Madeline Horsepone flitted about the living room, trying to make the party guests comfortable.
That was ironic, because Madeline was probably the most nervous of anypony there. Sure, Killflower's parents were probably wondering whether their child of forty-two years would turn out to be a stallion or a mare. And Madeline's own parents probably wondered how they'd raised a daughter who had gone for years without knowing whether she had a husband or a wife, or what, exactly?
It could happen to anypony, Madeline's sister-in-law said. By which Madeline thought she probably meant, hey, Killflower and I were born into the same family, so it's not my fault. I didn't do anything. But Madeline? She CHOSE to marry my weird brother...sister...whatever he is.
Madeline sighed. Why didn't anypony show Killflower a little bit of understanding? Sure, Killflower was hard to understand, but that was probably because Killy had lived an entire lifetime in a society that from birth on suppresses any natural urge of self-expression. If you admit who and what you really are, that just makes you a target for the small-minded.
But was anypony's mind large enough to encompass Killy's true nature and identity? It had taken Killy themself more than four decades to figure out...whatever Killy had figured out. Assuming that Killy had indeed figured it out, and this whole party wasn't just a false alarm. So Madeline supposed maybe everypony was too small-minded, and it wasn't really anypony's fault, but rather a tragedy inherent in the way the universe is.
Madeline thought, if only we were all...bigger minded? Whatever the word is. Then maybe I would have already been able to understand my Killy. And maybe it wouldn't have taken Killy so long to figure themself out. Maybe on our first date, Killy would have been able to come out to me. That would have been nice. Maybe Killy would have had a really great gender I would totally love, and our years of often-troubled marriage could have been so much more joyous, mixed with so much less sorrow.
Madeline sighed.
On the wall, the big screen television lit up. Blurry video came into focus.
"Look," Killflower's sister Dreamcrumple said. "Maybe now we'll finally find something out."
Killy's father said, "That looks like...the highway leading into town? I think this is a video filmed from the air."
"Ha ha!" laughed Dreamcrumple. "Maybe our little Killy is about to come out as an attack helicopter!"
Madeline couldn't help herself. "That's not funny!" she said. "If you were wrestling with difficult gender questions, how would you like somepony to say something like that?"
Killy's mother shot Dream A LOOK, and Dream went silent. Thank goodness, Madeline thought. Maybe if Dream's mom would follow Dream around all day and all night, Dream might behave like a decent, nice pony. Of course, that might be a little awkward when Dream went home to her husband at night.
Even if it WOULD be awkward, Madeline thought, Dream probably still deserved it.
The television's view moved along the highway. It followed a side road, and zoomed in. Finally it showed a close-up of a pony holding a remote control for one of those little video drones that had become fashionable when advanced electronics became cheaply available in Equestria.
The pony was Killflower, wearing a dress and heavy makeup.
"Ha!" Madeline's mother said. "You owe me fifty bits!" Maddy's father reached into his saddlebags, and hoofed a bag to his wife.
Killflower looked into the camera. "Hello, everypony. Please don't jump to conclusions based on what you see at this moment. Appearances can deceive."
Maddy's father grabbed the bag back.
Killflower pressed a button on the remote control, and the drone followed Killy as Killy walked through a doorway.
"That's the First Equestrian Bank!" Killy's father said. "What is he---Killy, I mean--playing at?"
The drone landed on a table inside the bank. The camera followed Killy as the pony walked to a teller window, where Killy set down several crumpled two-bit bills and a note that had been tightly folded many times. Killy turned around and walked out of the bank.
The drone stayed in the bank, panning to show more of the scene.
At the teller window, a pony unfolded the note. "This note says there's a bomb planted next to our bank vault that will go off any moment now, so everypony should get away from the vault and lay on the floor to keep from getting hit by rubble!"
Ponies screamed. One foal tried to run out the front door, but another pony (her mother?) grabbed the foal with her teeth and held her down, the larger pony's body on top of the foal to shield her.
The video switched to show a wagon parked outside. Killflower spoke earnestly.
"I've been seeing so much about gender reveal parties. Parents who act like the most important thing in the world is whether their one day old foal is a colt or a filly. Like, do you have to be careful to only let your foal wear blue or pink diapers? Does a newborn foal really care whether the toys are fire trucks or mobile beauty parlor vans? Won't you love your foal no matter what gender they are?
"For a while, I thought maybe that WAS the point. I thought, maybe some parents DO love fillies less than colts, or colts less than filles. But I thought about it some more, and I saw the light. Gender reveal parties aren't about the foals at all. They're about the parents.
