, ya don't have t' be part of it."

I'd never heard words spoken in a country accent sound as sweet. The simple reassurance that this thing wasn't seen universally as true made me stand a little taller and the world smell a little sweeter. "Thanks, Braeburn. I'm not sure if your cousins told you, but we weren't ponies just a couple of months ago. It's taking some getting used to."

"Well, Philip Ree, if'n you need any more help, you just ask. Ah'll be here all week sellin' apples, though anymore're gonna cost ya."

"Thanks, Braeburn. Just call me Philip, or Phil."

"Yer welcome, Philip." He actually tipped his hat in a way that reminded me of every helpful southerner I'd ever met. "Anypony else wanna buy some apples?"

I took that as my cue and grabbed up my bag and trotted off for home. So now I had two datapoints, as Clair likes to call them, with which to work off. Technically three—myself included. Sex was just as good as a pony as it was as a human, I could confirm that, but was my desire for it any greater?

Reaching the curve in the street where I could see our house, I slowed a little to give myself a little more time before reentering the madhouse. Truth be told, I was a little more prone to catching Clair, and we had dived right into the pony way as it were. Was that an indication my libido was higher?

Well, at least I had my magic. If there was one thing I knew how to do as a functional adult male, it was how to get some relief if I needed it. Not that I would without talking to Clair first—she might be holding back without wanting to worry me.

Opening the front door, I stepped inside to find Saf laying on the couch reading a book. I had two options for how to deal with a son suddenly taking an interest in books—either I show him respect and encouragement or I crack a bad joke. The latter was the only option. "Hitting the books? Are they winning?"

"Oh—" it seemed like he hadn't even heard me come in, which meant his book must be an interesting one. "Yeah. Figured I'd get this homework out of the way now so I can relax tomorrow. Mom working today?"

"Mmhmm. The major headed back to Earth last night and new information was due today. You know Jeff, always wanting to let his people handle things, but wanting his own touch to be evident too." It was true. Jeff Miller was the best and worst kind of manager. He wanted to know everything and poke at everything, but he also knew exactly how much poking and how much information he needed. I guess that means he's more like the worst and best, to get the order right. "Want an apple?"

Saf lifted his head and one wing, into which I tossed one of the apples from the bag. "Thanks, Dad. Riley's sleeping in."

"From what she told us last night, she deserves it." And she did. It gave me great delight to find out both our children had gotten their mother's smarts. "Still haven't even touched your computer?"

One of Saf's ears twitched. He'd only just lowered his snout back to his book when I'd spoken. "I've kinda got too much to do with all this." Lifting a wing forward, he gestured at the book with a feather. "And getting my wings up to speed. Sudden says I still have a lot of work to do if I want to fly anywhere near as good as she does."

What was that noise in the back of my head? Oh, right, alarm bells. That Sudden Turn was older than me was beside the point—she was an eligible female figure prominent in Saf's life. "She flies well?"

"Dad! She's a Wonderbolt! She flies like the wind itself. She said in another thirty years I might be at her level." I wasn't sure if he was deadpanning or actually serious. Either way, Saf still had his nose in the book.

Almost. I was on the very verge of pointing out that we might not be here for even a tenth of that, when it hit me that despite his appearance here, Saffron Ree—my son—was an adult. Even by US law he was old enough to say if he wanted to live here or not. Whether the princesses would be amiable to him living here was another question. Okay, Philip, time to be the best dad you can be.

"You've looked into staying here?" I asked.

Saf's head shot up so fast I was surprised he didn't have whiplash. He stared at me as if I'd just said something groundbreaking that destroyed all his notions of how the world worked.

"Well?" I asked.

"I didn't even think about it. I mean, you guys said it was going to be a few years at most, and I was just trying to enjoy them as much as I could. How would I even do that?" He looked terrified and excited, a good combination given he was turning eighteen soon.

"First thing you need to do is think. I'd suggest talking to the American Ambassador for information. I'm sure she might know who to talk to about staying." Sometimes I loved being a dad. There was nothing else in life that allowed me the joy of using so many torturous jokes on children.

Looking back at his book, Saf jerked his head back up again. "Right. I'll need to talk to Mom—"

"No, Saf. You need to talk to the ambassador. Your mother is the wrong one to talk to." Serious answers with a core of silliness.

"R-Right. I need to talk to the ambassador, not Mom. This is way more confusing than it needs to be." He took a bite of the apple.

I walked over to the couch and sat on it beside him. Removing the second bright red apple from the bag, I took a bite of it. The flavor was spectacular—the juices threatening to leak into my fur and neck. Liberal use of my tongue saved me from most of the mess.

When Saf's wing curled around my back and he hugged me, I put a foreleg around his shoulders.

"Thanks, Dad. I was trying to cram so hard and didn't even think to look at a bigger picture. So if I could just stay here, I'd need money—bits—right?"

"Yup. Not sure how you'd go about finding them. Once you work out if it will be possible, then you can focus on the how. You've got a few years to get that sorted, after all." I pulled my leg back from him and he let go with his wing. Ponies—even humans who'd only been ponies for several weeks—were huggers it seemed. "Maybe you should make a list."

"Right. A list would be good, but after I get done with my homework. Slowpoke would chew me out for falling behind right off the bat." He lowered his nose back to his book. There wasn't a lot of times in my life I could consider myself more proud of Saf.

"I'll leave you to it." I got up off the couch and walked through to the kitchen. For a place that lacked the modern technology of Earth, Equestria sure had a great amount of modern technology. A fridge that kept things cold (though no freezer), a good gas oven, even electrical sockets, though the strange-looking sockets didn't look inviting to American household devices.

With another bite of my apple, I planned out what I wanted to cook for the whole weekend. I'd tried the seafood, like Shining had suggested, and didn't like it. It had been easier to live with a vegetarian diet than try explaining to Saf why I wouldn't cook him his own individual meals—because I bet he'd ask for fish just to be different.

Salad sandwiches were the order of the day, at least for lunch. Breakfast usually resulted in me making some oats up with milk. Dinner was the complicated one. Pasta had been easy, what with three of us burning up magic most of the day (and two of those being children to boot).

Well, with our own house, I could fix this problem even better. Today I made the decision to buy a cook book. I could just wander around the city aimlessly, but I had a plan. I'd called in a favor from Spike (after his flying incident), and he'd suggested I visit the library here first to look at said books before I went elsewhere to buy them.

Being a dragon over a hundred years old in charge of a hoard of books clearly gave you some perspective when it comes to literature. So I was off to the library. "I'll be back later, Saf. Keep an eye on your sister when she gets up."

"Got it, Dad."

I grabbed a saddlebag and slung it over my back and headed back into Canterlot's streets. Like always, the air was crisp and my hooves made a melodic clip-clopping on the ground as I trotted. The library was near the castle, but on the other side from where the chancery was.

It was easier to ignore any looks I got as being their problem, and not mine. There was something I had to thank Braeburn for.

The city streets of Canterlot were buzzing with color and life—that is to say ponies. Pastel colors, some brighter ones here and there too, but almost all of them unicorns. I waved to a few ponies I'd seen regularly—not that I'd spoken to any of them before.

Canterlot City Library was right where Spike had said it would be. The building was huge. The weight of the huge marble roof was borne by pillars that reminded me of Roman designs, but the beautiful glass-work letting sunlight through the otherwise open front cast it into a more modern feel. I had to wonder how old it really was.

Two huge unicorn statues stood out the front and bracketed the stairs leading up to the front door. The whole thing felt both impressive and reverent in the same moment. I'd visited the White House on several occasions, but this structure put even the fortitude of the Oval Office to shame.

I walked up to the front doors and followed the helpful marking that said Push. Perfectly temperate air met me as I walked inside. Ponies were scattered around the library. Some employees were wheeling carts of books around, some patrons were sitting at desks reading in the morning sunlight, but I had designs on the main desk.

"Hi there," I said. "I wanted to look at some recipe books if I could."

"Of course you do." The mare at the counter—an earth pony—could have put that in a way that made it sound contrite, but instead she spoke as if the target of my search was never in doubt. "Please follow me."

My jaw almost dropped. I'd expected her to give me directions or at least just point to the section where recipe books were. Instead she gestured to another library employee who rushed to the desk to man it while she walked off toward the bookshelves.

"Did you have a particular one in mind?" the librarian asked.

"Well, I'm a bit new to all this. I was actually looking for some books on simple home cooking for families."

"New to all this? There's a story here. A librarian knows when a story is nearby." Despite her words, she didn't actually ask me to explain. It was the softest request for gossip I'd ever heard. "What you'll want is in this section over here. Non-fiction, guides, cooking books."

"Thank you so much." The transaction was probably older than time itself. When two creatures—pony or human—sat around a fire and one wanted to know something, they had to give the other a good story. "You see, I'm from another world—Earth. My wife's the ambassador, and I haven't a clue what sort of meals would be good for pony digestive systems."

"Sweet Celestia! You're one of our visitors!"

A chorus of Shhhhs came from the desks nearby.

"Sorry," my guide said in the direction of the shusshers. "I'd heard so much about all these fancy new things ponies are investigating. Why, we had Princess Twilight Sparkle herself in here just a bit earlier. She's planning to start a whole new section of the library dedicated to literature from other worlds. It's so exciting!"

More Shhhhs came in quickly on the tail end of the librarian's words, leading to my guide rolling her eyes.

"Well, I'm glad she's back and is organizing that kind of thing, but what I really want is an Equestrian book on cooking."

"Right. Right. Of course. Well, we have this row here for baking—separated into pastries, cakes, and other—and this row on more general cooking." She was pointing to entire rows of the library when she spoke. Hundreds or thousands of books.

"Do you have any you'd personally recommend?" I asked, hoping to narrow things down just a little.

Walking down the aisle a little, the librarian gestured with her hoof at the bookshelf. "Well, if you want simple meals anypony can make, I'd suggest Gretchen's Basics, by Gretchen the Griffon. She's one of Princess Celestia's own chefs. It's right here. Now, she also has a more advanced guide—"

I let out a sigh that interrupted her. "I'll level with you, ma'am. I intend to buy some books, and figured I should come here to ask for advice on what ones to get. I'm not sure if I can even get a library card here."

"My name's Early Return, and I'm fairly sure Princess Celestia wouldn't mind me lending you books if you agreed to bring them back. As for what you want, I'd personally suggest her whole series of books. Gretchen's an excellent chef and is amazing at explaining her recipes. I could tell you some good bookstores in the city to visit?"

"Philip Ree, and thank you. Could you write those down?"

Her smile changed her from pretty to radiant. "Sure thing!"

"Shhh!"

It was almost midday by the time I got home. My saddlebags were full of fresh produce and cooking equipment, and I was set for several days of cooking—there was no way my family would eat another military ration!

"I'm home!" I stepped in the front door only to see Clair, Saf, and Princess Twilight Sparkle sitting in the living room talking. Now that I could see that she wasn't just pony sized, but taller than regular ponies, I could get a better idea just how out of scale humanity was to ponies. "Sorry to interrupt."

Saf looked, out of the three of them, the most excited. He turned a grinning face toward me. "Hey, Dad, Princess Twilight said I could stay!"

Twilight and Clair both turned to face me, they looked happy and curious in similar measures, though Twilight's was closer toward happy and Clair was closer toward curious.

"Saffron's been doing quite well, I hear," Twilight said. "And by all accounts all of you have. The adjustment in ages is a concern, however. I'm looking into fixing that."

"Excuse me, Twilight, Saffron." Clair stood up and gave me an intense stare that I read easily—she wanted to talk. There was nothing else I could do than smile to Princess Twilight and Saf and follow Clair into the kitchen. The moment the door closed I heard her taking a breath. "I'm torn, Philip."

Using my magic, I lifted my saddlebag off my back. "I know what you mean. Him staying here will mean we won't get to see our boy grow."

"But I can't believe how happy he looks. Philip, he was in a rut at high school, we both know that. The smile Saffron gets on his face whenever he is reminded about flying is—It just leaves me breathless. This was your idea?"

"He was reading a textbook on the couch—a textbook about flying. Clair, this was our son who took up home ec at school because he found out it was impossible to fail. You've seen him talking to Sudden Turn?"

"Her?" Clair's eyebrows rose together. "I heard she was his minder. What's she got to do with this?"

"If Saf was about twenty years older, a lot more than she does right now. He looks up to her—he wants to be like her. She's one of his instructors." I saw real surprise register on Clair's face. I might not be able to read other ponies all that well, but my wife I knew.

Clair's shoulders slumped and she let out a slow breath. "I've been distracted by work and haven't been paying enough attention to him. Is this really something he should be jumping into?"

"No. Absolutely not." My absolute statement drew curiosity into Clair's eyes. "But we have a few years before he has to make the final choice." Realization, revelation, and delight registered in my wife's very stance. I leaned forward and kissed her, then the kiss became more than the short peck I'd intended, and before I knew it I was pondering how hard it would be to brace a chair against the door and—

"Philip?" Clair asked after I jerked away. "What's wrong?"

"I spoke to a pony earlier about—the problem with stallions. He said it was mostly just Canterlot ponies being a little odd and having their own odd ways, but I don't know. I just felt like—" I bit down on my words. Saying them out loud would be degrading and would—

Clair's kiss broke my mental distraction. Her lips were warm and her tongue went exploring in a way that made all that energy rush to the fore again. When she broke the kiss, I was more than a little worked up.

"Give me five minutes to finish this with the princess and Saf, and I want you upstairs, my stud." Clair gave me a smoldering look, turned, and with a flick of her tail made everything worse (or better). She left the kitchen.

I gulped. For the first time in my life I was extremely unsure about my body and—Deep breaths, Philip. Put the groceries away and think of Clair. Both things came easily to me. I had my perishable purchases away and was flicking through the cookbooks when Clair opened the door again and poked just her head inside.

"C'mon. Princess Twilight's gone, Saffron's gone for a fly, and Riley is working on her homework in her room." Her eyes could have lit fires anywhere she looked, and given she was looking at me I could certainly confirm I was burning up.

Author's Note

Miss Sudden Turn, aka Scootaloo, what are your feelings towards Mister Saffron Ree?

"I'm mostly trying to be a friend for him. He's gone through a lot and didn't have anypony his age—well, his maturity—to hang with. I might be a bit older than him, but I get him. After all, we both spent most of our childhood unable to fly, ya know?" Sudden Turn reached up to her ears and pulled the mask of her Wonderbolts uniform over her head. "Excuse me—I gotta fly."

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Lab

Chapter 18 Philip Ree

We weren't experts in how ponies have sex, but we were learning as we went, and we went quite well indeed. The pony version of missionary—bellies together—was more enjoyable than regular pony style, but Clair had surprised me by insisting on trying more and more things.

I hadn't said no.

Was there truth to both Shining and Braeburn's words? Maybe out-of-town ponies just let things go a little more. Maybe Canterlot ponies were just way more into a little bit on the side. Maybe I had the most amazing woman—or mare—with me right now.

"Clair, darling, I love you so much." I didn't need to move far to kiss her, though there was no vital and impending need to it now—just satisfaction.

She moved with me, shifted her body to accommodate the angle of our kiss so we could last a little longer than muscles would otherwise allow. When things finally settled and we started to break apart, I felt her lips curl into a smile. "How'd you put everything in perspective so well?"

"Hrmm?"

"Saffron needed to hear that he had more options. I needed to hear that I could give him years to make up his mind." She giggled. "I also needed to hear how into me you were still. After all this—thirty four years together, my career, coming to another world—and you still looked at me like you could devour me. How do you do that?"

If I told her I was crazy, that I was driving by the seat of my pants, it would be only partly true. "I'm crazy—crazy in love with you. The life you've given me, Clair, inspires me to be the best I can be. I couldn't be who and what I am if it wasn't for you, for Saffron, and for Riley." I bumped my nose against hers and smiled just a little wider. "You inspire me to do everything."

"That's so sappy. You know that, right?"

"Yeah. Did it work?"

She just nodded to me and shifted to the side. Pleasure, sensitivity, and maybe a hint of excitement sparked as I drew from her. I clenched my teeth and fought the immediate desire to get back on her. "A little more gentle next time, please?"

Clair looked a little shaken herself. "Y-Yeah. Sorry. I forgot how much of you there is now."

"Does this mean I can make a hung like a stallion joke?" I waggled my eyebrows as best I could, and got a pillow thrown at me for my trouble.

Before Clair could grab something else to throw, she gasped and practically galloped to the bathroom. "How much did you—Philip!" There was no genuine panic in her voice, only an edge of laughter. "I'll get you back for this!"

"By doing what?" I used my magic to grab the cleanup towel we kept on the bedside table and made use of it to carefully pat myself down.

"By doing it again, silly."

My heart sped up at the way she spoke—deep and hungry. "Tonight." With my magic I tossed the towel into the hamper as I rolled onto my hooves. "Definitely tonight. How are you?" I poked my head into the bathroom to see my darling wife expelling quite a bit of—well, the proof of my love is perhaps the nicest thing to call it.

The sight was sexy beyond measure to some primal, beastly part of me. My wife so brimming with me that she—I had to cut the thought off before I made more such mess.

"I'll be okay in a moment." She bit her lower lip.

I couldn't stand it. I walked into the bathroom and kissed her. Hungrily kissed her. By the time I was done kissing, she was done with the mess I'd made.

"Philip Ree, how did you become so—" Clair stopped, her eyes widening. "We're young again. I mean, as far as ponies go, right?"

I nodded.

"Young ponies that are just like a pair of nineteen-year-olds. Right?" She grinned like she'd just solved world peace. "Philip, we're both idiots. Young—horny—idiots."

Relief and laughter bubbled through me. I joined Clair in laughing at the world, at ourselves, and at our situation. We laughed while she cleaned herself up in the bathroom, only dimming our mirth long enough to kiss or nuzzle, and headed out of the bedroom.

I walked down the hall with Clair at my side, and felt like the richest man—or stallion—in either world. "Time for lunch, I think?"

"Is that what you were out buying?" Clair nuzzled my cheek, which had the effect of making my knees feel weak.

"Yes, sort of. I acquired some cookbooks for ponies, written by a griffon funnily enough." I used my magic to open the kitchen door and head inside only to see Riley with a chair pulled up to the counter making herself a sandwich. "Oh no! Clair, we have an infestation!"

"Hey, kiddo. Hungry?" Clair asked as she walked around to kiss Riley on the cheek. Motherhood had always agreed with Clair, despite her repeated counter claims that she spent too time away from home.

"There's no peanut butter and jelly!" Riley looked down at her forlorn, buttered slices of bread. "Can we get some?"

It hadn't occurred to me to even look. "I'll do some more shopping tomorrow and see what I can find. What about a salad sandwich?"

I already had the fridge door open before her eager reply came, "Sure!"

"Okay then, you get the bread ready while I chop up the salad." I had no idea how Clair or our children managed without magic. I picked up a tomato and a lettuce and turned back to the bench to see Riley cutting the bread up into neat pieces with a big bread knife.

She looked precarious, balanced upright on the chair, but in my mind I had to remember that she was close enough to being a teenager that I should be thankful she was willing to help.

I used magic to flip out one of the books that focused more on nutrition than actual cooking, and hunted through for portion sizes while I cut up cucumber with a little more effort on my horn.

"How do you do that?" Riley asked.

I was a bit confused as to what she was asking. "Do what? Magic?"

"No. I kinda get you have your own special stuff for your magic, Dad, but how are you holding three things at once?"

Okay, that was a surprise. I looked at how I was holding the book. Then I looked down to where I was chopping the cucumber. "I didn't really notice. I guess I kinda just parked the book up here while I chopped. On the plus side I can't cut myself with the knife."

I showed off by cutting the cucumber up as fine as I could, and then brought the knife through my magic a few times. It tingled, and I could feel not just the movement of the blade but its sharpness as well. "See?"

"That's so cool! You could use a lightsaber and it wouldn't even hurt you!"

Rolling my eyes would be too much. Instead I leaned over and kissed Riley on the forehead. "Keep working on that bread, pumpkin. We'll be making our own soon enough."

Riley started back on the bread, slicing it a little thicker than I'd have liked, but I let her go all the same. "Like we did back home?"

"I used a breadmaker back home. Ponies don't seem to have gotten quite that far with gadgets, so I'll be making it the old fashioned way." With the cucumbers done, I swapped to a tomato. "What do you want on yours?"

"Everything!"

"Everything?"

She nodded.

"Okay," I said. "Everything." I started to put my book down on the first slice of bread.

"Dad! I meant everything you're making."

"Oh! Well, I guess the book might be a bit too much roughage, after all." Grabbing up a ripe avocado, I sliced it around neatly and then used my magic to neatly break it in half. "Is it like using my hands if I scoop it out with my magic?"

"Pfft. No, Dad, it's magic. We don't have hands now, remember?"

"I guess." Forming a scoop from my magic, I scooped out all the inside of the avocado and put it in a bowl. I lifted a pat of butter and a lime from my saddlebag and set them on the bench. "Just feels a little odd, since it's kinda like how my hands worked."

Mixing some butter in with the avocado, I splashed in some lime juice and gave it a hit of salt. There was a lot of things the books—that I'd flicked through in the library—didn't say. Nowhere in the city had I found a blender, and all a book ever said was blend ingredients. Well, let me see if I can get things moving myself.

Spreading some of my magic out thin over the top of the bowl, I tried to imagine the blades of a food processor inside it and started turning that around. I was slow at it, but the more I turned the blade the easier I found it and the faster I could do it. I never got anywhere near as fast as a food processor would have, but I got them blended up well enough to use.

"Dad! That—was—so—awesome! How'd you do that?" I hadn't noticed how intently Riley was watching me. Well, it was time to be a proper dad.

"Magic," I said.

The devastated look my daughter leveled at me was worth everything I'd ever been through in my life. "Dad?"

"Yes?"

"You're the worst, you know that right?"

"I'm your dad, that means it's my duty to make dad jokes, sweetie. We've discussed this before." I couldn't actually fathom the idea of using my magic to spread the avocado butter on the bread, so I picked up a knife and began spreading it. "I'm just taking the dad jokes to new and interesting places."

Getting a production line going was easy. Bread gets buttered, cucumber, tomato, lettuce, salt, pepper, top on. One. Two. Three. Four. Cutting each in turn, I always put a slight angle on the slice to give a smaller end to start at. "Go and tell your brother his lunch is ready."

I knew what was coming, and tucked my ears down as tight to my head as I could.

"SAF! LUNCH IS READY!"

Yup. That's my filly. "Thank you, sweetie." I kissed Riley on the forehead again while scooping each sandwich up on a plate and floating them over to the table.

"Lunch?" Saffron poked his head into the kitchen and looked at me funny. "Uh, Dad?"

I was just about on top of the world. Using magic had never energized me quite as much as it had now. Turning to face him, I shrugged. "Yeah. Made us all something healthy and nutritious. What's up?"

Saffron didn't stop staring at me. "When'd you get a cutie mark?"

"What?" I couldn't think what else to say. "Cutie mark?" Okay, maybe I could. Everything felt too good to have something odd be happening.

"Dad! Look!" Riley jumped off the chair she'd been using and ran to my flank. "You've got a cutie mark!"

Turning my head, I looked back at my hip and saw it. Sure enough, my brown fur was broken up by a pair of silver scales. Okay, Philip, nothing to worry about. If I wasn't feeling so good I might be able to panic. As it was, I was excited beyond belief. "Clair!"

"I can see, Philip. What happened?" Clair's voice held a hint of worry, though also curiosity. She walked past Saffron and over to me to inspect my rump. I only wished we were alone, so she could inspect it more thoroughly.

"We were making lunch. Riley was cutting the bread, and I was preparing the fillings. I'd just finished making them, slicing them, and had Riley call Saffron for lunch." Still feeling excited and on-edge, I felt like I wanted to dance and sing and—and just hug everyone! Memories of fooling around with illicit substances when I was younger came to and left my thoughts—this was so much better!

"You're smiling a lot." Clair narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"You mean apart from the life-defining pattern that just appeared on my hips?" I asked.

"Philip, I think we better call somepony who can double check on this sort of thing." Clair looked at the table and the four plates sitting there. "After lunch. Those sandwiches look good."

Despite her worry, despite finding out I had a very strange thing happen to me just now, I felt even better hearing that she liked my food. Using my magic, I pulled a chair out for Clair, Riley, and Saffron, and took a seat myself.

"What was it like?" Saffron asked as he reached out with his wing for a sandwich.

"I guess I wasn't even aware I was getting it, but every moment just feels better and better." I didn't take much convincing to talk about it, apparently. "Just—I feel great!" What hit even harder was hearing Riley's delight when she took a bite of her sandwich. "How is it?"

"Mff! Goo, Da!" She barely managed to get the words out around her mouthful.

When Clair started on her own, I got a different feeling. There wasn't something wrong as such, just something missing. More food—more protein and fats. The thought had come from nowhere, and I had no idea what it meant beyond Clair needing more food than she was getting.

I watched Saffron eating his sandwich, and again got a slight pull of feeling that he needed more carbohydrates. Of what was causing these feelings I had no idea, but I would be damned if I would ignore them. This whole world is magic, and this was magic.

Mentally, I tucked away the idea that I'd add some eggs to our meals—or at least Clair's meal—and maybe get an extra sandwich for Saffron. For myself… I took a bite of my sandwich and felt mostly content with it, though I'd had that apple earlier. Keeping my own sugar levels up would always be a constant fight, but with the power of delicious fruit and cupcakes, I think I was ready for the challenge.

I remembered, then, that I'd gotten fruit for both kids. I looked again at Riley, but didn't get any sense of her needing more. Well, I had a talent, or a gift, or something telling me what my family needed, I wasn't going to argue with it.

"Let me know if you want something more," I said. "Saffron, would you like another sandwich?"

He was finished first, of course, but the guilty look I got from him told me I'd hit the nail on the head. "Yeah, Dad. I was trying some flying magic out earlier, and I could really do with another."

"Not a problem, buddy." I didn't question how much more relaxed Saffron was these days—not looking gift-horses and all that. The angsty and sometimes angry seventeen-year-old I'd grown resigned into seeing become a man by sheer stubbornness had grown younger, or at least he seemed to act younger, but also mature.

Standing up, I turned to the bench and set the bread knife cutting two more slices while the kitchen knife sliced up more filling. "What about you, dear?" I asked Clair. "Fit another in?"

She looked at me with an unreadable expression that quickly turned to a frown. "Sorry. It's been an odd day. I feel like there's room for something, but I'm not sure what."

"Trust me," I said.

I assembled Saffron's second salad sandwich first, but plucked out some eggs from my saddlebags and cut up some more lettuce to go with it.

"What are you—Eggs?" The way Clair said the last word told me that this new intuition was absolutely and one-hundred-percent right. Okay, Philip, trust your instincts and your magic powers.

When put like that, I realized going home might result in me needing to spend some time with a psych. Forgetting that, though, I turned the stove on and put a pot over it. "Oh? Did I guess right?"

Clair moved fast. She jumped out of her chair and was beside me, kissing my cheek, before I could so much as blink.

"Hey, squirt, want to see what I was practicing earlier?" Saffron asked.

"What is it?" Riley asked.

"Come on and I'll show you."

My son was the biggest superhero I knew, sometimes. I would have thanked him, but that would have slowed Riley going out the back door with him and leaving Clair and myself alone.

The moment the door closed, Clair pressed her body against mine from shoulder to hip.

"Clair?" I asked. Part of me didn't want to question this, but I also didn't want to pressure my darling-love into something. "What's up?"

"You. Me. Libido. I thought you were meant to be the overly horny one?" As she nibbled my ear, I broke the eggs into the pot and added some butter. "Just—Seeing you so devoted, so—I don't even know what it all is."

"After you've eaten your sandwich, we can play again. We owe Saffron a big favor, though." Mixing the eggs, I nibbled my way up Clair's nearest ear until I reached the top of it. "Do you think he'll stay?"

The hungry little sounds Clair made almost broke my attention from stirring the eggs. I pulled them off the heat and fetched some chives from my saddlebags.

"If we don't push him to go home, he'll stay. Coming here was something he agreed to, but I didn't realize how well he'd take to being here. To be completely honest, I expected him to lock himself up in his bedroom for the duration and play computer games." The feel of her hoof rubbing down my chest almost sold me on giving up the eggs, pot, and everything. She knew the places that got my motor running, and she was teasing me with them.

"I'm honestly torn."

I turned my head, distracted almost completely from making the scrambled eggs. "Oh?"

"I'm still hungry, but I'm also hungry." She nipped at my neck with her teeth. "But I can wait for both." When she took a step away, I could start breathing again.

Doubling down, I focused on making her the sandwich. "What about us?"

"I have to go back. That's non-negotiable. I need to give my report and ask Jeff what he wants from me next—or ask whoever replaces Jeff if they want me back here." With each step Clair took back to the table I could think a little clearer. "You don't—"

"What did I tell you?" I asked as I cut the sandwich in half. "What did I vow?"

"You're too good, you know that? We'll take Riley with us, then, and I'll complete my report and, failing any further requirements… What then?" Clair practically fell upon the sandwich on her plate when I landed it before her.

I walked around and sat opposite her while Clair ate—using my magic to wash up at the sink (some parts of being a pony I was definitely okay with). Watching her eat, I was struck by how normal pony-Clair looked to me. I know I let out a contented sigh because she paused and lifted one eyebrow.

"Just you, Clair Ree. When I first saw us after coming over, I lamented not seeing my beautiful wife for years, but poniness seems good at seeping in and making you think that all this is natural," I said.

She just nodded, chewing on a sandwich she was holding with one hoof. When she gulped down her mouthful, she chuckled at me. "I agree, for what it's worth. I look at you, Philip, and I see you. It's not you in some strange body, or an alien replacement of you. I see the husband I married, and I want you."

It was getting harder and harder to, well, not get harder and harder. The gag, even in my own head, made me smile a little more. "Eat your damn sandwich."

Saffron Ree

My thoughts were still circling around the conversation with Princess Twilight Sparkle. I could stay, but I'd need to stay enrolled at Wonderbolts' school until I was legally and adult in Equestria, and I'd need to find somepony to act as my guardian.

The first was easy—I freakin' loved going to school there. The second bit, I hoped, would work out too. I'd ask Sharp Turn.

"Mom and Dad are going to have another kid at this rate," Riley said. "Aren't they?"

Well, there was something to yank me out of my thoughts. Remembering why we were outside, I laughed. "Probably. Man, that'll be odd."

"Why?"

I turned and looked at Riley, and it took me a heartbeat to remember that though she wasn't as young as she looked, she was still young enough not to think too far ahead. "A little brother or sister, here, would be a foal. When Mom and Dad head back to Earth, they might not turn human again. Like Princess Twilight Sparkle." Damn her name and title were a mouthful, but every time I'd mentioned her at Wonderbolts' H.Q., I'd gotten a glare and a reminder that she was ranked way above us. So much for every man created equal.

But there was something to be said for her having worked to become a princess. Even royalty here is a rank you can work at. Kinda awesome, when you think about it. Not that I wanted that job—I wasn't exactly qualified in the most important way.

"Huh. That'd be odd. What if we went back before Mom had them? Would they come out as a human or a pony?"

"Squirt, I have no idea. I leave the magic-magic stuff to unicorns. I'll stick to flying." It wasn't a bad ideal, when I thought about it. It made me look smart, and it was literally one of the most important things in Equestria.

Riley walked over to her tree, now tall enough it'd take me two beats of my wings to get to the top of its branches. She lifted a hoof toward it and touched it, but she didn't get that stiffening vibe she sometimes did when going all out drood mode. "He likes you, you know? When you flap your wings over his leaves, he smells other trees in the air currents you make."

Walking over to stand beside her, I reached my hoof up and gently set it against the tree's bark—and felt nothing magical there. "If you say so. Does it—he—want some now?"

"Yup. There's a poplar tree down the road that got all snooty at him for something. I think he just doesn't like non-fruit-trees."

It'd be so easy to dribble a little magic into my wings. I jumped from the ground and pumped what used to be my arms as hard as I could, twice, and then settled into a hovering stance. Hearing flight positioning being called stances was still a little confusing, but it was how the Wonderbolts called it, so that's what I had to learn.

It was harder work than I thought it would be, ensuring that I was blowing air forward as well as backward. It didn't take long for my wings to start to feel like they were doing real work. "How's this?"

"He really likes that! Can you circle around and flap from the other side? He wants to send a reply!"

Now I was literally the mail service for trees. Well, it kept Riley out of Mom and Dad's manes. I got halfway around to the other side of the tree before realizing I'd thought mane instead of hair. It was why I wound up giggling when I reached the spot and started hover-flapping again.

I felt the rush of air before I saw what made it. From one flap to the next I steadied my wingbeats and turned toward what my feathers told me was something big.

"Got the hang of your wings I see?" Spike's voice was deep, and it came from a dragon about the size of a pair of motorbikes end-to-end. He was freakin' awesome, despite me knowing a lot more about flying, and I couldn't stop myself from smiling.

"Kinda. Got a few more years before they'll stop calling me a newbie, but I think I got it covered. What's up?"

Below, a high-pitched voice squealed in excitement—Riley had spotted Spike. "Spiiiiiike!"

"We better land before she calls the Guard down." Spike adjusted his wings and swooped down to land beside Riley—me at his side. "Hey, Riley! How're you?"

Literally bouncing up and down in excitement, Riley looked like she was going to explode. "Soooo much better now. Saf was just helping my tree talk to other trees."

Spike turned his head to look at me. "A pegasus talking to trees? And I thought seeing one talk to animals was surprising!" He raised one eyebrow—well, eye-ridge—and a smile covered his long mouth.

"I can't talk to them. That's Riley's job," I said.

He turned to look at Riley again. "What did they have to say?"

"Well, the polar down the road is really snooty, and sheds its smell a lot. My tree doesn't like it one bit, so he asked me to ask Saf to use his wings to blow a lot of apple tree (that's what he is) smell at it. He's really happy about that." Riley had stopped bouncing to talk, but the moment she stopped, she started looking to climb up on Spike.

Spike lowered his belly to the grass to let Riley climb up. "Oh! Somepony wants to go for a fly? Doesn't your brother take you?"

"He does!" Riley climbed up just below one of Spike's back-ridges and got herself comfortable. "But it wears his wings out trying to do stuff with me there. I can tell."

I jerked as if hit. "I do not get tired!" But I do. It's hard enough practicing basic formation stuff with just my weight, let alone Riley too (and she weighs almost the same as I do).

"You do too! But you're an awesome flier, Saf." Riley managed to stop me in my tracks. How was I meant to argue with a compliment?

"I bet he is. I heard he's in the Wonderbolts already." Spike spread his wings and gave a tremendous pump of them while jumping into the air. It was more amazing to watch now that I could feel with my magic that he wasn't using anything to boost him up. It was all wing power.

Laughing at the craziness of a creature so big that could fly, I jumped into the air and hammered down to get the same altitude Spike seemed to effortlessly grab with each stroke of his huge wings.

He started off with some basic loops and spins, stuff that even I could manage after seeing once or twice, but then he began doing some pretty cool stall-dives that, when I tried them, I had to use magic to pull myself out before I messed up.

Circling around the middle of the city, he waited for me to catch up. "You fly pretty good, Saf." His voice seemed to carry in the air easily, like we weren't flying.

Pulling my shorter wingspan beside and just ahead of his, I laughed. "Not good enough yet. How'd you do that double-stall?"

"The trick is you need the right kind of wings." Spike jerked his head to the side toward his wings. "Dragon wings work different to pony wings. There're things you can do that I can't."

"Huh." I barely noticed he straightened out our flight until we were approaching the gates of the castle! One of the rules that'd been drummed into me was you do not fly over the castle, and you do not fly over the E.U.P. Guard fields without uniform on. "Spike!"

But, to my surprise, rather than bolts of magic or pegasi Royal Guards zooming up to intercept us, we got salutes. I was confused until we landed. Well, until we were about to land, and Princess Twilight Sparkle was waiting for us. Trust a princess to be allowed to okay her friends to fly wherever they want to.

"Twily!" Spike, like the fierce dragon he was, rushed up to Twilight and wrapped both forelegs around her and grabbed her with both his huge wings—there was literally no alicorn visible except for her tail. "When I heard you were back I rushed up here. Why didn't you come to the castle?"

As Spike leaned back and revealed Princess Twilight Sparkle (I'd drum her full name into my head if it was the last thing I did), she was hugging him back just as excitedly.

"I had to report in person to Princess Celestia, and then I got a message that Ambassador Clair Ree wanted to speak with me, and then…" She trailed off as she realized I was standing beside Spike, and Riley was on his back still. I guess a dragon as big as him tends to hide foals. "You brought friends?"

Normally, back home at least, I'd expect an adult to twist such a question into an annoyed sound—like asking You have a bag of rotting garbage? Twilight (Princess Twilight Sparkle, damn it!) sounded even more excited to know we were there. It was shocking in a new way that I hadn't expected. We looked like little foals, adults shouldn't be happy to see us!

"Saf, Riley, say hello," Spike said.

I rolled my eyes at Spike and stepped around his bulk and looked at Princess Twilight Sparkle. "Your Highness."

"Please, Saffron, don't call me that." I hadn't earlier, but I also had been so surprised at seeing her then I was almost freaking out. "Just call me Twilight, please?"

"C-Can you call me Saf?" I asked, my voice almost failing me.

"Sure!" Her smile was huge and caused her whole face to brighten up as a result. "Now, where's Riley?"

Riley, predictably, raced up Spike's back and leapt from his shoulder at Twilight. "Hi!"

Twilight was ready for Riley, it seemed. Her horn flared to life and she plucked my sis out of the air and pulled her in for a hug. "You sure are. I heard you're studying under Moon Dancer."

"Yup! She's a really good teacher, but really strict." Riley hung from Twilight's neck before dropping to the ground and shaking her head. One day my little sis would start an interdimensional war by doing something like this, and then probably stop it moments later by just being herself.

"That's not too surprising. She's way more into schooling than even I am—and I'm really into learning. But then, you're not the only one signing up for school." Twilight turned her head enough that I knew she was looking at me. "Your big brother wants to be a Wonderbolt."

Rily nodded and puffed her chest out. "Saf could totally be a Wonderbolt! He's the best at flying of anypony I know!"

"Hey," Spike said. "What does that make me?"

When my sis turned back to Spike with a stricken look on her face, I felt it was my duty to back her up. "The best at flying of anydragon we know."

"R-Right!" Riley looked back at me with the biggest grin ever.

"And what about me?" Twilight asked.

Without missing a beat now, Riley turned back and giggled. "The best flier of anyprincess we know."

"How would you both like to come and meet my teacher? I was just talking to her about you two." Gesturing with a wing, Twilight pointed back to the castle-thing she'd just left. It was a literal palace. I mean, I'd been to the White House, and that was kinda awesome in a historical way, but this was a freakin' castle!

"Really? I'd like that!" Riley started bouncing up and down in excitement.

I could take a hint. Her teacher, from what I'd heard, was Princess Celestia—one of the rulers of Equestria. Well, Twilight was too, but she was also kinda awesome in that she just wanted to be talked to. Like "uncle" Jeff. "Uncle" Jeff who was the president. I followed along beside Riley while she and Twilight chatted. Spike took up on Twilight's other side.

Dragons, it seemed, were kinda a mess on the ground. Spike in the air was this force of nature that could move with the slightest flick of his wings. Walking, he was more like a big lizard, and kinda waddled a bit. Not that I'd say that to his face—or out loud.

Twilight looked at me over Riley's back as we stepped into the huge entrance hall. Like outside, none of the guards so much as blinked at us being there. "Saf, you don't need to worry. Princess Celestia agreed with me."

Well, that was one worry gone. So what was this meeting about if not to beg her to let me stay? "So why are we meeting her?" I asked.

"You'll see." Twilight almost walked into a set of doors, only for two of the Royal Guard (I'd learned a pile about them in school) to use their magic to open them.

It looked like this was the throne room, what with the thrones being here. It was huge, and looked like it could hold an entire army (more if they were flying). At the other end was a series of raised platforms that had three thrones atop them. Only one was occupied right now, and by Princess Celestia.

"Princess Celestia," Twilight said and bowed. "I'd like to prese—"

"Twilight. How many more years do I have to keep telling you to just call me Celestia?" Apparently, sitting on a throne meant you got to interrupt people—even princesses. I remember uncle Jeff told me once he made a point not to interrupt people. I thought he was nuts, but then, I didn't win an election. Hey, neither did Celestia…

"And how many times am I going to tell you, Princess Celestia, that on the throne you are the princess in charge." Twilight glared upward at Celestia for a few seconds before she broke her stern expression with a grin. "How many more years are we going to do that for?"

"As many as you wish. I enjoy being told I'm doing something wrong." Celestia's voice came from much closer, and when I looked she was at the bottom of the platforms and walking closer. "Twilight, Spike, it's always wonderful to see you both."

As she got closer, I realized just how big Celestia was. She towered above Twilight, and Spike was only a little taller than her when he stood up straight. Both were moving forward to meet Celestia and hug.

Ponies were pretty big on hugging. It was a surprise to get hugs from ponies I barely knew, but it seemed to be almost as common as shaking hands or fist-bumping was back home. I was still trying to work out how good it really was. I mean, in another ten years or so I'm sure it will be both awesome and embarrassing (for the same reason), but right now it was just a reminder of how much smaller than the other students I am.

"This must be Saffron and Riley Ree." Celestia's voice snapped me out of my thinking about hugging. Huh, maybe I wasn't that far away from puberty after all? "It's wonderful to see you both. What brings you to me today?"

Okay, Saf, suck it up and be the big guy. Thank her using every ounce of pony you've gained an forget snarking. One. Two. Th—

"Hi, Princess Celestia! We were just messing around and Spike brought us up here, and then Twilight told us to come and say hello. So, hello!" Riley said.

Yeah. A war or everlasting peace.

But, Celestia's smiled only grew wider as she looked down at Riley beside me. "Ah, the little filly my sister has told me so much about. I believe there's a singular honor that I'm missing out on." Given the way Celestia's mane hung across half her face, it was impossible to tell if she was raising one eyebrow or both.

Riley looked up at me as if I had all the answers. When someone has been alive longer than all human history, I can't even make a guess.

"Don't ask me," I said.

When Riley looked back up at Celestia, a golden glow wrapped around her as Celestia's magic took hold of my little sister. Okay, this might be it. She could toss stars around, what was one little filly to—

Princess Celestia, practically a god here, lifted my little sister up and put the little munchkin on her back. "There. Now you have been on the back of every princess."

What even is this? How am I meant to take this serious anymore? I mean, flight school has a lot of silly stuff in it, but it also has a ton to teach me about how to fly, but this is supposed to be a how-many-thousand-year-old leader of Equestria playing pony-back rides with my little sister?

"Saf?" Twilight asked. "You look like Discord just did something behind my back, and he better not have."

"Would I do that? I mean, honestly, in front of the new foals that just so happened to arrive and not be introduced to moi?" The creature floating in the air was completely absurd. It'd appeared like a unicorn, but it surely wasn't using its horn(s) to do magic, and its tiny wings shouldn't let it fly. Mix-matched wings and a body like some kind of fuzzy snake, it had four mismatched limbs and the strangest expression—it looked crazy. "Pleased to meet you. Discord S. Chaos, at your service."

What was kind of reassuring was that neither princess nor Spike seemed ready to attack Discord, and he was offering me his hand. Paw. Whatever.

Reaching out with a wing, I took his paw and started to shake. "We kinda got railroaded, what with being too young to be out on our own and stuff. I'm Saf."

"Well look at this? Somepony with manners!" Discord shook my wing a few times. "But tell me, have you considered your options a little? I mean, I know the delightful guise of a pony is all but irresistible and all, but have you considered draconequus?"

The first I knew that something very odd had happened, Discord had snapped his fingers. Claws? Paws? Whatever. There was a sickening lurch and then I wasn't standing on all fours anymore. I was floating.

Looking down at myself, I saw I was long and thin like Discord, but while he had a mixture of talon and paw for hands, then hoof and some kind of scaled leg, I had a pony leg and a tentacle for arms, then what looked like a fox and a human back leg. My tail looked like a pony's, but I had a pony wing and some kind of fish fin on the other side.

Panic, fear, anger—I tried to squeeze down on my emotions and just deal with what'd happened, but it wasn't working. It didn't help that it started to rain chocolate milk.

"Oh dear. Got a case of the chocolates? Here, let me help." Slapping me on the back with his paw, Discord genuinely seemed trying to help. What actually happened was I coughed up a box of very expensive-looking chocolates. "Hrmm, wrong setting. I was trying for caramel."

I snorted at that. There was something not-serious about him, yet at the same time terrifying in what he could do. He'd just turned me into something like him, so I had to assume he could turn me back. "What about salted caramel?"

Discord's eyes widened and his smile stretched from ear to ear—almost literally. "What's this? A being of such perfection and majesty that he gets my jokes?" A popping sound accompanied a second Discord appearing. They both looked at each other and waggled their eyebrows at me.

"You're beside yourself?" I asked.

"Yes!" Fireworks shot into the air and Discord (just one of him now) twirled me in a circle. "Oh how many years I've dreamed of finding someequus that just gets me. Well, apart from Fluttershy."

"Discord!" Twilight Sparkle didn't sound happy. "Turn Saf back to his old self right—I mean, turn him to his pony self right now!"

Elbowing me in the side of my oddly noodle-like body, Discord rolled his eyes—all the way around, several times. "See what I have to put up with? You sure you want to go back? I could make an exception if you wanted to stay like this. Just this once, of course."

He was kind of a joke. A running gag. There was still an air of crazy around him, but it was a good kind of crazy. "Nah. I've got this Wonderbolt's school thing going, and awesome as the fin is, I don't think they'd let me hang around unless I had my wings back."

"Oh, alright. How about this?" Discord lifted his paw up and I watched his fingers (whatever, they look like fingers) snapped.

I spread my wings to catch me as whatever magic had me floating stopped. Landing on my hooves, I felt something a little different. "What'd you change?"

"Saf!" Riley sounded shocked. "Saf!"

I turned to my little sister. "What is it, squirt?"

"You're a princess!"

I reached up with my wing and felt at my forehead with my feathers. Sure enough, I had a horn. "Uh. Okay. This is a little different. Does this thing work?"

"I've got a big sister! I've got a big sister! I've got—"

Grabbing Riley with my wing, I managed to hold her snout shut for about half a second before she easily pulled free. "Riley, can it."

"Discord," Celestia said, "We've been through this. You can't go making random ponies into alicorns. It doesn't work like that."

Reaching out to my forehead, Discord flicked at what I could assume was the horn on my head. It made a twang-twang sound as if it were made of rubber. "You're only saying that so you can have the monopoly on them. What if I want to start my own nation? I'll fill it with draconequui and alicorns! But I think I should standardize color." He turned to me. "What do you think about red and black? I find them quite fetching."

A hoof slamming into the floor echoed around the throne room and silenced everyone. We all stared at Celestia, and glared at Discord. She didn't say a word.

"You're no fun anymore." Another snap of Discord's finger-things and I felt kinda back to normal.

I no longer had that slight weight on the top of my forehead, and stuff in general seemed normal again. Then it hit me. "Did you make me into a filly?" I looked at Discord more in shock than in actual panic—I was myself again, after all.

"Of course. I could hardly have made you a male alicorn, that just wouldn't work at all. Now, if you wanted to go dragon—" Discord froze as he glanced at Celestia again. "I suppose you want me to say I'm sorry and all that?"

Right. Sure. I just got turned into some kind of snake-dragon-horse, then into a filly princess, then back to myself again. Well, as myself as a flying pony is. "Is he always like this?"

"Thirty years ago he was much worse," Twilight said.

Riley turned to Discord. "Really? What'd you do?"

"Well,"—a puffing sound later and I was sitting on a huge couch chair with Riley beside me and Discord sitting across from us on another—"I was all turned to stone at the time, and when I broke free you have to understand I was terribly upset at having been stuck like that for so lo—"

"Discord!" The shout was softer than anything Celestia or Twilight had managed, but just the sound of it turned Discord's face ashen. I knew the source—Fluttershy. "Discord, what are you doing to these foals?"

"F-Fluttershy!" Discord made a popping sound and the couches disappeared. "What are you do—I mean, how are you doing? I was just welcoming these lovely creatures to Equestria, and was giving them a tour of the various creatures that are here."

"Hi, Fluttershy," I said.

Fluttershy's attention turned to me from Discord, and her face broke from the stern glare to a happy smile. Practically prancing, she trotted over to me and wrapped me up in a wing-hug. "It's so good to see you again, Saf. Rainbow was telling me all about your training at the Wonderbolts."

Discord slipped a few ponylengths to the side. "Maybe I'll just be going?"

"We'll discuss this later, Discord." Fluttershy's tone had flipped from warm and welcoming to cold as ice. She turned back to me and smiled.

"R-Right, yeah. Uh, we were just talking about that, right?" I turned to look at Celestia and Twilight—who both had smiles once more on their faces. "Right?"

"We were. Specifically your interest in remaining here to train your flying." Celestia sounded like all the cold fury aimed toward Discord was gone. I had to wonder how ponies could just let go of that kind of anger so easily. "I've come up with a solution—a promise."

Celestia cleared her throat. "Saffron Ree, the moment it is revealed you must leave Equestria, I extend to you full citizenship in Equestria. You have only to ask, at that point, and you will be allowed to stay."

I was surprised by how much emotion welled up inside me. Excitement and relief were foremost. "How can it be that simple? Don't you have to…" I only trailed off because both Celestia and Twilight were chuckling at me. "What?"

"Twilight and your own mother explained how your birth world is often mired in red tape. The advantage of our system of government is that when Luna, Twilight, Cadance, or myself say something, it is the letter of the law." Celestia's attention shifted from me to Riley. "The same goes for you, young filly, but on the contingent your parents agree to it or you're of legal age at the time."

"Don't forget their parents, Pr—Celestia," Twilight said.

"Of course. Saffron, please let your parents know that, should they wish to retire in Equestria, they are most welcome." Though she kept calling me by my full name, I kinda couldn't be angry at Celestia for it. After all, she had just made sure I could stay if I wanted.

"Why don't I take you back home?" Spike asked.

The moment Spike spoke, Riley looked conflicted. Her head snapped back and forth between Celestia and Spike so much I was worried she might actually hurt herself.

I reached my own hoof out to Riley. "C'mon, squirt. We've bothered Princess Celestia enough. Remember what Mom said about bugging Uncle Jeff?"

The conflict on my little sister's face was kinda cute, but she eventually let out a sigh and walked back to me. "Bye Princess Celestia, Princess Twilight!"

"Goodbye, Riley Ree, Saffron Ree," Princess Celestia said.

As Spike turned to walk out with us, I paused. "I can carry her home if you want to hang around here?"

Spike blew a double-barrel of smoke from his nostrils. "It's appreciated, Saf, but a dragon is nothing if he doesn't see things completed himself. Hop up, Riley."

Alright. As he stretched out his wing for Riley to scamper up, I had just a little wing-envy. Everything about Spike was built on a scale ponies just couldn't reach. He was huge. We walked past all the guards and ponies waiting to see Celestia, and as we reached the door that led outside Spike started to unfold his wings again.

Author's Note

Princess Twilight, Luna, Celestia and Cadance: with the revelation that humans who move to Equestria transform into ponies, increased lifespan included, are you making preparations for a surge of immigration requests?

"Don't look at me, this has nothing to do with the Crystal Empire," Cadance said.

And with that, Luna, Twilight, and Cadance all looked at Celestia. "Ambassador Ree and myself agreed that we should keep things restricted for now. Without just cause, we are not issuing any visas except diplomatic ones. We would prefer it if we could get a good understanding of what culture shock, technology shock, and misconceptions ponies and humans will have in each other's worlds."

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Lab

Chapter 19 Clair Ree

Things calmed after the colonel returned to Earth. Captain Bryant received an immediate field promotion to major, and with that the military side of things changed. It was like night and day with him in charge. He still followed the book to the letter, but it was a book he and I both compromised to make.

Between meetings—nearly a month after Philip got his cutie mark—I was sitting down and running a hoof over my flat belly. Another child.

The stupidest thing in all this was how anxious Philip was. Philip. He'd been the man in my life for so long I couldn't contemplate looking at somepony else without—Did I just think somepony?

"Ambassador Clair?" The question from Sergeant Brenner through my intercom broke me from my introspection.

"Go ahead, sergeant," I said after depressing the little button.

"Princess Flurry Heart is here to see you, ma'am."

"Send her right in. Thank you, Sean." It never hurt to know the names and details of those working with you. As Flurry walked into the room, I put on my brightest smile. "Good afternoon, Flurry. I hope you've had a good day?"

"Ugh. Don't ask. I spent all morning with one of Mom's ponies. They're building an electrical grid in the Crystal Empire already, and they want to know what exchange rate you'll take for a telephone system." Flurry practically collapsed into one of the chairs opposite me. "You'd think that would take a few minutes for them to say?"

When she paused, I figured I'd have to make a guess. "Three hours?"

"Four! They kept talking while I was eating lunch. If I didn't have this appointment, I'd still be there." Reaching into a saddlebag that was partially hidden by her armor (that she always wore), Flurry lifted the paperwork out with her own hoof and passed it over to me.

Scanning the pages, it took me a few moments to get past the flowery greetings and reach the meat. "That's trading really cheap, but I'm prepared to go that low. Have them draft up a purchase order and I'll send it back home for bidding."

"What?!" Flurry looked at me with despair evident. "No, no, no! You have to deliberate for days."

"They can't be that bad. You take the paperwork to them and tell them it's accepted, then move on." I gestured at the papers I'd signed. "Then they'll leave you alone while—"

"Clair, you don't get it. They followed me all the way here. They are waiting outside to ask how long it will take—again. Can't I just hide in here until the equipment arrives?"

I waited. I counted to twenty while Princess Flurry Heart sat opposite me looking panicked. I'd heard about what she could do to a pony by overhearing the marines. Flurry Heart in a panic was not a common thing, apparently.

"Well, I guess you can seek asylum here. There'll be a lot of paperwork, and I'll have to notify Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Twilight, Prince-Consort Shining Armor, and Empress Cadance. No doubt there'll be political ramifications since we'll be harboring a fugitive." Throughout, I managed to keep a straight face until Flurry's mouth dropped open in shock. "I'm joking, Flurry. You're welcome to spend the afternoon in at the embassy. As always, you're my guest here."

"You had me right up until contacting my dad. You don't know him that well if you think he wouldn't be down here, banging on the doors, demanding to see his little filly."

Mention of the word filly caused me to think back to the topic just before Flurry had come in.

Flurry sat up a bit straighter and reached out with her hoof to gather up the paperwork. It was odd that she tended to use her hooves so much when she had magic. "What's the matter? Did I say something wrong?"

"Everything weighing on my mind. You don't deserve to deal with it too."

"Clair, come on. I like to think we're good friends now, and what do friends do?" Damn but she sounded cheerful. When I blew out a snort, she laughed. "So, tell me."

I could almost hear the colonel's raised voice cautioning me on sharing information with the enemy. "I'm pregnant. We're pretty much ninety-nine percent sure. I'm eating more, I'm a little moody, and I had some really bad mornings for a few weeks—about the same stuff I went through with Riley and Saffron."

"See, now your news makes me want to throw you a party, but your everything else cautions against it. How does this complicate things?"

"How doesn't it?" I reached over and punched the button on the intercom with the edge of my hoof. "Sergeant Brenner, does the coffee pot have enough for a few mugs?"

"Ma'am, we are United States marines. The coffee pot will only run dry when we're all dead." That was the other thing that the colonel's departure had heralded—jokes.

Climbing out of my seat, I was far too self conscious of what my midsection felt like. There was no way I was feeling a foal yet, but—I just thought foal instead of baby. Pony really had a way of getting in your head. "We're only meant to be here for another eight months. Then we find out if Jeff was voted president again, and if so we may get another four years."

"A pregnancy takes eleven and a half months." Flurry walked with me to the door and used her magic to open it.

"Thanks. And that's the problem. I'll be almost at term when that first deadline looms. Would it be safe to go back like that?" I nodded to Sergeant Brenner as we walked past him. "We won't need an escort, sergeant."

"You beat me to asking, ma'am." He was, like most of the older marines with us, a very handsome stallion—but he wasn't Philip.

The nearest room to my office had been converted into a break room, and was now my target to find some of the delightfully horrid and bitter—My brain farted. "I forgot. I can't drink coffee while I'm pregnant."

"Would you like to go somewhere else? I can go a day without coffee," Flurry Heart said.

"No, no. No sense in us both depriving ourselves. Philip's been brewing me this herbal tea he found. He said it's good for me—which is definitely his thing now. It's phenomenal how he can just know what I'm craving before I even do." The break room had another marine present, currently drinking his coffee in the corner. I nodded to him (Chief Peter Powell).

Flurry cheated, of course, using her magic to quickly pour out her own cup of coffee while hunting around for something else. "That's the amazing thing about cutie marks. Using the magic of your special talent is not only extra effective at what it does, it makes you feel good doing it. Where's your tea?"

"It's in the top cupboard. It does make me wonder if anyone else will get one. It was quite the shock when he got his." It felt wrong to just watch her making the drinks, but she could do it a lot faster and easier than I could. I'd literally be getting in the way if I tried to help. "Is there anything I can help with?"

"No, but I think there's something I can help you with." Flurry poured one mug full of the black tar the Marines comically called coffee, and brewed another of tea before she began the process of preparing the coffee pot to be able to brew some more. "The other group of humans have been asking for access to you. When I told them they don't need my permission, they seemed to think that I was some kind of shortcut to getting to meet you."

"You are, but only because you're good at weeding out things that aren't as useful to us. While it would be wonderful to open full free trade, we still don't have the power back home to send more than a shipment every few days, and that's with a group of unicorns—or one alicorn—there helping to focus and charge it." I only spelled it out because I'd had to do so frequently lately. Truth be told, Flurry knew as much about the troubles of our method of transportation as I did.

"That's exactly what they want to talk about. Their portal is much more continuous, but requires constant power from both sides to keep operational. Aunt Twilight—" Flurry stopped herself and blushed. Silly, it wasn't like their family planned the nepotism that happened. "Princess Twilight powered both sides herself at first, but when she moved onto other things they were left trying to establish a power source of their own to support their side of the portal."

Taking my cup of tea from her, I sat down to listen more. The tea was well brewed, but not as well as Philip makes it.

"A young scientist there, ironically also named Twilight Sparkle, came up with a machine that could harvest magic from the air. Not a lot, but it was scalable, and they have done so to keep their portal open all the time." The more she described, the more interested I became. "So when they came to me seeking to talk to you, I thought you'd want to know about that."

"You were right. If they want something, trading that information for it would make them the highest priority for our trade. Even if it doesn't work, I'll try to include as much background knowledge that our scientists will be able to use it. Knowledge costs us almost nothing to ship." Despite the slightly different taste to Philip's brewing method, the tea did its job and soothed my nerves. "When would be a good time to see them?"

"How full is your afternoon?"

"Nothing that can't be moved around. Are you saying they'd come—"

Flurry shook her head. "No. You'd be best going to them. They'll think that establishes their seniority among the human races here, though in truth they've only had an established embassy for ten years."

"'Only'." I rolled my eyes a little, but smiled. "I know that's a short while for you, but it still takes a little work for me to get around. When I return home, I can expect about twenty or thirty more years of politics before I'll need to retire.

"Arrange it, if you could, or do you mean we could just go?" Ponies, I had to constantly remind myself, could and would just turn up unannounced. We'd had an apple merchant swing by the house every morning for several weeks. At first it had been a stallion who'd spend hours chatting with Philip, lately it had been a young mare whom I remembered from the first big dinner event, though I couldn't for the life of me remember why she was there.

Drinking down the coffee with every indication she was enjoying it, Flurry nodded. "They've been here long enough to know our ways. Pretend you're more pony than you feel, Claire, and they'll accept any crazy thing you do."

"I'll need an escort." I turned to look at Chief Powell.

"Ma'am. I'll get that arranged ASAP. Any preferences?" Powell lifted his own mug of coffee up and drained it.

"Ceremonial. Just one will be fine, Chief." If I failed to miss the smile he gave at me using his proper title, I wouldn't be half the politician I was. Powell was a reliable man, but proud too. "Flurry will be there in her capacity as a neutral observer."

The chief carried his mug to the sink and rinsed it out. His dexterity with just his hooves was excellent, as was his ability to walk on three—something that was still a little hard for me. "You hardly need a guard with Lieutenant Heart along, ma'am, but ceremony it is."

When Chief Powell was gone, I shot Flurry a grin and a raised eyebrow. "I've not heard them call you by rank before."

"They were nervous about me training them—they thought they would hurt me. A few barked commands and an explanation that a lieutenant in the E.U.P. Guard was hardly going to shatter like glass later, and they perked up. We started the hoof-to-hoof training on Monday." Flurry smiled like the memory was a good one. Soldiers, sometimes, completely confused me with their sense of camaraderie. "How long will they take to get somepony ready?"

"Not long. I admit I thought your rank was more ceremonial, that you were a diplomat first and foremost. Though I'm again reminded you're the same age as I am. Sorry, but this timescale continues to confuse me."

It was definitely one thing to know the facts, and another to square them away in my head so that I understood them on an instinctive level. The honest truth was that if I thought about it too much, Celestia, Luna, and to a lesser extent Twilight and Flurry were not only all older than me, but would live for more centuries than I could count on my fingers and toes—or hooves, as is currently the case.

Scale was dangerous to humans, I once read in a paper, we were bad at it. One, ten, hundred—all concepts that were easy to understand. Twenty-nine thousand days in the average lifetime. That was a number I could get my head around because I could use basic math to bring it to terms I understood. Ten million days? That was a tough number to break down. Thirty thousand years. That was nearly a hundred times older than the US. That wasn't a number I could really establish in my head and hope it would stick.

But I had to.

"You look like you just got hit in the head by a sack of worry. Is something wrong, Clair?"

Also, despite this immense weight of ages, ponies were the nicest politicians I'd ever met. Maybe that was their plan? They were trying to ruin my hopes of returning home and picking up where I'd left off. A few years here and I'd be a soft wad of meat in the American political shark-pool. "Trying to update a monkey brain to deal with pony-land. The usual problem, Flurry."

"Didn't I tell you that I wouldn't hold any of that against you? I'm having as much trouble coming to terms with your lifespans too. These humans we're visiting, they're closer to our age span, but they use your style of schooling—or so Twilight said.

"I'll be completely honest, I've had about as much to do with them as you have, and only know what I had to learn. We haven't been able to do much trade with them, mostly because their portal turns everything fancy they bring with them into equivalents from our world. They bring a computer, wind up with a filing cabinet. Less than ideal.

"Their magic works different to ours, but it's technically the same stuff. Much less pony and much more…"

"Ook-ook?" I asked.

"What's that mean?"

"It's the sound monkeys make on our world." It had seemed like a good joke at the time. "But, I can work with that. If there's a doubt as to it working at all, I can leverage that to get more knowledge from them that might work."

"Sounds good. I see Sergeant Brenner at the door in his fancy uniform, so that must mean your escort is ready." Flurry nodded her head toward the door before finishing her coffee in a swig.

The tea, despite not being made by Philip, still tasted too good to—I downed it anyway. I went to wash my cup, only for Flurry to pluck it from my hoof with magic and give me a smile as she cleaned it and her own. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Clair."

I turned back to Sergeant Brenner and gave him a nod—getting one back. "Sergeant, if you wouldn't mind leading the way to…" I looked at Flurry.

"The chancery of the other human world. It's in the Mountain Quadrant, outer ring. They weren't as enchanted by sweeping views as you were." Flurry ruffled her wings as if to remind us that yes, Canterlot was technically floating by magic. The connection to the mountain was more of an anchor than a support.

"I think I've seen the place you're talking about. Has two ponies standing out the front at all times—kinda like us." Sergeant Brenner turned toward the hall that led to the front of the chancery, and I moved to follow him.

The chancery of the other human embassy was about as impressive as ours, but Flurry had told me on the way that they technically didn't own theirs. Score one point to me. I let Sergeant Brenner march right up to the guards out front before stepping up beside him.

"Excuse me, I believe your ambassador wanted a little chat?" I asked.

Both guards seemed to look bored until I heard Flurry stop beside me. With an alert stance, one of the guards addressed me, "Of course, ma'am. Who should I tell him is calling?"

"Ambassador Ree of the United States of America." Having learned my lesson with Saffron's friend, I tried to avoid using my fake smile—ponies could pick it as fake. Instead, I thought about how nice it would be to get home and have Philip make me a cup of tea and another of his wonderful meals. He'd blossomed since getting his cutie mark, and to see my sexy husband acting like he was a twenty-something was more than enough to put an actual smile on my face.

The guard seemed surprised, like he was expecting others to march up to their front door with an escort and a princess at their side. "Ambassador Ree. Please, come this way. The ambassador has left instructions that you're to be welcomed."

Flurry cleared her throat. "And if you don't mind, I'll be joining Ambassador Ree today. If that's acceptable?"

"Of course, Princess Flurry Heart. Right this way." The guard turned and headed inside, leaving us to follow.

With no other option, I directed Sergeant Brenner forward and followed him inside. Their chancery looked far better decorated than ours. Paintings of landscapes and clouds lined two of the walls while a huge tapestry covered the opposite wall from the front door. Our escort led us down a side hallway and to what had probably once been the sitting room of a suite.

A very officious-looking mare sat behind a secretarial desk in the middle of the room, and looked up as we entered. "Sergeant Brace, I thought—Princess Flurry Heart! Ambassador Deal will be happy to see you shortly. Who should I tell him you've brought with you?"

Flurry looked like she was having a great time—beaming with excitement and a touch of retribution. Stepping to the side, she gestured to me with a wing. "It's more the other way around. May I present, Clair Ree, Ambassador to Equestria for the United States of America." She'd messed up the formal address, but I had no issue with that. "I believe your ambassador had asked to see her when there was time in her busy schedule?"

The change in the mare behind the counter took nearly a full second, but was profound. All her attention was now on me, and she looked like she was worried she'd offended me in some way. "Sorry, Ambassador Ree, I'll see if Ambassador Bound is ready to see you."

She gave the kind of fake smile that someone who hadn't been dealing with a lot of local ponies would give and left through a side door.

"How long's she been here?" I asked.

"Two weeks. They seem to have a lot less trouble handling four legs, it's like their portal rewires their brain or something. She still tries to smile too much." Flurry shot me a look that told me everything I needed to know.

"Nailed it. Her smile is too fake," I said. "Took me a while, but I've learned that if you can't smile, don't force it."

Flurry nodded. It was a lesson she'd struggled to teach me. "Princess Celestia can fake it. I don't know how, but she can do it perfectly."

"Probably practi—" I cut short when I saw the door the secretary used open again.

The secretary came out first with her plastic smile firmly in place, and was followed by a unicorn stallion who had a much more real smile. "Ambassador Ree. It's good to finally meet you. We met briefly at various dinners, but I think you were a little rushed at the time."

Briefly recalling seeing him during the streams of introductions, I fell back to the name his secretary had dropped earlier. "It has been quite the experience, Ambassador Bound. I heard you wanted to talk about the possibility of trade?"

His smile changed from happy to excited. Maybe he'd spent too long as a pony, or maybe he'd just gone native in a short period of time, but the ambassador looked to have the worst poker face ever. Or he was bluffing. Or he was playing me.

"Of course! Right this way. Will Princess Flurry Heart be joining us?" I'll give him credit, it was a question both to myself and to Flurry, but it wasn't one we'd disagree on. Flurry's assistance had been invaluable so far, and I wasn't about to turn her away just because I wasn't actually dealing with ponies.

I turned and looked at Flurry, and she smiled and nodded. "I think," I said, "Her Royal Highness will be joining us."

"Please, ladies, follow me." Bound led the way back into his office, which was through two doors—one after the other—that were likely soundproofed. This was standard stuff, which was oddly comforting given the circumstances.

The best bit was that Sergeant Brenner raised an eyebrow at me.

"Thank you, Sergeant, you can wait outside," I said in response to his silent question.

"Yes, Ambassador Ree." This! This was the kind of subtlety Richards had lacked, and had left no room for. I must remember to check up on what happened to her. Neither of us deserved to be together here.

The ambassador's secretary closed the doors behind us and left the three of us to find our seats.

Bound gestured to a set of couches to the side, apparently eschewing his big desk. "Please, won't you join me over here? My desk is comfortable, but I'd swear whoever made that chair designed it with the express purpose of encouraging its user to seek other places to rest."

Flurry and I both chuckled at the appropriate time and found ourselves spots on the couches. Each had their own—a strategic placement, of course, to show we each were our own powers. It meant, however, that it would be much harder to hide body language.

"Power," Bound said. "Not political power, of course, but magical power. Our own portal took a princess to maintain for any length of time, and I'm sure as you know, that level of dedicated support, while appreciated…" He nodded to Flurry. "… is not something either of us can expect to be maintained.

"Our own world is not as rich in magic as Equestria, nor is it as poor as Earth, which is why we were perfectly placed to run experiments and develop the equipment needed to explore harvesting magic and processing it to maintain a gate's operation.

"Through speaking to Princess Twilight Sparkle, I've been informed you are having trouble powering your own."

It wasn't an offer yet—it was just a statement. These were his facts. Correction: these were the facts he was willing to share.

Flurry cleared her throat to get our attention. "The energy generation system they've designed will work with the power storage crystals established on Earth, however whether they are effective in the magic-scarce environment is another question. I believe there will be a multitude of technical issues involved, though thankfully none will be derived from transporting the equipment from here to Earth."

"That's a big if," I said. "The difference between our world and Equestria is great enough that it's physically dangerous to come here without taking precautions.

"But you don't want to hear about my concerns yet. What you want to hear is me asking—what can we do in exchange for this?"

Bound let another of his smiles "The computer technology of both our worlds—from what examples I've seen you furnish others—is roughly equivalent. I'm sure we could outfit a group of scientists with material for a hundred years of research papers about the differences and gain nothing for either side. A treaty to trade scientific information would be fine, but what we would dearly like in trade is physical units."

Gears clicked and I realized his problem. The reports on his world's portal said that it always translated matter to the local equivalents—Flurry had even reminded me before this meeting—which meant he hadn't been able to bring computers, printers, or any other modern equipment that can make an office work at hundreds of times faster than a pre-information-age office could.

"You and I both know that just giving you a pile of computer hardware, solar cells, and batteries won't be enough. You'll need replacements." This was utter truth and the bane of any such installation. "You'll need this to be an ongoing deal." I smiled, feeling more like a shark than ever. My smile was an actual happy one because I knew that I wasn't dealing from a weak position.

"That," Ambassador Bound said, "puts our cards on the table, then. We both understand the weaknesses of our deals and the strength of our offers, shall we begin discussing specifics?"

The deal struck wound up being quite effective for both sides. Their world—oddly called Pedestria—would supply fully manufactured equipment to begin harvesting more energy from Earth to fuel the storage crystals that let us send things here from Earth, and we would provide IT equipment for their embassy and their manufacturing center in Ponyville.

Both sides, too, would provide ongoing maintenance for any equipment provided (mostly because pony hooves were not gentle on any input equipment).

The situation would also make travel back and forth much easier, which had resulted in the first request from medical to come through—they wanted several specimens from the first transfer team to go through the reversal procedure to check on their health.

The four "young" marines all volunteered immediately as did Frank Hollings, but they wanted a civilian too. Philip had, of course, volunteered. Which was why I was taking a day off in Ponyville to see him off.

I tried again. "You didn't have to—"

"Clair, I would not have you going in your condition, and neither Saf nor Riley deserve to be pulled out of school for this." Philip kissed my cheek. Normally, in public and back on Earth, we wouldn't be nearly this open with affection. Equestria had gotten into our heads to some extent, but there was also the fact we'd be apart for almost a week while they ran tests on him. The kiss was too short. "It won't be long."

I let out a wicker, something I'd found myself doing when close to Philip like this. "I know, but I'll miss you."

"You'll miss dinner, you mean. Don't forget, you've got—"

I rolled my eyes and kissed him to shush his third recital. "I know. Saf and Riley promised to make sure I'm eating right, remember?"

He closed his mouth on whatever he was going to continue saying.

Starlight Glimmer cleared her throat from the doorway. She'd been standing there for several moments, trying to look anywhere but at us, but she'd obviously exceeded her tolerance for our delays. "Mr. Ree? We're ready to send you now." Yup, she sounded a little annoyed, which for a pony meant they were possibly nearing the end of their tether.

"I'm done with him for now. There's only so many ways you can tell a stallion you love him before he finally starts to get it." My attention never wavered from Philip—damn but I was going to miss him. "Go on, before I issue an order to keep you here."

Philip marched out of the room behind Starlight, and I couldn't help myself—I had to follow them. The hallways of the castle in Ponyville always seemed warm, the crystal glowing softly with the sun's rays. Today it felt cold. Ugh, why did I have to hate saying goodbye?

The portal room was now dedicated to its purpose. Moving it had proved impossible, so Starlight had done the best she could to incorporate it into the castle.

"Okay, Mr. Ree, could you stand on one of the circles? This will take a moment to build up enough power again to do another transmogrification teleport." Starlight moved to a spot to one side—a circle apart from the others that was obviously not part of the teleportation circle. "We also need to wait for the pad to clear at the other end. Standard procedure is a five minute interval."

"How long's it been since the last group?" I asked.

"About ten minutes. I was giving you a little extra time since the crystals hadn't recharged yet anyway." Starlight did something with her magic, a glowing pattern appearing before her face that looked like some kind of readout. "They should be good now. Are you ready?"

"Yeah." Philip was looking right at me. I wondered briefly how it would feel for him to be a human again after being so long as a pony. "I'm read—"

Starlight Glimmer did her thing and my husband was gone.

Author's Note

Twilight: considering the fundamental nature of Cutie Marks, and the way they intertwine so thoroughly with their owner's physical, psychological, and magical being; what do you suppose the results of attempting to revert a transformed and subsequently Marked human might be?

"That has me worried, but I cannot interfere in another nation's actions—only where such actions would endanger Equestrian citizens or Equestria itself." Twilight's ears tucked back and she closed her eyes while taking a deep breath. "Princess Celestia had a long list of things I had to promise not to do. They may look like ponies when they're here, but I have to remember they are not beholden to Equestria." Her ears sprang forward and her face took on a more relaxed look. "She even had a test at the end."

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Lab

Chapter 20 Philip Ree

I'd been expecting the same debilitating transformation—in reverse—as what had brought me to Equestria. The slow-motion pulling and twisting, adjusting my body to fit another world's norms. Which is why it was so surprising when it didn't happen.

I blinked at the crowd of people standing around me. Humans standing around me. The odd thing was they were all taller than I was, and when my brain finally caught up with me, I realized I was still a pony.

"What happened?"

"Did a pony wander onto the platform?"

"Who is that?"

"Where's Philip Ree?"

Pony bodies crowded around me on the platform. I realized it would be the unicorns that operated the machine. They were guiding me—trying to move me off the platform. Right. Just like Starlight said. Five minutes.

"I'm Philip Ree. What happened?" I asked.

The whole room went quiet. The military people to one side—including a group of five soldiers who seemed to have shiny, silver blankets around their shoulders—stared at me incredulously, along with a team that looked like paramedics, and now even the ponies.

"What?" I shook my head this time to clear the last fuzziness of the teleport. "Why didn't it work? What happened?"

Of all those present, it was a pony (a unicorn) who walked over and put a hoof on my shoulder. "We'll get it worked out. You need to move off the pad in case Starlight Glimmer sends anything else." It wasn't just pragmatic, it was something I needed to hear—somepony telling me to do something.

Walking with her, I exited the side of the teleport platform in a bit of a daze. I could hear people talking all around. Most of them were just talking to each other, but two voices were speaking a lot more directly—one was talking into a dictaphone (the man looking to be a civilian in his sixties, the other was talking into a telephone.

While the older man was talking into his recorder, it was the other I was focused on. He wore a black suit and stood as tall as the soldiers in the room. There was a name for men like this—muscle. "Mr. President, we've had an incident. No fatalities, but Ambassador Ree's husband didn't change back. — Yes sir, I'll escort him up now."

Secret Service didn't usually play the part of errand boys, but I guess under the circumstances I could be counted as a VIP. When the big man in black approached me, I nodded to him. "We're going to see Jeff?"

"Yeah. The doctors can come too, but the president wants to speak with you." He turned and scanned the room for possible problems, then started walking. His size meant that there was a convenient gap opening up in the throng of people in the room, so I quickly chased after him.

Most of the medical people were arguing or looking over the group of (once more) thirty-something-aged marines and Frank, only one noticed me exiting the room and gave chase.

"Mr. Ree! You can't leave before you're fully examined to ensure you aren't—Mr. Ree!" The woman chasing me held a clipboard and sounded insistent. "Mr. Ree!"

"Mr. Philip Ree has been instructed to follow me, ma'am. You are permitted to examine him when we reach our destination," Mr. Tall and Broad Shouldered said. He had a deep voice, but there was an air of gravel to it that made me wonder if he'd broken it in shouting at cadets in a training center somewhere.

"R-Right. Can I ask questions on the way there?"

"So long as it doesn't slow us down."

I was too used to only having ponies in power being taller than me—having just two humans standing over me already made me feel like they should be in charge. Come on, Philip, shake that off. "What can I help you with…"

"Dr. Peters."

I turned my head and looked up at Dr. Peters. She was a much younger woman—probably in her late 20s early 30s—with deep red hair and a skin tone somewhere around tan, she sported piercing brown eyes. If she were a doctor, that meant she wasn't an idiot. "Okay, Dr. Peters, what do you want to know?"

"I've been studying your reports." The blasted reports they had us send. Be honest, they said, Everything you write will be held in the strictest confidence. Dr. Peters continued, "Your comments on the sex drive of stallions outstripping mares intrigued me. I'd like, if you could, to sit down and discuss the various methods each society you mentioned uses to offset this physiological imbalance."

Of all the doctors to actually notice me leaving, and I get what's probably some psych looking to make a name for herself. "That's going to take a while, and besides, I've already put everything into my journal that I was told."

"The bars you mentioned. Do you have any details on them you didn't include? I-I'm sorry if it's a touchy subject, but this asymmetric sex drive is an important topic, and one I'd like to—" She cut off when Mr. Tall and Broad Shouldered turned sharply to the right into a corridor where two more of his brethren stood beside a door I knew.

"If you're asking me if my increased sex drive has gotten so bad as to make me seek extramarital assistance, you—like almost everyone who's met her—have underestimated my wife. What exactly are you a doctor of?" I walked toward the door of the Oval Office for the first time on four legs.

Dr. Peters was shoved in behind me before the door was closed.

Behind the Resolute Desk sat Jeff Miller, President of the United States of America. He was jotting down something before he looked up at me and smiled. "Philip. I heard there was a little mix-up with your trip. Wrong luggage or something?"

"Something like that, Jeff. You wanted a chat?" I walked to one of the couches and jumped up on it. Equestria had done no better than a comfortable couch for pony seating, and I had no compunction about possibly making a mess on the cushions of what was probably a hideously expensive piece of furniture with my hooves.

Jeff looked at Dr. Peters, then back to me. "Dr. Sandra Peters. When I asked for medical staff to be allowed to accompany Philip, I intended on having a physician who could assess his physical wellbeing." The disapproval in Jeff's voice surprised me. What was this Dr. Peters' story? "So, what do you think happened, Philip?"

"If you're asking could Starlight Glimmer have messed up and not transferred me properly, the answer's no. If there's anyone I've met who's anally retentive about doing everything just right, it's Starlight Glimmer." I thought about the other possibilities. "So other things it could be…"

When I didn't say anything, Jeff raised an eyebrow. "Glad to see I'm not missing anything."

"The only thing different between us is our ages." Without a second thought, I reached out with my magic to pluck up a glass on the table beside me and took a drink. It wasn't until Dr. Peters' stare practically bored a hole in my head that I realized magic might not be all that common here… yet.

"Your cutie mark." Dr. Peters said. That's when it hit me she wasn't staring at my head but my flank. "Could that have tied you more firmly to your—uh—current… form…" As soon as she realized she had both our attention, Dr. Peters lost all track of her thought. "Sorry."

"So far it's the only explanation I've heard that didn't start with 'maybe there was a problem with'," Jeff said. "But until someone with more letters after their name comes up with a better idea, that will have to be considered."

I turned to look at my flank and the cutie mark there. It had come to be something amazing—something I could rely on. It was, like everypony had said, very personal magic. And it also itched because I knew Saffron would be grabbing the nearest edible thing, Riley wouldn't eat anything until she was actually starving, and Clair would snack on the wrong things all—Stop it, Philip. Clair and Saffron are adults, technically. "If it is, then I'm a pony now."

Could I literally just say that? Just acknowledge that even when this was all over with, I'd be a pony for the rest of—of a very long life? This would need a very long talk with Clair and the kids to sort out. Saffron's plans I already knew, and I was fairly sure Riley would stay if we gave her a chance. Clair—Clair is pregnant with a foal.

My emotions were sloshing about like an ocean. So I was stuck as a pony forever. Well, it wasn't like I could change anything if that was the case.

"Philip?" Jeff's voice pulled me from my distracted thoughts and I looked up at him. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah." My voice sounded all odd—cracked and worn out. I took another sip of water. "Sorry, Jeff, some heavy thoughts there. What did you want to know?"

"Everything about your cutie mark. How you got it? What it does? What's the likelihood of others getting one? Are they removable?" Jeff Miller had a way of speaking when he was wearing his president hat. He was wearing his president hat right now.

"It comes when you find that one thing you're really good at—You've read the reports?" I asked.

"Pretend I haven't."

"It's almost seen as a ritual by some young ponies. They try to experience as many different things as they can in the hope of finding what they're good at. Their school system is practically built around this coming of age thing.

"So, when it happens…" Don't do it, Philip. Talking about getting your cutie mark is like offering a drink to an alcoholic. "It's kinda personal, but that talent becomes part of you as if it had always been. My talent is knowing what ponies—people too, probably—need. Jeff, you…" Even here on Earth my talent was able to do its thing. "You need some bananas. Potassium probably. High blood pressure?"

The look I got back from Jeff said all I needed to know about that.

"I didn't know, but when Clair started—" My eyes slid to Dr. Peters.

"Dr. Peters has been vetted, Philip. Doctor, I trust nothing you hear in this room will leave it?" Jeff asked.

Dr. Peters nodded, then shook her head. "Mr. President, I wouldn't—"

I didn't bother waiting for her to continue whatever she was going to say. "Clair's pregnant. The moment she started having cravings, I knew what they were. Probably before she knew she was having them. It's been the most surreal of all our pregnancies. Ponies' bodies carry offspring a lot easier than human ones."

"This position may outlast me, Philip. Clair's position, that is. If this,"—Jeff gestured at me—"is the normal outcome of too much times spent in Equestria, we can't just allow people to go there as they please. It will be considered a permanent assignment."

I thought about that. What it would mean, and how things could be if American ponies came back to live this side. So far ponies hadn't shown much interest in exploring Earth, which meant the number of ponies wandering around America was just a little less than one. How would a family react to their grandfather coming home as a young stallion?

"That's up to you—and your successor—to handle. Clair told you about the offer we got?" I used my magic to fill my glass back up from a pitcher of water and took a sip of it.

"Too honest by half, your wife, but that's why I asked her. You're referring to the offer by Princess Celestia that the moment your retire, you are granted dual citizenship? It's not common, and certainly not done here. I've kept that side of things quiet, you understand?" Jeff asked, looking at Dr. Peters.

"S-Sir, why am I still in the room?" Dr. Peters asked. "You keep hinting that I'm a liability being here, but you keep me here."

"Because so far you're the only person who's come up with a plausible answer for Philip's condition. It fits the situation nicely, and no one else has managed to jump to that conclusion yet." Jeff tapped the side of a screen on his desk. "I'm reading the reports from downstairs as they come in, no one has any clue."

Jeff, I had to remind myself, was not just a good talker, but he was also a very clever man. He was following our conversation in here and reading reports as they were being submitted, and I could bet he wasn't missing a trick in either. "It's good to have a new pair of eyes on something."

"That's—That's why I'd like to volunteer to go." Dr. Peters looked terrified, but at the same time she looked excited. "To Equestria. You said you want a new pair of eyes, I can—"

Jeff shook his head. "There's two problems with that, doctor. The first being that given you'd be working in your field, you'd probably get your cutie mark very soon. The other is that you're not thirty-five yet, which means you'd be a young pony. You saw the photos of our marines?"

She looked more distracted now than argumentative. I'd not dealt with a lot of science types, but Dr. Peters seemed to fit perfectly in the stereotype of scientist genius jumping around a conversation. I waited to hear what she had to say.

"Dr. Peters?" Jeff asked.

"Could it have to do with his age? The other marines were all much younger. Maybe there's something about the return process that doesn't work for older people?" Dr. Peters pulled a notepad out and started jotting something down.

I thought about it more, and I think she was missing something bigger. "What about mindset?"

"The spell could read your intentions?" The way Dr. Peters said spell had grave implications for what she thought about actual magic.

"Pony magic is…" I rolled my eyes a little and waved my almost-empty glass of water in the air with my telekinesis. "… magic. The only thing about it that you should ever take for granted is if Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, or Moon Dancer ever tell you that magic does X, you better believe it does X."

Jeff cleared his throat. "They said it would turn people into ponies and then back into people again."

"Exactly," I said. "But what if the person winds up thinking so much like a pony, it can't tell they're human anymore?"

"You've gone native, Philip?"

"A little. I mean, you dunk someone into another culture and they're going to soak a bit up, Jeff." It was a slight admonishment, but he deserved it for that. Jeff in front of a camera was the smoothest of smooth—Jeff having a frank conversation was a deal less so.

"I deserved that. Okay, so what if that's the case? Spending time away from native ponies would help fix it, right?" Jeff looked at Dr. Peters.

Dr. Peters looked like a deer in headlights. Her eyes twitched a few times in what I hoped was her mentally rejoining the conversation. "Right. Being plunged back in human culture again could fix that. It's true that this might be the trigger—assuming the spell can read minds—since the soldiers haven't shown as quick an integration as Mr. and Mrs. Ree."

