Twilight Sparkle and the Stupid Original Pony

After leaving Twilight's parent’s house, we all hightailed it to the train station. The mid morning to Ponyville was barely in motion before Twilight and I began to slump in our seats. The two of us had gotten very little sleep the night before and we attempted to nap on the train ride. Naps punctuated, of course, by Gloam’s questions about the sights we passed. Twilight bore the brunt of these interruptions: she knew the geography far better than I did.

When we reached Ponyville midday,a dreary winter rain was falling. But no amount of mere drizzle could dampen my enthusiasm to return home. A quick trot through town and we were home!

I had seen a few familiar faces on our lightning stop at Ponyville Castle before our rush to Canterlot, but there had been no time to talk to anypony or show Gloam around.

I was delighted to see the castle staff. Smythe had assembled them for our return. The ponies I had worked with last time I was here were thoroughly perplexed by how much I had changed.

“Speaking for all of us—” Smythe stood at the head of the entire staff “—welcome back, sir.”

“Thank you all,” I said, “it’s great to be back in Equestria with you all. And I’d like to introduce everypony to our daughter, Gloam Jet Sparkle!”

“Hi, everypony!” she shouted, while rearing so everypony could see her well. Not a bashful bone in her body.

There was a murmur in the group and I realized that to a pony they must all be wondering how I had come up with an eight year old filly in only eight weeks absence.

“Okay, listen here, ponies,” I explained, “I’ve been stuck on another world where time flows differently. It’s been some nine years for me since I last saw you all, and that’s why I’m up here trying not to cry ‘cos I’m so happy to be back!”

I grinned as I wiped back one tear that had escaped.

“But who’s the mother?” asked one of the cleaners.

“I am. The Princess and I were doing specialized research—”

“Just a minute!” Twilight shouted and then lowered her voice, “you know this all some very personal stuff to be just telling everypony.”

I kept my own voice low as I made my point.

“But dear, how else are we to explain the existence of our daughter? I’m not willing to deny giving birth to her.”

Twilight opened her mouth as she began to speculate on some convoluted tale to avoid disclosure.

“What if we said that—”

“Trust me Princess. For something like this the truth is so much simpler than any wacky story we could possibly concoct. And its better to give out the truth all at once than have rumors and guesses spread around and then try to do damage control once ponies have the wrong idea.”

Twilight thought about this for a moment.

“You’re right, but it still feels wrong that we should have to tell everypony what we do in private.”

“Arguably it’s our own fault for having a foal in such a nontraditional manner. But I am not ashamed.” I winked at her. “Ponies,” I addressed the staff, ready to lay it all on the table, “as I was starting to say, our research lead in some interesting directions. We were married in a private ceremony, very shortly thereafter we conceived and as a result, I am this lovely filly’s mother and my husband the Princess—” here I bowed to my beloved “—is our daughter’s father.”

All eyes turned to Twilight.

“I… I…” Twilight stammered and then squared her shoulders and raised her voice to formally declare, “I, Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship and Element of Magic, do claim and acknowledge now and forevermore Gloam Jet Sparkle as my lawful and legitimate heir and issue. Ponies: I present my daughter!”

The entire castle staff bowed: unicorns touching their horns to the ground, earthponies bending low, pegasi spreading their wings downward in reverence.

“Welcome, Lady Gloam Jet Sparkle!” they said in one voice.

My daughter grinned even larger than before.

Lady Gloam.

The style had a nice sound to it.

—

Everypony were returning to their tasks, but head gardener Ken lingered to talk to me.

“Welcome back.” He shook my hoof. “I kept that ‘rooster’ topiary you made, moved it behind the gardening shed where nopony will be offended.”

“Hah, let me know when you need me to work on the cat, et cetera, too!”

“I’ll pencil that in for ‘never’, unless we have some plausible deniability.” He looked around, made sure nopony was standing near. “So, uhm, did you like it?” he asked quietly.

“Being a mare for the Princess? Buck yeah! But that’s all I’m saying about it. Really mustn’t get bucked and tell.”