"Some parents just want to have a more spectacular reveal party than the other family had. Some parents want to have a fifty-piece brass band instead of forty-nine pieces, and an even BIGGER bouncy castle, even if the foal is still too young to appreciate any of that junk."
"And some ponies," Killy said, pulling the dress partway up and using it to rub off some face makeup, "Just really like to blow **** up. That's what THIS party is about. One day I saw that Maddy and I don't even HAVE to have a foal, to have an excuse to do what we really want to do. Tartarus, I would probably be a terrible parent. Maddy would be a good mother, but everything she would do right, I might more than cancel out with my crazyass behavior."
"Calling it crazyASS is speciesist!" Maddy complained. But Killflower couldn't hear her.
"I've been learning about explosives for a long time now. This is the moment when it all starts to become truly worthwhile. This is the moment when I tell all of you who are nearest and dearest to me, it hardly even matters what gender I am, because I'm not really about the gender, I'm about the part of the reveal party where you..."
Killflower put one hoof on a wooden box and pressed a large red button. Sparks flew out of the box. An instant later, the entire scene shook.
"Whoa!" Killflower said. "That was...really good. I would say what it's better than, but I don't want to hurt the feelings of the nicest and best mare I've ever known."
"Hay!" Madeline shouted angrily.
Killflower hitched himself to a wagon, pulled the wagon around a corner, and backed it up to a large hole in a building. He unhitched himself, used a snow shovel to transfer piles of bits into the wagon, tarped his load securely to prevent spillage, rehitched himself, and started his getaway trot.
"Hay!" Madeline complained. "Does he think he can get away with this?"
Killy looked up at the camera. "With my mare disguise, I think nopony but you knows who did this. If you really love me...you'll at least let me have a good start on my getaway. Please, let me have this moment that I've been secretly dreaming of ever since I was a colt. Let's savor the day when the fantasies I thought were unrealistic have finally come true."
The video went dark.
"Well," Killflower's father said, "I think he has a point. Finally, somepony has shown us the true meaning of gender reveal parties. They're not about what somepony has between their legs. Who cares about that? They should be about when your dreams finally come true, and you can be the pony who you know you were meant to be."
Madeline dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. "Awww!" she bawled. "That is SO TRUE! I never realized before, what a wise...PONY I married."
"Yeah, yeah," Maddy's mother said. "But is Killflower a mare or a stallion?"
Maddy's father shook his head. "That's not the important part. What's important is, now Madeline's husband is very rich. If none of us turn him in."
Maddy's mother said, "I'm starting a betting pool on who betrays Killflower first."
"Hay!" Maddy said. "That's a conflict of interest. Don't you care about my...our Killflower?"
Dream said, "Mrs. Horsepone, you're doing this all wrong. Instead of betting on when Killflower gets caught, or turning him in ourselves, we should understand that Killy needs our help. He just stole so much money, I doubt he can spend all of it himself. We should use what we know to blackmail Killy for a share of the bits."
Soon Dream and her parents were arguing loudly over what they should spend the bits on.
Hardly anypony except Maddy seemed to notice when the television lit up again, showing policeponies arresting Killflower.
***
In the prison's exercise yard, a very large and heavily muscled stallion walked up to Killflower. The enormous stallion said in a prisonyard whisper, "Hay. My cousin showed me a video somepony put on the Internet, of you wearing a dress."
Killflower looked up at his inquisitor. "So?"
"I think you could help me with something."
Killflower snorted. "Whaddaya want?"
The muscular giant knelt in front of Killflower. "Can you PLEASE teach me about explosives? That looked like so much fun! And I'll bet if you had more help, next time you could get away with the money instead of getting caught!"
Killflower looked at the giant for a moment, letting suspense build. Finally, he nodded. "It just so happens that I'm working on a little project, and I could use an apprentice. You'd be surprised what you can make, using only supplies that you can get in prison. But for the job I'm thinking of, you have to be willing to travel. And I don't mean waiting until your sentence ends."
The muscular stallion's eyes filled with tears of joy. "You can count on me."
Author's Note
Apologies for the fact that no character is perfect, or a perfect example. I guess that's how life sometimes is.
I made the story's cover image by combining authentic FBI documentation with an MLP screencap. Because of course I roll that way. (https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/fbi-detonated-large-ammonium-nitrate-explosive-as-part-of-case-against-man-accused-in-okc-bomb-plot/)
Also, now you all know what I did Friday evening. (I wrote this story. What did you THINK I meant?)