Nodding, Jeff gave me one of his best smiles. "It might be good publicity. Come back for a few days. We'll use the conversation again, and in the meantime you try to spend as much time as possible focusing on humans. Maybe some extra time with the troops over there."

I turned my head from Jeff to look at Dr. Peters. "Would that help?" If Jeff was going to keep her in as an authority, I was damn-well not going to give up my spare time for their little project without a fight if I could use her as a shield.

"Well, err, no. If you were trying to retain your existing ethnicity, it might help, but if this is the cause and you have already adapted, only full immersion back into your parent society would be of any benefit." I wasn't a politician, I couldn't stop my smile from getting wider at Dr. Peters' words—plus if this was all true and I had gone native to some extent, smiling was practically built-in now.

"Alright, alright. So bringing them all back here for a week would help test this?" Jeff asked.

My hackles raised. "Not Clair."

"Philip?"

"Sorry, Jeff, but even if you took personal responsibility for our unborn child, I would still fight you on this."

Fortunately for my opinion of Jeff Miller, President of the United States of America, he blanched. So he hadn't thought of that. "Sorry, you're right. So, you and the kids go through, with the transmogrifier, and Clair comes through without. Is that okay with you?"

"Fine with me, but there's a certain young man who is legally an adult now and doesn't have to listen to your orders. I'll ask him for you." The look of annoyance that flashed across Jeff's face was so fleeting but strangely legitimate. "You know, he hasn't even touched his computer?" It was rubbing his nose in it, but sometimes a dad likes to be proud of his son's achievements, and the way Saf had gotten under Jeff's skin—even without being here—was a treasure to me.

He heaved a sigh. "Ask him for me." The defeat Jeff showed was feigned, but I doubt it was by much. "Now then, with the future decided, we can get back to the present. Dr. Peters, I'm authorizing your travel to Equestria should you want to go. My secretary will be able to find you a stack of papers big enough to delay you for enough time for Philip to undergo a complete physical, at which point you will confirm to me before witnesses that you are aware this may be a one-way trip."

"But it's not, Mr. President." Gesturing toward me, Dr. Peters focused her attention on Jeff. "Even if I do get stuck, as it were, I can still do all my work once I return. Do we know if human-turned-pony live as long as native-born ponies?"

Jeff looked as surprised as I felt. "Very well, Dr. Peters. Please see yourself out, and do make sure not to breathe a word of this to anyone."

In the back of my head I made sure to take note to not feel any sympathy toward the woman when she winds up as a foal.

Standing up, Dr. Peters made her way out of the Oval Office and left Jeff and I alone.

"How's the gearing up for the election going, Jeff?"

All of Jeff's masks fell off and a tired-looking man in his sixties sat behind the Resolute Desk. "All the polls show it being a landslide. That medication Clair secured has completely turned around healthcare. A single pill that can kill viruses dead. From the flu to AIDS and more are quickly on the decline. At this point I could ask for a referendum to get a third term and I don't think even the other side would object—but I won't, and you didn't hear me say that."

I lifted my hoof to my mouth and made a zipping motion. "And all it costs you is a few computers. Why do you want us back?"

"All the reasons stated, Philip, and political. Clair Ree—your wife—is a hero. No ambassador in the history of the United States has gained so much recognition. The public want to see the woman—or the mare—who saved them from the pharmaceutical companies' clutches."

"And you'll be standing beside her, smiling and shaking her hoof."

Jeff just smiled at me, but it wasn't one of his fake smiles—this was a real one. "Philip, I won't lie to you about that. Even if the polls say I'm ahead at least 80% on whatever the other side will throw at me, I won't take chances."

"So we come for a week and parade around. Jeff, I'm glad you're not a bastard, because you're so good at this." I drained the last of my water. "I'm assuming that once word gets out that Dr. Peters has permission, you're going to be busy fending off similarly enthusiastic requests?"

"I've been fending them off constantly since your family safely arrived in Equestria. The smell never varies, Philip, only the depth. They'll all be stirred into a frenzy by your psych's permission, which is why I'll throw them a bone to keep them busy." The mask came back into place and Jeff gave me one of his very expensive campaign-smiles. Reaching for his intercom, he pressed a button on it. "Caroline? Please furnish Dr. Peters with every form you can think of to get her cleared to go to Equestria. Talk to the military if you need to. And also let the doctors know that Philip Ree will be at their disposal shortly."

"I'm not going to vote for you, Jeff."

Sampled, prodded, poked, sampled some more, and then asked to put blocks in holes. The stay-over on Earth was only for two days, but already I was sick of it. It was subtly harder to use my magic, or so I'd found, and I'd managed to get my lunch break off to go down and talk to the unicorns who run this side of the portal.

Getting away from the doctors was the hard bit, however. After Jeff had arranged me a special pass, the security guys let me go pretty much wherever I wanted so long as it wasn't somewhere actually secure. The room the portal was in was such a secure room, but the guards apparently knew that I was allowed in there—or they mistook me for one of the ponies working here.

Inside there was a lot of work going on. They looked to be unpacking the equipment the other group of humans had provided. Apparently it involved lots of crystals and framework, as well as a huge set of instructions the ponies were trying to decipher.

I walked over to them. "Hi, anything I can help with?"

A bunch of heads shot up, and it wasn't until all of them were staring at me before I realized I'd spoken in their language. "You're Ambassador Ree's husband, aren't you?" The speaker was a stallion sporting a small tuft of beard on his chin and white markings around his lower legs.

Then it hit me. He was the unicorn who'd helped me off the teleport pad. "Sure am. Thanks for the help getting off the pad. I was a little surprised at still being a pony after the process."

"I'm sure when you get back, Starlight will have a lot to discuss with you. We'd investigate it ourselves, but the arrival of all this has had us busy trying to make head and tail of the instructions." What struck me as odd about his speech was mentioning Starlight Glimmer by just her first name. Ponies, in general, used full names most of the time. "My name's Sunburst."

I walked closer and clopped my forehoof against his offered one. "Philip Ree. Maybe I could help you with it? I wasn't very good with electronics and stuff, but Ikea furniture? I can do that."

"I-I don't know what Ikea furniture is, but the biggest problem we're having is these instructions aren't in Ponish." Sunburst levitated the papers over and held them up before me. He was right, they weren't in Ponish—or English. "Can you read them?"

"Not a word, but that's okay. These diagrams are pretty self-explanatory." And they were. Maybe ponies were just more dependent on written instructions, but the diagrams almost seemed like they assumed people wouldn't be able to read the writing. "Okay, you have the two big pillars done, but that one's backwards."

Sunburst followed the line of my hoof to one of the assembled pillars they were trying to bolt to a frame. "That explains a lot, actually. How can you tell it's backwards?"

Holding out the instructions with my magic—now that he'd passed them off to me—I poked the pillar they were having trouble with. "See the screw-lines there? You had the screws on the inner edge. Okay, so get that turned around and bolt it to the support frame with the—the middle-sized screws."

"We used all those on this other pillar. What screws were we meant to use?"

"Shorter, but not quite shortest, ones," I said. "Hey, have you noticed it's harder to use magic here?"

"Of course it is. Not only is there less ambient magic here, but what we do manage to scrape up is being sucked at by the teleportation crystal batteries. I'm surprised you can't feel it," Sunburst said.

We both watched the other unicorns undo all the wrong screws that were used and replace them with shorter ones. When it came to the nitty-gritty of assembling things, however, unicorns didn't need the tools to do it.

"Won't this make it worse?" I asked.

"That's what's going to be great about it. It uses magic from a different wavelength, so it should make it easier for us because it won't be sucking so much regular magic." Sunburst watched, along with me, while the device was further assembled. Given the assistants we had, us stepping in would have just gotten in the way. "Okay, everypony, now we can assemble the array."

Assembling the pieces together was a lot easier. The kit that the other humans had sent had spare parts in it, but they were all labeled as spares, so when it got to the last few pieces we knew exactly what we were working with. As soon as we bolted the last pillar into the array, I felt a strange tickling sensation along my horn. It wasn't painful or intense, but something was happening.

The last item was a harness with a group of cables coming out of it. Sunburst levitated the harness over the main crystal for the teleportation pad while the others all plugged each of the cables into the sockets at the base of the towers in the array.

There was a building sensation as the cables started to glow in various colors, and the odd tickle built to an itching for a moment, then was gone. "Was this it?"

Sunburst nodded. "Let's see if it works. Philip, do you know the spell to examine something's basic magic properties?"

"Spells?" Shaking my head, I looked at the big crystal that powered the teleporter. "I haven't exactly learned any spells yet."

"Okay, I guess you haven't been in Equestria that long. Let me adjust this one to let you see it too…" Pausing and staring off into space, Sunburst seemed completely distracted for a few moments before he lowered his head and blasted a gold beam out at the huge magic battery.

A mass of what should have been arcane and mysterious runes started floating in the air around the battery crystal, but the odd thing was I recognized them as being pony words. The power capacity was rising quickly. "What's the maximum capacity?"

"Well, at this rate it should be charged fully in a short time. Wow that's going up fast." Turning to look at me with a big smile, Sunburst passed me the handbook. "Thanks for the help!"

"You're welcome. This will mean I get to go back and see Clair a little sooner, hopefully."

A pang of homesickness hit me. It wasn't for Equestria itself (though the place was pretty good to live in), but for my wife and kids. Clair sometimes had business trips—when we lived on Earth—that would take a week or more to complete, but me leaving her to come here was different.

And, just like that, I decided I'd ask Jeff if I could go home right now. A glance around revealed none of the ubiquitous men in the black suits that were the defacto uniform of the Secret Service. "Excuse me, Sunburst, but I need to go talk to someone."

"Hey, um, I'll be going back to Equestria soon. If you'd like, I could take some time to teach you a little more magic. Starlight said that Moon Dancer had taught you a little while you were at the Castle of Friendship before you moved away."

My brain tried to do some mental gymnastics. Was Sunburst something to Starlight, was he just being nice, or was he coming on to me? Ever since the Shining Armor/Braeburn thing, I've been struggling to get my signals straight. Learning magic should be to sort out.

"That'd be great, actually. What with all the getting settled in in Canterlot, I haven't exactly had much time to talk to anypony about learning more. I'll hopefully be back in a minute." I slipped through the door by touching my badge to the reader and waiting for the soldier to check me through.

Walking back through the hallways of the White House, I stopped at the first Secret Service officer. "Is the president free?"

The man's eyes narrowed for a second, but he eventually lifted his wrist to his mouth and spoke quietly into it. A human wouldn't have heard what he said, but pony ears were better than what I'd been born with. "Station A 3. VIP one requests meeting with boss." There was a slight pause as he obviously got a reply, but my ears weren't quite that good. "Thank you, over." He lowered his hand down. "He's in a meeting right now, but if you start down there now, you shouldn't have to wait more than ten minutes."

"Thank you." It was force of habit to thank people, even before I spent enough time in Equestria that I smiled when I said it. I found myself prancing as I walked through the hallways of the West Wing. The building might have been designed for business, but getting to the garage wasn't the highest priority when it came to floor plan.

Up to the first floor I went, and then through to Jeff's secretary's office. When I walked inside, Caroline Rogers was behind her desk. "I'd like to see Jeff if I could."

"He's very busy, Mr. Ree, but he left instructions that you were to be seen as soon as possible whenever you wished. I'll let him know you're here." I didn't see what she did, of course, but I could assume she knew her job and had settled in a little better since Saf had tried to get his computer.

"Thank you. I hope you're having a nice day?" I found the nearest seat in the room (a comfortable-looking couch meant for waiting, apparently) and climbed up.

"Err. I guess." Caroline Rogers looked like I'd just surprised her. She paused for a few moments before I watched a smile brighten her face. "Actually, I am. You probably wouldn't be surprised that this job can be a little boring, but…"

She reached down under her desk and lifted up a gift basket of chocolates. "… I was given this today."

She'd seemed so dour last time, but now—Was this something to do with me being a pony? I know the pony bug had bitten me hard, but could it latch its teeth onto someone so quickly? "They look delicious. An admirer?" Why not go all in?

Caroline bit her lower lip and nodded. "After high school, I was too busy getting by with secretarial work to find anyone. I threw myself into my work… It was a surprise to find someone at work."

Okay, so maybe not completely the pony effect, there might be a bit of young love at play here. "Congratulations! He's a lucky guy." Hoo boy did that do the trick.

She blushed, laughed, and then quickly put the basket behind her desk. "The president will see you now." Reaching to a device on her desk, Caroline tapped some buttons. "I'm sending him in now."

"Good luck, Caroline!" I jumped up from the couch and walked toward the door that led from her office to the Oval Office, only to have Jeff open it from the other side.

"Come on in, Philip." Once I was inside and I used my magic to close the door behind me, Jeff gave me a questioning look. "First, I don't think I've ever seen Caroline smiling so much, what did you do to her?"

I laughed and jumped up on one of the meticulously clean and expensive-looking couches. "Pony charm. Or something like that. Don't you ever just feel a little happier when there's a smiling pony talking to you?"

"Maybe sending one of our more talented psychs to Equestria is a bad idea, or maybe having you and Clair stand beside me, smiling, is the best idea ever." Jeff sat on the opposite couch rather than retreat to his desk. "What can I do for you, Philip?"

"I want to go back to Equestria so I can try to get this mad plan of yours happening. Also, I want to see my wife." I didn't make it vehement and I didn't lose my temper, but the fact was I didn't like being away from Clair, and it had nothing to do with my sex drive. Love makes a man, or a stallion, do crazy things.

"I'd love to grant that request, I really would, but the pad won't be ready to go again until tomorrow."

"About that. You know the system we brought over with us to test?" I waited for his nod. "It's up and working. The teleporter should be fully charged in an hour or two."

"You're kidding? That's great news. How long will it take from full-empty to recharge? What kind of turn-around can we expect in future?"

"You already know everything I know. Their chief down there, Sunburst, let me see a lot of numbers about the big crystal battery, but then I needed to get him to explain it to me. The long and the short of it is, Clair and these other humans back in Equestria might have just pulled a master stroke out of this. So, can I go back in an hour or so?"

"Now, I know it'll upset the research guys, but I can probably get away with it if I promise to let them have greater access to you later." Jeff didn't have to make any such promise, and we both knew it, but he'd make it look like he was under the thumb just to keep the science types happy. "Do we have a deal?"

What else could I say? "Deal."

Author's Note

Clair: With a foal or filly on the way, would you seek to raise them as a pony, a human, or somewhere in-between?

"We're deciding on that. Given the circumstances, I could request a transfer back—and set back relations between our nations by months or possibly years if the wrong person replaces me. Staying means I will be able to continue my work, but will have a completely new experience to go through. I... I don't know what to settle on yet. I need to talk to Princess Twilight and some physicians." Clair Ree looked a little weary, but at the same time a presence of stony determination backed her words.

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Lab

Chapter 21 Saffron Ree

I knew it wasn't Dad or Mom's fault, but there wasn't anyone else to take this out on. "Why, though?"

Old habits that I'd kinda forgotten while learning to fly came bubbling up to the surface again as my routine was being smashed. I never in my life thought I'd say it (or think it), but I like going to school at the Wonderbolts'. So I'm the youngest in class, just means I have more time to learn everything before I become a Wonderbolt.

"Because doing the president a personal favor is a good way to get one back?" Okay, Dad had a point. It kinda sucked, but a week or so going back to Earth wouldn't be too bad.

"That goes for all of us, doesn't it? We give a little, we get a little." I let out a long sigh. "So us all going back together is a bigger thing, right?"

"Look on the bright side, we're famous. People are going to want autographs and pictures, and you get two weeks off school."

"Dad, I like school." There—I'd said it. Now I should just fly away and never come back. Time for a distraction. "Do I really have to go back as human?"

"That's the other part of the deal. One of the current theories about why I didn't turn back is that I've been around ponies too much. Something like getting used to being one mentally. So, if you two go back and turn into humans, that disproves that one."

"You think it's because of your cutie mark?" I figured that was right too, but it was harder to prove than disprove, or so Dad had said.

"I can promise you, Saf, when you get yours, it will all become clear. Everything. It's like—It's like you find your reason to be all over again."

"You sound like Sudden Turn. She's got some wild stories about the stuff she and her friends did when they were foals—all in the name of finding their cutie marks." I really liked those stories. She wasn't just describing some flying theory, she sounded so into them.

"Saf, is there anything going on between you two?"

Okay, so I might be pretty good at changing subjects, but Dad was apparently the king. How do I even begin to answer that? I mean, I like Sudden, but I just don't have those feelings toward her. Not that I have those feelings toward anybody. "Kinda. I mean, I'm too young to get into—"

"Not an easy topic. Sorry, Saf, I shouldn't have pushed."

I rolled my eyes. This was never going to be my favorite topic, but like heck I'd back away from it. "No. I get it's important to think about, but I'm just too young. Shit, it's kinda hard to explain, but I just don't get any urges."

"It's not always going to be like that, Saf." The worst thing was how calm and nice his tone was. This was Dad trying to give me The Talk without giving me The Talk.

"We've already had this conversation, Dad. Remember, like, ten years ago?"

"It's closer to eight, but the fact remains you're going to want to do stuff soon, and I'm not talking about fancy flying. Just—Saf, be ready for when you do, okay?" The worst bit was how understanding he sounded.

"Look, I already got the birds talk from Fluttershy, I don't need it from you, too. What I'm more worried about is when I go back, if I am human again, I'll be an adult. Like, that's going to hit me, I think." And I was worried about it. Damn worried. I'd gotten used to not having to worry about mares—women—and it was a little freaky that I would probably start worrying about them again.

"You've thought about it then."

I rolled my eyes again and looked over at Dad. "How can I not? It's kinda—a relief. I know I should be feeling all messed up about it, but it's like I don't actually have to care. I can just be me."

Dad put his leg around my shoulder and hugged me. Back on Earth—just months ago—I would had gotten embarrassed or angry at him for doing it, but as a pony here and now… I hugged him back.

"It mustn't be easy to admit that, or even think about it. I'm proud of you, Saf."

"Yeah, yeah. So when are we going?"

"You're okay with it, then?" He looked a little surprised. "You've kinda gotten the short end of the wedge with all this."

"Yeah, but that's the thing." I pulled back from our hug and flexed my wings. "I thought I knew better last time, but it's been getting more and more obvious now. It was my destiny to be here. To fly! Dad, I was an ignorant idiot to fight against what you and Mom wanted, but like Commander Spitfire says—you can unlearn ignorance.

"This is me now. If what they think—that getting used to the place locks our bodies in—then I don't think any of us will turn back to human when we go through."

"That'd be hilarious. It would imply we could be turned back if we just spent a lot of time around humans and human customs." Dad stood up and walked to my bedroom door. "Feel free to say no, still."

"What, and let Riley go through whatever media circus Uncle Miller has planned? Come on, Dad, she's annoying, but even being annoying isn't bad enough to warrant that."

"You're a good man, Saf. Don't let anyone tell you different."

Only when Dad had left did I let out a sigh and flop back on my bed. The truth was, I didn't want to go back at all, probably not even for Riley, but it felt like something I should do—like I hadn't properly said goodbye to Earth before I came here.

"You're uneasy?"

I hadn't exactly been expecting Princess Luna to swoop into my dream, but here I was, and I hadn't yet worked out how to nicely ask a princess to let me sleep. "A little. I'm mostly worried that if it does work, and I do turn human again, I'll be back to square one with my wings."

Looking upward, Luna used her magic to send a beam of silvery light into the blank sky above. Where the magic hit, the moon appeared, and it splashed out form there to create the entire Equestrian sky. I even recognized some of the constellations. "Saffron Ree, what will you do if that happens?"

Opening my mouth to spit out a complaint, I stopped and looked up at the sky instead. What would happen? I still had another thirty years before I could even join the Wonderbolts—I'd already gotten as good as I am now within a year, and that was without knowing all I know.

Patience. Damn but how was I ever going to learn that. That's a good question. "What're the chances I'm going to learn patience in the next thirty years or so?"

She laughed. Not just a little laugh, but Luna tipped her head up and laughed high into the night. When she managed to interrupt herself, Princess Luna tilted her head to look down at me. "That is a very adult question for one so young. The answer is yes, you will learn a little every year you live. But, no, you will never have as much as you'd like."

Having taken the basic history of Equestria at school, I knew that she'd spent tens of thousands of years in exile. A little patience a year and never having enough? Coming from her that was just a little scary. "I think I'll be fine. The worst that can happen is I have to train harder—and I'm ready for that."

"I have heard you enjoy flying. Would you like to fly with me?"

The change in topic felt right. Rather than answer her with words, I spread my wing and jumped into the night sky.

It didn't take Princess Luna long to catch up with me. Each of her wings looked to have more surface area than both my wings put together. The odd thing was she made no turbulence in the air—no wake. I should have been struggling to even keep myself upright, but it felt like I was flying solo on a cool night.

An entire night worth of flying dreams, and she helped me find some answers I needed to hear. No wonder Princess Luna was so popular among all the ponies. Yawning, I rolled from bed onto my hooves and shook away the last bit of my tiredness.

Like every morning (well, the ones following a night's sleep when I didn't have Princess Luna helping me relax), I barely touched the stairs as I made my way to the living room. "Heading out for a fly!"

"Saffron Ree!" Mom's voice sounded more than a little annoyed. "Get your flank in the kitchen now!"

Full name? Full name totally meant she was upset. Tucking my wings a little tighter at my sides, I walked into the kitchen. What was waiting for me was a cake and a very pink pony. I'd seen her before in Ponyville, but I don't think I ever really got to know her.

Without warning, the pink pony fired a cannon at me. "Happy I'm-sorry-I-missed-your-birthday-but-I-didn't-know-when-it-was Saffron!"

Coughing my way through the storm of confetti that seemed to launch itself from the cannon, I looked around at Mom, Dad, and Riley. "What the f—?"

Mom walked over and kissed my cheek. "We don't have to leave until midday, Saf. When I mentioned to Twilight last week that we hadn't had time to celebrate your eighteenth birthday, she told me to contact Pinkie Pie."

"Pinkie Pie?" Well, it was a fair name for a pony who's coloration was pink on pink. It was about then I realized there was the biggest cake on the table that I'd ever seen, and a small alligator was trying to take a bite out of it.

"That's me! Part of the number-one party-planning team! You'll have to excuse the other half of my team for not being here, Cheese had another party—in Manehatten—and…" She seemed to pause a moment and took a breath. "Happy birthday! Blow out your candles!"

Walking up to the cake, I realized that I'd never be able to blow out all the candles—I couldn't have even counted all the candles. But, there was more than one way to snuff out a flame.

Shimmying a little in place, I took a deep breath and snapped my wings out to give a gentle flap with a little pegasus magic behind it.

Every—single—candle—out!

We did the normal birthday stuff. Singing Happy Birthday and all that. Mom, Dad, and Riley all had presents for me, which I set aside while we ate cake and talked about anything but the fact we'd be leaving Equestria later that day.

Maybe even leaving our bodies.

Mom got me feather oil. Dad got me a human pack of cologne and deodorant—as well as some mane shampoo. Riley, though, was the standout present. Normally she'd have gotten Mom or Dad to give her money to buy me something, but she passed me a little wooden box with a big grin on her face.

"It's not wrapped?" I asked.

"Doesn't need to be. Open it up." My little sister sounded way to confident and sure of herself. "Come on!"

The box looked like it should be heavy, but it felt like it was empty. I used my wing to unclip the latch on one side and slowly opened it. The contents explained why I couldn't feel any weight in the box—it was full of feathers.

Prominent was a fiery orange one, then several blues, yellows, and a paler orange too. I recognized each by the color of their owners. "These are the Wonderbolts' feathers?"

"Every single one. When I told Miss Spitfire about what was happening and that I wanted to give you a special birthday present to remind you of home, we came up with this." Riley sounded so proud of herself, and damn it, I was too. "Do you like it?"

There was a small piece of string, or more like a braid of a few pieces, that held all the feathers together in a little line. What was really cool was I could see they were arranged in hierarchy, with each Wonderbolts squad in their own little line. "Sis, this is by far the coolest thing you have ever done. Thanks!"

Earth pony hugs were pretty intense. Even though Riley was smaller than me, she was much stronger than I was. When she decided she wanted to hug you properly, you had to stay out of reach or be hugged. Rather than evade her, I instead spread my wings out and forward—and braced for impact.

Despite her size, Riley was solid as a rock. She jumped up and hugged me tight, but thankfully not strangulation-tight. "You really mean that?"

"Heck yeah. I'll let Mom and Dad take the feathers over first so whatever the spell does, doesn't mess them up. It'll remind me of home." Was it odd I thought of Equestria and this house as my home? Probably to some. For me it was about the freedom living here gave me.

"It feels like home for me too." Her voice was soft enough that I doubt anyone else heard it.

And why couldn't she stay when Mom's work's over, too? It wasn't like I was going back—she could live here with me. I mean, it'd be a bit odd until I at least look like an adult, but it would suck if she had to go back to Earth and live until she was like fifty or something before she could come back and be an adult.

"Yeah," I said.

I squeezed her as tight as I could for as long as she needed. She was so tiny here that it seemed like she was still a baby, but the prospect of going back reminded me that she's almost a teenager. Maybe I'll never get used to how weird it is to go from being a foal to being an adult—and vice versa—it's just so strange to contemplate.

"Okay, let's have one more piece of cake, then we have to head to Ponyville," Dad said.

Mom and Dad had been gone for a few minutes. Starlight Glimmer had told me the protocol for how this worked—there was a five-minute window after each teleport (or whatever people were calling it) when nothing would be sent for safety, then ten-minutes after the last receive a note gets sent back to advise how things went.

Handshaking she'd called it. Well, our five minutes was coming up. "You ready?"

Riley nodded. "I really like being a pony, Saf. What if we can't come back?"

"You think I'll let them stop us?" I nudged her shoulder, not that she seemed to shift from the push—solid little tank she is. "Come on, we need to do this. Just remember, Mom and Dad will be waiting for us."

"Are you both ready?" Starlight Glimmer asked as she reentered the room with the teleport pads. "Now I don't need to tell you, but this will be a transmogrification teleport. That means you will both, hopefully, be human again on the other side. Please step onto the platform when you're ready."

Riley led the way with me right behind her. She looked up at Starlight, now appearing to have not a hint of worry. "Is this going to be like when we first came here? All that twisting out of shape and stuff was kinda bleh."

It was surprising how calm she was now—like she hadn't just ask for reassurance about ever coming back. That's when it hit me. She was acting like Mom does when she needs to be badass. The sight of a little filly strutting onto the platform as if nothing worried her was amazing.

"I'm guessing it probably will. It'll be such a chore only having two legs again," I said.

When a smile split Riley's cold look, I knew I'd hit a good gag. We turned together to look back at Starlight.

"We're ready," Riley said.

Well, she was. I was terrified of going back—not that I'd tell her. "Yeah."

"Here go—" Starlight's horn went from a soft glow to the kind of power that can punch holes through reality without too much effort. I didn't hear her finish talking, because she'd disappeared and I was stuck in that between place again.

At first I thought it was going to be better than I'd hoped—nothing changed—but then I felt something odd about my wings.

Odd turned quickly to freaking crazy. I could feel my wings reshaping and forming into arms. My feathers seemed to fall free to reveal a pair of growing human hands. Hands I didn't want.

Everything seemed to swell and push, and I hated the way it made me feel larger without making me feel stronger—and I certainly had no control of myself here. All my coat disappeared, and my face pulled inward like a dimple.

I wish I could scream while it was happening, but even as my body became completely human again, I couldn't even so much as breathe. Then, like a freight train of magic slamming into Earth, we appeared on the teleporter pad in the White House again.

"… they are! Saffron? Riley?" Mom's voice was welcoming.

What I wasn't prepared for was Riley's shriek. Turning my head, I saw my little sister trying to cover her human body. Then it hit me—we're both naked.

Taking the biggest, deepest breath I could, I hoped I could somehow get my voice to within an inch of Commander Spitfire's. "Turn around and give us some privacy here!" I was as shocked as most people looked. The soldiers all spun around on the spot, and most of the people in white coats did too. I turned to look at Riley, and she gave me the biggest smile I'd ever seen on a human's face.

Mom, barely having reacted to my shout, wrapped Riley up in some kind of blanket. Dad was coming toward me with another carried in his silvery magic. He wrapped the blanket thing around me enough to cover my waist on down.

"I guess the going native hypothesis is bunk. How're you feeling, Saf?" Dad asked.

"Is Riley okay?"

When Riley crashed into my side and wrapped her arms around me, I was struck (not just by her) by how weak she was. "Yeah, I'm okay now. You probably want to have some kind of warning or something when people are coming through like that."

She was small even as a human, I realized. How had I forgotten that? My legs felt all kinds of wrong, and I'm sure Riley was the same way, so I hugged her and kept one hand on her shoulder for support—and to support her. "Yeah. What's the deal there? Can't you put some kind of curtain around the teleporter?"

The soldiers who'd spun around at my shout were now sheepishly turning back. One big man in a black suit who hadn't turned around looked over our heads without a hint of cool. "If you'll follow me, ladies and gentlemen, President Miller wants to see you immediately."

"Can we get some clothes first?" I asked.

He seemed to wince a little.

"Didn't plan for this, huh? Whatever. I guess we go see the boss man like this. You cool, Riley?" There was something freeing about being back—I was an adult here. I was even taller than Mom and Dad.

Riley crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at the big guy. "I guess. But I want to go shopping after this."

I was about to make another smart quip when I remembered the box. "Dad, my box?"

Dad floated the box over in his magic, not looking uncomfortable in the least using real magic here on Earth. "I kept it safe, don't worry."

When he opened the box, I lifted out the string of feathers and held it up. They were smaller than they'd seemed in Equestria, but then humans were much bigger than ponies. I didn't need the strength their memories would give me yet, but I didn't want this far away when I did need it.

"Later on, Saf, I can braid it into a few strands of your hair, if you want?" Riley asked.

I thought about it for exactly half a second. "Sounds awesome. So where are we going now?"

"Follow me," the guy in the black suit said before walking to the door.

"Come on, kids, let's go see the man behind the curtain," Mom said. We followed him out into the hallway and through the White House. Walking had been hard to figure, but it came back to us pretty quickly.

Walking on four feet (and flying) just felt more stable because it didn't rely on almost falling to move. I guess that makes me more pony than human—and I'm cool with that. Our escort turned down another hallway and there was a woman waiting for us. She pointed further down the hallway I now recognized.

I almost bounced as I walked. "We're going into the Oval Office naked? This is awesome. Will there be cameras in there? Are we going to be on live TV?"

"Lead them in, Agent Franks. Jeff's waiting for them." I recognized the woman who'd been so annoyed with my computer order. There was an urge to tell her I hadn't even unpacked it, but I really wanted this all done with so we could get some clothes and get out of here.

Mom didn't seem willing to wait for Agent Franks. She trotted forward like she owned the place—or maybe like she was literally a tank that no one could shove around if she didn't want them to. There were advantages to being an earth pony.

"Go right in, ma'am," another black-suited guy at the door said. He probably didn't realize it, but stepping out of her way was the smartest thing the guy did all day.

The door opened and Mom, Dad, and then Riley and me walked in. I'd been in the Oval Office before, so it wasn't completely new to me. There was Jeff standing behind his crazy-old desk. He smiled when he saw us and gestured to a side door. "Head down there, first door on your left. I had some of your things brought up in case this had happened."

It was literally a I need to speak with your parents thing, but probably more likely a I need to speak to your mom, but your dad is fine to have in the room too. "Thanks." I turned for the door and had Riley rush past me and into the room Jeff had mentioned.

When I reached the room, it was decked out similar to the Oval Office, but there were bookshelves filled with books, a big desk, and what looked like a privacy screen down the middle.

"Look, Saf, he really did get some of our things. Did you want me to do that braiding now?" Riley was behind the privacy screen already, and I could hear her fumbling with things.

I closed the door behind me and walked around the partition to the side Riley wasn't. Sure enough, there was a suit laid out for me; shirt, pants, socks—even underwear. "Isn't it weird to look at so many clothes?"

"You wore a flight suit every day at your school."

"It's different," I said. "And, besides, I didn't have to wear it everywhere."

"I dare you to walk back in completely naked."

"Riley, you know that'd get me in so much trouble I'd be grounded for—"

"You're an adult now, Saf." The way she said it made it sound like being an adult was proof against everything.

It was a good argument, but I was sure I'd never hear the end of it if I did that. Reluctantly, I picked up the pair of boxers someone'd gone through my things to find, and (dropping my blanket) carefully stepped into them. "I'm also adult enough to know Mom'd destroy me. I'd never be allowed to do anything fun for the rest of my life."

"Yeah, but you'd have been on TV naked."

"You've gotten a lot more devious with your plans. When did you start getting like this?" Socks and pants went on, as well as I started to button up my shirt.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when we first got to Canterlot, and we went out on our own, you were totally ready to turn us in." Trousers on next. The more clothing I wore, the odder it felt. My flight suit was all I ever needed, and I only wore that because it let me fly faster.

Riley poked her head around the edge of the screen. "Can you do up this zip for me?"

I got my pants buttoned up and stepped over to her. There was a zip up the back of her dress that I slowly pulled up, lifting her hair to make sure it didn't get in the way. "There you go."

"Okay." Riley pushed me back a little, and with memories of how strong she was in Equestria, I automatically stepped back for her. "Sit on the edge of the desk, there, and I'll do your hair."

I sat down where she said and she climbed up on the desk behind me. When she took two tiny strands of my hair, I was relieved that she wasn't going to do something silly with it. Then it hit me. "When did I get long hair?"

"You always had long hair as a pony."

"Yeah, but I didn't when I went to Equestria. Does that mean some pony stuff leaks over?" I tried to ignore the slight tugging, instead focusing on the problem. "Or maybe it's just because I'm older."

"Could be. I don't see any pink or green in your hair, so it's probably just being older. Hey, that would have been cool, if we'd come back with our actual manes as hair." Her fingers worked fast, tugging my hair this way and that. "Do you have anything to tie this on with? I could always just knot your hair at the end of it, but you'd need to cut it out each day when you shower."

"Well, are there any rubber bands on the desk?"

"Hold this. Pinch it between your fingers." When I reached my hand up to my shoulder, Riley put the braid she was making in it. "Let me see… Oh, a paperclip? That might work. Can't see any rubber bands. I can probably use this paperclip like a hair-tie though."

I felt her fingers grip the hair I was holding. "You want me to let go?"

"Not yet…" She tugged and pulled on the strand until she got it—apparently—where she wanted it. "Okay, now let go."

Releasing my grip on the strands, I felt the braid fall forward slightly and to one side. Carefully running my hand up that side of my face, I felt each of the vibrant feathers held tight in the braid where the after-feather met the true vanes. "You did a great job on this, Riley. Thanks."

"Yeah, well now it's your turn. I have soooo much hair. Anypony would think I haven't cut it for years!" Riley shoved at my shoulders, but lacking the ridiculous strength of an earth pony, she barely moved me at all.

Knowing I owed her plenty for her help, I got up and we swapped positions. "Okay, I have no idea what I'm doing, so tell me what to do."

"I just want it up and off my shoulders. It's way too long to keep it loose without giving it a good wash, anyway."

"How do I do that?" I had no idea where to start—there was a lot of hair.

The process was actually pretty easy once she'd described it. She had found a rubber band, but she'd saved it for her hair because she couldn't do what she wanted without it—which was fair. There wasn't a mirror in the room, but between us we managed to make the other presentable.

"Can we just walk in on them?" Riley asked.

I shrugged. "Maybe we should walk back down the hall to his secretary."

"Saf? Are you feeling okay?" Lifting her hand to her brow, Riley looked around the room and finally at me. "Excuse me, have you seen my brother? He leads innocent fillies astray and defies all parental requests."

To ignore the heavy sarcasm wouldn't do Riley's effort any justice. "Ha-ha. Okay, fair enough. I guess training at the Wonderbolt Academy might be getting to me." I squared up my shoulders and walked to the hallway we'd come in. The door at the end of it was closed still, and one of the most secure rooms in all the world sat on the other side of it. "C'mon, Riley."

Riley laughed and came after me. "So, what, we just walk in?"

"I don't see any guards here. Besides, they told us to go and get dressed. They had to assume we'd come back when we were." I reached a hand out to the door handle and tried to turn it. It turned just fine, but the door didn't open. "What gives?"

"Security lock on the door. Look, there's a panel where you have to tap your card." To demonstrate, Riley walked over to the side of the door and tapped the black plate with two little lights on it. "Hey, those feathers are pegasi feathers, right?"

"Yeah."

"And they belonged to some of the best pegasi in Equestria, right?"

"Drop the some of. They are the best."

Riley grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me sideways. "So you have a ton of pegasus magic yourself, and you've got all these feathers from the greatest pegasi in Equestria, and electricity is a key pegasus thing. Make with the zap-zap and get us in."

Should I let her keep pushing me around? I was kinda used to it back in Equestria, and we'd be going back there soon enough. Probably better to just let her have her fun. As for her idea… "I have no idea if this will work. I'm not a pegasus now, in case you didn't notice, but here goe—" I got as far as reaching out my finger to the black box—and thinking about my magic—when a fat spark jumped from the tip of my finger to the box.

The lights in the hallway flickered and then went out. More lights—bright red—came on, and with them the loud piercing shriek of some kind of alarm.

Author's Note

Starburst: almost-certainly-not-your-mother wants to know if there are any mares that you're interested in.

A cream pegasus looked around uncertain. "A-Are you sure you mean me? I've kinda got a thing for Rainbow Dash, but every pegasus does."

"I think they mean me," Sunburst said. "Sorry."

"Oh... OH!" Starburst blushed hotly before, in a rush of red mane and tail, zoomed away as only a pegasus can.

"Ahem. I have a fillyfriend, but that's none of your business." Sunburst smiled from behind his glasses. "Besides, you already got an answer from Starburst."

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Lab

Chapter 22

When Riley shrieked, I pushed her back against the wall and put myself in front of her. The noise was so loud it was starting to hurt my ears. Then a bunch of stuff seemed to happen at the same time.

The siren stopped.

A bunch of guys in black suits with guns drawn came down the hallway from where we'd been.

The door we'd been trying to get through opened up—pulled off its hinges by Dad.

"Sir! Stand back!" one of the guys in black shouted to Dad.

"They're my kids! Back off and point your guns somewhere else!" I'd never seen Dad look so—He wasn't angry, just intense. "Saf, Riley, what did you do?"

I opened my mouth, but Riley managed to squirm out from behind me. "We were trying to come back in, but the door handle didn't work, so I pointed at the security box thingy and when Saf touched it…"

It wasn't a lie. There was nothing actually incorrect about what she'd said, it just didn't have all the bits where we'd been trying to short-circuit the control box. Dad's eyes turned to me and he looked at me—briefly glancing at the feather-braid.

"Maybe it has something to do with my pegasus magic? It's not like I can even feel how much static I have built up without my feathers." Time to take a leaf out Riley's book. "I didn't mean to set off the alarm."

"Everyone calm down. They are guests of mine, and I'm sure they promise not to poke any more security equipment." Jeff was visible over Dad's head mostly because Dad was short, but the presence of the president had a calming effect on everyone. "We're done with the heavy bits of the conversation, why don't you and Riley come in so we can have a chat."

Riley stuck her tongue out at the security guys before she followed Jeff and Dad back into the Oval Office. As I walked to follow them, I realized Dad had really done a number on the door and ripped it clear off its hinges. When we were all back in the room, he just kinda pushed the door back into place.

That's when I realized there was a big camera being set up by a pair of guys who looked like they were fussing all over it.

"Saffron, I'm going to have to ask you not to touch anything else electrical—and particularly not their camera." Jeff pointed at the couches as he walked over to one himself. "Speaking of, how are you doing with it?" The last he asked of the two guys working on the camera.

There was also more of the black-clad goons in here. They had their guns away at least. I guess we did just set off the alarm in the White House. I wonder how often that happens?

I realized one of the camera guys was looking at me. Really intent, he seemed to forget to answer Jeff. It took me a few seconds to realize he was looking at the feathers, not me. To test my theory, I turned my head and made the braid flick the feathers around the side of my face. His eyes stayed glued to me.

"Almost ready, Mr. President. We weren't running on mains when it happened, and I think we'll keep running off the battery until everything's under control," the other camera guy said before elbowing his workmate.

"Those feathers aren't from birds," the focused guy said.

Okay, time to show off and have some fun. Standing up, I took a step toward the camera before Jeff cleared his throat and reminded me not to go near it. Rolling my eyes at Jeff, I looked back at the guy. "You're right, no birds. These are pegasi feathers. My friends' feathers, in fact. Riley helped get them to make me a birthday present that would help me chill a bit while here. I'm not allowed to come closer to your camera, but you can come over here and look at them if you want." I saw the light on the back of the camera flicker to life.

"S-Sir?" The guy looked to Jeff.

"If Saffron Ree said you can, you can. Go ahead and look at the feathers—but don't touch them," Jeff said, sounding a bit like Mom when she wants us to look but don't touch. I guess, considering my status as a possible lightning rod, it was a good idea to be careful. At least he didn't suspect I'd actually done it on purpose.

"I've never seen a bird big enough to grow feathers that big." The guy walked closer and seemed to put his hands behind his back—like he wouldn't trust himself not to touch them. "I-I'm Tom."

"How do you know so much about birds?" I asked.

Tom blushed. "I-I'm into birding—birdwatching. Are they really from a pegasus?"

"Each one is from a different one, actually. Spitfire, Rainbow Dash, Soarin, Sudden Turn, Surprise, Fleetfoot, Thunderlane…" I listed off each as I touched them. "They're the Wonderbolts of Equestria—the best fliers ever."

"Are you a pegasus too when—" Tom seemed to come to his senses. "Sorry, I need to get back to work."

"Yeah, I'm a pegasus when I get to Equestria. The age-change thing is a bit of a mess, but I can still fly pretty good, or so Slowpoke—that's Surprise's nickname—she keeps admitting when she thinks I can't hear." I realized how Tom had gone from ready-for-work back to fawning over the feathers. I remembered how Princess Twilight tended to get people to do the same. How strong was this effect?

"We're live in twenty seconds!" Tom's friend shouted.

The words seemed to shatter whatever magic had Tom enthralled. He practically ran around the camera and moved in to stand beside his co-worker.

"Wait, live?" I asked.

"Sit down, Saf," Mom said, "and try to act natural."

Not given much choice in where to sit, I fell back onto the couch and was closest to the camera. Another look at Jeff showed him smiling really wide in what I thought wasn't a politicians' smile—it was too happy.

Tom held up his hand with five fingers up, then four, three, two, one. When the last finger closed into his fist, the light on top of the camera turned from green to red.

"Good afternoon, America." Jeff was looking into the camera and was far into his warm-but-serious look he mostly used when on TV. Shit, that's what the light meant, wasn't it? The camera was live, but to where? What channel? Fuck. Probably all of them. "We have long had stories of alien spaceships and little green men visiting us, but I can assure you that the first and only alien race to meet humanity—at least that they tell me—are the ponies of Equestria.

"I don't need to extol the virtues and advantages our friendship and peace with Equestria is bringing us, you can see them everywhere yourselves. From new medication to new construction methods, our continued relations with Equestria are strengthening not just America, but the Earth itself.

"But today I'd like to introduce you to four of our heroes. And make no mistake, all four are heroes." Jeff gestured across to our couch, and the camera panned at his silent command. "First on the right here we have Saffron Ree, and by all accounts he's one of the best new fliers Equestria has seen for a while—when he's a pegasus at least. Beside him is Ambassador Clair Ree. You've all seen the reports on her past deeds, I'm sure, but she's been working hard to ensure our relationship with Equestria stays strong and broadens to new allies.

"Beside her is her husband, Philip Ree. There're few men I could say I respect more than Philip, and it seems like he's had a similar impact on the rulers of Equestria's neighboring nations. And lastly we have Riley Ree, who I have heard is more than just a model student, she's doing original research into ways we could improve our teaching system here in America.

I hadn't realized before how smart Riley was. Like, she's only in middle school, and she's doing college research? The hell is going on in her head?!

"Now, in case anyone is wondering why Clair and Philip have retained their pony shapes, I'm told it's some testing our medical teams are doing—all routine stuff. With the introductions over with, I'm told that everyone watching will now see a website they can go to and register questions to ask. The best ones will be coming up in a moment." Jeff picked up a tablet that had been sitting on the chair beside him and tapped the screen. "Firstly, why don't you all describe what it's like being back here?"

"Thanks, Jeff." Mom looked pleased with herself. She reached a hoof up to her chest. "I am excited to come home—we all are—but in particular I wanted to see what difference our work was making. Seeing reports and listening to recordings is far too dry—I want to know that this is making a difference for everyone. So I'm excited to meet as many of you as I can and to hear your stories."

Dad looked like a deer in headlights for a moment. I guess he must have realized a good chunk of America was tuned in and watching. "I won't lie—it's a bit disorientating. Ponies are smaller, as you can see, and I find myself having to look up a lot to see people's faces."

"I'm missing out on schoolwork," Riley said.

I couldn't help myself. Snorting, I reached over Mom's back and poked Riley in the shoulder. "It's only a few days. I'm sure you can find someone to teach you something here."

Mom turned her head just enough to look at me from the corner of her eye. Okay, so maybe a little fun wasn't fit for national TV.

"Sorry, Riley." The apology came so easily. Back in my human body, I could almost feel the same level of hostile indifference I did before we left, but being a pony had changed me.

"Despite being a universe away, kids will be kids," Mom said.

Jeff cleared his throat to get our attention. "We've gotten a few questions in, if you don't mind answering them for us. If they're uncomfortable, just let me know. The first is for Clair. Alise from California sends her thanks that you acquired the new anti-viral medication, and asks what new things are you trying to get?"

It was the kind of question Mom ate up. I realized they all would be, given that someone was vetting them, but this almost seemed like it was staged. "Well, Alise, the biggest problem we've had so far is managing the connection to Equestria from this side. I'm happy to announce that after recent negotiations with a third nation, America's link to Equestria and beyond is now usable with greater frequency. This opens up the possibility of more trade."

"The next one's for Riley. Michelle from Washington state asks, what do things taste like as a pony?"

"Oh! Everything that's sweet is ten-million times better. You wouldn't believe it! And then there's the fruit. One of my friends says that apples are best—and hers are super-good—but I love bananas." Riley looked about to say more, but stopped and shifted to sit back on the couch a little more.

Hell. This was going to be a ratings hit. Jeff could stand for president of the world and no one would say no. Little girls asking other little girls what kinds of fruit they like as a pony? Forget cats, the internet will eat this up.

"And one for Saffron." All my attention snapped to Jeff when he spoke those words. I dreaded what he'd ask, and what it would make me say to the entire world. "Frasier from Texas asks what it's like to fly? He's seen the videos you sent back, and wants to know how it feels to be able to let go and just… He actually wrote that trailing off."

I tilted my head down a little in thought, and in doing so the feathers swung around and into my sight. "Flying is the single most amazing thing ever. When I spread my wings and let the air itself lift me up into the sky, I become free in a way I never felt before. Every little movement of air on my wings is the wind talking to me—telling me what it's doing and what it plans to do. Flapping my wings tells the air what I want to do and it listens to me."

"Heck, Saf, that was pretty intense," Riley said.

Looking at my strand of hair with its feathers woven into it, I swore I could feel my magic just there. Then I remembered the thing with the alarm and the security goons. Taking a few steady breaths, I let my magic settle back down on its own. "Flying is intense."

"Well, I've got one more before we take a break. This one's from Sean in Nebraska, and he asks of any of you, what do manes feel like when you have one yourself?"

"I should probably take that, since I haven't had a go yet." Hearing Dad's voice annoyed me—I couldn't turn my ears to listen, and had to rotate my whole head. "The parts of Equestria we've seen are all cold for most of the year, and having a thick layer of fur as well as a mane and tail makes it comfortable. Add to that Canterlot is almost at the top of a mountain, and you have a much cooler place than Washington D.C., he was from Nebraska?"

Checking the tablet, Jeff nodded.

"Well, it's probably something like that. Coats are really soft, and manes are softer still," Dad said.

"I think we can pause there. We'll be back in a few moments." Jeff smiled at the camera with that real smile again. There was something almost more unnerving about seeing him so happy than his usual fake smile. The light on the camera went from red to green, and still his smile didn't quit. "Great work, all of you."

"You know they're going to have a lot more focused questions next time, right?" Riley asked. "I mean, now they've heard us answer and had time to think of more stuff."

Okay, I'll give her credit—she is smarter than me. That's not an easy thing for a big brother to think let alone say, but there it is. Still, she can't fly worth a damn. "So what's up now? We just keep doing this until we need to use the bathroom or something?"

"One more round and I'll do a more formal solo address. Today's a big day for America—some of its bravest heroes just came home." Jeff looked along the row of us, but focused on Mom. "Unless you want to sit in on that, Clair?"

Mom tilted her head a little to the side, then straightened up. "You know, Jeff, I think I might. It's good that people get more used to seeing ponies, and right now that means I can just stand to the side and look pretty while you do the talking."

"Beautiful," Dad said. "You look beautiful."

"So what are we going to do, then?" I asked.

"You're an adult, Saf. You can do whatever you'd like." As he spoke, Dad's eyes flicked to Jeff and he raised an eyebrow.

Yeah, right. Drag me away from my training and then tell me I can do whatever I want. "Honestly? That whole transmagrifier thing still takes it out of me. Maybe head home or something? Our old home, I mean."

"Your house is being leased. I have arranged for you all to have a room at a hotel in the city," Jeff said.

"Right. Let's go there, then. I want to get my balance back, and having more of your goons around isn't helping with that." I gestured with a hand toward the Secret Service guys who were standing like lamps to one side—unmoving and unobtrusive.

"You're back on in thirty seconds," one of the camera guys said.

"I want to go to a park. If Saf can do his pegasus thing, maybe I can talk to plants here?" Riley asked.

Jeff cleared his throat. "Sorry to let you down, Saffron, but you're going to have to put up with my goons a little longer. They'll be accompanying you to your hotel and elsewhere. They don't have to be in the room with you while you're in your suite."

I groaned and turned to look at the "lamps". They still looked like goons, and their faces were carefully blank. One stood a little taller than the other, and I could see a little wire going up and to an ear of each of them. "Yeah, whatever. Just so long as they don't try to shoot me again."

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five…" The guy kept counting with his hand, silently. When he got just past one, the green light turned red again.

"Welcome back, everyone, to our informal little chat with the Rees. You've all had a little time to ask more questions, and I can already see a few good ones coming, so in the spirit of AMA, let's keep going." Jeff was smooth as silk again, talking through his smile easily, like he was making a home movie and not broadcasting live to the world. "Saffron, there's been a lot of variations of this question, so bear with me. Do you have a girlfriend in Equestria, and if not, are you looking for one on Earth?"

Well that wasn't what I'd expected. How do I tell them I'm too young for a fillyfriend in Equestria, and here I haven't gotten my game on (and probably won't have time to). Should I try to hook up? Would that be wrong?

"We're allowed to talk about the age-thing, right?" I asked.

"You can talk about any aspect of your time in Equestria, Saffron," Jeff said.

"Right. So the thing is, when I'm in Equestria, I'm just a young foal. If I had to guess, compared to a human, I'd be about ten or twelve. So getting a fillyfriend is not really a thing yet. As for here, I don't know as I'll be looking for a girlfriend, but I'd like to make some friends."

Yeah. I'm an idiot, but I'm still a pony. A friend would be better than all the—Dammit. It would have been nice to hook up with Candy again.

Jeff seemed, for the first time, a little surprised. "Well, there you have it. Now, Philip, a few people have asked about your cutie mark. Would you like to explain it?"

Oh hell. Ask a pony—even Dad—about their cutie mark and special talent, and you'll be getting a life-story. "That's a big one," Dad said. "Near as we can tell, the scales mean literally balance. Just a glance and I can tell exactly what you need to get your body into a healthy balance. It all started with Clair. I'd been getting odd feelings about her for days, and it wasn't until I really pushed myself to work out what was wrong that it literally came to me.

"My cutie mark, that is—not wrong, just it all made sense. Which I know I'm not doing well right now, but that's just how magic can be sometimes. Cutie marks and special talents aren't anything to do with the kind of magic unicorns do—it's wild and does its own thing. Now—"

"I don't think everyone needs a magic lesson, dear." Mom cut in on Dad before he managed to ramble too much. "Do we have time for another one, Jeff?"

Dad just snorted, but Jeff seemed to find it a good joke.

"Maybe one more, but I'd like to get a little answer from everyone for it. What's it like without the internet?" Jeff asked.

"You know, I haven't even turned on my computer since moving to Equestria. The closest thing to the internet I have used is the phone you got me to record video on," I said.

"Same." Riley held up her fist to me, and of course I gave it a bump with my own. "Computers are boring. They can't even talk to you like trees do."

"I've been using a computer regularly, but not to access any networks. I'm writing a book," Dad said.

We all turned and looked at Dad. Out of all of us, he was the one using a computer in his spare time?

Mom was first to turn her attention back to the camera. "I only use mine for work. It's not particularly easy to type with hooves, but I'm working with some ponies on making a keyboard ponies can use."

Jeff looked to be puffing up for another big speech bit. "Well, that's all we have time for. I sure found the answers enlightening. Thanks to the new equipment Clair obtained and Philip helped install, we're ready to announce regular mail runs to and from Equestria, as well as opening up to phase two of negotiations."

That was a setup if ever I'd heard one. He'd have people clambering to find out what the equipment was and what "phase two" meant.

It was all boring stuff. I just wanted to get this over with so I could go back home and get back to my training. The light on the camera turned from red to green, and I could see the camera guys seem to relax. "That's it?"

"For today. There's a dinner tomorrow night I'd like you all to attend." Jeff stood up from the couch and I could practically hear his mind ticking over to see what I'd want. "You're all invited, of course, I could even—"

I wanted to have some fun, and that meant putting one of the smartest people I knew on the back foot. "Sounds good. Free food is always great. Will there be a vegetarian option?"

It took him two seconds to find where I'd taken the conversation and get back on a script. "Of course there will. I'd have thought you two would like something a bit more normal for this side?"

Dad spoke up before I could reply. "Depends on what it is. Saf has enjoyed some shellfish in his diet, but the rest of us have been fairly strict on the ovo-lacto side of things. What about you, Riley?"

"Eww. No meat. I can't believe Saf still eats fish."

Jeff walked over to his desk—the fancy-looking one—and touched a button on the intercom. "Caroline? Make sure at the dinner tomorrow night that there's vegetarian options for the Rees, three need to be ovo-lacto, one pescatarian." He looked at me for confirmation.

Alright, so he was actually going out of his way to make this work. I gave him a thumbs-up then jumped to my feet from the couch. I felt way too stationary. I wanted to fly, but the chances of that were basically nil, so I needed to do something else. "I need to get out of here and do something. Screw just sitting around."

"Why don't we go for a run?" Riley asked.

"Yeah, that'd be a good start. Alright, where can we go for that?" I looked at Mom and Dad, then at Jeff.

"Perhaps head down to Presidential Park? There's a nice big oval there I enjoy running on myself." Jeff looked at Dad. "You could head down there too, Philip, though we'd need more security."

"I'll be fine for a few days of inactivity. This is a working holiday for me."

Shopping was what we had to do first. Running in the suits Jeff's people had gotten us wouldn't be good at all, so we were bundled into a black car and two of his goons drove us to a mall of all things. We walked around with the goons right behind us, literally wearing the getup we'd had on for the TV broadcast. It took me some time to realize that people didn't recognize us because most probably hadn't seen the video yet.

So we got some clothes, the goons swiped a card whenever we needed to pay, got changed in a mall bathroom, and we got bundled back into the car.

There wasn't a lot of people walking around the park. I climbed out of the car first and was hit with the smell of trees and grass. It might not be the sharp scent of ozone from the cloud factory, but it was preferable to basically everything else I'd smelled since getting back. "I'd give anything to fly here."

Riley jumped out behind me. "Well, I'd give anything to be able to keep up my class here, but we both got boned on that one. I want to look at some of the trees, though. I wonder if I can get them to talk?"

"Let's try that after a lap. I hate sitting around all day."

Holding up her hand in a fist, Riley said, "Totally. Even learning isn't as bad. Ponies stand up all the time!"

I met her fist with my own and started off at a jog. It was good to stretch my legs, and at the pace I set Riley could keep up no problems.

The goons, however, weren't having anything to do with our running. They jumped back in the big car and started driving around just behind us. Moving was everything I expected it would be. Using my muscles and stretching was the best, but Riley quickly got distracted halfway around by a small tree with a fence around it.

"What's up with this?" Riley asked as she walked toward the fence.

One of the goons jumped out of the car and walked over. "What's the problem?"

Riley pointed at the tree. "Why's there a fence around this tree?"

"It's to stop anyone vandalizing the tree while it's growing." The guy looked bored as hell, though when Riley started climbing the fence he seemed more excited. "You shouldn't—Ah screw it. Just don't hurt the tree."

I helped Riley with a boost to get her over the fence, then vaulted it myself. I only realized after I'd done it that I'd just jumped over a six-foot fence without any effort at all. For a moment I was freaked out, but then I just realized getting over high things was what pegasi do. "So, what's the plan?"

"I don't know if it will work, but I'll try doing it solo first. If I can't get my magic to trigger, I'll get you to try touching me to give it a push." Riley walked right up to the tree and knelt down at the base of the little sapling.

The trunk was about as round as my thumb, but it needed to be closer to my leg. "'Kay."

She reached her hands out and pressed one to the ground at the base of the trunk and the other on the trunk itself—closing her fingers around it.

From experience, I knew this could take some time. Tree's were slow, though this one was probably young enough she could get it to reply quickly—"quickly" being a few minutes.

"Nothing. Okay, Saf, gimme a kick-start!"

I reached a hand out and put it on Riley's shoulder. "I don't know if this will work, or what might happen, but damn it feels good to use magic." With my free hand I reached up to my feather collection and ran my fingers over them.

The tickle I'd gotten inside came, and I felt that echo of magic course through me. "This would have been so much easier if we'd come over as ponies." I released the trickle of magic and sent it into Riley.

"Hey that—Oh!" Riley let out a giggle. "Okay, I think that did it. Right, here goes nothing."

Time seemed to slow down to a crawl. I could feel my heart beat then pause for ages before another thud happened. What was going on? That's when it hit me—Riley's magic was affecting me just like mine affected her.

I tried to pull my hand back from her shoulder, but whatever was going on made it impossible to move. Stuck like a statue, all I could do is think about what she might be talking to the tree about.

It seemed like forever before she stopped her magic and let time move properly again. I gasped and let go of her shoulder. "Warn me next time."

"Huh?" Riley asked.

"Everything was moving real slow and I couldn't move. Did the tree say anything?"

"A bit. It can feel the tree they removed before it. It didn't want to grow too fast, but I told it to speed things up a bit, and that people would protect it. I don't have the kinda magic I would back home, or I would have fed it, but I made it stop worrying."

"You realize this means our magic works here, like this, right? Can you do that again or would you need another kick-start?" I held out my finger to her in the classic joke style.

Riley just stared at me as if I was crazy. "Not on your life. But, anyway, I don't think I can do it without your help. Even now I don't have that spark. It's like all the magic is bottled up inside, but I can't get the top off."

"Guess these feathers are the key then, hey?" I held out my hands—fingers laced together—to give her a boost back over the fence.

"Is it just me, or do you feel lighter with that pegasus magic?" she asked as she used my hands to get a boost to the top of the fence.

Following her up and over reminded me of the first time. "Yeah, I think so. I can just jump over this without much help from the wire." Coming down on two legs was a bit more difficult than the four I was used to, but it wasn't like I'd forgotten how to use them.

"Look, Saf."

I turned and followed Riley's finger to see the tree was unrolling new leaves, though much slower than what her magic would do in Equestria. "It was really holding back, huh?"

"Yeah. That's not my magic, either, that's the tree just wanting to do something now. This is so cool!"

"We still have half a lap to run. Come on." As I turned to start jogging again, I saw the goon staring at the tree with his mouth open. It made me smile to see people freak out over what we were doing. Magic is what ponies do best, sucker!

Riley ignored the guy and ran to catch up to my side. "What was up with that guy?"

"He's probably never seen real magic before. Remember what this was like before Princess Twilight arrived?" My new habit of using titles was sinking in and taking root. Almost everypony in Equestria had some title to use, and they were as important as names.

"I guess. You'd think he saw it on TV, or even working at the White House."

"It's different seeing it in person. Remember what it was like when you first met Princess Twilight?"

"Huh. You're probably right. Hey, that person is waving at us." Riley nodded to the side, then lifted her arm and waved at the person.

And that's probably when I realized it—we were now celebrities. People we didn't know would recognize us and know our names. The woman Riley had waved to ran over and struggled to keep up with us. "You're the people from TV earlier, right? You went to the pony world?"

I looked around for Jeff's goons, but they were still catching up after the confusion over our magic. "Yeah. I'm Saf and this is Riley."

"Hi!" Riley said.

"Can I get a selfie with you two?" The girl looked about my age, maybe a little younger. She didn't look like she was dressed for running, but rather sight-seeing.

"Sure, I guess. Just don't touch me while you're holding your phone or it might go pop. Pony magic and all that." I grabbed Riley and the girl leaned in from the other side of Riley.

"This is so awesome!" She held her phone out and took the picture. "Will you be running here every day?"

The raw enthusiasm and excitement was something I just wasn't prepared for. How the fuck had meeting me become the high point of someone's day? "Yeah, I guess." I looked at Riley and thought of something. "But there'll be a rule—you only get a selfie if you run with us. At least a lap."

"First one was a freebie," Riley said.

"I'll tell my friends to come prepared. Thanks!" She didn't even tell us her name, but meeting her had been an experience to remember even after she ran off.

Riley turned to look at me for a moment before she let out a giggle. "We're famous, Saf."

"Yeah. Still kinda taking that in. What do you think this will mean?" I started back up with a jog, trusting Riley to keep up.

We managed another full lap before Riley said, "Well, that's enough for me. I don't have as much—"

I reached out a finger and poked her, jolting her with some pegasus magic while I did. The change was immediate and Riley let out a laugh. "Good for more now?" I asked.

"Yeah! You're the best, Saf!" With her earth pony magic burning, Riley would probably be able to outrun me without a problem.

This time, two laps later, I was lathered up in a sweat and was done with running—Riley still looked like she could run ten more laps. "Stop. Dang it, Riley. Turn off your juice."

"Spoilsport. Okay, but what do we do now? It's still… Oh! I'm hungry!" Riley stopped on a dime and turned to look for our goons.

I turned, feeling like I'd really been on a good run now, and looked back to see Riley walking up to the black SUV the goons drove. She walked up and spoke to them while I was still trying to catch my breath.

Staggering back to the car, I climbed in the back with Riley. "So, what now?" I asked.

"Lunch!" Riley bounced on her seat. "Where are we going for lunch?" The last she asked of our goons. As I sat beside her, however, her head spun to look at me. "Saf, you stink! Change of plan, guys, we need somewhere to clean up first."

"Your parents have a suite at the Lafayette. We can drive you there and escort you up." It was the most I'd heard either of the two say since meeting them.

The pony side of me came out and chided me for not being nicer and trying to make friends. "Thanks. And thanks for putting up with us, I know it's not as glamorous as protect—"

"We protect who the president tells us to protect. We don't see it as babysitting, I promise." The guy speaking was the one driving. He pulled out into traffic while he spoke. "You're under protection because you're important to the United States of America, and that's enough for us."

"Not me," the other goon said. "My mother was on dialysis and got an infection. Took just one pill—from the medical stuff your mother secured—and she pulled out of it in hours. Not all heroes wear capes."

I actually laughed at the final comment. "Nice quote." I was surprised when he offered his fist for a bump—one I gratefully returned. Okay, goons was probably a bad name for them. They were just guys with jobs to do, and Riley and me'd completely fucked with that. "Let us know if we're making this too much of a headache."

"Headache? You want to know what a headache is? It's raising my little sister." This was the driving goon again. "We lost our parents ten years ago, and it's not been easy keeping up with her."

"Little Katie?"

"'Little'? She just turned sixteen."

The two men seemed to be talking comfortable together now I'd broken the ice. "Wait," I said, "if she's sixteen, I think I get why she's being a headache."

"You're eighteen, right?" Driver asked.

"Yeah. And Riley's twelve almost thirteen. Anyway, what I mean to say is that before we went to Equestria, I was a pain in the neck to my parents. Alternating between not wanting to do what they say and doing everything to the letter, depending on if it was to my advantage. It's funny how getting a new perspective on things can realign all that."

"You think I should pack her off to another world?"

"Nah. I don't know what the docs are saying about all this anyway. We thought it was all safe before, but then Dad didn't turn back human. What I mean is she might want a change of pace. Well, she might not want it, I didn't, but it's what I needed. That's just how harmony and destiny work, though." It had been pure stream of consciousness. I hadn't even really thought that much on it myself, but everything I'd said was right. I really needed to get away.

There was silence in the car as we traveled past the White House, then Driver let out a thoughtful sound somewhere between a grunt and a hrmm. "You might be right. Maybe I'll put in for a transfer out of security detail, go to a quieter part of the country."

"You what?" Passenger (the other goon) asked. "Just like that?"

"Just like that I'll think on it, sure. All this time I've been asking my friends what they think I should do, when I should have asked someone Katie's age what I should do. Thanks, buddy." His eyes connected with mine in the rear-view mirror and he nodded to me.

If I was a pegasus right now, I'd probably flick my wings and preen a little. Getting a compliment from an adult felt good, plus he'd called me "buddy", which was more like a term for a peer, not a kid. "Saffron Ree, but just call me Saf."

"Trevor Lane, just call me Trev. We're going to be parking in a moment. I want you both to get out with Mike here, let him lead the way while I get the car squared away. We're not expecting any danger, but the boss-man doesn't want any chances taken." Trev flicked on his indicator and pulled us up to the front door of the most crazy-rich-looking hotel ever.

"Okay, after me. C'mon," Mike said as he climbed out.

I opened my door behind Mike and climbed out while reaching back to grab Riley's hand. "Come on, both out this door puts us right behind Mike and gets us inside quicker."

We bundled out of the car and followed Mike inside. The place was huge and everything was either shiny and chrome or shiny and gold. We wound up standing beside the lifts for Trev to come in too. He approached the front desk, spoke with them a moment, and got a key.

As he approached us, I realized he had a sports bag in one hand. "I've got a key to your parents suite. They promised to send someone up to refresh the toiletries once you are done."

"Sweet. Hey, does this place have somewhere to have lunch? Could save you finding us somewhere else, and might have less chance of causing a crowd," I said.

Trev looked at Mike and they both nodded silently. "That would work well. I've got your things in this bag, you can both get changed into your fancy stuff again after you clean up." When the doors of the lift opened, Mike stepped in first, we piled in after him, and Trev stepped in and tapped the keycard to the lift's sensor. It beeped and closed the doors.

"I'll be honest," Mike said. "I thought it was babysitting. That stuff you did with the tree kinda reminded me who you were, though. Now, if you help us out by not being pains in the neck… you get a definite upgrade there."

As soon as he finished, I realized he hadn't meant to say it. It was like the camera guy in the oval office. How often were people going to just open up like this around me. Or us. I looked aside at Riley.

"Is this your magic again?" Riley asked.

"Magic?" Mike asked.

"Back when we were doing the show things with Uncle Jeff, one of the camera guys got really freaky and talkative with Saf. It was kinda cute in a creepy way. Almost like Saf had asked him about his cutie mark—if you ever want to hear a pony talk for an hour, ask them about their cutie mark."

"Are you saying you just wizarded me to tell the truth?" Turning to look at me, Mike raised an eyebrow but had a smile on his face. I didn't even know goons could smile.

"Oh, yeah! Totally. Just like I wizarded you to remove the stick from your ass and smile."

All four of us were laughing when the doors opened. Mike walked out first and looked around before beckoning us down the hallway. All too soon we were at a door, inside, and I was in the shower.

The shampoo and body-wash was surprisingly good stuff, but then, given the look of this place it would be expected. I got out and dried myself off with a plush towel, then walked into the living room without a thought. That's when it hit me that I was naked. "Where's my clean clothes?"

"Naturalist?" Trev asked as he tossed the bag in my direction.

"Somethin' like that. Ponies don't wear much in the way of clothes most of the time, but nothing's all that visible." That's a lie and I know it. I'd seen more vaginas in my months in Equestria than all the porn I've ever seen, and given my life on the internet before going to Equestria, that was a startling fact even for me to digest. "Thanks."

As I walked back toward the bedroom I'd been using, Riley stepped out of a different one—though she had towels wrapped around her. "Is my stuff in that bag too?" she asked, and when I shrugged, she looked at the goons.

"I put everything you didn't wear running in there," Mike said.

She followed me into the room, and the moment the door closed she started giggling. "You forgot you weren't a pony."

"Yeah. I just don't think about clothes much, I guess. What do you need?" I dropped the bag on the bed, unzipped it, and then turned it upside down. I started picking through the things I'd need.

"Bra, underwear, socks, top, skirt…" She let out a sigh. "I wish I had some makeup."

"You should have grabbed some when you got that skirt." I grabbed out my selections and noticed there was yet more clothing that was brand new from the mall we visited. "I'll change in the bathroom."

"'Kay. So what are we going to have for lunch? I hope they have something good." I heard her pulling things on and making biting sounds. "Ugh, these damn tags." That explained the biting sounds.

"I might see if they have any seafood. I have no clue what this kind of place would serve. How will we pay for it?" I realized I'd have to do what Riley was doing for some of the things I'd grabbed, though the suit pants from earlier would be fine.

"Duh, Mike or Trev will sort that out. Maybe I could get something with apples in it—just to compare it to Bloom's apples."

That made sense—the first bit, at least. "You know they won't. Nothing tastes as good as food grown by an earth pony, and you know it." I was about halfway dressed.

"Yeah, I know. But it's still good to remind ourselves of that. I bet they do have good seafood, though."

"Are you turning a little pegasus?" I asked. "Maybe have some wings growing in? How would that be, if we went back through the teleport thingy and we both ended up as pegasi?"

"Eww! I don't like it as a pony!" She screwed her face up her face. "Can you toss me my socks?"

Everything I did, from breathing right up to running, reminded me that this was all strange now. I was missing two limbs and couldn't walk right and—I needed to calm down. Maybe I was a little hangry, too. "Well, why not have a steak?"

"What?!"

"I mean, you're human now, you can eat one and I bet it would taste good."

"Why don't you get one too then? We can both eat all the red meat." Riley glared at me in a way that told me she knew exactly why I wouldn't take her up on that. Well, time to call her on it.

"You know why." Just thinking of how much Fluttershy would look hurt by me admitting to eating red meat stung part of my soul.

Riley finished buttoning up her shirt and turned back to face me. "It's because of her, isn't it? She'd give you those big, sad eyes."

"Shut up, Riley."

"She wouldn't say a word, but I bet her bottom lip would tremble a bit and her ears would fold back."

"Alright. You win. I can't believe she's a whole universe away and I still can't look at meat without picturing her expression. Fish it is." I got my pants on and tucked my shirt into them. "It feels weird wearing all these clothes, too."

"Says the guy who was walking around naked five minutes ago."

I turned and stuck my tongue out at her. "Like you were much better."

"I kept my underwear on…" The way she trailed off made me think that hadn't been as certain as she'd have liked it to be.

"Let's face it, Riley, we're both ponies now. This"—I smacked my chest with my palm—"is strange now."

"Yup. Ponies through and through. So what can we do to be silly with it?" The look Riley gave me spoke of mischief on a large scale.

"We could order salad bowls and try to eat from them only using our faces."

"Ohh! And what about getting sippy straws for everything and just trying to never use our hands?"

Pulling our shoes on together, I shook my head. "You're not thinking far enough. We make it a contest. See how many times we have to resort to using our hands. Least amount wins."

"No. It counts 2 points if someone sees you, 5 if they comment, and only 1 if you get away without anyone noticing," Riley said.

Standing up, I flicked my braid to the side and watched the pattern of colored feathers swoosh across my vision. "You're the smart one in the family, and it shows. Okay, those points sound good, but how do we record them if we can't use our hands to write them down?"

"We'll work something out."

Author's Note

Ask Saffron: What are your thought that you are now an electro-man?

"That it sucks. Everything here is full of electronics, and if I so much as breathe wrong they're going to blame me for destroying it." Saffron rolled his eyes. "But it was kinda fun to make all those thugs come running out to protect Jeff from the evil teenager pony."

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Lab

Chapter 23

We'd taken our challenge a step further and decided to order for each other—with the caveat that we wouldn't order any meat from a land critter. For Riley, I'd ordered a fish I hoped would be full of tiny bones she'd have to pick out, while she'd ordered a lobster for me.

The salad starters went down well, and we both enjoyed them despite the two goons' looks. They knew we weren't this useless, but the waiter looked mortified when we leaned down and started eating from the plates.

"What are you two doing?" Trev asked.

"Being idiots, mostly," I said while chewing on the last leaf of my salad. "You know, playing up being ponies turned into humans. I don't know how to use hands."

"That's ten points for explaining the game," Riley said.

I turned to look at her. "We never agreed on that rule."

We stared at each other for a good minute before we both cracked up laughing. There was something good about supporting each other though this. No matter what happened, we were both still ourselves. We were ponies pretending to be upright monkeys.

Our giggles continued until our main courses came out. They set down a block of wood on one side and a rice dish on the other. "Butter-poached lobster with a lobster risotto." They moved over to Riley and put down a plate with a salmon steak on the side of a plate with some kind of sauce, rice, and red vegetables too. "Crispy salmon filet with a potato and herb mash and roasted tomatoes with a light vinaigrette."

Okay, not rice. That potato must have been mashed really fine. Damn, now I wanted to try her salmon. "That looks delicious."

"We're going to ruin these meals if we try this, aren't we?" Riley asked.

"Yeah. Okay, game's over. We both won." I leaned over, my nose telling me how amazing that fish was. "Can I try a bit of that?"

"If I can have a piece of your lobster."

On the block of wood, the lobster meat was laid out perfectly, but it was missing all the enclosing shell. At the front of it, the head sat looking up at me. "You want the head?" I lifted it up and realized it was empty. "Oh, that's empty. Well, want a leg?"

"Sure, here you are." Riley used her hands to shovel a piece of the salmon onto my block of wood and speared one of the pincers to gather up some of the lobster for herself.

While we ate, the two goons got their own meals delivered. We chatted about this and that—mostly the food. Trev wanted to know more about what it was like to live on a different world and Mike seemed more interested in asking about what Dad was doing.

Our waitress, whenever she came to the table, wouldn't stop stealing looks at Riley or me. When we got to dessert, I caught her looking at me in a far different way than she was looking at Riley.

"Apple pie served à la Mode with a vanilla bean ice cream and drizzled with apple caramel, for all four." The waitress carefully placed each of our plates down, but mine I noticed something extra. There was a small piece of paper folded under one edge of my plate.

When she left, Trev snorted. "Look under your plate. I'll bet you just got her cell number."

"Yeah. She was looking at both of us, but she didn't seem to be able to get her eyes off me for long." It was exciting. How could it not be? As a pony I didn't even have the urges that were making me grin right now. I started eating my pie. "Do you think I should call her?"

"Eww. Saf, I'm probably only going to tell you this once. You could do better." Riley took a fork-load of the pie and started chewing it before she pointed it back at her plate. "This isn't half bad."

"I mean, she was kinda cute, for a human." I stopped in my tracks the moment I realized what I'd said. For a human implied that I thought a pony of equal beauty would be superior. Mentally, I put the waitress and Sudden on a platform together and looked at each. "Huh…"

"Did my big brother just realize he likes ponies more than girls?" Her tone implied that Riley wasn't going to let this go anytime soon. "Because that's what that sounded like."

"I… I guess I kinda do." I speared more pie and chewed on it thoughtfully for a moment, apparently joined by the rest since they didn't cut in. I thought about those two images—waitress and Sudden Turn—and it became quickly apparent what it was. "I think I'm into wings."

"Chicken wings?" Mike asked.

Riley and Trev both laughed.

I rolled my eyes at them all. "No. I mean I'm into pegasi. I tried to picture Miss Free-With-Her-Number and a friend from back home, and when I tried to look at them both and think what makes me look at one and not the other, it was her wings."

"Not her butt?" Mike asked. "Or her—her chest?"

Shaking my head, I let out a sigh and reviewed my mental image. "Definitely her wings. I could count every feather on them and tell you what every single one does. I can even tell you how soft they are."

"Good luck, Earth girls, this guy's got it for bits you don't even have." Trev speared some of his dessert with his fork. "They never even stood a chance."

I continued to eat my pie in silence, as did the others. When I finished it, and despite everything I'd said about wings, I drew the piece of paper out from under the plate and looked at it. It said, "Call me," and was followed by a phone number.

Folding it, I tucked it in my pocket. Would I call her? Maybe. I don't know. She looked in her 20s, maybe early in them, which made her older than me here, but even thinking of myself as the pegasus colt I felt like made me shudder a little.

How messed up was it that that was now working in reverse?

"I'll just take those away. Can I get you anything else?" She sounded like she was smiling and genuinely happy. I turned my head to look up at her and saw a young woman who looked very pretty—for a human.

"I, uh." Saf, get a hold of yourself and do this like an adult. "Do you know if the hotel has a bar, and what time it might open?" Smooth.

Her face lit up to a whole new level of happiness. It felt nice to have put that smile there. "Sure. There's one just out the door and to your left. I believe it starts to get interesting in about an hour."

"Thanks. I guess I'll see how interesting it gets." I couldn't help but smile back. There was something about just honestly talking to people that seemed to make them happy and excited.

My brain began to shift gears into human mode, and all of Dad's warnings rushed in. I needed condoms. If this was going to get interesting-interesting, well, I wanted to be ready for any kind of interesting.

"Could you bring the check?" Trev asked.

Hearing someone else speak snapped her out of her daydream. She turned to Trev and nodded. "Certainly sir."

While Trev and the woman organized payment, Mike turned away from us and spoke so softly I couldn't hear him. I turned my attention to Riley.

"I guess you don't need me to hang around while you're with a girl." If Riley had a crest, it'd be fallen. She looked down at the floor.

It took less than half a second to toss away my plans. "Hey, if it's that boring I'll ditch her and come up to our suite. There was a few games consoles hooked up, I figure we can find something to play."

Riley's head shot up to look at me. "What? You'd do that for me?"

"Of course. Remember, we're the only two ponies here except for Mom and Dad, and they don't count because they're adults. I'll be 10 minutes, tops."

If she'd been an earth pony still, Riley would have knocked me over and then some. As it was I was a lot more solid than she was here and caught her with one arm around her back to deliver the hug she was giving me. Was this crazy? Not according to how I felt. Riley was family, and family was important.

"W-Why don't you ask if she wants to play too? I-I know she wants to—to play adult games, but she'll probably be sad if you just turn her down."

I thought about it for a second. It would give me a chance to get a little more relaxed around girls here, and there'd be no pressure. Plus I could chase down some condoms later. "I'll ask her. I don't think she'll want to stick around to play CoD or whatever's popular now, but it won't hurt to ask."

"Hell if I can figure you out," Trevor said. "You get a girl who wants to—to have some fun with you, and you ditch her to play video games with your sister?" He stumbled only when he realized he would say something that Riley probably shouldn't hear.

I mean, I guess that was true. It'd be nice to get laid, but there were more important things. "A year ago you'd have been right. I was kinda girl-crazy when I wasn't trying to be cool and disinterested in everything. I'm different now."

"I'll say." Riley smirked at me. "You know the day before we had to leave he had a girl in his room? My brother's pretty awesome most of the time, but sometimes he's a bit stupid."

"Hey!"

"Just calling it like it is. You used to be all crazy whenever your friend Candy visited." She stuck her tongue out at me.

She was right, though. Candy was kinda fun to be with, but I did get kinda distracted by her. For a brief moment I wondered what she might be doing now, but the answer was obvious—she'd be on break and getting ready for college.

Did Wonderbolts training count as college? I knew there were jocks that went to college just to play sport, but Wonderbolts training was nothing like that. Was it?

Riley Ree

It was way too much fun ribbing Saf, but when I saw him actually look worried, I clinked my spoon on my plate. He looked up at me with those big—Okay, they weren't big, cute eyes. Ponies had big cute eyes, but Saf's right now looked like he was worried about something.

I wouldn't normally worry about what Saf's feeling so much, but right now us ponies had to stick together. "What's up?"

"I was thinking about what Candy would be doing, which made me think of college, and…" He reached up to his feathered braid. "You know how jocks go to college and do sport? Do you think Junior Wonderbolts Academy is like that?"

"You're only asking me 'cos I'm smart, aren't you?"

"More like you'll tell me the truth."

I giggled and reached out my hand to poke him in the ribs. "I can do even better than answer this for you."

He looked more curious than upset now. "What?"

"Okay, let me put it a better way. How does a pegasus fly in still air?" I knew the answer because I'd been studying everything lately. Anything with four legs at least. There was so much about ponies themselves to study.

"In still air? Most pegasi would tuck their primaries and use the lift gained by their secondary feathers. Glide to conserve energy then give a few flaps to regain altitude."

I stared at him in what I hoped was a good deadpan expression. He just kept looking back at me.

It seemed he needed more. "And how does pegasus magic affect clouds?"

"It interacts between our hooves and the moist air, creating an arc of travel for the magic to flow and—" Bam. He finally got it. He stared at me like I was a genius and he was maybe, kinda starting to get on my level.

Then his shock broke into a smile and he reached out and grabbed me. It might have been really odd to see brothers and sisters of our ages hug like this in public, but it made the pony I was in my heart happy to get a big hug and to hug him back. "See? You're not a jock, Saf. You're way too smart for that."

"Ponies forever, right?"

I laughed. "Absolutely. Hoof-bump." I pulled back from the hug and held up my fist. It wasn't exactly a hoof, but it was close enough.

"Right on." He bumped my fist with his own. "I'll go see if she's there yet. You want anything to drink?"

"Sure. Some of Sweet Apple Acres best light cider." I kinda regretted saying it. We'd only had it once, and that once had spoiled every other sweet drink ever.

"We gotta wait until we get back for that. I'll find something for us to take upstairs." He stood up and reached out to ruffle my hair, then walked off in the direction he'd been told. Mike stood up too and walked after him.

"I guess that's why they sent two of you?" I asked Trevor Lane.

"Yeah. We have to keep an eye out for anything bad happening to either of you. You know, I only knew one big brother myself, but I don't think he ever looked up to me or my sister."

"It's just how we are. You should see it when we're back home. He's bigger than me still, but he's a pegasus and I'm an earth pony, so I'm a lot stronger than he is even at my size. It was a little unnerving when we got back here to realize how much I relied on that strength." I reached out for a bread roll that was in a basket on the table and grabbed one of them.

"Really settled in there, huh?"

I looked up at him as if he was crazy, because he was. "Well, yeah. Firstly, you take the biggest wishes of every little girl—to be around ponies all the time and meet a real life princess. That happened on day one. Things got more awesome from there."

"You like it more than here?"

"Yeah. I mean, I have friends there, and we're going to be there for a bit. I know it's going to take forever for me to grow up there, but that just means more time to be a kid." When my answer made him look confused, I had to wonder how much people knew about it. "You know how aging works different there, right?"

"I heard something about it. What's so different?"

Thinking back, I couldn't remember when an adult human had spoken to me like this—as if I wasn't just a little kid but had something worth hearing. "Well, I'm almost thirteen, right?" I waited for him to nod. "That's how old a foal is who's just starting their second year of school. So rather than junior high, I'd be stuck learning to write my name and count to five."

"That bad? I thought it was just like a few years or something." He grabbed a bread roll as well and started picking at it. "So when would you have graduated?"

"Their idea of high school is really slow going. They learn all kinds of job things and get to go out and try working at jobs—all to get their cutie marks and find their special talent." Lifting up my own roll, I paused just before taking a bite to say, "Fifty. I'd have another 37 years of school."

"And you want to go back to that? How old do ponies get?"

I had to chew hard to get the mouthful of bread down and then needed a drink. Why do I have to wait to have a good cider? Grabbing a glass of water I got the impending hiccups to stop before they even started. "Yeah. I mean, I get to study a lot, and I kinda like that. Ponies get really old. 200 to 250 is pretty normal, although I know a pony, Granny Smith, who is almost 300."

"You're shitting me?" When I raised an eyebrow at him, Trevor Lane seemed to barely notice it. "What do they do with all that? Do they get bored of life?"

"You're asking someone at the wrong end of things. Also, watch your language around little fillies."

He actually blushed at that, though I don't think it was because of the first bit. We sat in silence for a few minutes before Saffron returned. He didn't have a drink with him, but Mike was walking along behind.

"Come on, Riley. Let's head up. The guy at the bar said he'd have room service send up some drinks. Kaylee said she'll meet us in the lift. I think it might be that fascination thing again, but she seemed interested in playing some video games with us."

I put the rest of my bread on my plate and stood up. "She, uh, knows I'll be there, right?"

"Yeah, I told her you'd be playing too. If it's a problem for her, it's a problem for me." Saf really said the best stuff sometimes. We walked to where all the lifts were—with Mike and Trevor following—and just before we started stepping into one the woman Saf had been talking to walked up and stepped in with us.

"Riley, this is Kaylee. Kaylee, Riley's my little sister."

"You're a pony too, right? Like from the video with the president?" Kaylee definitely seemed excited enough to count as fascinated, but I remembered how that other girl was with our running.

I needed and resolved to make a new friend. After all, that was the pony way. "Sure am! It's still odd getting used to walking like this again, but the running we did earlier helped."

"Ugh. I am so jealous. I hate working this job, but you know how it is trying to get work and—I wish I could be a pony too."

Funnily, it was Saf who broke first and replied. "You know ponies need to work too, right? They have waiters and restaurants and—"

"Yeah, but I'd be a pony! A pegasus or a unicorn! It'd be amazing!"

Okay, now she had to be put in her place. "What about earth ponies?"

"You mean the ones without wings or a horn? I—I guess I didn't really think about them. What can they do?" Kaylee at least didn't think earth ponies weren't amazing straight away. She wasn't a total loss.

