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."

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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