Twilight Sparkle and the Stupid Original Pony

“What! What! What! I didn’t see it appear, I was blinded by the flash. What is it?”

Gloam grinned as I voiced my eager question.

Sure enough, there it was on her flank; she tugged her skirt a little to give me a better look. A rose star, like her father’s, graced by a pair of stylized motion lines suggested power, action, dynamicism. The visual brought to mind a meteor. It was perfect. The movement lines tilted towards her aft, giving the implication of forward movement.

“Oh, Gloam! It’s wonderful!”

In fact, it was perfect.

“I know,” she said, very pleased with the development, “isn’t it?”

—

“What a day,” said Twilight as we exited Canterlot Castle. “Shouting at her highness, combat and explosions in the throne room, my daughter gets her mark, and it’s only an hour past lunch. Celestia is right, let’s get our backsides home, if we hurry we can catch the two twenty train to Ponyville.”

“There’re some ponies in town I’d like to drop in upon, if we may, dear,” I said.

“Who? Who could you possibly want to visit in Canterlot?”

“Your parents. They have a granddaughter to meet. And I’ve yet to meet your sire.”

“Oh snack-crackers! I’ve totally been neglecting them the entire time you were banished.”

“We’ll divide and conquer,” I said.

“Come again?”

“You’ll team up with your dad and talk about how great it is to be a father and I’ll talk to your mother about pregnancy and labor. By the time we’re done with them they’ll forget all about a few weeks with no Twilight updates.”

“No. I will start with the apology, and if I’m still part of House Sparkle, we can take it from there.”

—

“Nervous?” Twilight paused midway through the family-spell which would open her parents’ front door.

“Not really. It’s a bit late to ask permission to marry you. If they want to reject me as their something in law, Celestia herself is obligated to defend my standing since she married us.”

“Something in law?” She paused again, with the door ajar.

“Well, if I’m your wife, but I’m male, am I their son in law or daughter in law?”

“Ugh, son in law. Is our whole life going to be an unending series of gender gags?”

“Probably,” I said.

“Probably,” Gloam agreed.

“Let’s do this.” She opened the door fully.

I followed her in, not knowing what to expect.

The front door opened into a broad hallway. The furnishings all displayed comfortable wealth and good taste, without ostentating. Just inside the door, coats were hung on either wall. After a step up from the slate paved entry, the rest of the hall was carpeted. Through a door on the right I could see what appeared to be a dining room, and I guessed a living room was to the left, past a small table bearing a cut crystal bowl. Past the doors, the walls were lined with portraits showing the history of the Sparkles. Their home looked very welcoming, and Twilight’s mother was very nice, but what would Lord Sparkle be like? Maybe I was a tiny bit nervous.

“Mom? Dad?” Twilight called, “Are you home?”

“Come in, long lost daughter!” I heard a stallion, presumably Nightlight, call from the door to the left. “You’ve missed your brother and lunch. He took the leftovers with him.”

“Wait here,” I whispered to Gloam in the hallway and followed Twilight into a cozy living room. On one wall a stone fireplace held a pleasant blaze. Opposite an official portrait of Princess Celestia hung in a position of honor. A comfortable looking sofa occupied the wall facing a curtained window; there sat Twilight’s parents. Twilight Velvet was reading the Canterlot Post and Nightlight seemed to be finishing a spell – magic was fading around his horn.

“I’m sorry for being out of contact,” she said. “Mom, I guess you met Tangent already? Dad, this is my somepony special, his name is Tangent.”

“So you’re the stallion who wants to marry my little filly.”

He stood to offer me his hoof; I ignored it to hug him.

“Too late, Dad, been there, done that, her Highness married us by fiat, and he’s my wife,” Twilight explained giving hardly any detail, “but the reason I’ve been out of touch is that he was temporarily stuck back in his old world and it’s taken me weeks to work up the magic to bring him home again. But there was a timeslip between the worlds and it’s been nine years for him.”

“Timeslip?” Nightlight asked as I released him, “you’ve experienced nine years while my little Twilight was neglecting her parents for a few weeks?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Nine, really?” Twilight Velvet asked. I nodded. “Oh, that’s terrible! Twilight, I’m glad you kept busy working on your spells and didn’t waste time visiting us!” Twilight Velvet spoke earnestly as Nightlight nodded his agreement. “Of course a note to your parents wouldn’t have hurt at all. Are you okay, Tangent?”

“Where there is life, there is hope, Mom,” I said.

“Well now, that doesn’t sound stark and ruinous at all,” she said with gentle sarcasm.

“I’m just happy to be back with Twilight now.”