"Earth ponies," Saffron said, "are the greatest. They're strong as ten pegasi, can lift twice whatever a unicorn can with their horn, and they have hearts the size of a house."

"I thought you were a pegasus?"

"I am, but earth ponies and unicorns are great. My dad's a unicorn, and Mum and Riley are earth ponies. Riley is stronger than I am in Equestria—and I'm like twice her size!"

This wasn't right, though. He was cheering on earth ponies and unicorns, but was neglecting pegasi. "Saffron is leaving out that pegasi are awesome. They're faster than the wind and help keep the weather in Equestria from going crazy all the time."

"Then there's the dragons. We're best buds with a dragon named Spike. He's a librarian," Saffron said.

"And alicorns," I said. "Alicorns are when a pony has all three races in them. There's a few alicorns, but only one that was born an alicorn. Princess Flurry Heart." She'd told me not to use her full title when talking to her, but this wasn't talking to her. Besides, she was a princess and everyone should know that.

"But wouldn't you only need to combine a pegasus and unicorn to get a pony that looks like all three?" The lift was riding up and was almost at our stop, and her questions were starting to bug me just a little.

"What? Of course not. You can have the creativity and magic of a unicorn and the speed and loyalty of a pegasus, but without the heart and strength of an earth pony you wouldn't be an alicorn. There's a ton of other little things each race can do that's special. Like, Riley can talk to trees." Saffron stepped out of the lift when it stopped and made room for us to follow.

"Talk to trees? How does that even work?"

I giggled as I stepped out. "Very slowly. What's more fun is that they listen, and you can ask them to do things. Usually it takes some magic to convince them, but the one we found today was too scared to grow properly, and I managed to convince it that it was safe."

"No way! What happened?"

"It used the stored energy to grow. The poor thing was terrified if it got too big, bad things would happen. It didn't realize there was a literal army of people trying to help it grow." Well, I hoped there was. It seemed like the gardens around there were important.

"You mean it's going to grow now, right?" She looked a little confused. "Not like, grow-grow right away."

Saf opened the door to our suite and led the way inside. "What? No, she means it literally grew right there. Gained a few feet, right?"

His reinforcing of my story made me want to puff out my chest and strut a little, though I think that'd look a little silly for a human to do. "Right. It had so much energy that I didn't need to use any magic on it. Plants can grow really quick when they want to."

"What's it like there though? The pony world, I mean. Ponies seem really awesome, but I don't know if I'd want to, like, go there." The change in topic annoyed me a little, but it was jumping from one of my favorite topics to another.

Settling down on the couch, Saf pulled out a remote bigger than my head and started looking over it. "Well, the first thing you gotta realize is that the most crazy part of being there is that you're a pony. Forget hands and feet, you're all leg and bright colors. It gets twice as confusing if you become a pegasus."

"Saf couldn't walk properly for weeks. He kept getting his wings mixed up with his forelegs," I said as I jumped up on the couch beside him. I figured he'd probably want a little bit of contact with Kaylee, so left room for her to sit between us.

"Oh, yeah. I was so confused. It was like… Okay, imagine if your arms turn into legs and you grow new arms. You kinda know how arms are meant to work, but these ones are wired up all wrong. So there you are, whenever you try to move an 'arm' you fall over." The TV finally came on and Saf started punching other buttons. "It took a lot of work to work it out, and it was partly a really clever trick."

Spotting the game controllers in a little rack beside the TV, I jumped up and grabbed three of them. "Here you go."

That's when I realized what might be wrong with having her sit between us. If she was getting hit with that pony-whammy effect, now she was getting a double dose. Well, that's what she was here for, right? I passed the controllers to Saf and her, then jumped back up on the couch as Saf sorted out the TV.

Author's Note

To Jeff: Do you have a team researching the possibility of using magic on Earth?

"Absolutely. After witnessing some of the simpler things Riley and Saffron are capable of—to say nothing of what Philip and the team from Equestria are doing—we have spawned entire teams of researchers who now must labor under the title, Federal Department of Magic." Jeff looked particularly happy. "And that's not taking into account what wonders Equestria is actually exporting to us."

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Lab

Chapter 24 Clair Ree

Jeff yawned. The only time I'd ever seen him yawn before was during his campaign. Long nights and early mornings hadn't agreed with him, but today had been a mostly ordinary day, though with the time difference it felt like mid evening for us—despite it being nearly two A.M.

"I think we should head to the hotel. Jeff…" I had to rear up and plant my hooves on the Resolute Desk. "Jeff!"

"Clair!" Jeff looked around as if a firecracker had gone off. "It's been a long day. I think I need to call it quits here." He stood up and stretched. Despite his tiredness and despite working at what previous presidents had called the hardest job in the world, he still looked spry.

Jumping down from the desk, I walked over to Philip and indulged in a kiss. "Come on. Let's go see how much of the city Saffron and Riley have destroyed."

"Maybe we could go to a different hotel? Tell the kids tomorrow that we got lost. We won't even need a bedroom for what I have planned." He stopped every few words to kiss me again, and despite our location, the time, and my current circumstances, part of me definitely liked his plan. "So?"

I tilted my head and leaned forward so our brows touched and his horn rested against the top of my head. "You know what that would mean for tomorrow, right?"

Philip's little chuckle made my belly clench. "You mean if we spent all night studying anato—?"

"I'm sorry to do this, Clair, Philip, but I'm leaving, and that means the office needs to be cleared," Jeff said, startling both of us out of the moment.

"Sorry, Jeff." Embarrassed? Yup. Going to let it bring down the night? Not a chance. "C'mon, sexy," I said to Philip, hopefully quiet enough that only he heard it, "let's make a move so you can make a move."

He jumped up from the couch and followed me to the door and outside, and he was like that all the way out to the car. Jeff had two of his Secret Service drive us to the hotel where Saffron and Riley were already stationed. While we got some odd looks in the lobby, no one actually said anything to us.

Philip seemed to be curtailing his advances, though I could still catch him looking at me as if I were an apple pie and he was hungry—a look I quite enjoyed. When the lift stopped and one of the big men stepped out to check the hallway, Philip leaned over and nipped my ear.

"Philip!" I trotted out of the lift with a prancing gait that I'm sure had been exactly what he wanted of me. "Where're our rooms?"

"Down here, ma'am."

I followed along, aware that Philip was right behind me, and had to struggle not to put on a show for him. What was wrong with me? When the man in front stopped at a door and whispered something I didn't hear, the door opened to reveal a room dimly lit with a TV playing something on the other side of it.

"Mom? Dad?" Riley's voice came a moment before she leaned over the back of a couch that was in a depressed section of the living room.

Oh no, Clair. You could have taken your husband's advice and been making out in another hotel by now. Never mind the kids would have been not just okay, but watched over by the Secret Service. Nope, you had to be the responsible adult and not spend all night with your sexy stallion. "Hey, kids. Not too bored I hope?"

"Nah. We were just playing games with Kaylee. She's nice."

That intrigued me, and I walked over to the couch and around it to see a young woman slumped against Saffron's side. The scene looked like she'd passed out on him. "Saffron?"

My son, of course, was still playing the game and ignoring the new ornament he'd gained. He seemed to jerk a little at my mention of his name, then turned his head while pausing his game. "Oh. Hi, Mom."

"She got pony-whammied." Riley sat up and stretched. "Saf was being nice, though I think the whammy helped a bit. She seemed really into him at the restaurant, but when we all got close on the couch and played games, it was like the whammy just mellowed her out."

"Riley thinks there's some kind of whammy that makes people really like ponies, and she thinks we're still causing it." Saffron gestured to the woman curled up beside him. "Like the cameraman back at the White House."

A nip at my ear stole all my attention away from the situation on the couch. Philip was walking past and making quite a show of moving. "Leave them to their game. They can afford to be tired tomorrow."

Damn him, but I knew the evening was not over yet—and I liked the idea. "Right. Bed. Gotta be up early tomorrow." Oh, you liar Clair Ree. I walked off after Philip and left our children to be as terrible as they wanted to be.

Truthfully, I trusted Saffron not to take advantage of her, especially if there was some kind of magical effect. Philip, on the other hoof, I was hoping would take advantage of me. "Coming."

Yawning, I wanted to ignore the sound of buzzing coming from the side of the bed. The rumpled bed that we were both spread across after a wonderful evening. "Mmm. I'm coming…" Lifting my head from the pillow, I saw it was a bedside phone that was ringing.

"So you said last night," Philip said as he rolled toward me. "Let it ring."

I giggled as he tried to distract me—almost successfully. However, without using his magic he had no chance of keeping me from answering the phone. "Hello?" It was a little awkward to hold to my head. The handset was just a little shorter than a pony head needed.

"You have a waiting message from a Mr. Jeff Miller. He's asked you to be woken at 8 A.M., and told to be ready at 9." The man's voice sounded confused, and it took me a few moments to realize he didn't recognize Jeff's name. It's true that it was a little more "normal" than previous presidents', but I would have hoped all the work we put in would make it one to be remembered long after he leaves office.

"Thank you. If President Miller calls back, please put him through to me immediately." I could almost hear the silent shock on the other end of the line. I didn't expect an acknowledgment, so hung the phone back up before letting out a little gasp.

Philip looked up from my belly, his mouth curled into a wide grin. "A wake-up call?" At my nod, he nuzzled my belly again and ran his tongue into my bellybutton. "How long do we have?"

"An hour, but—" I didn't get any further with the words or thought as Philip made sure I wasn't going to be focusing on anything that wasn't him for nearly twenty minutes. Though they were a quite enjoyable twenty minutes, now I had to rush a little.

A shower and drying off my coat should have taken the better part of an hour on its own, but Philip helped with his magic and—by the time we were done—we opened the bedroom door and walked to the living room in time to see the clock hit 8:56 A.M.

"We still have four minutes, Clair," Philip said from behind me—close enough that I could feel his breath on my coat.

"Dad…" Saffron's tone actually made me giggle. I looked around to locate him, and found him in the kitchen area making a bowl of cereal. "Some of us are trying to eat here."

"You say that, Saf, and yet I wasn't the only one with a girl over last night." Philip practically strutted past me and into the small kitchen area, and was using his magic to make two more bowls of the cereal.

Saffron poured milk into his bowl and picked up a spoon to start eating. "Kaylee left earlier. She had work today. Also, we weren't banging so loud that the whole hotel heard."

"But you were banging?" Philip asked him.

I couldn't keep back a snort that broke loose. Saffron looked at me accusingly and let out a sigh. "Something wrong?" I asked.

"We didn't do anything at all. It just didn't feel right, you know? I guess if you spend a few months as a pre-pubescent pony you kinda don't have much game when you are dumped back in hormone-ville again." He began shoveling his breakfast with more determination than I think he showed when flying. Maybe.

"Sorry, Saf. How about a truce on that, then?" Philip asked as he floated two bowls over to the coffee table.

I'd grown used enough to eating directly from bowls—it didn't seem so much an animalistic thing as just practical. Philip might have his fancy magic to hold knives and spoons and forks and such, but while I could manage with my hooves, it was a slow and annoying process. I followed my bowl to the low table and started drinking the moment we both reached it.

Saffron sighed loud enough to make me grin into my breakfast. "Sure. Okay. Just try to keep it down a bit. Or close your door or something. Whatever works." That surprised me. Had we left the door open in our rush to have fun last night?

Philip just looked smug. Okay, I knew I was a little vocal last night, but he'd been too. I guess they don't make hotel walls like they used to. Did Philip like hearing me make a lot of noise? Well, I know the answer to that already—he does. I didn't realize he liked the idea of others hearing me.

"Our door was closed, but we'll try to keep it down, Saf." Philip forsook a spoon and ate his cereal like I did. It wasn't a huge deal for me, but I appreciated him making me feel more at ease about eating. "Got any plans for today?"

"Heck yeah!" Saffron seemed to animate, but I could hear an edge to his voice that told me he was about to pull a teenager moment. "I'm going to head out and stretch my wings, then I'm going to fly up to Cloudsdale and do some Wonderbolt training." Yeah, he was getting much better with sarcasm. "Oh, wait, I can't."

"It's only a week." Riley walked out of her room on the other side of the living room and was using a towel on her hair. She walked over to the table wearing only a second towel, and sat down. "What's for breakfast?"

A knock came at the door, startling us all. Saf, who was already standing, walked over and touched the intercom. "Oh." He opened the door to reveal Jeff Miller, President of the United States of America. "Hey."

"How are we all today? Riley! What you did in the park yesterday has my press secretary buzzing. Showing off Equestrian magic? Everyone loves it. We're going to have to make your run today an event, though. Turns out that young miss you ran with tweeted it out and there's going to be a lot joining you, if the replies are anything to go off." Jeff wasn't just smiling, he was beaming. I couldn't blame him, everything was coming up roses and it was just because of our kids being themselves.

"Maybe I'll just run in the gym, here, then." Saffron closed the door and walked over to the couch. "It was fun to run with a few people, but I don't think I want to be a celebrity."

"Maybe Keylee will be there?" Riley asked, lifting her spoon as a bowl of cereal floated over before her.

Jeff made his way over to the kitchen table. "Mind if I sit down, and who's Keylee?"

"Keylee, unless I miss my guess," I said, "is a girl Saffron met late yesterday. I think her intention was to have a quick party with him, but there's something we noticed. Remember your camera guy getting fixated on Saffron's feathers yesterday?" I waited until Jeff was nodding along. "Well, that seems to be a side effect of pony magic. A minor fixation."

Looking a little worried, Jeff looked between Philip and myself. "It didn't seem harmful."

"Jeff," Philip said, "do you know anything ponies do to be harmful? Basically cute little fuzzy magic critters who want to break into song every now and again."

I nodded to that. "Right. Let's just call it a bedazzling. So I figure when Riley and Saffron tell her they want to play games, she's too enthusiastic about being bedazzled to steer back to what she wanted. Who was she?"

"Waitress from the restaurant downstairs," Saffron said.

"I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, Saf. You're an adult now." Philip's statement got an incredulous look from Saffron.

"Dad! Ugh. The worst bit is I want to get annoyed at you for making me go to Equestria in the first place but I like it too much there. You're the worst and best, you know that?"

"I love you too, Saf," Philip said.

"Err, okay." Jeff seemed a little flustered, but his face quickly settled back into his normally focused expression. "Well, I have a full day planned. There's two news interviews, a press conference, and I had scheduled a meet and greet at one of DC's hospitals so you can see the difference the medication and expertise from Equestria is bringing."

Saffron, Riley, and Philip all let out the most expansive groans I'd heard from them in a while. It was enough to make me chuckle at the way they harmonized. "Sounds great, Jeff. I assume you had Caroline write up itineraries for each of us?"

"Waiting in the car. Whenever you're all ready?" Jeff seemed to just now notice Riley wasn't wearing anything but a towel.

Riley, of course, stuck her tongue out at him and returned to eating her breakfast.

Well, time to be a parent. "Riley, finish your breakfast and go get dressed."

"Yes, Mom," Riley said.

"Saffron, are you nearly ready?"

"Yes, Mom," Saffron said.

I felt it best not to point out that if they were ponies, they wouldn't need clothes. That's when something hit me. "Oh no."

"What's wrong?" Philip asked.

"We're ponies."

"Right."

"What do you see?" I looked to Jeff.

"You're a pony… Where are you going with this, Clair?" Jeff asked.

Stepping off my seat and onto the floor, I turned to look away from Philip, then looked back over my shoulder at him. "See?"

Philip looked distracted for a moment, then blushed and nodded.

"What's the matter?" Jeff asked again.

"Clair needs a skirt." Philip tried to keep his tone neutral, but I could hear a little bit of a comical undertone. Drat him, I was trying to be serious. "There's a thing among ponies that you don't do, and that's stare at what's under a tail. Ask Saf how he handled the first few weeks of being a pony."

"Don't ask Saf," Saffron said.

The pair of them laughed, but it was Riley who jumped up from the table and rushed to her room. I was about to ask what had happened when she came back out holding a shopping bag. "This will be perfect on you, Mom!"

What she lifted from her bag was a light brown, knee-length skirt. She marched up to me while everyone was speechless, and squinted. "Okay, going to need some safety pins. Anypony know where we can get them?" And just like that my little filly had taken control of the situation.

Jeff jumped to his feet, walked over to the telephone, and picked it up. After a moment he introduced himself and asked for them to send a sewing kit and safety pins. "As many as you can bring. — That will be fine. As soon as possible."

"You're right. I will need a sewing kit. I need to split the back seam of this, then a safety pin at the fastener to hold it on around your tail. Then some more to help keep it cinched tight." As she spoke, Riley lifted my back legs one at a time to get the skirt around them, then pulled it up in such a way that it sat under my tail, but the front fastening was at the back and fit around my dock. It was ingenious!

"How'd you figure that out?" I asked.

"Mom, Riley's a genius, remember? She takes after you while I take after Dad." Saffron stood up from the couch and carried his bowl to the kitchen.

It took me aback. I knew my little filly was smart—Moon Dancer had said as much on several occasions—but Saffron's words stirred up myriad of times when she'd known things far beyond what her years would normally allow. This latest was a demonstration of logic and planning that I'd not seen her perform before.

Do I tell her that? Her brother seems to be doing a good job of reinforcing and encouraging her already, maybe I should just lend a gentle hoof. "Well, it's very clever of you, sweetie." I reached out a hoof and pulled her closer—something that was surprisingly easy given I was an earth pony—and into a hug.

I gave her a good hug and got a slightly awkward one back—though it was obvious the problem she had was being bigger than me. No matter, she knew I loved and appreciated her despite the situation we were in.

The day, once I had suitable attire, was a series of fluffy interviews that didn't go into any depth on either Equestria or my mission there. I knew this would be the setup, but it still disappointed me to have another vacuous talk-show host ask me "why the long face?" for the umpteenth time.

Lunch was spent munching on whatever Philip could find that he approved of while a woman measured me up for more dresses. I was assured that I would have two more dresses that fit as well as Riley's by the end of the day.

Which left an afternoon briefing with the Senate. I had my notes together as well as a folder of the questions the Left were going to ask me—how nice of the party to warn me—and a bunch of questions they were sure the Right would ask.

So, forewarned, I had a halfway easy task ahead of me with about half the questions being mundane and open ended—giving me a chance to deliver my own information to the locked-door sitting.

"You'll forgive us if we're a little confused by your current state, ambassador Ree, but why exactly have you chosen to forsake your humanity so quickly?" It wasn't on my good list precisely because it was at the top of my bad list. Truth be told, the Republican senator for Kentucky was expected to be a little blunt even on a good day.

"You'll forgive me then, I hope. While our chief doctors and physicists could barely give me any word on what the portal does to a mature human, none of them suggested my using the transmogrification setting while pregnant. I'm sure with more use and more experimentation, we'll have all the answers, but not even its creator could be sure it would be safe for me to use." My answer, I knew, was relatively straight to the point for a Senate deposition.

"You got pregnant while—?"

"With my husband. Not that the intricacies of such are a matter for the Senate of the United States of America." I tried to be firm in stating that, but these old bastards could ask anything they wished, and they knew it. It was still, very slightly, a Republican Senate. "Is this really what you'll be spending your five minutes on?"

A round of chuckles circled anyone who had a D beside their name and even a few with an R.

"I only meant to clarify the—" The senator for Kentucky stopped rambling quickly enough. "I'd like to bring up the expense report you filed wherein you requisitioned $200,000 of computer hardware and ancillary equipment. Our estimates show that your department doesn't have the manpower to use a fraction of that."

I smiled, disarmingly I hope, and leaned up to the mic. "Could you rephrase that as a question?"

"What exactly are you using all this computer equipment for?"

"As is explained on page two-thirty-five of my report, approximately ten percent of the equipment was for the consulate, the rest was used as trade goods with the ponies, and more are already pending approval to secure further supplies of medical equipment."

"What medical equipment is being obtained?"

The questions went on and on, and I wished I could say that they were all intelligent and on-point, but they were deliberately trying to trip me up. They were seeking a reason to embarrass Jeff, and I was a conduit to him. What they seemed to have forgotten was that despite looking like a little horse, I was far from an innocent little filly in a shark tank—I'd helped run this shark tank.

By the time we were done it was five PM and I felt like screaming—not that my expression had changed from serene and helpful pony. Smiling, really smiling, was something it had taken Equestria time to teach me, but I'd learned the trick to it was remembering who I was and what that meant to me.

Clair Ree, mother, wife, diplomat, and a thousand other little things that all served to keep me smiling throughout the most brain dead report I'd ever given that I had to stay focused on.

"Your a wizard, Clair," Jeff said as we got out of the room. "How did you keep smiling that much at them? I think you unnerved a few into squandering their time."

"Aww, that's easy, Jeff, I'm a cute little pony and I knew everything would be alright in the end." I'd tried to pitch my voice at around Pinkie Pie, though I doubt I could ever come close to her levels of poniness combined with mild sarcasm.

"I'm glad you're on my side." Jeff led the way out to his limo and we kept quiet as we passed the few members of the press waiting to get a soundbite or two. Once we were seated inside and the doors closed, he let out a sigh. "Do you want to face some more comical sharks? Your children's afternoon run is about to start."

"You know, I could do with stretching my legs as well. What about you?"

"Clair, I'm wearing a suit—I can't run around the park."

Chuckling as the car pulled out, I jabbed my hoof in Jeff's direction. "You say that, but I've seen you move pretty quick in formal wear."

"Only when there's coffee on offer and I have a press secretary chasing me."

We kept up the light chatter as we drove to the park. Thanks to the nature of our vehicle, room was made for us on the busy streets of D.C.. As we passed the White House, I turned to see the circus that was going on in the park.

There was several news vans set up and a bunch of about twenty people in a cordoned off area that seemed to include the whole park. I couldn't see Riley and Saffron, but I had to assume they were both in that group.

"You had someone organize this so they didn't get mobbed?" I asked.

"I wasn't going to let the mob rule when it came to your kids, Clair. Now come on out and let's take the heat off them."

We got out of the limo with security already standing around us. Jeff really did plan everything just right.

"Mr. President! Can we have an interview?"

And so it began again. This time, however, it was a far less relaxed situation than our earlier interviews, and we would have to be just as cautious of what we said as with the Senate. That's when I realized I had an out. "I'll go check on my kids. Excuse me, Mr. President."

The look of resignation he shot me was almost pathetic, but wasn't enough to get me to stay by his side.

Two members of the security detail split off and walked with me to the cordon and then stepped over it while I ducked under.

"Mom!" Saffron's voice drew my attention into the crowd. He made his way to the edge and I felt my smile grow a little more. "We were trying to get this run started, but everyone seems to not understand run."

I hadn't worked on earth pony magic as much as Riley had, but I could still do a few little tricks with it—the first and foremost being that I could run forever and a day, but the one cool thing I had learned was how to share that gift. "Itchy hooves?"

"Yeah! Itchy as heck!" He didn't even seem to notice his attempt at swearing had been self-muted. Maybe it was proximity to a pony? Well, let's have some fun.

The others hadn't noticed me yet. I was too small and they all seemed crowded around something I couldn't see. Time to change that. I drew on the innate magic every pony possessed and was answered immediately and with a little timidity. My magic didn't seem to like it here as much as Equestria, but when I coaxed it further it poured out.

"Run."

My own hooves responded, my feet feeling ready to run a marathon, but Saffron let loose a whoop of excitement and took off at a sprint.

The crowd acted immediately. It was like something had spooked them and they needed to get away from it, but this was almost the exact opposite. Feet pounded and the whole group took off after Saffron.

Boiling with pony magic, I started running after them and quickly caught up with Riley.

"Mom! Saf found you? You used your magic and mine is going too!" She kept up with my gallop as we ran through the pack of people to find Saffron at the front. "Saf! You found Mom!"

"Yeah! Isn't this great! Got everyone moving, at least." Saffron, like Riley, was able to keep up with my gallop thanks to his longer gait. All three of us (and probably the people following) settled in for our run.

Only when the light started to fade did I slow from my gallop to a canter, then to a trot. The magic had flowed reluctantly, but it had flowed well enough that none of us felt winded or tired, and our muscles moved just as easily now as when we'd started. Slowing to a walk as we neared what had turned into a pavilion of press and security, I became aware of all the other people with us who were laughing and talking excitedly. I guess they had every right to feel excited—they'd just experienced pony magic first-hand.

"I almost wanted to run with you. That was magic, wasn't it?" Jeff asked when I approached him, Riley and Saffron in tow.

"Yeah. Saffron was having trouble getting everyone moving because they milled around Riley, and they were only doing that because of the fascination thing. Did I manage to get any reporters?" The thought of making the press go for a run filled me with glee.

Jeff shook his head. "Sadly not. Though, that is a good example for people that the magic doesn't force them. I felt it, the press felt it, and security felt it, but none of them ran off jogging." He looked proud of it, and he had every right to be. Magic could be a major problem, but seeing it halted by people merely not wanting to go along with it was reassuring.

"Every cloud, right?"

It almost startled me when I felt Saffron's hand on my head. He gave the ear nearest him a little rub, then he jerked and let go. "Sorry, Mom."

Tilting my head up to look at his mortified expression, I couldn't help a giggle. "Pony magic even affects ponies, Saffron. How about we head to the hotel and have something for dinner?"

When we reached the restaurant in the hotel, after picking up Philip, we found Kaylee again. She looked shocked to see us at first, but quickly pushed it away under her professional waitress face. "Would you like a table for four?"

"Yes please," Philip said. "I hope you're not too busy?"

Saffron was looking at her and blushing. It was so cute I almost wanted to sing—but that would have ruined the moment for him. Seated, we were all given a menu to read while the waitress left to fetch our drinks.

"How serious is this, Saf?" Philip asked.

When Saffron didn't seem to reply, Riley giggled at him. "I'd say he's pretty distracted by her. She's pretty good at games, too."

"It's not—We were just having some fun. I know she was probably looking for, uh, more fun, but she was pretty cool with just playing games and chatting." That's when it occurred to me. Saffron, in Equestria, misses out on a lot of these hormones. He's pre-puberty there, but suddenly post-puberty here. My mirth at his situation disappeared completely and I wanted to give him a hug.

All through dinner he seemed a bit off. Worry for him and keen mom instincts meant I couldn't ignore the itch that his situation presented. The restaurant had a good selection of vegetarian meals, though I could swear that food just tasted better in Equestria.

"Well, that was delicious." Philip put down his spoon after finishing off his dessert. "You'll excuse me for a minute."

I watched him stand up and walk out of the dining room. When he got to the door, one of the Secret Service guys split off and walked with him.

"Dad's up to something." Riley stared after Philip. "Mom, what's Dad doing?"

I had an inkling that he was trying to do something for Saffron, but I had no idea what and I didn't want Riley getting in his way. "I have no clue, but I'm sure—"

"I'm going to go find out!" Riley was off her chair and running for the same exit Philip took moments ago.

As we sat there in silence, I realized why the young woman wasn't bringing the check (and providing another chance to chat with Saffron—our bill was covered already. "Excuse me? Could I have another drink, please?"

Kaylee approached the table while looking at me, though she was clearly trying to get time to chat with Saffron. "Same again?"

"Oh, no. I'd like to see your list of ciders, please?" Once Kaylee had rushed off to fetch whatever list they had, I jumped off my seat. "Saffron, let Kaylee know I have got to use the little filly's room. I'm sure you'll both have something to talk about while you wait for me to return in about… ten minutes?"

"Mom, you don't have to—"

He stopped talking mostly because I didn't listen and just walked out. My son, the one that had spent months living as a pony, would take a little pushing it seemed. True to my word, however, I made my way to the women's bathroom and pushed on inside.

Human bathrooms were, for the most part, fairly disappointing compared to pony ones. Equestria had mastered the art of bathroom cleaning long ago, and even older establishments contained everything an earth pony needed to take care of business. My time in Equestria had been a delight and I'd learned to appreciate and even take such facilities for granted.

I'd eaten light the previous day, and had become a little bound up as a result, but today I'd eaten regularly (under Philip's strict guidance). I had just one chance to not make a complete disaster of this. Reaching to the saddlebags I wore, I pulled out a mobile phone I'd been issued and managed to hit the autodial for Philip's phone.

After a moment he appeared on the screen with a big grin on his face. "How's Saf doing?"

"I arranged so that he and Kaylee would have some time together to talk, but I set myself up for an ambush. I'm stuck in the women's bathroom, and I need help," I said.

"Huh?" Philip blinked a few times, then his face turned to shock as comprehension sank in. "Oh dear. I'm on my way. Is the bathroom empty?"

"It is. First one on the left as you enter—leave the dining room."

"On my way, darling."

The connection ended, and it wasn't the first time I was envious of unicorn magic. Philip had obviously used his magic to operate the phone while mine was covered in slobber as I used my tongue to lock the screen and my lips to put it back in my saddlebag.

When the door of the bathroom opened, my heart jumped into my throat. "Mom?" Riley called.

"In here. Could you send your father in? There's no one else in here." When Philip poked his head in I breathed a sigh of relief. "Riley's standing guard?"

"Yeah. She won't leave her post until we're done. What's the status?" Philip was a hero. I'd have to ensure he knew that later tonight.

In the end, everything went well. Philip used his magic to help me with what was necessary, and we both left the bathroom feeling relieved that it had been such a simple matter.

"Why'd you run off?" I asked him.

"To arrange a second suite for Saf. If he has any chance of finding himself a filly this week, he's going to need a place of his own. They're arranging it now and the Secret Service guys will let us know when it's ready."

Riley was, true to her word, standing guard at the door outside. "You okay?" she asked.

"Yes, thank you for keeping watch. How's Saffron doing?" I asked. Being a pony, I could barely see over the tables, and thanks to the layout of the room it required more height again to see over some intervening partitions.

"He's talking with Kaylee. They seem to be talking a lot, though she hasn't sat down." Riley's eyes were fixed on something above—at ceiling level. It took me a moment to track where she was looking to see a light fixture that was reflective. Drat but she was clever.

"She won't be able to sit down. She's meant to be working. I asked her for a list of ciders then, when she went to get it, ran off to the bathroom so that she had an alibi for why she's standing around waiting. I guess we should make our return." I stepped out, leading the charge back to the table. "Sorry I took so long. For some reason your bathroom isn't built to accommodate ponies."

Kaylee grinned at that. "I'll let management know. They—noticed me sneaking off to your suite last night. I got chewed out for not saying anything, but they want me to officially be your guide to the Sofitel Washington." As she spoke, her tone became more and more without life, but when she spoke the hotel name it was practically monotone.

Saffron, however, cracked up laughing. "You do that so well. Mom, Kaylee was just saying how she's going to be our concierge while we're here."

"Really? Well, we should probably exchange numbers then." It was the least subtle thing I'd done all day, but it was also right. If she was going to be our go-between with the hotel, we needed to be able to contact her.

Kaylee used that bright smile again to good effect. "Saf already has my number."

Did he now? Well, that was… Okay, it was good he was showing an interest. "In that case it'll be easiest if he just sends it to all of us. Now, let me see that cider list." I was thirsty now, and a good non-alcoholic cider would be just the thing to take upstairs.

Seemingly jolted out of the moment, Kaylee looked at the folder in her hands and passed it to me. Fortunately, Philip was paying attention and gently took it from her grip with his magic. She just stared at the glow for a moment before shaking her head. "S-Sorry. Still getting used to all this."

Philip set the list down before me and held his magic out to Kaylee. "You're adapting well. A lot of people tend to fall into a daze around ponies. Touch it if you want, it's not harmful."

The list of ciders was surprisingly full, and each was marked if it was hard cider or not. I quickly found an apple cider and passed her the folder back. "Thank you, I'll have this one."

Distracted by Philip's magic, Kaylee took the list back and barely noticed what I was pointing to. She'd been shaking hands with his telekinetic grip. "O-Okay, I'll be right back with some. Does anyone else want a drink?"

"Why don't you just bring us a selection of ciders and we'll take them upstairs to try out?" Philip asked.

Kaylee brightened at that and nodded. "I'll have room service take them up for you. Would you still like the one to take with you, Mrs. Ree?"

"Just send it up with the sampler. Thank you, Kaylee," I said.

As we headed upstairs, one of the Secret Service agents passed a card to Saffron. "Sir, this is your new room key. Mr. Ree arranged for you to have your own."

"Dad? I was mostly joking about the noise. You didn't have to—"

"Saf, you are an adult and need your own room. All they had were more suites on our floor, but I'm sure the government will be happy to pay for it." Philip wore the cutest smile ever on his face. They both knew the exact reason why he was getting his own room, but neither were going to say it out loud.

"Thanks, Dad. It'll be nice to have somewhere to—Uh, just checking though. I'll still be allowed to come and say hi in your suite, right?"

"Of course you can, Saf."

Kaylee made herself indispensable for a million little things. She got us some more appropriate shampoos, she arranged for us to have the cider we agreed was the best stocked into our room's refrigerator, but what I could have kissed the girl for was how she let Saffron take his time getting used to his body again.

By the time the first week was winding up, so too was the whirlwind of news and talk show events Jeff had planned. I collapsed on the couch after a Saturday spent actually shaking hooves with public officials. "I want a massage!"

"You always want a massage," Philip said. "The difference is now you're willing to sit still for one."

The moment I felt his hooves touch my back, I let out a little nicker of appreciation. He could have used his magic to do this, but I know he preferred to touch me with his hooves, and I certainly had opinions on physical contact. "I love you so much…"

"Yeah, I bet you do. How did things go?" Philip pressed his lips down to my withers and nuzzled them just firmly enough that I knew he was there.

Even explaining everything seemed too much work. "Why don't you put on Colbert and see for yourself?"

His magic picked up the remote and started cycling through channels. "This could take a while. Why don't you give me the cliff-notes?"

"Usual stuff. Bad jokes—all pre-approved, of course—some earnest questions regarding personalities in Equestria, though he did ask some interesting questions regarding the exchange of currencies. At least they were interesting to me." As his hooves worked lower, I got softer and softer with my words.

"Sounds like you enjoyed it. What's coming up next week?"

"Meetings with various departments. They want me to get concessions from Equestria for things they don't even know will work. I get to let them all down gently except where I can confirm that they can actually get their doo-dad."

His hooves met my croup and I began melting onto the couch. The chance that we would take this little fun to the bedroom had just hit a hundred percent.

"You think there will be many of the latter?"

Words were getting harder as his hooves massaged my rump. I shook my head in answer.

"What's your thoughts on snuggling?" His hooves stopped.

Turning my head to look back at him, I practically purred the words, "One-hundred percent."

Author's Note

To Jeff: Has the knowledge that you become younger on the other side of the portal -even at the cost of becoming a pony- caused any ripples, politically or otherwise?

Nodding his head, Jeff didn't lead off with the usual that's a very good question, he wasn't that kind of politician. "That information is public, and it's inspiring a lot of debate, but the certainty of giving up your humanity has many balking at the idea. We do have a list of volunteers to emigrate, but as yet Princess Celestia hasn't seen fit to issue any visas outside members of our diplomatic mission. We are attempting to negotiate, but Ambassador Ree is focusing the bulk of her attention on the what will assist the most amount of Americans and humanity as a whole."

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Lab

Chapter 25 Riley Ree

I'd finally worked out the trick to using my magic here. I was an earth pony, so of course I needed some earth! A little bag hung around my neck—it had originally held some pendant or something, but now it held about a half handful of the dirt from around my tree.

"When can we go?" I asked.

Trevor was the best and he'd been assigned to me to help me out doing anything I wanted. In turn, and because I didn't want him to get in trouble, I tried to not do too much or blow up any more security systems. "They're bringing a car around for us."

"Ugh!" I looked at him as if that was the stupidest thing ever. "That's the stupidest thing ever. We can just run down there!"

"You remember what happened yesterday? I'm under orders not to let you run down the street." He sounded like he was struggling not to laugh. Then he stopped struggling and laughed. "Did you see that film crew?"

I jutted out my chin and shook my head. "Nope! They couldn't catch up to us."

"No chance. Their cameraman could run, but he needed to keep their reporter up front. What worries my boss is that the reporter might not be wearing heels today." Trevor reached up to his earpiece and touched it, a sign to me he was listening to someone. He was really good at following two conversations at once, but I didn't want to stress him out, so I waited. "Okay. We can head down."

"Woo! You'll see. I've been saving up magic for today. The tree didn't want it yesterday, but I convinced it that I would help more." I grabbed my backpack and slid off the couch. "Do you wanna run down again?"

"Sure." That's what I really liked about Trevor. He said yes a lot.

We walked out of our rooms into the hallway, but rather than the elevators we turned to the stairwell. "You ready for it?"

He pulled up his wrist and tapped his watch a few times. "Hit i—"

I didn't let him finish. It wasn't a big kick of earth pony magic, but it was enough to make my feet itch like they were hooves and we had miles of road ahead of us.

"—t!" He tapped his screen again and we started running down the stairs. The first time we'd done it, he'd panicked and asked what happened if we'd fall. I'd shown him at the time; I'd faked a trip, bounced down a flight and got my feet back under me again. Earth pony magic made you almost indestructible when you had it boiling through you.

Neither of us had fallen while racing down the stairs, not without meaning to, but that wasn't for lack of trying. We vaulted the rails and raced as quick as we could all the way to the lobby and stopped only when going further would take us to the basement.

We weren't even puffing. Trevor tapped his watch and laughed. "We beat yesterday's time!"

I did a victory dance, which involved me bouncing around a lot. "How much faster?"

"Four seconds. I wonder if we could beat the elevator?" Trevor opened the door that led into the lobby and looked around. "Come on."

It was only him doing his job, and I kinda liked him too much to make him get in trouble. Besides, he did cool stuff with me like running and racing down the stairs. It'd take me days to train another guy, and I don't think I'll be here that long. "Agent Lane, I'm moving in!"

Trevor held his wrist up to his neck and spoke into it. "Acknowledged, Agent Ree. Proceed."

Not caring how silly we looked, I ran out and stood still behind a column in the foyer. "Area is clear. Proceed with formation A. I repeat, proceed with formation A." I watched him walk casually out of the doorway and not show a sign that he was really a Secret Service agent until he jumped behind the pillar beside me. "How did it look?"

"The car's waiting for us. We should probably go before they get bored."

Giggling, I nodded and followed him out and into the car. The ride to the park was short, but I held in my complaint that we could have run there faster. They let us out and Trevor told them to head back. We were on our own, but Trevor knew about my tricks. He knew that if I turned on the pony charm, everyone would just want to stop and watch, and he knew that if I balled up all my magic nothing could hurt me (though he hadn't been interested in testing bullets).

No sooner was I out of the car and walking toward the tree than I slipped my shoes off and pulled my socks free. As my toes touched the grass, I pushed my magic down into the ground. There were so many growing things around me that I started to giggle and twirl around.

"Are you going to do this every time?" Trevor's voice made me look back at him, but he just pointed down at the ground.

Every step I'd taken since removing my socks was sprouting flowers in the pattern of my footsteps. I shrugged. "Maybe. Is it a problem?"

He shrugged. "Just don't let people focus on it too much. Is it okay if I stomp them a little to make it less of a footprint?"

So what he meant to say was Yes, Riley, it's a problem. "Do the ones I've already made if you think it's a good idea. I guess I'll try to stop it." Easing back, I stopped spraying my magic into the ground. Besides, I could save it all for the tree that way.

Still able to feel the connection with the ground, I felt so excited to just skip and twirl my way across the huge park until I was standing in front of the fence. I wasn't looking at the tree, yet, but the flowers woven into the fence itself. Hundreds of pretty flowers all woven into the wire, but they weren't growing. "People left all this?"

"You didn't watch the news yesterday? Yeah, people have been getting a bit silly. Lots of the hippies are doing it and the Wiccans. A bit crazy if you ask me. It's just magic—not like you're doing anything amazing." He looked at me, and I think he realized what he'd said. "I'm an idiot sometimes. In just over a week I've gotten this used to seeing you and your brother doing magic. Now it seems… normal."

"It is normal. It's as normal as the grass and trees and sunlight!" Without shoes on my toes were perfect to help me climb the fence. The only thing I worried about was my dress. Living as a pony—where clothes were a special-event kind of thing—I guess I didn't want to ruin them. That left one option.

"What are you—? Riley, don't do…"

"What?" I was hanging off the wire at about Trevor's head height, using one hand to tuck my skirt into my underwear. "If you think I'm going to snag my dress on this fence, you've got another thing coming, mister!"

I got the dress tucked in and jumped over the top of the wire. When the ground rushed up to meet me, I landed firmly with a little magic to remind it that I didn't want to be hurt. It listened. "Okay, Mr. Tree, are you ready today?"

As soon as my hand made contact with the tree, I knew how it felt. Worry, fear, excitement, and curiosity all warred within the firm trunk. My breathing slowed and I felt my world narrow down to the tree, its roots, and what it could feel of the world around it.

"You see those other trees over there? I know you can. You need to grow as big as them."

It seemed a little confused.

"You trust me?"

A hint of acceptance.

"Then trust I'm right. Let me help properly."

A lot of fear flooded it, so much I had to know what the source was. A little wordless question and it told me. It could feel the shadows of huge trees early in the morning and late at night.

It took me a while to figure out what it was talking about. It wasn't trees.

"Those are buildings. Like special hills. You won't get as much morning and night sun because of them, but they're not overhead."

The tree wasn't convinced.

"I promise those aren't trees. Have I done anything wrong to you yet?"

It was nervous, but not saying yes.

"So trust me now."

Slowly, even for a tree, it opened up to me. I felt the connection deepen and I opened myself up to it, too. An apologetic rush of empathy hit me like a wave.

"It's okay. You're fine. Not like many people have talked with you before. Now, do you want to do some growing?"

The tree wasn't any smarter for our bond, but it knew a lot more things than the average tree knew about its place in the world. For one thing, it knew there was a small army ready to protect and care for it, that people came just to lay under its branches and enjoy their time with it. But it now knew me.

Building up what magic I could, I shoved it into the tree. It was hungry, and hadn't known true magic before—but the magic knew how to help. Under my fingers the tree started to surge. Its trunk thickened and roots shoved deep underground to find water and nitrogen. New leaves and branches sprouted and grew. The tree shot upward to nearly three times its height and stretched its branches out wide to soak up the sun.

"That's it. Perfect!"

The tree was excited and proud. It had done so much with just a little sip of magic.

"I'll ask if it's okay to give you more. Okay?"

More excitement. The tree didn't know exactly what I needed to do to get permission, but it knew I was trying to do more for it.

"I have to go now. You'll be safe. After all, you're big and strong now. Look!"

I opened my eyes slowly, not remembering when I closed them, but the tree trunk was HUGE now. I was still moving so slowly, but the tree could see through me as I'd seen through it, and it was excited.

Slowly, I pulled my hand back from the tree and felt like I was plunged into time again. The breeze against my hair and skin, the soft grass under my knees, and—There wasn't any sun beating down on me. I looked up and giggled.

"Oh, you're back with us?"

Trevor's voice made me turn around to look at him. Only it wasn't just him. A crowd of people was watching in silence. Some of them looked to be a little strange, while others just wore big grins on their faces. "Uh, hi?"

"How'd you do that?" one woman asked.

"Well, magic. You know who I am, right?" I walked up to the wire and started to climb. "Can you catch me, Agent Lane?"

"Damn straight, Agent Ree." Trevor's reply made me smile a little more. That he actually caught me was good, because I didn't exactly want to land on anyone who wasn't ready for it. He put me down to the ground and passed me my shoes and socks. "Let's go grab some lunch."

"Yeah yeah. That took a bit out of me. Poor thing was scared and really hungry." Without a skirt-snagging-fence to climb, I pulled my dress out of my pants and let it hang down my legs again. The harder bit was balancing on one leg to put my sock and shoe on the other one. "Ugh. There's a reason ponies have four legs."

Laughing, Trevor looked around us rather than watching me, which was kinda his job, so I couldn't complain about not looking at me while talking. "Ponies wear socks and shoes much?"

"Never. They feel odd on hooves." I had to swap legs to get the other on. "Well, almost never. There's some that are really into fashion. They tend to wear clothes a lot more than the rest of us."

We slipped away since most of the crowd seemed more focused on the tree than me. I guess they were looking for what pony had done it, not realizing it was the kid in a rumpled dress. "What time is it?" I asked.

"Time you got a watch."

"Ha. Ha. Really?"

"It's time we had some lunch. There's a sandwich shop across the street over there. If you can keep from using magic a bit, we might be able to get something there rather than calling the cavalry to take us somewhere." He pointed across the park, seemingly at some shop across the road.

"If they only do meat sandwiches, I'll be cross." Despite my warning, I followed along at Trevor's side and crossed the street with him. Cars were something different to normal life in Equestria. I mean, sure there were pegasi getting around fast and ponies with carts, as well as trains, but I'd never seen an actual car there.

"Ah! Mr. Trevor! How are you doing today?" a female voice called as we walked into the little sandwich shop. "And who is this young lady?"

The woman looked oooold and huge, but she was smiling from ear to ear and looking at me. Her gray hair was in a tight net on top of her head and her hands were in some kind of rubber gloves.

"Mamma Rosie, this is Riley. I'm looking after her for my boss, and she's been doing her absolute best to get me into trouble." Trevor turned his attention to me. "So, Riley, what type of sandwich do you want?"

Him calling the woman "mamma" didn't make sense, they looked nothing alike, so that meant it was just something she was called. I walked up close to the glass counter that the woman was standing behind. "Uh, can I have some egg and lettuce?"

"Egg and—" Looking up at Trevor with a scowl, Rosie opened her mouth to start yelling at him.

"Hold on, Mamma Rosie. I know what you're about to say, but there's a reason she doesn't want any meat." He looked to be avoiding any glances toward Rosie. "Tell her, Riley."

I stared at the crushed up hard boiled eggs in a tray and put on my deepest voice. "I'm an alien! I wish to devour only the unborn!"

"Riley!" Trevor's laughter rang out, and a moment later Rosie's did too.

"Mr. Trevor, where on Earth did you find this girl?" Rosie asked.

Tossing both arms in the air, Trevor got his laughter under control and shook his head. "Well, it isn't classified, so the trick there is I didn't find her on Earth. I should have been a bit clearer, Mamma Rosie. This is Riley Ree, daughter of Ambassador Ree from Equestria."

The big woman stared at me in shock for a few moments. "As I live and breathe. You're one of those pony-people?"

"She was actually a perfectly normal human before she spent half a year or so there. She went native, it seems."

Glaring up at Trevor, I crossed my arms over my chest. "I didn't go native!"

"Mamma, you heard of the tree in the park over there?"

"The one that—" Rosie's eyes widened a little. "As I live and breathe. You're that girl?"

Blushing now, there was something that had started to boil my bacon about all this. I stomped my foot. "Is that all anypony remembers? My mom has been doing so much, and my brother's so awesome I almost can't believe what he does sometimes, and you think making one tree grow a little faster is so amazing?!" I was panting by the end of my rant. "Aggg!"

"Riley?" Trevor asked.

"What?!"

"Calm down, okay? We're just trying to say how cool it is what you do."

"Yeah, but my brother is amazing, my dad can do real magic all the time, and Mom is…" I grumbled under my breath. "It's just not fair to them."

"You're upset because you're hogging the limelight?" Rosie asked. "Well, why don't I just make you a normal sandwich to eat on a normal day so you can go home to your amazing family?" She was smiling for some reason I couldn't figure out.

I was about to answer, but my stomach picked then to grumble loudly. Apparently spending all morning and most of lunchtime doing magic made me hungry.

"I know that song. One egg and lettuce sandwich coming up." Rosie pulled out a long sub and started making up my sandwich. "And the usual, Trevor?"

"Thanks, Rosie." Trevor was grinning too, and it annoyed me that they were both doing it now. "Mamma Rosie," he said after a few moments of Rosie staring at him. "That's important, Riley. This is Mamma Rosie, not Rosie, not miss, and certainly not young lady."

"You better believe it!" Rosie said with another laugh before passing me my sandwich over the top of the counter. "What do you say?"

Okay, this I knew. "Thank you Mamma Rosie."

"There's a good'un. Now for yours, Mr. Trevor."

I focused my attention on the sandwich and unwrapped some of the paper covering the end. The first bite seemed to go down without me swallowing it, so I followed it up and was halfway through before I realized how hungry I'd been. Opening my mouth to apologize for being such a hog, I instead burped.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Rosie said.

My brain caught up with the food I was tasting and I realized how good it was. "This is really yummy!"

It was relaxing to eat while Trevor and Rosie chatted about things. I didn't really focus on what they were saying, instead devoting my attention to my sandwich and my own thoughts. What sucked the most about being here for a week or so was missing my classes. Moon's teaching was so different from what I'd had before, and had me constantly working to keep up with her.

The schooling was working, though, and I could see that. It was easier to work out what adults were talking about when I focused on why they would want things, and I knew a little bit about everything now, so I could kinda follow along.

Stuff seemed to be going so fast back home, but here it was boring. Maybe I could convince Trevor to go back to the tree? Maybe I could check out other trees?

The sandwich was really good. I was almost finished when I realized Trevor was looking at me. "Huh?"

"Car's here. Your mom said she needs you back at the White House right away." Trevor had a slightly distracted look like he was listening to something on his earpiece—which meant he was definitely listening to something on his earpiece.

I hadn't even realized I'd sat down in a booth seat, but stood up and started for the door. "Thanks, Mamma Rosie!"

"Riley! Wait!" Trevor rushed past me and opened the door first.

That's when I realized I'd almost screwed up badly. He was meant to look and go everywhere first, and I'd just stood up and was heading to the door. "Sorry."

"It's okay, just wait a moment before coming out." Trevor nodded to the people in the black car that was parked on the curb and looked left and right up the sidewalk. When he gestured to me, I followed him out and to the car.

We climbed in, but no one said anything until the door closed. That's when I realized the car had all our stuff in the back of it too. "What's going on?"

"You're heading back today. Uh, kinda nowish. Something happened and your mom needs to get her tail back to—Wait, is that racist to say?" Trevor looked at me and I tried to give him a deadpan stare back, but I broke into giggles. "I guess it's not racist. Okay, well, they said she needs to scoot back to Equestria for some reason, so the rest of the week's canceled."

Excitement bubbled up and I bounced in my chair. "Woo!"

Everyone looked at me like I was crazy, but Trevor held out his hand—into which the other two guys in the back of the car put money. "I knew exactly how you'd respond to news like that. Who's the best pony?"

I raised my fist and connected it with his as soon as he lifted it. "I am, of course. So this is all our stuff? Are we allowed to take it with us?"

"You remember what my job is, right?" Trevor rolled his eyes at me.

Right. He's only a "grunt" as he put it. He does heavy lifting, sitting, and the occasional shooting, but no thinking. I remembered his words. "Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I guess I find out when we get there. Where's Saf?"

One of the other guys said, "Another car. He was… saying goodbye." The way he said the last bit made me think Saf was caught doing more than saying goodbye.

Well, good luck to him. When we go back he wouldn't be, uh, saying goodbye for a while. Ugh. I don't need to be thinking about this right now. I sat in silence for the loop around to the entrance to the White House's parking area. Trevor climbed out first and led the way inside while the other guys carried our stuff in.

Saffron was inside and waiting for us. He didn't look happy. "Hey, Riley, you know what's going on?"

"We're going back early is all they told me. They brought our stuff." Walking closer to him, I felt a gentle hum in the air. It was our magic and it made me smile despite how upset Saf looked. "You okay?"

"Yeah. No. Kinda. I feel better now…" He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "You use magic today?"

"Mmhmm. Got that tree all grown up. You should see it, Saf! It's huge now!" That's when it hit me—I wouldn't be coming back anytime soon to help the tree again.

Saffron reached out and used his hand to tilt my chin up. "You just looked like you bit into a lemon. What's up?"

"I didn't get to say goodbye to the tree. Who knows when we'll be coming back again." I leaned sideways and thumped into Saf's side. This was so stupid, just when I get to go home I want to stay so I can say goodbye? Life sucks.

"Saf, Riley. Are you two ready to go?" Dad asked from somewhere down the hall.

I lifted my head and realized I was crying. Reaching a hand up, I scrubbed at each of my eyes to clear the tears away. "This is stupid. I want to say goodbye to my tree!"

Saf put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed. Turning my head, I pressed my face into his shirt—only to realize it wasn't his shirt. Something seemed odd, and I leaned back to look at Saf a little closer.

His shirt was white and looked a little tight around him. "Whose shirt is that?"

Blushing, Saf frowned a little. "It's Kaylee's. I had to get dressed in a hurry."

"You got to say goodbye?" What the heck?! Why was I asking him this? Ewwww.

"That's none of your business, squirt. Come on. At least we'll be ponies again soon." He put his arm back around my shoulders, and we walked toward dad together. "Let's go home."

He was hurting too. This sucked for both of us, and I'd just made it a little worse for him. That meant I had to make it up to him somehow. "You still have your feathers?"

"The braid came undone when I—They're in the box." Saf jerked a thumb of his free hand toward his backpack on his back. "What about you? Need anything in particular?"

I thought about it. It wasn't like I could take my tree with me any more than Saf could take Kaylee—probably less so. "Nah. Everything I want is either back home or about to be back home."

He looked down at me as if I'd said something surprising, then hugged me a bit tighter. "Yeah, me too. C'mon, let's find out what crazy emergency happened."

The explanation was a shock. Mom had been getting daily checkups from a pony doctor who had told her to go back to Equestria immediately. No one was telling us more than that. Not that I was complaining about going home right now, but I wanted to know what was up.

Mom and Dad were first onto the platform. With the new power array crystals, it was far less of a problem for it to send even people without the transmogrithingy doing it's job.

We'd been standing around for almost an hour waiting for it to recharge when there was a commotion behind us. I looked back to see Trevor looking out of breath and—

"Kaylee?" Saf said the name just as I was thinking it.

"They told me you had to rush back. I'm sorry if things didn't go as planned, but I brought you both something." Kaylee walked closer to us, and the first thing she did was hold out a single leaf. "Riley?"

With the tingle in the air from the magic crystals doing their work, I felt a little more boosted with magic than I'd been for most of the time I was here, and that's how I could tell which tree that leaf was from. I rushed closer and took it from her hand.

The moment my fingers made contact, I felt a rush of feeling. Sorrow, joy, excitement, and a little more sorrow of a different kind. "H-How'd it know I was—"

"Your friend. He got all the people there to shout really slow and focus on you having to leave. I don't know if it was magic in the air or the tree, but it dropped a single leaf. That leaf. Mr. Lane said it would work if we took the leaf to you. It did?"

I didn't know where to look. Trevor Lane or Kaylee. They both had big, hopeful smiles on their faces. "It might not be flashy magic like unicorns, but that was—this is—magical. Thanks!"

"And this is your thing to remember Earth by." Kaylee turned to Saf and grabbed his shoulders to pull him down into a kiss.

Staring at them for a moment, I realized they might be a while and grinned—then turned my attention back to my leaf. "Thanks, Trevor."

"We're ready to send you whenever you're ready to go. It was—It was your mom that needed to get back ASAP." When I turned my head to look at who spoke, I saw an orange and white unicorn with a red mane. He looked like a bit of a dork, but also kinda cute. "She said she'll tell you when you get back."

"Can you put this in something, so I don't break it when I change?" I asked.

"I got it, Riley. Here." Saf surprised me by reaching for the leaf. I thought he'd still be kissing Kaylee. He pulled his backpack off and reached inside. When he drew out the box his feathers were in, I couldn't help but giggle. "Gotcha covered."

Jumping forward once he had the box closed and safe, I jumped into him and hugged him. "I owe you one, Saf."

"Pay me back by not kicking me when we get there, okay?"

"Okay!"

We walked together to the platform. Saf put his bag down on the middle circle and we took up circles as far from each other as we could. This wasn't a hard thing to work out—we didn't want to flail into each other.

"I bet you can't wait to get your own feathers back," I said.

"About as much as you want to be able to push me over with one hoof," Saf said.

"Are you both ready?"

I nodded, and I think Saf nodded too, because they activated the transwhatvertheycallit and time slowed to a crawl.

"This is the best bit!" My shout was dragged out into a slow and low-pitched scream, but I didn't care—I was used to talking with trees. My hands were the first part to go. I stared at my fingers as they melded together and my fingertips fused into a hoof.

My coat started to sprout around my fetlocks, and I clopped my hooves together in glee. This time there was no feeling of nausea, instead it seemed like I was becoming what I should be. The hair growing on my arms became bright pink, and in that instant I knew I was going to be the same pony again.

Turning my head slowly, I caught sight of Saf out of the corner of my eye and saw his arms pulling back and ripping his shirt as they turned into wings. That's when I realized we'd gone in fully clothed.

In slow motion I jumped toward Saf. He was already fumbling at his clothes with his growing forelegs, but they weren't long enough to reach his pants or the belt securing them. As I landed at his side, I wrapped my forelegs around his pants and pulled down with all my might.

If his body hadn't been shrinking at the time, I might have messed it up. As it was, the weight of my body yanked his jeans down just as his tail poked free in a fountain of white hair.

My dress was less of a problem, but I did start to shrink down inside it. I tried to roll back away from Saf, but our clothes were now doing a great job of keeping us tangled up.

My snout pushed forward into my vision just as we both started laughing like idiots. Then time returned to normal.

"What happened?!" the voice I recognized as Starlight Glimmer's asked.

Saf, flailing all six limbs, tried to crawl out of his clothes. "We forgot to"—he giggled some more—"forgot to get undressed. Riley, that was just in time!"

I was kinda stuck on my back with my dress weighing me down. Or I was until I remembered what I was. Magic poured into me as I breathed Equestrian air again, and I channeled it to my body. Fabric ripped and tore, and I quickly shredded my dress, panties, shirt, but my bra had been annoyingly persistent. "Little help?"

"I got it." Saf's wings were free of his shirt mostly because they'd ripped their way out. He reached over to me and pushed me onto my belly first, then undid the bra strap. "If you make a single joke about this…"

"After you saved my leaf? Nah. This will be between us, Saf." That's when it hit me. "Where's Mom and Dad?"

"You'd better follow me. They're all fine." Starlight turned from the platform and started off down the hall.

The words she'd used chilled me in a way I think I've never felt chilled before. "W-What did she mean by 'all'?"

"I don't know, but we're going to find out. You wanna ride there?" Saf reached a wing down to me, and it was right then I realized how small I was again. Saf wasn't a full size pony himself, and I was much smaller than him.

"No. I'm sick of not walking on four legs. Come on." It wasn't so much a flow of magic as a surge. I sent a flood of my power into Saf and myself, and I felt his magic flare as a result. Speed and power—yeah!

We didn't so much start moving as start galloping at full speed. Running after Starlight, we found her in the corridor about to turn into a nearby room. Passing her like she was barely moving, we stopped just inside the door and stared. Mom was laying on a bed while a doctor was showing her a picture that looked like an x-ray.

"What's going on?" Saf asked.

"Yeah!" I said.

"Good news, thankfully." Mom waved us forward and we made our way over to the bed. "My doctor back on Earth had found that our foal wasn't doing so great in a low-magic environment. It took time to figure it out from the scans, but she wasn't growing."

"Not exactly the case, but close." The doctor held out the scan to show us, and Saf reached his wing up to take it. "Everypony has a field of magic around them. In low magic areas it reduces, but our own nature keeps it sustained. A foal this young, however, lacks enough of their own magic to sustain that field."

It made perfect sense. I nodded along to everything he said. "So that's why Mom had to come back?" I leaned forward and urged Saf to lower the scan so I could see it. It wasn't exactly like the diagrams of magic fields Moon Dancer had showed me in class, but I could figure things out reasonably well. "That's about a tenth of the field of a healthy foal."

The doctor looked at me for a second, blinked a few times, then reached for the scan with his magic. Holding it up, he nodded. "Closer to an eleventh. You must have been studying an old book—pony magic fields have grown slightly in the past five-hundred years."

Saf snorted and poked me in the ribs. "You got an answer wrong. You're still the smartest pony I know."

I was about to thump him back, but remembered what he'd done—and by then he'd complimented me too. Instead I sighed. "I'll ask Moon Dancer if I can get a more recent book. Is there one you'd recommend?"

"Oh! Uh…" The doctor tapped his chin. "I believe Dr. Bright Meadow's revised edition of her book Metamorphic Magic Fields and Their Effects. It's… advanced reading for a filly."

"She gets that a lot. Sorry to keep you any longer, Dr. Horse, but I think we should probably head back to the chancery." Mom sounded tired. She looked up at Dad, and seemed to say something with just her gaze.

"Uh, Mom?" I asked as I climbed up on the bed.

She turned her attention to me. "What's the matter, Riley?" She sounded concerned.

"Mom, you feel really tired and bent out of shape, right?"

Her concern turned into a big smile. "Of course, honey. We just—"

Mom was smart about a lot of things, but she'd spent way too long on Earth dealing with humans. I leaned forward and pressed my snout to her back hoof—and pushed with my magic.

"What was that?" The orange-haired doctor spun to look at me. "What did you do?"

"Duh. Mom's an earth pony like me. After Saf and me arrived, I felt like poop. He felt like poop too, I bet. So I jolted us both with earth pony magic." It was perfectly logical. I looked at Mom, but without any of the doctor's fancy equipment, I couldn't see if my magic made any difference. "Do you feel better?"

"You never cease to amaze me." Mom sat up and used her forelegs to grab and lift me up.

When she kissed my cheeks repeatedly, I blushed and tried to squirm out of her grip. "Mooom!"

"That was exactly what I needed, dear. Why don't you go and wake your father up too?" She set me back on the bed—aimed toward Dad. "I'll see my doctor in Canterlot tomorrow and arrange further tests with her," she said to the doctor.

Stomping my way to the edge of the bed, I realized Dad looked almost asleep on his hooves. But, being close enough to the bed to boop, I had only one choice with how to give him a jolt. Lifting my hoof up, I pressed it to his nose. "Boop."

The jolt of magic shot Dad's eyes open and his horn flickered a few times with magic. He went cross-eyed looking down his snout at my hoof.

"Feeling better?" I asked.

"Yeah!" Dad used his magic to pick me up and put me on his back. "Doc, requesting permission to take my family home?"

"Just don't rely on whatever it was your daughter just did." He sounded confused about it. I don't know why it was confusing. Maybe he just didn't understand the power of boops.

Reaching out my hoof, I tried to get close enough to the doctor without falling off Dad. I couldn't reach him. "Um, I can show you what I did."

He looked at me skeptically. "Why don't I schedule an appointment where you can come and show me that trick while some ponies who will be really interested in it can watch? If that's alright with your parents?"

Dad tapped his chin for a few moments. "I think we can arrange that. After all, we were meant to have the rest of the week off. When would you like us in?" What I'd also noticed was Dad was looking at Mom a lot. He didn't seem to be worried about her, though. That's when it hit me and I wanted to just nope out of the room.

"Would tomorrow afternoon be alright?"

"Sure."

Author's Note

Steven Colbert: Can we get a rundown of those "preapproved bad jokes" from the show?

"Well, since you asked nicely, I had"—Steven held up a bundle of flash cards—"Why the long face?"—a flash card was tossed away—"Stomp once for yes, twice for no"—another flash card—"There was a jar of peanut butter for her to smear on her teeth so she could talk"—another card gone—"Five jokes from the Mr. Ed show"—one, two, three, four, five cards tossed—"And finally I shook hands with the ambassador and then pretended to have trouble speaking while telling everyone I was feeling a little horse." A pile more flash cards were tossed aside while Steven adjusted his glasses and checked the buttons on his suit.

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Lab

Chapter 26 Saffron Ree

The moment we got home, I ran upstairs to my room and lifted out the case from my backpack. There was the feathers that had been all that had stood between me and a week of absolute boredom, Riley's leaf, and a little slip of paper.

Carefully, I lifted the piece of paper out first.

I had a great time, Saf. If you're ever back on my planet, gimme a call.

Okay, it might just be the corniest thing I've ever seen, and it was totally something Kaylee would say. On the back of the paper was a phone number. With a sigh I tucked the paper to the bottom of the box. "Riley!"

When Riley ran, it was like a stampede of horses, or a horse race. The clattering of hooves as she galloped up the hallway and then pushed my door all the way open shouldn't sound like that many ponies, but it does. "Your leaf."

Damn but she looked so happy. Riley might be a terror sometimes, who likes to push me around, but she had me wrapped around her hoof. "Can you keep it safe?"

"On one condition." As soon as I said it, her face registered complete surprise. She opened her mouth to ask what, but I couldn't keep her waiting. "You show me how to braid these feathers into my mane."

She actually jumped up onto her rear legs and clopped her forehooves together in excitement. If I wasn't a sugar-burning factory in pony shape, I could swear I just got diabetes from that. "Of course I can! Okay, so how do you want to do it?"

"Like I'd know. This is your thing. Show me what looks best."

I got a lesson all right. Apparently there was five different ways my mane could be braided to hold the feathers, and Riley needed to try each before she was satisfied. That she made sure to teach them all to me too was a given.

In the end, though, it was mid-afternoon by the time we were done, and I followed her back down the stairs (after we put the precious box of mementos in a safe place).

"Wait!" Riley looked shocked. "I haven't checked on my tree! Come on, Saf!" She reached a hoof out to me, and I knew I was defeated as I felt her deceptively iron-like grip on my foreleg.

Knowing my sister's tendencies, I gave my wings a little flap to get me up to speed so she didn't end up ripping my leg off or something. She rushed us into the back yard and right up to her tree.

"It's okay, I'm back." She let go of me and reached a single hoof out against the tree.

The sounds of Canterlot might waft to us on a breeze now and again, but that didn't stop Riley from ignoring it and me from stretching out my wings and just feeling the air again.

Gusts came and went, and though I longed to follow them to wherever they wanted to take me, I had Riley here, and fun as flying is, big brothers don't fly off and leave their little sisters.

Riley's gasp drew my attention. She stretched and leaned back from the tree. "I kinda forgot how it was here. Our trees are much faster than Earth trees. They also have a lot more magic."

"Mmhmm." I walked closer and dug my snout down and under her bely, then tossed my head in the air. Riley flew about three ponylengths into the sky, squaling, which was perfect for me to shove myself free of the ground and catch her on my back as my the second pump of my wings lifted me up to meet her.

"Saaaaaaaaf!" Her shout might have worked better to dissuade me if she weren't giggling while she did it.

I kept pumping my wings and headed off the edge of Canterlot. This was where real flying happened. Other pegasi that were out enjoying an afternoon fly whirred around us, but I headed a little further. "Are you ready?"

Riley had dug her hooves into my mane and was holding on tight. Perfect. "Ready for what?"

I rolled over midair until we were both upside down. Riley shrieked with laughter. Continuing the roll, I reached upright again and then started a canopy roll, which took us upside down again, and then led out into a steep stall until I lost forward speed, tipped over my wings and went into a dive.

Despite having had some really fun moments back on Earth, I'd missed this with every part of me. The freedom of the sky was something I couldn't give up now. Go and live back on Earth until I was old? Heck no!

Repeated and excited shouts from my back—as I worked through a set routine—didn't dissuade me in the slightest. "Saf! This is great!"

At the end of the stunts, I glided into a thermal and started my slow assent back to Canterlot. "Sorry, but I really needed to fly."

"Pfft! It was fun, Saf. Besides, you hung around with me by my tree, and I bet that was a lot more boring than getting my own personal roller coaster!" With the thermal around us, I didn't even need to flap anymore, and the only wind was going up.

"Well, you sounded like you had fun, but I probably still should have asked first."

"Saf, I had fun! Don't be a stick in the mud after just a week on Earth. You're a pegasus! FLY!"

Her shout caught me up and before I knew it I'd poured magic into my wings and started to pump them, shooting up through the thermal like a missile in flight. By the time the hot air finally fountained out and stopped, I was already moving fast enough to punch my way up through the clouds.

Riley was squealing with excitement again, which only encouraged me to start another routine of stunts—this one meant for much more advanced fliers, and probably those without an earth pony on their back. Spirals, loops, even more rolls. When one particular roll put a lot of g-forces on us, I felt Riley jolt me with her earth pony strength. The warnings signs of impending G-loc were completely dispelled and I pushed harder.

The final stunt I pulled had us rocketing toward the ground—a plaza on Canterlot itself. Pouring my magic into my wings, I snapped them out at the last moment and planted my hooves down to the pavement cleanly.

"Woo! Again!" Actually bouncing up and down on my back, Riley seemed focused on completely destroying all the bones in my shoulders.

"Hey." I shook my back, which only seemed to make staying on more of a game for Riley. "Get off. You can walk now." The ponies around us were staring a little and looking among themselves. Obviously, trying to find our parents so they could tsk at them for letting their foals run rampant. Well, Mom and Dad are back home having some alone time after nearly two weeks of being stuck on a boring world.

"Spoilsport!" With her own magic flowing, it wasn't like Riley needed held down. She just jumped from my back and landed on all fours. Unlike a cat, however, she kinda just dropped straight down with all four legs straight.

"That was pretty cool, kid. Maybe one day you'll become a Wonderbolt!"

My head snapped around at the familiar, female voice. I spotted Sudden Turn and barely managed to resist the urge to run over to her. "I don't know. I hear their junior trainers can be really tough."

"I heard that too, but somepony told me they look good in their flight suits." Sudden strode toward me and held out her hoof for me to clop against. "How you doing, Saf? I thought you weren't going to be back for a few more days? Hey, Riley!"

Riley bounced up to Sudden and clopped her hoof too. "Hi! Did you see what Saf did?"

"Sure did. Got no idea how he pulled a turn like that without blacking out. I was actually getting ready to fly up and catch you both." Now, with Sudden being an adult (but obviously not our parents), everypony seemed content to let the situation go.

"That was because of me! I gave Saf a jolt of my magic—earth pony magic!" Strutting a little, Riley walked back to me and leaned against one of my legs (a sign I knew meant she had probably overdone it).

"What, really? Earth ponies and pegasi aren't supposed to be able to do that." Turning her attention to Riley, Sudden held out a hoof, then drew it back. "I was gonna ask for you to hit me with a little, but you don't look so good. Want a lift home?"

Looking from me to Sudden, Riley shook her head. "I think Saf can still carry me. Right, Saf?"

"Of course I can, but no more using your magic. How much did you give your tree earlier?" I used a wing to grab her and flip her into the air. A little jump was all it took to catch her neatly without any jolting.

Riley settled onto my back and I felt her grab my mane again. "You're the best, Saf. Thanks."

"After letting me pull off those stunts? You deserve all the rides Riley. You wanna fly, or should we walk?"

Wiggling a little, Riley seemed to get herself comfortable on my back after a few moments. "Walk. I wanna feel the ground through you."

"You know, Sweetie Belle was telling me about a really old sorcerer who was an earth pony. Apparently nopony alive today, not even Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, or any of the Pillars know how she could—Oh! Clover the Clever! That's him. You should ask your teacher about him." Sudden fell in beside me as we walked. "I wouldn't be surprised if you got some kind of magic cutie mark, though you're still a bit young for one of those."

"Am not!"

Sudden stopped and looked at Riley for a second. "Ha! That's the spirit. Who knows, maybe you're not? From what I've seen your brother do, you're both pretty amazing for your ages."

"Yeah," I said, "but you know there's going to be more of us, right? I mean, come on, a human your age is in their final years, Sudden. Even if they have to become ponies—probably even because they'd become ponies—the portal is going to get a lot of tourists."

"That's for other ponies to worry about. I just have a crazy pegasus pulling dangerous stunts to worry about."

Riley had been slumped against my back and neck, but now she straightened up a little. "It wasn't dangerous! Not with me there!"

"Yeah, but tomorrow, when I make him try those stunts again without you, he'll find out how stupid it was. But, he already knows that, don't you, Saf?" Her tone was so sweet and soft. I knew she wasn't joking about making me try to recreate those stunts, and I knew I'd likely pass out trying and she'd have to save my ass.

"Yes, ma'am!" I barked the command out, lifting a wing to salute.

"I'll make you pay for that, too." Sudden walked with me as we made our way home. About halfway I heard a little snore come from Riley on my back. She really had given everything to let me do my stunt. "She's asleep. I know the right place where she'll get the best rest."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Sudden asked.

Sudden was a pegasus who hadn't had siblings, so I could cut her a bit of slack. "Your friend, Bloom. If she gets really tired and worn out, where does she go to relax?"

"Well, she'd always go for a walk in the orchard. Why?"

"Riley has a tree she's been helping take over the neighborhood. She's an earth pony, so if she needs a recharge, I bet that tree knows how to help her."

Raising one eyebrow, Sudden nodded her head. "Yeah, alright, I can see that. So we go and let her sleep under her tree for a bit?"

"I'll keep an eye on her. I can't exactly boost her the way she can me, but with her touching me, I can kinda push my magic out a little too. It doesn't work otherwise." I totally didn't want to tell her how I knew that. White coats were the worst—everypony could see you blush.

"Hrmm. What aren't you telling me, Saf?"

Everypony. Can. See. You. Blush. Fuck…

"What do you mean?" I asked, trying to not think of Kaylee.

It shouldn't have been embarrassing, and I don't know why I was blushing so much, but I couldn't stop.

"Saf, you're now a shade of pink approaching Flurry Heart, and if you keep going you'll wind up like her mom. What happened?"

I groaned. I did not want to be having this conversation with Sudden Turn. "I met a girl on Earth."

Sudden's face lit up. "Was she cute?"

"You're the worst, you know that?"

"Answer the question."

"She was cute, and I had a lot of fun playing games with her and Riley, and we even got to spend some time together." The words tumbled out, and as they did I found myself looking down at my short legs. It reminded me of how old I looked. "Is that what you wanted to know?"

Sudden draped her wing over my back. Her wings weren't huge to begin with, but me being so small it wasn't hard for her to cover me from the shoulders back. "Saf, I'm glad you had fun. Fun, though, doesn't make a young stallion blush like that."

"Young stallion?" I asked.

"Best term for you. You were a stallion while there, right? There's not some kind of extra stuff I should know about?"

"Yeah, yeah. I was an adult male while there, and yes, we did get up to things adults do. It was fun, and I really wanted to give her some magic while we were doing it, but without Riley touching me, I can't do it." I lifted my head up from the metaphorical (and almost physical) hole I'd let it sink into and looked back to see Sudden's wing covering Riley. "She's amazing, Sudden."

"You gotta be like Underdog—err, Vapor Trail. She's got all these cool tricks that helps other pegasi fly better. Your sister's going to need help if she's that smart, Saf."

That sounded stupid given what had happened so far. "She's normally the one helping me!"

"Shh. You got a passenger, remember?" Sudden rubbed my back a little with her wing, probably to remind me of Riley. "But, it looks like you're already helping her."

"That's only because she helped me too much."

"I grew up with Princess Twilight running around town—heck, with Rainbow Dash and all her friends helping her. If your sister's anything like Princess Twilight, and I'm getting a vibe she is, she's going to need all the help she can get."

The chatter had gotten us to the same black our house was in. We walked the last bit in silence, though the city did continue being noisy around us.

It took a little jolt of pegasus magic and I got over the fence and down to the ground again without jolting my sleepy cargo. I walked over to the tree and—with my wings—carefully slid Riley off my back and down my left wing to the ground.

You'd have to be completely stone-deaf to magic not to feel whatever it was that made the hair on the back of my neck rise. Laying down behind Riley, I spread one wing out and over her while guiding one of her hooves to touch the tree.

Serene and relaxed peace coiled around me. It was like a huge, warm blanket wrapped both of us up. "I think it's working. The tree is helping."

"How can you even tell that? I mean, I know you're good with your magic but—" Apparently she wasn't as magic-dense as she thought, because Sudden stopped then and just stared at Riley. "Wow."

"Yeah. She puts a lot into this tree, that's why I thought bringing her here when she's low might mean it would share some back." My sister was actually glowing softly, her pink coat seemingly getting a green tint. After a few silent minutes the glow softened and then faded. "I think that means I should take her inside now."

"How do you just get what needs to be done?"

"She's my sister, Sudden. I've been hanging out with her, watching her talk to trees and stuff, for weeks now. I guess I kinda just picked up on how this stuff works. At least a little." Really carefully, I tried to scoop Riley up with my wing.

But Riley wasn't so deep asleep as I could just pick her up. "Saf?"

"Hey, sleepy-head." I picked her up and held her under my wing—wrapped tight. "You were pretty out of it."

"Wha' happen'?" She yawned and seemed to pull her head down into the tunnel made by my wing.

"You used up a lot of magic letting me do stupid shit. I brought you to your tree to get a pick-me-up, now it's time for some real sleep."

"Saf?"

"Yeah?"

Riley yawned and closed her eyes. I could guess she wanted to say thanks, but it seemed her body decided sleep was a better idea.

"I kinda deserve any punishment you give me tomorrow. I gotta be more careful around her." I carried Riley in the back door and turned for the stairs leading to our bedrooms.

Putting Riley to bed, I couldn't help but smile as she burrowed under the covers and immediately started snoring again. I turned and saw Mom standing in the doorway with a raised eyebrow.

Stepping out of Riley's room, I closed the door with a wing. "We went flying and I might have tried some stupid stunts. She had to use her magic to keep me from blacking out. She slept on the walk home and I gave her some time with her tree."

Mom let out a sigh. "So long as she's okay."

"But I was being—" Mom's hoof against my mouth silenced me.

"Saffron, I bet that you had a little filly on your back telling you to do more. Yes, be careful, but I know you both well enough to know this wasn't either of your fault. You're my little darlings." That's when I noticed the big, silly grin on Mom's face.

"You look just like you did with Riley."

She froze and looked at me in surprise. "You can remember that?"

"Yeah I can. You walked around in a daze for months. I remember googling it and thinking you were on drugs or something. It's a pregnancy thing, right?"

"Probably that and a touch of being young again. Everything feels so fresh and new." Mom started toward the stairs down in front of me. "Oh. Hello, Sudden Turn. Visiting Saffron?"

Sudden let out a short and sharp snort. "More like making sure him and Riley made it back without trying another crazy stunt. Are you okay, ma'am?"

"Just getting over my time spent back on Earth. I heard about him and Riley doing something silly."

I followed Mom down the stairs and watched her head into the kitchen. That's when I realized something, and it had been something I'd slipped back into so easily my brain hadn't even told me what was going on. I snapped my eyes closed and tried to banish the image of seeing my mom walking away from me—with limited success.

"Something wrong, Saf?" Sudden asked.

"Yeah. I just lost The Game." How long, this time, was I going to have to go before I could mentally tune that out again? For that matter, why was Mom holding her tail up so high? Oh, great, more questions I don't want answers to.

Sudden tilted her head to the side. "What game?"

"It's…" How the heck do I explain The Game? "So, think of something that you don't like thinking about."

"How do I do that?"

"Well, it's not easy to explain. How about something you're embarrassed by?" Wham! It was like the purple after-image you get in your head after a bright flash goes off in your face.

"Oh. Oh! Now I get it. And once you start thinking about it, you can't stop?"

"Yeah, now you're getting it. So back on Earth, reminding someone about something like means you can tell them 'You just lost The Game.' Just now, thanks to my imagination, I did it to myself."

"So you lost twice then. Once for remembering, and a second time because it was you that reminded yourself of it. How do you win The Game?"

I laughed—short and sharp. "You don't. Even if you try to win, you lose more. The Game can never be won. At best, you can maybe lose a little less than everypony else."

"Ah. I think I've got it now. How're your wings?" Sudden lived up to her name by changing the topic and pointing to the door leading outside.

I started toward the door. "They feel really good. I burned a little magic into them earlier, but I wouldn't mind—"

"No. No flying until tomorrow. Consider that an order. Your sister passed out, twice, because she was drained of her magic and exhausted. I asked around and found out Earth is really low magic." She followed me outside.

"So why are we going out?" I asked.

"Duh, so your mom doesn't hear me grilling you about this other girl. You'd never tell me anything with her hovering around."

When I looked back, Sudden had the sneakiest grin I'd ever seen on her. "Why are you so interested in her?"

"Saf, I don't think you've quite worked out how grilling somepony for answers works. You see, when I'm grilling you, you don't get to ask the questions. How did you meet?" She followed me all the way over to the tree. Riley's tree.

I sat down and then drew one of my wings out and around to begin preening. "We were having something to eat in the restaurant at our hotel. She was the waitress."

"Ah, now you've figured it out." Sudden sat down beside me and started doing the same thing as I was—with her own wing of course. Gah, now I'd lost The Game again. "So you two hit it off right away? I take it she looked good? What about you?"

"You've seen the pictures of humans from our world?" I asked.

"What'd I tell you about grilling? Yeah, I have."

"Well, I'm about average height for a male, but you have to picture someone boring-looking like that with a braid down one side of their face filled with pegasus feathers. I didn't mean to be, but apparently that was pretty unique." After the stunts I'd pulled with Riley, my feathers were a mess. Several had to be straightened, and one I think I'd need to keep an eye on. And, this was just one wing.

"And her?"

My mind wandered for a moment and I fell back into the same thought pattern as I'd had on Earth. "At first I couldn't work out why I was attracted. The first day was just 200% confusion. We sat up late playing video games with Riley." I found a feather that might need splinting, and made a mental note to get my preening kit out later to take care of it. "Second night I figured out what it was. She was cute. She had curves in all the right places, and when she walked I started to have trouble breathing."

"Sounds like a typical stallion. Well, a stallion noticing mares. How're you feeling on this side of things?"

Why was it so easy to talk to her? "I mean, I like looking at some ponies—mares—but it wasn't as intense as what I felt back on Earth. Here it's more—intellectual. I like the way mares move, I like the way they look—particularly pegasi—but there's no…"

"Need a word? Need, imperative, desire, ache—"

"Imperative is good. I'm pretty sure Riley would like me using that. Dammit, and now I'm thinking about how much better than I am she is at all this stuff. She also doesn't have this problem to contend with."

I found a bunch of feathers that needed a lot of straightening and got to work. Sudden seemed to get that too because she went quiet.

We kept up the quiet preening for a while, until she piped up again. "You like pegasi?"

Having been wrestling with the broken feather that apparently wasn't quite broken enough to remove, I had to let it go to reply. "Well duh. Earth ponies are too—too big. Unicorns have a way of walking that just makes me think they have a stick up their butts. Pegasi move like—"

After a moment of my silence, Sudden replied, "Yeah, I know what you mean."

I went back to work on the problem feather for a bit, finally judging it salvaged. "It's all your fault."

"Huh?" Sudden lifted her snout out of her wing and looked at me over it. "What is?"

"You forgot already? I distinctly remember you flirting with me."

"Saf, that wasn't flirting. I was trying to get you to relax a bit. It worked, too. If you were just thirty years older, I'd hit you like a buckball. I like you. You have a quick mind and you speak from your heart, but you're still only twenty." What sucked the most about what she was saying was that it was true. "But that means we have years of hanging out and having fun before we maybe get to that stuff."

"Hold up. Thirty years is a long time, even in Equestria. That's like over a tenth of your life."

"We click."

I narrowed my eyes and stuck my snout back into my wing to start on the next feather—thankfully less bent than the previous one. After getting that sorted, I shook my head. "I still don't get it. Does clicking mean that much?"

"I've never clicked with another pony before, except my best friends. Either your a best friend or you're going to be something more. We can do the first bit right now, and are doing it pretty well, but the other bit… I can wait." It was almost infuriating. The more she said it, the more I wanted to ask but why? "Your dad given you the talk yet?"

"Yeah, seven years ago." I started on another feather.

"This is what I'm talking about, Saf. If I asked any other guy that, he'd try to posture and make a show of being cool. You actually tell me." When I peeked over my wing at her, she'd gone back to preening herself.

Dammit. She was right. I wouldn't speak like this to anyone. I spent a moment watching her preening and realized that right here was the perfect example of my type. "This is so unfair." I stuck my snout back into my feathers to preen the last of the damaged ones.

"I saw you."

"Huh?"

"Looking at my butt." She sounded smug. Smugger than any smug I'd ever heard in my life.

The most annoying thing was she was right. "This is so awkward."

"I bet nopony in your world ever says that about puberty."

It was utterly impossible to not laugh at that. I folded both my wings (now properly preened) and let go with a big case of the giggles. "Right? Just like nopony does here."

"I know. But look on the bright side, Saf." She stood up and turned, giving me plenty of opportunity to look not just at her, but up at her. "When you finally get through it, we'll see about trying out more than friends." Spreading her wings, Sudden winked back at me and practically danced her way into the sky.

"Maybe it is starting," I said.

Author's Note

Ask Princess Celestia (because why not?): Does this happen often? Colts or fillies inventing a new spell because nopony told them it was impossible?

"It happens about every two or three generations. The last student to accomplish this was Twilight Sparkle." Celestia's one visible eye caught the smile from her mouth and made her whole face light up with emotion. "You can imagine why I took a special interest in Riley Ree."

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Lab

Chapter 27 Philip Ree

I looked from Riley over to Moon Dancer. Attractive, smart, young (by pony standards), and completely off the table, Philip. I took a steadying breath and waited with my little filly at my side—between myself and Moon—while she did complex calculus.

"Riley Ree?" The voice made us all jerk our heads up. "The doctors can see you now." She was a white-coated mare with a stunning red mane and tail. She beckoned us with one wing toward a hallway. "Just down here, third door on the right."

Me, being the only genius present, was apparently the one to lead—at least I could count to three. Dr. Horse was inside, as were two other ponies. "Hi," I said.

"Philip Ree, thank you for agreeing to this." Dr. Horse wasn't the one speaking, it was one of the others—a mare. "I'm Dr. Bright Meadow, this is Dr. Dembones, and you already know Dr. Horse."

"Thanks, but you'll have to excuse one thing—it was Riley who agreed. She's old enough to make her own decisions." I stepped to the side to let Riley walk in with Moon just behind her.

"You must be Clair Ree, Riley's mother?" Dr. Bright Meadow asked, looking at Moon Dancer.

"No." Riley's voice was vehement. "Moon Dancer is my teacher. Mom is too busy working to be able to come, and since I couldn't study today, I asked Moon to come instead."

Moon just bobbed her head. We'd agreed to leave her medical qualifications unstated. She wasn't a medical doctor, but she'd studied enough to get halfway there.

