Despite the joy of a newly united family, its best to keep a low profile in a broken world. Even a world you hope to leave in only a week or so. Gloam would need to go to school tomorrow to maintain our cover, and for school she needed her rest.

After we tucked our daughter back into bed, Twilight and I sat together on the sofa in my room. It was not by chance that there was room for both human and pony on the custom furniture.

“How old are you now?” Twilight asked.

“I’m thirty five.”

“It’s only been about two moons for me. I can’t believe this, it’s just too much for me.”

Two moons. Where I had been almost of an age with her, now i was nearly a decade older.

I scooted closer to her, stealing what comfort I could before I had to tell her the worst.

“Fifty,” she said absently as I lost myself in her warmth.

“Fifty?”

“The time differential. Time has been moving approximately fifty times faster here than in Equestria. If I spent a half hour daydreaming, a day passed for you. Every week that I wasted was a year for you. A bucking year.” Her voice turned solemn. “When should I ask you about the bad stuff?”

“Now is as good as time as any. You might not want to have anything to do with me once you know it all.”

She started to speak, stopped when she saw my grim expression.

“I know, you want to say I’m wrong. But listen anyway and I will tell you the bad part.”

Twilight held her peace as I heaved a sigh.

“I’ve missed you so much, these long years. But I can’t claim that I have lived purely, while waiting for you. I’ve been raped, assaulted, turned some tricks in necessity, and one time I practically assaulted Leon. I have shed blood when needed. I nearly took a lover in my despair.”

“Oh, Tan—”

“Do you need to know all the gruesome details to make up your mind?”

“Make up my mind about what?”

“If you even want me anymore, these tainted goods. I’m so sorry that I did not protect your property better.”

“Did my cruelty, my petty rudeness, and the nightmare spell of the rape monster scare you away from me?”

Some part of my mind recognized how logically she was responding to my panic. Logical… and sexy.

“Obviously, no.” I tried to respond in kind, but logic wasn’t going to save me. “Those things were before we were really together. I don’t really have that excuse.”

No moment had ever held more terror. Twilight had finally returned and here I felt myself a worthless slattern.

“Oh! You’re shaking! Honey!”

I couldn’t hold back the tears any more, and buried my face in her mane again.

“I… I don’t what to do,” she said.

“Just hold me,” I wept, “and tell me if we can still be together. Because, believe it or not, I still haven’t told you the bad part.”

“Tell me the bad part.”

“Worse than anything that happened to me, worse than anything I did, for just a while I almost gave up on you.”

“You are mine forever, beloved. I ripped a hole through reality to get here and be with you. Though Celestia styles herself princess, she is my queen but I defied her advice to be here now. I had no idea that there would be a time differential, that it had been so long for you. I could never reject you for what you suffered while you were alone. You don’t have to tell me all the details unless you need to.”

“I’ll tell you if I need to talk about it. And you tell me if you need to know more.”

“It’s a deal. You said rape.” Her voice was grim again. “I will obliterate whoever dared lay one hoof upon—”

“I already killed him, trust that he did not find his death an easy one. He looked damnation in the eye before I relented. Anything else?”

“I don’t know. I’m still processing this. What did Celestia do to you?”

“She couldn't have known what would happen.”

“But—”

“No buts, Princess, my love. I’d rather her Highness never knows what I went through. Please. I can’t imagine how to avoid it sounding like an accusation.”

“Did you really force yourself on Sir Leon?”

“I tried. I’d sometimes meet Leon in dreams and he would just hold me while I wept. But I haven’t had sex with him since before Slimedark. I threw myself at him one time a couple years back. I was a complete wreck, weeping and begging.”

“He seems to be a wise enough fellow. I’d be in no position to complain if you had found some comfort in his arms; I owe him a thank you for the metaphorical kick in the heiney he gave me. What happened?”

“He refused me, he had to. He’s married now and I damn well knew it. I left ashamed, angry, and frantic. Not a good situation.”

“Didn’t you manage to get laid at all?” she asked as casually as if she was inquiring about making a second choice when the baker is out of a favored dessert. There was no judgment in her question. “Seriously, if you were alone for nine years, not knowing if we would ever see each other again, I couldn’t blame you.”

“When tentacle monsters failed to satisfy me, I turned to ritual masturbation. Then I had to kill two fools who tried to assault me while I falling asleep in the afterglow.”

“Tentacles and then ritual what? That's not any magic that I know about. You know that her Highness Celestia keeps sex magic locked down pretty tight, only Cadance is allowed to use any. The spell I used on us is one not even Cadance would be allowed to cast. Maybe you can put on a show for me?” her mischievous smirk was still tinged with rue but it lit up my heart.

I pressed myself closer. “If you plan to keep me, then my heart, my flesh and my lore are yours to command. But tonight I will need to be close to you, plain and simple.”

“Be mine and I will never let you go. I have bit of a confession, too. I threw myself at at Luna to try to convince her to send you a message across the worlds. It really wasn’t fair of me to do that to her… she rebuffed me as honor required. And then I learned that she had already sent word, before I even asked, by way of Leon. Did you get the message?

“Yeah, I had been alone for six months, I was pregnant and emotional, and it was so good to know that you were okay. I knew you wouldn’t leave me, so sometimes I feared for your safety. Poor, dear, Princess Luna, my happiness is at her expense.”

We lay for a while in silence.

“Twilight?”

“Yes, dear?”

“We’re going back to Equestria, right?”

“If you’ll come home with me, yes. Otherwise, I’ll stay with you here or find us another world.”

I had already found another world, one which would be perfect. But I was more interested in getting back to Equestria.

“Will her majesty permit me—”

“Yes. That’s all settled. though I must have further words with her.”

“It’s gonna take a while to get the energy to take us all across, right?”

“Especially with a foal to bring too,” she agreed. “Even without flying in the clouds like last time, my magic reserves are mostly drained, and I know from experience that magic recharges slowly here.”

I nodded in agreement. Equestrian magic certainly did recharge slowly.

“It was hard work breaking through Celestia’s barrier spell and I foalishly didn’t think to charge up before coming to you – I should have waited just a little while; five minutes would have been enough and even with the time difference, that would have only been about four more hours for you. I don’t think it would have hurt anything. But a week or so should be long enough and then we can go home, that should be no big deal.”

“In the mean time,” I asked her, “can you grow a penis?”

Author's Note

“I don’t think it would have hurt anything.”

I assume that I don’t need to spell it out that Twilight is wrong. She may never know what bullets she dodged, that’s just between you and me right now.

Pop Quiz, everypony: What comes after “The Bad Stuff”? Answers in the comments.