I stood very close at her daughter’s side, a position that she seemed to approve of.

“There’s more,” Twilight said as her parents looked at her expectantly, “we were, uh, kinda fooling around—”

“You’re pregnant!” Twilight Velvet burst in, dropping the paper and springing to her hooves. Eagerly she felt at Twilight’s side with a lit horn, hoping to detect some sign of pregnancy.

Nightlight, having pushed me aside and now scanning Twilight from the other side, was even more excited than his wife, improbable as that seemed.

“Um, no.” Both parents were instantly disappointed and quenched their magics. “The truth is weirder than that. Tangent, uh, can you handle explaining this please?”

“Sure. Mom and Dad Sparkle, you see, Twilight and I made passionate, vigorous, love—” from the corner of my eye I could see Twilight’s hoof cover her eyes, not regretting asking me to explain at all “—with our genders magically swapped and your lovely daughter knocked me up. That happened just before I departed from Equestria. I’ve been raising our foal alone on a world called Terra for the last eight years.” The sudden revelation left them speechless. “Come out, sweetie,” I called back towards the hall.

After a delay just long enough to suggest swallowing a hoofful of mints, Gloam stepped around the corner and her grandponies melted.

“Lord and Lady Sparkle, I am delighted to present my daughter, Gloam Jet Sparkle; your granddaughter! Gloam, your grandponies, Nightlight Sparkle and Twilight Velvet Sparkle.”

Their eyes made like their family name and sparkled.

“A granddaughter who doesn’t live a thousand kilometers into the frozen north, who’s old enough to spoil, and I never had to change a diaper once! Oh,Twilight, you shouldn’t have!” Twilight Velvet winked at me. “But I’m glad she did.”

“I could have an ‘accident’ once in a while if you think you’ve missed out,” snarked Gloam.

“Oh, ho, ho!” Twilight Velvet chortled, “I think we’re going to have fun, young miss Gloam! You are old enough to help clean your own accidents, but I’m glad you’re a spirited filly. How long ago did you get your mark, honey?”

“About an hour, after the big fight! Do you like it?”

“It’s wonderful! And dear,” Twilight Velvet said to Nightlight, as she nudged him affectionately, “doesn’t it remind you of his Lordship, your father?”

“Yes, I wish the late Earl was alive to see the old Sparkle star is still running strong in the family despite skipping me! My sire would have been so happy to meet you, Gloam.”

“Skipping you, my Lord?” I asked. “I take it the star motif has been in the family for a while?”

“Firstly, young stallion, if you’re married to my daughter, I won’t have you call me ‘Lord’ unless you’re introducing me in public. If you’re calling Velvet ‘Mom’, you can call me ‘Dad’. I don’t know how much Twilight has told you about her family, but House Sparkle has been serving Princess Celestia for a double hoofful of centuries, and most of my foresires have had the Sparkle star.”

“I see, sir, I mean, Dad. It’s a pleasure to part of the Sparkle family.”

“Next time you’re here in Canterlot with an hour or eight to kill, we’ll crack open a Rehoboam of port and I can start teaching you the history of the Earls, and how the star has manifested over the generations.”

“The paintings in the hall?”

”That’s them! So, Twilight, erm, how’s it feel to be a father?” Nightlight asked. “I can’t believe I’m asking my daughter such a question!”

“I’ve only known about this for a week, Dad, so it’s still unreal to me. But, it’s great, Gloam is the most incredible filly, I love her!”

Twilight drew Gloam into an embrace and I sighed with contentment looking at how happy they were. For eight long years I had done everything that I could for my daughter, but a young pony needs her father too. At last her father was part of her life.

“I realize you’re still getting to know her,” Twilight Velvet said to Twilight, “but you also need to catch up with Tangent. How about Gloam spends the night with us, and you two could check into The Ceylon for tonight? It’s, ahem, a romance hotel over in Tantra Square. Down at the far end, by the station. Really quite nice, though we haven’t been there in a while.”

Nightlight looked rather surprised by her admission.

Twilight Velvet blushed when she realized the conclusion that might be drawn from her statement.

“I mean, it’s not Nighty can’t— or that we don’t— aaiigh!” she clamped a hoof to her forehead in embarrassment. “What I mean to say is that we no longer have to sneak off to a hotel to get some privacy now that the foals are all grown.”

“It’s okay, Grandmare Velvet,” said Gloam, infinitely wise and jaded as only an eight year old filly can be, “don’t be embarrassed. Mom has been doing the grownup thing with dad nonstop since dad rescued us.”

Silence filled the room after Gloam dropped that bombshell. She smiled, pleased with herself. Better than farting in an elevator!