"I should introduce everypony properly." Dr. Horse gestured to himself. "My specialty, as you know, is obstetrics; Dr. Bright Meadow is the foremost specialist in metamorphic field theory, and has literally written the book on it; and Dr. Dembones is a specialist in medical ethics. Given your daughter's age, Dr. Bright Meadow asked for him to ensure that nopony got too excited and pushed Riley beyond what she is able to."

"It's more nuanced than that, but I will endeavor to prevent any accidental harm befalling young Miss Ree—even if I have to get physical with my younger colleagues." Dr. Dembones seemed like a nice old stallion, a grandfather as it were. Though, he did give both the others stern looks. "Also, Dr. Moon Dancer, it's good to see one of my former students."

"You recognized me?" Moon Dancer's surprise was evident. She looked at the old stallion with something approaching fondness.

"After all the work I went through to drum into your head that ponies are more than just a test subject, a walking biological factory, or a unique magic signature? Yes I do. You're teaching Miss Ree?"

Moon nodded and looked a little uncertain. "Hers is a complicated case, and when Mr. Ree asked me, I couldn't say no. All the local schools were going to put her into preschool so she could learn her letters and numbers."

"I take it she's a little above that?"

"A little. She's studying at an equivalent to a thirty-five-year-old, and she's speeding up. By the time she's eighteen, she will have at least one degree if I'm not mistaken." Moon Dancer sounded excited, like she was showing off to her old teacher.

Dr. Dembones leaned down and looked at Riley with a lot more interest now. "What do you think about that, miss?"

"I like learning new stuff. It's something I'm good at, but I want to learn how to use my magic better. That's why we're here, right?" Riley looked up at Dr. Dembones. "Dr. Horse thought it was strange how I can push my magic into others, but it's not strange—I do it all the time."

"They want to learn how you're doing what you're doing. That will probably mean a lot of things happen. For one, if you can do this, there hasn't been another pony capable of it for a very long time. For another, if they can work out how and why you can, it will mean they get famous, you get famous, and hopefully somepony can work out a way to teach you how to do it better," Dr. Dembones said. "Are you alright with all that?"

Riley spent a few moments with her hoof on her chin. I realized, now, how odd this must be for them to be dealing with a foal so young, but I liked how quickly the old stallion just ran with it. He treated Riley as an adult, and I knew she responded well to that. "Okay!"

Straightening, Dr. Dembones turned to his two stunned colleagues. "I believe the young lady understands exactly what the outcomes of this are. You may proceed, doctors."

Dr. Bright Meadow looked relieved. It hit me then that she probably would have backed down if Dembones had told her to back off. Ethics seemed to be a highly respected field of medicine in Equestria. "Wonderful. Now, we have a thaumgauge capable of reading down to nanothaums, and first I'd like you to push your magic through the field as hard as you can."

"Uh, I can't." Riley's reply surprised the doctor. "I need to push into somepony."

"Of course, I'll just have your father—"

"No." Riley cut the doctor off. "You don't understand at all. Here's a little bit." She walked up to Dr. Bright Meadow and, before the doctor could react, reached her hoof out.

"Oh! Oh, I see!" Dr. Bright Meadow lifted her hoof to her snout and giggled. "Perhaps we should find some volunteers?"

"I gather there is a reaction of earth pony magic in your system?" Dr. Dembones asked.

"Any more, and I would have taken off running. It's quite something."

"I'll do it. I've had her give me her kicks before," I said. "Where do you need me to stand?"

Dr. Bright Meadow directed me to a large device on one side of the room. I stood before it, apparently withing the detection range, while Riley walked over. She held out her hoof to me.

"Dad, I'm going to give you a lot, okay?" she asked.

That actually made me a little worried. I tried to think of a way to compare it. "How much is a lot compared to what you gave me when we got back from Earth?"

She tapped her chin again, a motion I'd started to realize was very much her. "About ten times that, I think. Do you have cupcakes handy? I'm going to need a snack after this."

Dr. Dembones cleared his throat in what both Dr. Bright Meadow and Dr. Horse reacted to as if it were a hand-grenade with the pin taken out. "Hold on then. Dr. Horse, please ensure we have ample sugary snacks."

Five minutes later and, with a large tray of bakery treats that Dr. Horse had acquired, Riley and Dr. Dembones were both satisfied that all bases were covered. I waited for her to touch me. She lifted her hoof up and held it out, so I reciprocated.

There wasn't an obvious spark of energy jumping between us, but I felt what she did in every fiber of my body. I wanted to run, gallop all over Equestria non-stop. I wanted to find Clair and show her how much she meant to me. I wanted to— "Wow." My hooves were itchy to do all the things.

Analyzing a spew of paper that left her machine, Dr. Bright Meadow raised both eyebrows. "Wow indeed. These numbers are significant, but I don't think the machine captured the full range of the energy output. We're going to have to adjust this."

"W-What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means we move on to tests that don't involve the machine, though they're probably going to want you back to do that test again—assuming you're okay with it, Riley?" Dr. Dembones asked.

Riley just giggled at that. "Of course it is. I just need—"

But I could see what none of the doctors could, and what my daughter was lying about. "No more tests for now." Using my horn, I picked Riley up with my magic and set her on my back. "Despite how advanced my daughter is, she sometimes forgets her body is still physically very young. She needs a lot of sugar in her right now."

Dr. Dembones looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Daddy's special talent is knowing what ponies need." Riley stretched herself out on my back and wiggled a little to get comfortable. "And yeah, I'm a bit hungry."

"A bit?" I asked.

She just let out a sigh. "Okay, a lot."

I floated the first of many cupcakes to her and held it long enough for Riley to get a grip on it and start to eat. It was strange. Having spent so many years teaching both my kids to eat healthy and moderately, stuffing hyper-sugared cupcakes into my daughter's mouth seemed a travesty. "Let me know when—"

"Another, please."

Yup. Here I am earning a fatherhood of the year award in Equestria while every nutritionist on Earth slaps their forehead in consternation. Deal with it, this is how pony anatomy works. "Here you go, sweetie."

"Thanks, Dammf—" Her words devolved quickly with another cake in her mouth.

Moon Dancer, I realized, seemed deep in thought, but she noticed my look. "I think I'll need to discuss this with Princess Celestia." She gave a little nod. "I have a theory I'd rather not talk about, but the princess will best be able to confirm or deny it." It didn't surprise me at all when she vanished with a pop.

"She hadn't learned that trick back when she was my student," Dr. Dembones said.

Riley squirmed a little on my back. "Dad, can I have another?"

I looked back over my shoulder to her. She felt like she had far more energy than before, but she could use more. "What's the magic word?"

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "Dad, can I please have another?" When I floated one up to her, she let out a string of little giggles. "Thanks, Dad!"

"You're welcome, sweetie."

The rest of their tests involved various amounts of Riley doing things a young earth pony probably couldn't, and me doing things an adult unicorn couldn't (after she'd jolted me with her power again). By the time we were finished there and walking home—Riley still munching on a cupcake that they'd been generous with—we were both feeling well-worn from it all.

"Do I really have to go back to do that test again? They didn't seem to help me learn anything at all. I knew I could do all that stuff already." The words came out between bites of cupcake. Was I still irked that cupcakes and frosting was the ultimate energy food for ponies? A little.

"We'll go back to give them that test, but I won't be compromising your classes any further than that. I know how much you enjoy school." My words earned me a tight hug and, I suspected, a liberal dusting of crumbs in my mane.

I walked up to the front door of our house and opened it, only to see Moon Dancer and Flurry Heart inside. Ah, yes, the perfect day to have a messy mane—with royalty visiting. "Good mor—afternoon, Your Highness, Moon Dancer." Smooth, Philip, really smooth.

"Here they are now." Saf was sitting on the couch, apparently having been talking with Flurry and Moon. "Hey, Dad, Riley. We got visitors."

"Yeah, Saf, I noticed." Sometimes he was sharp as a tack, other times my son could be—well—a typical young adult with his own distractions and problems. One day I'll have all the answers to parenting—until then I'll get by on bluffing and dad jokes.

Flurry put on her best smile, which was pretty impressive, and gestured to Riley. "Please, don't stand on ceremony, I'm only here to pass on a message from Princess Celestia. She inv—What?"

"'Don't stand on ceremony' and 'message from Princess Celestia' makes that an oxymoron," Riley said in her best obnoxious-12-year-old voice.

I turned my head. "Riley, you know what she meant."

"Sorry," Riley said.

"We've been examining advanced language techniques as well as constructing and countering arguments," Moon Dancer said with a sigh. "She's getting good at it."

"I noticed. Sorry, Riley, I'll try to be more concise. Princess Celestia has asked if you wouldn't mind spending the afternoon with her." Flurry looked a little embarrassed by the rebuke from Riley for what was just normal apologetic banter. I'd have to have a talk with her later about when it's appropriate to use these new skills Moon had taught her.

"Does she actually know anything that can help me? The doctors were supposed to, but all they did was tests." I realized what the problem was with my little filly—she was hungry and annoyed at being poked at all morning with nothing to show for it.

"She does." The words from Moon Dancer surprised me, and relieved Flurry Heart. "When I was thinking about you affecting ponies with earth pony magic, it reminded me of somepony. I wasn't absolutely sure, but there's only a handful of ponies alive today who remember another mare capable of things similar to what you're doing, Riley." Moon looked smug. "Princess Celestia is one of them."

"I don't know why she sent me. You explained that well enough." Flurry rolled her eyes at me. "It's almost like she treats me as her own, personal messanger—like I'm just a soldier or something." Alright, I had to pay that. Given she was wearing her light armor, it was a pretty solid joke.

"Excuse us a second," I said, and walked through to the next room and quickly cast a Shhh spell (something I'd looked up my first night back from Earth—for other reasons than discussing things with my daughter). Floating said daughter onto the bed of our bedroom, I took a slow breath to put my words in order. "Riley, I know you're upset about the doctors, but you shouldn't treat conversations like they're a—a debate. You don't win, you only make ponies uncomfortable."

"I was—But she—It was a—" She sighed. "Sorry."

I mussed up her mane with my hoof. "It's alright, Riley. Everyone feels a bit snappy when they go through a whole morning of non-stop hard work. It took me a bit to figure that out, too. You need to speak up and tell me when you are feeling wrung out."

"But I thought you could tell?"

"No, sweetie, all I can see is that you need something to eat." I kissed her nose. "Now, do you want to try this? From what I heard from Moon, she was taught by Celestia, and I think if anypony would know about this thing you can do, it'd be her."

"Yeah… Yeah! Can I have some time to talk with my tree? That usually helps get me perked back up."

I reached a hoof up and rubbed my chin, an activity that was common for an older guy, but not so much a young stallion barely into adulthood. Ignoring the odd mental clash of having been so recently back in human culture, I nodded. "Sure can. Let's head out there while your brother is stuck talking to Moon and Flurry."

She reared up and held out her forelegs, a reminder to me of how much she'd gone through in all this. When I put one foreleg around her, she latched onto my neck like a limpet. "You're the best, Dad."

The grip around my neck was, luckily for my continued survival, incomplete. Despite me being younger physically than my human self, Riley couldn't get her forelegs around my neck. "You know it. Come on."

I dismantled the spell with a little swish of magic and opened the door again. The room beyond, which had been lively with discussion, was suddenly quiet. "Riley needs a little chill time before she'll be up to anything else. A bit of time with her tree will fix that up. We should be fine to go in…" I looked to Saffron—he had the most experience with Riley's communing moments.

Saf raised an eyebrow, then realized I was asking him something. "Half hour if she's quick. An hour if its normal. Five hours if she gets distracted and argues with the trees down the road."

Still carrying Riley, I waved and said, "Thanks, Saf," then walked through to the back yard. The moment we were walking on grass and soil, I felt something strange. "Riley?"

"That feels funny. I can feel the ground through you. Hold up, Dad." The moment I stopped she let go and dropped to the ground. The tingling feeling was gone, but I could see a huge difference in Riley already. She walked with confidence over to the tree and then around it. "Dad, it wants to say hi to you. Come over and touch the bark while I do."

Without any reason to refuse, I walked closer and reached out to the tree just as I saw her do the same. My hoof touched the tree first, and I felt nothing, but then Riley's touched it and I felt the world melt away.

Warm sunlight welled up inside me and I felt happy-excited sensations coming from—from the tree! Riley's emotions were there too, and though her happiness was also apparent, so was the amount of power burning inside her.

My daughter stood as an inferno—a pillar of energy in this strange, wooden world. I didn't feel constrained exactly, but the tree was a conduit through which I needed to look to see Riley.

"It's okay, Dad, I only need a little bit with them." I was barely aware that we were back to normal and that Riley was drawing her hoof back after having touched me. "Maybe I should try to prepare you a little more next time?"

"That'd be a good idea. I—" I shook my head to try to clear the feeling of a breeze through branches and sunlight on leaves. "That was really intense."

"I feel a lot better now. Can we go and find out what Princess Celestia thinks she can do?"

"Meditate." Princess Celestia floated out the same book (not exactly, just another one) that I'd been given to learn magic. "The secret to understanding your magic and establishing a perfect balance with it, is meditation."

Riley took the book when it floated close and I could see the tiniest skeptic in Equestria furrow her brow.

"Before she explodes," I said, "how does a book written for unicorns help?"

"Open the book up, Riley Ree. Go to the third page in and read it for me." Now, from what Moon Dancer had told me of foal development, reading wasn't usually high on the list of things a 12-year-old would be doing, but Celestia surely knew Riley was special.

"Magic Exercises for Beginners, by Clover," Riley read aloud. "Then it lists—"

"The title and author again?" Celestia asked.

"Magic Exercises for Beginners, by Clover. I don't get it?"

"There's two important things to realize about both the title and the author, I'll give you a few more minutes to figure that out." Turning to look at me, Celestia winked. At least, I think she winked. With her mane always flopping over one eye or the other, it was impossible to tell if she was winking or blinking.

"Magic Exercises… for Beginners… Clover…"

As Riley read and reread the words, spacing them out in various ways, I suddenly realized what Celestia had meant—at least regarding the title and why it was relevant to Riley. My smile must have split my face, because Celestia smiled a little wider too.

"I just don't get what this has to do with me? Is there a way for earth ponies to get a horn? Is it some kind of riddle? Why does it—"

"Riley." I couldn't help myself. I was her father, and I didn't like seeing her flop about mentally. "What doesn't it say?"

She looked up at me, then down at the book, then up at me again and I watched her eyes widen. "Unicorn. It doesn't say the book is for unicorns. Is it"—she turned to look at Celestia—"written by an earth pony?"

"Moon Dancer's description of what you were doing didn't make sense at first, but then I remembered this book and Clover. You can ignore the section about horn magic at the end, Star Swirl added that when he got frustrated there were no guides specifically for unicorns."

Her words surprised me. "How long has your world had books?"

"Since Star Swirl invented a spell that prevents them from decaying. This was originally written on a sheaf of papers that Clover used repair spells on every few years. When Star created the spell, this was the first book ever protected in that way, and thus the oldest book in my possession." Celestia let out a gentle sigh. "That was my first textbook."

It hit me like a ton of bricks. This book was older than human civilization. It was older than every book on Earth by orders of magnitude. It was, even, the oldest book in Equestria. "Riley, you understand what that means?"

"I need to be careful with it." She turned another page carefully. "Hey, somepony wrote all over the edges!"

Seeing an ancient and immortal ruler blush was probably unique, but I can say now that I have seen such. Celestia gestured to the writing with her hoof. "This is my own hoof-writing. These parts here are Star's. I look forward to seeing what you add."

"But—" Riley looked between Celestia and me.

"It's her book. If she says it's alright to write in the margins, then it's alright." I lifted a hoof to ruffle Riley's mane a little. "I wish I understood all this more, but I might have to borrow that book after you to read through it. The one Moon gave me was a little newer."

"I think—I think I'll save my notes for the end of each section, then I'll write what I think about it there." As she spoke, Riley flicked through to the end of the first chapter. The deeper she got, the less and less room there was in the margins.

Celestia chuckled at the sight. "That was how Star and I did it. Space becomes a premium for those pages. The amount of earth ponies that can do what you and Clover can could be counted on one hoof." She held up said hoof and wiggled the two hard nails of it. "When you understand all the techniques in there, I'd like to meet up with you again and we can discuss a more expansive teaching of your gift."

It felt like a dismissal, but had that promise at the end. How much of her statement was just encouraging a filly and how much was real I don't know. I liked to think Riley was just as smart as Saf kept saying, but he was far from being an unbiased source. "Thank you, Princess Celestia."

Riley, rather than replying, was already reading her new book. For a moment I was going to say something, but Celestia shook her head.

"My best students have always had this problem. Your best bet is bribing her to put the book down. For Twilight that was fast food."

"Dad doesn't let us eat fast food. He makes us eat apples and fruit if we need a snack," Riley said, her eyes not leaving the book.

Using my magic, I picked her up and set her down on my back. The odds of getting her to put the book down were minimal, so I might as well let her keep reading it where I could carry her. "Come on, Riley. We have to let Princess Celestia get back to her work."

"Bye."

At Riley's single-word-farewell, I shot Celestia an apologetic smile, only to see her grinning. Apparently she really was familiar with awkward fillies.

Leaving the castle, I made my way back into the city and to the market. By now I knew everypony who came to the market to sell, and a lot of the ponies that came to buy. Walking around, I made sure to say hello to everypony I passed—it might make things take longer, but I'll be damned if it wasn't fun to share so many smiles.

"Yellow onions so cheap? I'll take a bag, please."

"Carrots? Absolutely!"

I kept buying, letting Riley read away on my back while I organized the next few days' meals. The basics for a good meal were common, thankfully, though finding some fish to add into Saf's meals was sometimes hard. Not today, though.

"Gabriel! It's great to see you!" I rushed up to the griffon's cart and started looking over the ice-covered supplies.

"An actual customer, or are you another squeamish unicorn who doesn't—Oh! Mr. Philip! Forgive me, but unicorns are a little hard to tell apart. How's your son doing? Still enjoying his flake fillets?" I couldn't take offense at him having trouble recognizing unicorns, he was after all another species entirely, but he was also the best source of water-based protein.

"You know how they are, the easiest way to tell if they're doing okay is by how long they spend in the air." As soon as I said it, Gabriel lifted his foreleg with his talon clenched. I gave a firm bop with my hoof. "He loved the shark, by the way. How about your chicks?"

"Gerard is doing well, he's zooming about still. Gerty will get the hang of her wings any day now, then I don't know if any tail in Griffonstone will be safe. I can recommend the squid—caught a few in perfect condition." He gestured to a brace of squid hanging from their tails. "I also got some crayfish. Not cheap, but fresh as you can get."

"You have them here?" I asked, already mentally working out what else I'd need to go with the squid. The great thing about my talent was it made this easier. I could look at the calamari and immediately picture an arugula salad to go with it. Right, now I needed to grab some arugula.

"There isn't exactly a ban on showing live seafood, but the Guard would probably get enough complaints that they'd ask me nicely to move. They're back here and still feisty." Gabriel made room for me to get to the side of his display and I could see the crayfish.

"Kinda small ones. I'll need four of those. Make it five squid too."

"They are a little undersized. I'll do them a little cheaper for you—since you're such a good customer. Anything else? More flake?" Gabriel was already wrapping the squid in paper.

"Dad, what are we getting?" Riley had, apparently, surfaced from her book. Probably a chapter break.

"Getting some fish for Saf and some treats for the rest of us. Don't think I don't remember what you ordered back on Earth." I glanced back at Riley before turning back to Gabriel. "Yeah, ten fillets of flake should do. I need enough for his sandwiches for a few weeks—unless you'll be visiting more regularly?"

"With regular customers I can." Gabriel began bagging up the shark fillets too. "How do you want those crays? You can have the bucket if you bring it back with you next time."

"When's next time?"

He passed me the bucket. "Let's say I try for two weeks instead of three?"

I was about to nod when I noticed something. Narrowing my eyes, I knew what it was a moment later. "Okay, but promise me you'll eat this." I floated an orange out of my pannier and over to Gabriel.

"Huh? What about it?" Nonetheless, he bit into the orange with his beak and I saw a surprised look pass over his face. "W-What is that?"

"You had a vitamin C deficiency. Eat an orange ever few days. Maybe get some for your chicks, too?" Lifting the bucket with my magic, I made sure to fashion a lid with my telekinesis to keep our dinner inside. "Thanks again."

Gabriel was too busy trying to stuff the second half of the orange into his mouth to get anything intelligible out.

"Dad, are we having lobster for dinner?" Riley asked me from my back—just as I was walking past a group of mares who had suddenly gone quiet.

Six heads spun around to look at me and Riley, and I could hear them murmuring to each other. Yup, now I was the worst dad in Equestria. A bad reputation in the market could ruin my chances of getting good produce when I came down here.

"Good afternoon, ladies. I trust you're having a wonderful day?" When in doubt, put on a smile and bluff.

Two of them lifted their snouts and started to turn, most of the others followed suit to some extent, except one. She was an earth pony mare who looked about the same age as I was. She had a basket of fruit on her back and panniers full of groceries. "I am, thank you. Did I hear correctly that you'll be eating those poor things?"

"Absolutely. My son's a pegasus, and he needs plenty of the kinds of protein that a diet of fish or seafood actively provides. Then there's the omega-3 fatty acid, which is beneficial to everypony to aid in—" I paused when her eyes had glazed over. Had she expected an easy argument? "There's a lot of good stuff in them, even if ponies don't include them as a normal part of their diet."

She stood there staring even after I'd stopped talking.

"You broke her, Dad." Riley jumped off my back (leaving her book there) and walked up to the mare. "Hello? Are you okay?"

"Whe—Where am I? Where did my friends go?" She looked around for a moment and then spun and started to gallop off in an unladylike way.

Staring at the retreating mare, Riley turned back to look at me. "Can I have an apple?"

"Sure, Riley." I looked around for an apple merchant, but needn't have bothered because Riley was trotting for the Apple merchant. Following her, I found the mountain of a stallion who was standing behind a cart loaded with what I knew were the best apples in two worlds. "Hi there, Big Mac. Can I get a bag of your best apples?"

He was quick to move, despite having the biggest hooves I'd ever seen, and had me a bag of gorgeous apples. "Eeyup." He then tossed an apple to Riley, who caught it easily enough. "Ten bits, thank ya."

I happily paid the price. "Thanks."

"Yer welcome." He was always so light with his words—count, not volume.

Holding the bag of apples and the bucket of lobsters, I let Riley trot along beside me on the way home—both of us eating an apple each.

"I got it, Dad." Riley rushed to the front door and opened it to let me inside.

"Thanks." I made my way for the kitchen, unsurprised that Saf wasn't home yet. "So, how'd the book go?"

When I got no response, I knew what had happened. I put the perishables away in the magic don't-go-bad-box (I should remember to tell Clair to see about getting the tech for these back on Earth) and made my way into the living room. I expected to see Riley with her nose in the book, instead she was sitting peacefully on the floor.

She wasn't reading and she wasn't eating her apple, but I recognized what she was doing. It was similar to the meditation I tried from the book Moon had given me. All Riley was doing was breathing steadily, but I bet she was channeling her magic.

Well, best to let her practice. I went back into the kitchen and started getting things ready for the lobster dinners.

Butter-poached was the only way to go when you had something this rich and sumptuous. A nice salad to go with it and—right, the calamari and arugula! This would be a great meal, even if a little heavy on seafood. It was nice to show Saf how much we all love and value him by making something special for him.

It didn't take me all afternoon to cook dinner—far from it—but I had some good soup-making vegetables and figured I'd make a nice stock up to use over the week. I'd just gotten it simmering away on the stove when I heard some loud sniffing.

"That smells really good. What is it?" Riley asked.

"This is just vegetable stock—at least it will be in an hour or two. The rest is going to be butter-poached lobster with a calamari and arugula salad." I picked her up in my magic—or tried to. She felt heavier than anything I'd tried to lift before. "What the—?"

Riley giggled like a fiend. "New trick I learned. Centering myself and planting my hooves. Nopony stands still like an earth pony who doesn't want to move!"

It was utterly shocking just how strong she was with her magic. I tried to lift her again, throwing everything I had into the lift without trying to hurt myself, but she wouldn't even so much as twitch. "So you don't want to come up here and smell this?"

My magic lifted her quickly when her expression changed from smug to panic. I kissed her on the nose—which earned me a giggle—and brought her over to the stock pot.

"This smells really good! Are there any leftover carrots?"

"You can have two, just don't spoil your dinner." I mean, with a house full of ponies, how could I not have a large quantity of carrots put aside for snacks? Apples too. I opened the fridge and fetched four, splitting them with Riley.

"Thanks, Dad!"

I watched as she ate the carrot. There was a slight sense of balance returning. She'd been hungry, and needed more than just energy. My special talent was really something. "No problems, sweetie. Just remember, meditation like this will actually use energy, so don't feel bad about taking a break for a snack. It's just like doing a lot of exercise—you are burning energy, so you need energy."

"I know, Dad, but I just kinda forget that when focused. Lucky I have the best dad in Equestria to keep an eye on me." She giggled when I squeezed her into a hug, and she then scrambled onto my back. "None of the book talks about transferring energy to others, though."

"I don't think this one book is going to solve all your troubles. Work your way through it, then present yourself to Princess Celestia again." I didn't mind her sitting there. After all, it wasn't like she was in the way like if she were around my hooves.

I returned to cooking, getting the seafood trimmed and ready. After some time Riley jumped back down from my back, and it occurred to me that she could do that from what was about three times her height without any problem at all.

Foals, I thought, the exclamation making me smile like a fool (or a happy pony) as I kept making dinner.

Author's Note

Riley's Tree: What's it like receiving magic directly from an earth pony vs. the ambient magic in Equestria?

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Lab

Chapter 28 Riley Ree

Even though I'd spent every last minute of my spare time on it, and some of the time Moon had spared, it had still taken me another month to get through all the exercises in the book—well, the ones before all the unicorn stuff.

Which is why I was at the castle on a weekend, waiting in line with much bigger ponies to see Princess Celestia.

They kept looking at me strange, as if somepony would suddenly come rushing in asking if their foal was here. Well, too bad! As each pony was seen, and everypony else shuffled forward, I moved forward too.

When I finally got to the front of the line, the pony behind me let out a sigh. "Honestly. Who's playing a joke here? Why is such a young filly out without her parents? Are you really going to entertain this charade?" He was talking over my head at the two Royal Guards standing on each side of the door, or possibly to the stallion standing behind a lectern.

"Ahem." The stallion behind the lectern leaned forward and looked down at me—then he winked. "Her ladyship, Riley Ree, daughter of Ambassador for the United States of America Clair Ree, was invited to attend upon Her Royal Highness' time today."

Okay, I really liked him! Turning my head to look back and up to the annoying pony, I stuck my tongue out with all the dignity that Princess Flurry had managed to convey when I'd seen her using it.

"Well, I never!"

The doors opened and the previous ponies came out, staring into each other's eyes as if bespelled—which they might have been. What if Princess Celestia had been replaced by Queen Chrysalis? What if—? I cut my maniacal thoughts off as I realized somepony had said my name.

"Riley, you can come in now," Celestia said. She'd apparently been waiting for me and was standing by the doors waiting for me to notice.

How long had I been daydreaming? Oh, well. "Coming, Princess Celestia." I trotted forward, the old book balanced on my back. "I finished the book—well, all the bits up to the horn parts. I decided to leave notations on what I thought each new chapter was teaching and why it was teaching it. That spread my notes out in little bits throughout each chapter."

"May I?" Celestia's horn started glowing and I noticed a half-smile on her snout.

Who was I to tell her no? Wait! Was this a test? Oh ho! I see what she's doing! Finding my center, I moved it down into the stone under my hooves and let the power of the ancient rocks flow up into my body. With all four hooves planted, I had summoned the ineffable power of the stone to prevent any foreign magic from affecting me! "Sure!"

At first it was just a little touch. Princess Celestia's magic felt no stronger than Dad's when he tried to pick me up. Then it started to get stronger, and stronger, and then I heard four cracking sounds.

My link with the rock under me shattered, the book jumped off my back. "W-What happened?" I asked.

"Look down, Riley Ree."

Of the huge, square marble stones that made up the floor, the one I was standing on had four huge cracks in it. I just kept staring at the broken rock in panic. "I-I-I didn't mean t-to!"

Walking toward me, Princess Celestia practically loomed huge over my tiny (compared to nearly any pony, really, but especially her) form. That's when I felt a rush of earth pony magic and looked down at my hooves. The stone was, once more, whole. "The truth of an alicorn is that we carry all three tribes' magic. The truth of what just happened was you only reinforced yourself, not the stone under your hooves."

"Oh. Uh, how do I do that?" Tapping my hoof on the stone revealed it to sound just the same as it did before I'd cracked it.

"There's exactly three ponies in history who have managed that feat. Clover, Luna, and myself. Of course, most earth ponies can be trained to grip to rock and to use it how you did, but to go further will be your test." Princess Celestia didn't walk toward her throne, instead heading for a side door. "Please let Bright Quill know I will be busy for the rest of the afternoon."

I followed her, ignoring the big Royal Guardpony who headed to the doors behind us. What I quickly realized was that given my size and given her size, I was never going to be able to keep up. "Uh, princess?"

When Princess Celestia turned to look back at me, she paused. "Oh. I keep forgetting how young you are here. Please, allow me." Her horn got brighter and brighter, then flashed really bright gold so I couldn't see anything else. Next thing I know, we're inside a building.

"Princess Celestia! We weren't expecting you today!"

Ignoring the mare behind the counter (since she was talking to the princess), I focused more and realized it was like the entrance to—Oh, there was a sign. Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Well, why am I here?"

"I have a new filly to enroll. She will only be here for one day a week, but I think a proper school environment is the correct place to teach such a gifted filly." Princess Celestia ignored the mare's confused look and looked all the way down to me. "You'll need to talk to Moon Dancer and apologize to her for me that I'll be stealing you on Thursdays."

"You mean to enroll this filly?" The mare behind the counter, with silvery hair and a pink coat, gestured at me with a pencil she was holding in one wing.

"Yes," Princess Celestia said.

"I'll need to contact the—I mean I—" Closing her mouth and eyes, the mare took a deep breath. "Yes, Your Highness. Now, miss, we'll need to have your parents fill out these forms and your current teacher fill out these."

"Thank you, Fluffy Clouds." Princess Celestia levitated the papers into the air and set them on my back. "There's one more place we need to visit."

She didn't give me another opportunity to get ready. The golden flash of her magic grabbed me again and we were soon standing on the steps of a huge library. It was easy to tell it was a library because it had Canterlot Royal Library written in letters about four times my size above the door. "Library?" I asked.

"If you think Clover stopped at just one book, you'd be sorely mistaken. Her notes continued, which is how Luna and I learned some of what she was capable of." Taking two steps toward the doors, Princess Celestia used her magic to open it—which left me having to gallop to catch up.

I swear, when I get longer legs, I'm going to spend all day—every day—challenging ponies to races. If it wasn't for being an earth pony, I would be running out of oomph all the time. I didn't need to use much, but a little trickle had my rushed gallop turn into an easy one—and because I was focused on that I ran right into Princess Celestia's back leg. "S-Sorry!"

"It was my fault, Riley." She was standing before a blank bit of wall. "The book we're after is in a private section." Her horn glowed a little, then the wall opened to reveal a staircase going down.

We walked down quietly, apart from the click-clack of our hooves, anyway. At the bottom was a door that opened into—another huge room full of books. "How many books do you have? Why are these ones kept away from ponies?"

"A lot, and they're not. There are copies of all these kept in the library above. This is where I keep the first editions and manuscripts of books that are important to me." Walking to a display, Princess Celestia opened the glass case and lifted out a long scroll. "This is one story of Clover. He chased an evil unicorn into another world to stop her from using the Memory Stone from erasing others' memories."

"Erasing others'…" I thought on that, remembering the word game Princess Celestia had given me with the book title. Then it hit me. "She erased his memories?"

"This was the last thing we know of Clover. He wrote down everything he knew of the sorceress, used his magic to strengthen the portal she'd created, and chased her into the other Earth world—the one your mother is trading with so successfully." There were tears in Princess Celestia's eyes.

I reached out my right foreleg and got it all the way around her left one with the best hug I could manage. "H-He stopped her, right?"

"I didn't know until recently. One of my former students—living in that world—had an encounter with a young lady who possessed the Memory Stone. The situation was resolved, but the young lady definitely wasn't the sorceress. The stone, thankfully, is destroyed now."

A horrible realization came to me and I found myself squeezing Princess Celestia's leg a bit tighter. "So he was lost in this other world with no memory of how to get home?"

"That is exactly what happened. I like to think that young woman my former student rescued from using the stone is his descendant, but that is likely just wishful thinking. This is probably your best guide for learning to use your specific power." Celestia's golden glow levitated a book down from the shelf and toward me. "This is his personal journal."

Letting go of her leg, I sat down and held out my forelegs for the journal. Opening it carefully, there was some very roughly written words inside the cover.

The Journal of Clover, 10 summers old.

I was startled. "Ten? But foals aren't—"

"There's a reason why I'm trusting this to you, Riley Ree. You and Clover share far more than just a talent. Clover the Clever was a genius, though he was only able to express it with his own learning." I hated the word she used. Yeah, it might mean something to crow about, but people expected so much of you the moment you let them pin it on you.

Thinking about the book and the way most ponies had treated my use of magic. "There isn't a copy of this upstairs." It wasn't a question. She wouldn't be giving me this one, after all, if I could get a copy from upstairs.

"What is your reasoning for that?"

"If you had a copy of this, you'd be lending me that. Even if you wanted to see my notes, I could scrawl them in the border of a fresh book—unless the purpose was to read the notes of those before me. This is a journal, though, not a text book. All such notes would do is prod at the person Clover, rather than their learning. So that means that it's a personal document, and you don't publish those for all to see unless they have historical importance." Taking a breath, I raised an eyebrow at Celestia.

"This journal contains keys to unlocking your magic and personal information both. What I'd like you to do is follow through it and write only the former, as you see use for it. That way I will have something to publish upstairs." She held my gaze, just looking at me as if expecting me to realize something.

And, it wasn't hard to work out what. "You want me to publish a book?"

"I'd like that. This is a rare talent, but as you've shown it is by no means completely absent. Having a book for foals to follow—written by somepony learning the talents themselves—would be a good addition to my library here, and the one above."

So I was right. I couldn't write a book on using earth pony magic with just one source. "I need to borrow his meditation book again and I'll also need a lot of paper."

"I'm sure Moon Dancer can help you plan this out and maybe even do the editing for you. She has you well ahead of the standard level of education for your age—on Earth—so I think a little time to work on a thesis is fine." I could see a lot of laughter hiding behind Celestia's smile.

I was thankful for my earth pony-ness when I had a stack of books to carry home. It would have crushed Saf, but with just a trickle of magic they sat proud on my back. I also had a little token from Celestia that made it known I was a student at her school.

By the time I got home it was getting late, but I didn't care. It was a weekend, and thus I was allowed to have some—

"Riley! What did the princess say?" Moon Dancer sounded a little worried. She looked at me like I was going to turn into a dragon or something. That'd be totally cool. I wonder if earth pony magic could turn me into a d— "Is that a pass for Princess Celestia's school?!"

Oh, right, daydreaming. "Yup! She said she'll be having me at the school on Thursdays, and that you'd understand why that…" Moon Dancer had gone glassy eyed. "Uh, are you alright?"

"Thursday? Really?" Moon sounded like she was about to explode. "Thursdays are when she'd give her personal student tutoring. Did I do something wrong? What—"

"I don't think she's doing that, but Moon, she also wants you to help me with a special project. Apparently she wants me to write a book on how to train earth pony magic as an external force." As I spoke, I noticed Moon calming a little. When it came to telling her the topic, she started bouncing in place.

"The first book about an entirely unknown way of using magic? This is going to be the best!"

"Well, actually not the first book, just the first anypony will know about. You see, there's this journal Princess Celestia gave me. It's fragile, since it didn't get the book-preservation spell until late in its life, but this is Clover's journal."

Moon looked up and down the stack on my back. "So what are all these other books?"

"Well, I could hardly write a book using just a single source. I have the special copy of Clover's guide to meditation, two history books on Clover—because they are secondary sources, I wanted twice as many—and the last is an empty notebook for me to write down all my own experiences with magic so far. That way I'll have three primary sources and two secondary." I had to tilt my head up at Moon to look her in the eyes.

Giggling, Moon used her magic to lift the books from my back. "That's my student. Did Princess Celestia say anything when you started demanding extra sources?"

I giggled too, at first unable to reply but eventually getting a hold of my laughter enough to speak. "She tried not to, but she groaned. You'd think I was asking to take the whole library."

Moon laughed a bit more as we carried the books inside. When we got to the study she used as my classroom, she gestured to my seat and started looking at the books herself. "The first decision is what kind of book will this be? It could be a scientific paper, a practical guide, a training book, or even—" She only stopped because I raised my hoof. "Yes?"

"Practical guide. I don't think I know enough about it to be a training book, and any other framing device might just make it harder for others to follow." I gave a little nod of approval. "I want this to help ponies learn this talent."

"A good idea. Okay, so that logbook will be very useful, since it's going to be your notes on how you learned to do something so you can work backwards from having learned it to teach others." She floated the journal over to me. "This will be invaluable. You can skip a lot of your guesswork with this and see about building abilities without so much trial and error."

It turned out the first logbook wasn't going to be for my own writing. I went through the start of Clover's journal and wrote it out—word for word—excluding anything personal that didn't affect their earth pony skills.

Taking the time to write it all out also meant I read it over carefully several times to say nothing of making sure I didn't accidentally ruin the irreplaceable journal.

Okay, so the first things he noticed about earth pony magic was when he could reach out to trees without touching them. Normally it should take an earth pony touching the plant to say anything to them. Time to turn theory into practice.

Sitting back from the tree far enough that I wouldn't accidentally touch its roots, I tried to reach for it like Clover said they could—through the ground. "Come on, we're both friends. I can reach out to you through some dirt—I'm an earth pony, after all."

Nothing I tried worked, though. Pushing at the ground only made it mound up, pushing my thoughts into the ground only made the grass around me grow faster, and pushing my hoof into the ground only made a hole.

I went back inside and read Clover's journal, but the wording was exactly the same as my copying of it. Back outside again, I sat just away from the tree and slowly slid myself into the meditative state that Clover's other book had taught me.

It was so easy to slide into this frame of mind now, but also a trap. I could meditate all day from dawn to dusk and not notice I had. So, keeping track of the sun, I tried to feel just the ground I was directly sitting on.

The dirt was comfortable and the grass happy to see me—even if my butt was pressing it down. I'd like to reach further. Do you promise not to grow too much if I reach through you?

The grass, of course, didn't respond. Grass wasn't really that smart.

Blade by blade, I reached forward through the dirt. The ones I was touching came easy, but then a little plant I wasn't touching welcomed me with excited photosynthesis. Calm and in control of my power, I welcomed the grass and kept moving forward. The grass, though, wasn't what I was reaching through, it was just a measurement of how far I'd gotten.

What this did seem to take, though, was focus. When I touched a plant, it was like there was a big tunnel opened up for me. I could easily push my magic through the tunnel, but as I worked my way further from my body I realized my power was spraying in all directions.

That's what the problem was!

The meditation made it easier to focus on a single line, but it was still pouring out from the tip. This meant I had to get better at meditating, and now that I had a measure of how good my meditation and focus was, I could do that.

Giving the grass a little boost of energy, I stood up and let my meditative state fade.

"There you are. Was wondering when you'd come out of that. Mom and Dad are at a fancy dinner that they can't take us to, so Dad told me to take you out somewhere you wanted to go." Saf was standing behind me, apparently. When I spun around and tried to come up with something good to yell at him, he smirked at me. "C'mon."

The only reason I didn't actually get annoyed at him was because for however long he'd been there, he'd waited until I actually moved and shrugged off my meditation before he even made a noise. "Just let me write this down before I forget it." Picking up both notebooks, I tossed the one that was copied from Clover's journal on my back and carried the one with my notes in my mouth.

Saf groaned and twitched his wings. "Okay, but you better not get busy doing any massive amounts of writing—I'm hungry."

Putting both books on the table in the kitchen, I flipped mine open and started writing what my next step was.

Magic sprays out more the less I'm focused. I need to meditate better to tighten my flow of magic up and learn how to meditate while walking and moving. Also, I need to thump my brother for reading over my shoulder.

"Hey! Not my fault!" Managing to get out of reach of me, Saf was laughing. "Come on, keep fighting to the door. If I have to lead this horse to—"

"Don't you dare finish that." I pointed a hoof at him. "You're not Dad."

"… dinner and make her eat, I will." He stuck his tongue out at me.

I started galloping after him, and Saf laughed and ran out the front door. "Come back you, you bad-joke-teller!"

"It wasn't a joke!" The annoying thing about Saf was how much faster than me he was. I mean, sure if we had to keep chasing forever I'd beat him, but he could practically dance around and still outrun me. "It was a pun!"

The tree was a full ponylength (an adult pony, not a little runt like me) away. I looked up at Saf, then turned to look at Moon. "It's taken so much practice, and all those lessons on meditation with Princess Celestia, but I can finally do this."

Raising my hoof in the tree's direction, I brought it down to the ground and focused my will on it. This was an order of magnitude more focus than I used to manage. As each little trembling fork happened in my magic, I narrowed my mind on it and snapped off the lossy branch.

When my magic reached the first root of the tree, and the connection was made, everything came together. Hi!

The tree was surprised at my touch, excited, and welcoming.

I gotta go. Sorry I can't chat more now. Despite how short our little meeting was, I knew the tree was always happy to feel me. Heck, I was happy to feel it too.

"So it worked?" Saf asked.

I spun around to glare at him and stick my tongue out too. "Yes! Didn't you—" Of course he didn't, he's a pegasus. "It worked. I reached out to the tree through the ground. As soon as I made contact with it, everything became easier and I didn't need to focus anymore. It was like when lightning sends out leaders and, when they touch ones from the ground, the full power flows really easily."

Pointing at the tree with his wing, Saf tilted his head to the side a little. "Why don't you just send it through the air? I mean, I know you're an earth pony, but it's not like you're a normal, every day earth pony."

"Because…" I tried to think of a reason that wasn't just because I'm an earth pony, but nothing came up. "Huh. Okay, let me try."

Focusing again, I brought my mind back to my magic and my hoof, pointed directly at the tree, and started sending out my magic. After getting it a few inches, I stopped. "This is really tricky. With the ground it's like—like I only have to focus it in one plane. Now it wants to zoop all over the place. Let me try again."

It took so much focus to extend my magic to the tree that although Saf and Moon talked, I couldn't follow their words. This was sooo much harder. When the sun went down, and I was only halfway there, I whined and let go. "That is way harder."

Saf ruffled my mane with his wing. "Something for you to work on, then. How far did you get?"

Ducking out from under his wing, I walked to the point I'd managed to spool out my magic to. "Here. What were you talking about?"

"Saffron asked me if this was anything like how a unicorn uses their magic," Moon Dancer said. "I told him this was more like a unicorn using their magic to affect something on the other side of the world." Ouch. Why did everypony keep calling him Saffron when he preferred Saf?

"Dinner time. Moon, would you like to stay for dinner?" Dad asked from the house. "I have an extra plate ready for you."

"Th-Thanks, Philip, but I think I'll have to pass." Moon sounded shifty, but with a lack of light I couldn't tell her expression. I knew why she was passing—she really didn't like fish. "Maybe another time we could all go out to a restaurant? Maybe celebrate Riley or Saffron's graduations?"

Yup. That would bypass having to be around ponies eating meat perfectly, since most restaurants didn't serve fish. We all walked inside and Moon started gathering up her things.

"It's the fish, isn't it?" Dad asked.

"Well, duh," I said. "Dad, hardly any unicorns eat fish."

Moon and Dad both blushed, and Saf thwapped me lightly on the head with his wing.

"What was that for? It's true!"

Saf snorted and shrugged his wings. "Yeah, but like—the whole world works because we all let everypony keep little lies that everypony knows aren't true. Moon Dancer was being polite and giving Dad a valid reason why she couldn't eat with us."

"I know that, but it's still stupid. Why doesn't everyone just tell the truth?" I looked at Dad for answers, but he smiled at me. "Wel—?"

"You've been working all afternoon, haven't you?" Dad picked me up with his magic, surprising me so much that I didn't try to stay on the ground. When I nodded, he booped me on the nose with his magic and then put me on his back. "You get grumpy when you're tired."

"I didn't even use much magic! It's all the concentration that was annoying. Saf was right, though, I need to learn how to do it the proper way, and that takes way more work." It took me a moment to realize I'd just argued against myself. I sighed. "You're both right."

Moon Dancer left and Saf sat at the table while Dad started bringing out dinner. The front door opened and closed, and I heard Mom's hoofsteps coming loser. When she came up to Dad and they started kissing before saying a single word to each other, I focused on Mom herself and realized how big her belly was now.

"Mom," I said, "you're huge."

"Anypony would think I have a whole new pony growing inside me." Mom stepped past Dad's head and kissed me on the cheek. "How did your demonstration go?"

"Terrible! I mean, I managed to push my magic through the ground and into the tree, but then Saf said I should try it in the air and it was soooo much harder."

"That's because you were thinking too much like an earth pony. You need to think wider. You've got this cool talent and you weren't really flexing it." Saf Picked up a knife and fork with his wings and started digging into his dinner.

Jumping down from Dad's back, I used the downward energy to spring back up again and land on a chair at the table. "Yeah, that's the most annoying bit. You're right."

I scooped my first mouthful of food and watched as Saf lowered his rounded dinner knife to his plate and ran it along the surface, twitching it left and right. He looked into my eyes and winked.

Gulping down my mouthful, I asked, "What?"

He lifted the knife up and wiggled it in the air. "I just figured something out. Can you guess what?" When I just stared at him for several seconds, he lowered the knife back to the plate. "Can only move in a flat plane." He lifted it back up and wiggled it every which way. "Moves in all directions."

"What are you talking about?" I shoved more food in my mouth.

"Your magic doesn't go through the dirt, it travels along the edge where the dirt met the air. That was the plane you felt. In the air, though, your magic can travel in any of three dimensions."

I froze. He was absolutely right and he saw it before I'd even worked it out. "H-How?"

"Earth ponies work in planes, pegasi use all three dimensions. It just came to me like a few seconds ago."

It was obvious, but not really. Okay, it would be obvious to a pegasus. He was pushing me, but also helping me. "Thanks, Saf."

"Don't mention it. Remember, I'm gonna be relying on my little sister to get all the smarts because all I'm good at is flying." Every time he said something like that, I would have to remember this moment. Heck, every time I started thinking like that I'd have to remember how he'd solved this problem first.

"Pfft. Yeah, right. I would have been tripping over a way to describe this for weeks. You just nailed it after a few minutes. Sometimes it takes a pony who thinks a different way see the obvious." I speared a piece of cauliflower in cheese sauce and started munching on it.

Saf shrugged his shoulders and started loading his fork up. "So what do you do with this now?"

"Not much. It all goes into my notes for the book, though." Something got my attention by not being present. Turning my head, I looked at Mom and Dad. "You're quiet tonight."

"Sorry, Riley, just a lot to think about. I'm due in two weeks." Mom's smile looked strained.

"Mom gets a little down before she pops out a new kid. I remember her with you—" Saf said.

Turning to look at Saf, Mom raised an eyebrow at him. "You were only 6 then, how could you remember that?"

"Some things you remember no matter what. When your mom starts moping and complaining about—about things, that sticks with you."

"What were you going to say, Saffron Ree?" Mom used that tone. It was the one that chilled your blood because if she spoke your full name with it, you were dead.

"Fifth Amendment, Mom." Saf grinned and leaned back on his chair with his forelegs crossed behind his neck and his wings steadying him. "You, being a public official, cannot coerce me into giving evidence that would incriminate me once I have invoked my Fifth Amendment rights."

"We aren't in America right now. I could ask Princess Cadance to request extradition—she's a mother too, she'd help me." Mom's features had slid from serious to obviously-joking in barely a second. "I know I'm going to be a little harder to live with for the next few weeks, but just remember that I love all of you."

"We know, Mom," Saf said.

"Yeah," I said. "We know that, Mom. Besides, there's going to be somepony else to love soon!"

Mom got a huge grin and she nodded. "We will! Anyone got any ideas on what we'll name them?"

I nodded my head eagerly. "Princess. Princess Ree."

Saf rolled his eyes and speared the last of his cauliflower with a fork. "I don't think that's how it works. Well, except for Princess Flurry."

"Miracle?" Dad asked. "Well, they will be."

"How do ponies normally pick names?" Mom looked to me as if I'd have the answer. When I shrugged back, she blew out a wicker. "Well, maybe I'll just get the doctors to drug me up and make up something on the spot?"

"No!" The exclamation from Saf made us all jump a little. "I've been putting up with that for 18 years, I won't have a sibling dealing with it. You'll name them Table Lamp or Wittle Myth Moth or something bizarre. I'll ask around how to do this."

"I'll ask too!" I glared across at Saf and saw his determined look. It. Was. On.

Author's Note

Celestia: have you considered having "Magic for Beginners" reprinted as an annotated, commented edition?

"Old habits, mostly. Now I actually can ask the authors of the notes for their permission, I may just do that." Celestia's smile was a counterpoint to her one visible eye—that looked a little sad. "Though most of this will not be useful to foals, I wager."

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Lab

Chapter 29 Saffron Ree

Formation flying was tough. You had to know exactly where you and your wingmates were at all times. The hard part was matching all our flying together. Some of us had bigger wings, some of us had different types of wings, but I was the smallest and that meant everypony should be pulling their flying down to my speed.

At least, that's how it would normally work. The difference was I used my magic in precision flying to keep pace with the next better flier than me so that the whole team could work faster. We were jumping into a Sweeping Advance maneuver when sergeant Slowpoke cruised up alongside me with her wings barely moving. She could out-fly me without trying, I knew, but right now she had fallen-in beside me just like our formation had an extra pony on one end.

Slowpoke gestured down with a hoof and then wiggled her pinon-feather nearest me. This was one of the standard gestures which was a command to fall-in with that pegasus.

Tilting my wings as she did, we turned into a dive that brought us down to Wonderbolts H.Q.'s landing strip and to a screeching halt together. "Canterlot General Hospital. Your mother just had her foal."

Whatever I'd been focused on just evaporated. How could I think about flying when Mom needed me? "Sir, permissi—"

"Go, Saf. Heck." Slowpoke rolled her eyes.

"R-Right. Thanks." Turning toward the edge of the clouds, I pumped my wings and zoomed across and over the edge.

The air barely touched me I was moving so fast. With my wings tucked in at my sides, I shot toward Canterlot and sped up all the while. I knew where Mom would be, since I'd been with her and Dad one time when they went to the hospital, so adjusted my dive so I'd be pulling out of it right at the front door.

Hitting the ground a little harder than normal, I ran inside and looked around the entrance. Hospitals were always kinda freaky to me. Everypony seemed to be rushing from place to place, and all of them seemed to know exactly where they were going.

"Well, look at you in your Wonderbolts outfit. What can I help you with, sweetie?" When I spotted the mare who spoke, I realized she was exactly who I needed to talk to—a nurse.

"My mom, uh Clair Ree, is having her baby." I looked up at the mare who towered over me, and tried to look lost. Whether it worked or not, she reached a hoof out and ruffled my mane. Not that I cared about her messing up my hair right now.

"Let's find her then, shall we? She'll be in maternity… Follow me, please."

I trotted after her as she led the way deep into the building. Eventually she stopped at a desk and asked after Mom.

"The ambassador?" The nurse behind the counter leaned forward and looked down at me. "Saffron, is it?" At my nod she smiled. "Room 7. She only just came in."

More trotting, and I got to count down the room numbers until we reached 7. The nurse used a wing to open the door and I shot through the gap as quick as I could. "Mom?"

"Over here, Saf," Dad said. "Remember how long your mom took with Riley? Well, apparently ponies don't spend anywhere near that amount of time having their foal."

"What do you—No way?" I'd missed it? How had I missed it? They said she just came in! I only had to flick my wings a little and I was into the air and hovering beside the bed. Mom was laying on her side with a little wrapped bundle against her belly—her back leg was stretched a bit further back than normal. It took me a few seconds to realize that's where her boobs were and a few more to remember that they were meant for babies, after all. "Heck."

"Meet your new little sister, Saffron." Mom didn't sound drugged out, like when she had Riley. When I looked up at her, she didn't look drugged out either, just a little tired. "No epi this time, so I guess I have to come up with a name the old-fashioned way."

My attention snapped back to the tiny filly pressed to Mom's belly. Hovering forward, I set myself down on the bed and lay down on my belly beside my new sister. "Hey there." When her tiny ears twitched, I couldn't help but grin. "Welcome to the family. Things might be a little crazy every now and again, but I bet you're gonna fit-in just fine."

She squirmed and pulled her snout out from under Mom's leg, then let out the biggest burp I'd ever heard—well, from something as small as her. She looked up at me with huge eyes and smiled. She also had a tiny horn above her snout.

It was enough to make me giggle. "One of each. Your big sister's an earth pony, I'm a pegasus, and you're a unicorn. I'm sure there's probably somepony somewhere who will find symbolism in that. Not me, though, I'm just a dumb jock fly-boy." I booped her nose—carefully—with my hoof.

Her eyes widened and she fumbled with her forelegs but couldn't get them to cover her nose. When I reached down and brushed her snout with one wing-feather, all her attention swapped to my wing.

"Are all foals this active just after birth?" Mom asked.

When I looked around, the nurse who'd come with me was gone and a new one was fussing with pillows and charts beside Mom. My attention snapped back to my sister, who had one of my feathers in her mouth now. "Well I guess I needed a good preening anyway."

Mom tapped my shoulder with a hoof to get my attention. "You can pick her up if you want, Saffron. By the sound of that burp, she's had a good feed."

Sitting up, I scooped my free wing under her and lifted her into my feathers while she kept sucking on my other wing's primary. "She's so small."

"Mom! Dad!" Riley's voice from the door wasn't that much of a surprise. I imagined she got the same message I did, though she might have been harder to break from meditation. "When are you going to have the foal?"

Dad's eyes flicked to me. "What foal, Riley?"

My little sister's—Guess I can't use that anymore. Riley's mouth had dropped open and she stared between Mom and Dad. She hadn't even looked at me or what I was holding in my wings. "Dad!"

"Riley, get your butt over here," I said, making room on the bed for her.

Dad lifted Riley up onto the bed with his magic and I turned my wing just enough for her to see— "Have you picked a name yet, Mom?"

"She's so tiny. She's smaller than me!" Riley crawled across the bed to me and looked at our new sister. "How is she smaller than me?"

Holding our new sister in my wings, I reached a hoof up and booped Riley on the nose. "Because you're twelve years older than her, silly."

"Yeah, but…" All Riley's attention was on the little filly, and she trailed off when my feather was surrendered in favor of reaching out toward Riley instead.

"I think, given her yellow coat, Golden would make a good first name," Mom said.

Dad tapped his chin with one cloven hoof. "What's the normal naming system here? Should she have Ree as her last name, or do we pick that as well?"

Turning to stick her tongue out, Riley put a foreleg around me. "She's a Ree, Dad. There're some families in Equestria that have consistent themes or last names. There's no reason we can't too."

"Okay then, Golden Ree it is." Mom let out a sigh that sounded very content and happy. She was looking at Golden, so I carefully walked up the bed toward her with the filly in my wing. "Thank you, Saffron."

Passing Golden to Mom, I sighed. She'd never stop calling me by my full name—and I could never tell her to stop. "So. What now?"

"Well, as near as we can tell," the nurse said, "both mother and daughter are doing well. You can head home once you're discharged." She tapped her hoof on the chart. "The doctor left notes that once your little one was fed, you're fine."

Remembering when Mom was in with Riley, she'd been in hospital for a few days after having her. "Really? Aren't there tests and stuff?"

Raising an eyebrow, the nurse turned the chart around. "They've all checked out."

"Saf, they use magic to run tests here. The bed probably does all the tests for them," Riley said.

Getting Mom checked out of the hospital wasn't hard, but there was a lot of paperwork to fill out. Dad took care of that while I held Golden. Wings really were the best, and I can't understand why anypony would want to be anything but a pegasus—though Riley and Dad do pretty well.

I thought back to the filly I was carrying. "A unicorn. Didn't I hear there are all kinds of problems raising a unicorn foal? Like, magic bursts or whatever?"

"I've already got a list of helpful spells for that. One of Starlight's friends helped raise Flurry when she was just a tiny foal. If they work on an alicorn, they should be fine for a unicorn." Dad sounded so confident, which was more than a little worrying.

It was worrying because this was all strange. Sure, Golden was their third kid, but she's their first unicorn. A cute one too, particularly since she was asleep in my wing right now.

I didn't need to be told to take her upstairs when we got home. I headed for Mom and Dad's room, with Mom following me. "How weird is this?" I asked.

"Super weird. I expected to spend a few days, high on drugs, half a day pushing and fighting my own body… Instead I got in there, the doctor told me to give a good heave, then he told me to stand up! I stood up and felt Golden just—just slide out. And don't get me started on nursing her all the way back there." Mom climbed up on the bed and looked over at me expectantly. When I reached out and passed Golden to her, the tiny filly woke up and grabbed onto my wing.

"Uh… What do I—?" She wasn't strong. I could have pulled away easily, but I wouldn't. Using my free wing, I reached to my secondary feathers (some were a little loose anyway) and plucked a few free. They were still longer than Golden's foreleg, and when I tickled her nose with one, she giggled and let go of my wing.

"You're going to spoil her, Saffron." Mom cuddled Golden and reached down to tuck the filly against her belly. "Thank you."

Knowing what she was about, I turned and let Mom have some privacy. "Us Rees have to stick together. There's five of us now, and Golden needs a cool big brother."

"She's got one," Mom said as I was walking out of the room.

What do I say to that? Ugh. I walked down the hall and down the stairs, unsure what to do with myself. Should I go back to Wonderbolts' HQ? I only had a moment of thinking about it when I was crash-tackled by Riley.

When Riley tackled you, you knew about it. "What's up?" I asked, putting a foreleg around her.

"You're the best big brother ever."

"As if that was in doubt." I didn't feel as confident as I sounded saying that, but what else could I say? "I guess we get the rest of the day off school?"

"Yeah. Princess Celestia told me to take the day off. She said it's super important to let our new sister know how special she is." Letting go of me, Riley walked over to the couch and jumped up on it.

Seeing the obvious invitation, I followed her and climbed up too. "Mom's feeding her again. If she's anything like you, all she'll do for weeks is eat, sleep, and make the most disgusting messes you've ever smelled. And, I bet those smells will be worse because we're ponies." I tapped my snout with my right wing's largest primary feather—the one Golden had mangled.

Barking a laugh, Riley closed her eyes and seemed to go a little distant. "Saf, if all we have to deal with is a bit of diaper stink, that won't be much. There's so much we have to teach her. She might not look it, or feel it, but she's still at least a little bit human. We have to make sure she can find out about that stuff if she wants to."

"Even if she does," I said, "we have years and years to help her figure that out. Remember, I'm still a foal for another twenty years, and you are for another thirty. Golden will be for forty years. There's just so much more here in Equestria."

"Yeah, I guess. Princess Celestia has me doing more meditation stuff. The book does too, but Princess Celestia wants me to have it perfect before I move on with the next step. It's going to take me years to learn all this, and even if I have years to burn, I want to do it faster!"

Rolling my eyes, I bopped Riley on the nose. "It's pegasi that are known for wanting to do things faster."

"And unicorns that are known for their magic. I don't care about all that. I want to do all this and I want to do it now." She looked around the room. "Ugh. It's too boring here. I need to go out and do something."

When she jumped down, I followed after her. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know that, Saf. If I knew that, I would have said, 'I need to go out and do that thing.'"

That was a lot of sass for Riley—she must have been really worked up over this. "Dad? Heading outside for a bit."

"Take your sister—your older sister—with you, Saf." Dad's reply made me chuckle a bit.

"Will do, Dad." I looked back at Riley and spotted the smile on her face too. "Okay, that's gotten us the afternoon. Let's go do something."

When we were outside, I let my wings open just a little—enough to feel the breeze. "I think the weather ponies are putting a storm together."

"You can feel that?"

"Yeah. Like…" I thought hard on what I was feeling. "It's like the air is getting more and more wet—humid—and I can almost taste the static of lightning. We haven't done much about weather design yet, just examining what pegasi can do to clouds. You wanna fly up and take a look?"

Riley's answer was to pronk her way onto my back and hold onto my neck.

Spreading my wings, I had to give a few good pumps of them to get us off the ground. There were no thermals nearby, and given the moisture in the air I doubted if they even existed at all right now. Circling higher and higher, I pumped my wings without using magic, and soon we found ourselves in the middle of a group of weather ponies. "Uh, hi!"

"Whoa! Canterlot's a no-high-fly zone right now. What are you—both of you—doing up here?" The pegasus stopped, and with her about half a dozen others that were doing something to a cloud.

Right. Weather report. I'd forgotten to check my flying information for the afternoon. Lying wouldn't be the right thing here. "Sorry, I'll just—"

"Wait. Chief, look at what he's wearing," another of the pegasi said. "Hey, kid, you're a junior Wonderbolt, aintcha?"

Wearing my flight suit was second nature now—probably first. I nodded. "Yeah. Though things kinda got messed up today on account of Slowpoke interrupting my class to tell me our mom was having her foal."

The first pegasus blinked in surprise. "No sh—Really?" When Riley nodded on my back, the mare let out a laugh. "Well, I can't exactly chew you out. I bet you're just giving your parents some space by taking your—sister out for a fly, right? Just bolted right out the door?"

"Something like that. Mom look worn out, and Dad looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and hide for a year. That doesn't excuse me not checking out the weather warnings."

"No harm done. Hey, you wanna give us a wing, hot-shot?" The mare raised an eyebrow and nodded toward the huge thunderhead beside her. "We're trying to push this big-un over the mountain to kick the lightning out of it, then we're going to pack it down for the snow Princess Celestia asked for tomorrow."

"Go on, Saf. You'll never get another shot like this," Riley said from my back.

"Just hold on tight and don't use your magic. Last thing we want is a cloud growing trees or something." I winked over my shoulder at Riley, then turned back to the weather ponies. "Ma'am, what do you need me to do?"

"Get on the side opposite to Thumper there and try to heave that thing as much as you can. It's a big and lazy cloud—it just wants to dump everything it has right here." The mare gestured to where she wanted me and then to where we were pushing it. "What's your name? Never mind, you'll be Hot-Shot. My name is Sunny Day, but you can call me Chief."

Racking my brain, I managed to remember that E.U.P. Guard chiefs were the lowest level of field command. They knew everything about everypony under them and knew how to get things done. "Yes Chief!"

"Hey, Hot-Shot, give your hooves a bit of a kick of magic to start with. I hope you have some pushing power," Thumper said.

I didn't have the wings Thumper had, but I bet I had as much magic as him. Maybe more. "Hey, Riley, forget what I said. Can you give me a jolt?"

Her answer was a giggle and the jolt I'd asked for. It was like a rushing hurricane of magic that started off foreign and weird, but the longer it was in me the more like pegasi magic it became. When I figured it was as converted as it was going to get, I pushed a little into my forehooves and a bunch more into my wings and pushed.

"Whoa! Hot-Shot! Move to the center and swap with Howling." Sunny Day's command had another pegasus rushing to my position and, instinctively, I moved to theirs. "That's it. Now give it another push. I shoulda expected you Wonderbolts had some secret cloud-moving techniques."

This time, when I pushed, my shove was directly through the cloud's center of mass. I gave the bulk of the push while the pegasi around me assisted and guided it. With Riley's magic boiling through me, I wasn't even getting tired.

"Okay, on my mark you're going to stop pushing aaaaand…" Sunny drew out the word, but I knew not to stop pushing until she told me. "Stop!"

Now I stopped and back-winged a little from the huge cloud. Every wing-beat I'd felt how much that thunderhead wanted to go in any direction but the one I'd been pushing it—but all the other weather ponies were always there to keep it on track.

"Hey, Hot-Shot, if you ever get bored of the Wonderbolts, come and check out the weather ponies. We could use some heavy-lifters." It took me a moment to realize she was misjudging my age. I knew there were smaller than average ponies, but it felt great to be recognized as a near-adult despite my size and age.

"I kinda cheated. The little filly on my back? One of Princess Celestia's newest students. She can give you a jolt of magic that lets you do a lot more with your own power than you could on your own."

The pegasi all looked between themselves before Sunny fronted up. "Any chance of a jolt for one or two of us, then? It'd make all this a lot easier."

I looked over my shoulder at Riley. "How're you feeling? Up for a few more?" I could see in her eyes that this kind of situation was what she'd been wanting when she'd said "do something".

She stood up, ignoring that she was just casually standing on my back so far above the ground that we couldn't recognize ponies below. "Just hover close. I don't really need to touch you."

Thumper was first to approach. He winged so that he wasn't far from me and, when Riley gestured to him, his eyes widened and I could see him buzzing with that raw, physical power that she could donate. "Sweet Celestia! That's—That's amazing!"

Once Riley had dished out her jolt to each of the weather ponies, she slumped onto her belly on my back. "It takes a lot of focus to do that without touching them. This is what I wanted, though." She raised her voice. "Will that help?"

"You're kidding, right? I feel like I could shove that cloud around on my own!" Thumper looked at Sunny. "Hey, Chief, we don't need to report them for violating flight rules, right?"

"Report who? Only ponies around here are weather ponies and two deputies. You should probably both head home now. I bet your mom is a bit more relaxed. Maybe you should give her a jolt?" Ruffling my mane with her forehoof, Sunny gestured back down toward Canterlot.

It was kinda an order, and I didn't really want to argue with them since they'd been nice in not reporting me. Giving a salute, I tweaked my feathers to let air rush through them and, with Riley letting out an excited squeal from my back, we plunged back down into low-altitude Canterlot airspace.

It was hard to tell how long we spent with the weather pegasi as we descended toward home.

Watching Riley finding her place was amazing, and it seemed like her magic (like Dad's and mine) was like a muscle—the more she used it, the stronger it got. Every morning before her classes with Moon, she'd trot down to the weather ponies, and after that to the E.U.P. Guard H.Q. It was obvious she'd realized her power was getting stronger with use, but I was pretty sure she genuinely enjoyed helping all those ponies.

Golden was still so tiny, but she'd started both walking and firing blasts from her horn at every opportunity. Dad was quick to solve the latter with those spells he'd learned. Things almost seemed calm and safe. That's why I knew something crazy was coming.

"Narrating in your head? Who do you think is listening?" I knew the voice even before I turned around and saw Discord floating in the air behind me. "Fluttershy told me I should apologize again for our last meeting—I was feeling a bit noodly, you see, and when that happens I just start flipping things upside down."

"Yeah, I noticed. Besides, you turned me back to normal. No harm, no foul. Just ask before you change me into something else… and make sure it has wings." I realized my error the moment after I finished talking. "Ask before you change me at all."

"You're both fun and not at the same time. Your little sister is causing quite the stir. Going around and booping ponies. You know there are rumors starting." Discord leaned back and stretched out on a lawn chair that wasn't there seconds ago. He lifted a mirror up and positioned it under his neck. "If you don't relax, I'll make you relax."

With just a snap of his fingers, or paw, Discord made a second chair appear, lifted me onto it, and positioned a second mirror under my chin.

I just sighed and stretched out a little, trying to enjoy the warmth of the sunlight. "Rumors?"

"Glad you asked. Let's see, there's the one about Celestia losing it and taking an earth pony as her new personal student. Another about a young mare that spends far too much time around a colt. Finally, we have the one about one mare who can tame the desires of a stallion alone.

"That last one has all kinds of salacious postulations about how. Some even combine it with the young mare and the colt one, saying the mare is the second female for the stallion." A pineapple appeared in Discord's talons and he took a sip from it—managing not to impale himself on an uncountable number of tiny umbrellas. "None of the rumormongers suspect for a second that all three are true."

"She doesn't spend too much time with me. For a start, I don't even have those feelings as a colt."

"So you do know something of this?" Discord removed a pair of sunglasses I swore he wasn't wearing a moment earlier. "Then what, knowledgeable colt, is the answer? How about this—I'll give you a single wish if you unravel all of these for me."

Excitement built for all of four seconds, then I remembered who I was chatting with. "Like I'd do that."

"Oh dear. Have ponies been talking about little ol' moi?" The attempt at an innocent expression Discord made was a good one, but he was already behind the eight-ball.

"No. We have stories on Earth about genies that offered wishes that always had ironic consequences."

He huffed. "I wouldn't make any consequences ironic."

"Right. You'd make them silly. Like, I'd wish to be older, and you'd make me one day older. Or I'd wish to be the same age as Sudden Turn, and you'd make her my age." When I looked over, I saw Discord writing something down. "Taking notes?"

"Goodness yes. These are great ideas!"

"Okay, I'll answer your questions. Are you sure you want these ones answered? You seem to know them already." I completely ignored whatever visual gag he was likely to perpetrate and closed my eyes to relax a little more.

"You're too kind, Saffron Ree, did you know that? Questions, questions, questions. Goodness there are a lot of things on my mind lately. What's your favorite color?"

"Light blue. It's relaxing without seeming to try. What next?"

"What do you want to do with your life?" I could still hear him scribbling something, but wasn't sure what he was writing down.

"Easy enough. I wanna fly. I don't think I'll ever get bored of it." As I waved a wing in the air, I felt a round weight settle into it. Lifting what was obviously a coconut to my lips, I tasted it. Apple cider, and it didn't taste alcoholic. "Thanks."

"That's something I like about you. You take things at face value. The way some ponies around here act, you'd think I was some kind of ancient, mad chaos god seeking out playthings to torment—well, until recently I might have been, but I changed!" Discord sounded like he might have been trying to convince himself more than me. "Last question, what's the capital of Abyssinia?"

It came right out of left field, which I had to assume was normal for Discord. With a sigh I opened my eyes and looked over at him—took in his shit-eating grin—and made sure to sip down the rest of my drink before replying. "You know I don't know that."

"Well, yes. I like to cheat a lot, and this was the best I could really manage. Of course you wouldn't know—"

"Panthera," Riley said. "Saf doesn't study geography, but I do."

I looked back at her and smiled at my little sister. "Hey, thanks for the assist." Turning back to Discord, I could see there was still mirth on his face. "Kookamunga."

For a second Discord just stared at me, then he laughed aloud and actually fell off his sunbathing couch.

Staring at me in shock, Riley stomped both front hooves at me. "Saf! Why'd you screw it up for?!"

"I wanted to see what he'd do." I leaned back and pulled the sun-reflector up under my chin again—while Discord kept laughing. When I checked my drink, I found it full again. I took a sip.

It took Discord another minute to get over his laughter and climb up on the lounge. "And that's why I like you so much. Are you sure you don't want to be a princess? You could be princess of chaos, and we'd have so much fun."

"It's tempting, if only for a day." I shook my head. "But fun as it would be, it wouldn't be me. This is who I am."

"And this is only you because you got used to it." Discord's voice was really close. So close that I could feel him on my shoulder—dressed as a tiny demon. "He's right. You should try it for a day."

I figured it was an angel on the other side, but when I turned to look it was another devil-Discord. Of course it was. "So long as I turn back to my normal, pegasus self after one day—sure."

"Saf! You can't—"

Riley's words were lost to me. I felt Discord's magic wrap around me and pour into me. There was that snapping sound of his paw's fingers coming together, and then it was done. I could feel different. I was bigger, since I guess I didn't tell him what age I was okay with, but I still had my wings so it wasn't a complete loss.

I used one wing to adjust the mirror under my chin and the other to hold out my coconut. "Can I get a refill?"

"I'm going to go tell Mom on you, Saf!" Riley turned on her hooves and marched back toward the house.

"And just like that I know I'll get in trouble for this." My voice, I realized, was a little higher than normal. I didn't want to think about what else was different, and didn't really care either. If I hadn't said yes, I'd probably be wondering about it for the rest of my life.

"Just blame me. Everypony else does," Discord said.

"Saffron Ree!" Mom's voice made my ears tuck down at the volume and tone. It was my full name, so this could be me getting grounded for the next thirty years. "If what Riley told me is true, you're in big—Oh." She stopped when she realized Discord was still here. "Is this—?"

Time to test this chaos thing out. "Pull up a seat, Mom. This is Discord. He's the spirit of chaos, and—"

"A spirit of chaos. There are others, but they don't tend to hang around here very much." Discord tilted his head and looked up at Mom. "I don't believe we've been fully introduced."

Mom froze as Discord took her hoof and gently kissed it. "Well, I—You turned my son into a princess?" She looked over at me.

"It was a bet, Mom, and it only lasts a day."

Reaching down to his feet, Discord pulled on a pair of miss-matched running shoes. "You'll excuse me, but I plan to be at minimum safe distance before any of the others find out about this." He took off at a run when another Discord fired a starter's gun.

"Why did you say yes?" Mom asked, sitting on the second sun couch.

"Because why not? This is a magical world, and despite that we've been avoiding all the magic. Also, like it matters what I have for one day, I'm still me. Also, I'd be kicking myself if I didn't try it." Focusing my mind, I made another of the coconuts appear beside Mom. "This is good cider."

"So it's really just a day?" Mom asked as she sipped her cider. "Hey, this is good."

"Just a day. I kinda felt sorry for him, too. He goes out of his way to do funny stuff, but ponies seem so wary of him that he hardly gets any fun and"—I gestured to myself with a wingtip—"this is fun for him. He'll be watching, somehow, while everypony freaks out about it."

"Riley was freaking out. You probably want to reassure her you're still you, Saffron." Slumping a little onto the couch, she drank more from the coconut. "And for the love of little green apples, Saffron, you better learn how to make this without magic."

I rolled over and started to stand up, only to find there was a lot more of me to stand and a lot more leg to stand on. I wasn't just an adult, I was a tall adult—an alicorn. "My mane isn't swooshing like Celestia's, right?"

"I'm a little surprised he didn't go that far. Your father is sleeping upstairs with Golden, try not to wake them or cause Riley to wake them."

That was a golden rule with a little baby—don't wake the baby. Waking the baby meant someone was going to lose what little sleep they were already getting. It felt good to have some height again. I know it's only temporary, but I couldn't wait until I was this tall again all the time. "Riley?" I poked my head in the door and looked around.

"I'm not talking to you, Saf!"

"Hey, keep it down, we don't want to wake up Dad or Golden." Her voice had come from the living room, so I headed through to it. Riley was on the couch with her face buried in the cushions.

I walked over to the couch and sat down on it. Everything was a little different with this much leg involved. I had to fold my limbs a lot more. "I'll let you braid my mane."

Riley pulled her head out of the gap between cushions and looked back at me. She looked annoyed, but braiding was an offer she would never skip. "You're huge."

Turning, I laid down on the couch and stretched my neck out so Riley could get at my hair. "Yeah, it's kinda awesome to get a taste of being an adult here." As her hooves started to work, I thought about that. I was going to get treated as an adult by everypony!

"Yeah, but you're going to get treated as more than that. Saf, you have a horn and wings. If you go outside, everypony will freak out." I could feel her hooves working in my mane, but there was a worrying thing—there wasn't much tugging. When Riley braids, and your hair is short, she has to tug a lot to get enough hair to work with. "You've got so much mane here. I'm gonna be busy for hours on all this."

That only confirmed it. Well, at least we'd get some time to talk. "I guess princesses get lots of mane and tail to go with their size."

"You haven't looked in a mirror yet, have you?" Riley was giggling. "You have more mane than Princess Celestia."

"What?!"

"Shh. Baby, remember."

Ugh. I can't believe she got to use that back on me so quickly. "How much is there?"

"I'm going to be busy for a while. You really think I'd have given up my grouchiness for only a little plaiting?" She snorted and climbed up on my back so she could get a better angle of attack—or something. "I'm tempted to ask him if he can leave your hair this long even when you turn back."

"You need to be really careful when talking to him. Remember the thing about genies and how they twist your wish around to mean something different? If you asked him to leave my hair like this all the time, he'd probably reason that as 'to have alicorn hair, he needs to be an alicorn' and bam, I'm stuck like this." That had me wondering about my wings. Were they different as an alicorn? Trying to remember, all I could picture was Celestia's wings spread wide—they weren't pegasus wings.

"Really? Is that why you were so careful about saying how long this would last and you returning back to yourself and stuff?"

"Pretty much. He's a nice guy, but he seems to have his own rules to follow, even if he thinks he's all about chaos. I probably shouldn't bad-mouth him, like everyone else he's just doing the best he can with what hand he got dealt."

Neither of us spoke for some time. Riley was busy plaiting my mane and I was pondering all the differences in my body. I felt more solid, but there was other stuff. Unicorn magic and earth pony magic were a thing I could poke at, but I had a feeling if I messed with those, something bad would happen.

Come to think of it, something bad happening is probably exactly what Discord wanted. I wouldn't want to disappoint him, but going out of my way to cause a problem wasn't going to happen. I'd let fate and harmony work it out for me.

"Hey, Riley?"

"Yeah, Saf?"

"Try not to tug too much, but go as wild as you want. I think I might take a nap." Yawning, I relaxed more and sank a little into the couch. Despite Riley's insane giggles, her weight on my back, and slight tugging at my mane—I managed to drift off to sleep.

It probably took a while for me to reach the point where dreams could start, but when I did it was surreal. I was floating in space with stars around me—and then there was other ponies there too. Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Cadance, Lieutenant Flurry Heart, and Princess Twilight. All of them looked a little surprised, but each and every one had a huge smile on their faces.

"Welcome!" Princess Celestia said. "It's not every day we have a new alicorn ascend, and rarer still one we don't recognize." She looked aside to Cadance for a moment before back at me. "May we have your name?"

All of them looked eager to find out my name except Princess Luna—she was staring at me as if she'd seen a ghost. Right, dream magic was her thing, of course she'd know who I was. I smiled at her and winked. "My name," I said, enjoying the moment, "is Saffron Ree."

Now they were a matching set. Each shared Princess Luna's terror, but none seemed capable of talking.

"I guess you want an explanation?" I asked.

Princess Celestia was the first to recover. She closed her eyes and in a soft voice said, "Discord."

"Yeah. We got to talking, and he asked if I'd like to be princess of chaos for a day. I figured why not? Like I'll ever get the chance to do it again, and it's not like I'm stuck. He said it will wear off after a day." The sound of five hooves connecting with five foreheads was strangely musical. "What?"

"Discord will lie if he thinks that's what you want to hear," Princess Celestia said.

"Well, he doesn't lie all the time," Princess Twilight said, "and that's part of why dealing with him can be such a headache sometimes. He can lie, tell half-truths, and give you the honest truth in the same breath."

Crud. Well, now what do I do? Should I even try to find him before the time is up?

"Discord!" Princess Luna's voice shook the stars around us. It was the level of voice you hear at rock concerts—and only after lots of expensive amplification. "DISCORD!"

I folded my ears back and closed my eyes. Even if I'd just been a foal that would have been loud.

There was a popping sound, and I heard Discord make a hrmm sound. "You didn't have to yell. Look, poor Saffron is positively startled. Why, I don't—"

"Discord." Princess Twilight walked up to him and used a wing to prod him in the chest. "Turn Saffron back to normal right this second!"

Turning to me, Discord flashed a smile before looking back to Twilight. "You didn't say the magic word."

Huffing, Twilight stared at Discord with the most deadpan and dry look I'd ever seen, then asked, "Please turn Saffron back to his old self."

With a rub of his chin, Discord shook his head. "If I did that, he'd explode. You remember the mice, don't you?" To demonstrate, Discord turned himself into a rather small mouse that promptly exploded.

I couldn't help myself, I giggled.

"See! He likes it!" Discord was suddenly beside me again, his cat-arm around my neck. "Besides, I can't turn him back even to his horsey-self. You see, there was an agreement. When you make an agreement with chaos, you are bound to it—and chaos is bound to you."

Princess Twilight furrowed her brow for a moment before a look of excitement made her perk right up. "What you're saying is that the time delay is built into the magimorphic field you built?"

Rolling his eyes, Discord nudged me with his elbow. "Here I am bending the very forces of reality, and she tries to sum it all up in one sentence."

"Is she right?" I asked.

"Well, yes, but she could have gone to a little more effort to make it seem amazing." Turning back to the princesses, Discord gestured to me. "As you see, it will last exactly a day from when I changed him—no more, no less. Honestly, this was just a little fun. I wasn't going to punish him for letting me have fun, now, was I?"

Princess Twilight sighed and closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Discord, but we did ask you to leave visiting dignitaries alone, didn't we?"

"Technically his mother is the visiting dignitary. Saf here is just another citizen of Equestria—even if he might hold dual citizenship with a little country on another world." As he spoke, Discord produced birth certificates and the royal warrant that proclaimed me a citizen of Equestria. I think he even had a copy of my 3rd grade homework I'd claimed a dog had eaten (it was covered in peanut butter). "He is certainly the most adventurous of my recent acquaintances. Why, we even sunbathed together. Do you know how hard it is to find a pony that calm in my presence?"

"They told me you were probably lying," I said.

A whole studio audience of Discords gasped—they were apparently just off to the side.

"You told Saf that I would have lied to him about something as important as this?" Discord looked around the assembled princesses. "For shame!"

"Yeah! You tell 'em!" somediscord in the audience shouted.

Princess Twilight scoffed at this. "Discord, you lie all the time. You told me yesterday that Fluttershy had exploded and wouldn't be coming to tea."

"Yes, well, she may not technically have exploded, but she wasn't altogether emotionally." He held up a talon to hide our conversation—then spoke normally. "She didn't manage to stop her latest animal friend, a very large snake from the Amarezon, from finding the little field mice she'd been rehabilitating. Tragic little story, but far easier to explain that she'd exploded than she was in pieces emotionally."

A collective awww came from the crowd now, followed by applause. It was everything I could do to keep from cracking up laughing at Discord's antics.

"So you see, I might lie from time to time, but never about important things. Not anymore. And I absolutely, positively, wouldn't lie to Saf about his week as an alicorn princess." It took me several seconds to realize what he'd said. When I spun around to glare at him, Discord held up a paw and a talon placatingly. "A day! A day! Come on! I was joking!"

Lifting my hoof, I bopped Discord in the side. "You better be."

"See? SEE!" Discord pointed at me. "He gets me!"

"Not that I'm ungrateful for worrying about me and everything, but I'd like to get back to my normal dreams about now." I looked to Princess Luna, pleading with my eyes to end this silliness.

"You're right, Saffron Ree." Princess Luna's horn started to glow blue and the brighter it got, the more alone we became. Each of the other princesses (and Discord) popped out of my dream one by one until only Luna remained there with me. "When you wake, please come and see me."

I was about to reply when she too vanished and the dream returned to my regularly scheduled flying fantasy.

The best thing about flying dreams is that they don't have to end. I woke up, still feeling a weight on my back. When I looked, I saw Riley was there snoozing. It was night time—or at least it was dark outside—so I stood and carefully walked upstairs and to Riley's room.

Crouching low beside her bed, I tipped to the side a little and used my wings to make it more of a slide than a roll.

"Huh? Wha?" Riley half-woke and looked up at me.

Now I could actually reach her with my wings, I pulled the covers over Riley and tucked her into bed. "Just getting you in bed. Go back to sleep."

Her answer was to roll over and start making little snoring sounds.

Princess Luna, I knew, slept through the day and was up at night, meaning that now was the best time to go see her. Also, being night time, less ponies would be out and about. Feeling confident, I went back downstairs and out into the cool night air.

Despite what I'd hoped, there were ponies around, but none seemed to notice me. Well, the best way to not be noticed was to be invisible and soar above them. Stretching out my wings, I realized they were different to my pegasus wings. Nothing else for it I guess. Spreading them into full readiness, I launched myself upward like a missile.

Never before had it been so easy to fly. I could feel the extra mass my body possessed, but it seemed more than balanced by the stretch of these wings. Was this what it would be like to fly as an adult pegasus or was this more specifically an alicorn thing? I had so many questions, and some of them led to places I really shouldn't be poking around.

Would the Wonderbolts allow an alicorn to join?

Yeah, like that one.

Forget it, you idiot, this is just one day and no more. A bit of fun.

Angling my wings for a glide, I turned toward the castle and started to descend. This. This was why my dreams never ended. I dreamed about flying, but when I wake up I get to fly.

As I got closer and closer to the castle, I realized there was a lot of guards and they were all very awake. Remembering the warnings I'd gotten about not flying over the castle, I landed at the front gate. "Uh, hi. Princess Luna asked me in my dream to meet her."

It was idiotic to believe that the guards would just wave me through and not point their big, dangerous spears at me, so of course they smiled and waved me in. "She left word that an alicorn would be coming. Go right in."

What else should I do than walk in. Trotting up to the front entrance of the castle, I became aware of my hooves, or more specifically that they were split now. I looked down at them and saw the two-part hooves of my forelegs take my weight with each step.

Also strange was, when I looked back over myself, that my tail was long, thin, and furred with a puffball of hair at the end. My mane was braided into an elaborate fountain of loops and waves of hair, but that was Riley's doing.

"You only picked now to investigate what Discord did?" Princess Luna's voice made me snap my head around. "Relax, Saf, it is not you I have issue with but that capricious noodle."

"Noodle?" I asked, following Luna as she turned back toward the castle. How she'd known to find me outside I don't know. Maybe it's like the thing with dragons in stories how they could always know when people were around their hoard.

"Discord and I were once friends. It's a pet name for him." As we entered the castle, I was aware that the guards were all looking at me strangely. Like they were anticipating something. "Please ignore them. They are likely anticipating another coronation."

Had she really just—? "Huh?"

"The Guards. Things got exciting the last time we had a new alicorn come to visit—Twilight Sparkle—and if I remember correctly there was a book running on what she'd be princess of the moment they found out about her." Luna looked to one Guardpony who had a lot of decorations on his armor. "Stiff Peaks, this is a temporary condition."

Stiff Peaks didn't straighten or even twitch—he was already standing tall and proud. "Your Highness, that is accommodated in the book and makes no difference."

Princess Luna snorted and her horn started to glow. "A thousand bits on this being over by tomorrow evening." In a pulse of her blue magic, a bag of coins appeared—and then disappeared as Stiff Peaks tucked them away.

I continued to follow Princess Luna all the way through the castle. Twists, turns, staircases, and even a hidden tunnel were all passed without her saying so much as a word, but then a spiraling staircase led a winding path all the way to what I assumed was the top of a tower. There was no door at the top, and when we exited the top of the stairs we were standing on the tallest tower in Canterlot.

Turning slowly, I looked out upon Canterlot and then Equestria itself. The view was amazing, but what was most amazing was there was magic here. I couldn't just see a far way, I could see other cities, other towns. I could see all the way to a huge desert in the south and an icy city under a dome of magic in the north. "All of Equestria?"

"And a little beyond." Luna sounded smug. "There're few ponies who know of this place and fewer still that have stood where you are."

"So why show me?" The question jumped out of my mouth before I realized it. "I'm only going to be like this for a day."

"Because you are a princess, if just for a day. That and you have shown a lot of trust and support for Equestria, as well as tolerance for our little foibles. Discord's little antics aside, you handle yourself better than some ponies I know." Lifting one hoof, Luna pointed into the distance. As if reacting to her focus (and it probably was) the magic narrowed our vision in on a little town at the edge of Equestria's far north. "No ponies there remember the legends, but that's where my sister and I were born and raised."

The town she was pointing at had maybe a few hundred ponies, or so I guessed. With the magic we could watch them walking around and talking—though we couldn't hear them. After a few minutes of watching, I let out a sigh. "Has this caused any problems?"

"No, actually. If it lasted longer than a day it might, but we can keep you safe here for such a short period."

"Safe?" I asked.

"Saffron—Saf—you are an alicorn without any knowledge or experience in using your power. There are many who would like to acquire you if only to ransom back to us—if not with more dire intents. We have been invaded in the past by one who wanted to take our power." Her voice seemed to harden as she spoke. "It was once that this was the only lookout of its kind. Now the E.U.P. Guard have several that are manned at all times—and theirs are more powerful."

She sounded a little jealous. "Want the full truth?" When she just raised an eyebrow at me, I continued, "I just wanted to be an adult again. Just for a little bit. It's tiring being small."

Princess Luna's wing settled over my back for a moment, then she let out a laugh. "But you can fly. Come, let us visit that village!" She pushed me with her wing, and though I could have resisted and remained standing on the ledge—I didn't.

Feeling wind rushing past my face, I only extended the tips of my wings and used them to guide my fall into a dive. Princess Luna's laugh above me came a moment before she caught up. Together we pulled out of the dive at huge speed and sped north.

Flying was always fun—full stop. Flying with a full-sized body with somepony else made it even more fun. Trees, streams, even railway tracks zoomed past under us as we sped toward the town. Though it started getting colder and colder, my coat of extra-fluffy fur was more than enough to keep the chill off.

Tipping her wings, Princess Luna arced into a spiral. As I followed, I realized she was dumping speed while she tightened it, so I followed suit.

When she pulled up and let herself drop, I mimicked the maneuver too and we each planted four hooves on the ground. And, in doing so, I was reminded that my hooves were split, like Dad's, rather than proper horse hooves. There were a lot of little changes like that.

"Princess Luna!" The shout went up all around us and ponies rushed over to get as close as they could to her. "Princess! Princess! Why have you come here?"

"I was showing my friend here around Equestria." Easily cutting through the crowd, Princess Luna put a wing over my back. "May I present to you Princess Saffron."

The heck? Oh, that's not fair. The worst part was my wings jutted out in shock—and I know it made me look exactly like the classic alicorn pose. "Uh?"

"Go on, Saffron, say a few words." She was smiling, damn it. This was a setup.

A cheer rose and then quickly subsided as they were all waiting for me to speak. Clearing my throat, I tried to strike a similar pose to what Princess Luna had used. "Greetings everypony! Princess Luna was giving me a tour of all Equestria to show me why a princess must stand tall—and she said she had to start here with the most amazing and friendly ponies she knows!"

A huge cheer went up, and I managed to catch a wink from Princess Luna.

We spent the morning walking around the town, letting the ponies there show us their pride and joy—each and every one of them had something that made them unique and amazing, and I found myself enjoying every second of it from one mare's unique cake recipe to a colt's first balloon animal (that was actually alive and danced around).

"You have to stay for lunch!" somepony shouted, and was then lost in the crowd of agreement.

It was crazy to think they just put on a feast out of nowhere to celebrate having Princess Luna and me visit. I mean, Luna maybe, but I was a nobody. They didn't even know my name before today, and they likely wouldn't remember it once Princess Saffron never appeared again.

"That meal was magnificent!" Princess Luna declared when we'd eaten as much as we could of the mountain of food. "And now, before we leave, I believe we need to show our appreciation for your hospitality."

"Oh no. Your majesties don't need to—"

I recognized the slip in address, but it was Princess Luna who cut in. "It's only a little thing. Something small to show our appreciation." She led the way out of town to the first field just bordering the village. Everypony was silent as they followed her—well, they followed both of us, but I was mostly just keeping pace with her.

Bracing her hooves in the dirt, Princess Luna began to channel magic. Her horn was glowing, but after spending so long with Riley, I knew earth pony magic when I felt it. "Saffron, follow along."

Rather than try to mirror her channeling, I instead tried to pass my power on to her to use. It kinda worked, though I think I was wasting a lot by doing it. But that was where things were crazy—I had so much magic!

Well, Princess Luna was just building it up and up, and then she channeled it down through her legs. I felt it rush through the soil and out in all directions.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"What we did was supercharge their crops for about the next hundred or so years. Where did you learn to channel that much power?"

"Uh, watching Riley. If you wanted to move a bunch of power, you should have brought her." That's about when I noticed the plants—I have no idea what they are, maybe some kind of corn—were growing while we watched them. "How long did you say this would last?"

"Maybe we overdid it," Princess Luna said, then cleared her throat. "Ponies! We have used our magic to enhance your fields! Look how fast your crops are growing!"

The ponies started cheering in excitement, and we all watched as heads of corn grew. Wait, heads? Ears? Noses? Bushels? Ugh, I have no clue about this stuff. "Are we leaving now?"

"We probably should. If anything comes of this, I'll blame it on you and let 'Tia fix it." Looking back at the townponies, Princess Luna spread her wings into a position more specialized for flight than showing off—I mimicked her. "And now we must return to Canterlot. There are so many towns we need to visit next!"

Everypony cheered as we took off. I kept at Princess Luna's wing-second position as we flapped and brought ourselves altitude with muscle-power. She directed me into the first thermal and we shot almost straight upward.

It was odd. Princess Luna started flying through a normal stunt-training routine. I matched her, of course, knowing the gestures and patterns as well as having the wing-power to keep up.

Loops and twists, acrobatic stunts that I couldn't believe I got to fly with a princess all made my heart pound in excitement. It took us nearly three times longer to fly back to Canterlot than it took to reach the village.

We had to work our wings to get above the lip of Canterlot, and more work still to get to the same level as the castle, but we got there and Princess Luna brought us in for a landing right in front of the castle. I was always nervous about flying around the castle's airspace, but with a princess guiding the way, I had nothing to fear.

"Half a day and still like that?" Stiff Peaks seemed to appear from nowhere. "How long until twenty-four hours is reached?"

I just rolled my eyes and walked beside Princess Luna into the castle. When he was out of earshot, I sighed. "You know what, I can't wait to be my normal self again."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Just nobody special, a colt who can walk around and look at whatever he wants without being crowded with attention." Okay, so it was only partly true. I loved the huge wings, and flying with Princess Luna had been amazing.

"You don't enjoy being an alicorn at all?" Her voice was unreadable except for the mild curiosity it carried.

"Well," I said, "I'm not going to lie. Flying with you was just about the most fun I've ever had while stunt flying. Where'd you learn to fly?"

"When I was young I loved to fly with the Cloudsdale Royal Legion. Those formations weren't just stunts, those were attack patterns for a pair of pegasi to take on a vastly larger number of foes. You should ask Flash Magnus to give you some pointers sometime."

I'd heard that name before. It took me a few seconds of silence to remember where. The guy Sudden had used me to avoid. "Wait, I know him. How old is he?"

"Would you believe there was an accident involving a mysterious realm called Limbo and a huge misunderstanding about a nice young stallion that caused them to miss out on thousands of years of time?" At my stare she just grinned. "It's true. I've also heard he's a bit of a mare's stallion, if you know what I mean? Perhaps you could ask him to commit to some training lessons before you change back?"

"Take advantage of his nature?" The idea both intrigued me and filled me with dread. How much flirting would it take for him to show interest? Could I even handle that?

"Trust me, Saf, he deserves it. But the most important thing is he will honor his word. How much time do you have?"

"It was just on sundown when I was chatting with Discord. We've probably got an hour or two left." I didn't have to look at the position of the sun to know the time. There was a sense that pegasi had that let them know exactly when they were. "You'll back me up?"

"You wingmared for me. It wouldn't be fair if I didn't return the favor." Princess Luna really smiled as she said it, and for some reason that made me feel proud to have been her wingmare.

As it turned out, finding Flash wasn't hard. He was drilling a bunch of Guardponies around in circles and yelling at the top of his lungs. When we landed nearby, his eyes practically locked onto us.

"At ease everypony. Take a ten minute break and meet back here in a half hour." Flash's voice was smooth and supple, and I'd heard a hundred pickup artists who were far worse at sounding a tenth as warm and inviting.

Wait, warm and inviting?! Where the buck did that come from?

"Evening, Your Highness, who's your fr—" Flash froze a moment and I saw his eyes now tracing up to the top of my head. "A new princess?"

"More or less," I said, trying to calm myself down. "We were just looking for you."

His eyes widened a little and I watched as he struck a pose that was right off the Wonderbolts' posters (though maybe it was the other way around). "Let's see, there's usually three reasons a princess comes looking for me." Ugh, he sounded so sure of himself. "The first is that there's a disaster and they need all the Pillars. The second is they want a handsome stallion to take on a date. The third"—he looked directly at Princess Luna—"is they want flying lessons, though it can be related to the second."

I turned my head and looked at Princess Luna and saw a blush on her cheeks. That's when it hit me—they'd been an item! "Uh, I was after some flying lessons." The thing was, this would be the best trick to play on him ever—and get some great training from somepony who really knew their stuff.

"Oh ho?" Flash walked closer and then dodged to one side and started walking around me. "Let's see those wings. Some alicorns are built for gliding—I could never teach Princess Celestia anything—but some have that edge of a pegasus who revels in speed and control."

When I lifted up the wing nearest to him, he took hold of it with his own and started inspecting my feathers. "You've been flying hard today, but I can teach you to fly harder." For a moment I thought he was going to preen my wing, but just before his snout made contact he let go. "Want to start right now?"

"How about tomorrow?" I fluffed my wings a little and turned. Yeah, it was a cheap shot, but I had a feeling Flash Magnus deserved everything he got.

His eyes were tracing my back and I realized how into wings he was. Ha! It was going to be fun to reveal my true self to him tomorrow. "I'll be looking forward to it. Anything in particular you'd like me to show you?"

Trying to skip past how crazy this situation was, I said, "Princess Luna was showing me some evasive air-combat maneuvers. I think it'd be a good start toward not being a huge target in the air."

"Sorry, Flash, but we really must be going." Princess Luna sounded genuinely sad, though I'd heard she was a bit of a prankster from Flurry, so she might just be that good at carrying out a gag. "You know how it is—it's not like when I was a young mare and nopony relied on me."

It was a not-so-subtle reminder that it was getting late and—if Discord really did keep his word—I'd be returned to normal soon. We took to the air to get away quickly, and sure enough halfway back to the castle I heard a popping sound, kinda like a balloon going off, and I was tiny again.

I had to pour a bit of magic into my wings to keep up with Princess Luna. "Well, looks like that's over."

Princess Luna looked over to me and raised an eyebrow. "I'll admit I forgot how small you still are. You should probably go and reassure your family that everything's back to normal. Come and see me tomorrow, and we'll go see Flash together."

"You just want to see his reaction."

"Indeed."

I kept pace with her all the way to the castle itself before I pumped my wings, gained altitude quickly and did a perfect barrel-roll-attack maneuver and shot back in the direction we'd come from.

Luna (she'd started insisting I not call her princess, so in my head I focused on not using it) was giggling up a storm. She'd just introduced me to Flash Magnus for a second time, and had sworn to him that I was the princess he'd promised flight lessons to.

He seemed like he would continue arguing, then just shook his head. "I agreed, and I should have known better than to let a pretty set of wings distract me from your usual pranks, Lulu." For the second time in two days he marched around me. "You're small, but that's an advantage when you're flying evasively. You won't have any striking power, but that's okay. I promised, but you were both being a bit deceitful, so I will only do this on one condition."

"And that is?" I asked.

Turning to look at Luna, Flash gave her the same smile that had almost derailed my thoughts yesterday. "A kiss?"

From Luna's smile, I think I just worked out exactly what angle she was playing all along. Well, so long as I got my lessons I don't think it matters what she and Flash do—they're both adults after all.

Author's Note

Princess Twilight, Now that you've spent some time on Earth, learning about its customs and history, what are your opinions on the various unpleasant periods in human history where, among other things, books were burned?

"It's true that all nations have their roots in"—Twilight grimaced a little—"unfortunate past events, but it's much better to look at where a nation is now and more importantly, where it is going. America has its share of skeletons in the past, but I can't help but look at where it is going and smile. Such freedom for every citizen is something I'd like to discuss with Princess Celestia."

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Lab

Chapter 30 Clair Ree

It shouldn't have been surprising that Jeff won in a landslide. I ran through the headlines and read what news pieces had been shunted over. We had more computer hardware here now and even had one of the soldiers designated as IT expert (though his experience wasn't with the high-end server hardware we'd received, he had guides that got him through everything).

"Eighty-five percent margin. It's almost unbelievable." And it was. Given the recent history of politics in the United States, having such a majority of the country come together behind one leader seemed impossible—but Jeff had done it.

Securing so many literal magic cures for everything from the common cold to MRSA, was it any wonder? But enough musing on such things—I had a job to do. Reaching a hoof out, I tapped the intercom. "Send them in now please."

I could have seen them early, but that's not how business is done. My guests might have arrived early, but that was no excuse to bypass due process. The two ponies walked awkwardly into my office and took a seat opposite me. "Good morning, I trust your trip wasn't too much of a shock?"

One was an earth pony while the other was a pegasus who had the characteristic wing-droop of someone completely unused to having a third set of limbs. The earth pony nodded. "Just a little. I trust everything on your end is going well?"

"Absolutely. The teleportation array is charged and you're expected at the other end." I tried to make it seem as routine as possible, but the truth was this was the first time someone had been translated not just from Equestria to Earth, but from another Earth, through Equestria, and to our own world. "I hope you have a good trip, Ambassador."

"Before we head off"—I knew this was coming—"I understand your nation has just had an election? Could I inquire as to how that went?"

Trying my best to ignore the queasy look on the pegasus' face, I turned the screen I'd had up around (after hitting the keystroke that locked the terminal to non-sensitive data only). "As you can see, President Miller won by a large margin—the largest we've seen for many years. Popular opinion holds that it's because of the trade agreements being made with Equestria."

"My own party back home has enjoyed similar success, though we have things a little easier due to how our portal works." The way he spoke made it feel like he was trying to dig for sympathy. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to provide some information on what kind of welcome we'll receive?"

They wanted something for nothing. Too bad I was way too deep in being a pony to fight it. Normally even just this information would cost them, but Jeff had also told me to play nice. "The president said he'd welcome you himself shortly after you arrive. I believe he has a press conference scheduled and, in accordance with the inter-dimensional treaties act that was passed recently, a building of your own will be leased to your country with no expectation of repayment unless you actually wish to pay for it.

"Let me see, you'll also have some television spots reserved with friendly networks—don't worry, you won't get hit with any blindsiding questions—and we're trying to arrange to have your own teleportation array built and made available."

The pegasus tried to reach a hoof up to what should have been a coat pocket—if he wasn't a pony and was actually wearing a coat—but his wing moved too and when he tried to correct it, he fell over.

Wincing in sympathy (I could still remember the trouble Saffron had at first), I coughed to distract from the awkward fall. "We are going to enable the transmogrification system on the teleport in the hope it returns you to your bipedal form." Both of them looked relieved at that. "But you may encounter a problem involving clothing at the other end. Please have no fear that people are standing by for that eventuality."

"I feel at a loss, Ambassador Ree. You seem to be going far out of your way to accommodate us," the earth pony said. Dammit, I really needed to sort out their names, but I had my suspicion that the earth pony was Ambassador Jerry Mander, given the way he seemed to do all the talking. That made the pegasus Glib (oddly with no last name), the ambassador's assistant.

"Of course we are. We already have established good will between our nations thanks to the amplification array you sent—which is enabling far greater flow back and forth with our world. There's no reason not to support your mission as much as possible." Ass-kissing I could do. It was part of my job description. That said, I was glad we wouldn't have to entertain these two any longer than absolutely necessary. If they were going to remain ponies, they would need time to adapt to their new forms—which would mean I'd have to assign babysitters.

My intercom flicked red for a moment, leading to me reaching across to it and tapping the accept button. "Ambassador Ree, Ambassador Mander and his assistant's ride to Earth is ready. We have their equipment and luggage on the pad and ready to go when they are." The voice of my secretary, Helen Maxwell, was no longer strained or worried (as it had been when she'd first arrived.

Helen was the first of a test group of four. A sixty-three year old ex staff sergeant in the marines who'd been given five months to live. She wasn't meant to be working, of course, but she had insisted that she could take on light duties—which now included running the day-to-day civilian side of our Mission.

"Thank you, Helen. Please let them know I'll escort the ambassador and his assistant down very shortly." I lifted my hoof off the button the moment Helen replied in the affirmative. Lifting my head to look at the two across from me, I put on my best smile. "Well, gentlemen, are you ready?"

"One last thing before we go," Mander said, "do you really get used to this?" He held up one hoof.

"You do. If the transmogrifier doesn't work for you, I can assure you that it isn't insurmountable. My son is a pegasus and has learned the joy of flying, in fact." Standing up from my seat, I walked around the desk. "You even get used to typing, though wings give you a huge advantage there. Your feathers are prehensile, once you learn the trick to it, and can type as fast as any typist with some practice."

Helen opened the door just as we reached it and gave her best smile. She smiled a lot given she'd been told she was cancer free. The downside was, of course, she could never go back to her human life. So far only one of the four patients had considered that a downside.

I returned her smile with a genuine one. It had taken me months to ditch the last shreds of my fake smiles. "Thank you, Helen. How's your leg?"

"All four are doing great, Madam Ambassador." Helen was brutally formal whenever anyone impressionable was around. As soon as we had the other Earth's people off the premises, I would just be Clair again. "I've called up an escort."

Sure enough, Sean Brenner and Salvador Carlson were waiting for us, both standing at attention by the door. I gave them a nod. "We'll be heading down then. Ambassador Mander, are you and your staff ready?"

"I doubt we'll ever be ready for all of this, but we are prepared. Please, show us the way to this portal and we'll get this over with." Mander sounded weary now, or was it afraid? Dratted ambassadors were always senior politicians first—which meant they could not only lie to your face but make you believe it too. If I didn't know better, I'd say all politicians studied as actors first.

Brenner and Carlson led the way down the hall and to the basement where the teleporter pad was that targeted our Earth. In there, Salma Rodriguez, former Staff Sergeant of the USMC, stood with her eyes closed and her horn glowing. It had been a surprise to find her so attuned to learning magic, but she'd qualified to operate the equipment and oversee it.

"Staff Sergeant?" Carlson asked.

"All ready. All who are heading back please step on the platform within one of the teleportation rings. This is a full transmogrification teleport, so you'll need to remove any garments or items. Just place them to the side and I'll send them within an hour." Rodriguez's voice was calm and firm. I could feel the magic power radiating off her and the teleportation pad.

Sensing magic had come with spending more and more time around Riley. Even Princess Twilight hadn't been able to evaluate how much magic my little filly had in her. We'd all grown sensitive to knowing when she started using it. "I'll leave this in your capable hands—or hooves—Staff Sergeant."

This wasn't Rodriguez's first dance, and given their skills it wouldn't be their last. The two transferring diplomats stood on the pad and then were gone. I let out a sigh of relief.

"Rough one, Clair?" Rodriguez asked.

"It just bugs me when Jeff constrains me like that, but I understand he wanted them in the US ASAP so he could deal with them. Thanks for the work, Salma." With the visitors gone, we were back to a more comfortable atmosphere. "You heard the news from Flurry?"

Rodriguez nodded and blew out a tired breath. "That Celestia wants us to take over managing this nexus? Yeah. I might need to get someone else here who can drive all this while I study up on the other gateway systems. Perhaps Corvinus would be a good choice?"

I raised an eyebrow at her and then turned to Brenner. "Can I promote people in the field?"

"I don't think so, ma'am. I could pass on a request to the major if you'd like?" Brenner's smirk told me he knew what was up.

"Good thought. Okay, I have a request of Major Bryant to assign Staff Sergeant Rodriguez enough seniority to have her in charge of the magical goings-on here without a need to ask me for my say-so." I delivered the request with as much calm as I could. I needed my Mission to function without my micromanaging.

Heading out of the teleportation room, I made my way back to my office without an escort—though I did hear a laugh from the room after I left it. This was the kind of thing that was easily planned for in any diplomatic Mission but mine, and it was why Jeff gave me so much leeway.

"Your husband is in your office." Helen's voice startled me from a moment of reverie. When I blinked at her in surprise, her face softened. "And a cup of tea. That coffee isn't doing you any favors."

"But I like coffee. I couldn't drink it when I had—" And that's when I spotted my littlest filly bouncing around in my office. "Golden." Stress and worry fled in the face of maternal instincts. I knew that's what was doing it, but trying to stop myself from feeling amazing was an exercise in not just futility but stupidity too.

"Thought you might need a little something to pick you up. How's your day been?" Philip, curse his wonderful idea, was sitting in a seat at my desk while watching me rush into the room.

I didn't answer at first, walking up to where Golden was rolling and bouncing around on the floor before dropping to my belly with her. Pressing my nose to hers, I felt a little jolt of connection between us. Okay, it might have been wind, but my little filly's face lit up and she rubbed her snout against mine.

When I wuffed out a breath at her, she screwed her face up and then giggled—which had me giggling too. Is it so wrong I could sit here and giggle with her for hours? Okay, maybe I did have work to do, but I knew Helen would guard my door better than the whole Royal Guard legion.

"There's a myriad of little things that people have to keep asking for my attention on. The latest was—It doesn't matter. How has the milk been today? She's not too fussy?" Fussy was a kind way of putting what my little terror did with formula. It was lucky I'd kept using the pump, because Golden would have nothing but what I made.

"It's the fat content. Your milk is just a little less fatty than the formula. I spoke to Dr. Bright Meadow, and she said that all pony milk is higher in fat than human milk. Seems our little girl has a preference for humanity." Philip spoke with the absolute certainty I'd learned to trust. If he said my milk was less fatty, it was less fatty. If he said she preferred that because of the fat content, it meant it was true. Where would I be without him? Probably not pregnant, but definitely not with a content little filly.

Tilting my head to the side, I pressed my snout to her belly and blew out a perfect raspberry. Golden squealed with a torrent of laughter, so I did it again. After doing it enough times that a blush was coming through her yellow coat, I kissed her on the nose and stood up.

Philip was quick with his magic, as I'd come to expect, and used it to pick Golden up and set her between my shoulders. That earned him a kiss too.

"Anything new happen? Is our home on fire? Is Saf finally entering an emo phase? Has Riley taken control of the throne?" I asked each question between little pecks on the lips, finishing up with a longer kiss before walking behind my desk and sitting down. Golden slid down my back and to one side, as I planned, and I caught her and brought her around to my belly with practiced ease.

"Only the first one. The reason I was talking to the doctor was she needed help with a patient. Turned out they had a thyroid problem. They were not making enough vitamin D. It was—Well, she had all the knowledge and just needed nudging onto the right track, but it was nice to help somepony." As he spoke, I noticed my dear husband was looking a little brighter than usual.

Did he need me to tell him? He probably did. Philip was nothing if not true to his word, and he had promised to always take care of our children. "You enjoyed helping?"

"Yeah. I did. I don't—" He went silent again. I was going to have to push him all the way to do what he wanted. Damn him, but I loved him enough to do it too.

"Maybe you should ask about training as a nurse?" I asked.

"I could never do that. The kids—"

"Are both at school most of the day. Also, Saf can take care of himself and Riley—I trust Riley on her own for a few hours each evening." He was staring at me with what I thought was a mix of hope and shock. "What did you think I was going to say?"

"You. Are. The. Most. Amazing. Woman." Slumping back in the chair that I knew was exceptionally comfortable for ponies to sit in, he closed his eyes and shook his head. "Clair, this will be a huge shake-up of our family. I've been—twenty years. I told you I'd do this for the rest of my life, and it's just been twenty years."

"We both have new lives here. Things change." I watched him squirm for a little bit, then he stopped and jerked upright in the chair again. "Revelation?" I asked.

"I'll go to the school tomorrow and ask about doing a part-time course. I said it before: time! Time we have. If it takes me ten years to do a nursing course, so what? I have plenty more years ahead of me." Philip looked across the table at me with a big, goofy smile. "Plenty of time to charge off and learn a new occupation, but I only get one chance to watch our kids grow up."

We both let out a sigh at the reminder of our situation. "When my job here is done, I'll take over being the good housewife and you get to have twenty years of a career." It felt odd to say, even though we could expect to have at least a hundred and fifty more years. Planning that far ahead was almost too much.

"We'll work something out, darling." His eyes were locked on mine, but as Golden's suckling got a little louder, he looked down. "She's such a precious little thing."

"She has two amazing siblings to help her grow. We're not going to try for more just yet, are we?" I asked.

His eyes jerked back up to me and I could see a searching look in them. Did he want more? Was he trying to work out if I would say yes or was he trying to work out if I wanted more?

"Let's try this another way." I reached to my desk and tore two pieces of paper from my small notepad and passed one to him with a pen. "Turn around and write on there."

"Do we really have to do it like this?" he asked.

"Philip, if you tell me honestly, right now, we can skip the secret poll." I delivered him a raised eyebrow, but the effect was ruined a little as I pulled a face when Golden swapped sides.

He let out a sigh and closed his eyes. "I think we have enough to deal with right now. Maybe in another thirty years?"

Riley and Saffron would both be adults by then, at least in my eyes. "I think that would be a good idea. Let's try to keep to one young foal at a time." That's when I realized the next important thing to ask was, "Do ponies have a long-term contraceptive?"

We both looked at each other sheepishly before a case of the giggles took us. I fought back mine before Philip did. "Okay, we need to talk to a doctor about this."

"I'll organize an appointment and let Helen know." Philip rolled out of the seat and stood up. Glancing across my desk, he watched Golden still suckling. "Is she almost done?"

"Almost. Is this why you brought her here?" As luck would have it, Golden leaned back a little, looked up at me, and burped loudly. The smell of her milk-burp was overshadowed by a stronger smell. "Aaannd she's ready for a change."

Philip used his magic to pick her up and float her over to his back. "I'll take her home and deal with that. You have a wonderful day."

I had to walk around my desk to catch him before he left, and the quick kiss I'd planned for turned into a longer one—not that either of us was complaining. "I love you, Philip."

"Mmm." He looked at me like I looked at chocolate-covered noodles when I was pregnant. "I love you too, Clair. I'll organize that appointment for us."

A princess. It was hard to remember that Flurry was a princess sometimes, but she had the wings and horn and all the royal breeding to back them up—and she was our foalsitter. "Are you sure you're fine with it?"

It was sometimes hard to remember I only had a few years on her. Flurry Heart was an adult by pony standard, and while most other mares her age only barely seemed adult mentally, she had a mind like a steel trap.

"Hey, it's no problem. I mean, Saf doesn't need any supervision, Riley too for that matter, and the only one left is the most adorable foal in all Equestria." And I'll give her another thing, she has a silver tongue when she wants to use it. Flurry leaned in and used her wing to obscure our conversation. "You should go before I change my mind."

"It'll just be the afternoon. We'll be back in time for dinner." I grabbed up my saddlebags (a handbag was a long-surrendered item now) and turned for the door.

Flurry cleared her throat. "You don't have to be. You have milk for Golden in the fridge and I can whip up something for the others. Have a night out."

Okay, so her mother was the embodiment of romantic love among ponies, but did that carry over to her? Her cutie mark was a heart emblazoned on a shield—literally a merging of her parents' cutie marks—what did that… Stop it, Clair. You are literally looking a gift horse in the mouth. "You know what, I think we will."

With my bags stocked with the most important of things—a notebook and a bunch of pens—I walked out to find Philip waiting for me. "Come on, lover boy, Flurry just offered to sit for the night, too."

Philip's eyes flashed with excitement. "Thanks, Flurry!" Before I knew it he had the door open and was leading me outside. Just past midday, the city was bustling with ponies of all kinds doing business or just on their way somewhere else, like we were.

I'd almost forgotten the looks Philip got when he walked through the city. He was handsome—no, he was hot. He was also mine, though it did satisfy a jealous little part of me to know that it was me he trotted beside—not all the mares (and a few stallions) who ogled him.

We had to loop halfway around the central ring of the city and then take the joining street to the outer ring and the medical district. There was a hospital here with a college attached, as well as piles of other medical specialists in little offices.

Our destination was the outpatients section of the hospital. We checked in at the desk and were asked to wait. Not five minutes had passed before Dr. Horse came out with a big smile on his face. "How are my favorite aliens today?" It was a joke we'd all gotten used to, but it was still a little eye-roll worthy.

"Doing well, thank you doctor," I said, following him back to the office he led us to. "We'd like to chat about long-term options for birth control."

"I'm not sure about the long-term, but you would do well to use some or little Golden will have more siblings than you know how to handle." He sat down behind his desk and looked at us expectantly.

"Doc." Philip glanced at me before looking back at the doctor. "The thing is, no one has told us anything about any birth control."

That's another reason I loved my wonderful husband, he knew when to run interference before I stomped someone. Dr. Horse looked shocked.

"Y-You mean you've been here for a year or so now and none of you have had a talk about—" He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry that it's taken this long. This kind of thing is normally taught to foals the moment they start showing an interest in each other.

"In Equestria we have three forms of birth control, though the one I recommend is a charm necklace. You just have to wear it for an hour and it will protect you for a week. The shorter duration one is a pill you can take that lasts a day. The final is a spell that will work on stallions or mares for a year." As he explained, the doctor looked at Philip when he mentioned the last one.

But it wasn't Philip who answered him. My brain kicked into high gear as something big became more apparent. "These charms and pills, are they expensive?"

"Uh, if price is an issue, your husband can learn the spell," Dr. Horse said, looking to Philip—probably the saner looking of the pair of us right now.

"No, it's not an issue for us, but—" I bit my tongue. This wasn't something to waste my doctor's time with. "If you would, I'd like to get one of the charms for myself and a spare."

"And I'd like information on the spell. That would be—more than helpful." Philip shot me a grin and a wink. "You just never know when things might come up."

I couldn't help myself. Between how active our bedroom was and his innuendo, I was giggling like crazy despite the breakthrough idea I had. Scientists back home were in a constant battle to make a contraceptive that was both effective and reversible. Something you only needed to slip on for an hour a week? If they were cheap, this would be a huge turn around and freedom for women everywhere.

How the pro-lifers would take it would definitely be a problem for Jeff.

"Okay, well, I think I'll have to refer you to a pediatrics nurse for the charms. They're not often broken, but you should probably get some literature on how to use them. As for the spell, I can have a copy of that mailed to you." Dr. Horse was scribbling notes down while he spoke. "Please take this to the receptionist and she can arrange the next step."

Philip took the note and we both stood up. "Thank you, doctor."

I nodded too. "Absolutely. Thank you for understanding."

"All in a day's work. Where's little Golden today?" Dr. Horse had an easy smile, and sounded more relaxed now we were out of serious talk territory.

"We arranged a sitter so we could get all this done and have a night out together." Tell him that a princess is foalsitting for us? No way, too many questions that way. "Thanks again!"

So we took the note to the receptionist, who raised an eyebrow at both of us but ushered us through to see a mare just a few years (decades, maybe) older than us by the name of Nursery Rhyme.

"What can I help you with?" Nursery asked, looking a little perplexed.

Since Philip had saved the day last time, it was my turn to info dump. "I'm the ambassador from the United States on Earth, and our doctor has sent us to acquire a contraceptive charm and information on using it. He said you'd be the best at giving us the information we need."

"Oh!" She looked at least ten times more understanding than Dr. Horse had, but then that was the job of nurses, right? "I can get one for both of you. I'd probably recommend a spare, too."

"Wait," I said. "Both of us?"

Nursery rolled her eyes. "Dr. Horse probably doesn't keep up with this stuff, being at the other end of things, but there are charms for stallions too now. Would you like one each and a spare each?"

"Yes please." Okay, this was someone I should be talking to about this. "Do these work on other species?"

She looked a little confused for a moment before the light bulb lit. "Err. Oh, right, you aren't actually ponies, are you?"

"Well, we are, but I've been investigating items that would be useful to our world that we can trade with Equestria for. These—if they work for humans—would be very suitable." Time to go all-in on this. If I'm going to make this work, I need an expert. Nursery Rhyme was the closest I had here. "So…?"

"They work on griffons, hippogriffs, kirin, and even yaks. They don't work on crystal ponies—something relating to their mixture of crystal and living flesh. If you'd like, I'll investigate the limits of them for you? Uh, I don't really have a permanent station in here, but if you ask at the front counter they'll be able to contact me for you." There was one thing I could say about every pony we'd met—they were all helpful in their own way. Nursery Rhyme was proving to be more so than most.

She got up and walked to a cupboard in the corner of the little consulting room and pulled out four little boxes and some pamphlets. "Okay, these are marked for male and female. You'll know they've worked when the gem on them goes out. If the gem stays lit all the time, or never lights up after an hour since use, it's worn out and you need to get a new one."

It never ceased to amaze me how ponies managed to make such ergonomically perfect items. It gave feedback when it worked and when it was broken. Somewhere there was a bunch of magic-engineers who could make seven-figures if they went to Earth and worked for Apple.

"Thanks. Are these for information on the charms?" Philip asked, using his magic to float the little pamphlets over to himself.

"That top one has the spell notes that should let you be able to cast the long-term protection spell. You'll note that both the spell and the charm works off the same effect, so if you put the charm on while the spell is working, its gem should never wink out." As Nursery described it, I was further surprised at how perfectly integrated the whole thing was. "You can use the charm to test any pills, too."

"The spell and pills are universal, but the charms require versions for males and females?" he asked.

"Oh! No! The spell is universal, the pills aren't. There's something about how the charms draw power that requires different versions of them. The pills might work on stallions, but they're not recommended. The spell always works." She passed me some of the pamphlets and the charms.

Opening up one of the boxes, I lifted out what looked like a fairly normal necklace with a pink, glowing gem on it. "Is there any kind of social stigma in being seen wearing one?"

A twinge of red appeared on Nursery's cheeks. "No. It's seen as responsible, but—Okay, there might be one. A mare wearing one would be seen as responsible and taking charge of her body and household. A stallion is seen more as—Uh, there's a word that's not all that polite to use: studding."

Philip cleared his throat and leaned over to peck my cheek. "There's only one mare for me."

A shiver ran through me at the kiss, but the words made my whole body and mind hum with delight. Of course, I'd noticed his increased libido, but the extra excitement in the bedroom had only brought out my own. "And just one stallion for this mare."

He used his magic to open up his own case and lift out the charm and put it over his head, then did the same for me with mine. "I've been learning subtle ways to distract mares for over a year, it's only the stallions that I have trouble with—and I don't think this charm will mean a thing to them."

I leaned over and kissed his cheek to distract myself from the case of the giggles I'd suddenly acquired. "Well, you just leave those to me. I'll protect you from the deprivations of amorous stallions."

"With all this I think we're set. Do we need anything else?" Philip asked Nursery.

"Let's see, you are both adults, so I don't need to give the usual talks—Err, you have worked out how everything works, right?" Nursery sounded a little anxious at that.

Philip saved the day. "I think we have that side of things well under control."

Wrapping things up at the hospital, I think we both felt much more secure in our adulthood given we didn't have to worry about my womb being on a hair trigger. It was late afternoon and, despite having the evening to ourselves, I felt like we had nothing to do. "So, uh…"

"Why don't we organize to have dinner somewhere flashy? Then we can find a hotel and make sure these are working right." Hungry and excited was the look Philip gave me. The thing with stallions having a high sex drive seemed utterly proven, though that didn't mean I couldn't match him.

"I think," I said, "that sounds like a wonderful idea."

We wound up walking aimlessly through Canterlot. Every other time I'd been on the street I'd always had purpose. Philip might have spent some time in the market just wandering around, but it felt good to just share some time with him.

"Now there's a pair of faces I didn't expect to see." The female voice had an edge of familiarity about it. When I turned to look, I thought I was looking at a mirage. Her body—from her angles to how she stood—screamed Twilight Sparkle to me, only her colors were all wrong and she was definitely not an alicorn. "Where are my manners. We were introduced at one of the balls at the castle—I'm Twilight Velvet and this is my husband, Night Light."

The names broke free the information I had suspected—Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor's parents. It was quite the pedigree. "Clair and Philip Ree," I said. "It's a lovely night to enjoy the city, isn't it?" No politics, my acumen told me, they were just another couple out for a night of enjoyment—plus they held no direct power themselves.

"We were just heading out for a walk ourselves with a thought toward having dinner." Night's voice was like literal honey—rich and deep.

Twilight's face broke into a big and open smile. "You should join us. There's this little place that does the most amazing fruit compote."

Kissing Twilight's cheek, Night looked just as besotted with her as Philip did when he looked at me. "That's my darling, always focused on dessert."

Philip looked askance at me—now this was my decision. It would take a lot of the stress out of finding somewhere, and the parents of current royalty were at least not going to cause an interdimensional incident. "You know, dear, that would mean we could avoid a faux pas by being seen at the wrong kind of place." I turned back to the couple. "Lead on then."

"Flurry tells us you had a new filly?" Waiting for me to nod, Twilight seemed to glow with excitement. "I've been trying to convince Night we should have another. With Shiny and Twily out of the house for a while now, I think it's a good time to have another one or two."

With a sigh, Night reached out and kissed Twilight on the cheek. "Does this mean I have to give up my observatory?"

"Of course not. We'll have an extra room added to the house. Something on the ground floor." Twilight's horn suddenly blazed to life and built a wireframe of a two-story home. "See, we can add an extra room here, and it means we can also increase the size of our walk-in, as well as stretch our room a little too."

Night's horn caught fire too and he modified the structure where it floated, stretching a room on the ground floor into what had been that new bedroom, and adding an extra room among the other bedrooms. "This would work much better."

Narrowing her eyes at the design, Twilight shook her head. "Or we could just use your observ—"

All of the changes Night had made evaporated and Twilight's version of the extension was back into place. "I believe your way might be better, dear."

"An observatory?" Philip asked. "You're an astronomer?"

"Amateur, yes. It's one way to pass the time now the foals are all moved out. Though I suspect that is about to change." Pinning his grinning wife with a knowing expression, Night eventually smiled along with her. "Ah, the life of a stallion who devoted his days to domesticity."

Holding up his hoof, Philip got a clunk from Night's. "I hear that. I made a promise to Clair many years ago that if she wished to pursue her own career, I'd support her."

"And he has," I said, unable to keep an appreciative purr out of my voice.

Night nodded. "My better half has a head for business that I just can't begin to contemplate. Sometimes I wonder why such a clever mare chased me down to put a ring on my horn."

"It was the opposite for me." Philip's stride broke into a trot-at-walking-speed sort of prance. "Once I saw this wonderful woman and experienced a moment in her presence, I had to chase her down or my life wouldn't have been complete."

"He runs fast, too," I said, getting a laugh from Twilight and Night.

"Here we are." Banishing her little house design, Twilight nodded toward a little building half a block ahead that had a sign of a steaming plate above the door. "You're going to love it here."

Here turned out to be a restaurant that, as we got closer, had ponies waiting just inside the door to get a seat. Faces turned to us as we shimmied in at the back, but the maitre'd strode around the small crowd. "Madam Twilight, Monsieur Night, please come this way."

"Pome, Clair and Philip here are our guests tonight." Twilight turned to look at us. "Follow us."

"We'll take our usual table, Pome," Night Light said.

Something was odd here. They weren't just known to the maitre'd, he was taking orders from them. What else could we do, though, than follow along as he led us through the dining room of ponies enjoying food that smelled and looked amazing, then opened a pair of doors and led us into the huge kitchen to a table just off to the side.

Now, I'd been to a lot of fancy dinners—they came with the job—but I'd only ever heard of a chef's table on celebrity dining shows. This wasn't just good treatment from the maitre'd, he was treating us like literal royalty.

Taking our seats, I tried to give Philip a questioning look and only got a slight shrug from him. "Thank you." What else was there to say?

"Pome-dear, this is ambassador Ree and her husband. If they need a table on any night—and we're not here already, I'm sure you can find them one." Twilight's voice held no subterfuge at all, but it brought together a bunch of little facts.

"Nice place you've got here," Philip said.

"It's Twilight's. I don't remember how long ago it was, but she decided we needed somewhere nice to be able to eat out. Buying the business was her idea. Everything's her idea." The way he said it, this was an old mainstay of conversation between them. Philip and I had our own, of course. "Feel free to come down whenever you'd like."

How should I respond to this? They barely knew us—Wait, no. They probably knew us quite well. Philip had struck up a good friendship with their son, I saw their granddaughter on a daily basis, and it was their own daughter who was peripherally in charge of relations with the USA.

Right, so they probably new about as much about Philip and myself as your average intelligence agent. "Thank you. But you really didn't need to." Standard thanks but are you sure type response. I felt like I was on my toes again, or at least on tippy-hooves. Was tippy-hooves a thing? Regardless, were they playing a game or just being friendly?

"Nonsense. You're both friends of our family, plus it's nice to have another couple to chat to about—Oh, your charms have taken effect." Twilight gestured to my neck with a hoof.

Looking down I saw that, sure enough, the gem had just winked out of my charm necklace. Reaching up to it with my hoof, I lifted it free of my neck and carefully set it in my bags. "We just got them. After having our latest little one, we both pondered the sanity of not having any contraceptives."

"Oh sweet Celestia yes. Your world—Err, your species isn't as fertile as ponies?" Twilight asked.

A unicorn mare dressed in the local equivalent of a chef's uniform approached us with a set of floating menus beside her. She stood there and looked at us expectantly without interrupting. She was plain so far as what colors I could see, brown coat and black mane, but there was an energy about her that made me wonder if she was actually about to break into song.

Night cleared his throat and smiled at the chef. "Please, Magnifique, do explain what creations you have for us this evening."

"My pleasure, there is a wonderful potato and leek soup to warm your palates, a rich and vibrant ratatouille, then a fine dollop of ice-cream on a plate for dessert." Magnifique spent exactly half a second with a straight face before her smile broke through. "Do not fear, it will be your favorite."

"Magnifique, you know me too well." Twilight turned to Philip and myself. "Her predecessor here used the same, bland menu as every other restaurant in Canterlot. When he absolutely refused to change—or take orders from a mare—I installed her as my head chef. This is her restaurant, I just make sure the bills are paid."

"I best get back to cooking. Excuse me." Magnifique bowed to our table and then returned to the cooking area.

I'd been to plenty of dinners with a fixed menu, but never to a restaurant with one. Was this an Equestrian thing or just some kind of exclusive restaurant thing? How rich were these ponies?

"Where were we? Oh, fertility." The topic seemed so far ago that I was almost lost, but Twilight seemed determined to continue it. "Earth ponies tend toward being fertile again within weeks of giving birth—Sorry. I believe I was getting carried away there."

"Humans don't tend to get pregnant so much unless they're…" Philip trailed off before we all started laughing.

Night was first to recover from the giggles that seemed unlikely to stop among the rest of us. "This topic might have legs, but I think we should shift to something less awkward."

"We were thinking about holidaying on Earth. Would you suggest it?" Twilight asked.

Business. I could handle this. "Being a pony in America is feasible. The only negative effects we have noticed is a reduced amount of magic. It is not suggested to spend any length of time there if you're pregnant." I shrugged my shoulders. "But, barring that, all you'd need to do is apply to Princess Celestia for the right paperwork on this end and the current ambassador to Equestria for the paperwork you'll need when you arrive there."

"So you're saying I'd need to wine and dine the ambassador and ask my daughter's teacher for some paperwork?" Twilight had a way with her smile that threatened to make me giggle again. "I'll have to plan for this."

"The issue you'll face is calling it a holiday." Okay, so this information wasn't strictly by the books, but Twilight had the clout here as a business owner—she could pull this off. "If you called it a working holiday, then things could be arranged." I hoped this wouldn't come back to bite me.

"See, now that's what I like to hear. So your country would be open to investment? How does America's economy op—" Twilight froze. She tilted her head down and chuckled. "This is the wrong time to discuss hard business, sorry."

"Why don't you drop 'round tomorrow and we'll have lunch somewhere? I'd need to check if I have any room for you on my calendar, but my lunches are my own." There was the oddest sensation of having put my foot in something, but I couldn't figure out what. The most important thing I had to do was document everything and keep my own finances out of anything to do with Mrs. Velvet.

Our food started coming out, and conversation about anything but the food was dropped by the wayside. I'd been to a lot of fancy restaurants in Washington, big gala events, even several celebrations for a particular US president that's a good friend, but nothing I'd eaten before could compare to the meal at this restaurant.

After each course was consumed, and with a little time allowed to talk about it, Magnifique would come over and ask how much we enjoyed her cooking. Her cooking. She was the head chef here, apparently, but with a chef's table, she ensured she did every little bit herself. It was impossible to not gush.

When we got to the dessert, though, four different plates of ice cream came out—each a different flavor. Magnifique herself set them down before each of us. "I trust this will be the perfect capstone for a meal." She bowed and withdrew.

"Go on. Try it." Twilight was staring at me with so much excitement in her stare I had to wonder what was going on. The meal so far had been amazing, but with the infused nature of the ice cream, I couldn't tell what the actual flavor was.

Using my hoof to bring a spoon of the silky-smooth ice cream to my lips, I barely got it in my mouth when the world fell away. No drug illicit or legal would ever recreate this moment. The mango-chocolate ice cream reminded me of every ice cream I'd ever eaten in my whole life. All those moments, stacked end to end, barely reached halfway to how good this was.

My body was on autopilot. The moment the flavor left my tongue, I had another spoonful ready to replace it. When my spoon scraped the empty plate it'd been served on, it was the worst moment of my food-associated life. I almost wept for its loss.

"That," I said to break the spell of loss, "was the best meal I have had in my life."

Night was only halfway through his ice cream, somehow displaying superhuman (superpony?) levels of restraint. "We told you, Magnifique does amazing work, don't you dear?"

"Cooking and knowing the perfect flavor profile for each and every customer is my special talent. I am grateful that Mrs. Velvet and Mr. Light allow me to practice my craft freely." Magnifique bowed her head in my direction, gently levitating my bowl from before me.

I leaned against Philip's side and kissed his jaw. My mind spun with all the things I'd do with him after such an amazing day. After all, what's an amazing day without an amazing night? "If you get me home sooner rather than later, it gives us more time to test these amulets," I whispered to Philip.

I felt him respond by leaning against me, then his teeth pressed down on my ear and squeezed just how he knew I liked it. When he released, it was like a haze lifted from me for just a second. I saw Twilight and Night, opposite us, doing the same sort of thing we were—both whispering back and forth.

Did I want to know what two ponies in love were saying? Not really. After all, I heard them from Philip and my own throat. "Perhaps we should be leaving?"

"Should I ask them?" Twilight asked. The only reason I heard was she'd sounded eager about something and raised her voice a little much. Night's slight shake of his head caused her to then bite her lower lip.

What exactly was going on? I couldn't seem to get a read on their motives here—which was odd for me. "It's really been lovely. We'll have to do this again sometime." What resulted wasn't so much an evacuation as a calm wishing well as we all made our way from the restaurant. We got halfway home before I realized we hadn't paid a cent.

It wasn't that their "should I ask them" line had been eating away at me all night (Philip had taken care of that), but as the clock drew closer to noon I felt trepidation grow. Not only didn't I know what she wanted to ask about, but I didn't know if she would today.

My morning work done, I awaited the call from Helen to tell me I had a visitor. Was I worried? Would she compromise my position with the government?

I was no idiot. Plenty of political figures took what amounted to bribes—kickbacks, they called them—but the idiot that I am had a conscience. And, sunk in that mood, I almost missed Helen's intercom beep softly for my attention. Reaching a hoof out, I tapped the acknowledge button.

"A Miss Twilight Velvet is here to see you."

"Mrs. that is Helen. Send her in." I released the button and waited. A moment later Twilight opened the door with her magic and entered. All the stress and worry I'd had drained—at least superficially. "Good… afternoon. Sorry, sometimes things get hard to track when you work indoors all the time."

Twilight Velvet almost pranced in. She looked so full of energy that I wondered for a moment what had happened. Then I remembered what Philip and I'd been up to the previous night, and figured she and Night Light might have done the same.

"Afternoon it is. Come on, let's get out of this place before we start discussing portfolios and international trade ourselves until we calcify with boredom." Twilight kept up her prance and came around behind the desk and used a hoof to guide me out of my chair.

I'll be damned if her perkiness wasn't contagious. As soon as I was out and had my hooves on the floor, I felt excitement. "I think I needed that. Thank you. Where are we going if not here?"

"You know, there's a nice quiet bar nearby I happen to know the owner of." The twinkle in her eye as she said it reminded me that this mare was connected—even discounting her political contacts. "You know, I spoke to my little Twily earlier about my proposition for visiting Earth—she explained to me that I may have put you in a difficult situation."

Following her out into the lobby, I nodded to Helen. "What time is my first afternoon appointment?"

"You're walking beside her. For some reason everypony I had booked for the rest of the day sent their apologies." Helen looked at Twilight Velvet with a raised eyebrow.

Waving away the inference, Twilight giggled. "I'm sure they all found things they needed to do."

My brain tried to connect with what just happened. I was sure I had at least three meetings scheduled, two of which were with Equestrian business… Connected. Definitely connected. She pulled some strings and everypony I was supposed to be meeting jumped to heel. "If I'm not back by five, send out a rescue squad." I laughed to make it a joke, though I was still getting an odd vibe from Twilight.

Walking over to the counter, Twilight slouched a little. "I'll try to have her back by then."

Helen lasted nearly four seconds before she lost her stern face and broke into a laugh. "Just—Just see that you do. Don't make me call your husbands."

I couldn't help it, I laughed too. "No, mom."

Twilight's energy kept me going—talking about completely boring things like the weather—all the way to the little tavern at the end of the street. As she angled us toward the front door, I had to ask, "How many businesses do you own?"

"In Canterlot?" Twilight asked.

The dancing shimmer in her eyes worried me again. "Forget I asked. Can I just assume you own at least one business on every arc of the city's circles?"

"Yes. That's a conservative view of things." She stepped inside and I heard a gasp from someone.

"Mrs. Velvet! Are you here checking up on little old me?" The stallion behind the bar was unique. All the ponies I'd seen had been ranging for a soft brown to every pastel color in the best coloring sets. This pony was almost completely black, had what looked like folded black bat-wings, and his smile showed a set of sharp teeth that would have looked more at home in a vampire movie.

"Oh, relax, Spicy. We're just here to chat and have a drink or two. What's cooking for lunch?" Twilight made her way over to the bar and climbed up on a stool—leaving me to follow suit.

"The lunch menu, as you well know, is bat food. Literally. Why would you—?" The bat pony, Spicy, looked at me with an admiring gaze that traced my snout to my tail and back again. "A fruit platter it is."

"Uh." I waited for Spicy to leave before continuing. "Fruit platter? Bat food? What is this place?"

"Well, it's one of my bars that serve double usage. At night it's a bar where ponies can find a little relief with a stranger or professional, during the day it's a refuge for those who don't appreciate bright things. Bat ponies have wide dietary requirements. Most stick to fruit, some partake of insects when they're feeling a little savage, and for special occasions they get a touch bitey." Twilight kept explaining even as Spicy brought out the platter. "Though I am apparently the only pony with sense enough to give them a little slice of Canterlot to call their home."

"She's lying. You wouldn't believe the work this task-mistress put me through before she'd bankroll Tender Screech." Spicy set the platter of fruit before us. "Can I get you lovely ladies something to drink?"

I almost asked for something hard when I remembered that I still had some lactating to do before I could let my hair down like that. "A tea, please."

"Actually, a tea does sound good, but I'll have mine on ice, Spicy." Twilight seemed intent on leaning close and giving the bat pony an almost-kiss before laughing when he jerked back. "You're terrible at this."

"I'll get you one day." With a slightly-screechy laugh, Spicy walked away from our spot to give us privacy.

Twilight used her magic to pluck a toothpick from one of the little bowls and start spearing fruit. "While I was at your embassy, I put in an application for a business trip to your country. I'll need to convert some local goods to your currency, of course, but then I'm going to hire someone to introduce me to your local businesses." She popped a piece of mango and a grape in her mouth and chewed them like she hadn't just casually mentioned what could be considered financial invasion.

It also took the heat off me completely. She was no longer somepony I was doing a favor for. "I'll need state department clearance on all that. It should be processed within a week. Please note, there are some goods that are proscribed from trade until established costs can be established." I located some mango pieces for myself and started chewing on them.

"Such as?" Twilight's eyes gleamed. How much she already knew and how much I was going to give her was debatable, but I was betting the former far outweighed the latter.

"We've examined the size and purity of Equestrian gemstones, they must not be transferred to Earth until we can come to some agreement on how to save our gemstone market. Magical medications and treatments are restricted to the few that our scientists have vetted. Animals and non-pony individuals are restricted until further notice." As I ticked off the big three, Twilight maintained her smile. What angle she had was of concern to me—if she destroyed a sector of the US economy, it would be my fault. Even if Jeff could spin it as free enterprise.

"I was thinking more along the lines of metals. It's my belief that gold is quite valuable on Earth, but we have it in plentiful supply here. I will be investing in various markets on Earth—with the permission of your government, of course—but what I'd like to do is build a currency exchange." There probably wasn't much else she could have said that would have worried me nearly so much as that.

So far the government had been the sole manager of exchange values. Initially this had been seen as a requirement to prevent destabilizing each other's economies. "I'll have to speak to the president about this. Right now we're holding the conversion of funds in a strict grip, but it may be time to release the reins. You already know most of that."

Twilight just nodded. "Would it help if I had a royal writ backing me for such a role?"

"It's out of my hooves, regardless. The scope is beyond anything I can agree to in my role." I didn't say that it also made me feel uncomfortable morally. Already despising the back-room-deals that were so common in politics meant this situation was even more of a hot potato for me. "I'll write this up and have it sent home as soon as I can arrange it."

"Well, with it all out of your hands, you're free to relax a little, right? That's how your politics works?" Twilight raised an eyebrow at me and lifted her drink up. "You and your husband are still the talk of the town, you know. The president of Prance's wife along with the First Queen of Saddle Arabia spend time with your husband on his debut night in society, and he is the perfect gentlecolt." She shook her head with a knowing smile. "You have quite the catch there."

Of everything I expected to come out of this mare's mouth, that wasn't it. Damn the milk—I wish I could have something alcoholic to drink so I could blame it for not keeping track of Twilight's reasoning. "We've been together a long time. I won't say coming to Equestria wasn't an adjustment—we were both approaching late life and all its problems—but while our bedroom has seen a rise in activity, it was absolutely mutual." There. Take that, Equestria! I lifted my own drink with a hoof and took a sip.

The tea was good, not that I knew my brands of tea apart. I was American and not British. But still, it was hot and tasted vaguely of spice and lemon.

"You are amazing, then. I couldn't keep up with Night. Randy bastard that he is. I took a chance and invested in a few places, helped them shine, then moved on. The reason I started with these bars, in fact, was because he'd complained about the care and comfort that was on offer." Twilight gestured to the establishment around them with a hoof.

She took another sip and continued before I could even work out what exactly she was talking about. "This wasn't the first, but by the time I made Spicy an offer I was on a roll. All my bars were doing significantly better than the competition. It mostly came down to me establishing a consistent experience."

It was on the very edge of making sense to me, but there was something that just didn't click. Well, I could either tease it out of her with a series of questions or I could change the topic and save face. "And then you branched out into restaurants?"

"No, that really was a case of we both wanted somewhere we could go to always have a nice meal and not be bothered." Well, she'd accepted the change of topic. "Perhaps you would like to come over one night? With our little ones all grown up, we're a little starved for company."

I could try to lie and say I couldn't find a sitter, but my sitter was Twilight's granddaughter. It would just take a careful question from Twilight to Flurry and my plot would be revealed. The real question was; why would I try to avoid it? Like Twilight, Philip and myself were hardly swimming in friends.

"I'll have to talk to my wonderful foalsitter to see if she's free, but I'm sure we could always have Saffron take care of things." Sometimes it was a struggle to remember he's an adult, but the longer I spend in Equestria, the more his stature reminds me of a foal.

"Let's not beat about the bush. I'll chat with Flurry. If she can't cover for you, I'm sure she knows a friend who'd be more than happy to. Pick any night but Saturday and I'll have Magnifique send her sous chef over to prepare some snacks."

I'm sure now that I don't dislike Twilight. She's nice, has a great sense of style, and is sharp as a knife. Talking to her is a challenge, though. She knows a lot more than she tells and makes it a game to figure out what is happening. Okay, compared to politicians—even pony politicians—she is a breath of fresh air. "Why don't we make it the day after tomorrow?"

"Perfect! I'll see about getting us some games to play." There was playfulness in her voice that I couldn't pick up the source of—I guess she really likes board games.

I finished my tea and we chatted about less heavy topics, then said our goodbyes.

It was Thursday night and our sitter had just arrived. "Are you sure you're—?"

Sudden Turn Raised an eyebrow. "You're joking, right? I'm only here to hang with Saf. Riley is probably more responsible than all of us put together, and Saf is an adult." Dammit, she could remember that better than I could. Even if they never did get together, like I was pretty sure they would, Sudden would be the best friend Saffron ever has.

"You know what I mean though. If something happens and someone needs to speak to an adult, they will completely ignore Saffron." It was stupid to try to rationalize why I felt better having another adult here. I might as well add a sit down and talk to Saffron about my problem with his size session to my schedule. "Sometimes it's hard for me to remember that."

Reaching her wing up to my shoulder, Sudden nodded. "But you're trying, and I bet Saf knows it."

Damn, but if Saffron didn't snatch her up the moment he was comfortable with it, I would be upset. Sudden, as far as I could tell, was probably the single biggest force keeping Saffron sane through all this. I nodded, smiled, and turned to look for Philip.

He was standing right behind me with a patient expression that told me he'd been there a while. "You're ready?" He smiled as he raised an eyebrow.

"Of course I am, I'm just stressing about things I can't change." Closing the distance between us, I kissed him until he closed his eyes. We spent a few moments like that, connecting silently and intimately, before breaking apart again.

His smile was warmer now. "I wouldn't have you any other way."

"Come on, stud, before we get distracted and spend the night in." I led him out the front door and into the street. As with all evenings in Canterlot, the high altitude caused a slight chill that all but lifetime residents felt. We didn't talk as we walked across the city, just made sure we were close enough to rub shoulder and thigh with each step.

We followed the directions Twilight had given me, and soon enough we were out the front of the house she'd described. I looked at Philip with a smirk. "I saw all those longing gazes."

"They meant nothing to me."

I felt playful. "Not even mine?"

"Well," Philip kissed my cheek, "maybe those ones."

"Good answer. Well, let's knock." We both walked up the path of the small garden and I knocked on the door.

A few moments later the door opened and Night Light's smile grew wider as he recognized us. "Clair! Philip! Please, come in!" He stepped back and made room for us.

Warmth, both figurative and literal, filled the room we walked into. There was a fireplace crackling at one end of the living room while Twilight sat on the couch looking, well, a little nervous. "Thank you for having us. It has been a bit—well, awkward of late. Nopony here really treats us as equals except your own family. Flurry has become a social rock we're both clinging to, and one of Saffron's friends. Anypony would think we were hermits living in the most fantastic city in the world."

"The old-money aristocracy are terrified of my investing, and our new-money contemporaries don't know how to take us having royalty in the family. We couldn't have removed ourselves from society any easier short of never leaving the house." Twilight Velvet was reclining on the couch and watching the pair of us with a strange sort of intensity I'd not seen in her before.

We sat down together on a second couch at a ninety-degree angle to the one Twilight was on. Night curled up beside Twilight and another mare walked into the room.

The newcomer was a pegasus, her coat was white and she had a blonde mane and tail. Her wings each held a tray covered in canapes. Giving a nod to us all, she set the trays down on the coffee table and then fled the room again.

Night's eyes had followed the mare throughout everything she'd done and now his smile looked a little wistful. "Don't mind Pesto, a talented mare in a kitchen, but she doesn't adjust to new situations or new ponies well. She'll be leaving shortly to assist Magnifique in her kitchen."

"So," Philip looked from me to Night and Twilight, "you mentioned games?"

Twilight's face lit up with a big grin. "Honestly, I was worried we might have been coming on a little too fast, but it's wonderful to see two other adventurous ponies."

Finally, finally my brain started to make some sense of the odder things Twilight and Night had spoken of. I was just starting to put the pieces together when Night started to speak.

"Yeah. I mean, I don't mind using the bars, but swinging with ponies I like socially is way more fun than picking up another stallion or mare for the night." All the gears and cogs in my head ground to a stop at his words. Philip had told me some hearsay about the bars of Canterlot, but I hadn't put that together with Twilight saying she purchased a bunch of them.

The bars were more than just somewhere to have a few drinks—they were for stallions and mares intent on relief to get it in reasonable safety. Twilight Velvet owned the city's brothels. She had invited us around for a night of swinging.

As I turned to look at Philip, I could see the same dawning realization on his face. What did we say? How did we explain we didn't know? We couldn't go through with this, that wouldn't be right to either them or us.

"Night, I think we've made a mistake." Twilight's voice sounded more than a little defeated, though genuine concern shined through her tone. When I looked back at her, she looked crestfallen. "I think we may have assumed some things we shouldn't have."

"We might have too," Philip said. "We didn't exactly connect the dots, as it were."

It broke the moment, thankfully. We all started laughing at our own stupidity and the folly of assumptions. If we weren't careful, though, the laughter would die off into silence and we'd all be left thinking different things. "I'm sorry, really I am, but we're happily—"

"… paired." Philip finished for me. He turned to look at me and smiled. "I can't imagine being with anypony but Clair." His eyes were deep and still pools that I could just happily drown in.

"I imagine you'd rather take your leave before the rumor mill starts connecting us?" Resignation and frustration slipped through Twilight's careful tone.

Philip quirked his eyes and lifted one eyebrow. When I repeated the gesture back to him, he nodded. "Perhaps we could just play some games instead? It's not—We're not going to—Just getting out of the house is nice."

It was awkward at first, but we started a game of charades that made all of us look silly, and we laughed enough to erase the faux pas of the initial moments of the night. I don't think I'd ever been so embarrassed and delighted in the same night.

Author's Note

Saffron: When are you and Riley going to teach Discord to play Calvinball?

"I'd have to look that up. Is it anything like football? I wasn't much into sport back on Earth—mostly computer games and girls and stuff." Shrugging his wings, Saffron looked around. "Is that all you wanted to ask? I figured you'd want to know all the weird stuff about being a girl for a while."

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Lab

Chapter 31 Saffron Ree

It didn't seem like forever anymore. Two years slipped by and I had my twentieth birthday without much fanfare. I kept studying all the extra stuff besides flying and spent all the rest of my time in the sky.

Well, when I wasn't at home. Goldy was a bit of a wingful, so I tried to give Dad a break whenever I could. "We'll be fine, Dad." Goldy was balanced on her hooves, on my hooves, while I was laying on my back.

"Riley—"

"Riley will be fine too. I have Sudden coming over later and we're going to be talking all about my exam. I promised Riley she could listen too if she's quiet." While Goldy wobbled and walked on my hooves, I moved with her so that she just wobbled around in place. She was adorable as heck. "If you make me tell you to go again, I won't. Then you'll have to stay here looking after Riley and Goldy instead of having a fun night out."

He looked at me like he'd argue, then Dad snapped his mouth closed and sighed. "Thanks, Saf."

As Dad turned for the door, I saw Goldy was charging her horn while looking at him. "None of that now." I reached a wing up and booped her nose—startling her so that her concentration broke and she stared at me in surprise. "Yeah, I booped ya. What're you going to do about it?"

What she was going to do about it was laugh and jump at my head. I didn't catch her in time, but it wasn't like I had a sharp horn or anything. What I did notice was a smell. "Of course you would just after Dad left."

Picking her up from my face with one wing, I tucked her against my side. "You got a stinky, don'tcha?" Her answer to this was to giggle. Carrying her to the nursery (the downstairs bedroom), I changed her quickly and got everything smelly stuffed away. "I didn't have to do any of this with Riley. I was just too small then and didn't really know what was going on anyway."

When she looked up at me, her big eyes gleaming with love and intelligence, I felt my heart melt. "Dinner's in another hour. Even your best look isn't going to make me break Mom's rules. Sorry." Her horn started to glow again, and before whatever she planned could happen, I lashed out with another boop. Only this time I missed.

With a loud pomf sound Goldy disappeared. I wasn't too worried, given I felt a 2-year-old-foal-sized weight settle on my back. "Huh. I wonder where she went?"

The giggling on my back, as I ignored Goldy and made a point of looking around the room, made me smile way more than it should have. "Is she under the basket here?"

I must have picked up everything in the room and looked under it before I heard the front door open and close. "Oh! That must be her now!" Goldy was laughing hysterically by the time I got to the door and looked out into the living room. Riley was looking at me like I'd gone crazy. "Have you seen Goldy? I was changing her and she got a spell off before I could boop her."

Since Riley was staring at my back, it was a bit of a giveaway that Goldy was there. She wore her most droll expression when she said, "Saf, she's on your back."

"Is she?" I turned around in a circle like a dog chasing their tail. When I was facing Riley again, I shrugged my wings. "She wasn't there."

Riley managed to look at me for nearly three seconds before her stern expression melted and she began giggling.

"What? I just said I couldn't find our sister! Where is she—?" I cut off short because I felt Goldy climbing up my mane and onto the top of my head. Rolling my eyes upward, I stared down her nose. "Oh, there you are!"

"You're crazy, Saf," Riley said once her giggles died down. "Mom and Dad out again tonight?"

"Yeah. Sudden will be over soon. She's going to be drilling me on formations again." Lowering myself to my belly on the floor, I let Goldy wobble and stumble her way off my head to stand beside me. When she started to march toward the toybox, I crawled over there too and spread my wings out to relax while she built a block tower around me.

A knock at the door some time later heralded Riley shouting, "I got it!" Which was good. If I'd moved my head, I might have made Goldy cry.

I could hear Riley's hooves stomp up to the door followed by her opening it. "Saf, it's Sudden. Come in. He's the pair of wings underneath the one-half scale model of Canterlot."

"Thanks, Riley. So, Goldy, do you have a pegasus under there?" Sudden's voice made me smirk, but I still wasn't going to destroy Goldy's tower. "Do you think you could move all the blocks so I can get him out?"

"Buh!" Goldy's reply was vehement, but then I noticed some light filtering down through the spire above me. It was Goldy's pale whitish aura lifting away blocks.

I was in no hurry. Goldy slowly unstacked blocks until I could see the light in the room through my closed eyelids. Then a tiny hoof poked me on the nose.

"Boo!" Goldy, her horn still alight, drew her hoof back from my face.

Sitting up, I watched as she started stacking all the blocks back with her horn, and when that failed a moment later, started using her hooves.

Sudden pranced her way over the couch and sat down on it. "She's only two and your parents are already letting her use her magic?"

"That's Moon Dancer's doing. Mom and Dad asked her about raising a unicorn, as well as the normal sources, and they liked Moon Dancer's way better. We don't try to hold back her magic unless we're doing something important—like changing her." I nodded toward her where she was trying to use her magic to move blocks but it was sputtering. "Moon Dancer already said she's a full year ahead of any other unicorn foal."

"Your parents trust her a lot? Moon Dancer that is."

I watched Riley run back upstairs and turned my attention back to Sudden. "Oh, yeah. I mean, she taught Dad how to do magic, and now she's teaching Riley. Hey, have you eaten?"

"Yeah. I picked up something before coming over. I didn't want to impose or anything. I know how cool your dad is at getting fish and stuff." She elbowed me with her wing. "So, get your food, get your little sister fed, and let's start getting this stuff squared away for your big day tomorrow."

The big day. Yeah, when the Young Fliers compete with other young foals in the Cloudsdale Young Fliers Contest. I'd have to be competing with foals years older, but I'd talked Surprise into letting me enter it. "Yeah." Standing up, I walked over to where Goldy was. "You hungry?"

Her head turned quickly to look up at me to reveal excitement in her eyes. "Ah! Ah!" She raised her hooves at me for a pick-up.

Reaching down with a wing, I scooped Goldy up and set her on my back. "Well, come on. I'll warm up a bottle for you and make a sandwich."

As I walked into the kitchen, I noticed Sudden looking at me strange. I was about to ask her what she was thinking when Riley came running down the stairs. "Yeah, yeah. You hungry too?"

"Yup! What're we having?" Riley reared up at the bench and tried to peek over the counter.

Riley had gone through a bit of a growth spurt. She no longer looked like a tiny foal, but more like a miniature version of Mom but with legs that still looked way too big for her body.

"I was thinking of some toasted sandwiches. What do you want on yours?" I opened the breadbox and started pulling out the loaf Dad had baked earlier in the day. I wound up making cheese, spinach, and egg for myself and some cheese and spinach for Riley. Goldy's bottle needed a little time in a pot of hot water to bring up to temp.

Busy as I was, I didn't miss Sudden peek around the door. When my eyes drifted toward her, she pulled back again. Okay, so whatever she was up to, I'm sure I'd find out soon enough. I got Riley and Goldy their meals and then sat down to eat mine.

There was always something energizing about eating protein-rich foods. Eggs and fish were my main two sources, but sometimes Dad got other things. The spinach was good, though a little less crunchy than I normally liked, but the cheese was hot and gooey—which was all that mattered.

"Uh! Uh!" Goldy's cry had my attention. I reached a wing out and tipped her bottle up a little higher. Her legs were strong, but she couldn't quite get enough lift (sitting in her high-chair) to get the last third of the bottle.

She was going to be better than me at multitasking, eventually. Having two hooves and two wings to grab and move things was great, but she'd be able to do it with just her mind.

Picking up the last of my sandwich with my free wing, I munched on it slowly, pondering how awesome ponies were and how cool it was to be one. It kinda hit me as funny that I thought that now, when I thought back to the start of all this.

I'd hated the idea of this. Of becoming a cute little pony like the toys my sister would brush endlessly. Ponies are people. We're not toys. We.

Yeah, I'm a pony.

"Saf? You've been staring at that last crust for like five minutes, and Goldy finished her dinner ages ago." Riley wasn't just talking to me, she was poking me in the side with her hoof.

"Yeah." I stuffed the last bite of my cold sandwich in my mouth, chewed, and swallowed it. "Just thinking about how annoyed I was coming here. It was so stupid."

Riley snorted and carried her plate to the sink. "Yup. You were such an idiot about it. You should have just gone with it."

"Goin' a little far there, but you're right. When I started flying, though, it was like a switch. Flying is what I've wanted to do my whole life, I just didn't know it until I could do it." I gave Riley's mane a good rub with my wing—which got an annoyed squeal from her—then I turned to Goldy and lifted her out of her highchair. "And you, all that work with your horn wore you out, huh?" She was asleep and dreaming whatever dreams tiny fillies have.

I carried her through to the nursery and set her down in her cot. She woke briefly as I put her down, looked up at me and smiled before closing her eyes again. Okay, so she had me wrapped around her tiny little hooves, but I could live with that.

Turning on the baby monitor, I slipped the alert bracelet around my cannon and left her to sleep. When I left the room, I noticed Sudden looking at me intently for a moment before her expression changed to curiosity. "What's up?"

"Nothing." Sudden sat up a little straighter. "So, let's go over formations again."

I hadn't really had much trouble at all with the written exam—the first part of the 3-part test. My head was full of the patterns I wanted to do for the solo flying section, however, because I wanted to be the Best Young Flier, and that meant showing off.

All the Wonderbolts had a signature move, each one tailored to the pony who flew it. It was the one bit of solo flair that they really engaged in. Nearly half of the nine judges were Wonderbolts—and I knew for sure they'd recognize their own stunts.

In front of me was some forty year old filly who stood way taller than me. She walked forward to the edge of the cloud and started her performance. The stadium had some clouds to buck and some hanging rings—all things for foals to show off their prowess with either basic cloud manipulation or pure flight skills.

She was, I had to admit, an amazing flier. She zoomed through an imagined race course like it was nothing, even arced up to buck the clouds away, but it wasn't until just near the end that I realized what she'd done—she hadn't used an ounce of pegasi magic.

Then, when she was gaining altitude, I could feel the pull of her magic. It wasn't just for show, but part of it was her making sure we all felt that she was now going to use her magic. A crash-dive seemed the order of the day. With her magic humming around her, she crashed through every cloud on her way back to the stadium—steering only with the tips of her wings and magic.

When the ground (well, the cloud that formed the ground of the stadium) rushed up to meet her, she snapped out her wings and stopped on a dime—and the ground. Okay, I needed to completely forget what she did so I could do my own thing perfectly.

"Up next we have a real young colt from the Young Fliers Program looking to make a name for himself! Fillies and gentlecolts, put your hooves together for Saffron Ree!"

I wasn't as strong a straight-line flier as the filly had been, but I was probably half her weight and had the same wingspan. There was a particular stunt that I knew sergeant Surprise loved—and was her signature move. If I were as old as the filly before me, I'd need magic to pull it off. But, with my wing-to-mass ratio…

With barely more than a casual flap of my wings I shot into the sky. It was such a rush to go up so fast and so suddenly that it almost felt like gravity reversed. For the next bit I needed just the right kind of cloud—which wasn't present. Tilting forward and on an angle, I started a high-speed spin that my wings kept adding more and more speed to. A hurricane of air was spinning about the one cool spot I'd noticed on my assent.

Cold, low pressure point plus spinning air got me a tornado that would sustain itself for a few seconds while I worked its energy into the right cloud. When I had it worked up enough, I shot out the top and bucked a cloud down into the spout.

The effect was immediate. The energy of the twister siphoned electrons from the cloud and into the cloud-floor of the arena. The tornado fell apart just as the cloud hit its critical point and I flew between that cloud and the ground at just the right moment as the blast of lightning shot down—and right through me.

With the crowd screaming in my ears, I let the green burn of plasma and coronal discharge from my primaries. Corporal Thunderlane's favorite stunt.

One by one I worked through each of the stunts. They weren't easy on the best of days, but stacked one after another left me fighting to hold onto each shred of my magic. A second use of the small thunderhead I'd created was used—at just the right angle—to make it look like I breathed lightning out of my mouth.

Last of all I had just one Wonderbolt left. She was sitting in the judge's box and I could see the eagerness on her face. She wanted me to try, and she wanted me to succeed. But there was no hope in hell that I'd make a Sonic Rainboom.

I had a plan, though, and I hoped it would fool her right up until the moment she realized what I was doing. All the previous stunts that'd used lightning had degraded my little thunderhead, but now it was time to give it a final kick.

Flying up high, making it look like I was going to try the impossible, I tipped forward into a dive. Speed was key. I needed to sluice through all the remaining clouds one by one and gather their moisture in my wake.

The clouds behind me were intact for now, but even they were moisture and, more, rushing through them like I had collected plenty of electrons on my wings. As I approached the thunderhead—with its intense positive charge—I could feel the electricity dancing all over me. I wasn't just a human anymore, I was a pegasus, and electricity was just another tool to me.

I never actually touched the thunderhead. Several ponylengths from it I could see the tracers leading toward me, and I could see my own stretching to meet them. I couldn't make a Sonic Rainboom, but—

The lightning tracers made connection and millions of amps of current poured into me. I wrapped it all with my magic and shoved it down my tail and behind—into the trail of water I'd scattered behind.

I couldn't see what my arc did, but I heard the echo of the loudest thundercrack yet as it slammed back toward me. Screaming with excitement, I smashed away the thunderhead and plowed down to the ground to drop to all fours—facing the judging stand.

Even now—standing on what should have been an electrically neutral cloud-floor—I could feel the coronal discharge dancing along the edges of my feathers. It didn't hurt, none of the electricity hurt.

And, still giddy and charged with enough electricity to run a house, I felt darkness creep in around me while a little voice shouted, "Out of the way! I'll help him better than you can!"

As the darkness tucked around like a blanket, I realized it was Riley's voice.

"Hey there. Glad you're waking up, the squad-flying bit is coming up, and we'd hate to not get a chance to fly with you."

The voice was familiar, but it felt like my head was full of cotton. I shook my head to clear the fuzz and realized I was sitting beside Rainbow Dash. Right, yes, Rainbow Dash of the Wonderbolts. I straightened up and looked at her, realizing I was sitting beside the judges box. "Uh, I passed out?"

"I mean, you did try to do every single Wonderbolts' best trick end to end and invented something so freakin' amazing I'm still getting chills about it. It was like a Sonic Rainboom made of electricity. Okay, it wasn't magic—like mine—but it was still pretty cool." She seemed pretty proud of something, and it took me way too long to figure out that it was I couldn't pull off her signature. "You know how this works, right?"

I nodded. Of course I did. Two Wonderbolts would each choose a foal to be their wingpony. They would perform a series of established flying maneuvers and judge the foal based on how well they nail it as a wingpony.

Pretty sure I aced the test, and by the sound of it I did super-well on the solo section, but this would be the hardest bit for me. "So, who do I get?"

"We're going to draw names from a hat. It's the only way to make it completely fair." Rainbow held a hat out toward me and gave it a jiggle. "Go ahead, might as well pick now."

I reached into the hat with my wing and pulled out a slip of paper. Holding it up, I saw Spitfire's name on it. This was not going to be easy, and when I passed the slip to Rainbow, she laughed.

"Hey, commander, you're up with Saffron."

"Who else you got, newbie?" Spitfire's tone was an equal measure of curiosity and scorn, or so I thought. I hadn't had enough time with her to know when she was only joking and when she was deadly serious.

Reaching into the hat again, I pulled out a second slip of paper. "Misty Flame." I passed it to Rainbow.

"Dizzy, you got second spot with the newbie." Rainbow put both slips of paper back in the hat and stood up. "I gotta go get the others to draw. I'd get your wings warmed up if I were you—you went and picked the two most skilled fliers in the 'Bolts."

"Yeah," I said as I stood up to start stretching, "but that means they'll make me show off more."

"Huh, good way of thinking about it. When'd you get your cutie mark?" While Rainbow spoke, I was too busy stretching to think too much about it, but a fraction of a second after she was done my brain picked up on something she said.

"My what?" I asked, turning to look at my flank.

It was a single wing with a thunderbolt behind it (the bolt was laying on its side. Looking at it, thinking about it, and even just knowing that it was there made me tingle from the bottoms of my hooves to the tops of my ears. I couldn't hear whatever Rainbow said next—nothing else in the world seemed to matter.

I had my cutie mark.

I really had my cutie mark.

My cutie mark was all about flying and lightning and flying and lightning! It was about flying!

"I've got my cutie mark." It sounded even better out loud than in my head, so I said it again. "I just got my cutie mark."

"That true?" A new voice. I barely registered who it was but a brief glance revealed a Wonderbolts uniform over yellow coat and wings with a two-tone blue mane. My brain didn't need far to go to recognize Misty Fly.

"Y-Yeah! I must have gotten it when I did that lightning finisher." I tried to bring more attention to her, but it was just so exciting to have my cutie mark. Quickly, I swung around to look at the other side. I had two!

"Do you need a minute, newbie, or are you ready to fly?" Spitfire asked.

My head snapped up and forward and I had to wrench my thoughts away from my cutie mark. I was about to fly with the two best fliers in Equestria, one of which would have the say-so about me joining the full Wonderbolts. "Yes, ma'am!"

"Well, come on. We'll slowly fly one lap, then when we pass this box again, we start going for real. Keep your wingtip just behind mine, keep up, and don't throw—Dizzy'll have your other wing. Come on." And, just like that, she launched into the air.

Dizzy, Misty Flame, was looking at me. "This is the point where you take off and take your spot in the formation, then I trail from you."

It was standard stuff, but even as my brain processed it I realized I should be in the air. Not using any magic would be key to lasting as long as I could, and even with whatever kick Riley had given me, I couldn't afford to just black out mid-flight.

Spreading my wings, I brought them down hard and sent myself shooting skyward. Something, though, was way different. I shouldn't have been moving as fast as I was, but it seemed light the air just wanted to make me fly faster and faster and faster!

"Slow down! Ponyfeathers. That cutie mark must have really juiced you up. I can feel magic dripping off your wings. You're not doing that, are you?" Misty Flame asked.

I managed to slow down a bit, but it took a lot of focus to get to a speed that wouldn't see me shoot past Spitfire like she was standing still. "I'm not doing anything with my magic! Is this—Is this how it'll be from now on?!" Pulling in at Spitfire's wing, I felt Misty drew in at mine by the air-currents she disturbed. We were flying even and steady.

"Yeah! Welcome to the flying cutie mark club!" Spitfire didn't even turn her head to look and see I was there. "Those stunts you pulled off earlier, with all your magic, those were pretty impressive—but we do that kinda stuff without using magic, and with a bit of work you can too! Keep it tight, fly steady, and let's put on a show!"

That's when it hit me. This whole thing wasn't about being the Best Young Flier. Spitfire didn't care about that at all. She just wanted to put on a good display of flying. It made more sense now that she was the leader of the best flying group in Equestria.

So we flew through an actual Wonderbolts routine. I screwed up a pile of times, but the important bit was getting back into position and not losing Misty when I did. It wasn't so much the flying that was hard, but keeping my focus on all the cues Spitfire would give when making her turns.

"Alright, we've tortured you enough! Let's wind this up and glide back to the ground!" A moment after saying it, Spitfire pulled into a deep bank that required me to actually gain a little altitude while speeding up just to keep our wings aligned. Beside and behind me, Misty had to work twice as hard to do the same, but we all eventually evened out as the ground approached.

Performing my flare just as Spitfire did, I drew up into a landing still in position at the edge of her wing.

Spitfire slowly folded her wings and rolled her shoulders before turning to look at me. "Now that was some good flying. Have you done many formation drills?"

"Yeah. Nothing like that, though," I said.

"Naturally," Misty Fly said, "since what we just did is an actual flight plan for our next show. You were flying in my spot, you know?"

"Maybe he wants to fly in your spot, Dizzy?" Spitfire poked Misty's shoulder, a big grin on her face. "Anyway, we've seen all we need to from you, Saf. Head to the showers and cool off your wings slowly. You don't want to get a cramp."

I knew all that, but it was still good advice. Snapping my wing up to my forehead, I held the pose until Spitfire returned my salute. "Thank you, ma'am." I turned and ran to the shower block and rushed inside.

"Ahhhh!" I couldn't hold it in. My cutie mark, completely nailing all my stunts, and I got to fly with Commander Spitfire! Cranking on the shower, I couldn't stop from dancing all the way through it.

It was hard to focus on getting clean, but the habits I'd built up made me check my coat, my mane, my tail, and finally go over my wings to ensure there was no damaged feathers.

Punching the cooldown on the shower, I felt the water slowly change from blood-heat down to the same temp as the air. It was the best way to avoid getting sudden cramps, and I loved the showers here for having it.

Turning off and stepping out of the shower area. There was a standard issue air-drier that I stepped up to and turned on.

"Hey, you were the colt after me, right? Saffron Ree?" a female voice asked.

Snapping out of my daze, I looked around to see the filly who'd done her stunts before me. "Yeah, you can call me Saf. That was some cool flying you did."

"Thanks, Saf. You were pretty amazing yourself. I was trying to go with the whole showing off my non-magic flight thing, but you just doubled-down on the magic with yours—and without a cutie mark." She walked over to sit in the middle of the long room of lockers. "I'm Skyclipper."

I switched the machine off and turned around to face her. Her eyes widened while I was halfway around, and I realized what she was staring at. "Yeah. Turns out doing a crazy flying stunt can earn you a cutie mark."

She spread out her wings and turned slightly to show her hip—Skyclipper had a cutie mark of two feathers crossed. "Lucky. Mine's related to flying, but my skill is in looking after feathers. I just thought—"

I don't know why, but it upset me that she was selling herself short. "Really? Not related to flying? A ton of flying is in preparation and keeping your feathers in good shape. You know I wasn't even born a pony? It took me ages to learn how to fly, and a ton of that was just taking care of my wings."

"You weren't born a—Wait! You're that ambassador's son, right? The one who—who entered the young flier program. Okay, now I feel a bit foolish, but look at you! You got a flying cutie mark!"

"And so did you." I gestured with my wing to her flank. "Heck, yours is even better that mine. I can do all kinds of crazy stunts, but it's all solo. Yours is like the ultimate team flier cutie mark."

She stared at me for a moment—that is, she had to stare down a little at me. Tilting her head to the side, she opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by a hoof clopping against the floor at the entrance to the locker room.

"Couldn't have put that better myself. Skyclipper, Saf, you probably want to come out and listen to who won." Surprise was standing there with a tight grin on her face. When we looked in her direction, she turned and walked out.

"I hope you win, Saf. You're pretty cool." Skyclipper turned and walked to the door while I just stared at her. "Well, come on. You heard Sergeant Surprise."

Trotting to catch up, I caught up with her just outside and we followed the loud voices making a speech. Spreading our wings together, we circled up a bit and spotted where the other competitors were.