“Waaaaait,” said Twilight slowly as she pondered implications, “so all those times you and Dad said you were going to ‘a parenting convention’…”

“Uh-huh!” Twilight Velvet nodded enthusiastically. “It sure was nice to spend some time with my sweetie once in a while without worrying about you rappelling down through the skylight.”

“I never did that!”

“You did,” both parents averred.

“I would remember something like that. Hey Dad, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Nightlight nodded and led Twilight towards the den.

“I’m going exploring,” Gloam intoned casually and faded into the woodwork. We pretended not to notice.

“Cutie mark at age eight. Full of sass and confidence. Certainly a precocious young lady,” Twilight Velvet said when we were alone.

“Mommy is totally thrilled by her!” I enthused.

“So, nonstop?”

“Gloam thinks that she is exaggerating for shock value. But—” I tallied the events of the last week in my mind “—Twilight and I have kept pretty busy since we were reunited. Easily ten times in the first hundredhour, in spite of our daughter's best efforts.”

“Good, I’m glad. It’s important for you youngsters to get some time together.”

“Is the rappelling story true?”

“Yes. For starters, we had a lock & silence spell on our bedroom door, for the obvious reason. Twilight knew the emergency ward word, but she understood that wanting a drink of water was not an emergency and went looking for another way, no matter how much less difficult it would have been to get her own water. So I’m lying on my back trying to get my eyes to uncross after my third, and looking past Nighty’s shoulder I see something purple drop down from the ceiling—”

“Uh oh!” I murmured.

“—and then she taps him on the shoulder to ask, ‘daddy, what are you doing to mommy?’ Naturally this startles him. He jerks his head back, their horns cross, there’s a flash, and they’re both out cold. That’s probably why Twilight doesn’t remember it. I scooted off to the kitchen and helped myself to a bowl of ice-cream.”

“That was unquestionably the correct course of action. What flavor?”

“Butter-brickle.”

“Good call.”

“It was obvious I wasn’t getting any more hooves-on time. Has Gloam done anything to top that?”

“No, but Twi’ and I have only been back together for a week and we had sacrificial house guests to distract her. My friend Ishaz and our dear Lord of Chaos, Discord, were visiting and found themselves mercilessly bedeviled by her.”

Twilight Velvet laughed aloud.

“I bet even Lord Discord had his various manipulators full with Gloam!” she said. “So, while you were female you carried Gloam the full eleven months and—” she made a straining noise that any mother would recognize “—everything?”

“Well, I was human again while carried her, so it was only nine months, but yes—” I repeated the universal sound of labor “—everything.”

“You’re not the first couple to do a switch-up for fun, (no, Nighty and I have not) but you may be the first stallion to give birth.”

“I’m just glad I didn’t get a cutie mark for that!”

“No matter when, or if, you do get your mark, we’re glad to have you as part of the family.”

“Thank you, Mom.”

“What happened with your mother? Did having a granddaughter make any difference to her?”

“Honestly, I never wanted to find out. And then, just a few days ago Twilight and I bumped into her. It turns out that she’s been getting treatment, and therapy, and is doing much better. She asked Twilight to take good care of me.”

“Aw, bless her heart, and bless her journey to healing.”

“Amen,” I agreed.

“And it just goes to show you, never give up on anypony. While so much as one breath remains, it’s not too late for repentance.”

Before I could ask Twilight Velvet more about her views on grace, Twilight and Nightlight returned; Twilight was levitating a sawdust covered Gloam at her side.

“Any injuries?” I asked.

“The only fatality was dad’s workshop.”

Twilight was more upset about whatever happened than her father.

“It’s nothing sweetie,” he assured Gloam.

Twilight Velvet’s horn lit up and she accepted charge of the grubby burden. “Go on, kids,” she said, “tell them I sent you. I recommend room seventeen. But now, I have a granddaughter to scrub and then we’re making cookies!”

As we left, I couldn’t help but notice that the candy bowl in the hall was now empty.

—

Lord and Lady Sparkle watched their daughter and her special pony stroll down the street.

“Well that was sudden,” Twilight Velvet said to Nightlight.

He could only nod in agreement, reflecting back on an improbable topic of lunchtime conversation.

Levitating Gloam down to the ground, Twilight Velvet grinned and asked, “How do you like Equestria so far?”

“I think I’m going to like it here a lot, Grandmare Velvet. I’ve only been here one day and I’ve already killed a monster last night and demolished Princess Celestia’s throne room today while fighting assassins! I’ll show you how I did it—”

Gloam’s horn began to glow.