"Now we're all assembled, I can stop making up things to talk about and pass you over to Commander Spitfire!" Soarin sounded relieved, and wiped his brow with a foreleg—which got a laugh from everypony.

Stepping up, Spitfire looked around all of us. "I look around the competition this year and it scares me—a pile of you are going to be coming for my job soon enough, and I don't know if I'll be able to stop you from taking it. First, everypony, let me hear it for every competitor today!"

All the Wonderbolts lifted their wings in salute, but everypony else (including us) stomped our hooves and cheered. I noticed, now that we were all in one place, that there was some bigger ponies in our group. I hadn't seen any of them fly, but they were probably closer to Mom and Dad's age.

As the Wonderbolts snapped their wings down, a hushed silence fell over the crowd. "The first award, for Best Young Flier, goes to—Cloud Seed!"

One of the older mares jumped to her hooves and did an excited dance in place before she rushed up to the front. "Ma'am!"

"You'll be joining the Wonderbolts as its newest trainee, Cloud. Stand beside me while I announce the other awards." A gasp went up at Spitfire's pronouncement. From what I knew, there hadn't been more than one award before. "We have three extra awards today. The first is Best Technical Display, and it goes to Skyclipper."

Her gasp beside me made me look at Skyclipper. She looked stunned. "Go on, get up there!" I nudged her with a wing.

Trotting to the front, Skyclipper didn't seem to know where to stand. In the end, she stood before Spitfire.

"The dedication to your solo routine, the excellence of your perfect angles and magic-less maneuvers, was almost enough to have you standing where Cloud Seed is. Your team event was where you really shone, however. You fit my right wing like you were born there, and that's why you deserve the Best Technical Display award!"

Somepony had passed Cloud Seed a trophy, and she passed it on to Skyclipper.

"Stand beside Cloud." Spitfire looked back at our group. "The second award is for Best Magic Display, and I don't think anypony here can deny that what Saf Ree did at the end of his solo performance, let alone the rest of that display, was well worth that."

"Wait, me?!" Others around me pushed me forward and shoved me to the front so that I stumbled all the way up to Spitfire. "Me?"

"Yes, Saf, you. You made our job hard. We were all set to give you the third award, Best Blank-Flank, but then you went and got your cutie mark during the event. So here you are for using some of the finest pegasi magic manipulations we've seen while mimicking everything up to a sonic rainboom. Congratulations, Saf."

Cloud reached out with a trophy for me, that I took from her without being able to think straight. I mean, on some level I knew I wouldn't win Best Young Flier, but getting an award for competing with pegasi up to thirty years older than me? Woo! "Thanks!"

"You deserve it. That was amazing." Cloud sounded excited, but then she had won all this. She was going to get to train with the Wonderbolts—I'd be excited too.

I couldn't help but blush and shuffled down to the end of the row beside Skyclipper.

"And that leads to our final award for Best Blank-Flank. Stormrider, congratulations!" Spitfire's shout prompted a foal a little smaller than me to come running out of the crowd. She looked around like she had no clue what was going on. When she spotted Spitfire, however, she whinnied in excitement and pronked over. "Not sure if I've ever seen so much energy in somepony so small. Congratulations, Stormrider, I can see big things coming for you!"

The giggle that left Stormrider made me smile to a ridiculous degree. She stood on the end with her trophy and literally didn't seem able to stop bouncing in place. Spitfire was right about the energy—she'd just flown two big events and was practically buzzing for more.

"That's all we have planned for today. Congratulations to everypony who competed—I hope you and your parents will join us for the presentation next week in Canterlot, where I'll personally be showing off these amazing four ponies to Princess Celestia herself!" Saluting again, Spitfire stood straight as a die. "Dismissed!"

It might have been meant to inspire everypony to scatter, but all that seemed to happen was all the competitors just bundled together and started talking loudly. By the way Stormrider was turning to me, her mouth opening, I figured we weren't going to be any different.

"Ohmygosh! You were amazing out there! When you did that lightning channel at the end, I couldn't believe how perfectly you arranged those arcs! It must have been a bajillion amps running through you!" What didn't surprise me was that I couldn't see Stormrider actually inhaling between sentences—like the words just poured out without stopping.

"Okay, hold up on the chatter you four. We need to arrange for you to attend that presentation. I promised the princess a big event, and she's going to get one." Spitfire passed out envelopes to each of us. "These contain your invitation and an Equestria-wide ticket to bring you and your families to Canterlot for the event. I have arranged for Cloudsdale to be moved there—so if you live here, that should make things easy. Any questions?"

I raised my right wing, and when Spitfire pointed at me I asked, "Are we putting on any stunts for this?"

The reaction in Spitfire's eyes reminded me of seeing explosions in movies. She grinned about as wide as I've ever seen her and nodded. "If you four want to put something together, in a week, I'll make room for it."

"Hey, why don't we give these to our parents now and go for a fly together?" Cloud Seeder asked.

I looked around and spotted Riley and Dad standing off to the side. "Where will we meet up?"

Stormrider giggled and pointed up with one wing. "Just look up. We can circle around until we're all back. The thermals here are amazing!"

Skyclipper shoved her right wing forward. "We should form a group. The Best Young Fliers. Cloud, of course, is our squad leader."

"That'd be kinda cool. Since you're not exactly in competition with us anymore, it means you can lead us." It was kinda silly, but also awesome. All four of us were good fliers, though all for different reasons. I shoved my wing out and on top of Sky's.

"Hey, bring those wings down here!" Stormrider was jumping to try to get his wing on top of mine. When I lowered my wing, he finally got it there. "How old are you, anyway?"

"20. Almost 21. Don't sweat the height, man, you'll grow into those wings." I looked up at Cloud Seeder. "What about it, squad leader?"

She was bigger than all of us—even bigger than Sudden Turn. Shoving out her wing, Cloud held it on top of Storm's. "Alright. I don't know if we're starting something new or what, but I think it'd be cool if we did. Like, if they're going to give out a bunch of awards each five years, I think we should help the best of the best get better, and maybe offer to help the others, too. So, here's to the Best Young Fliers."

It was an infectious speech and it had all of our blood pumping again. Jerking our wings up with Cloud's, we all shouted, "Yeah!"

Breaking apart, I turned in the direction I'd seen Dad and Riley and trotted over. It was strange to think I was literally walking on cloud vapor, but the weirdness of it faded over the last two years. Stopping at the front of the stands, I held out the letter Spitfire had given me. "Hey."

"You were amazing, Saf! When you did all that lightning stuff, you should have heard how everypony gasped!" Riley jumped at me—her growing size adding more weight than I would have been able to deal with if not for the jolt of earth pony magic she'd revived me with earlier. When I caught her with one wing, I felt a new buzz of vitality.

I squeezed her before tossing Riley up and onto my back. "You don't need to keep juicing me up, but thanks."

Dad took the letter and read it. "Well, we don't need these tickets, but you better believe we'll be there." Using his magic, he tucked the letter away. "But tonight we need a celebration. Why don't we all go out for dinner?"

"That sounds great, Dad. Hey, Riley?"

"Yeah, Saf?"

"You up for eating at a pegasus-catered place?"

She bopped me gently (for an earth pony) on the back of the head. "Silly, they all have non-pegasi dishes on the menu."

Shaking my back a little, I wasn't trying to toss her off—not that she'd fall off even in a negative G turn. "Still, I like to make sure you're cool with it. Mom and Dad can—"

"The restaurant I have in mind, Saf, doesn't exactly do menus, but if we send them a request, I think they'll get something special for your big day." Dad used his magic to pick up Riley and carry her over to him. "Are you ready to head back down?"

"I need to hang with some new friends first. I'll be down as soon as we're done." I tilted my head to look up and behind, and spotted Cloud already circling. That's when it hit me that she was and adult if her size was any indicator. "Bye!"

Barely hearing Dad and Riley shout goodbye to me, I almost freaked out at how fast my wings lifted me up. What took a bunch of magic or flapping, now only took one little flick of my wings to launch me.

In no time I moved into wing-second position at Cloud Seeder's side and slowed just enough to continue the lazy turn with her. "Hey! So, uh, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you?"

Her laugh surprised me. "Fifty seven, Saf. Aren't you a bit young to looking at mares yet?"

And once again I can be thankful to pony fur and chill air at high altitude that hides blushes so well. "Just curious. Besides, maybe I am old enough to start looking, but I've already looked enough, sorry." It startled me to say. Had I really said that? Turned down a mare just because I had a thing with Sudden? I guess I did.

"Huh. Not the answer I was expecting, but good for you. I'm not really in the market, anyway, not with wanting to put my all into being a Wonderbolt."

It was odd that I felt like I had time to be in the market, even if I wasn't in the market. But then, being with Sudden was a constant learning experience. She was a Wonderbolt already, so when we talked half the time it was Wonderbolts stuff and flying. "I can do two things at once."

She turned her head to look at me a bit funny, but then burst into laughter. "Saf, you're a pretty clever kid. Maybe I should try doing two things at once."

Stormrider and Skyclipper flew up, the former taking Cloud's other wingtip and the latter coming in on mine.

"So," I asked, "what are we doing?"

"Flying!" Cloud Seeder tipped her right wing, which made me tip as well and Sky follow my lead. On her other side, Storm arced higher and then came down with her wing into the banked dive.

Our formation wasn't perfect, but we held together well enough that we could just enjoy ourselves and put on a bit of a show. I could see ponies below, when our angle was just right, staring up at us and waving, but I guess that was all part of doing two things at once—my main attention was on Cloud and how she was flying.

We kept at it until the sun had moved a noticeable amount across the sky. It had gone from afternoon to late afternoon, and even with Riley's last boost I felt beat. When Cloud banked and brought us down to the clouds, I let out a happy sigh.

"Okay, you just proved why you all got your awards. Meet back here tomorrow at midday, so we can talk about what we're gonna do for our stunts next week." Cloud Seeder saluted us and shot back into the sky.

"That was a lot of fun to just fly. You're pretty amazing, Saf." Skyclipper beamed at me. "I didn't have to watch Cloud at all—you were on her wing like glue."

"Ugh!" Throwing her wings up, Stormrider shook her head. "I kept falling out. I just can't keep up like that without using magic. You all have flying cutie marks, and here I am—"

"Hey"—I tossed a wing over her back—"I didn't even have mine at the start of the day. You'll get yours soon, and with how well you fly—you bet it'll have something to do with flying."

She looked up at me with a wide grin, spread her wings, and zoomed off.

"Wow, Saf, that was pretty amazing." Skyclipper used her wing to ruffle my mane. "I'll catch you around tomorrow, 'kay?" Before I could respond, she spread her wings and zoomed off too.

Alone now, I tried to think of everything that had happened. I couldn't help but turn my head and look back at my cutie mark. "This is the best day ever."

We'd spent every day planning and testing out stunts. The effort of flying fast and hard didn't bother me in the slightest, though. It was like my wings were always charged with limitless amounts of magic—even when they weren't.

It was the night before presentation, and I was buzzing like crazy as I read through the flight-training book we'd put together. Each stunt of the routine was in the book, and I was not going to be the pony who screwed up.

"I don't think I've ever seen you studying a book so much." I had no idea when Sudden Turn arrived, but she walked over and jumped up onto the couch beside me. "What is it?"

Slipping a bookmark I'd made from one of my own feathers in to save my spot, I turned the book over so she could see the cover.

"'Best Young Fliers Flight Manual'?"

"Yeah. Cloud Seeder, Skyclipper, Stormrider, and me made a kinda club. Our first mission is to put on a cool show for everyone tomorrow." Leaning back on the couch, I flipped the book open again with my left wing while I stretched the right one out and around Sudden's shoulders.

"Hey, uh, Saf?" Sudden's voice sounded more serious than amused at our little group or curious about what we were doing.

"Yeah?" When I turned my head back to the book, I felt her lips press to my cheek. My left wing twitched and I dropped the book. My right wing, though, was still around Sudden's shoulders.

"Forgetting the thing tomorrow, how are you feeling?"

"Weird. Like, I noticed Cloud the other day. She brushed off my comment about asking how old she was as if she didn't have the time to date—and implying I was too young. Thing is, I think it might have started." I looked to my right, but not at Sudden. My wing seemed to have a mind of its own and, right now, that mind was set on Sudden.

That's when it hit me. "Puberty."

"Bingo. Welcome to not understanding what's happening for the next ten years or so. Although, you kinda do." She sounded too cheerful—way too bucking cheerful. "And you have a partner in crime."

With my book lost and a mare talking craziness at my side, I only had one option. I slumped against her and let out the longest groan ever. It was perfect, even somewhat musical in the middle. "This sucks."

She moved, unfolded her own wing, and wrapped it around me to hold me there. "Saf, it may seem unbearable, but I'm told that hugs help."

Sudden had a point. Cuddled against her, even if I couldn't stop thinking of wanting to do more than just hug, helped. "Alright, but is this really going to last for ten years?"

"Well, what was it like for you? How long did it last? Did it change as you went?"

I groaned, my mind wandering back. "Yeah, it did change. Lasted from about when I was thirteen to about seventeen. Some weeks it was unbearable not having someone to—"

"Fuck?"

Narrowing my eyes, I nodded. "But it's not that bad. I just—I really want to hug."

"And what are we doing now?"

"Hugging, and it's great, but—" I was about to go on when she turned chest-forward to me and her other wing latched around my back. Then her forelegs closed around my neck and pulled me against her. My heart raced and my brain just completely shut down.

"How's this?"

"This is something I'll be dreaming about tonight, I just know it." Despite how cynical I forced myself to sound, I found my traitorous wings closing around her back and one foreleg slipping free of her wing to hold her too. Holding her helped me even more—probably damned me just as much. "Thanks, Sudden."

"Saf! Goldie needs her diaper changed!" Riley's shrill shout got closer and louder.

I jerked back from Sudden and tried to ignore her giggles. Picking up my book, I noticed Riley come in from the kitchen—probably from the back yard—with Goldie on her back. "She stinks."

"Well, yeah. But to her, you stink." I put the book back down and picked up Goldie instead. Riley was 200% right.

Riley groaned in a way that satisfied me that my joke had gotten through to her. "Ugh. Saf, you're worse than Dad sometimes."

I walked to the changing room and set Goldie on the table. "Hold your noses, because someone's dropped a bomb." Booping Goldie on the nose got a wave of giggles—and then I opened the diaper.

"Sweet Celestia, Saf, is that normal?!" Sudden's shout made me roll my eyes.

It wasn't exactly hard, but keeping my feathers clean made changing her a bit harder than it would have been as a human, but I'd gotten enough practice at it. It could have been worse—Mom could have been stuck with the job.

Cleaning Goldie wasn't too much work, not with the magic cleaner Dad had gotten. In all, I had her wrapped up in a clean diaper and the stinky one in the bin in no time. "There you go, Goldie. How's that?" I tickled her chin until she giggled, then lifted her onto my back.

Turning, I saw Sudden with a horrified look on her face, covering her snout with one wing and Riley's with the other. "Give her a break, she can't help it."

"That doesn't change the fact, Saf, that your little sister is the stinkiest stink bomb in Equestria," Sudden said.

"I wouldn't say she's that bad. I mean, Riley might be a bit pungent at times, but—" I had to duck a cushion Riley threw my way. I needn't have bothered. A brilliant gold aura of magic caught the cushion mid-air.

Turning my head, I reached a wing up to boop Goldie and distract her from her magic. "Got your mojo going, have you?"

One of my loose feathers floated around Goldie's snout. When it touched her nose, her eyes widened and she sneezed. The pillow fell out of her now non-existent magic grip and Goldie started to cry.

Sudden and Riley both seemed shocked at the turn of events. Climbing up onto the couch, I hooked Goldie into the curve of my wing and sat down with her cradled against me. "You don't need to cry, Goldie, it's alright."

"Buh?" Her huge eyes looked up at me with surprise, and then she broke into the biggest grin I've ever seen.

She was so adorable I had to tickle her tummy with my free wing, which made her giggle a bunch.

What surprised me was when Sudden put her wing around my shoulders. She was bigger than me, and had a greater wingspan, which is why it was probably a lot more comfortable than when I'd done the same earlier. "So, what's up with this club, Saf?" She passed me the book with her free wing.

"We're just trying to help each other get better at flying, though we also want to help others get better too. We all want to be Wonderbolts, and that means working together." In my wing, Goldie closed her eyes and curled a little tighter against me.

"Dammit, Saf, you're going to be an amazing Wonderbolt."

"Ugh. You two are getting way too sappy. C'mon, Goldie, you need to sleep and I need to go throw up," Riley said, walking over and shimmying beside me.

I put Goldie on her sister's back. "Thanks, Riley."

"Just don't make me regret it." Walking slowly, Riley made her way to the stairs and then started heading up.

"Watching the two of you together never gets old." Sudden reached out to the book I'd been reading and pulled it over before us. "Until I became a Cutie Mark Crusader, I didn't really get what siblings were. Then, when I joined the Wonderbolts, it was like I had dozens of brothers and sisters."

My brain was filling with questions, but when I opened my mouth only one fell out. "I'm not, uh, a brother?"

The whole world stopped as Sudden turned and looked at me. "Saf, you know the answer to that, but—I've found guys tend to need a bit of a push to actually tell themselves what they already know." I couldn't move, I couldn't think, all I could do was watch as her face came closer and then her lips touched mine. It was soft, brief, and the most affirming thing in my life to date. "Does that help?"

I leaned against her side and stretched my own wing around her back—just under hers. "Yeah. Now, I need to study a bit more to get these stunts just right for tomorrow."

"Okay, let's see what you're doing." Opening the book, Sudden started going through the routine.

The Wonderbolts were putting on their show. There was smoke clouds and thunderous shock waves caused by their stunts, and I almost managed to forget absolutely everything about our own act as I watched them. Gold, rainbow, another gold, two-tone blue, and purple—the mane/tail colors of the pegasi performing the end stunt as they soared down toward us and then arced up. Only, of the five, Rainbow Dash seemed to gain even more speed from the stunt, and then she skipped like a stone.

A huge shock wave of rainbow light spread out from her skip—a sonic rainboom.

Seeing the effect up close, my own imitation of it hadn't been anywhere near as impressive. I started trying to work out how best to tighten up my stunt to better show off my lightning handling, when Cloud Seeder buffeted me with her wing.

I looked up at her. "Huh?"

"You ready?" Cloud asked.

Right. I needed to make the wind we were going to use. It would need to be careful—we didn't want everypony to know our tricks. Sudden had taught me this one last night, so I hoped it would work. With my wings still folded at my side, I called the breeze down on us from above and directed it up again at a forty-five degree angle.

The moment the air touched us, all four of us spread our wings and shot into the sky as a tight V formation. Cloud was dragging all three of us along with her extra wingpower. We took sharp banks left, right, then in a huge loop. It was easy to keep part of myself focused on her while I prepared our next bit of magic.

A halo of sparks started dancing through my feathers as I dried the air out and forced the charge to build. When I had a good amount, I sent an arc of electricity over to Cloud, then from Cloud to Skyclipper, and then I pulled it from my other wing to Stormrider.

With the hum in my ears growing more and more intense, I focused on a point ahead and on the ground. There was nopony within a safe circle around it thanks to a few Wonderbolts who were standing casually nearby.

Stormrider's own charge started to flow over to me, merging with mine and spreading out over our group. We had coronal discharge trailing over our feathers and tails now in a huge purple arc behind us. Fresh ozone poured from our wings until we were directly over the huge grounding pole. We dumped speed into altitude, arcing up into a stall before tipping down as a group.

We didn't need to pump our wings. We were like four stooped falcons with our wings barely out. As we got closer to the ground—each of us adjusting our rate of descent with just the tips of our wings—I could hear the humming growing louder and louder.

The moment I felt a streamer start to stretch out from me toward the ground, I had to push my will through it. Cursive writing was never my strongest method of writing (I preferred texting when I still had thumbs), but this pattern was an important one. Directing the streamer around in twists and turns took almost a hundredth of a second.

Then I pushed the streamer down to earth.

The crack of lightning echoed across Canterlot and shook the ground itself. We hovered there, above the crackling remains of the word Wonderbolts, with our wings spread and burning still more magic to just hover.

I hadn't noticed, but the five Wonderbolts from earlier circled around and flew just under us with their smoke generators running.

Cloud nodded and pointed a hoof toward where the Wonderbolts had landed. "Okay, let's glide down through their wake. You can see the smoke is calm, so it should be safe."

We did, still keeping close in on Cloud's wings. Our glide brought us to the ground slowly, but we still beat the Wonderbolt squad—or maybe they just timed things just right. As soon as we touched down, they swooped in to land behind us.

The crowd of ponies here for the event went wild and cheered. It felt so good to be part of this that I almost fell over when I tried to walk. "Wow!"

"You can say that again! I've never built up that much charge before." Stormrider pranced along at my side. "How'd you get so much buildup?"

"Dry air," I said. "The drier the better. We were literally ionizing the air itself to gain charge. I've been studying some physics stuff from Earth, and it seems to work well enough here."

Cloud nodded from my side. "You said you could build up a lightning bolt without a cloud, so I figured you could. I still want to know how you drew a sign in the sky with lightning. I bet Commander Spitfire will want to know that one, too."

"Yeah, Commander Spitfire does want to know that one." Walking over to us, Spitfire pulled back her hood to reveal her face. "Great show."

Getting praise from Spitfire was something to be really proud of. I'd heard stories from Sudden about how dedicated the Wonderbolts' commander was to perfection in her command. That made me realize that it was Cloud Seeder that was the real target of it. "Thanks," I said, "maybe I could show you how I did it while we chat about my pre-acceptance to the Wonderbolts?"

Spitfire barked a laugh and shook her head. "We'll see, Saf. For now, relax and let's mingle a little. I want to show off the best young fliers in Equestria."

"I didn't think you'd be able to do that writing." Sudden Turn practically thudded against me. "And I think I annoyed the commander by not telling her what you guys were planning."

Cloud stopped on my other side and looked between us. "You know Sudden Turn? Wait, is she who was helping you tighten up your bit?"

One day I would be tall enough to stretch a wing up and over Sudden's back while we were both standing—and make it look casual. Today wasn't that day. "Yeah. I figured if I was going to get a little help with things, why not get it from the best?"

"Just how many Wonderbolts do you know, Saf?" Cloud asked.

"After today, he'll know one more." Sudden looked at Cloud with a smirk.

The way Cloud beamed in happiness was damn near the cutest thing I'd seen all day. She looked ready to prance, but then looked back. "Hey, Storm, Sky, you two coming with us?"

"I think I might go make sure my parents aren't making a scene," Stormrider said.

"Yeah, I might go find my parents too." Skyclipper looked around a bit before waving to us with a wing. She managed to slip into the crowd of ponies gathering to talk to the Wonderbolts. There was another kind of pony here, though. They were kinda standoffish compared to everypony else.

What I completely missed was a princess blindsiding us—mostly because she slipped up beside Sudden. "Ugh, I hate that all these nobles are here," Flurry said.

"Flurry, you are a noble," Sudden said.

"Well, kinda, but not like them." Though she didn't point with her wing and didn't nod toward them, I knew exactly who she was talking about.

There was about a dozen ponies that all wore suit jackets, had ties, or (for the mares) dresses that even I could tell were out of style. "Couldn't you just ignore they're here?"

"See, that would work for you, but Flurry is a princess of eligible age. That means that any stallion who fancies himself a prince would walk over hot coals to get in her favor." As Sudden spoke, Flurry looked more and more annoyed by the facts being laid out.

"I should just get a fillyfriend and be done with all of them." Flurry turned side-on to the nobles, who were now looking our way. "You think that would work?"

"Uh, wouldn't that just mean it would be the mares chasing your tail?" I asked.

"Yup," Sudden said, "and there's more of them. They're also a little more persistent than the stallions."

The way she said it tipped me off to something that I couldn't help but poke at. "Wait, you deal with this too? But you're not a princess."

"Saf, Sudden is one of the best up-and-comers in the Wonderbolts. She's old enough that a noble trying to pick her up isn't seen as cradle robbing, so young and old, she has eyes on her." Flurry spread a wing over Sudden's back. "Though, Mom said there is somepony who a certain pegasus has a thing for."

When her head turned to me, I knew that gig was well and truly up. I opened my mouth to reply, but Sudden beat me to it.

"Can you blame me? You saw the magic he was doing. He's not just smart and a good flier, he has talent too." Spreading her wing over my back, I felt Sudden's feathers grip me and pull me against her side.

"Yeah, I know, but what I'm trying to get across is that people outside of your family and friends are starting to notice that and those people are backing off from you." Sounding a little annoyed, Flurry let out an expansive sigh. "I need to find a stallion."

"Have you looked at some of the studs that have come from Earth?" Sudden asked.

It was hard not to preen myself at hearing that, if not because Sudden was hugging me in public. Was having actual romantic feelings now such a big thing? Well, okay, it probably was. I'd gotten a bit distracted with my thoughts because I realized that both Flurry and Sudden were looking at me like a teacher who'd spotted a sleeping student. "Uh, sorry. I get a little distracted when my fillyfriend hugs me."

Flurry snorted and shook her head. "You'd make my uncle Thorax drunk with that kind of talk, though it is pretty cute."

"Oh, I haven't seen him since I joined the Wonderbolts. How is he?"

"Trying to run a nation on Equestria's border, make friends with everycreature, and survive his own instincts. The usual." Flurry looked a little lost in thought for a moment. "Wait, I don't even know if he's come to Canterlot in the last few years. He should really be introduced to Clair."

"Work stuff, right?" I asked.

"Yeah. Can't help it, brain always focused on this now. Don't you know, I'm probably, maybe, possibly going to wind up ruling something in a few thousand years if Mom gets bored."

Yeah. That's one way to put the world in perspective. I was annoyed because I was a too young to be considered a full adult by anyone in this world (except Sudden), and here was Flurry who was going to have all these great negotiating and politics skills that she can't use for longer than humanity has had its current civilization.

Hell, I might live longer than the USA has even been around. Life was complicated.

Ruffling my wings, I looked around for the food table and spotted one that was covered in seafood. "I might go grab something to eat, all that magic use takes its toll."

Author's Note

Twilight Velvet: In our world, it was once valued with gold and other precious metals; now we wrap our sandwiches with it. What is the current status on aluminum processing in Equestria? Might make for a good business opportunity.

"It would have been highly lucrative. Emphasis on past tense. Princess Celestia and the president's office have both contacted me—as being the first business to straddle both worlds—to establish a protocol and rate control for importing and exporting money and material. This has required me to assay both markets. As products become requested or offered, my researchers apply a value to it for each side—or a restriction code—and it is traded at the proper rate." Somehow, Twilight Velvet looked both excited and sad. "There is oversight at both governments, of course, but so long as I am permitted to charge a conversion fee—I would be a lunatic to attempt to take advantage of this."

So I do this "Ask X" thing. X can be any character within the story. You can ask them anything and they will definitely, hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories, and they will answer the best question in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right character to answer. Try to keep it to one question per post!

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Lab

Chapter 32 Clair Ree

It was the last engagement before we were due to head back to Earth. With Jeff 's second term almost at an end, big political rumblings were happening. But, before I could spare thoughts for that, I had to deal with royalty first.

The meeting had been a surprise, but it was one Flurry had arranged for me, so I wasn't going to turn it down. I wondered how it would go if she became my opposite number on Earth. Would I come back to find all of the US wearing clip-on pony ears?

"Clair, King Thorax is here to see you." Helen's voice was firm but respectful. This was a king we were dealing with, after all.

A king. We had a few self-styled kings back on Earth, and even a few that actually had history backing up their claim, but this was probably the only king I'd ever meet that—if everything Flurry said was true—had taken his crown by conquest and consensus.

I stood as he walked in, inclining my head a little to show respect, only to have a hoof shoved out to me. I stared a moment before I took his hoof and shook it. "Your Maje—"

"Please, just call me Thorax. Even after all these years I can't get used to all the rigmarole." Thorax's voice was deep, but now I looked at him I could see how different he was from a pony. Somehow, a changeling was even more colorful than any pony I'd met and at the same time was more insectile. His wings looked like those of a dragonfly and he had the horns of a stag beetle.

One thing I'd learned after dealing with a lot of people with a higher station than my own, was that if they asked to be called something familiar, you do it. You also offer them your own name in at least an equal show of humility. "Thank you, Thorax, and please just call me Clair."

His smile at hearing me follow his lead with names was something to behold. Some might consider it weird, but I could tell he was very happy about something. "My niece invited me to visit, then said I had to meet you. She said a lot of good things about your country."

Whereas I knew next to nothing about his. "I wish I could say the same. Not that I'm not grateful for the chance to greet another head of state and broaden our diplomatic ties." He looked to relax. Was he worried I'd make demands?

"That's"—he seemed a little nervous about telling me something, and looked to the side—"one thing I wanted to talk about. I spoke to Princess Celestia earlier, and she said I could extend our services to America.

"There're two abilities changelings possess that are very useful, diplomatically. Curiosity, wariness, love for your family, confusion, lots more confusion, astonishment, and I think you have figured it out."

I stared at him, my mind racing. It was my emotions he'd been reading, and he could pick up on the changes as quickly as they happened. I definitely hadn't felt anything. "You read emotions." He nodded to me. "Okay, that is useful. Very useful, actually. What's the other ability?"

A flash of green fire startled me. Jumping to my hooves, I was reaching to the intercom when the fire stopped and left Princess Flurry Heart, complete in her armor, sitting across from me.

"That's our other ability." He even sounded like Flurry. Every detail was perfect to the point that I was stunned by his use of magic.

"What—How does that work?" I asked.

Another rush of green fire and he was back to his normal self. "We only need to study something for a short while, but it can be literally anything. Non-living shapes take more love to maintain, though." He looked a little embarrassed about something.

"'Love'?"

"Changelings used to be different. We had to feed off love to live, and drinking it from ponies deprived them of it. Now we can—The best term for it is ambient feeding, and we can feed off each other. But, the best thing is that it doesn't drain the love out of somepony." He looked really embarrassed, and I was sure this was the crux of the issue.

"Okay, so you feed on love, and you need it to be able to do your magic?" I asked, and got a nod from him. "From your asking Princess Celestia first, I can only assume that you already offer this reading service to her—no, I don't need you to tell me. Do you have someone in mind to work for us, and do you have any idea what you'd like in return?"

He looked like he was about to ask for something I wouldn't agree to. The funny thing was I wasn't adept at reading his face, but all his emotions were plane to see. That thought carried me to a new one—he could read all my emotions no matter how good I am at hiding them. Was he telegraphing his emotions to help make this an even negotiation?

"Weapons. From what Flurry told me, and what I've seen here, you have compact weapons that don't require any form of energy to use. We're on the edge of Equestria, which means that we guard their border for them." He looked at me with a firm expression that gave me no doubts that he'd seen fighting.

"Normally, and with even Equestria, weapons are not on the table. Our relationship, however, would be different. We'd both be providing security for each other. I'll be seeing Jeff tomorrow and can put this to him." It was the best I could offer him. A security agreement was mutually strengthening. "Do you have someone who could accompany us?"

He now looked a little panicked. "My brother is in Canterlot with me. He is—He is not who would be my first choice as a diplomat." That's when he brightened. "Oh! I know the best way to do this. I will accompany you, assuming I have your word I will be safe?"

Everything just became infinitely more complicated. I tried to think if this could get any worse but, short of him being hostile, things were about already as confusing as I could imagine. "You have my word you will be safe. I will have to contact my people and have extra arrangements made, but I believe we can manage a short-notice state visit."

"Perfect! I'll let Pharynx know. When do you need us here?" His worry had seemed to evaporate and now he wore a big smile. Just how open and free was he with his emotions? Also, what kind of political cesspit was I going to take him to?

"Tomorrow morning we will be doing final preparations. I will contact Princess Twilight Sparkle to ensure that this won't harm you. You'll excuse me, Thorax, but you've given me a lot more work to take care of."

He actually looked apologetic. "If it's a problem I could—?" Was he really this bereft of guile?

"No, sorry. While this is more work, it is work I am trained at. Taking care of these things is my job." It surely had to be bad I wanted to give him a hug and tell him it was all okay. Now that I realized he wasn't bargaining for nuclear secrets or plotting assassination, he really seemed like the nicest ~~bug-pony~~ changeling. "Please, leave everything up to me."

There was something about seeing Thorax smile and prance out of the room that warmed me to my core. He was, apparently, a very nice and open ruler, but also one in a hard situation. I wanted to hug him and growl at anything that might threaten to remove that carefree smile.

The only thing that really worried me was that it might be my own actions that made him frown again.

It had been a rushed communique to let Jeff know what was coming. All I'd sent him was that I had a ruler who wanted to visit to discuss potential military and espionage alliances. I didn't expect and nor did I get a reply. Replies from Earth cost a significant amount of energy.

"You didn't have to come," I said.

"I have two reasons to go back." Saffron stood beside me at the platform and watched as Moon Dancer fiddled with the settings on the control panel. "There's someone on Earth I have to tell, reluctantly, that I can't be her longest-distance-relationship-ever. Dr. Peters' stuff is relevant too."

"So for all you've gone a hundred percent native, you still have a bit of duty to the ol' red, white, and blue?"

We were just waiting for our guests to arrive and then we had already gained clearance to teleport.

"Hey, it's only when they start demanding things that it annoys me. Freedom and all that. In Equestria, I get asked if I want to do stuff. Wearing your dress again?"

It was a jab back about the gone native comment. Saffron was a smart kid—smart guy—and didn't enjoy even joking put-downs. It was still hard to see him as an adult, but by Celestia's decree he was. "The press would have a field day if they could get a shot of me without one on. You've got your cloak, I see."

"Yeah, but what about your friends? Are you really going to show off two male royalty without any clothes?" I could swear he was grinning based off the sound of his voice, but when I looked Saffron was just looking at the platform.

What he described, of course, was a disaster. How would I tell a king and a prince they had to dress up so that humans wouldn't point and laugh at them?

"Clair! I found them!" Flurry's unmistakable voice, in a shout and from right behind me, almost made me jump. "Uncle Thorax, I told you I'd find her."

Wait. Was there a single pony—or non-pony—on this planet she wasn't tangentially related to?! I turned to see Thorax and another, darker colored changeling walking into the room beside Flurry Heart. The real surprise was seeing both the king and prince wearing cloaks and vests. I looked at Flurry with a raised eyebrow.

"I read your reports, you know." Flurry shot me back the same look, but threw in a wink.

"Flurry explained that your world doesn't handle nudity well. I-I can understand that, and while I thought we could just shapechange those bits away, this is easier and less prone to suddenly showing everything if we get startled." Trotting in place a few times, Thorax actually looked excited to be wearing clothes.

Beside Thorax was the changeling I assumed was his brother. By most Earth rules of etiquette, he'd be a prince. Dipping my head a little, I asked him, "You must be Pharynx, you're traveling too?"

He looked a little surprised to be talked to, though he didn't wear his emotions on his sleeve like Thorax. "I do all I can to keep my little brother from getting into huge messes. Your world, from what I've heard, is a huge mess. There's one thing I've learned to trust, though, when it comes to these matters." He turned and looked at Flurry.

"Aunt Celestia gave me permission." Flurry looked like she'd just organized a major political event in her favor. I guess she had.

I turned toward the platform to see Moon Dancer looking at me with a little confusion. "Moon, looks like we have an extra guest. Now, where's Riley?"

"I'm here, Mom!" Well, with Riley pushing her way through from the doorway, that meant we were all here.

Life, it seemed, continued to get more complicated the longer you lived it. I was fifty-six now, and that was something that I'd been told I would need to deal with for another two-hundred years. "This will be a two part transportation. First myself, Flurry, King Thorax, and Prince Pharynx will travel, then Saffron and Riley will come over using the transmogrification setting."

"Mom, I want to be a pony! I can't help my tree as much if I'm not a pony!" I knew this had been coming. Saffron had warned me it would be coming.

"Alright, Riley, you come with us and leave your brother to be the only one going through transmogrification. Let's find a place on the platform." I tried to lead the way, but Riley and Flurry raced forward and spun around to face me as if they'd both just won a race.

I walked forward and took my place on the platform, while the two changelings moved up last. Nodding to Moon, I looked at Saf. "We'll be off the platform in ten minutes. You can come over then."

"Yeah, yeah. I know the drill. Leaving pegasi to wait should be against the law." Despite his theatrics, Saffron stood to the side without any sign of annoyance.

My focus on my son was interrupted when I was shoved out of one reality and into another. I might not have seen as much travel time as some of the soldiers, but I didn't stumble on the other side—mostly because four legs made it hard to stumble if you just braced them.

Earth always seemed a little duller, even with big lights around the teleportation platform. I took my bearings as quickly as I could and stepped past Flurry and Riley to dismount the pads. One man stepped forward—dressed in a black suit and with an earpiece in one ear. "Agent Lane. We appear to have an extra escort. Our guests are, my daughter, Riley Ree, Lieutenant Flurry Heart of the Equestrian E.U.P. Guard and Princess of the Crystal Empire, His Royal Majesty King Thorax of the Changeling nation, His Royal Highness Prince Pharynx of the Changeling nation."

Riley poked my foreleg with her own and looked up at me. "I'll wait here, Mom. When Saf gets here, he'll feel really drained if he does turn back to human."

"Ambassador, please follow me. The President is waiting, and he told me to tell you he promises you don't need to give a press conference right away." Trevor Lane gestured to the door. The room looked different compared to the last time I was here, and with good reason. A new building had been erected and the border as it were had been moved to that. When Trevor walked over to the door and opened it, it was a garden path he stepped out on.

Following Trevor, I had Flurry right behind me and then the two brothers behind her. As we all got out into the gardens that were immaculately kept (and didn't look like a new building had been dropped in their midst), I heard Thorax exclaim and start talking about flowers.

We approached the door that led into the oval office directly, and I saw Jeff standing beside it. He didn't raise an eyebrow or even make the slightest twitch at the sight of our extra guests. "Welcome to America. You'll forgive my lack on knowing what titles to accord you all," Jeff said. "My own is president, but y'all can call me Jeff."

I stepped aside to allow the big-wigs to talk it out.

"My title is annoyingly long," Flurry said. "It has princess this and lieutenant that. You can call me Flurry, Jeff."

"Hi! I'm Thorax!" Sure enough, Thorax walked forward and raised his right foreleg and held his hoof out to Jeff—who shook it.

Pharynx stepped up beside his brother. "Thorax, you're supposed to tell him you're the king of the changelings." Looking up at Jeff, Pharynx seemed to study him. "I'm Prince Pharynx, but hold off on the prince bit, okay?"

"I think I can manage that, Pharynx. Please, come into my office and get comfortable. Clair, please, won't you join us?" Jeff's question was an order, plain as day. It was too easy to slide back into Earth politics-speak.

Jeff led the way, followed by Flurry, Thorax, Pharynx, and then I took up the rear. Trevor closed the door behind us from the outside and then walked back toward the portal room. I let him go back and deal with the kids while I took my seat on the couch, climbing up to take a seat beside Jeff. "Sorry for the short notice, but I thought this would be a good time to get everyone together without causing a fuss."

"It's not like I had anything else to get caught up in. You know how the election cycle is now, Clair. The party is looking for someone new to put behind the desk over there." Jeff looked cagey. He looked like he was about to say something and I was going to regret it. "Did you try using the transmogrifier?"

"No. I thought it best if I came through with our guests. Besides, I'm more used to being like this now." He looked even worse now. What was he up to?

"Shame. I'd like you to try using it to see if you could come back here for… about eight years?"

My blood turned to ice. "You can't mean what I think you mean."

"What does he mean?" Thorax asked.

Clearing her throat, Flurry gestured to Jeff with a wing. "Human leaders—at least American leaders—are elected every four years, and can rule for no more than eight. What I believe President Jeff Miller is saying is—he thinks Ambassador Ree could stand to be the next president."

"No. He wouldn't do that because I don't have the charisma or the desire to do that. He knows this." I might have been answering Flurry, but I was definitely speaking to Jeff.

"Would that make Clair a princess?" Thorax asked.

"Jeff," I said, turning to fix a good glare on his smiling, likable face, "this is a topic for later, but my decision won't change."

Jeff leaned back in the couch and smiled in that completely genuine way he somehow managed even when he was lying to your face. What annoyed me was he probably wasn't going to lie and hadn't been lying so far. "I talked her into going to another world. Clair would do anything for this country."

"Fun as it is ribbing Clair, we should probably move to our reason for coming here." Flurry's voice had returned to the kind of seriousness she used when discussing potentially dangerous topics. This was a mare in her 50s who knew combat and diplomacy, and she was applying one to the other. "The Changeling Empire is a strong ally of Equestria not just because they hold one of our flanks against monsters and marauders, but also because they aid in—strained diplomatic situations."

I could see the glint in Thorax's eye that said he was about to give a demonstration. "Jeff, call your secret service guys, tell them there's about to be magic and a light show in here."

"Thanks for the warning. Uh, I don't suppose your kids are here as ponies?" Jeff pulled a phone from his pocket (one of the presidential ones that had more security than sense) and started tapping away on it—but his eyes were fixed on the window.

It was impossible to resist. I turned my head to the window and saw Saffron—still as a pegasus—flying through the sky over the rose garden, and of course he had Riley on his back. "We were testing to see if the key to not transmogrifying was cutie marks. Saffron was the only one of us using the transmogrifier setting."

"And it failed, proving that it is cutie marks that cause the pony form to lock in, as it were." Jeff sounded like he had discovered the secret to immortality. "Clair, I can't help but wonder—is there a cutie mark under that dress?"

The complete and utter bastard. He had me over a barrel and I'd lost one possible defense against his plan. "That's personal." When he opened his mouth, his focus still on me, I jumped in. "And it's probably not what our visitors want to hear."

What exactly was up with Jeff confused me. I'd never seen him acting like this. Climbing down from the couch, I tried to give Flurry as focused a look as I could before I said, "You'll excuse me then. I'll be outside trying to rein in my foals."

I walked to the door that led back into the rose garden, opened it, and stepped out into the crisp Washington air.

"Mom! I can fly here just fine!" Saffron whooshed past me wearing a huge grin.

Looking over to Riley, she seemed far more interested in the gardens. "Sweetie, you're leaking magic all over the place." It wasn't exactly hard to see that—the grass was flaring up several inches behind her each time she took a step, and the roses were growing fresh leaves and buds.

"I know, Mom. I'm trying to just get it on the roses, but there's so little magic here that every drop seems to just explode and go everywhere. I don't know how Dad handled it." A few feet along now, the roses behind her were puffing out and into bloom. "And don't worry. I'm giving them enough magic to last them all through winter."

Trevor Lane was standing not far away. He looked pretty happy with himself about something. When I walked over to him, he nodded to me.

"I organized a seamstress for Riley. They'll be waiting at whatever hotel you wish, though you might want to consider The Velvet. All pony visitors tend to stay there since it is owned by a pony." His words reminded me exactly who would be that owner and how big Twilight Velvet was growing here.

"Thank you. You know, I think we might want to organize things over there, but I might wait for Flurry and King Thorax to be done with Jeff." Curiosity got the best of me on one topic, though. "Jeff seems to be—"

"I can't tell you anything about him professionally, but the president's been more than a little odd lately. He's been looking forward to today." Trevor didn't look anywhere but out across the lawn.

"I got that. He kept talking about trying to have me run for the primary. Could I have a meeting with the VP, do you think?" When Trevor nodded his head to the far side of the rose garden, I realized that Vice President Howards was standing there doing his best to not look my way—and failing frequently. "I see."

A short walk across the rose garden—leaving Trevor behind to keep an eye on the kids—and I walked slowly up to Peter Howards. "Peter."

"Jeff's spoken to you?" Peter sounded worried, and I knew full well why.

"What happened to him? I brought him a foreign leader and the next in line to another leader, and he starts ranting about the next election with some idiocy about putting me forward." When I got to the last bit, Peter seemed to relax slightly. "I take it this isn't news to you?"

"He thinks it's some kind of reward or dynasty. I planned to stand for the primary myself, and I was hoping to have Jeff's support." It was fishing on Peter's part. If Jeff pushed, he probably could have gotten me through the primary just on advertising alone, but I wasn't the right person or pony for that.

"You'll have mine. You've announced?" When he shook his head, I asked, "But you planned to soon?"

"I'd hoped you could talk some sense into Jeff before I did. Making the announcement would be best with his backing right there and then."

It might be a political play on Peter's behalf, but it was a sound one. We had a history of pushing good VPs into the top job in our party. "I'll speak to him tonight. Keep yourself free so I can pull you in at the right time."

Peter, in that moment, looked ten years younger. "It can be hard to accept—sometimes—that you're the amazing woman who pushed the both of us over the line, but when you talk like that, Clair, it's obvious you're every bit as sharp as you were. Loyal to a fault, too."

I couldn't help but laugh at that. "Don't be too quick with that last bit. I have my retirement planned out when my duty is done."

"Won't stop me from sending you Christmas cards."

"What do you think your chances are, Peter?"

"If I get the endorsements from Jeff and yourself? I like to think I have a good chance. Your kids seem to be enjoying the pony life. Never thought I'd see the likes of this, but a sharp mind moves with the changes." Turning, Peter started to walk away—heading back toward the white house.

What kind of mess had this place become, and all because Jeff has… what? Is he narcissistic? Megalomania? Ego-inflated?

I would need to handle this carefully.

Flurry led the way out of the oval office. She looked bored out of her brain, which meant she'd finally fully grasped the way Earth politics work. Behind her came a happy-looking Thorax and an even happier Pharynx.

"I hope you got more sense out of Jeff than I did," I said.

"It went pretty good. He was quick to realize that sensing the emotions of those around him could enhance the security of any detail. Uncle Pharynx was—and still is—smiling." Flurry turned her head back to look at him and stuck her tongue out.

"It's good to see a leader who immediately sees the potential of changelings. We are strong allies, and are useful in many ways, but we need weapons of our own." Pharynx spoke with the conviction and pride of any patriot. I had to remind myself it wasn't my country he was patriotic about. "Your president acknowledged this and will provide weapons and training in how to use them."

It didn't really surprise me that he would. The US had done more for less return in the past for allies. "I had Trevor call and book us suites at a nearby hotel. Would you like to go there with me now?"

Thorax, with a big smile that seemed genuine, looked around. "Could we maybe go on a tour? I'd like to see how human hives are built." If his excitement was planned to make me feel happier, well, he was good at planning. It was a little odd to accept that aliens might just want to see how our society worked, but it was also a little flattering.

"I'm sure the hotel gets that a lot. We should ask them about how to organize a tour." I turned my attention to Saffron (still flying around) and raised my voice. "Saffron! We're going to the hotel!"

In practically a second he was right beside us—Riley too—and the pair looked as happy as Thorax. "What's up, Mom?" Saffron asked.

"We're going to visit the hotel and then go on a tour of DC. Did you and Riley want to come too?" I asked them.

Saffron looked toward Riley and shook his head. "We kinda need to do some shopping, you know? That and I need to call someone." He finally surrendered to gravity and touched down on the ground. It's strange how seeing him walking always reminds me he's a foal, but when he flies, Saffron seemed much more adult somehow.

"Oh!" Riley bounced along beside Saffron as we all followed Trevor. "Is that Kaylee? What's she doing now?"

"I don't know yet. That's why I want to call her. It's been a while…"

"Oh, right. We should invite her over to watch movies!"

I dragged my attention away from Riley and Saffron to the adults present. Flurry was looking around curiously, but it was Thorax and his head snapping around to look at buildings and gardens and people. It was a shock to see him so thoroughly invested in exploring our culture.

Saffron Ree

Mom seemed upset over something, but I kinda figured she would be with an election coming up. I could still remember the last one she'd been here for—we'd barely seen her for months. "Hey, Riley, do you think Mom will be staying here to help with the election?"

"Nah. She'll make a few appearances on TV in support of whoever uncle Jeff thinks is good, but she won't stay here for months." What she said reminded me of the whole eight years thing. Damn she was smart.

"You didn't see it, but Mom was pretty angry earlier—when she left the oval office. She is getting better at dealing with that kinda anger, but I'm pretty sure months here helping someone campaign would make her way less pony." I looked over at Mom, but she was busy chatting with Thorax and Pharynx. "Hey, Flurry?"

Flurry stepped closer to us. She was taller than I was, but I was kinda used to that. What I couldn't get used to was her wings. I swear, if I wasn't spoken for, her wings would have me chasing her like a lost puppy. "What's up, Saf?" Also, her using my shortened name made me smile.

"You think Mom is going to get stuck here with all this election stuff coming up?" I asked.

"I hope not. At least, I don't plan to stay—and it would get boring back in Equestria without her shaking up the political landscape. You could come back with me if you want?" There was something just awe-inspiring about the way she was always thinking of others.

Riley seemed distracted by the plants we were walking past, so I managed to ask, "Well, I think we'll worry about that when we get there. Hey, do you want to meet this nice human I found last time I was here?"

Mike was ahead of us with a big, black van. It was almost hard to recognize him because he had small gray flecks in his hair. "Hey, that must be our ride. I guess they are used to having ponies need transportation."

"Saf should have to fly!" Riley trotted up to Mike. "Make Saf fly so we have more space!"

"Saf? Riley? Holy sh—ivers. You're ponies now!" He crouched down, but was unable to get low enough to be on the same height as us. "Damn, and you're adorable. Is this your pony girlfriend, Saf?"

I turned to look at Flurry, and she did the same back to me. Did I dare do it just to play a gag on Mike? That was never in doubt. I winked at Flurry and her smile widened a little.

"They're—" Riley began, but I had to get in before she gave the game away.

"Yeah! You got me. But hey, a guy's gotta just stick to his guns and chase the dream—and there's no greater dream than Flurry. She's just so amazing." I sidled across a little so I was pressed against her side. "And her wings…" That bit didn't even need acting.

"Wha—" Riley stared at us.

"And who could resist the best flier in all Equestria here. You should have seen him. He broke every academy record. The Wonderbolts literally couldn't help but invite him to join!" Flurry tilted her head sideways and pressed her cheek to mine.

Mike looked like he'd fallen for it completely. He backed up to the van and opened the side door for us.

"Of course," Flurry said, "that'd be how it was if we weren't both full of horse apples. Saf has a mare back home, but she's not a princess." And, with that, she climbed into the van.

The look on Mike's face, mostly shock, had me giggling. "Besides," I said, "she's way out of my league. She's a princess, heir to the Crystal Empire."

Riley jumped in behind Flurry. "You shouldn't pick on Mike like that."

"He asked for it." I climbed into the van and made room for Mom. It got pretty cozy with Mom, Thorax, and Pharynx in the back of the van. The ride was cramped, but complaining wouldn't help. Besides, I just stood near Riley and Flurry stood near both of us to keep from getting too squashed.

Arriving at the building, at least I hoped it was the right one since I couldn't actually see out of the back of the van, we repeated the process of packing the can with sardines only in reverse. That's when I saw a pony standing at the front door of the hotel with a big smile on her face.

"Twilight Velvet. Why doesn't it surprise me to find you here—at your own hotel?" Mom started walking toward the mare, but Flurry moved way faster.

Rushing up, Flurry tackle-hugged Twilight Velvet. "Gran! What are you doing here?"

"Gran?" I looked at Riley, but it was Mom who turned toward me.

"Twilight Velvet is Shining Armor and Twilight Sparkle's mother. She owns a lot of businesses in Canterlot, and it seems she is branching out." Mom gestured to the doors. "You kids head inside, I guess I will be having a talk with our host."

Shrugging, I trotted past everyone talking and opened the door for Riley. Mike followed me in too, and then came Thorax and Pharynx. Inside, the place was like the other big hotel except there were a few little differences—a pony and a human standing behind the front desk, lots more plants around, and there was a general sense of more magic in the air. Literally in the air. "You feel that?"

"Yeah," Riley said, tapping her hooves a few times as she walked. "It's like there's just magic here. Like, Equestria magic."

Testing it a little, I held out one wing and built potential between two feathers until they let out a little snap as energy flashed between them. "Plenty of magic. This is pretty cool. Oh!" I looked around and spotted Mike. "Hey, Mike! Can you call this number?"

"Saf, this better not be a booty call. Wait a sec, how young are you like this? You look tiny compared to the other two, and even the—the princess is bigger than you." Mike reached down and took the note with Kaylee's number on it.

"Yeah, still 20, but in ponies 20s like early teens. Most ponies won't even think of me as adult until I'm in my 50s." I took the phone from him when he passed it down. It was ringing, and when I heard a female voice on the other end asking who this was, I replied, "It's me, Saf. Uh, the pony guy."

"Saf?! You're back? Uh, hold on, where are you?" Her voice sounded incredulous.

"Uh, I'm in the… Ah hell, it's probably just called the pony hotel or something. The one near the white house." Phones were annoying to hold and use as a pony, I realized. There was just so much to them and my feathers had trouble holding on.

She laughed. Literally laughed. "Hold on, Saf, I'll be right down." And with that, she hung up.

I passed the phone back to Mike. "She said she'll be down… Does that mean she's staying here?"

Slipping his phone back into his jacket pocket, Mike shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe, though she didn't seem like the type to have the money to stay in one of these places. Maybe she—"

The lift nearest us dinged and its doors opened slowly. Sure enough, Kaylee stood there wearing the same uniform I'd seen on the guy behind the front desk. "Saf?" She looked around, and when I waved, approached us. "I can totally hang, but I gotta let my boss know first."

She walked over to where Mom was talking to with Flurry's grandmother and waited for Twilight Velvet to notice her. Words were whispered back and forth, and Kaylee walked back over. "Okay, I got the day off. With Mrs. Velvet here in person, it's not like I have that much to do but report to her."

I felt confused as all hell. "Wait, what do you do here?"

"Well, Mrs. Velvet advertised for people with any experience with ponies. When I told her I knew you, and we were kinda friends, she wanted me running this place. It's not—I mean I didn't just start there, you know, she had Mr. Hot come over and train me in management, but it wasn't like I didn't know how hotels ran. Anyway, look at you! Sticking the pony life thing now? Hey, you got a cutie mark!"

There was something I'd learned about ponies: if you asked them about their cutie mark, you got an hour-long conversation. I was no exception. "Oh heck yes. You know I got it while trying out for the Wonderbolts? It was so amazing! I was doing this really fancy flying routine and it involved me using a lot of lightning at the end. Well, it turned out my cutie mark is in flight-magic, which includes lightning, so when I did all that it just told me what I already knew—flying is my thing.

"So anyway, there I was, finishing this whole big routine that I was desperately trying not to electrocute myself in, and I land, and it all worked. That's when Commander Spitfire comes down and is all, 'Hey, nice routine, also, congrats on your cutie mark.'

"I was blown away! It was so amazing I ran in like three circles before I realized what I was doing just to look at it. I'm rambling, aren't I?"

"I mean, I did ask about your cutie mark and all. Come on up, I'll show you to your rooms and we can work out what's up next from there." Kaylee had a big grin on her face. She led the way over to the counter.

"You always go on and on about your cutie mark," Riley said.

"Everypony does. Trust me, when you get yours, you won't be able to shut up about it either." I almost—almost—started to talk about my cutie mark again. If it wasn't for the fact I'd told Riley about it so many times already, I would have.

"Princess Celestia said it would be five years at the earliest before I get mine. You're pretty young to have gotten yours—she said." She did the thing she always did to let me know she was a bit upset—she leaned against me. When an earth pony leans on you, you get leaned-on.

Rather than put up with having a little mountain pushing against me, I grabbed her with my wing and, with a jolt of magic, tossed her up and on my back. "Trust me, it'll be worth the wait. Imagine all the amazing stuff that will lead up to you getting your mark?"

She jumped up onto her hooves, still balanced on my back, and did that cute four-hoof-stomp thing ponies do when really excited. It was like having four little bulldozers bouncing on my spine. "I can't wait, Saf!"

Kaylee got the key-cards and led the way to the lift. "You get one of these each, and your mom will get another." She stared at something behind us as we got into the lift. "Mr. Security guy, they'll be safe with me."

"Yeah, but it's my job. Trev, you got the whole party here? I'm escorting Saf and Riley up to their room." Mike stood in the doorway before nodding to something we couldn't hear. "Thanks. I'll let you know what's going on when we reach there."

We rode the lift up, found our rooms (a whole suite), and piled in and onto the couch. There were big planters by the windows with little tiny apple trees and small shrubs and all kinds of plants. Riley seemed drawn to them.

Kaylee, too, noticed Riley's interest. "Please be careful with those, we have a gardener who is very clever with his magic and keeps them just the right height. Says he persuades them to remain small."

"Oh, well, I guess I'll go and talk to my tree then. I wonder how big he got?"

"The one in the park?" Kaylee asked. "It's huge. They made it a monument."

Riley started bouncing up and down in excitement—thankfully not on my back now. "It is? Can you see it from here?" She somehow teleported to the window again. "Aww, we're facing the wrong way."

"So this is the real you now, Saf?"

Kaylee surprised me, since all my attention had been on Riley. "Huh? Oh, yeah. This kinda cinches things now. Once you get a cutie mark, you're a pony forever."

"Can I just…" She sighed. "All the guests here are off-limits, but I'm not on the clock, technically, so…"

"Kaylee, just ask."

"Can I pick you up and hug you?" Her excitement bubbled up and surprised me. "Just for a moment. I've been working with ponies and we have pony guests moving through often enough, but I can never just…"

"Pick me up if it—" I didn't get any further. She grabbed me, startling me a little so that my wings shot out, but I calmed down and just sat there on her lap. "Satisfied?"

"I'll look for a brush!" Riley said.

"In the bathrooms. It's the third drawer on the right. There's a regular hairbrush and a curry comb." Hugging me to her chest, Kaylee let out an excited giggle. "How are you so soft?"

"You think my coat's soft?" Stretching out a wing, I flopped it onto her hand. "Try that out. I preened all those just before ripping my way through interdimensional space to be here."

Kaylee's fingers worked carefully over my feathers. I heard and felt her breath catch in her throat. "Wow. I mean I've seen a few pegasi coming through, and we have one who works as bellhop, but I'd never ask one of them to let me touch their wings."

"Probably for the best. They're kinda sensitive." At least she didn't have it in her brain to try preening them. Of course, thinking about preening reminded me of Sudden.

"I found the brushes!" Riley ran into the room and jumped up on the couch with both items balanced on her back.

The curry comb on my coat felt nice, but I quickly tucked my wing in in case she thought using it on my feathers would be a good idea. "So, what's your title here? Manager?"

"Executive manager. Mrs. Velvet is paying me stupid amounts of money to basically do what I used to, but with about 10 times the amount of people." As she spoke, she sounded like she was relaxing. "To be completely honest, Saf, you and Riley were the best thing to happen to me. Just knowing you two opened a door to something I didn't even know I would enjoy."

I couldn't help it, I gave a laugh. "Sounds like ponies made both our lives better."

"Mine too!" Riley said.

The only answer I had for my sister was to wrap a wing around her shoulders and give her a hug. "You got that right." When Riley giggled, I couldn't help joining in.

Kaylee might have been relaxing just having ponies around, but I found the brushing calming, and Riley's giggles were infectious enough that soon all three of us were giggling. We all froze, though, when Mom opened the door.

"Twilight is taking our guests on a tour of the city. If you want to go with them, you better do it now, otherwise you can do whatever—but Trevor will be going with you," Mom said.

With the magic in the air in the hotel, I literally jumped up above Kaylee's head and flapped my wings lazily. "I think Riley wants to go see her tree, then we might catch a movie." I looked down to see what the others thought of that. Riley's eyes widened hugely and Kaylee seemed to be doing the same.

"Okay. Do some shopping, too. Trevor has an expense card to get you both phones. Love you two." Mom closed the door before we could even reply.

Clair Ree

That was one thing sorted, now I only have to go save a good friend from his own ego and, in the process, save a political party from shooting itself in the foot, leg, and possibly its head as well.

"Trevor, I'll need an escort back to the white house." I waited for him to repeat the words into the concealed throat-mic he wore before I nodded at the room. "Thanks for looking after them."

"No thanks needed, ma'am." He had a half grin on his face that told me he actually enjoyed his job. We are truly living in strange times.

The ride back to the white house was thankfully short. I made my way through to see Jeff's secretary. "Caroline, right?" I asked.

"Hello? Is someone there?"

"Down here. Further down… There we are." There were downsides to being a pony, with an emphasis on down. "I'd like to book an appointment with Jeff, I want you to tell him it will only be me there, but could you contact Peter's secretary and arrange for him to attend as well?"

The look on Jeff's secretary surprised me. She'd been working for him for over a term now and was no longer the twenty-something who'd been struggling to understand her job. "Clair? Clair Ree? I'll get on it right away. He's been—Jeff's been a little odd this last few months." Her hands started racing on her keyboard.

"I know, and it ends today. All I can say is thank our forebears for the twenty-second." There is a saying that I'd only use on Jeff if he stepped way out of line—I hope he doesn't go that far.

"Two terms is plenty, yeah. Okay, you have an appointment in five, Peter will be here for it too. All Jeff knows is you asked for an emergency meeting, and that's what you're getting." Caroline sounded like relief personified. Okay, if his secretary was this strung-out, he's probably been all over the place on this.

It shouldn't have been a surprise that she knew her constitution off the top of her head. "Thank you, Caroline." I didn't have to wait more than a minute to see Peter approaching from the hall leading to the VP (his) office. "Peter. It's time we took things in hand."

He looked stiff. Okay, so he probably wasn't completely appreciative of having to get someone else to intercede for him, but I hoped my position meant I was—politically at least—outside of the sphere of the current situation. At least, I would be if Jeff wasn't trying to implement a dynasty. "Clair. I agree. This has gone on too long."

"You can go in now," Caroline said.

As we walked into the oval office, Jeff looked up from the resolute desk and raised an eyebrow. "Clair, Peter, what's going on?" He sounded surprised, more surprised than he was letting on with his expression.

Peter closed the door and walked with me to the couch. "Jeff…"

I looked at him, but Peter seemed at a loss. "Jeff, this has to stop. I already have a job, and it has nothing to do with running the country."

Jeff deployed one of his best smiles. I didn't dare look at Peter to see if he could pierce this BS, but I sure as hell could. "But Clair, we could—"

"No, Jeff. You already have a far better candidate than me. He's a public figure already, he has been a big part of two presidential campaigns already, and he's sitting in this room." When I finished, Jeff's head turned to look at Peter. "Yes, Jeff, your VP. Peter's had eight years of preparing for this. He has roots down in the country and he holds to the same policies that got you elected.

"He's also the only candidate I will support." I leaned back on the couch and finally looked up at Peter. He looked surprised at something.

But Jeff still looked determined. "Jeff, if the next thing out of your mouth isn't in support of Peter as the new candidate, I am walking out of here, grabbing my kids, going back, and renouncing my citizenship." I had his attention now. Did it really take a threat like that to convince him? "So help me I will. Just try it."

For a moment—one terrifying moment—I thought he was going to push again. He looked at me, closed his eyes, and let out a sigh. It was, in fact, the only defeated sigh I'd ever heard him utter. Jeff leaned back in his chair and just stared at the desk. None of us spoke a word for nearly ten minutes—I know it was that long because I counted the seconds.

"You're right." The words looked like they cost him an arm and a leg to say. He lifted his eyes and looked at Peter first. "I'll back you all the way."

Standing and walking forward, Peter held out his hand to Jeff. "Jeff, I can't say I understand how it feels to sit in that seat, but with your help I might."

That's when it hit me—the pony-effect. I was contributing to their renewed bond. Okay, so I wasn't going to say anything about it, but it was interesting to see. Jeff, for his part, seemed to have his fire completely re-lit. He stood up and walked around the desk to shake hands with Peter.

"What do they say about power and corrupting?" Jeff asked.

"Nonsense. This wasn't power corrupting, you were just trying to do what you thought was best for America. Let's do that together." Peter's little speech, I was sure, was something I'd be asked to repeat. Being a fly on the wall in the oval office would probably get me in trouble unless I reminded these two guys that there was still work to be done.

"Jeff, sometimes you make it hard to be around. If you're both done, I'm going to go watch my kids do some magic in the park. Organize a press conference and I'll attend." Jumping down from the couch, I headed for the door. "And don't make me have to come back in eight years and kick both your butts."

By the time I got to the door, both of them were laughing. That was probably a good sign. Walking past Caroline's desk, I spotted her lean over to look down to me. "It's under control. All I had to do was get them in the same room and make them talk."

"Ugh. Men," she said.

I couldn't agree more, and nodded.

The Secret Service guard who followed me wasn't at all shocked by the tree, but I was. Riley's Tree had a plaque set on a stone at its base and its trunk was thick enough around that it took five people linking arms to get around it. The plaque read: Growing as Mighty as the Bonds Between Worlds

"Is this how big it was before yesterday, or has she been doing more for it?" I asked my escort.

"This is how it's been for over a year now. When she left last time, it shot up into this. Can't say I've ever believed that much in magic, but this is a pretty solid example and hard to ignore."

I paused, looking up at the guy. "Clair. Clair Ree." I held up a hoof toward him.

He crouched down and shook my hoof. "Agent—Sorry, force of habit. Just Simon Cowl is fine. Simon, I mean."

"Stick to Clair, Simon, and we can get along fine. Do you see my children?" There was a crowd around the tree, apparently being warned to hold back by Trevor.

"It looks like your daughter is resting her head against the tree and her brother is spreading his wings and—Wow."

I could see why he'd say that. There might be some pegasi wishing to come to Earth to explore, but Saffron didn't just fly to get from A to B—he flew to show off. "I wonder if he'll put on a show?"

"He does—?" A crack of lightning interrupted Simon. Saffron was in fine form with his wings glowing purple with electricity dancing along his feathers. He flew a huge array of complex patterns I recognized from his performance for the Wonderbolts.

The crowd was completely spellbound by his flying and use of magic, and I almost felt like crying for joy at seeing him doing what he loved. For a moment I wondered where he got enough magic to put on this kind of show, but then I remembered he'd been with Riley.

"Just wait for the ending. He's doing a routine that attempts to mimic the signature moves of the current lineup of Wonderbolts. He can get most of them perfect, but there's always one he can't do—so he goes one better and does it his way." Proud parent—of course I was. How could I not be proud seeing Saffron find that one thing he's not just good at, but amazing at.

Then came his big finale. The blast of lightning on an otherwise clear day was astounding. Everyone stared for a moment, wondering if he was okay probably, before they exploded into cheers. He cut a quick loop before he whooshed over and landed on his hooves in front of me. "Were you watching?"

"Of course I was. You looked to be having fun." I reached out to put a foreleg around his shoulders and hug him, and got a mild jolt for my trouble. "You're still a bit zappy. Might want to avoid touching a human for a little while."

"How'd things go with uncle Jeff?" Saffron asked.

"Better. I think the pony effect helped calm things down. I'm sure there'll be some big news soon." Letting him shrug out of the hug, I gestured toward where the tree was. "What's your sister up to?"

"Talking to the trees again. I told her not to give it any more energy, but do you think she'll listen?" Saffron fell in beside Simon and myself.

The crowd parted for us, though I could see some people would have crowded close if it wasn't for some nice strangers who spread their arms and made a path for us. "Thank you," I said.

Just thanking people put big smiles on their faces. The pony effect again, or just nice people? Or both. Walking up to my daughter, I spared a nod for Trevor before reaching out and touching Riley. The moment I did I was dragged into her conversation.

"Mom! Tree, this is my mom. Mom, this is my tree. Say hi!" I knew the world I'd wound up in was going so slowly compared to the normal world, but I couldn't help but find my daughter just as amazing as my son.

"Hello Tree," I said, barely managing to get that out. This wasn't exactly my specialty.

The rush of warmth that wrapped around me like a cozy blanket was astounding. Tree was huge and strong, but gentle. I leaned into the mind-hug and let my magic flow—the trickle that it was.

"Tree really likes magic, but I promised not to give it too much. Too much magic and Tree would start ripping up the subway. Well, that's what Trevor said. I don't think what you gave it will do too much." Riley seemed like a wild spirit in this slow-moving world. "Tree, we have to go now. I'll talk to you again before we leave, okay?"

The tree seemed okay with that, and only when Riley had extracted me from Tree's warmth did she let her magic fall away completely and dump us back out in the real world.

"Wow," I said.

"See? I told you it would just take a bit." Saffron sounded sure of himself. I could appreciate that he knew how Riley's tree magic worked enough to warn people not to try doing anything silly. "Though Mom doesn't usually dive-in like that."

"No," I said. "I don't. Is that what it's like each time?"

My little girl just leaned sideways against me and nodded.

"I think I'm going to have to stay here a little longer." Reaching my leg over Riley's back, I slowly rubbed her shoulder. "You can go back anytime you want."

"Mom, will it help if I hang around? If we hang around?" Saffron asked me.

Given the amount of pony activity from Twilight's hotel, I couldn't see having a few more around as being a significant thing. Ponies are on people's radars already, and thanks to the widespread improvements to medication, everyone looks positively upon them. "Yes and no. It would be nice to see you once in a while, but I don't think you need to spend months here while we reel-in this election."

"So you're the big guns, Mom?" Saffron asked.

I chuckled, pondered denying it, but it had certainly seemed that way. "On the plus side, if we win, it means I get to keep working for America." Another four to eight years of being ambassador? I kicked the idea around in my head and realized I was okay with that. I didn't have any other plans, after all, and what I was doing helped more than just the two nations.

I needed a backup plan, though. What would I do if/when I was no longer ambassador? Spend ten years learning a new trade? Join Equestrian politics? Public service? Celestia offered me citizenship, so there would be nothing blocking me from doing whatever I wanted.

My promise to Philip wouldn't stop me completely, after all. I could spend some time learning a new career while taking care of her, and be ready to face life anew.

"Mom? You look like you're a million miles away," Saffron said.

I looked at him for just long enough to realize I wanted to grab him and rough-up his mane—so did that. "Just thinking of what I want to do with my life."

Not really struggling, Saffron slumped against me much like Riley was. "So not freaking out about elections and marketing?"

"Of course not. I have almost a whole year to freak out about those."

Author's Note

Flurry: If you could have any stallion, alive or dead, fictional or non, who would it be?

"The right one, obviously. I am in no rush to settle down. Aunt Celestia and Aunt Luna both agree that I am most likely an immortal alicorn. Blah blah living forever and all that." Flurry rolled her eyes toward the end, showing how moved on from that she was. "The question I want to ask you is, why are you fixated on stallions?" The corners of her mouth turned up.

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Lab

Chapter 33 Philip Ree

I could just stare at Saf for a few moments. This wasn't his fault—probably wasn't even Clair's—but it's what was happening. "Did she say anything else?" It was probably too much to ask that she'd be coming back on weekends. Campaigning, I know, was a 24/7 job.

"She's having to delegate her work here to Mrs. Maxwell. She sounded weary, Dad. I don't think she wanted to do this one." He looked and sounded sincere. "I kinda liked visiting, but everything that's important to me is here now. I mean, everything that isn't Mom or Riley."

Before coming to Equestria, he wouldn't have admitted that if I'd paid him. "I'm with you there, Saf. So, what do you think we should do with ourselves? I've been working on learning more magic from Moon, she—" The look he shot me made me think I'd gone too far. "Too far?"

He just laughed and shook his head. "No, Dad. It's just you've always been there, you know? Well, here. Home. If someone had asked me five years ago if my dad would be learning magic, I'd have laughed at them. Ugh, I'm messing up this big motivational speech. Dad, I know you can do anything. You raised me and Riley, and we turned out pretty good."

"Thanks, Saf. You want to know my inspiration for it?"

"This better not be something sap—"

I bopped him in the shoulder with a hoof. "You, Saf. You've changed so much here, grown so much despite people seeing you as being younger, and it makes me proud and inspired. I'm a victim of my own successful parenting."

"Ugh. Dad!" Saf jumped up and walked to the kitchen. "I'm going to get a drink and go for a fly. Earth air is a little harder to fly in, for some reason, and I had to use magic to do some basic stuff."

"So, maybe treat it like high-altitude training? Working harder physically to do the same work as normal means you tend to build up all the right muscles for doing that task." In the back of my mind I weighed and measured everything I could hear him using to make a sandwich. The bread, the spread of mayo on each slice, the cheese, and even the fish he put on it. All perfectly within a young adult's dietary needs, particularly for a pegasus.

It was something I couldn't switch off. Planning meals and helping to maintain their health was literally my special talent.

"I guess so, but I could always just fly to high altitude and get the same effect here. More height is always safer, too."

That was something I still didn't get my head around. I could see why it would be, sure, but watching him fly higher and higher just made me feel more anxious. But, in the end, I had to trust that his instructors knew what they were doing. "That still doesn't feel right, but I trust you to know."

"See? That's what makes you the best dad." Saf walked back into the living room with his sandwich held in the feathers of one wing. "Even the parts of me you don't get, you accept."

I felt blessed that he understood that. All those years working to raise a teenager for the time he would eventually realize that life isn't a game but a struggle, and he had to become younger to figure it out. Or older. I still couldn't make heads or tails of how that was working.

Two weeks had passed since Clair sent word she was going to be on the campaign trail again. Two long weeks for me. I had been fooling myself—stallion sex drive is definitely a thing and it was definitely becoming a problem.

I'd tried long, cold showers, running around until I was exhausted, and even taking care of things myself (the last one teaching me another lesson in why you don't use magic on sensitive places), but nothing had worked. Cold showers still required time to blow-dry, running was putting extra muscle on my frame, and the last one had almost caused what I found out was called magic burns.

"Saf, can you spot me a day?" This was unbearable. Just the thought of visiting Earth was making me aroused. I'd have to wear some kind of cloak to keep myself presentable.

"Sure, Dad." He looked up at me with a bit of confusion on his face. "Is there a problem?"

"I need to go and talk to Clair. Just—" I closed my eyes and tried to think about anything else. "Sorry, it's something I should have sorted out with her a week ago."

Grabbing a cloak and leaving the house, I had to try not to gallop to the chancery. They had started seeing more traffic of late, now that Twilight Velvet had set up a place for ponies to stay comfortably in D.C., and given my position I was allowed a trip to Earth to talk to Clair.

"You know, now that the process of teleporting to and from Equestria and the transmogrification is understood, they're opening up tourism from Earth." Helen Maxwell was giving me the full VIP treatment, leading me to the teleportation platform herself. "If you could find out when Clair will be back, I'd appreciate it."

I bit my lip to keep from saying, You and me both. "I'll try to. When's the next transmit window?"

"F-Five minutes." Her tone was off. I casually looked at Helen and saw her nostrils twitching. Fuck.

This was getting to the point of embarrassment. At least on the other side human noses would be less able to pick that scent up. I waited, feeling uncomfortable not just because I smelled like a stallion in rut, but because Helen was female—dammit.

By the time I could use the pad, I was trying to stand as far away from Helen as possible. I took up my place on the far edge of the pad from the controls, and gave her a strained smile before she hit the button.

The rush of magic around me, now that I understood what it was doing, was amazing. For the first time since Clair had been away, I could feel myself distracted from my needs—and it ended all too soon. Appearing on the pad in D.C., I looked around at the people and ponies present. "I need to see my wife."

Arriving, I looked around to see if I recognized anyone. I spotted a young man with a clipboard. That meant he was either in charge of something or he had information. I advanced on him and asked, "Where's my wife, Clair Ree? I need to speak to her urgently."

"S-Sir, she's at a rally in Phoenix. If it's urgent, we can get you on the next plane there, but by the time you arrive she'll be halfway to L.A." He looked left and right for help. "I could arrange a video call?"

"Yes!" So close and so far, I wondered for a moment how much effort it would be to teleport to Arizona. Way—too—much. "Please, it'd mean a lot to me."

Everything was going by in a blur. They escorted me to a private room in the building that'd been erected for the portal, and soon I was being patched through on a little teleconferencing machine. Eventually, finally, and with great relief I saw Clair's face appear. "Clair!"

"Phil? You look as bad as I feel. What's wrong?" Her voice, despite obvious strain, sounded happy to see me. Or was that just my damn libido thinking for me?

"Promise you won't laugh?"

She looked concerned now. "Philip?"

"I—I need you. I need you so much I—" Squeezing my eyes closed, I tried to breathe evenly—and completely sucked at it. "Clair, they were right, and I never realized how amazing you were at taking care of me."

I unloaded. I told her all the thing I wanted and needed, I told her how amazing she was, how sexy she was, and finally whined at length about how much I needed her with me. By the time I was done I slumped against the desk and stared at her in longing.

"We talked about this, Philip. We might have just been joking at the time, but do you think you could—"

I could hear the strain in her voice trying to tell me what I should do. "No. No I won't do that. I—Doesn't Twilight Velvet have a hotel here in D.C.?"

"Yeah. She might have ponies there who—"

"No, not what I mean. Surely I'm not the only stallion who doesn't want to cheat on his wife? I'll go there, ask her what I can do. She—She of all ponies would know." I hated that I was here—so far away from Clair—and had to go and ask someone how ponies masturbate.

"But if you need to, if you can't find any other way, have Twilight Velvet find you somepony."

Clair's sigh was drowned in my gasp. "No, Clair, that's not what I want. How long until you're back in D.C.?"

"This tour goes north to Flagstaff, then to Holbrook, down to Tucson, and then we're flying back. It will be a week."

"What if I meet you in Holbrook—if I can't get help?" I clung to the idea that maybe I could take the edge off with something, then meet up with her.

"Saffron's holding down things at home, I take it?"

I waved a hoof in the air. "I asked him to, but I—I should go home." It all seemed wrong. What I'd done, where I was, this whole situation. "I'm an idiot."

"No you're not. You just had to deal with something intrinsic to your body for the first time ever. Philip, this would be easier if I wasn't surviving on five hours sleep a day, but this wasn't your fault." Her voice. I just wanted her more and more as she spoke, and it was starting to smell in here. "Go home, find Night Light, and ask him for help."

"For—For help? You mean I should—?"

"Ask him for tips on how to get relief when his wife is away."

Her words made more sense than what I was thinking. I shoved what I was thinking aside and focused on this new task. "S-So I'll just go back, I guess."

"Talk to Helen. We'll sort out when we'll be back in D.C. and you can come and visit me then, okay?"

Just the thought of that made me ache a little more. "Y-You realize I'll ravish you, right?"

"Philip, I wouldn't have you any other way."

My head fell forward against the screen at hearing that. The smell in the room was horrid, but I wanted to spend as much time talking to Clair as I could. "I love you."

"When this is over, I'm coming home and we'll get a sitter for a week and find a hotel somewhere." She let out a wistful sigh. "And I love you too."

We ended the call there before I actually made a mess and smell in the small room. Making my exit, I looked around the hallway before I spotted my escort from earlier. "I need to go back to Equestria." It sounded lame, but the guy actually smiled.

"I don't know how you do it. My wife works, sure, but she's home every night. I don't know if I could stand being away from her for weeks or months." He took a step to lead the way. "We've been expanding the magic capture system and have been able to increase the rate of teleports each day. Since you don't need transmogrification, that makes it much easier to squeeze you in on a return."

It was nice to hear words of support, but that didn't help my situation any. "Thanks."

My hoof shook from knocking a second time. I had no idea what to do if he didn't answer. I was stuck and now it was another half a day since talking to Clair and things weren't better—the exact opposite.

When he opened the door, I was halfway turned around to leave. "Philip? What've you done to—Come inside, please." I couldn't help but notice his nostrils twitch.

As soon as the door closed behind me I noticed the smell start to grow more concentrated again. "Sorry to come here, but I didn't know where else to go. Clair is out of town, and will be for a few months still, and I—I don't know what to do."

"And you don't want to try one of the bars." The way he said it, I knew it wasn't a question. He seemed to be working through is thoughts to come up with a solution. "My son was the same way. Can you believe he saved himself for Cadance? It shocked her, but I think they both fit so well it's impossible to say he did anything wrong."

"Night, I need help. I can't go to anypony for help with this, I need—I just need a way to get relief."

"Relax, I know exactly what you need. They're not cheap, but we got one for Shining when he came of age and it served him well enough." He walked past me toward the door. "You can come too, if you'd like, but I'd recommend you wait here. A stallion smelling as you do invites—the curious and excitable."

"W-Would it be better if you bring it to my house?"

Night paused, his magic grasping the door handle. "Philip, do you really want to go home like this? I'll set it up in the basement, you can try it out to take the edge off, and then clean up and take it home."

I almost slumped in place. Stinking like a rutting stallion and already a little rubbery down below, I was definitely not fit to see my kids right now. "Thank you, Night. I don't know what I'd do without—"

"Put the kettle on. There's a special tea in the back of the rack. It has a black label. Brew it up, but only sip it when you see me return with a large package." Night winked at me and left the house.

What was this special tea? Did I really want to trust him on that? Walking into the kitchen, I tried to ignore my own smell as I started looking for where the tea was located.

After three cupboards, I located possibly the largest and most varied stash of the stuff outside England. Just looking at and smelling the tea leaves made my cutie mark itch as I could visualize what each was good for. Most looked to simply be tasty teas, but some were specific—the black packaged one at the back made the hairs stand up from my withers to my croup.

Sex. It was an aphrodisiac. This tea would spice up a bedroom, and if my talent was worth a pinch of salt, it would do it a lot. Why he would encourage me to make a cup of it confused me. Was he trying to butter me up for something?

Why I tried to puzzle it out, I filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove to heat up. I was still trying to figure out why when he returned. I put the bag in a cup and it started to steep—just the smell of it made me want to cross my legs.

"Drink that tea, I'll get this set up in the basement so you have some privacy." One moment Night was standing in the living room with a box almost as large as him, the next both were gone in a puff of dark blue magic.

I turned back to the brewing cup on the bench and, rather than trust my horn, picked it up with a hoof. My special talent increased in potency this close to the wretched drink. Humans were nigh-impossible to affect like this—there just weren't many chemicals that would cause a human to get more excited, but this tea seemed custom made for stallions.

Trusting Night, I squeezed my eyes closed and gulped the cup of tea down in four big gulps. It started off as physical heat. I could feel the steeped water pour down my throat and into my belly. From there, however, the heat became something else. "This had better work."

A door leading downstairs opened in the kitchen. "Come down here and meet your new mare. She's nothing like Clair, but she'll inspire no hangups about cheating, either."

Walking down the stairs, I tried to ignore how hard I felt or how crazy it was making me feel—then I saw what he was talking about. It looked like nothing so much as a round, padded barrel propped up on a stand. I could see how it worked—it was impossible not to. It had a fleshy-looking hole in the end. If it wasn't for the tea I'd just drunk, I might have laughed.

As I advanced on it, Night winked at me and disappeared with a puff of blue magic. The door at the top of the stairs I'd just come down closed, and I was all alone with the thing.

Advancing on it, I leaned down to examine that hole. It smelled of cherries. Pressing my snout closer, I dared to lick it. Definitely cherry, but also slick. "Lube."

The heat of the tea that spread through me seemed to all flow and pool into my groin. Snorting and blowing out a grunt, my mind was made up and I lunged forward. Forward and up.

"Drink this."

My brain wasn't working so great. I was aware of being awake and having done—something—but apart from that all I could think of was drinking. I guzzled down the water from the cup, then a second when that was emptied.

"There you go. That tea must have worn off. How do you feel?"

It was Night Light. My brain could start piecing things together working backward from now. I was on top of and—and inside—what seemed like a stallion masturbatory device. I looked down at it and realized I wanted nothing to do with it now. "Like shit. I'm getting down."

"I'm getting a cleaning spell ready. You'll need a shower for your personal needs, but you don't leave these things like this."

Dropping down from the fake mare, I shivered as a chill ran through my wet undersides. Blue light wrapped around the thing, then it flared far brighter and I was in a different room—a bathroom, alone.

I owed Night Light. My body felt normal again, even if completely wiped out. I climbed into the shower and got cleaned up. The water alone wasn't enough to clean me off, so I employed some of the coat soap they had and made sure of it.

Climbing out, I wobbled a little on my hooves as I looked around for the drier—then remembered this was an all-unicorn household. Focusing, I cast a drying spell and felt it ripple over me with a million heated fingers. That's when something hit me. "I don't smell like sex anymore."

It felt good to be normal again. I left the bathroom and found myself in a hallway. There were stairs at one end, so I approached them and started taking them down. There was still light coming in from outside, but apart from that I had no idea what time it was. "Uh, Night?"

"There you are. How do you feel?" He stepped out of the kitchen, ushering an amazing smell into the living room.

My senses could tell me there was a rich tomato, potato, carrots, celery—It was soup and my special talent told me it would be perfect to put in my belly. But I couldn't just look after me. "I need to go home and check on the kids. They could—"

"No you don't. Flurry's there taking care of Riley. Saf and Sudden are out having dinner together. Come through and I'll get you a bowl of this." He was pushy, but in that way that you sometimes needed. If I didn't know any better, I'd wonder if he had the same special skill as me. But, no, this was all concern and care.

I let him lead me to the table and serve me a bowl of soup and another tall glass of water. I downed the water first and then started on the stew. It was delicious, but I couldn't honestly remember eating much of it. One moment I was scooping the first spoonful into my mouth, the next the bowl was empty.

"Another." Night used his magic to grab my bowl, ladle more into it, then set it back before me.

I ate a few mouthfuls and was able to appreciate the stew far better. "Thanks. For all of this. I didn't realize how much Clair was doing for me and then—then without her here it just swamped me."

"It'll do that. You shouldn't let it get that bad, though. If you need some of the tea, I can part with some, but you're going to need to get your own long-term. The mare in a box worked, I gather, where a visit to a bar wouldn't?" He sat down opposite me with his own bowl.

His talking gave me time to eat some of the soup and think a bit clearer. "I couldn't do that to Clair. Not without a long talk where neither of us intoxicated by our body-chemistry. When she's back, and we've both become acquainted again, I'll bring it up."

"You don't sound like you want that, let alone her. I get it, you're perfect for each other, but if she's going to spend time away like this, you're either going to have to learn to enjoy our wooden friend in the basement or seek professional help."

"A prostitute?"

"That word sounds odd to my ear," Night said. "The way you say it, it sounds like something negative. Professionals—in this field—are quite well-respected. Things aren't that way on Earth?"

Wow. Where to even begin? "That's a huge one. Easiest answer is no. They're derided for—" What? What was the underlying reason prostitution was considered shameful? "Our societies treat them very differently."

"Us."

My head must have jerked up, because Night smirked. "Oh," I said.

"I can hardly hold you responsible for your societal views on my previous profession."

"It's considered the lowest rung on the ladder. A last-ditch way of making enough money to survive. Add to that abuses and—It only gets uglier the further you look at it." Despite how ugly the idea seemed to me, I wanted to hear the other side. "Describe how it is here. I mean, if you don't mind."

"Not at all. It's—a calling. When I was a much younger stallion, I found myself enjoying bringing happiness so much that I slid into the profession gently. One day I was just another patron at a bar catering to relief, next thing I'm getting requests by other patrons and I'm on the payroll." He sipped some tea (not the special one) and smiled as if he was describing finding his special talent. And why not? It held none of the stigma as back on Earth. "I worked a few years there, making connections and more—then I encountered her."

"Your wife?"

"No, she came later. Princess Celestia, at the time, was using magic to hide her full stature and distinctiveness. She was too much for this stallion. I'd thought, up until that point, that my libido could take on any mare or stallion. What I'm trying to say here is, some mares are more than just your equal. The last time she spent an evening with me, she told me she was sending somepony important to visit.

"That's when my wife arrived, asking for me by name. If I didn't know better, I'd say Princess Celestia set us up. Maybe she did, but it was our own hearts that made the connection. For a while I'd keep working whenever she was out of town, but then she started buying all the places I worked at. It got awkward being the boss and an employee, so I just worked without pay."

It was a lot to process. I took a cup of tea from him (my talent telling me it would sooth me), and took a long sip. "That's quite a history. You still work?"

"When Twilight is away on business. I was planning to head out tonight, but I'm not feeling desperate and you needed some help. How's that tea?"

"Soothing. Thank you, again. This is more than I could have hoped for." I had some more of the soup and felt its warmth spread out inside me and restore me further. "How will I go about getting the—you called it a wooden mare?—home?"

"Well, definitely not with an animate-object spell. I think we can safely pack it back in its crate and you can carry it. Or I can, if you'd rather not."

I shook my head. "No. I've got my emotions under control enough to use my magic now."

Night just smiled and drank the last of his tea. "I've heard that you're quite handy with your magic now. Have you considered schooling?"

"I've been getting some teaching from Moon Dancer. She's—"

"… boasting about how well you're coming along. Which is why I want you to give me a demonstration—if you're keen to go further."

"What do you mean?" I took a moment to gulp down more of the soup, and Night seemed content to let me finish while he mulled over his words.

Finally, he seemed satisfied to speak. "I want to suggest you to Princess Celestia as a candidate for her school. Moon is already considering it, but with both of us voicing our support, you'd be a horseshoe-in."

"Go back to school?" I'd brought it up with Clair, and we'd thought about it to the point where she was supportive. If they won the election again, though, it would be another four years of her working as ambassador. "I've actually thought about it. I didn't realize Princess Celestia's school took adults."

"She'll accept anypony who shows talent and a desire to learn."

Three days and I was feeling tense again. I'd gotten some of the tea Night had given me, and returned the small supply he'd sent. Now I was staring at the little paper-wrapped satchel and trying to think about anything else.

Yup, definitely not thinking about drugging myself into a sexually-perverse state and then fucking a rubber hole for a few hours. And, right on cue, my memories flood in of how good it felt to lose myself in that pleasure.

Tearing the top off the satchel, I poured the contents into a tea infuser and added boiling water. My talent analyzed the scent of that tea and told me it was not a great thing to put in my body right now. My body loved the smell and I found myself standing over the steeping cup and inhaling deeply.

"Hey, uh, Dad?" Saf asked.

His voice was enough to snap me out of tea's spell. "You're heading out now, right?" I had a sudden horror thought that he might have canceled and would see his father drink this horrid stuff.

"Yeah. I talked to Night Light and he told me what's up. House is all yours until morning, and if you need help then, just ask." Damn him, he was such a good kid, but he hadn't had to deal with this yet, and I wouldn't put him through it if I could help it. Hell, if he was lucky, he'd be fully native by the time anything like this happens and he'll be able to just deal with it like a local.

"Thanks, Saf."

"No sweat, Dad." His retreating hoofsteps ended at the front door, which I heard open and close.

Well, this was it. I turned around and looked at the tea. The horrid tea. Removing the infuser I washed it before drinking the tea—my mental faculties focused on the task so I wouldn't think about what would come.

With that clean, and trying to work out if there was anything else to do, my eyes drifted back to the cup. I was putting it off. "Procrastination won't get me anywhere. I need to get this over with." Picking up the cup with my magic, I lifted it to my lips and gulped it down.

The taste was terrible, but it was definitely laced with the same chemicals that Night's had been. I rinsed the cup in the sink as I felt the heat of the tea start to spread out in my body.

Each breath caused my mind to fuzz over a little more. I turned for the stairs down to the basement and closed the door behind me. In the darker room, with a confined atmosphere, I spotted it.

It looked like a padded barrel with four legs. At the end of it was a padded, soft, tube. As the heat of the tea rushed to my belly, I lunged at it.

The worst part of the whole thing was I remembered it. The tea dulled every thinking part of my brain and let me just act, but though it stopped me thinking at the time, every thrust and wet sound was etched in my memory.

Climbing off the device, I tried in vain to ignore the smell of stallion and sex in the air. I set a spell in action to clean the room and made my way upstairs to the bathroom. As soon as I got fresh air from the house, it felt like the last vestiges of the tea left me. I could think clearly now, and got into a shower and started washing myself down.

I tried as hard as I could, but there was little shame to feel. This was just how pony stallions did masturbation. So I spent several hours rutting like an animal—this was as normal as it got.

Cleaned up (both the basement and myself), I sat in the kitchen and sipped normal tea. This helped, it was sure, but could I do better? "What if I just use it every day? Would that mean I don't need that damn tea?"

A yawn cut off my next thought from reaching my mouth, and so I decided to sleep on it.

It didn't really take a good night's sleep to realize I should try other ideas. I was eating breakfast when Flurry arrived. She knocked, as always, and I let her in. "You don't have to knock here. You're practically part of the family as it is."

On her back was Goldie, who let out an excited squeal when she saw me. Just like Riley and Saf, she stole my heart the first moment I'd seen her.

"If it's all the same with you, Philip, I think I'll keep knocking for now. Gramps told me you're having problems, and I don't want to make them worse by stumbling in at the wrong time." She set Goldie down on the couch with some toys.

Night telling her wasn't the worst of all this, it was her being so damned understanding. She accepted that I had a problem and there was only one way to solve it. "I've been working at making it easier to deal with."

"That's cool. You might want to talk to my dad about it. He's exclusive with Mom, and he's usually fine when she's gone for something." She unloaded Goldies' diaper bag. "I gotta go today, but I can be back any night after tomorrow's."

Safe topic, wooo! "Got a big date?"

"Small date that I'm trying to keep under the radar of court intrigue, but yes." She seemed to positively glow just talking about it. "She's—I'll bring her around tomorrow before our date."

It was an odd situation to be good friends with a mare our own age and her grandparents. The pony world was a little strange sometimes, but it was generally a good strange. She was nice and she got on with me and Clair and—No. It wasn't a conscious thought, but something my libido inflicted upon me. No, no, no. "I'll see you then. Thanks, Flurry."

"Bye, Philip!" She turned and made her way out of the house, and I can't believe I watched her rump the whole way.

Goldie's call of "pa pa pa" broke me from the daze I'd been in (thinking inappropriate things about Flurry) and dragged me back to the real world. "How's my girl?"

Saf was still staying with Sudden and Riley was spending the week at Princess Celestia's school. I was settling down to an afternoon of quiet contemplation while Goldie had a nap. I closed my eyes for just a moment and she was there. That soft pink butt beneath heavy armor plating, only when I followed her lines up to her shoulders, gray fur was visible instead. Clair.

Shifting my hips, I put the book down and when I blinked, Clair was back. She looked amazing in Flurry's armor. She lacked a horn and wings, but her solidity let her carry it off well. In my mind's eye I walked over to her and nibbled at one of her ears.

My own whine drew me back to reality. I was laying on the couch, rock hard, and felt like humping the damn thing—when it hit me. There's no reason I have to wait until I absolutely need to blow off steam.

Standing up, I started walking toward the basement, but first checked to make sure Goldie was sleeping. It was as good a time as any and I had not a single excuse anymore. Heading downstairs, I could smell a slight musky scent still—I needed to clean better.

Hard I might be, with dreams of my wife in armor swimming through my head, but I wasn't crazy. Lubing the hole up, I mounted it and let my fantasy run away with me.

The experience was far less draining. When I was done I used my cleanup spell three times and wondered about getting an air sanitizer. Maybe there was a spell for it.

The difference, satisfaction wise, was good. I hadn't been overwhelmed and was in control of myself most of the time. The best bit was I felt like I could do this long-term. Looking at the device Night had gotten me, I had to admit that it was effective.

Saffron Ree

"Dad's getting better. He—uh—seems to be using his basement more," I said. It was a tough topic, but it was Night Light asking, and I knew he'd been the one to help Dad get over his problem in the first place. "Is all this really that bad for everypony?"

"For stallions it is. Have you talked to your dad about it?" Night asked me.

We were sitting pretty comfortably in the house that Sudden arranged for me to give Dad some slack. There was a couch, some furnishings upstairs for Goldie, and a handful of kitchen things to make it livable.

"Dad was really open about sexuality back on Earth—before we came here—but I think this has thrown him for a loop." It was the absolute truth. I'd tried to ask Dad about it, but he just got this panicked look and had something else he needed to work on.

"I'd had Twilight—my wife—pick up some books from your world. It seems far simpler when both sexes have similar reproductive drives. I also greatly appreciate that masturbation thrives in your world, despite it being demonized by some." He sipped his tea and made a happy sound. "And I'd rather forget everything I know about sex workers on Earth. This tea is really quite nice."

"Flurry told me what brands to get for doing what things. I'd rather have coffee, but that's not good to have with a young body." It was weird to say because it was mostly repeating what Dad'd said. I agreed with him, after trying coffee a few times, but it was still strange to agree with my Dad so much when he wasn't around.

"Good advice. Have you thought about your future?"

"Y-You mean with Sudden? W-With us—?" I couldn't finish it, but Night nodded to me regardless. I closed my eyes for a bit to work out how to answer that. When the quiet in the room got too deep, I opened my mouth to make a joke but the right words came out. "Mom and Dad always said they fell in love and knew they were meant to be together. I'm not even an adu—"

"Yes you are. For over three quarters of your life you considered eighteen to be when you're an adult. Being here for a few extra doesn't change that."

"I know that, but I also know some of the gossip about Sudden. She doesn't seem to care about it, either."

"Gossip is part of my life, Saf. You wouldn't believe some of the rumors about me that have been around. Some were true, a lot weren't. Didn't matter—I never rose to any of them because the moment you do, everypony will pick up every other rumor about you and reexamine it in a new light."

"Hold on, why would they gossip about you?"

He held my look for several seconds without saying a word, then, "In my younger years, Saf, I worked making ponies very happy. That isn't gossip worthy in and of itself, but one particular client made it worth gossiping about. She never swore me to secrecy, but all the same I don't tell a lot of ponies that Princess Celestia was one of my regulars."

I wasn't a complete idiot. "Making ponies very happy" was an easily solved euphemism and was a surprise in itself, but hearing that Princess Celestia had been his customer—a regular—was a little more than I could deal with at a moment's notice. "I don't think that really matters to anypony except you and the princess."

Night's grin got wider and he sipped some tea. Before he started talking I realized where he was going to go with it. "That's right, Saf. That's why the rumors about you and Sudden are only the business of you and Sudden. The ponies looking down their noses at her need more excitement in their lives so try to correct that with the excitement of others' lives. I don't know if you are doing anything together yet, and it's none of my business unless you ask me."

"We cuddle and kiss a bunch. I'm starting to want to hold her and be close with her, but not much more than that still. I worry that it's not enough for her, though. This thing with Dad reminds me of that every time I see him." Words! Stop saying them. But I needed to say them. I needed help here.

He didn't look freaked out or anything. He looked like he was thinking on it! "Anything you do needs to be talked about with Sudden. She's an adult too. That said, Saf, have you considered talking to her about her visiting a professional in case she feels needy?"

"A professional." I knew what he meant. "It feels like—like I'd be failing her if she had to do that."

"It's not a failure, though. You just can't do that for her. But, if you do follow her into the Wonderbolts, you're likely to have times where you both can't come together. Have you considered that?"

I hadn't. "Maybe we should try this again with Sudden here?"

After filling Sudden in, with me trying to not blush, we got to the part about professional help. Sudden reached her nearest wing out and pulled me close. "Firstly, you get a smooch for thinking about all this at all. Most stallions wouldn't, but then I kinda figured you weren't most stallions already.

"The truth is, the Wonderbolts have kinda sorted this problem out already. You have seen how few stallions we have in the 'Bolts, right?"

I wasn't sure what she was getting at, but I could nod to that without it being a lie.

"Right now it's Soarin and Thunderlane. There are currently five unattached mares in the 'Bolts. The math, there, means that there's fine balance. But! I point out I don't count myself as an unattached mare." She squeezed me a bit tighter with her wing. "For obvious reasons."

Night looked surprised. "And they work together to keep the two stallions satisfied?"

"It's more the other way around. Five mares is a lot for a pair of stallions to keep happy, but they all manage."

"Are there any other couples with both in the Wonderbolts? You have me curious now," Night said.

"All the others are mares, and we're all attached to somepony. Before either of you ask"—she booped me on the nose with a hoof—"they're not my kind of fun."

"So we just wait and see?" I asked.

Sudden smirked and nodded. "Yeah. But let's make a plan in case something does happen. I don't want to leave you feeling trapped like your dad was."

"What? Like—?"

She looked at me as if it was obvious. "If we can't be together, and you're getting overwhelmed, go to one of the bars."

I looked at her and couldn't believe how this was working, but it seemed to make sense. "And if you need something, and I'm not around to provide it, don't be afraid of looking for it."

It would have shocked old-me. A cuck move, beta male, gayyyyyy—my friends in high school would have called me all that and more. And worse still I'd have believed them and agreed with them.

And, for that matter, she was giving me permission to—to find another mare if I really needed it. This was crazy, but I loved her more for this being something we could agree to.

So here I am, looking at things as an adult, and nodding my head as I realized we need to be flexible in this.

Reaching my wing out I got it around Sudden's shoulders and hugged her back. "Make sure to tell me if I'm doing something stupid."

"Saf, I think we're about as far from doing stupid things as we can be," she said, and then she kissed me.

With my littlest sister balanced on my back, I opened the front door and walked inside. Gone was any hint of the musk smell Dad had a problem with for a while, it now smelled like a neat, clean house again. "You home?" I called.

"In the kitchen, Saf! Have you had breakfast yet?" Dad's voice sounded relaxed and calm, which was good to hear.

"I haven't, but Goldy has. How are you doing, Dad?" I poked my head in the kitchen and spotted Dad with toast on a plate. "Ohh man, that smells good."

"Elderberry jelly. I have some in the toaster for you." Dad used his magic to float the butter and jelly back to the table while I climbed up on a chair and kept Goldie on my lap. "Saf, I owe you a bunch for helping these last months. I think I have a lid on all—all this now."

"Yeah, I know, Dad. I've been talking to Night. He's a smart pony." I reached out my wing and hooked a little bit of crust from Dad's toast and gave it to Goldie to suck on. "Me and Sudden sat down and talked about stuff with him, he helped us figure out how we could avoid—well, what happened with you."

He looked surprised at that. I figured we had some time, since I didn't have morning practice today, so gave him the time he needed.

The toaster was our savior. When the toast was cooked, Dad plucked it out with his magic and carried it over to the table. "Sorry I couldn't help you with this one, Saf. It's just too close right now."

"It's a tough one, yeah." I picked up the knife and started buttering my toast. "We figured out something to do that is right for us. When's Mom coming home?"

"Two more months. They're pretty sure they have the win locked-in, but you know how politics are back home." Using his magic, Dad picked up Goldie and lifted her over to his own lap. "How's my girl doing?"

"Da da da!" Goldie said, only it had way more spluttering thanks to the crust in her mouth.

"I can take care of her a bit long—"

Dad's smile was what stopped me talking the most. He shook his head and blew a raspberry on Goldie's head, earning him a pile of laughs from her. "I think, Saf, I have this worked out in a way that will let me function again. I'm sorry I had to lean on you so much."

I rolled my eyes at that, proving some of the human teen was still in me. "Dad, you don't have to apologize for it. I mean, I'm too young to understand how serious it gets on this side, but I remember what it was like as a guy on Earth. To have that, not be able to get any relief, and then crank it all up to eleven would be torture. So, I get it."

He looked at me for a few minutes before smiling and giving me a nod. "So you have your own home now, I hear?"

"It's only temporary. I was trying to give you some space…" There was more, and I could swear somepony was making chicken noises nearby as I tried to argue myself into saying it. Finally, though, I had to just go for it. "But I was thinking about getting a place in Cloudsdale. It'd be closer to the Wonderbolts."

He didn't say anything, and that left me fumbling. Had I said it wrong? How was I meant to tell my dad I wanted to move out?

"Saf, you've grown up in ways I wouldn't have imagined, and I can't help but feel amazed at the choices you've made in life. Do you need a hand—or horn—moving things?"

There's only one way I could respond to that. I got up and walked over to give my dad a hug. "It won't be anytime soon. I want to make sure Mom's home first, but I have been looking and Sudden was interested in sharing a place with me."

He pulled back from our hug and, from his mischievous expression, I knew he was up to something. "Have you thought about getting her a ring? Hold on, do ponies even do the whole engagement thing? Rings?"

Okay, so he was joking, but I kinda felt that I should do something like that. "Maybe something small. I'll talk to—to Flurry."

"Flurry? Why not ask—" Dad blinked in surprise and then shrugged. "I guess she's probably the best to ask, given her mother and, uh, all that."

Author's Note

Thorax, what’s your favorite thing about Earth?

"Definitely night time. There's something amazing about the city at night. I like to walk the halls of the hotel I'm staying at, listening to all the happy people agreeing with each other. They must really enjoy moving their furniture around." Thorax held a wistful, child-like expression of delight on his face for about five seconds. "Okay, so I know what sex is, and I know what they're doing. There's something different about human chemistry that makes sex more enjoyable—No, that's not right, it makes their self-love more tasty for me, though. Love might be Princess Cadance's domain, but I can't state how enjoyably spicy human physical love is."

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Lab

Chapter 34 Saffron Ree

Crouched low, I held a single feather to Goldie's lips in the silence of the living room. She was doing so great I couldn't believe it, but if Dad didn't—

The sound of the front door opening cut my train of thought short. Four hooves then eight walked into the room. Then Dad made a double tap with one of his forehooves. Three. Two. One. "Surprise!"

We all jumped out from where we'd been hiding, Goldie let out a her own squeal of excitement, but it was Riley who rushed forward to hug Mom first. I had to remind myself that though she seemed way smarter than anypony else, she was still just fifteen.

What was I going to do if Goldie was that smart too? Probably hide in Cloudsdale and do pegasus things. "Welcome home, Mom!" It was my turn to hug her. She looked like she'd lost weight and was almost as thin as a pegasus.

"It's so good to be home." Mom still had a foreleg around Riley, but now she hooked me with her left one and pulled me in for a hug. She might be as thin as a pegasus, but she still had more strength than any other creature alive when it came to hugs.

"I'm glad you're home. How did everything go?" I asked, spreading a wing around her.

"We won. The other guys had no leg to stand on to dispute it, but tried anyway. That's all Peter's problem now." She squeezed us both a little tighter for a moment before letting go—her gaze turning to Dad.

"Ma!" Goldie's shout from my back broke Mom's focus. I turned so the squirming unicorn tap-dancing on my spine could get to Mom.

"There's my girl!" Mom picked her up off my back and cuddled Goldie. "I've got some news for all of you, but especially this little angel." She had all our attention now. "I have tendered my resignation. There will be a three-month period while I train my replacement, but I need to spend more time with my family than I have been, and I can't do that in my role as ambassador. Besides, I made a promise."

"Clair, you don't need to—"

"Yes, Philip, I do. This is the best opportunity to do that. Peter is over the moon about his victory. He's in a great mood and is setting up his staff. Resigning gives him another position to fill, but it's just one among many. If I'd let him rely on me being here, and quit later, it would have reflected upon him as a blemish." Mom deflated a little in the explanation, rocking Goldie in her foreleg. "But doing it now I can leave as a diplomat who has served their purpose. Equestria and beyond are moving to a more stable state. The mission is established and I can leave it in new hooves."

"So what now?" Dad asked, walking up to Mom and kissing her cheek.

"Now I beg Saffron to take care of Golden for the night and take my husband out on a date."

With Mom looking at me, I made finger-guns using my wings.

"Are you sure you don't want a night to relax, love?" Dad asked.

"Philip Ree, I haven't been able to see you for months. I'd be a terrible earth pony if I couldn't pull enough stamina to show you how much you mean to me."

I reached out and plucked Goldie from Mom and held her in my wings, keeping her attention on me so Mom and Dad could work things out and go. And they did. Mom practically dragged him out, but once he reached the door Dad seemed to perk up and left under his own locomotion.

For ten seconds we had peace and calm again.

"Ma?" Goldie climbed up my shoulder, neck, and sat on my head to look around. "Ma?"

"Ma and Da are going to be back later." I rolled my eyes up as Goldie looked down into my face from above. "Which means we get to hang out more." The way she looked into my eyes told me she'd rather spend time with Mom. "Do you want to go for a fly?"

"I swear, Saf, she has more pegasus in her than unicorn," Sudden said. "Riley, want to go for a fly?"

Riley knew to hold on and not mess with our wings, but I didn't want to take risks with Goldie. I gave Sudden a kiss on the cheek as I walked past, and walked to the door where Goldie's little harness was. It was simple enough to put on. It hooked around each of my forelegs and secured to my back, then it had set of straps to hold her in place so she could ride my back safely.

Goldie enjoyed flying so much that getting her to put on the harness was both simple and impossible. She jumped into the right place and started making excited squeaks, but then wiggled too much for me to easily get the straps on.

"I got her." Sudden reached up to my back and, with a better angle, used her wings to fasten Goldie in. "There you go, Saf. Riley, you ready?"

"Always!"

Sudden led the way to our yard and launched herself skyward with no apparent effort. It was a trick everypony in the Wonderbolts was taught, though a fair number of civilians knew it too. One, two, plant hoof, pour magic into feathers, lift wings slowly, three, four, slight flap down—

It was like pulling back a slingshot aimed straight up. The magic being just in my feathers meant it caught the air like I had wings ten times larger flapping ten times harder. Canterlot dwindled away below me and I drew my magic back in while I heard excited squeals coming from my back.

Both my sisters enjoyed flying as much as I did. It was such a shame they weren't pegasi too, but at least that gave me one thing I could actually be better than them at. We started off with just a close glide, spiraling around one another—almost nose to tail. If Riley felt like it, she probably could have walked down Sudden's wing and then up mine.

"Hey, Goldie, what are we doing first?" I asked.

"Ro! Ro!!" She was practically bouncing in the harness, though the straps kept her attached and just forward of my wings. "Rooooool!"

A roll—the kind she liked—didn't take a lot of work to do. Turning out of the spiral we'd been gliding in, I pumped my wings and then started tipping my head up and back. When I reached vertical, I twisted around and rolled so that I finished the loop-back to be facing the way we'd come. "One barrel roll. What next?"

"Pin!" She shouted it a few more times, but her voice was quickly lost as—with a little flick of magic and my primary feathers—I entered a tight, repeated roll that ensured that the G-force kept her pinned to my spine. Her shouts of excitement had me grinning wider and, soon, laughing along with her.

"Ive!"

For this I just had to do the simplest thing of all—I tucked my wings in and pointed my snout down to the ground far below Canterlot. Ponies, even pegasi, are not all that aerodynamic, so I flicked out just the tips of my wings to keep us facing downward.

I didn't let us get anywhere near the dangerous point near the ground, but instead snapped my wings out and turned the dive into an arc that shot me (with a little tickle of magic to my wings) higher than we were before.

Her laughter was so infectious. I laughed along with Goldie and started going through a series of twists, loops, and rolls that all utterly failed to stop her joy. There was literally nothing I could do to stop her giggles, and that made me entirely happy.

We kept flying. Zooming around Canterlot, twirling around the smokestack of a train that pulled into the station, and finally did a lazy glide back home—landing about twenty minutes after we started. With ground under my hooves, I looked back over my shoulder and saw a tiny unicorn performing a huge yawn.

"Sleep?" I asked.

She didn't reply except to slump down against my back and neck.

Walking inside, I had a much easier job of getting the straps off her and setting her down in her cot to sleep. I don't think she so much as blinked in the journey from my back to the soft bedding. Running a feather up and over her head, I smiled and made my way back out to the living room.

I barely got the door closed than heard Riley was bouncing around the room. "Hey, careful, your sister is sleeping."

"Oops!" She contained her excitement to just the couch, where she kept bouncing. "That's so cool how you guys can fly like that. I wish I could fly."

"You could get a plane. Or a glider." I sat down on the couch next to Riley, and had Sudden sit down beside me. When she spread her wing out, I didn't hesitate than to lean into her hug. "A glider would probably be easier to build at least. Maybe you could talk to Mom and Dad about it?"

Sudden asked, "A glider? Like the human ones?"

"Well, yeah and no. There's a bunch of gliding aircraft humans have come up with. One you lay in and use your arms to steer, that could probably work fine. Then there's the plane-like thing with huge wings and stuff, but no motor." I hadn't actually studied them much, but I guess I could help Riley out by doing that. We probably had some info on them on the computer network here.

"I could make that my research topic!"

"Volume, kiddo."

"Moon said for me to find something that really interests me and to research it. Find out how to make it happen. Would building my own glider be like that?"

Sudden snorted. "Riley, that's exactly the kind of thing that I'm sure would count. I don't know Moon Dancer as well as you do, but you have so much energy and desire to fly that I think this would fit that description." She rubbed a little circle on my back that made me want to close my eyes.

"I'm going upstairs to make a start on this." Jumping off the couch, Riley left the room with a clatter of hooves I hoped wouldn't wake Goldie.

When the room was quiet for ten seconds, I let out a sigh.

"She's hard to keep up with, isn't she?" Sudden asked.

I turned and leaned against her, pushing her off balance and causing her to flop to her back on the couch. Getting comfortable laying on her belly and chest, I nodded. "She sure is. Part of me expects her to have a fully working glider by morning."

"Assuming your other sister doesn't just start flying around with magic first."

Pressing my snout into the soft fur of her neck, I let out a sigh. "Riley's already way smarter than me, and I have this feeling that Goldie is going to be too. My best bet, I think, is to be the cool big brother who does stupid things to entertain them."

But Sudden shook her head a few times. "I'd see that more as a big brother who does amazing things to inspire them." When I tilted my head up to look at her, Sudden laughed. "Saf, you have an earth pony wanting to build a machine so she can fly like a pegasus, and a unicorn filly who can't even talk yet already using aerobatic slang. Definitely inspiration."

I slumped back down and inhaled her scent. It relaxed me more than it excited me—I guess that's something else that will come later. "That makes it even harder to keep up with. I'm doomed!"

She reached her wings up and around me, hugging me to her belly. It was cozy and I relaxed completely, not wanting to have to move or think or be that inspirational big brother. Then I heard a little wheeze come from Sudden. Tilting my head to the side a little, I could see her eyes closed—she was asleep.

Well, why not? Letting my wings droop down to her sides, I too closed my eyes and was—

It didn't take a lot of effort to get one sent from Earth. When Mom heard about Riley wanting it, it became something that would happen.

It hadn't been easy, given how hard I'd started training, but I found a few days off to spend with her to put it together and go flying. Gliding down to Canterlot from Cloudsdale, I did a few lazy circles of home before alighting in the street out front.

Shaking my wings a little, I folded them at my side and stepped up to the door—only to have it open right in front of me with an excited Riley standing on the other side. "I have the rest of today and all of tomorrow off."

"So we can build it today?" Riley's eyes were huge, and I was sure that if I said anything other than yes I might actually get attacked for breaking a filly's heart. When I nodded, though, she bounced around in a circle on all fours.

"I mean, I could, but…"

She froze and stared at me. "But what?"

Raising one wingtip to my forehead, I turned to face the side dramatically. "But there's an excited filly in the way and I can't get inside."

Looking at me, Riley's little frown turned back into a huge grin. "Where? I'll have words with her!"

I walked in and reached out with my wing to ruffle her mane. "Is the bag in the back yard?"

"Mom wouldn't let me keep it in my bedroom."

"It's five times longer than you are," I said and walked through to the back yard with her. The hang glider was sitting on a little stand made of wood. "So, you have the bit you go in too?"

"The flight bag? Yup! Can we really put it together now?" Riley, of course, rushed to the long bag and started to unzip it.

"Not right now. We need to take it to the edge before we can put it all together." Walking over, I grabbed one end and looked back at Riley—who was bracing the other end on her back and tossing the flight bag on too. It was just another reminder that a filly about two-thirds my size could probably carry me and half the Wonderbolts on her back. "Let's go, then."

We weren't far from the edge, but I had a particular edge in mind. Right beside the Guardpony training fields was a small grassed ledge where anypony could go and just chill at the edge of the city. Today it was going to be Riley's takeoff field. "Here's perfect."

Riley had apparently not just read the instructions, but memorized them. She was folding out the metal arm, slipping the wheels on it, and then extending the frame out into the two wings before I could even figure out which end was which.

"Hey, hold up. Do you need me to do anything?" I asked.

Pausing only long enough to look up at me and shake her head, Riley turned back to the glider. "I read the descriptions every day for the last week." The only bit she had trouble with was getting the long strut things put into the wing. "Can you help me with this?"

The old me—the snarky human teen—would have come back with some kind of biting comment. That me was long gone. "Sure can. Here"—reaching up with my wings, I threaded the struts into the wing—"we go. Are there more of these?"

"Yup!" She passed me each one of the struts and I fitted them one at a time.

We were just done with those and a few more wires when I felt the presence of someone else. Turning my head, I looked back to see an earth pony in armor standing off to one side. She had a perplexed expression.

Then she noticed I was looking at her. "Sorry! I don't mean to interrupt. I was just curious what you're building."

Riley was busy adjusting something, so I figured I'd explain. "Well—Uh…"

"Broad Strokes," she said.

"My name's Saf and this little pegasus wanna-be is Riley. We're putting together her glider so she can fly on her own rather than me carrying her around."

Broad looked between me and Riley then back again. "Isn't she too young for this kind of thing?"

I snorted. "Hey, Riley, you want to have some fun before we fly?"

Trotting over from where she'd been working on the glider, Riley looked up at me. "What do you mean?"

"Why don't you stand there and let Broad here try to push you backward?"

Broad held up a forehoof to wave me off. "Hold up. That's not fair. She's just a little—"

"Sure!" Turning to face Broad, Riley held up her right forehoof. "Try pushing."

I felt the rush of magic almost like a wind around me. So much power was pouring through Riley that it was like a tornado and she was the middle—sucking it in.

"This is crazy." Broad pressed her big hoof to Riley's little one and started to obviously lean on it. Her bewildered expression quickly turned to shock, and even when I could feel more magic now flowing into her, Riley didn't move—nor did her foreleg so much as flex. "How are you doing that?"

"She's actually an ancient spirit of mystic power that has been stuck in the form of a little filly for ten-thousand years," I said.

Riley giggled and stuck her tongue out at me. "I'm just really good with earth pony magic."

"Really good nothing. There's only a few ponies in the Guard who could stop me like that." Walking over to the glider with Riley, Broad slowly walked around it. "So these bits are like the wings of a pegasus, but how do you make them flap?"

"She doesn't need to flap them. This is a glider, it works by managing your speed and any thermals you can find—or a helpful pegasus." I held out my hoof to Riley, who deftly clopped it back. "We got it from America."

"That portal world? How'd you get something like this from there? I'd heard that there were some ponies traveling back and forth, but—" Clamping her mouth closed, Broad looked like she was desperately trying to take back the words she'd just said.

"Relax. Our mom used to be the ambassador from America to Equestria. We used to be humans." Riley had the thing together now, and I watched her turn her attention to the flight bag, unrolling it and revealing there was a helmet with it. "I found a pony helmet. Check it out, Saf!"

Broad just sort of blinked at us, shrugged, and walked away. I wonder if they'd been briefed on humans or not. Either way, she was out of the picture and I should be paying more attention to Riley. I mean, I had to check out all her equipment. I'd promised Mom and Dad I wouldn't let her fly without going over everything and being with her. I cinched the chin-strap up a little more and nodded to Riley. "I think you're ready. So you know how to fly this thing?"

She gave me that sassy look she used whenever I questioned something she'd spent days or weeks studying. The difference was this time flying is my thing. "What do you think?"

"I think you need to get your fluffy butt into that and we'll see how good you are at flying. Most important rules: if something seems to be going wrong, aim your glider out into open air and hold it level—and if something seems to be going very wrong, get your butt out of that thing and I'll grab you." I booped her nose for good measure. "Got it?"

"Try to level out and fly away from the mountain, if that doesn't work out, get out of my favorite new toy in the whole of two worlds and let it crash. Got it." How did she manage to still use sarcasm but I just can't? Oh well, time to get this going.

When she was in the sleeping bag thing, and it was secured and she had a good grip on the control bar, I lifted a hoof to touch the tail of the glider. "You ready for this, Riley?"

"Yes! Goooo!"

Bracing, I started pushing and kept moving after the glider even as it left the edge of Canterlot—I just spread my wings. Keeping a little behind her, I watched as Riley worked at the control, tilting things and flexing the wing just a little at a time. "Left, Riley! Away from the mountain!"

"Okay!" She flexed the wing way too much and I watched it go into a dive—but at least it did so away from the mountain. "I got it!"

And she did. She pulled the nose up a little and turned the dive into a proper turn. Following her, I inverted and flew under her. "Get ready to go back up."

"Saf?"

"Are you ready?" It didn't take much work to keep myself in the air upside down, just a little trickle of magic to my wings and I had all the lift I could ever need to glide.

"Okay! Go!"

I flapped my wings and brought them up with magic pouring into them—tossing a huge amount of air under the glider and sending Riley shooting up into the sky like she'd hit a thermal. I lost some altitude, of course, but all I had to do was roll around and give a few quick flaps and I was back with her—no soaring above Canterlot city's height, but well away from the city itself.

"Saf! This is amazing! I'm really flying!" Riley dipped the nose of her glider forward, gained some speed, and then did a quick spin in the air. It cost her altitude, but that didn't matter—we had thousands of ponylengths of height to play with and I could always use my magic to push her back up again.

I kept up with her, mirrored her stunts with my own, and it almost felt like dancing in the sky. I don't know if what she was doing was meant to be possible with a glider, but in Equestria it definitely was. Equestria loved flying things—and Riley was now one of them.

"Hey, wanna see the house I gonna move into?!" I asked.

"Yeah!"

I didn't need to invert this time. I led Riley right into one of the major thermals coming off Canterlot city and we both shot into the sky as it caught both of us up.

Higher and higher, we soon got level with Cloudsdale and finally a little above it. Aiming us at the auxiliary filed at Wonderbolts' HQ—the one reserved for visitors—I led Riley into a landing that she bounced her way through, but didn't do any damage to her glider.

"Saffron Ree, and who is this you have with you in some kind of flying contraption?" I knew the voice of Commander Spitfire—as did anypony that had anything to do with the Wonderbolts.

I knew well enough to snap a salute with my wing. "This is my sister, Riley Ree. She just got her wings." I said it, of course, just as Riley slipped out of her bag thing and revealed she lacked wings.

Spitfire looked a little dumbfounded for a minute, then let out a laugh. "Figures that any sibling of yours would want to fly—wings or no. Where'd you get this thing?"

"It's called a hang-glider. They're—well, not common, but at least not hard to get—from Earth. This was one made specially for younger fliers." Reaching over to her, I ruffled Riley's mane up a good bit.

"And you landed here because it's the only part of Cloudsdale that has a large, non-cloud spot that you won't fall through. Good thinking." Spitfire reached her wing up and flexed the wing of the glider. "Most of these kinds of machines use rigid wings—this is way different."

"It lets me control how much air I'm holding and where. With my strength I can bend it as much as it'll go." Riley sounded so proud and excited. She was literally showing off her favorite new toy to an adult who was impressed with it. I'm pretty sure I'd be prancing around a bit too under the same circumstances.

"Well, I'm impressed with the design of it, now impress me with your flying, newbie." Gesturing off the end of the runway, Spitfire reached up and adjusted her sunglasses. "Well?"

Not waiting for an invite, Riley climbed back into her glider and looked back to me. "Can you give me a push?"

"I got this one, cadet." Spitfire walked up beside the glider and spread her wings. "Hold on, newbie, you're about to get airborne." She only gave a single flap, but every exposed feather on my body felt the rush of air get sucked toward Spitfire and shove under Riley's glider. "On my wing, Saf!"

I had to jump forward, bounce my four hooves on the ground, then spread my wings to take off just after Spitfire. Wings spread, my second bounce shot me into the sky beside and just behind her as we flew after Riley.

With all the practice I'd been getting with The Best Young Fliers, my formation flying was really on-point. I kept in Spitfire's pocket and used her own airflow to keep track of her.

Riley, unlike me and Spitfire, was breaking out all her moves. She twirled and twisted, doing stalls, spins, and rolls—now I realized how much she'd been watching me, she literally did all the moves from the last show The Best Young Fliers put on. Admittedly, she was doing it about ten times slower than we did, but the moves were pretty good.

"Has your sister been practicing long, Saf?" Spitfire asked, only she had to shout a bit because of the strong wind up here.

"This is her first time flying in this thing—second if you count the flying up here!"

Spitfire turned her head toward me and flipped her sunglasses up. "You taught her all this?"

Relying on my feel for Spitfire's airflow to keep me locked into formation, I watched Riley do an aileron roll. "Yes ma'am!"

I felt the power Spitfire sent to her wings a moment before it started taking effect. Juicing my own up to match, we both turned hard and shot up toward where Riley was riding a thermal and then inverted to fly under her—facing her.

"Nice moves, newbie. Why don't you bring it down to the airstrip again?" When Riley nodded, Spitfire rolled off to the side with me tight in formation. Screaming down through the air, we both hit the airstrip moments before Riley landed behind us. Turning, Spitfire waited for Riley to slip out of her sack thing. "That was some pretty trick flying up there, newbie, but I want you to promise me one thing."

Riley straightened, looking up at Spitfire. "Sure?"

"Don't you ever—ever—land on the Wonderbolts' airstrip without Saf, or unless there's an emergency, got it? Until you pass the airstrip rules and regs test, got it?" Spitfire turned to me. "Since she's flying now, it's your job to get her ready for that test and also make sure she knows what parts of Canterlot she can't fly over."

"Castle, castle ground, E.U.P. Guard fields, and within twenty ponylengths of the castle's edge of the city," Riley said.

Spitfire turned her head and looked at me from the corner of her eye, then turned back to Riley. "Just study up and pass that test. Anypony who can pick up flying that quick deserves some flight time around Cloudsdale."

Riley snapped to attention, something she'd seen me do plenty enough to mimic it.

"And, Saf, see that she learns all that. Bring her back when you know she's ready to pass." Spitfire saluted us both, which forced me to snap-to, then she released her salute. "Now get back to flying."

"Ma'am!" I turned back to Riley while Spitfire turned away. When I was sure Spitfire was far enough gone to not overhear us, I let out a relieved sigh. "That could have gone worse."

"Shouldn't we have landed here?" Riley asked.

"No, here is fine so long as you had me with you. She just likes to drill that in." I nodded toward her glider. "It's just something new you've given her to think about." Rolling my shoulders and letting my wings rotate in their joints, I felt like flying more. "Race you back home?"

She was climbing back into the glider just as I reached the edge of the strip and started opening my wings. It was the first time I'd left her to her own devices to take off, but just after I flapped my wings and got airborne, she was in the sky and after me—I didn't have to look to see that she'd caught my own displaced air to fly, I could feel her there.

I stooped into a dive, but Riley raced past me with the nose of her glider down. Laughing, I took off after her, having to bend a little magic around me to cut through the air better and barely catch up with her on the edge of the field. We both had to slam back in hard stalls to kill our speed, but Riley seemed to have that figured out pretty well.

She jumped out of her glider and was laughing like crazy. "I almost beat you!"

"You're going to need to practice a lot more to beat me, Riley." I helped her take the glider apart and put it back into the bag. We walked home with it on my shoulders and Riley bounced around me recounting everything again and again.

"What do you need to teach me? Is there a book? Do I get to read another book?" Yeah, that's my sister. Read anything you put in front of her and become a genius at anything she puts her mind to—even flying.

We got to the front door of the house before I interrupted Riley. "Riley?"

Her head shot up to look me intently in the eyes. "Saf?"

"Don't—just don't—tell Mom or Dad what I let you do. Just tell them we had a nice, relaxed flight for your first time. Okay?" I looked at her confused expression and sighed. "Mom and Dad aren't pegasi. They wouldn't get how much you enjoy flying or how safe it is to fly once you get way up in the sky."

"Huh? Why not?" She looked so dang innocent. Not for the first time I had to remind myself that smart as she was, she didn't always have that foresight to know when to stop talking and save herself from a bunch of problems.

"Because they'd freak out. I was meant to keep you safe and stop you doing crazy—that is, fun—things. They probably expected us to do slow circles and then come home again. Just don't tell them."

She groaned. "But Saf!"

"You trust me, right?"

After a moment of glaring at me, Riley nodded.

"So trust me. I'll take this stuff around the back, you head inside." I left her to enter the house while I carried the glider stuff around to the back of the house and set it down on its rack. Looking at it, remembering how Riley was able to fly in it, I was lost in an idea of opening a glider training school and selling earth ponies and unicorns gliders.

Then I heard Mom. "Saffron Ree!" It was my whole name, and worse, at high volume.

She'd definitely told Mom what we'd done. Marching in the back door, I froze in the middle of the living room at the sight of Mom and Riley both smiling. "Uh, what did you need?"

"I needed to thank you for helping Riley. This wasn't something your father or I could do for her, and it reinforced how reliable you are, Saf." Mom's words surprised me, but it was the last one that was a real shock. All my life she'd called me Saffron—I think this was the first time she'd shortened it.

Covering my surprise with a snort, I shook my head. "Mom, Riley and Goldie will always be a weakness for me. She wanted to fly, she got a glider—there was no way I could stop myself from helping her." I looked at Riley. "Please don't take advantage of this superpower."

Jumping down from the couch, Riley walked up to me and reared up to catch me in a big hug that I returned. "Saf, you are the coolest big brother ever."

Did that mean I was doing it right?

Author's Note

Bonus Question (I really liked the headcanon for this that I was working off, it just never came up as being something I could explore from any of the 4 PoVs in this story, so here it is):
How wealthy is Twilight Velvet? Are they something like high nobility, that just live simply?

Twilight Velvet's focus has always been business. She'd attended Celestia's school, honed her intelligence to a point, and took a small inheritance and invested it wisely in local businesses. Growing that investment portfolio, she had a knack for finding the right ponies to put in charge that would take a an otherwise functioning business and make it bloom into a gem.

Celestia took careful note of her when Twilight Velvet started buying up several local brothel-bars and making them not just successful, but far more inviting and friendly. Co-investing, using the kingdom's treasury, Celestia watched as Twilight Velvet doubled, tripled, and more the state's investment.

In short, Celestia found a mare whose business acumen wasn't just good for herself, it was good for Equestria. She also decided that said mare needed to have a family to spread her wealth and genes onto future generations. Listening to the winds of harmony, Celestia ensured that Twilight Velvet met up with a talented stallion named Night Light—whose love of the stars was matched with his love of any pony who walked in his bedroom door.

It wasn't a whirlwind romance. The two took things slow, and when Twilight Velvet made the decision that she'd like to have a foal, Night Light was more than happy to supply the love needed to ensure that. She was two years into raising Shining Armor when Night Light finally could take no more and proposed to Twilight Velvet. For several years he kept up his work, and even now sometimes finds his way into his old haunts—now the part-owner of them—and puts smiles on ponies' faces.

To Sudden Turn, what do the other Wonderbolts think of your relationship? (Not that it's any of their business, of course.)

"Surprise is annoyed. She was my main squeeze for a while, but I kinda dig the whole monogamous thing that humans seem into." She let out a sigh. "I got a few looks at first. One of the new recruits made the mistake of calling me a foal-chaser and—Of course I didn't say anything at the time, but I reported it up to Lieutenant Soarin. I don't know what the idiot said to him when he took them aside to talk about it, but they were out of the Wonderbolts after that.

"Most ponies who know what Saf is, get it. He is nothing like a foal except in body. He thinks like an adult and speaks like an adult—but we're still waiting, you know? We have hugs and all that, and I've seen him make a mess in his flight suit once or twice, but he takes care of his needs himself."

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Lab

Chapter 35 Clair Ree

The difference between Saf when we'd first come here and Golden now she was twenty-one was remarkable. Saf had been all but an adult when we'd left Earth, and had carried on acting like an adult for the past two decades. Golden still needed prodding some days to get out of bed.

Like today.

"Sweetie? Golden? You need to get up." I knocked on her door and, when she didn't call out, I opened it. "Golden?"

"Five more minutes." Her voice was so soft and sleepy I wasn't sure if she was even awake yet or if that had become an automatic reaction. When I reached over to the bed and pulled her covers off, she let out a whine. "Moooooooom!"

"Golden Ree, you made a promise to Princess Celestia that you wouldn't be late on your first day at her school, or did you forget?" I wasn't stern, but I could see the effect that mentioning Celestia had on her.

Climbing off the bed, Golden reached out for her hairbrush with her magic. "Alright, alright. What time is it?"

"Time enough you can have a shower to wake up." I left her to get ready, folding up the covers and setting them on my back as I walked downstairs and to the laundry. Putting the load of bedding on top of the machine, I headed back to the kitchen.

Breakfast was always important, or so Philip had drilled into me. I put on toast, got some of the apple butter that we got from the market fresh, and set out glasses and milk on the table. I didn't need to worry about lunches, they were provided by the school, so I hovered around the toaster to make sure breakfast flowed smoothly.

Riley came clattering down the stairs and pranced into the kitchen. "Morning!"

"Good morning, dear. Sleep well?" I kissed the top of her head as she walked past me to the table. The first batch of toast popped.

When I slipped two slices of toast onto her plate, Riley picked up a knife and started adding the apple butter. "As well as ever. How's Golden taking waking up earlier?"

I snorted. "She wanted to sleep-in. I was having none of it." The other two slices wound up on my own plate and, after adding two more slices to the toaster, I sat down to eat. "Took the covers off her bed and reminded her who was going to be seeing her today."

"Yeah, that'd wake me up too." She let out a sigh that told me she wanted to change the topic to something heavier. "Do you think I'm spending too much time at school?"

Looking into her eyes, I attempted to give her my driest, drollest look I could summon. When she pulled a face back at me, I couldn't help but laugh. "You can spend as long as you want studying. If you want to follow Moon Dancer's lead, go for it. You have so many years ahead of you, sweetie, that you shouldn't let doubt constrain you."

"Ten points for motivation, minus one for pulling faces, Mom." She crunched down on her toast and I saw the rush of a smile at tasting the apple butter. It was sweet and—Okay, it was sweet. Pony tastebuds were like magnets for sugar. I could have dumped a bag of brown sugar in a bowl and poured milk in and any pony would be able to drink it. Apple butter from Sweet Apple Acres, though, was another world of flavor for ponies.

Was I supposed to like my daughter as a friend? She'd been awkward at first, in all the opposite ways to how Saffron had been, but the older she got the more I found that she had this bright personality and sharp mind that belied her shorter stance and made her presence fill a room. "Well, at least I'm getting some points."

"That's the spirit. Still, I have this feeling like I want to study more, but everypony says that once I get my cutie mark, that will be where I'll want to focus."

"Ugh." I slumped back in my chair and waved a hoof at some non-existent pony on the ceiling. "You're preaching to the converted, Riley, remember?"

"Yeah, but you're the only other pony I can commiserate with. Saf has his mark—Dad too. Just us girls rocking the plain-Jane look." She drank some of her milk and let out a happy sigh.

"Well, we can try to fix that." I took a sip of milk myself to cool my throat. "I happen to have heard about a legend of three fillies who sought their cutie marks. They went through a lot of stuff to get them."

"Mom, you're not going to—"

"Well, we'd have to go find one of them to ask, but I don't think any of them would be upset if we borrowed their name." I took another bite of toast and savored the apple flavor.

"Professor Sweetie Belle is one of the teachers at my school. We could go and ask her."

"Sounds like a good idea," I said. We both finished breakfast just as Golden rushed into the kitchen.

Golden grabbed a glass and half-filled it with milk. She grabbed the packed lunch as she levitated the glass up to her mouth, and snatched two apples from the fruit basket. The moment the glass was empty it hit the table and she shouted, "Thanks, Mom. Bye!" and was out the front door before I realized what was going on.

"Cyclone Golden has left the building," Riley said, earning herself a snort from me.

We cleaned up, grabbed our saddlebags, and headed out into Canterlot for some exploration.

The colleges I remembered back on Earth were all labyrinthine halls and lecture theaters that had never seen a second of natural light since the roof was fitted. Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns was airy and brightly lit. The hallways had arches of glass to let plenty of sunlight in—And that's when it dawned on me why. Princess Celestia raises the sun. She has a huge sun cutie mark.

Riley had asked at the front desk if we could visit Sweetie Belle, and they told us to go to the teachers' lounge and wait for classes to finish. When Riley led the way into the room in question I found myself freezing. Princess Celestia herself was standing just in front of us, looking right at me.

There was a brief moment when my brain wound back to high school and I wondered if I had gotten all my homework in on time. She was always so imposing. "P-Princess Celestia," I said, giving the court-accepted bow to her.

"Mom, you don't do that here. Here she's just Professor Celestia," Riley said, elbowing my foreleg.

"It's alright, Riley." Celestia's rich voice, accompanied by a bright smile, even had me relaxing. "She's correct, Clair. I am not a ruler here, just another mare wishing to pass-on my skills. Is there something I can do for you today?"

Such a normal phrase for my daughters' teacher to say—if she weren't the leader and supreme authority of a nation. Okay, Clair, you've spoken to world leaders before, even the one before you, get a grip. "I was actually here to see Professor Sweetie Belle."

"Oh. Well, don't let me stop you. I would ask that you drop-in at the castle for a little chat. No rush, some time within a week would be perfectly fine. Excuse me, I must get back there myself now I've given the new students their welcome speech." Celestia winked and stepped to the side to get around us, I quickly moved to give her more room. "Thank you."

We walked in and found a lounge it sit on and wait. "I wonder why she asked for you to visit?" Riley asked.

"I can think of a few things. She did mention she'd have a job for me if I ever wished it. Ten to twenty years seems like a normal amount of time to wait before pushing for an answer—at least here." That gave me an idea, and to switch topics I asked, "Have you thought about teaching?"

"Mom, I'm not even fifty yet. Teaching, at my age—"

I wasn't prepared to let her get into that kind of moping. "Age will come to you. You have twenty years to plan. Perhaps you could come with me and ask the princess if she might need somepony to do some intern work at the school?"

"It can't be that easy. Besides, I'm an earth pony. They'd need unicorn teachers here." She looked at me with eyes that already registered their defeat. After a minute of silence, she let out a groan. "Okay."

We didn't have long to wait before a mare that looked just a little older than myself walked in. Her white coat and two-tone mane matched the description I had for Sweetie Belle, but Riley would know her better than me, so I let her lead.

"Professor Sweetie Belle? We just wanted to ask you a quick question."

Turning, Sweetie gave Riley a big smile—one she shared with me too. "If it isn't my favorite non-unicorn student, and her mother. What's the problem?" She sounded so sure of herself that just hearing her asking for us to unload our issue on her was inspiring.

Riley turned sideways, and I took that as my cue to follow suit. "It's a problem that you are renowned for being an expert in," Riley said.

She glanced past Riley to myself, which resulted in one of her eyebrows raising. "Have you been trying new things? Seeking out new experiences? Riley I can understand as a late bloomer, but Mrs. Ree, you should have your cutie mark by now."

"Raising two daughters, guiding my eldest into adulthood, and supporting my husband in studying medicine." As I unloaded, Sweetie's face softened. "When I learned that Sudden Turn, Bloom, and yourself had experience in this, I thought I'd come and find the easiest of you to contact."

"Isn't your son dating Sudden?"

"He is, but they have a house in Cloudsdale and are both involved with the Wonderbolts more and more." It was true, I barely saw him once a week now. "Can you suggest anything?"

"For Riley here, I believe that she just needs more time. For you, Clair, I think you would be best off getting out and doing things. Don't be discouraged if it doesn't happen right away—you've only been here for twenty years." Sitting on the couch beside me, Sweetie gestured before us with a sweep of her foreleg. "There's a whole world of special talents and cutie marks out there. When waiting around for one to drop in your lap doesn't work, you need to mount an expedition!"

I should have seen this coming. I knew it was true, but at the same time I was comfortable in the little rut I'd established.

"So, let's build a plan." Sweetie Belle used her horn to pull a whiteboard over and pick-up a marker. "I've heard this concept of a bucket list, let's start with that. What do you want to do that you don't think you'll get the opportunity to?"

Should I have wondered where she'd heard bucket list from? No, it wasn't the time to dwell on things I probably wouldn't get the answer to. "Flying. Not in planes or hot air balloons. I guess I'm where Riley and Golden got it from, but I want to try flying."

"You can borrow my hang-glider any time you want, Mom. I can even give you lessons on how to fly it."

I shook my head. "No. I've heard of spells to grant a pony wings temporarily. I'd like to try that."

"Well, that's easy enough. Do you have any more?" Just like that Sweetie wrote down "fly with magic" on the whiteboard.

"Mom, you have literally always wanted to go on a normal holiday. One where you don't have to do anything." Riley poked my ribs with a hoof.

It was true, and I nodded, but the problem with that sort of thing is, well… "But then I don't do anything to warrant a cutie mark."

"Nonsense. Just getting away from your normal, everyday life can lead to discovering your special talent. Besides, you can do other things while on a holiday." Sweetie went ahead and added "take a holiday" to the growing list. "Come on. Either you start adding things, or I will."

"Learn to skateboard!" Riley said. When I stared at her in confusion, she stuck her tongue out at me. Sweetie just added it to the board.

"Drive a train." It was silly. It was something ten-year-old me had wanted—I remember wishing for it while blowing out my cake candles at my birthday. "Run a marathon. Grow a bonsai tree. Learn to cook fancy meals."

The ideas came thick and fast. Once Riley had put skateboarding up, it was like the flood gates were open and every silly little thing I'd ever thought more than ten seconds about came pouring out. "Learn to make gourmet coffee. Take up dancing." More and more came tumbling out, and when I finally managed to stop I felt a warm sense of accomplishment along with a drained sensation.

"That's a great start!" Sweetie Belle said, summoning a scroll and a quill. "Let me get those down for you."

It was, without doubt, a bucket list. I read over the items and they all—even skateboarding—carried some measure of excitement. "W-What now?"

"Now you have to do them. These are amazing, you know. When I was a filly, and it was Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and myself, we tried—well, we didn't really have the patience for some of these—but we did a lot of them." She finished copying the list and floated the scroll to me. "Now it's your duty to see that all these get done."

"What if I do them all and I still don't have my cutie mark?" I asked.

Sweetie's eyes danced and she smirked. "Well, then I get the gang back together and we come up with a bigger list."

Her enthusiasm was contagious, though, and will a weird kind of excitement mixed with a deluge of new energy, I thanked her. "This has been so helpful. It's hard to figure out sometimes, when your life gets in a rut, that you need to turn on a tangent and run free."

I basked in the warmth her smile radiated, and I couldn't help but remember that Riley had told me she'd had her 100th birthday at the end of the last school year. I was still young in this world. "You have years and years yet. You don't have to rush through life as a pony."

That brought me up short. "You heard how short human lives are, then?"

"Mmhmm. It must be hard to find your purpose in the ten years or so from the start of your high school to the end of your college time. It's so short a term that it is almost impossible to contemplate. But, you don't have to worry about that here. You and your foals." Her smile was too much, overwhelming my attempts to analyze what she was saying, so I put it off for later.

"It is a bit overwhelming at times. I've been here for years now and I still sometimes think in terms of human lifetimes." Reality checks of this sort were becoming less and less common, though. Perhaps I was becoming more pony after all. "Okay. Well, are we going to do these in order?" I asked Riley.

"What, now?" She looked at me with wide eyes. "But I—" Shaking her head, Riley let out a laugh. "I have no reason to do anything else. Come on, let's go flying!"

"Wait." Sweetie Belle's voice held command enough that we both stopped from racing out the door. "You'll need this. They'll wear off in twenty-four hours."

Magic poured from her horn and slathered us both. It found root at the top of my shoulders and I could feel it harden and extend outwards as two huge butterfly wings erupted from my back. My eyes widened and I turned back to look at Sweetie Belle. "Thanks!" I was sounding twenty years younger—fifty the way humans count it.

"Thank you, Professor Sweetie Belle!" Riley said, giving a little bow before spinning on her hooves and racing out the door.

It was freeing in a way I'd never really felt before. Riley and myself had gotten through almost a quarter of The List, but now I had to pause things—Princess Celestia shouldn't be kept waiting.

"I'm heading to the castle. Would you like to come?" I asked Riley (Golden was at school).

"What are—Oh! The meeting with Princess Celestia? It'll be boring, won't it?" She looked skeptical for a moment, but before I could tell her it probably was going to be, she nodded. "Can't leave you getting bored on your own."

Somehow I'd raised an angel. "Grab what you need and we'll head off. Four days is probably enough time to show I acknowledged her giving me a week but not wanting to use it all." I tossed some saddlebags on my back, put a notepad and some pens in, as well as some bits, and made it to the door just as Riley had gotten her own gear—including The List.

The walk to the castle, as with every one of the last four days, had involved carefully rereading The List and discussing what to do next. "You already have those little trees started, and they totally love the idea of getting everything awesome about being trees done while being tiny."

"Riley, you know that took a lot of the trouble out of it, right? Most people can't just ask a cutting to become a small tree."

"Most humans can't. Actually, no humans can. Huh, and most ponies couldn't either. I guess you were right."

For being my clever little filly, sometimes Riley overthought simple things. "Most people not being you, I, or a fair number of other earth ponies." We reached the stairs leading up to the castle and started trotting up them together.

"Clair Ree and Riley Ree? You're expected. Please notify the guards in the entry hall." I hadn't actually spent the time to get to know the Royal Guards, but they were all fiercely loyal to the princesses and, in turn, seemed to have their full trust.

I smiled at the stallion and thanked him. We headed inside, gave our names, and were led along to a side room; away from the petitioners in the hall.

The room was exquisitely decorated. Furniture that was edged in gilt, ancient wood and upholstered in silks were the order of the day. I didn't dare sit on a seat or the nearby couch for fear I'd ruin items worth more than I made in a lifetime.

A different door opened a few minutes later and a mare bowed to us. "Princess Celestia, Empress Cadance, and Princess Flurry Heart will see you now." She turned, clearly expecting us to follow—given the names dropped I wasn't going to leave anypony waiting.

"I present the distinguished guests of the crown of Equestria, the former ambassador from the United States of America, Clair Ree, and her daughter and graduate of Princess Celestia's School for Promising Unicorns, Magess Riley Ree!" It was bizarre to hear titles on our names, let alone the announcement of our highest accolades and status within Equestria spoken aloud like that.

Looking up to where Celestia would normally be sitting, I instead found her halfway up the stairs, apparently deep in conversation with Cadance and Flurry at the same level as her. As we walked in, Celestia was the first to turn her attention to us—then the other two.

"Clair! Please, come in." Celestia started to walk down the dais toward the ground, bringing Cadance and Flurry with her. "And Riley too. How is your crusading going?"

I knew the reference. Sudden had told me about her days crusading with her friends—it had been why I'd gone to ask one. "Unsuccessful, but enjoyable. I never knew I could skateboard so well." I gave as good a smile as learning that knowledge had given me.

"It's all about balance, Mom, and that's something earth ponies excel at." Everypony looked at Riley with an air of indulgence. "What did you need Mom for?"

I would panic, but Celestia had basically brought this on herself. Or maybe that was her plan? Whatever, they would all have to deal with young mares who think of Celestia as just a pony and not Princess Celestia.

Cadance was the first to break her composure and laugh. "Auntie, she's got your number. You never invite somepony over just to have a tea and cake."

Snorting, Celestia tapped her chin with a forehoof. "Perhaps I should? I would get to eat more cake that way."

"Auntie Luna will have words about that," Cadance said. "I saw her writing up an exercise routine for you."

The look of terror on Celestia's face almost made up for the strange situation I'd been dropped in. I looked around for help, finally settling on Flurry as the most likely source. I begged her with my eyes for a way out.

"Auntie, Mom, perhaps we should focus a skosh more?" Flurry asked.

Celestia and Cadance paused, turned to look at me, and then both burst out laughing. "Sorry, Clair," Celestia said, "I tend to get carried away when I have family visit."

"Auntie!"

With a huge sigh, the most canny politician I'd ever met rolled her eyes. "Alright. Clair, as you can no doubt see, we have a problem here."

"A big and pink one," Cadance said. "Though, not as big and pink as myself."

All eyes turned to Flurry.

"While it's all well and good to have immortal alicorns on the thrones of each major nation, we have Twilight acting as Equestria's explorer and bringer of good will, but her travels are mostly to planes we haven't visited before. I need an ambassador willing to travel to existing planes and offer support and speak with authority—before you ask, I wasn't asking you to be that ambassador. I would very much, though, like you to continue training her." Celestia nodded toward Flurry. "And if you'd like to, she could use an assistant. You understand why it needs to be her that is in charge, of course?"

Because it needed to be a royal tied to the throne to have the most voice in any such group. Plus, while I was a citizen, I wasn't that closely tied to Equestria. Possibly also because I was only expected to live another hundred and eighty or so years, which might be considered too short for Celestia's tastes in somepony speaking long term.

"Of course. So you want me to train her in what would be required?" It was an interesting idea, and one I guess I was qualified to do. I had gone to another world, as another species, and I had cemented relations between two very different races of people.

Cadance cleared her throat as if to stop Celestia from butting in. "It would be appreciated if you would accompany Flurry on at least one diplomatic mission. Of course, there will be more training before then, and plenty of time for you to find your special talent and get your cutie mark."

I looked at Flurry and saw a pleading expression. "Alright," I said. Flurry's face went from pleading to encouraging grin. "I'd like a vacation after it, with pay. And, while I like the idea of making you tell my husband he has to do without me for some time, I think he would be in too much shock if you did that."

"What makes you think you can't take him with you?" Cadance asked.

Freezing mid-thought, I had to step back from the problem and realize that they were doing this because they knew I was the best for the job. I'd spent eight years tying two nations together with diplomacy and commerce. I honestly couldn't blame her for wanting a little from me.

"Right, well, we have a lot to go over. You have a good rounding of what my job entailed, though we never delved into why I did some of the things I did. We can start at the start." I looked from Flurry to Celestia and Cadance, both were smiling but it was the former that gestured to Flurry and myself with a wing.

"Please, don't let us keep you," Celestia said.

It was dismissal. I looked at Flurry, and almost did a double-take. She normally wore clothes over the top of her armor, but the dress she was wearing revealed that she had none of the normal plates or straps of her gear. "I guess we'll go and get started now. Perhaps we can grab something to eat?"

The first lesson was a little odder than I would have thought. There was two ponies present I didn't know as well as Flurry. When all three walked in, I looked between them with a little bit of nerves. Bodyguards? Perhaps they were aides who would be accompanying us?

"Sorry, Clair, but we have two infiltrators who'll be sitting in. This is my Uncle Blue, and this is Aunt Lyra. When Mom and Aunt Celestia were talking about what you were going to be teaching, they begged to attend." As always, I made a point to pay attention when Flurry referred to somepony with uncle or aunt as a title—it usually meant they were significant in and of themselves.

"Lyra Heartstrings," the mare said. "I've only ever been to one other reality, and that wasn't a diplomatic mission—but I'd really like to see what I could pick up from this."

Rolling his eyes at Flurry, "Uncle Blue" had to be just about the most perfect example of hunky stallion I'd ever seen. "And, typically, my niece wouldn't introduce me as Prince Blue Blood. Please, though, just call me Blue."

"R-Right. Do I even what to know what you two do?" I asked.

"Unannounced diplomat," Blue said.

"I run a clandestine information service for the military," Lyra said.

Turning, I looked at Flurry. "What have you gotten me into?"

"They're making it sound much worse than it is. Lyra works in the E.U.P. Guard in information management and to acquire dangerous artifacts. She's almost worked herself out of a job. Blue is a diplomat. He might not always be the one expected, but it's not like he can hide being a pony when he arrives." Flurry stuck her tongue out at Lyra and Blue. "But I think you get the gist of their positions. They're trusted by Aunt Celestia, just like you."

Exhaling, I closed my eyes to focus on the problems this presented. "So long as they're at least as knowledgeable on this topic as you are," I said, looking at Flurry, "it shouldn't be a problem."

It wasn't. I jumped into things; explaining about trading favors with political entities that weren't always of the same level. It was the stuff that had made me so effective in trading between Equestria and the United States.

If either Lyra or Blue were being left behind or found the topic boring, they didn't show it. Both took notes diligently and asked questions about the topic. The time explaining it was energizing me, each question they asked for clarification had me snapping-to and reexplaining until they understood the concept.

At the end of the training session, all three looked excited about the subject.

"This won't just be useful in dealings with foreign political entities, but also—I'm sure Blue would agree—with furthering Equestria's goals within." She smirked at Blue and raised an eyebrow. "I can think of a few courtiers who will be easier to deal with now."

"Absolutely. I might suggest a few ponies for a repeat of this course—if you wish to continue once done with us?" Blue looked at me like I was going to revolutionize his career.

Was I? This was mostly how to deal with people 101, but they were eating it up. "I'll consider it. This was only initially meant to be a quick crash-course for Flurry's first big mission."

"You made a very information-dense lecture flow well and presented the subject in a way that made it easy to absorb," Blue said. "When is the next day?"

"Make it tomorrow, same time and place. Princess Celestia mentioned there was a time limit on this." I looked at Flurry and got a nod from her. The others left, saying their goodbyes. I turned to look at Flurry. "This—I'm going to have words with Her Royal Highness about this."

Flurry giggled at that. "Can I watch? Would it be okay if I bring popcorn?"

"If you do, you have to bring enough for the whole class—and the teacher—to share." Toward the end I started getting some giggles too. "At the very least, she god two ponies who didn't cause any problems. I've only dealt with interns before, teaching them the basics of our party and administration—they were vastly different."

"Lyra is…" Gesturing with a hoof, Flurry gave up and just waved her limb away. "She's a force of nature. When she is set a task, or takes one up herself, it gets done. There is no if, but, or maybe. It doesn't care how many lives need shaking up or what impossible deed needs to be done—she will ensure the shaking and the deed happen.

"As for Blue, he's exactly the same, but infinitely more subtle than Lyra. Where Lyra is a force of nature, Blue is a fine instrument. He's usually sent in as assistance to our allies, but there have been cases in the past where neutral nations had needed help—but couldn't ask for it."

That he had joked about that and was actually a legitimate diplomat relaxed me. Lyra's description, coming from an alicorn, was almost terrifying. "Lyra's a big deal then?"

"Not everypony notices what she does, or notices that events can be led back to her, but I can promise she is a force for good. Aunt Celestia has even commented that she has a finer affinity for harmony than anypony she knows."

Harmony. I'd heard the term used as if it were the weather or destiny. Even Riley had talked about it after her time spent studying at Celestia's school. I was fully prepared to hear Golden using the term soon as well.

Did that mean an affinity for harmony meant Lyra could literally twist destiny to her favor? "What does that mean: affinity for harmony?"

"That's a whole talk on its own. How about saying it like this—when harmony needs ponies to act in a certain way or do certain things, it creates a path of causality that leads to things working out for the best. Normally it would create subtle adjustments to make this work without too much upheaval.

"Sometimes, however, harmony needs to work fast and do a lot. It could scream and shout at ponies to do what is needed, or it could find somepony like Lyra. Somepony who isn't just used to listening to harmony and understanding what it wants, but can also navigate a path toward that given the tools available."

That was both less terrifying and more terrifying than what I'd thought of. She didn't twist destiny to her own favor, she listened to destiny and worked plans that ensured it would come about as required. "Destiny terrifies me sometimes."

"Destiny?"

"Oh, sorry, harmony. How does it know what's best for everypony?"

"You're probably going to want to spend some time asking Lyra about that. Or, if you can get her in the mood, Aunt Celestia." Flurry shrugged her wings. "I would say this is all theoretical, and for most ponies having to worry about harmony is theoretical. But, for some ponies, that's their lot in life."

For the rest of the week I worked through the material I'd planned. Lyra and Blue kept coming back, but I never got a chance to ask her about harmony until the last day before the weekend.

I'd just explained the various forms of both public and private posturing and finished up. Lyra was about to leave but Flurry stopped her. "Uh, sorry to bother you, Lyra, but Clair wanted to ask about harmony."

Lyra turned and looked at me, one eyebrow raised. "You want the short version or the long version?"

"How many years is there between them?" I asked, and got a laugh. "Just the short for now. I might have more questions about it that will need the long version, but that can be later."

"Alright. Short version. Shortest version is that harmony is the collective best future for every single pony. It is everypony living their best life, finding their cutie marks and special talents, and being able to express those. There is so much weight to this collective pressure that it becomes a force unto itself. Even right now you are working toward the goal of harmony. You might think teaching three ponies how to get their way isn't a huge thing, but harmony is made up of tiny things.

"The other side of harmony is… Imagine every single pony that lives is in a band"—Lyra's horn glowed bright and a guitar appeared in her golden grip—"they're all playing as best they can, and while sometimes things can be difficult, they're all belting out a great tune. That tune is harmony. If there is one or two ponies who aren't connecting notes properly, well, they don't change harmony too much in the short term and they'll probably learn better as they go.

"The analogy works even when vast numbers of ponies fall out of tune. Maybe they break strings or their reeds need replacing, or any number of problems. They keep playing, because playing is life, but there is such a cacophony that harmony itself is degraded."

When she paused, I realized she was waiting for me to add my own words to show understanding. What did she want me to say? No, that's wrong. What did I personally get out of this? Well, that harmony wasn't a bogeyman. But what was the unasked question?

What was Lyra Heartstrings within this analogy? What was she to harmony itself?

"You're a tuner. You fix instruments," I said.

"Sharp. Really sharp. I fix instruments, but sometimes the distortion itself is too large. When that happens—" Lyra stopped and raised her eyebrow anew.

"When that happens," I said, "you teach ponies to tune their own instruments."

She was a healer of destiny, the real destiny—the good destiny. It made me feel infinitely better about helping her with all the manipulative tricks I could teach.

"The perfect world, the world I'd love to leave to the next generation, is one where everypony feels harmony and can tune their own instruments." Shrugging her shoulders like it was nothing, Lyra strummed the guitar. "Until then I can provide tuning guides, spare strings, and the occasional help selecting an instrument." She made her guitar vanish again and started walking to the door. "If you need any more help figuring this out, just ask."

If I needed help. Help like "selecting an instrument"? Harmony was ponies finding their special talents and cutie marks. She was offering to help me without even a guess as to what it might be. Or could she tell? What did being a tuner actually give her in all this?

Wait, her cutie mark was a musical instrument. If I could face-palm with a hoof without almost knocking myself out, I would have done it right then. "She's exceptionally good at that."

"That's why I said to ask her," Flurry said, her own magic zipping around to pick up all the bits and pieces of paperwork I'd used in the room.

Unicorn magic, let alone alicorn magic, was always a sight to behold. It would have been superbly easy for them to overuse it and make everypony else feel less because of it, but selflessly cleaning up a room with it goes a long way toward reducing that. They don't just use it for themselves—they use it for everypony around them. "Thanks, Flurry."

"Your butt's glowing."

Given the topics we'd been discussing, political and theoretical, the words didn't click. I looked at her for about five seconds before my brain registered a context shift and what the new topic was. I turned my head to look back.

On my formerly blank flank was an open book with glowing light rays around it. "W-What?"

"Looks to me like a book. Sunlight radiating. Suns are pretty popular, you know, but I have to wonder if it's not exactly sunlight. What have you been doing recently that would inspire a cutie mark?" Though Flurry was talking, it was hard to focus.

Everything just seemed easier to face. Harmony? Politics? My thoughts filtered topics so much easier and I found myself building a whole month of classes for Flurry, Lyra, and Blue. "Teaching," I said.

"Yeah, I figured. Books are knowledge, rays are radiating it. Fits you well." Flurry walked over and gave me a hug that only seemed to make me feel better and better. "I bet you're on a bit of a high right now?"

"A bit?" I laughed and almost broke into song. "A bit?! I feel like I could teach everything!"

I was, literally, bursting with ideas. Study plans bubbled up inside, teaching methods I'd never thought to use before ached to be put to use, and—and—and—and— Shaking my head, I laughed. "This is really what it feels like?" I asked. "What it feels like to have a cutie mark?"

"Cutie marks are pretty good, but what you're feeling is your talent. Talents are not always tied to cutie marks closely. Ponies typically discover their talent first, then get their cutie mark when they give it a good workout." Flurry set all my material in a neat pile for me to grab. "So, Clair, what now?"

"I'm going to go home, right now, and—" I shook my head. "No, Philip won't be home until later. Would you like to go out and get coffee?"

"I wouldn't say no. Anywhere in particular?"

Picking up the papers, I slipped them into my saddlebag. "Honestly? Anywhere would be great."

It was hard to focus on anything else. I know I was talking a lot, but Flurry seemed fine to listen and even egged me on. The coffee probably didn't help either, but I was feeling on top of the world—and couldn't stop saying it.

"You're more talkative than normal, Clair. Really feeling that new cutie mark?" Flurry asked, using her magic to slice a delicate cake in half with her fork.

"I have so—much—energy!" My own cake lasted nearly ten seconds. "There are so many ideas rushing around in my head. I have a whole human lifetime of experience with which to teach, and a pony lifetime to spend teaching it."

"Don't sell yourself short, Clair, you still have plenty of time to learn new things as a pony."

I wanted to scoff, but she was absolutely correct. I had no idea what the next hundred years would hold for me. One. Hundred. Years. That those words could fit so easily together was a sign I was maybe a little more pony now than human, but there are moments when I still think of myself in my mid-seventies and think that's old.

The chat with Flurry helped to burn off a little of my manic energy. The walk home had me prancing and bouncing along. I guess now I fully got what Philip and Saffron were talking about when they described their own cutie marks.

The most important question—the one right in the fore of my mind—was would anyone walking past want to know that I just got my cutie mark. It was such an ego trip that I struggled to pull back from the urge to shout out how happy I was.

I didn't, of course, but I did laugh and giggle every step of the way. I was almost to the front door when two pegasi landed—flanking me. I looked to see Saffron on one side and Sudden on the other. "Guess what?!" The urge overwhelmed all attempts at me to stop it and had, apparently, taken over my mouth, my emotions, and was doing a good job of making me not care one bit. "I got my cutie mark!"

Both of them flapped their wings in excitement, each backing off a bit to look at—well, they were looking at my hips.

"A book?" Saffron asked.

"Light coming from it. Teaching?" Sudden asked. When I nodded, she pumped a wing in glee. "Yes! You know, with all the crusading I did, I got to explore a lot of cutie marks and what they meant. I'm not as big a scholar about them as Twilight, but I think I'm a bit of an authority."

"We saw you dancing along all the way from the last street. Figured there had to be some good news." Now Saffron jumped back toward me and hugged me with both wings. "Has Riley gotten hers yet?"

A new urge took me. I found an irresistible need to tell them both how I got it, but I couldn't just give an abridged version—I had to tell them everything. "Well, it was actually one of your friends, Sudden, that helped Riley and myself in trying to get our cutie marks—Sweetie Belle."

Sudden's eyes widened and she bounced on both her forelegs at the same time. "You have to tell her. She will be so excited she got to help."

"So, we made this list of things for me and Riley to try to get our cutie marks. We've been doing them well, though I still think asking trees to remain small and be bonsai is cheating, but it turned out mine wasn't even on the list!"

"Just like with us—the crusaders I mean." Sudden was grinning so wide I thought her face would split in too. "We tried so many things to get our cutie marks, even helped a lot of ponies get theirs, but our own ended up being something far more amazing."

I looked at her flank, though she was wearing a flight uniform that hid it. I racked my brain but couldn't remember what it was. She noticed and reached back, unzipping her flight suit to show me the shield with a wing on it. The shield, specifically, reminded me of Bloom and Sweetie's cutie marks. "You got similar marks?"

"Yup! We all got them at the same time, too. Mine has a wing, Sweetie's has a star and note on it, and Bloom's has an apple. You can kinda figure out why." She zipped her suit back up, the zip trailing up her spine to end under her mane.

Though I was still excited to talk about my cutie mark, I had to wonder if Philip would want to see me in one of those outfits. "Well, yours and Blooms I can figure out, and from what I heard a star was usually a sign of magic, but why does Professor Sweetie have a note on hers?"

"Well, it's mostly just that she likes to sing. The star could be her magic or it could be something else. Maybe she'll become a superstar musician in fifty years?" Shrugging and now more capable of movement, Sudden and Saffron escorted me the last few steps to the front door of my house.

Opening the door, I expected to enter and tell whomever was within the good news. Instead of that, I was hit in the breast by Riley crash-tackling me with a hug.

"Mom! Guess what? I got my cutie mark!" Riley's voice got higher and louder with each word until she was practically shrieking.

It took me two seconds to figure out what she meant and pick her up in a huge hug too. "What'd you get, kiddo?"

She had to work to squirm out of my hug, but when she did she turned to the side and showed off her cutie mark—which was quite the surprise. "I had a lot of fun with the skateboarding we did, so I wanted to do some more. Turns out I was really good at it when—" She blushed.

I ruffled her mane. "… when your mom wasn't holding you back?"

"You were doing good when you were trying it out," Riley said. Her efforts to defend my skateboarding were adorable but absolutely in vain. "When I got back on the board and just started trying things I remember seeing back on Earth, it just clicked and I—Well, I got a skateboard for a cutie mark."

"And I got a teaching cutie mark," I told her.

Riley froze in place and I swear she took the same few seconds as I did to process what'd been said before she started bouncing in place. "What?! Show it! Show it! Show it!" She timed her shouts with each bounce.

Her excitement was contagious, though it wasn't like I wasn't already excited to show it off. Turning, I smiled even wider as I showed her. "I was teaching Flurry about diplomacy, and when we did the last training session of the week, I got it."

That's when it sank-in. Apart from Golden, who was born here, all of us in the family that came from Earth now have cutie marks. Our old lives as humans are forever locked away from us. It sobered me for a few moments—long enough to realize this was an important moment in our lives. "We need to go out and celebrate this." Turning to Sudden and Saffron, I asked, "Would you like to join us?"

"We weren't planning on spend—" Saffron said, but Sudden elbowed him. "What?"

"Saf, this is a moment right here. All four of you that came from Earth just got your cutie marks." Sudden turned from my son with a grin. "We'll be there, but I need to go and get the Guard to send a message to let the commander know where I am."

Looking around as Sudden flew off, Saffron let out a sigh as he stepped into the house past Riley and myself. "I guess she's right. This is a big deal."

"So, where are we going?" Riley asked, prancing her way to the couch to sit down beside her brother.

Author's Note

Considering that there are creatures in Earth's ancient cultures that live on in myths and legends that in description match the various creatures, both sapient and not, that live in Equestria. Has there been contact between our two worlds in the past or is it simply human imagination, ingenuity and creativity, along with a bit of coincidence that lead to creatures from our many different cultures ancient stories matching the creatures of your world?

"It's possible, but highly unlikely." Twilight fetched a book, a rack of slides, and a projector. Setting up the latter, she added the slides and started showing comparisons between early drawings of creatures on Earth and their Equestrian counterparts. "For one, the pictures of the time usually corresponded to actual creatures in your world, but the real key to unlocking this mystery is imagination. You see, the creative people in your world that came up with dragons and griffons and unicorns all had one thing in common—an active imagination. Here, in Equestria, magic literally runs on imagination. Flights of fancy are literally the building blocks of what is and what can be. Q.E.D. species in both worlds were the result of imagination—your world just didn't have the magic to actualize them."

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Epilogue

Clair Ree

Reporting-in to Princess Celestia on the state of Flurry's training, and conspicuously not wanting to mention anything about the other two. "Your Highness, I would like to report I have managed several of the tasks you set me. Princess Flurry Heart is as prepared for her first mission as I can make her."

"You used plural there, Clair. I assume you are counting your cutie mark as another of the tasks?" The princess, even with half her face hidden by her mane, had an expressive smile.

"Yes. I—I realize now what was missing and what I needed in my life. It seemed like something so silly couldn't have such an effect on my life, but now I can't help but think how every experience or bit of knowledge could be crafted into a teachable lesson. It would be terrifying if I didn't walk into this myself." That's when I realized all the Royal Guards in the room had nostalgic looks on their faces and even Celestia looked—well, she looked joyous. "Ma'am, I don't mean to pry, but how did you get your cutie mark?"

The room went silent, but if Celestia noticed, she didn't say anything about it. "It's a matter of history at this point. Books have been written about it, been copied, been copied again, and over and over. The original book—my journal—was written by a young mare who barely knew what the world was about.

"Things were different back then. The sun and moon—the real ones—had been shattered by something. All anypony knows of that is that it wasn't anything we did here." Celestia seemed to have settled into the story, her eyes not seeing me, the guardponies, or even the palace around us. "Star Swirl called together all the unicorns, all the pegasi, all the earth ponies—but especially Clover. Nopony understood the problem better, then or now.

"Clover and Clover alone came up with the plan to create a sun and moon, to direct them with magic, and to rescue the world from the growing darkness as she called it. There was a huge device that would control them, and that way it wouldn't require immense magic to be expended ever again. That was the hope.

"The machine exploded. Nopony was sure exactly what caused it, but we suspect that it was some kind of foul-play. A pony, we believe, rigged the machine to explode, stole an artifact, and then fled through the first portal. Clover headed after them.

"Bereft of the machine to control the moon and sun, Star Swirl and the unicorns organized a shift. Each quartet of unicorns, with Star Swirl to lead them, could move the sun and moon for no more than a week without burning out their magic, and it took a year and a day to recover.

"There wasn't enough unicorns. By the time fresh adults ran out, others volunteered to keep the sun and moon moving if only because it kept the world alive. They didn't perish from it, but there was a great depletion. The weakened unicorns would all return for another day, some managed a second, few a third, and I know of none that managed to assist for a fourth day with their magic intact afterward.

"Horns splintered, shattered, or just lost their spark. Still the unicorns worked to buy time for Clover to return and repair or build another machine.

"Luna, my sister, was in tears. Soon there would be no more unicorns in the world. The pegasi were terrified, knowing their clouds would freeze solid along with the rest of the air as the sun hides—or evaporate off and cook the nation with the sun present.

"But two earth ponies, young and strong, stood up and demanded to be allowed to try. One reached out, their will the only tool they had, to grasp the sun while the second did the same with the moon.

"I studied painting once, worked on it with all my spare time, just to be able to paint a portrait that captured Star Swirl's face when these two little earth pony fillies grew wings and horns and moved the great chariots across the sky."

My heart was beating like a drum to the cadence of her story. "The unicorns?"

"Having the first two alicorns earn their status at the same time created a wave of raw magic. It was the first time new magic had been created in history. As harmony radiated out from Luna and I, the unicorns found their horns repaired and their magic restored. Two little fillies from an earth pony village demanded the world not end—and it still hasn't."

Author's Note

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Chapter 1 Author's Note

A few little notes going into this. We have an AU tag up there (glaring down at us with its abbreviated first word) so you know some things are going to be odd, and let's face it, this is a Damaged fic, so those changes are going to be weird. The following are spoiled—feel free to ignore them and move on to experience the full effect of a slightly different Equestria (just admire the pretty pictures).

(1)

Firstly, ponies look different to how the show portrays them. It's the same world, with the same ponies in it, but for a good idea as to how they look I'd refer you to the pictures attached.
Next we have ages. Ponies age much slower in this universe, with foals being foals right up until around the age of 50, then adults live for 200 or more years after that. Celestia and Luna? think tens of thousands of years old.
Magic: as usual (for my stories), all the tribes of ponies have their own special magics they use, though unicorns and alicorns are the only ones to do so with flashy displays.

(2)

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Chapter 1 Saffron Ree

IronBlade - Today at 3:44
Yeah
Ugh whats all this crap about

My friends loved poking me about my mom. Since all this crap with inter-dimensional horse people started, Mom was not just always busy, but TV busy. Candy had pasted another fucking video of a press conference in the chat.

Candy - Today at 3:44
but look at her!! pricess twilight is adorbs

IronBlade - Today at 3:45
Its a horse

Gravy - Today at 3:45
thats ur mom

IronBlade - Today at 3:45
fuck you gravy

The video kept playing. Mom was saying some crap about peace and harmony—which seemed to make the horse excited—and then the president stepped up to have his say. I paused it and tabbed back into my game.

Why couldn't the aliens have been cool? If movies had taught me one thing, it was aliens were supposed to be cool. Multi-colored horses? Totally not cool.

Chat overlay showed Candy and Gravy chatting about it. Candy's argument seemed to be that the horses were literally the "most adorbs thing eva", while Gravy tried to act tough while not offending Candy—he wanted to get into her pants so hardcore it was obvious, but she'd friendzoned him.

I ignored their shit, of course, and dunked my brain into the most perfect recreation of world war two that EA could make me spend money on this year. I did great, as always, cutting my way through Nazi-occupied France with just a pistol and a knife—because it was an achievement.

Reaching a save point, I noticed chat had stopped. Tabbing back I started laughing. Gravy and Candy had been talking about the horses, when Candy had mentioned she wanted to go there.

Gravy - Today at 4:22
ud die

Candy - Today at 4:22
wat

Gravy - Today at 4:24
u saw the tests
bunch of mice
fuckin
boom!

Candy - Today at 4:25
your and idiot
twilight will work out a way

Gravy - Today at 4:25
yeah
right
if theyr so smart
why r the talkin to america?

Candy - Today at 4:33
fuck you Gravy

Gravy - Today at 4:34
i wish

Just then a direct message beeped from Candy. I clicked it.

Candy - Today at 5:01
your back?

IronBlade - Today at 5:02
yeah
sup?

Candy - Today at 5:02
gravy is such an ass
whats his problem anyway

I couldn't help laughing. Was she really so clueless?

IronBlade - Today at 5:03
Hes into you

Candy - Today at 5:03
the fuck he is?
hes an asshole!
always sleezing

IronBlade - Today at 5:03
yeah got it bad for you

Candy - Today at 5:06
if he stopped bein such a poser i might just blow him to get it over with
fuck
i dont mean fuck him
this is stupid

IronBlade - Today at 5:12
but then ud have to put up with him talkin when u do it

Candy - Today at 5:12
🤣
srs
why guys gotta be such dics?

IronBlade - Today at 5:13
guys?
or just gravy?

Candy - Today at 5:15
mostly gravy
y?

IronBlade - Today at 5:15
coz u r wat u eat 😉

Candy - Today at 5:16
lol
u want one?

A more loaded question my seventeen-year-old brain had never encountered. The smart side of me insisted that Candy was playing me for a joke, but the seventeen-year-old part—which let's face it, is the majority—would not let me turn down the offer.

IronBlade - Today at 5:16
sure

Candy - Today at 5:18
call me when u want it
bye

The horny side of my brain: 1
Rational and nice teenager: 0

I tabbed back to my game and let the target of AAA game makers everywhere take my full attention.

Clair Ree

I ignored what my boss was saying. Probably no one else on the planet was, but I'd already read his speech—I had a hand in writing it, though not the whole thing—and my boss never went far off script. The President of the United States gave his smooth speech, promising the whole world that relations with Princess Twilight Sparkle were going well.

Question time was predictable. Our side asked all the questions we wanted asked, and the other side tried to play down everything and change the topic to import tariffs. My boss was having none of that.

While President Jeff Miller answered stupid questions (both sides were asking stupid questions), I stood behind and to the side of him with a pony princess at my side. Eyes forward, I ran through all the reports in my head. I smiled and compiled what I could without the use of my computer while Twilight held up great at my side.

The moment the president called an end to the press conference I let out a little sigh and turned.

"This is a lot like Equestria," Princess Twilight Sparkle said. "But not. You said their cameras can broadcast instantly?"

"The wonders of modern technology. Every little mistake and flaw seen by anyone and everyone in the world." As I spoke, I watched Twilight's eye twitch. Her huge eye. Ponies were almost in an uncanny valley—you could say they were overlooking it with an intent to go abseiling. "But don't you worry, it's us that half the nation hates."

Twilight held her reply until we were behind closed doors and away from the press. "I still have trouble understanding how you get anything done. Our leader, Princess Celestia, has been governing for over thirty-thousand years. Four just seems…"

It'd been a shock to find a race so long-lived. Princess Twilight Sparkle was entering her eighty-first year of age, but according to her this was barely into adulthood. Princess Twilight stood with her shoulders at my waist height, and her head coming up just below my chest. The most amazing wavy mane that had light peeking over darkness as a motif, trailed from her in a breeze that no one felt.

Now for the odd bits. Twilight Sparkle was a unicorn and a pegasus rolled into one. She had huge wings that tucked neatly to her sides, a horn on her head that had to be at least a foot long. Her face was—pardon the pun—long, but unlike a horse's head it tapered down all the way nearly to a point. A lion's was the best description for her tail—long and sinewy like a cat, the plume of wavy hair at the tip was like a big tuft. Each of her hooves had a tuft of fur growing where an intern (who had a history with horses) claimed was called her fetlock.

The most important aspect of Princess Twilight Sparkle, however, was her mind. Absolutely brilliant, she wasn't suited for politics at all—I would have wanted no better pony to have come over. She was a thinker and a doer, not a talker.

"It's enough for someone to do important things, but not long enough for someone to break everything. It suits us." Her comment broke my train of thought. Where was I? Smoothing negotiations of a permanent diplomatic mission on both sides of a magical teleporter. A year ago and I would have been sent to a special clinic for thinking that. "How have the experiments come along?"

"I'm not letting your people send anymore mice until I have the conversion spell in place. Complete discombobulation is not easy to clean up," Princess Twilight Sparkle said.

Discombobulation. A term that coined before any humans tried to go to Equestria—thankfully. Princess Twilight Sparkle had described it herself as the violent rejection of atoms from their bonds due to a gross incompatibility with reality shifting. I got to watch a video from a camera we sent, as a plastic cage holding a mouse was painted with the atomic substance of said mouse. Everyone was staring at the screen that day, and no one owned up to saying the word afterwards.

"I saw the videos. How long until the—the spell is done?" Just asking about magic was a tough call. It was hard to get my head around magic being just as real as physics and chemistry. Various churches around the world declared Twilight either an abomination or divine messenger, but I didn't have the luxury of using her—I had to work with her.

"Starlight Glimmer and Moon Dancer are working on it. The moment they have the design perfected, I will duplicate the work to this side, and then you can send those diplomats," Twilight Sparkle said.

"Exactly what I wanted to talk about, Clair, Princess," President Jeff Miller said as he closed the gap to us. "Clair, you know I need someone who I can trust to head this."

That moment when you have something already done that the most important man in the world needs was something I got more and more of as I got to know all of his foibles and habits. "Off course I do, Jeff. I have a short-list of—"

"I need someone who knows all the interests intimately. They must be prepared to deal with an alien world and alien culture, and they need to be able to get on well with ponies." Jeff sounded like he was working up to something—I had a terrible feeling I was going to have to write the list from scratch with the person he wanted actually on it. "Clair, I want you as our ambassador."

My legs stopped moving. I stared ahead to the end of the corridor and couldn't grasp what Jeff had said until my own lips repeated it. "You want me as the ambassador to Equestria?" It was a promotion, but also somewhat of a stagnation of my career—not that I wanted to go any higher, presidential aide was important and high enough to satisfy me.

"That sounds like a great idea!" Princess Twilight Sparkle said.

I ignored the bouncing pile of fluff that was the most important foreign dignitary we'd ever had to America, and looked at my boss. "Me? Why me?"

"Clair, I wouldn't be in this office if it weren't for you. I trust you like I trust my own voice. If I tell you I want something discussed, it will get discussed exactly how I want it to. The whole world is watching me—us—and I intend to put the most capable and desirable candidate forward as my choice," President Jeff Miller said. "And I read all the briefings you wrote. None of the candidates you suggested are female."

It was obvious I hadn't made the list broad enough. I could still fix this. "Sir,"—Jeff knew I got serious about something when I didn't use his name—"I will refuse this, officially. I have a family—it's not just Philip and myself anymore."

"You have foals?!" Twilight looked surprised. "Oh. The age differential again. Sorry."

"I'm sure Princess Twilight Sparkle would be able to make a promise that your children receive proper schooling." When Jeff started fishing for solutions like that—without making them a question—I knew his mind was made up.

"Stop, sir." I took a deep breath. "Jeff, tell me you can't think of a single other human being for this job."

Jeff Miller paused and looked me right in the eyes. "Clair Ree, you are the best hope for this not getting a cultural spanner thrown in the works. We have an alien species and an agenda to get through the next ten years without wanting to blow one another up or sever all ties. You have my word—I have never met someone more qualified to ensure peace is the result of this."

I was still angry, and I know I don't think well when angry. I closed my eyes and counted down from a thousand, but when that only made me more angry (this time at numbers), I shortened it to ten. As my campaign manager had told me—when I'd made the idiotic decision to run for the senate—suck it up, Buttercup.

"You're angry?" Princess Twilight Sparkle asked.

I looked at the pony standing beside me and shook my head. "Not anymore. Now I'm just a few steps above annoyed." I turned my attention from Twilight to my boss. "I'm going home now, sir, and I'll be bringing my whole family to meet you.

"When we get here, you are going to make room to speak to them. I don't care what your schedule is—Caroline can change it—you are going to speak to my kids and my husband, and you can convince them I need to go."

I worked for Jeff Miller for exactly two reasons. He was honestly doing good things for not just America, but the world, and Jeff Miller was charismatic as all hell—not that he needed to be after the last incumbent.

"That's the reason why I want you in this position, Clair. How many people do you think could convince the president of the United States to explain to their children why they need to get a promotion?" Jeff Miller asked.

"I already voted for you, Jeff. You don't need to butter me up any more. So, Princess Twilight—" I said.

"Please. Just Twilight is fine." Just Twilight looked like she was heartily sick of the title.

Given that I'd been working with her for several weeks, and would likely be working with her for years to come, I decided to start my new role early. "Of course, sorry. Twilight,"—I paused and caught her smile—"do you have a rough estimate of how long before a human can safely go through the portal?"

Portal, of course, is the officially recognized name for it, but it was simply a complicated pattern drawn onto concrete with magic. It was under armed guard—of course—since it's technically a border. At least two interns wanted to call it a stargate, but the president had vetoed that—claiming it looked nothing like a stargate. (When word got out that Jeff was actually a fan of the show, his opinion poll jumped nearly three percent.)

"Once Starlight and Moon Dancer have the spell complete, we can run some tests with it. If those work—You get the idea. I'm expecting them to have it done any day now," Princess Twilight Sparkle said.

I left the White House and made my way home. Thanks to beating the end-of-work-rush, I made better time than I had been of late. It was just as well there was less traffic on the road, I was a touch distracted with the bombshell Jeff had dropped on me.

Somehow, I made it back home in one piece. I pulled into the garage and no sooner was I out of the car than I was caught. Strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me against a muscled body. I responded as any woman would—I kissed my husband.

The kiss dragged on, but was destined to end at some point. "Family meeting," I said at the end.

"How serious?" Philip asked. His hands stayed around me, our bodies pressed together at the hips—if this was any other day, I might have let him take things further.

"How do you feel about moving?" As soon as I asked, his eyes went wide. Our house wasn't just paid off, it was where we'd raised our kids and established our family. Yes it cost an arm and several legs, but it was more than just a dollar value. "That serious. Are the kids home?"

"Saffron's upstairs in his room, Riley's watching cartoons. I'll get Saffron," Philip said, and finally let me go.

I took the time to watch my husband's muscled butt until he entered the house—though I was sorely tempted to stride up behind him and give it a squeeze. With a little laugh I shook my head and followed him. So much for my doctor telling me my sex drive would go down. Healthy living and a husband who deserves a wife who keeps in shape had, at least as far as I could tell, held back menopause despite my broaching fifty.

Our daughter, Riley, was laying on the couch typing on her phone while the TV blasted some cartoon. "You're home early," she said.

Walking over, I held out my hand for the remote. "Family meeting time. Your father's gone to get Saffron."

With the ever-suffering sigh of almost-teens everywhere, my daughter passed me the remote control. "How big?"

"Defcon one." When I said it she sat up, though somehow her thumb kept tapping the phone, sending the last message—I hoped.

Sure enough, her phone dropped to her lap as she looked up at me. "Not—like—real defcon one?"

"As far as the family is concerned, it is. But, you all have a decision to make."

"A decision about what?" Saffron asked.

My son was a bit of a geek, though thanks to Phillip's pushing, Saffron hadn't succumbed to the normal trappings of the culture. I hadn't named him Saffron just to ensure he got bullied (though he claimed otherwise). The truth was his pregnancy had been a rough one, and a nurse had brought me the birth certificate to fill in before all the medication had worn off—Saffron had promised me he would get his name changed the moment he turned 18.

"Park your keister, mister," I said, and miracle of miracles, he did. "I got a promotion."

Philip and Riley both broke into big smiles the moment I'd said it, but Saffron just narrowed his eyes. I was distinctly proud of my boy in that moment. "I thought you said you wouldn't get a promotion from this position?" Saffron asked.

"I shouldn't have. But this is unique. Jeff asked me to be the ambassador to Equestria." Nothing else I could have said would have silenced the room so much. "It would mean moving—"

"To Equestria?!" Riley started bouncing in place. Of all my family, none had reacted so positively to the existence of ponies—Equestrian ponies that is.

"Yeah. Fuck that," Saffron said.

My glare didn't do a thing to penetrate Saffron's attitude—he glared back in full support of his expletive. It would have been easier to stare him down if I hadn't almost said the same to the president of the United States. "That was my first answer, though without so much swearing."

"Jeff talked you into it?" Phillip asked me, and got a nod.

"But there is one provision. We're going to meet with Jeff—just the four of us—and he's going to talk to you about why he thinks we should do it," I said.

"So you're getting him to tell us what's up, then you'll ignore us and move anyway. Why're you even bothering?" Saffron asked.

I crouched before the couch, my head at the same level as Saffron's. "So you can tell the president to shove it." I reached a finger up and booped my shocked son on the nose.

Saffron's mouth curved into a smile, which spread all the way to his eyes. I could see a glint that told me he was going to have a lot of fun before the day was out. "You're going to let me tell your boss to shove his idea in a fire-ant nest?"

My nod earned me a hug from Saffron. It was good to get a sign that my "little boy" still loved me, even if it took giving him the chance to swear at a world leader to do it. "So. Want to see where I work?"

With a groan, Saffron pulled back from me. He rolled his eyes so hard I thought he'd suddenly turned into a slot machine. "Sounds boring, but so long as I get to tell the president to shove off I can deal with it."

"Will we get to meet Princess Twilight?!" Riley asked. "Please?!"

"If we get moving quickly, she might still be there." There was nothing else I could have said that would have gotten Riley moving so fast. As she jumped up, I reached a hand out and got hold of her phone. "But no telling anyone about this. At all. Got that?"

"So," Saffron said, "if I texted someone about it, would that get us out of going?"

Philip rescued me from the devious mind of our seventeen-year-old. "It would get you grounded without internet."

I managed to keep the smirk I felt from my face—diplomat skills. "You know I don't normally bring work home, but can I ask you this once to keep this quiet?" When both children nodded, internal-me breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay. Last one in the car's a—"

"Can I play one more match?" Saffron asked.

A no was right on the tip of my tongue. The game he played took around half an hour to play single match, and that was time Jeff would be waiting for us. Jeff was waiting. "Sure. Only a quick one." The glint in Saffron's eyes told me he knew exactly how much BS I was selling.

"You're the best, Mom." Saffron jumped up and was heading back toward the stairs before he'd even finished speaking.

I passed the remote back to Riley and, when she looked up at me to take it, smiled. "Don't tell anyone. Got that?" I asked.

"Yes, Mom," Riley said, her hand taking the remote.

"No internet means no phone also." As soon as the words sunk into her head, I could see real terror. Never before had there been an age when a mother could strike such fear into their children. "Don't forget to get ready, you're going to meet a princess." There was nothing I could have said to spurn my twelve-year-old to action so quickly.

"I need clean socks! I can't meet a pony princess in dirty socks!" Riley said, and she too rushed from the room.

"You'll give her mood whiplash like that." Philip was ready with another hug as I turned around.

I sank into his arms—aware that for at least a few minutes we were alone. "She's young. She'll recover. You didn't say anything at the meeting." I kissed along Philip's jaw, and the closeness of him stirred my body as much as ever. Philip's Mediterranean heritage kept his hair from graying for longer, but there was still a hair here and there. His gray eyes twinkled with just as much vim as he'd had almost twenty years ago—when Saffron was still just a "plan for the future."

This wouldn't last, though. Everything I read told me that my Scottish lineage had no special resistance to the onset of age, but I didn't care now—right this minute I was twenty-something again, and I ground my hips against my husband's.

"Trying to distract me?" Philip asked. "Distractions work wonders."

I could feel that. Pressed to him as I was, I could definitely feel that. "Maybe."

"So what will happen? We get to live in the magical pony land and watch as you make history?" he asked.

"Something like that. There would be a conversion—you saw the leaked experiment video? Living creatures from here don't do well there." I turned my head to the side and leaned on his shoulder. "Twilight is trying to make something to do the conversion—at least she has some people working on it."

Philip's chest almost bounced with his laughter. "What? We get turned into ponies by magic?"

"I don't know. We could ask Twilight when we get there—the White House, not Equestria." Holding still, I let the stress of the day ease out slowly while I leaned on Philip.

"You've agreed?"

I nodded against his shoulder. "But with the proviso you all have to agree. Hence, why I told Jeff he has to convince you."

"But you think you need to be there?" Philip seemed stuck to the question and rephrasing it—he would have had a career as a reporter with that determination.

"We are dealing with an alien species that—any time they wish—can just cut off contact with us. The whole world is watching America handle this, and Jeff doesn't trust anyone but me. There's only one person better than me who could go, but he's currently the president," I said.

"I didn't just marry you for your looks, Clair Ree." Philip tilted his head and kissed the top of my head. "Jeff wouldn't be able to convince me to go, but you already have."

There was something immensely humbling about my husband that always reminded me how lucky I was to find him. "And, we know Riley's response." Philip didn't say anything. He just let me reason it out. "So that leaves our future in the hands of a seventeen-year-old who is neck-deep in a rebellion phase."

"The president of the United States, the ultimate authority of the country, has to convince Saffron that this is right? Can we bring popcorn?" Philip asked.

Chapter 8 Riley Ree

"Mom! Mom! There's a pony who's gonna teach us all about being earth ponies!" I used my high-gear. So far, I'd learned walking and something I was told was called galloping—low and high gear. Rounding another corner, I found a hallway that wasn't empty (like the last five). "Mom!"

I froze. Mom wasn't alone. Beside my mommy was the most amazing princess I'd seen. "Princess Luna!" High-gear engaged! I galloped toward her, and it was only when she grabbed me off my hooves with her magic that I slowed down.

"We were just talking about you, Riley Ree." It was hard to pay attention to what Princess Luna was saying with her mane being all swooshy. It was so amazing I could have stared at it for hours. I might have missed the rest of what she said because of it.

"Well, howdy y'all. Ah hear some ponies need some help learnin' to pony?" The words snapped my attention back to the orange mare who'd apparently followed me. Standing at her side was another mare who looked younger—she had yellow fur, a red mane and tail, and had a pink bow tying her mane back from her face. She was also wearing a pair of bulging saddlebags. "This here's Apple Bloom, and Ah'm Applejack."

"Hiya!" Apple Bloom said.

Mom turned to look at Princess Luna. "Our teachers?"

"Ah bet yer wonderin' what you need earth pony training for. Well, the proof of that is easy to demonstrate with yer little-un." Applejack looked right at me. "Would ya come over here a mite?"

Hesitation filled me. I looked to Mom and, with her nod, gulped. Approaching Applejack, I looked between her and Apple Bloom. Something about them seemed familiar. "A-Are you related?"

"She's my big sister." Apple Bloom's enthusiasm was catching.

"Eeyup. And we got a brother back home, too. McIntosh, though everypony calls him Big Mac on account of him bein' the biggest galoot ya ever seen. Enough about him, though. Apple Bloom?" Applejack asked.

Reaching back, Apple Bloom pulled a flowerpot from her bags. When she set it down in front of me, I could see a little green sprout in the middle of some dark soil. "There ya go."

I looked down at the plant. "Uh. Thanks." My words were uncertain because I had no idea what was going on.

"Tell ya what, sugarcube, reach out and touch the pot for a bit," Applejack said.

Setting my hoof against the cool stone. Something tingled. "It tickles." The longer I held my hoof there, the more of the tingling I got.

"She's just a little apple seedling, but she wants to grow up. Can you feel it?"

The moment Applejack said "grow" I did feel it. There was a need within the little plant that I could feel through the soil and pot. I nodded.

"Well, why don'tcha give 'er a little push. Don't use your hoof, though, focus on that tingle an' push with that."

It sounded silly, it had to be silly, but it seemed to feel right. Focusing my attention on that tingle, I pushed.

"R-Riley?!" Mom's voice surprised me.

I hadn't realized I'd closed my eyes, but when I opened them and turned, there was a mass of leaves between me and Mom. My attention was focused on the much noisier plant, now. It was still super into wanting to grow, but it was also excited. It wanted more.

"Hold on there. She's had enough for today—needs a bigger pot now." Applejack nudged my hoof away from the pot. "But Ah think it was enough of a demonstration that ya get the idea?"

"How did you do that? That's astounding!" Mom said. She walked over and examined the sapling, then paused. "And here I am getting surprised at magic again. You know, I reassured Twilight I wouldn't do this, but it really is amazing."

"Well, persuadin' a seedling into growin' ain't exactly the hardest thing. Fluttershy's got a friend who says she can talk to plants, and she says they ain't thinkin' about nothin' but growing 'till they are at least as tall as a pony. Ah'll have to admit, yer filly there has a bit more of a knack fer this than most ponies."

"Sorry, Applejack. It's just there's a difference between knowing magic can be done, and seeing my little girl doing it. It would be wonderful to have some lessons." Mom looked really excited, probably about as much as I felt.

"Well, ya'all should come out to our family farm, Sweet Apple Acres. We can try you out for all kinds of earth pony stuff there. Riley, do you want to see how many plants you can grow at once?" Apple Bloom asked.

She had my full attention. Excitement buzzed in my hooves and head as I nodded vigorously. "Yes please!"

Mom's hoof rubbed my hair a bit. It was an old gesture from when Mom was trying to teach me to say please and thank you—a reward for having done so. Only, when she rubbed her hoof over one of my ears, I couldn't help but lean into the rubbing as my world went a little crooked.

I missed some of what happened next mostly because it felt really nice to have my ears rubbed, but when Mom stopped, I shook my head and looked at her. "Why'd you stop?"

"Because we're going. Come on." Beckoning, Mom walked off after Applejack and Apple Bloom.

Their names seemed a little strange, considering they had the same first name. Maybe it was like family names? I vowed to find out. Then I remembered what they'd said about their brother. Makin—I totally couldn't remember his name, but it wasn't Apple.

Mom caught up with Applejack, and Apple Bloom dropped back to walk beside me.

"That was real impressive fer a first try. If you want, we can practice with some harder plants when we get home," Apple Bloom said.

"Harder?" I asked.

"Well, yeah. Apple seedlings—'specially those from our orchard—are just about the most excited little things ever. They grow as much as you just did in a few weeks. Now, getting something to grow years worth really takes it out of you."

Apple Bloom talked about various kinds of plants out the door of the castle, all the way across town, down a road, and into a farm called Sweet Apple Acres. My brain was almost ready to explode with knowledge about seeds and seedlings. Saffron got like this sometimes, usually when talking about his nerd stuff.

"Wait, what about your brother?" I asked.

"Big Mac?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Yeah. Your sister is named Apple Jack, your name is Apple Bloom—I thought he'd be named Apple Something too." By Apple Bloom's expression, I knew I'd said something funny. "What?"

"His full name is McIntosh Apple. We're all part of the Apple family, and we got kin all over Equestria who are named like apples too. Then there's the pear side of things, but when Mom and Dad got hitched, they drifted more to the Apple side of things on account of Grand Pear sayin' something really not nice."

I didn't really follow what she was talking about, but it seemed to make sense that they were all named for something to do with apples. "So why is your sister Apple Jack? Is a jack some kind of apple?"

Something I said was funny, apparently. Apple Bloom started laughing her head off.

A little overwhelmed, I trotted up to walk beside Mom. "I don't know what I said, but she started laughing a lot."

Mom turned to look from me to Apple Bloom. "What did you say, dear?"

"I asked her about Apple Jack's name. She said all their family's names were about apples, but I couldn't work out what a jack had to do with them," I said.

"Ah guess a filly wouldn't really know that word 'less she's workin' around here. Applejack is strong drink made from apple cider. Maybe in another thirty or so your ma'll let you have a drop." Applejack winked at me, but somehow I thought it was meant for Mom more.

"Thirty?" I asked.

"Years. Yer a mite young for the stuff yet."

"I'll say," Mom said. "Thirty years—When she gets back home, she'd be able to have alcohol in about nine years. If she's been good, of course."

Applejack wrinkled her nose at something, but didn't reply. A little further along she pointed at one of the big buildings. The farm had two really big, wooden buildings. One looked like a house, but built up more than out, and the other looked like a barn. Both were bright red. "C'mon inside. Big Mac was going to set you up a stand to kick against. Doin' it inside means less chance of hurting somepony."

I dropped back from Applejack and Mom to walk with Apple Bloom again—now that she'd stopped laughing so much she couldn't talk. The farm seemed just like what TV had led me to expect: cows, pigs, big wooden buildings, country folk, and all bright and exciting.

"Are we going in there too?" I asked Apple Bloom.

"Nah. We're gonna take turns. Besides, I think your mom's friends will want to split up too," Apple Bloom said.

Her words surprised me enough to turn around. Two of the soldiers—earth ponies like me and Mom—were walking along. They were bigger than me, like pretty much everyone here, and when I looked at them they just nodded and split up just like Apple Bloom had said.

"That way we can teach them, too." Apple Bloom led the way behind the big barn to a glass-covered building. It looked a little strange at first, but I recognized what it was. "This here's my glasshouse. I got a little more talent with growing plants than Applejack or Big Mac, so they let me take care of the little saplings. Please be careful, I have a lot of other plants in here too."

Apple Bloom turned to the soldier who was with us. "I don't mean to be rude, but what's your name?"

"David Roberto, Ma'am. Are you really going to show me how to grow stuff with my hoof?" I was surprised at how eager he sounded, and when I really looked at him, I could almost see excitement bubbling from him. I decided I liked Mr. Roberto.

"It alright if I call you David? I normally go by Bloom, myself," Apple Bloom said. When she got a nod from David, she smiled. "Great. Well, David, Riley, the most important thing to know when doing this is, it uses energy. Ya ain't—You're not going to get something for nothing. Ponies eat, make magic, and use magic.

"Since you already had a try, Riley, why not let David try now?"

I looked at David. He was bigger than me, but smaller than Apple Bloom. He had a really purple mane and tail that looked really pretty. His coat, when I could stop looking at his hair, was a soft gray color.

"So what do I do?" David asked.

Pushing a little flowerpot with a green sprout in it across to David, Apple Bloom gestured at it. "Touch it."

She went through the same description Applejack did with me. She made him feel out for the plant's feelings, and had him push into it. When the seedling shot up about a third as far as the one I'd done, Apple Bloom cheered. "Well done! That's really good for a first try."

"It wasn't as good as mine!" I said.

"A young foal tends to have bursts of magic and powers greater than a more developed colt or filly. In your case, you might have had a small surge. It has to do—Moon Dancer says—with the metabolism." Smiling at David, Bloom reached behind her—to her saddlebags again—and produce a pair of cupcakes. "Here you go. Eat this and tell me how it makes you feel."

I reached out and grabbed up my cupcake with a hoof, lifted it to my mouth and took a big bite. The taste was amazing: the cake part tasted like apples, and the icing was sweet and cinnamony. But when I swallowed, it got even better. A draining I didn't know I had seemed to stop, and a burst of energy filled me back out and made me want to run and bounce and jump and sing! "Wow!"

"What—the heck—did you put in that?" David asked. He seemed to stumble on some words that made me think he was going to swear, then didn't.

"Apple spongecake, some custard stuffing, and iced with sweet cinnamon icing. Everything a pony needs to replace energy spent—I dunno—makin' plants grow really fast." A tight, lop-sided smile graced Bloom's face. "There's a reason, or so Moon Dancer says, that most pony foods are really high in energy. We burn it up doin' the least little thing. But it's nothing another hit of sugar doesn't fix. Right?"

I was barely listening. I shoved the rest of the cupcake in my mouth and savored the flavor for long enough to chew it up and swallow it. Somehow, it was better than the first bit. "Mmm!"

"Yer having some trouble with that, David?" Bloom asked.

David nodded. "Can't work out how you hold things with your hooves."

"Ah. Nopony thought to teach you the trick of that. Okay, bonus lesson. Catch!" Bloom tossed another cupcake to David.

I watched his eyes widen, his foreleg instinctively reach out, and he caught the cake on his hoof just like I'd seen everyone—everypony—do. Then it hit me. It was what I'd done a few seconds ago when I ate the cupcake!

"The secret is there is no secret. Don't think about it. Everypony has a little bit of their magic work like this. Nopony knows how to teach it, but foals pick it up a mite too quickly. I figure all it takes is a surprise situation and something you don't want to drop." Bloom turned her attention back to me. "Now, Riley, let's try you on a row of seedlings."

Bloom led me to the row where I could barely see little green shoots. She gestured to the whole row with a wave of a hoof. "Give 'em a try."

Lifting my hoof to the soil, I tried to do what Applejack told me last time. I felt for the seedlings, felt a tingle of their hunger, and then I pushed!

Nothing happened.

I pushed again.

More nothing.

One last time, and this one I really shoved!

A little green seedling trembled a moment, then it popped out one leaf. "Oh, come on!"

"Hey. Calm down." David walked over to stand beside me. "Here. Let's give it a try together."

I looked up from where his hoof rested in the soil beside mine, and tried to detect any hint of humoring or him looking down on me. He wasn't so big that he could look down on me! But he wasn't. David was bigger than Saffron, but he gave me the same kind of vibe as my big booger of a brother. "O-Okay."

He stood beside me, close enough that our shoulders were together, and then I felt him do magic. It took me a few seconds to realize I was supposed to be doing it too, and when I pushed the magic started coming from me too!

All the little seedlings squirmed and writhed, then shot out leaves and jumped upward. I couldn't help but giggle—I could feel them growing! They were excited and super-happy to grow so fast and so big I giggled more.

"Holy sh—gosh!" David looked at me quickly. I knew he was going to say a swear word, but it wasn't like I hadn't heard that one before. "That's really somethin' ma'am. And I can feel them growing still. How big can one pony grow things here?"

"When we was gonna be short a few trees one year, after a big meanie set fire to half the town, Big Mac grew nearly twenty trees from just seeds to flowering." Bloom looked really proud. "He's so clever."

"It actually feels kinda good to do it, too. What about you?" David asked and looked down at me.

I thought about it, and how happy it made the plants, and nodded. "It's good to help people. I didn't know plants were people before, but I guess they count if they can feel so happy like that."

"Careful with that kinda talk. Next thing Ah know you'll be talkin' with Tree Hugger, and staging a Veganism is Murder rally. Mind you, she was the only pony that protested that," Bloom said.

"Wait." David narrowed his eyes at Bloom. "Veganism is murder? What did she want you to eat instead?"

Grinning, Bloom produced two more cupcakes. "Unfertilized chicken eggs, milk, fish, and basically anythin' else that comes from a critter. Got really vocal about it, too."

"What happened?" I asked.

"Well, turns out she was getting a little malnourished. Surprise-surprise, ponies need their greens. Anyway, she was doing real fine until she ate a bad egg. Applejack said she was practically rocket-powered all the way to the hospital." Grinning wider and wider, Bloom was laughing by the end of her story, and so was David and I.

"Hey Bloom! Applejack said—!" A monster had opened the door at the end of the glasshouse. It was huge, red, and sounded like a boy! "Ah, yer in here. Time to swap."

Turning to the monster, Bloom unleashed a smile to end all smiles. I doubted she could have looked happier. "Thanks, Big Mac!"

The giant red pony started to turn, but kicked off and ran after him. He was huge, but when I reached him and ran under his legs he stopped walking. "E-Excuse me?" I asked.

"Eeyup?"

"Is your name McIntosh?"

"Eeyup!"

I liked how relaxed he seemed, even if he was huuuuge. "And they're a kind of apple?"

"Eeyup!"

"Do you have any here?" I asked.

I didn't get another "Eeyup" before a giant hoof plucked me off the ground. McIntosh put me on his back. "Eeyup," he said finally.

I squealed in surprise and then excitement. When he started to walk, I had to grab on for all I was worth. I didn't realize until he was about ten feet away from the glasshouse that my hooves were actually grabbing on. It just worked just like Bloom said! I let out a whoop of excitement, and now that I was stable I started looking around.

In the distance I could see Mom and the other soldier pony kicking at a tree, and some apples fell out of it. "Are those McIntosh apples?"

"Nnope." McIntosh didn't approach Mom or the others, instead wandering to a different part of the orchard. These trees looked different to the ones Mom had been in, much more bushy and wide. McIntosh walked right up to one of the trees and lifted his hoof up to the trunk.

I wasn't quite sure what he was doing, but I could feel a tingle inside like when I'd made the sprouts grow. It seemed important to keep quiet, but when he lifted his hoof back and then tapped the tree, I gasped. My little burst of magic had felt like a hose running. David's had been like a fire-hose. What McIntosh did was like a—well, it was like a tidal wave! But only in one little bump.

Quick as a shot I grabbed at something that fell before my eyes. The apple in my hoof was almost as big as my leg, and I looked down to see McIntosh had one of the huge apples too. Red and green, it looked amazing.

When McIntosh bit into his, I bit into mine. Juice went everywhere. I groaned a little at how sweet and good it was. If apples back home were like this, no one would let kids eat them—it was like candy!

I didn't care that there was still juice dribbling down my chin, that it was making a mess of my fur, these apples were amazing.

"Ah think Ah'd say yer little 'un has found a friend. How's the apples today, Big Mac? Good?" Applejack asked.

I turned my head to see Applejack, Mom, Bloom, and both soldiers approaching. David and the other man were talking between themselves, quietly, but I could tell they were both excited about something.

"Eeyup!"

"We made a whole bunch of plants grow!" I said. "Mom! What did you do?"

"Well, we got to talk with some trees, and we asked them what they wanted." Mom looked both smug and excited.

Remembering the seedlings, I wondered what adult trees wanted. "What did they want?"

Mom walked up to me and reached up to lift me down. "You'll have to ask them, dear."

At first, I didn't want to, but it wasn't hard to realize that McIntosh had work to do—besides, I wanted to ask the trees! Reaching for Mom's hoof, I grabbed it with both my front hooves and swung away from McIntosh.

"You've learned some tricks. How're you holding on like that?" Mom asked.

"Magic. Bloom taught me." I swung back and forth, then realized I'd left my apple on McIntosh's back. Holding with just one hoof, I reached up and across and grabbed my prize.

Mom lowered me to the ground and turned to Bloom. "How do I do that?"

"It's just a knack. Ah can show you while we work on some seedlings," Bloom said.

Mom, the other soldier, and Bloom walked off together, which left me, David, and Applejack. Oh! And McIntosh.

I turned to look for the nice mountain-pony (I decided he was a mountain-pony because he was as big as one), but he was walking away… like ninja-quiet! "Thanks McIntosh!"

McIntosh stopped and looked back. He had a lop-sided smile that made me smile wider. He just nodded to me, turned, and kept walking. I guess he doesn't talk so much, which is kinda okay since he doesn't need to say much.

"Y'all ready to get to work?" Applejack asked.

Directing my attention to her, I nodded. When she started walking back to where she and Mom had been, I followed.

"How're you walking like that?" David surprised me—I'd completely forgotten about him. "I mean, you're holding that apple and walking, shouldn't you—uh—fall?"

"Haven't really thought about it. Should I?" I asked. To prove my point, I took a big bite from the apple. It tasted amazing still. If I had a choice between the best cupcake from back home and this apple, I'd pick this apple in a heartbeat.

David rolled his eyes. "Probably best if you don't. Excuse me, Miss Applejack—ma'am?" He trotted forward a few steps to catch up with Applejack. "Your sister said talking to plants was, uh…"

"Hey, look, just askin' a tree if it wants shit, water, or some bugs removed ain't no nevermind. It's when you have deep 'n meaningful conversations with 'em your head'll start to go a bit soft," Applejack said.

"Bloom mentioned a pony named Tree Hugger, said she—" David said.

"Tree's not all that bad. She just thinks sideways to everypony else. Really saved our bacon one time in Canterlot. She was a hoot when those eggs turned on her, though. Never seen her look so surprised—even Discord couldn't make that filly look shocked." Applejack led the way right up to the tree Mom had been at when I'd seen her doing whatever this was. Then she stopped. "Okay. Now this here apple tree is the oldest in the whole orchard. She speaks the clearest, so Ah guess it's best to start with 'er.

"Lift a hoof and press it to the bark. Try to find the youngest bark—she gets a lil muffled otherwise."

With another bite of my apple, I walked to the tree and looked up at it. The conundrum of how to do this and not put my apple down was solved when I realized I could just sit. Parking my butt, I held onto my apple with my right forehoof and pressed the other against the bark of the tree.

The world seemed to drain away. I couldn't hear Applejack or David, but I could hear the nice tree. "What do you want?" I asked it.

"Sunlight. Warm soil. A little water would be nice. Is that an apple you're eating?"

"Yup! McIntosh got it for me, though everyone calls him Big Mac—and I guess I see why after meeting him—anyway, he got it from another tree that he had to do something to. I think he was asking nicely, and giving the tree something to help it," I said. "Do you make apples?"

"The best. Would you like one?"

I nodded, but when I realized nodding didn't seem to work, said, "Yes please."

"Such a well-spoken filly. Of course you can have an apple if you give me a little magic."

It seemed like the easiest thing in the world. I pushed a little magic to the tree, just like I had for the seedlings.

"The apple is made, but you are going to have to free it yourself. Just give me a little filly-sized kick just to the right of where your hoof is, and get ready to catch it."

I grinned and nodded, then remembered that it couldn't see me nod. "Okay!"

The world seemed to rush back in around me. The sound of birds in the trees was the first to make my ears twitch, and then Applejack's voice explaining what we are supposed to do.

"… just against the wood, like Riley did," Applejack said.

But I wasn't going to do that—I'd already done that. I lifted a hoof to thump the tree where it told me, but it felt wrong. Turning around, I set my apple on the ground after one last bite and aimed my butt at the tree.

There was a lot of muscles back there that I normally didn't think about. Right now, however, I had to think about them. I leaned forward, shifting my weight onto my front hooves, then squeezed up my back legs, pointed myself at the spot, and kicked!

First my left, then right back legs connected with the tree. I didn't hear the voice of it again, but I felt approval sing through it. There was something I was forgetting, though. I pulled my legs back from the tree and heard the sound of whistling—something falling. The apple!

Diving to the side with all the grace of a kitten, I managed to grab the apple with one outstretched hoof.

"Good work!" Applejack said. "Yer got the knack for—Wait! Holy smokes! A zap-apple at this time o' year?!" Her voice got louder and louder the more she said. At last Applejack made an excited whooping noise and swung her hat around. "Hot dang, she made a zap-apple for ya!"

I looked at the apple I'd caught and stared in wonder. There was something really magical about it. For a start it was rainbow colored—starting with blue at the bottom, and turning red by the top. The apple also seemed a little shiny, and as I turned it a little, a shimmer of light seemed to pass over it. "Whoa…"

Applejack helped me up so I could stand, but when I offered to pass the apple to her, she waved it off. "Well, go on, eat it. The tree made it all fer ya."

I held the apple up and brought it to my mouth. It almost seemed wrong to bite into its perfection, but then my nose caught its scent. My eyes fluttered closed like one of Mom's books talked about (that I managed to read right up until it was about to get rude before Mom took it away). The apple smelled of a warm spring day, grass and fields, trees and soft ground. I don't even know all the ways I could describe it, but it smelled amazing.

The taste was even better. It was like if there was the best fruit in the world on Earth, and everyone wanted it, and it cost like a million billion dollars, this would be better than that. It was crisp, and full of juice, and I drowned in the flavor of it as everything just felt better.

Mom always said I had bad impulse control, like I'd try to do something before knowing what it meant. That was probably true, but I managed to pull my little snout away from the fruit before I devoured all of it. "Shit," I said.

"Would your mom want you talking like that?" David asked.

Without a word, I passed him my apple. "Take a bite—just one."

The sound of teeth working through apple, and a little groan after it, told me David had taken a bite. "Well?" I asked.

"Shit." David was staring at the apple in disbelief. "I want to eat it all." I didn't hold it against him, I wanted to eat it all too, but I definitely appreciated when he passed the apple back.

"Cussin' aside, that was a mighty nice thing ya did, Riley. I know a few ponies who would have devoured a zap-apple whole before they'd let somepony else take a bite o' it."

I looked up at Applejack, smiled, and took another bite of the apple. Each bite, it seemed, would be better than the previous. I wanted to take another, but Dad would have tanned my hide if I didn't offer. "Would you like a bite?" I asked, holding the apple up to Applejack.

It was totally worth losing a bite of the amazing apple to see a pony so happy. Applejack took a slow bite of the apple, and looked even happier still. She was just like a princess!

When she passed the apple back, though, I quickly took my second bite.

"That is the best food I've ever had. Bar none. Ever. Holy—" David looked down at the regular apple in his hoof, and I could see how he was comparing it to the special apple. A rustle, seemed to steal his attention, and he looked up into the tree beside us. "Yeah," he said, then started eating his own apple.

I got to eat the rest of the apple and it was better with every bite. Not that anyone—hee, anypony—said anything, not with apples to eat.

"I feel more revitalized by that than it took energy to make. Uh, the tree did take enough from me to make the apple, right?" David asked.

Applejack nodded to David. "The tree's not stupid. It took enough and then some. Trees're honest like that. They may want payment, but ya always know they'll take a lil extra."

"So if it gives back more than it takes—? I'm no egg-head or nothing, just a grunt, but I know that kinda thing can't work." As David spoke, he took a few moments to nibble around the core of his apple.

"Ya know ya can eat that, right? Sure the fancy folk in Canterlot might eat around a core, but us simple folk can just eat it all up." Applejack's eyes strayed from David to me. "An what yer not accountin' for is the tree preparin' for it. It only grows so many blossoms each year, and they take work. It would have been makin' an apple itself anyway, so gettin' you t' pay fer it works out as a boon. Plus a little extra. Gotta remember they like a bit extra."

"So we're just finishing the apple off?" I asked.

"Eeyup, as my brother'd say. Was a surprise to get a zap-apple off'a her. Old thing probably's gone a bit batty, gettin' airs or somethin'." Gesturing to an old stump in a cleared bit of the orchard, Applejack made sure she had our attention. "C'mon this way, we'll test out how good those bucks are."

"Bucks?" I asked, finishing off the very last of the apple by gobbling up the core.

"Yeah. When yer kicking with both back legs, that's a buck." Applejack demonstrated on empty air. "Don't go buckin' just any tree, mind, unless you need it gone. Apple family apple trees're grown just right to take a good buck or two each season. This-here old stump was the biggest apple tree we ever grew."

The stump, when we reached it, looked to be as big around as Applejack was long. I walked up to it and as one must, I jumped up onto it (after a lot of effort climbing the old bark). "Isn't there something special about rings in a tree?" I asked.

"Yeah," David said. "Each ring works out to be a growing seas—Holy shit."

I tucked my ears down at the swear word. "One, two, three, four, five… there's a lot of rings." I hadn't even gotten a hoof-width from the middle.

"Granny Smith planted this when she first moved to Ponyville. One of the first apple trees in the region. That was—goodness—a long time ago." Applejack watched David with a wry smile. "How long do you make it?"

"I just got to about three hundred. Do ponies really live this long?" David asked.

"Yeah. Granny won't tell us fer sure, but Ah heard one of her friends say she was around four-hundred and sixty. Part of me's worried, as that's a ripe old age for an Apple, but Ah just can't see her ever stoppin'."

Comparing the stump, and getting an idea how big around it was, I walked back to the big apple tree that had given me the special apple. It was almost as big as the stump. "Thank you for the apple. It was delicious."

The tree didn't respond because I didn't have my hoof on it, but I didn't need it to.

"So, you wanna learn how hard you can kick, don'tcha?"

I turned away from the tree and trotted (without even meaning to!) back to the stump.

Saffron Ree

Alright. I had to admit that getting all my feathers straightened, and actually scrubbing up and washing the wings felt good.

"Now try to stretch that wing out." Fluttershy had started talking a little more—I think it was because I was so pathetic at being a pony. She liked animals, I'd learned, which didn't include ponies—ponies are people here.

Laying down, with my forelegs folded under me, I focused on my wings and how they felt. They were my arms. I could feel the limbs bend a little differently, of course, but I had an elbow and a wrist, and if I closed my eyes I could feel fingers.

Stretching my wings out slowly, I could feel my legs try to move as well, but not as much as they had been.

"You're doing good, Saffron, just a little more."

Fluttershy was the strangest person I'd ever spoken to. When she spoke, her voice was always so soft that if there was any other sound nearby, it would drown her out. She literally couldn't talk over a buzzing fly. As a result—and because she actually had good advice—I kept my trap shut most of the time.

So I sat in relative silence, felt the air blowing slowly over my wings, and listened to the softest-spoken person I'd ever met. Her encouragement had to be magical. Dad had magic, my wings had magic, and some ponies had so much magic they could jump between worlds, but I could swear that Fluttershy's voice was magic.

"There you are. They're all the way out and your feathers are neat and proud. Well done!" Fluttershy said.

When she clopped her hooves together in applause, I almost died. It was obvious she shouted the last bit, but her shout was at a level barely above the sound of the wind.

The wind.

I closed my eyes and felt the air moving over my wings, and for the first time since I got here they didn't feel like arms. Each feather felt different, and each change of the wind made them move in different ways.

There was a stronger gust that took me by surprise. I opened my eyes and saw that Fluttershy had moved one of her own wings. "I felt that."

"Of course you did. Your feathers feel the air, and anything in the air that's upstream of them will leave a ripple. Another pegasus makes a lot of ripples." Fluttershy demonstrated by stretching her left wing and giving it a little flap.

The feel of air moving over my wings wasn't a surprise this time, but I did start to get little hints of things—direction, intensity, even the angle of Fluttershy's wing. When she began repeating the motion, and walking around, I started to get a better idea of how to read the wind.

Fluttershy's smiles were constant, at least when I started shutting up, and it seemed to add weight to the magic in her voice. "Why don't you try standing up?" She must have seen my worried look. "Slowly, and don't try doing anything with your wings."

Figuring I'd start with my forelegs, since there wouldn't be so far to fall that way, I carefully pulled one up, straightened it, and pushed down. The muscles in my right wing—the side that matched my extended leg—twitched and wanted to move, but I managed to keep my wing to only smaller jerks.

It wasn't a huge victory yet—I wasn't standing.

"Are you okay?" Fluttershy asked.

"Yeah." My voice sounded loud and booming compared to Fluttershy's. "Trying not to fall over and look like an ass."

"Oh. Um. Asses are nice people. If you looked like one, it wouldn't be bad at all, but then you wouldn't be a pegasus."

"Asses? What—?" My brain struggled to make the connection.

"A donkey. Though, we normally don't call them ass. What were you talking about?"

"I-I meant I don't want to look like an idiot by falling over. This is really hard." Bracing my other foreleg, I pushed it too, and both my wings dipped as a result. My wings started to wobble, and my knees too in sympathy, but then I felt more air blowing over my wings and it felt different enough to break the wobbles. When I lifted my head, I saw Fluttershy still flapping her wings at me.

"How'd you know?" I asked.

"Rainbow Dash is smart when it comes to training ponies, but I've taught hundreds of chicks how to fly." Fluttershy's smile should have been alien and strange, but I liked seeing it so much I didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize it. "You could say I've had some practice. Try standing all the way up."

No one could tell her no. Not when she sounded so supportive. Gritting my teeth, I shifted to one side and pushed one back leg down, then the other. Standing wasn't complicated, but operating a six-limbed body when I was used to four was, and then there was my tail (though I left that alone for now).

"Now take a step, Saffron."

Anyone—anypony—else, and I'd have snarked. I couldn't snark at Fluttershy. Instead of letting my emotions turn negative, I took a step. My right wing moved along with my right leg, then both wobbled, but when Fluttershy flapped her wings my brain had the sensation difference between wing and leg to work with, and the shaking stopped.

"Excellent! Another!"

Her voice was so soft, but more encouraging than a million PE teachers. I lifted my left leg, and with another little gust of wind from Fluttershy's wings, my left wing remained still!

"There! You've got it!"

Despite everything Fluttershy was doing, and my progress, I couldn't help myself. "All I need is for someone to walk around flapping their wings at me for the rest of my life."

"Maybe for a few days it would help, but after that you need to start adapting to not having it." It seemed like Fluttershy was immune to my sarcasm—it was devastating. "Now left-rear leg. Then right-rear leg. See, that part's easy."

"That's because they are my legs. My wings feel like my hands, and my forelegs are just completely fu—" I cut short my tirade and looked down at the ground.

A yellow hoof reached under my chin and tilted my head up until I was looking at Fluttershy's face. "You can swear if you like, but only if there is nopony else around to hear it and it helps you feel better."

This was worse than not swearing. "I-I'll be alright. Language is different here, though, isn't it?"

"Most ponies would be mortified if a foal your size used that word. They wouldn't understand that you were already an adult where you come from. Besides, it's no worse than what birds say in spring."

Curiosity might kill cats, but damned if I didn't want to know now. "What do they say in spring?"

"I c-can't say. It's too much," Fluttershy said while shaking her head.

I had to know. It would eat away at me. "Please? It's only us here. No one else will hear." My words obviously failed to convince her. "And I promise to never tell anyone else."

"Pinkie Promise?" Fluttershy asked.

I'd heard of pinky swearing from my parents, but without fingers I had no clue what she meant. "What's pinky promise?"

"It's a promise you can never, ever break. You do a little thing like this. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." Fluttershy wound up with her hoof shove toward her eye at the end.

"I don't get why you'd say 'hope to fly'. Don't you fly every day?"

"Pinkie is an earth pony, she doesn't fly." Now Fluttershy looked as confused as I felt.

I took another few steps, slowly trying to get the hang of walking with wings and not falling, while getting my head around the concept.

"Pinkie Pie is a pony. She's an earth pony, and doesn't fly much," Fluttershy said.

"But she still flies?"

"Sometimes using a hot-air balloon, or even other silly machines. I never really thought about it before, I guess. Maybe I should ask her what it means?"

As distractions went, the conversation had done a great job of sidetracking me from my question about birds. I needed to fix that. "So if I Pinkie promise that I won't tell anyone, you will tell me what birds say in spring?"

Fluttershy's snout screwed up and got scrunchy for a moment. If she'd said no right then and there I would have dropped it. "Yes."

I cleared my throat and stopped walking. "Cross my," an odd tingling started to spread through me, like pins-and-needles, "heart and hope to fly." The strange feeling seemed to intensify without growing painful. "Stick a cupcake in. My. Eye!" Somehow, those words just needed to be spoken more firmly. It was like magic. I wobbled a little from having to balance on one foreleg.

Waiting a few moments, Fluttershy stepped close and lifted her snout so that it tickled the edge of my ear. "Fuck me," she said in the softest whisper yet.

It took my (formerly) teenage mind a few seconds to realize what she was saying was not an invitation. "They really say f—" I covered my mouth with a hoof, and giggled.

"It's spring, and for birds that's all they talk about then. All they want to do, too. I even had an eagle proposition me once and—" Her words devolved into a giggle that was super-contagious.

We laughed together for so long I forgot what we were even supposed to be doing in favor of just feeling happy. It was so messed up and short-circuited my teenage brain, but there it is—I enjoy being happy now.

"Oh!" Even her surprised exclamations were soft. "It's time to make lunch for my little friends. Would you like to help, Saffron?"

Of course not, most adorable and innocent person I have ever met. I realized I'd have to ditch the innocent part. Apparently Fluttershy knew a lot more about what birds and bees got up to than anyone on Earth did. "Sure!"

Walking to Fluttershy's house still wasn't easy. I managed about one step in ten myself, but needed Fluttershy's little flaps to keep my brain separating my legs from my wings—and she wouldn't let me fold my wings and walk normally.

Having someone so focused on helping me was just really weird. I mean, teachers and stuff said they wanted to help, but when the bell rang you had to leave class and they weren't going to stop you just because your grades weren't all that.

If Fluttershy thought you needed help, she did what was needed to help you, it seemed. I was pretty sure Mom wasn't paying her, or any of the ponies, yet they just wanted to help. It was both bizarre and awesome.

I froze as what was apparently Fluttershy's house came into sight. There was a host of really annoyed looking creatures ranging from a freakin' bear all the way down to a rabbit, and everything in between. I wasn't concerned about the bear—I was pretty sure I could outrun it—but what surprised me was that every single animal had a little food bowl. "Th-They're your friends? They don't all look little…"

"Harry, you mean? He's the biggest softy. There's a spot behind his left ear that puts him right to sleep. Come on." Fluttershy trotted forward in the best display of absolute serenity I'd ever seen.

I tucked my wings down and sped up to catch Fluttershy. Among the animals was a sense of them completely ignoring me—like I wasn't even there—and it was obvious why. I watched Fluttershy trot inside her house and call them all in.

It should have been a stampede. These looked like wild animals, but each was extremely polite—I even watched a fox bow to the rabbit and let them go first.

"Now now everyone, no pushing." Despite Fluttershy's words, there was no pushing going on. It was an orderly line.

I slipped in behind the last little family of animals (some mice I'd missed seeing earlier because they were so tiny) and walked around the queue. "Is it always like this?"

"Oh no!" Fluttershy filled a bowl with nuts for a squirrel. "They're normally much better behaved."

I saw more squirrels in the queue, and located the bag that Fluttershy had pulled the nuts from. "Do you need some help? I could do the squirrels."

There was some excited chittering (from the squirrels) that almost drowned out Fluttershy's reply. "Would you? No more than three nuts for Howard, he's on a diet, but the rest can have five."

"Which one's Howard?" I asked and looked at the excited squirrels now milling around me.

Four squirrels pointed to a fifth, while that fifth one pointed at one of the others. Howard, it was easy to tell, had been living the high-life, and it had given him a pudgy belly.

Then it hit me what had just happened. Among all this crazy, cutesy world, these animals had just understood a question I'd asked and responded to it in human ways. Either I was nuts or Fluttershy had some kind of magic about her. It was probably both.

"I'm pretty sure that Howard's going to start eating my hooves if I don't get you all something to eat, so why don't we do this the way that gets everyone something right away?" Focusing on keeping my legs steady, I reached out a wing to grab the bag of nuts Fluttershy had used to feed the squirrel earlier. "Bowls down."

All five squirrels put their bowls on the floor, Howard was the first. I put the bag down and measured out five nuts, and starting with Howard's bowl, dropped one into each.

"I never thought of doing it like that," Fluttershy said.

"This way they are all happily eating while—" I cut short because Howard had somehow torn his nut apart and eaten it before the others had even decided where to start biting. "If you keep eating that fast, you're going to get really disappointed by the time I get to the fourth round of nuts."

"You're really good with them. Can you understand them too?"

I shook my head. "Not hard to figure out what they want if you just pay attention to—" I stopped at Fluttershy's giggles. "What?"

"Nopony ever does that."

"Well, they should. All these critters can understand what I'm saying, or at least they can understand my tone or somethin'." I put the fourth lot of nuts out, but not for Howard.

The saddest expression I'd ever seen hit me right in the eyeballs. Howard's eyes were huge, and he wrung his little paws in supplication. What worked against him was he had bits of nut still stuck between his big teeth, had an obvious nut in one cheek, and his belly was just a little bigger than when we started.

"No, Howard."

His expression dropped to mere disappointment, and he kicked an imaginary stone and snapped the finger-like digits of his paw in a sign of surrender.

With the five squirrels all fed, I put the nuts back beside Fluttershy. "What next?"

I helped Fluttershy with more animals—preparing bowls of salad for most of the herbivores, some eggs and berries for the fox, and two big fish for Harry.

"How are your wings?" Fluttershy asked.

The question seemed innocent to me, and I started off with, "They're fine, wh—" But then it hit me. I'd been working with my wings while standing, and I hadn't had a single moment of almost-falling. "That was really sneaky!"

"You were a big help. That normally takes much longer. I'm so sorry for them being so rowdy." Putting the bags away in a closet, Fluttershy looked particularly capable with using her wings. I watched as she curled her feathers in ways that shouldn't be possible given what they were, but it was equally apparent that I'd done similar things when I'd fed the animals. I'd just thought of those feathers as fingers.

"All it takes is just wanting to do it, right? Don't think, just move?"

"If you were an adult who'd lived your whole life as a pony. But you're not. You need to build muscle memories." Fluttershy moved from putting the food away and into her kitchen. "Why don't I give you a test?"

Despite being with the nicest teacher I'd ever met in my whole life, just the word was enough to set my teeth on edge. I walked to the kitchen door and looked in. "Test?"

"We'll have some tea."

In short order I was holding a tray with teacups, teapot, sugar jar, a little cup of lemon wedges, and a plate of cookies on it. I took slow, careful steps while carrying the tray with my wings. For all I was a little jealous of Dad having magic, wings seemed a million times more useful for little things.

"It's easier," I said. "But I think it helps giving them all something to do. My wings can feel the weight of the tray, while my legs are moving just like they have been. They're not the same limbs."

I put the tray on the coffee table in the living room, and we both sat down on the couch facing it. A silence started to build, the kind that destroys lives and crushes conversations whole.

"You can pour," Fluttershy said. It took about two minutes of my staring at the tea set before she asked, "Do you know how to pour tea?"

I felt dumb, but at the same time indignant. We'd fought a war so we didn't have to pour tea, or some shit. I shook my head as anger boiled higher.

"Well, first you ask the other person how they take their tea. I think you're a sugar and pinch of lemon type." As she spoke, Fluttershy lifted the teapot with her wing and tipped it until one of the cups was about three quarters full of the dark liquid. Next she added a squeeze of a lemon wedge and used the little metal tongs to lift two cubes into the cup. A little spoon went in and stirred it all. "Now it's your turn. I take mine with only one sugar cube."

"L-Lemon?"

"Yes please!" Fluttershy smiled as if I'd just asked her to marry me. She smiled like the sun was returning after a year of being gone. When the absolute hell did I get so much into poetry?

I mimicked her actions. First tipping some tea into her cup. I managed to stop before getting too much in. My wings worked just like arms, only my fingers (feathers) were longer than normal—none of that mattered to my brain, these were arms and they had fingers! Positioning the lemon between two fingers and squeezing earned me a lemon-scented wing. I tried again, then swapped wings.

So it turns out you can be right or left winged, and I was a southpaw (southflap? Southfeather?) as a pony just like a human. I got enough lemon in her cup and then carefully used the tongs to add a sugar cube. By the time I came to stirring I was really getting the hang of it.

"Left-winged. You should have said earlier," Fluttershy said.

"I didn't think it'd matter." I looked at the seemingly tiny teacup and reached my left (that is, the non-lemon wing) out and carefully lifted it to my lips. The first sip of the hot drink made me instantly addicted to the stuff. The bitter taste of lemon combined with a ton of sweetness and something else (probably the tea) that really agreed with me. I sipped a little more.

"Your wings—you said—are like your arms. So if you were left-handed before of course you are left-winged now." She lifted her own teacup and sniffed it. Again the sunshine of Fluttershy's smile broke over me, and I watched her take a sip. "Left or right, you make wonderful tea."

Her praise mattered, it felt good. It was nuts (and not the kind I'd fed to the squirrels), but I really liked making her happy. The tea, when I tasted more, was as good as the first time, and if it weren't for being so hot I'd have gulped it all down. "This is really good."

Fluttershy fluffed her wings in what I assumed was a little embarrassment at my compliment. I couldn't blame her, I was embarrassed at giving it. "I'm glad you like it. Why don't we do more practice tomorrow?"

"Sure!" I replied way too fast for it to be anything but actual enthusiasm. We finished the tea and talked about animals. Fluttershy, I found out, could talk forever about animals. After pouring another cup of tea each, we kept talking about them.

By the time I was walking out of Fluttershy's house, I felt like I'd had a biology lesson. The insanity was I remembered it all. Fluttershy's way to speaking—that rolled you into her enthusiasm—was way too effective.

"Tomorrow we'll talk about flying, Saffron." Her words had my full attention. Flying was just about the best thing I could look forward to in all this. "I'll see you then!"

I stretched my wings out and started walking back. "Okay. Bye, Fluttershy." I struggled not to row with my wings as I walked, but without Fluttershy's careful use of little flickers of air I got messed up working out which limb was which. I was a moment from snarling something angry and folding them when I remembered Fluttershy's encouragement.

Author's Note

Clair: Any thoughts/plans for meeting your counterpart from the other human world?

"I admit I am curious about them, but finding out their portal doesn't allow any goods to traverse has significantly decreased their priority. The other important thing to consider here is that if I make a bad impression with Equestria, there's no point cozying up to this other group." Clair let out a sigh, rifling through the paperwork just existing in Equestria created. "Then there's the most important reason I won't be specifically seeking out their companionship—that's not my job."

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Chapter 10 (mature scene in second half)

Riley Ree

I watched Mom walk off with the biggest princess ever and started to feel bored. As awesome as it was being in a city again, I didn't know any of the soldiers like Saffron did, although the four who came with us at first were nice.

"Hey, midget, come on," Saffron said from beside me.

I turned my head to look at him, only to see him stepping back into the train. Curiosity bit me about as hard as it ever could, and I walked after him. "Saf?"

"Shh. A little trick I saw in a movie. Come on." He trotted down the aisle of the car away from me.

I had to really pound my hooves to catch up to him. Pegasi, I'd learned, liked to be first at everything—my big brother fit in just fine. When we reached the end of the car, he used his wing to open the doors and move to the next. "Where are we going?"

"We're going to spend some time without ten people watching our every move. I want to see the train."

I couldn't fault his logic. I followed along, swapping cars twice more, until we reached the front. But when Saffron turned left at the end instead of right, I was confused. "Huh? The platform's that—"

"There's a platform on this side, too." Saffron opened the door and slipped out with little fuss, but then he paused. "Okay, come on."

With the speed Saffron moved, I had to run to keep up. Keeping quiet, I waited until he stopped before asking, "Why'd we have to run and be quiet?"

"Duh. Because they would have seen us. Now we can explore a bit."

It made sense, but I was fairly sure Mom and Dad would be just a little upset. I bit my lip and followed Saffron. "You're still pissed off about not being able to learn to fly from Fluttershy." As soon as I said it his head snapped around. "What? I don't blame you. I wanted to learn how to grow things from Bloom."

Saffron stared at me for a few more moments and then smiled. "We both got kinda wrecked there, didn't we? It's just not fair. So, anyway, let's have some fun."

I grinned, nodded, and followed him out of the back side of the station. Slipping between buildings, we came out onto a curved street a few moments later. Canterlot was amazing. Bright ponies everywhere were talking and laughing and smiling! But I wasn't stupid, I stuck to Saffron's side like glue.

My legs worked like crazy to keep up with Saffron's longer steps, but I managed it without too much effort—being an earth pony was awesome! We got nearly half a block from where we started when a shadow loomed over us suddenly.

"Well look here, a couple of little foals out and about. What's your names?"

I craned my head up and up and up. A tall stallion that looked like he was in the Royal Guard stood in front of us. I was just about to open my mouth and reply when Saffron beat me to it.

"I'm Scootaloo and this is Apple Bloom," Saffron said.

My head almost snapped around to look at him. He was lying, but I figured he was trying to hide who we are, so we weren't dragged back to the station too early. "Yeah! Bloom!"

The guard looked between us. "And who's looking after you today?" He seemed to look up and cast a glance around the street as if trying to find our parents.

I looked at Saffron and he looked stricken, in a panic. My mind raced and all I could remember was one other pony who wouldn't be here. "Rarity!" The memory of her boutique (the word was as much fun to think as it was to say) and all the wonderful clothes there was a fond one.

"Well, the only Rarity I know is the owner of a shop my wife frequents. Maybe if I deliver you both there I can get a discount, and a little bit more of my pay—eh?" The guard's horn glowed bright gold and lifted both of us up and put us back down on his back as if we were little kids.

It hit me that, since we looked so small, we actually looked like little kids.

We sat in silence on the stallion's armored back as he led us through the city. It let us see a lot more of everything than we would have at our normal height—but it denied us all freedom to investigate.

"Who do you have there, Bright?"

The feminine voice seemed directed at us. My ears swiveled to track it first, but my head quickly followed. A mare a little shorter than the stallion we were riding on walked over. She had the same white fur as our ride, but she had soft pink hair for her mane and tail that had lighter streaks of white.

"A couple of little troublemakers. I had thought to take them back to the barracks so they could spend the day shining my armor up, but one of them mentioned Miss Rarity," Bright (?) said.

"Oh my goodness! Well, if she's in Canterlot today I might have to head to Canterlot Carousel then!"

"Dear, you don't have to—"

"I insist! Let me take them off your hooves." Now the mare's horn was glowing and lifted us off Bright's back and to the ground at her side. "I'm sure the little darlings will be much happier walking, and you can get back to work, darling."

Leaning down, Bright kissed the mare's cheek. "Thank you, Shim." They were so cute!

Saffron pulled my attention away from the ponies by tapping me with one of his wings. He made a gesture to follow him, so I slipped carefully under the mare's belly and tried to keep my hooves as quiet as I could.

"Oh, where are you two heading?" Magic wrapped around me again, and I could see the same silvery field around Saffron pick him up. "Just like my colt, always getting into trouble. You know what I do with him when he tries slipping away all the time?"

I looked at Saffron, but he just seemed annoyed, so I shook my head to the mare.

"He gets to fly!"

The ground shot away and we wound up nearly ten ponylengths (I don't even know how many feet anymore) in the air. I kicked my legs like crazy until it sank in that the mare still had a firm grip on us with her magic.

When I looked at Saffron, however, he didn't look scared at all. His wings were out and he wore the biggest smile I'd ever seen on his face (human or pony).

He stuck his wings out and glided, which meant I landed in the mare's magic first. I craned my head up to watch Saffron gliding back down.

"Again!" Saffron made no effort to hide his enthusiasm. It was just about the cutest I'd ever seen my brother.

"If you promise to be good and not run away."

Looking flushed, Saffron nodded at the mare and was launched skyward again. His laugh of excitement made me smile.

It took two more throws until we reached the mare's destination. "Here we are, dears. If Miss Rarity was looking after you, she'll likely either be in here, or Ms. Saddles will know how to find her. Come along now."

Sidling over to Saffron, I noticed he seemed completely distracted by the mare. "Saff?" When I got no reaction, I lifted a hoof and poked his shoulder. "Saff?"

"What?" Saffron glared at me like I'd interrupted him playing computer games.

"You remember that we lied about being here with Rarity, right?" I poked his shoulder a few more times to keep his attention.

"Well duh. What's that matter?" Saffron took nearly a full five seconds (the amount of time it took the mare who was accompanying us to open the door and lead us both into the shop) before he realized what kind of a problem we were in. "We gotta get"—the door closed behind us—"out…"

"Shimmering Silk! It's glorious to see you in Canterlot Carousel again! And who's this? Mrs. Silk, have you been keeping something secret? Who are these little darlings?" This mare was tall. Not as tall as a princess was tall, but she was huge compared to the mare we'd been escorted in with. She had the same blue fur all over her as Rainbow Dash had had, but instead of a rainbow mane she had two-tone orange hair. She also had a very long horn.

Shimmering Silk (apparently our escort's name) looked upset. "Oh drat. I'd hoped you might know about them. They said they were with Miss Rarity, but they must have become separated. I do hope there isn't another Rarity in town."

A pair of orange eyes turned on me and Saffron. One eyebrow raised. At my attempt to look pleading, both the tall mare's eyebrows raised, then she winked. "This must be them, then. Miss Rarity called—she finally got one of those new long-distance telephones, quite remarkable—and said to expect a pair of guests with her today. The little darlings must have evaded her somewhere in the market."

I thought Saffron was a smooth liar, but this tall mare had him beaten. At a moment's notice she'd just made up a huge lie to cover for us. I nodded my head as quickly as I could to confirm the details. "Can we wait for her over there?" I pointed off to one side of the cornerless shop.

"What are you doing?" Saffron asked when we reached the spot the tall mare had said was fine. "Now what are we meant to do?"

"Duh. Wait for her. She just saved our ass, Saff." I prodded at his shoulder with a hoof. "So, how was flying?"

There probably wasn't much I could have asked my big brother to make him smile, but I had a feeling that would do the trick—I wasn't disappointed.

"It was amazing! I mean, I didn't want to flap and ruin it, but even guys in wing suits don't just glide like that! And then…" He went on and on. Saffron was still talking about how amazing air flowing over his feathers felt when the tall mare walked over to us.

"Now, let's start with names. Your real names. I'm Sassy Saddles."

Saffron's mouth snapped shut. He turned to look at me before shrugging. "My name's Saffron Ree, and she's Riley Ree. We're not really here with Rarity."

"I gathered that already. Are you homeless, or just off on a little adventure?" Sassy's eyes turned to me.

"W-We slipped away while Dad was busy. We're new in the city, a—" I barely managed to stop myself letting slip the whole story.

"What's the names of your parents? I'll have to report this—they'll be worried about you." Sassy's horn began to glow a light yellow while she looked us over, then an old telephone floated over to her.

"C-Can't we have a little time before you call?" Saffron asked. "Mom and Dad wouldn't have even noticed us missing yet."

In answer, Sassy lifted the handset of the phone and pressed it to the side of her head. "Hello?" There was a pause. "I have a pair of young foals here, Saffron and Riley." Another pause as Sassy's face broke into a smile. "Ah! That sounds like them. Canterlot Carousel." More pause. "Oh no! No need to rush over. I have them settled. Yes, a half hour is fine. Thank you, Sergeant." She hung up the phone.

Sassy looked over both of us. She'd literally just done what Saffron had asked for. "Now then, you have half an hour. You can sulk in this corner or"—she let the word hang for a few seconds—"we could have some fun."

"Fun? Like what?" Saffron looked at Sassy like he wasn't going to like whatever she could suggest.

"Look at me. What do you see that's different to practically every other pony in Canterlot?" Sassy turned to the side and posed.

"You're tall!" I said.

Saffron took a few more seconds before he said, "You're wearing clothes."

I blinked a few times rapidly in surprise—it was true. Sassy wore an olive colored dress that looked a little spiky, but also had a trim silver saddle in the middle of her back. "You are!"

"Exactly. You don't think Rarity would let me run her Canterlot shop unless I not only loved fashion, but had talent for it, did you?" Sassy used her magic to lift the skirt she wore just enough to see a group of pins on her thigh. "I'm afraid I don't have anything in your size on the shelf, but I can assure you I can fix that."

Saffron took a step back and looked in a panic. "Wait! We're not going to—"

"Dress ups!" I bounced on my hooves in excitement.

"Now-now. Relax, Saffron, I'm not going to put you in a dress. We have some very fine stallion clothing here. Come over here and let's see what I can get you into."

What happened was amazing. Yellow magic lit up the store. Dresses and suits started dancing around. Sassy danced and sang, and Saffron and I sang too! I'd never heard Saffron sing before, but despite his gloomy entrance, he looked as excited as I felt!

The sound of the door opening interrupted our fun. I turned to look at who it was, only to freeze. Princess Celestia and Mom walked into the shop, and neither looked particularly happy.

"Saff?" I asked.

"We're in it now, Riley. Just back me up, okay?"

"'kay."

Saffron walked forward—beating even Sassy—and reached Mom first. "I'm sorry, Mom. I just needed to get away and talked Riley into coming too. Having all the soldiers around all the time it—it just got too much!"

My brain was struggling to keep up with my brother. Back him up? He'd just taken all the blame! I walked over with Sassy beside me. I looked up at the tall mare and she gave me a significant look in return.

Mom glared at Saffron for nearly ten seconds in absolute silence before she reached out and grabbed him with her forelegs. Saffron didn't stand a chance with an earth pony hugging him. "I'll sort out who's to blame later, but for now I'm just glad you're okay." Mom looked up from Saffron to Sassy. "Thank you so much for taking care of them, I don't—"

"No need to thank me, ma'am. It's always a pleasure to look after such well-behaved foals." Sassy's words made everyone stare at her in shock.

"There's a lot of things I'd like to call my children right now, but well-behaved is not among them." Mom took a deep breath. "But where's my manners. I'm Clair Ree—"

"Ambassador Clair Ree," Princess Celestia said.

I liked Princess Celestia, but of the three princesses I'd met, I liked Princess Twilight best, and then Princess Luna. Princess Twilight had the most princessy colors, and Princess Luna gave the best pony rides. I guess Princess Celestia might give better pony rides, but they'd have to be pretty good to put her ahead of Princess Twilight.

"Well, that explains a lot about their story and mannerisms. Welcome to Canterlot Carousel, Ambassador Clair Ree. Rarity left strict instructions to provide you with whatever you needed." Sassy gestured to Saffron and me. "I have two things right here you might be interested in. They both come with accessories."

Mom snorted, smiled, and let go of Saffron. "I'll take both, I suppose, but I can't take their 'accessories', I'm afraid I have no way to pay for—"

Sassy lifted her hoof. "Absolutely not. They were a joy to take care of, and I'd hate to see what Miss Rarity would say if she knew I let them leave unclothed. No-no. No payment needed."

"If I may point out, Clair, Rarity was chosen by the Element of Harmony known as Generosity. She literally embodies it with everything she does. You could sooner avoid attending a Pinkie Pie party than tell her to not help you." Princess Celestia gestured at the shop we were in. "Don't take Rarity's success to mean she wouldn't give everything to help those in need."

"I heard someone else mention these Elements of Harmony. What exactly—Saffron, Riley, you are both coming with us and if I notice you more than two ponylengths from me at any time, you're going back to Earth by catapult." Mom looked between Saffron and me. "I don't know if Celestia has a catapult big enough, but I'm sure we could get one made."

"Yes Mom!" I ran over to her as quick as I could and reared up for a hug. Mom's forelegs wrapped around and squeezed me tight. I returned her hug just as fiercely as I could. "I'm sorry. It wasn't all—" I whispered.

Mom cut in, equally as hushed. "Shh. I know. Your brother's a good boy, though." Mom gave me one more squeeze before letting go.

"Sorry, Mom. I just wanted to have some fun—" Saffron hung his head. "It's all messed up. I'm meant to be an adult, but this world just—it just doesn't have a spot for me."

"You seemed to have a good spot when you were flying," I said.

I could tell the words reminded him of what the mare had done because Saffron's face unscrewed from the anger that'd been there a moment ago and a little smile creased his lips. "It wasn't really flying, but yeah."

"With your leave, Sassy Saddles?" Princess Celestia asked.

"Oh! Oh, of course. Your Highness!" Sassy crouched one leg down and bowed to Princess Celestia. "It has been an honor and a pleasure to have your company."

"You know, there's a Gala coming up again, perhaps I'll have to come in to see about a dress."

I looked from Princess Celestia to Sassy giggled at how shocked Sassy was, but Mom was leaving the shop, and I remembered the rule she'd made. The white dress Sassy had given me swirled around my back legs but didn't touch the ground. I looked under Mom's legs to her other side to see Saffron at her other flank. "She was really nice, Mom."

"You realize what this does to your father and me, right? Richards won't take any of the blame for this. Looking after you two is our job. This means she gets to ask nosy questions and poke around more often." Mom sounded more resigned than actually upset. "But, there wasn't any rule about my son not being able to explore the city on his own. What I'll do is tell you off in front of her, Saffron, for not requesting an escort. You're going to take an ear-burning in public, and you won't be able to go anywhere without two of Richards' men with you."

"Mom," I said, "It wasn't all Saf's fault. I—"

"Riley, I know it wasn't all Saffron's fault, which is why you're going to be suffering the same fate as he is. Now, I want both of you with your most repentant faces on—that means puppy eyes and big frowns."

Trying to take the blame wasn't going to work if Mom had already assigned it to me. I hung my head and cast my eyes down to the ground as we walked outside.

Philip Ree

After the dressing down Clair gave our kids, I knew she'd need a hug. She hated disciplining them at the best of times, but being forced to use it in public would be worse than usual. Right now, however, she was still in public and there was nothing I could do but stand at her side and smile.

Clair made with all the fancy diplomacy and begged us some time to settle into our new home before the welcoming dinner tonight. Given my magic, I was definitely the most useful for carrying all our personal gear to the mansion that Clair had acquired.

Inside, the place was huge. There were dozens of rooms, a slew of which Clair claimed as our family quarters. I set down the two big packing boxes that held most of our stuff and turned to look at Clair—she was barely holding on.

"You look like you could use a massage," I said.

Saffron and Riley knew the meaning of that, and both focused their attention on the boxes of stuff which left me looking at Clair. Equestria had given me a new sense of wonder in that I'd learned to love my wife no matter what form she was in. Not that age had marred us terribly back home, but here we were both young ponies again.

We both held it together until we reached what seemed to be the master bedroom of the building before I grabbed Clair with both forelegs and pulled her against me.

Clair hugged me back and pressed her face to my neck. "I hated every second of that. I told them to look"—she sniffed hard—"I told them to look chastised, and they did it too well. Take me home. I quit."

"No you don't." I didn't dare give up the hug or she might just stomp off and make good on her words.

"I will! I—I fucking will!" Swear words were stage-2 of Clair-angry.

"Mmhmm." I started rubbing Clair's shoulders with my hooves. If one thing being a pony had taught me, it was how sensitive the equine (or maybe just pony) body was. "Can I get a growl?"

"I'm not that angry!" She kept quiet for several minutes, just letting me keep rub her shoulders. "Can we move to the bed?"

"Clair Ree!" I didn't so much loosen my grip as let her slide back just a little so we could be face to face. "Is this those burning pony urges I hear so much about?"

"I want a proper massage." Clair wiggled from my grip and pranced to the bed before flopping on it.

With a rear view, my pony side (something that I couldn't deny existed) took a great interest in my wife's assets. "No urges at all?" I climbed up on the bed, mimicking the stance an earth horse would take with a mare to a reasonable level of authenticity, and reached out to Clair's shoulders with my magic.

"Ooooh…" As her voice trailed off into an incomprehensible syllable, Clair slumped further onto the bed. "That feels amazing. Please don't stop."

Careful to position myself just right to avoid going too far with the mounting simile, I worked my magic "hands" down Clair's back, digging silver thumbs into the tightest muscles I found.

The massage was as close to sex as it was possible to get and not actually have sex, but that seemed to work for both of us. Clair sank further into the embrace of the bed while I worked my magic hands back up to her neck.

"Alright," Clair said after several minutes of my attention on her neck, "I'll stay."

I leaned forward—which resulted in my belly pressing firmly into her back—and kissed Clair between her shoulders, then a little further along, then a little further again.

My kisses were deep in her mane when Clair finally laughed and shifted under me. There was no greater example of how strong she was than the way she picked me up, rolled over, and set me back down on her belly. "There. Now we can talk face to face."

I took the opportunity to kiss Clair, and the return of the gesture revealed neither of us lacked the nervous excitement that had brought us together in the first place. It lingered long past the minute mark, I was sure, and was proof that we'd mastered (or at least become gifted amateurs at) kissing.

"You want to try for more?" Clair asked.

Oh boy did I? I kissed her lips with a quick peck. "Always."

"Well, we know doggy—pony—style works. What about missionary?"

"Missionary would be nice, but I was thinking more adventurous. Nirv—"

"Nirvana? Hey, that might work. This bed is way too soft for it, and I don't exactly want to make that kind of mess on it." Clair squirmed under me in a way that caused enough excitement that blood was already flowing to the places it needed to be.

I climbed off her, kissing a line down her body, before turning to the floor. "We're going to need a towel and a pile of pillows."

"I'll check the bathroom!"

While Clair investigated our en suite, I used my magic to carry a small nest of pillows from the huge bed to the floor and arranged them so that Clair should be able to lay on her back without discomfort. When Clair returned and tossed a huge towel over the pile, I turned to look at her.

My darling wife was excited for this—her tail flicked, her ears were alert and forward, and she pranced across the floor. "We could have done this on the bed, I guess, but I don't want to explain any mess."

I actually laughed at that. Memories rolled over me that were over thirty years old. "Remember when we got our first place together?"

Clair laughed. "And old Mrs. Nelson kept complaining that we were always using the washing machine and it was noisy?"

"Sooo many sheets." My nose twitched at a new smell in the air. We weren't exactly new to the bedroom as ponies, we'd just stuck to what was the traditional method for ponies so far. There was something more intense about sex as a pony—the smell, the sight, and the sound of Clair all had an effect on me.

Without any hesitation I walked up behind her and dipped my nose under her tail. The smell of her intensified a hundredfold. I shivered and felt my body building up for the moment even more. I took another breath before I licked along her fold.

"Whoa!" Clair jumped a little and did a little prancing dance, but when she settled she kept her rear to me and looked back over her shoulder. "Warn a girl when you're going to do that."

"I'm going to do that," I said, and did.

Several times.

"St-Stop!" A laugh bubbled through Clair's tone, which only goaded me to go one more time. "No! Dammit Phil, now I'm almost there."

"Remember when we were trying for Riley?" I asked while licking my lips.

"We don't have time for that." Clair walked around the cushions to inspect them. "Do we have time for that?"

"Nope. But maybe tomorrow night we will." I walked right into the middle of the cushions and sat down on one end of the towel with my back legs bunched under me.

Clair just stared at me, but it wasn't my eyes she was looking at. "I still can't get over how intimidatingly big it is—you are."

There was not a lot that could really stroke an aroused male's ego quite so much as a woman telling him he was big. "Well?"

"Yeah, gimme a second to work up to this. I know it fits and all, but wow, Phil." She walked toward me and turned around again. Despite every instinct screaming for me jump up and on her, I waited while Clair lay down and rolled to her back before me.

The advantage of being a unicorn over being a human was simple: magic. I reached for my power and adjusted Clair, shifting some cushions under one side of her, then lifting her rump a little to prepare to bring her toward me.

"Wait," Clair said. "You're not aiming at me."

I looked down in surprise. Sure enough, the mechanics of a pony dong meant it dropped down a little, but mostly ran parallel to my body. "Sh-Should it bend a little? How was it when you—"

"It seemed really rigid. You could try adjusting it."

I let Clair down to the cushions again and changed my grip to my penis. "Whoa!" I snuffed out my magic quickly as the shot of energy to such a sensitive spot felt like touching a live wire. "Okay, new rule, don't use magic on sensitive bits."

"Bad?"

"Enough that it doesn't feel good. Okay, let me use a hoof then." The up side, that freed up my magic to use to lift Clair up, while the down side was I needed to lean way forward to get my shaft anywhere near her.

With Clair's back legs braced just under my forelegs, however, and holding her up and myself down, I could get my large penis to the right spot (100% of wives agree).

"Philip Ree," Clair said as I pressed my tip to her entrance. "I love you so much."

I leaned forward a little more and used my magic to ease her toward me. The result was a spine-shivering sensation as her body pressed around me. My pony instincts wanted to lunge forward and start the roller coaster of sex, but I wasn't just a pony. "I love you too, Clair."

Pushing in—or pulling her back as it may be—I felt more of myself wrapped in her clutching muscles. I grunted and groaned almost as much as she did, until Clair lifted a hoof and tapped my chest. "What's wrong?"

"Lean down more," Clair said, and when I did so, she sighed. "Better. Keep going."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Fuck me, Philip Ree."

I lifted my rump with my back legs, which shoved me forwards. Clair's eyes—gazing into mine—widened and then fluttered. I pulled back and repeated the motion, which earned a happy sigh from Clair that was music to my ears.

"More! More!" Clair's cries were mixed with grunts and gasps from each thrust I delivered. Each time my groin shoved against Clair's body, she let loose another gasp.

My head was almost pressed to Clair's chest and neck, but when I tilted my head back and looked her in the eyes, our very souls connected.

I'd heard—not that I'd admit where—that horses were fast when it came to sex. Up, in, off, done. Ponies were not so cursed. The same haunches that carried me around all day, that set me into a gallop fast enough to almost keep pace with my wife, were more than capable of delivering the thrusts that pushed us both toward the most intense physical expression of love.

I saw the moment when it became too much for her. Satisfaction was as much mine as Clair's when she opened her eyes wide and managed to barely whisper my name through the tension her orgasm was putting on the muscles in her throat.

Clair wrapped both forelegs around my neck and pulled me against her.

There was no way I could break the death-grip she had on me, but with her only having hold of my neck, I could continue to pump my body against and into her.

I weathered Clair's howl of pleasure, even as I felt my own end nearing. Orgasms, I'd found, were different for stallions than men. For a man most of the show was focused in the groin, with pleasure radiating out from there. For a stallion it was focused—oddly—near the chest, and radiated down and into the groin. I felt that thrumming pressure in my chest—amplified since it was currently pressed to Clair's midsection.

Like a sexy missile the pleasure spread from my chest through my body and down to nestle above my balls. Every muscle in my body suddenly burned with the need to do something, and the raw fire of my pleasure shot from my prostate down my shaft.

Orgasm, as a stallion, was pretty good indeed.

The whole world—both worlds—faded away and there was just this circle of cushions, this towel, and us atop it. Nothing existed except for our bodies and the feelings we held for each other. My hips jerked of their own will while I stared upward at Clair's jaw. Her own whines were nothing compared to the aching grunts that bore forth from my throat.

It was incredible.

I wasn't ready for when Clair released her vice-like grip on me. Instead of standing back straight, I fell sideways on wobbly legs. My length pulled from her body thankfully without causing any undue stress since it was already flagging in hardness.

Clair laughed at me as I wound up on my back, and her laughter cranked up a notch when my body—intent on proving it was in every way superior to how it had been just a month ago—shot another jet of semen up and along my body, but off to one side.

I watched the graceful jet of my essence arc through the air in a gleeful parabola, aimed directly at the carpet. Not on my watch! I caught the fluid midair with my magic, wrapping it up like I'd cup water in my hands.

"Okay, that's just about the most silly and impressive thing I've ever seen you do," Clair said.

"Yeah?" I asked. "Now what do I do?"

"What do you mean?" Clair rolled to her belly, keeping her back end on the towel.

"How do I get up without smearing myself on the carpet or dropping this?"

My wonderful, darling wife spent the next ten minutes giggling her cute, fuzzy butt off while she got herself cleaned and got me another towel.

Author's Note

Major Richards: You do realize that by attempting to establish yourself as the boss or person in charge of the Ambassador you're actually doing the opposite of what your job entails?

"My job is to ensure there are no casualties, and everyone gets home. It is not my job to make nice with the locals. That would be Ambassador Ree's job."

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