—

The next order of business was the grand tour; Twilight was showing Gloam around our home. Upstairs, downstairs, round and about through all the halls. After my long absence, it was a good refresher for me, too. Twilight led us past one hidden door without even slowing; Trixie’s spell was holding strong.

“There’re over eighty rooms! So many we even lost one.”

“Two, madam,” Smythe stated.

“Say what?” Twilight laughed.

“I believe we have lost another room since the last time you utilized that joke. I am unable to determine from where and confess myself to be quite baffled.”

Twilight was still laughing. “It makes a good joke when I’m giving the grand tour, but you can’t really lose a room!”

“Indeed, madam.”

“Indeed what?”

“Indeed, rooms are notoriously difficult to misplace but nevertheless it seems that two are missing.”

“I’ll look for them!” Gloam offered as Twilight moved ahead on the tour, “I’m great at secrets!”

“If your Ladyship is able to assist—” He retrieved a butterscotch from her ear as soon as Twilight had looked away, and passed it to Gloam with grave mock secrecy “—there are more where this came from.”

—

“I expect the girls will want to welcome you back as soon as they know you are here; we can tell them tomorrow. Or maybe later.”

Before I could wonder why Twilight sounded nervous about the prospect, a door opened and it seemed the ‘the girls’ already knew I was back. They were, in fact, already here.

“Group hug!” shouted Pinkie and I was tackled.

After the ponypile broke up I greeted them.

“Thank you ladies, thank you! I’m so glad to be back in Equestria. And I need to introduce you all to my daughter Gloam!”

“Of course we’re very eager to meet her,” Rarity said, “but first we need to have just a tiny little word with you.”

I was surrounded. All five now wore identical forced grins like a small herd of Stepford mares.

Whatever I had done to warrant this focused attention, I’d bear up under their scrutiny better with Twilight at my side. I tried to sidle over to stand by her.

Too late – I was cut off as Twilight ushered Gloam out via another door and darted through after her.

The fake grins vanished.

“Can I help you ladies?” I asked cautiously.

“We need to talk to you about how Twilight has treated you.”

“Please!” I said, “whatever can you be implying about the mare I love?”

Apparently Rarity was their chosen spokespony – none of the others spoke a word.

“We know everything.” Her voice was grim.

“Everything?” I squeaked in surprise.

“We made Twilight tell us everything.”

“Everything?” I repeated.

“The kicking. The emotional cruelty. The sexual manipulation. We have sworn to secrecy, but we have to know that the abusive behavior has stopped. Even if you forgive what has gone before, we will not allow our friend to act that way any more. If you tolerate further mistreatment we will present our case to the throne that you are not competent to be responsible for your own safety.”

“Secrecy you say?”

“We pinky promise not to breathe a word so long as there is no further abuse.”

“That’s not good enough. Swear by your marks.”

They grumbled, but eventually one after another they swore on their cutie marks.

“Okay now, if I know Twilight, she probably presented herself in the worst possible light, rather than offer excuses.” Their nods showed that they agreed with my assessment. “So you you need to take whatever she told you with a lick of salt. But more importantly…”

I took a deep breath. I really didn’t want to open up about this, but I’d have to trust their promises.

“My beloved Twilight didn’t tell you everything,” I said, “because Twilight doesn’t know everything. And I bind you by your oaths to see that she doesn’t find out from you. You see, the night I met Twilight I committed suicide. I swallowed almost a big hoofful of extra strength sleeping pills, more than enough to make sure I would never wake up. I met Twilight in the dream world, and when she kicked me I vomited the pills up in real life. When I woke in the hospital days after the overdose, I was still bruised from her kick, but the pills would have killed me. That, as they say, is the rest of the story.”

“Oh, my.”

“My point, friends, is that she saved my life; you own no leverage against Twilight. She’ll never act like that again, and I am much stronger than I was ten years ago when I met her.”

“I see,” she said, “that we are at a sudden impasse.”

“Check and mate, darling.” I patted Rarity’s cheek with a sassy, but not unfriendly, hoof. “But my victory is your victory too. Because we all want the best for Twilight, don’t we?”

Vigorous nods all around.

“Then I think we’re good here.”

I smiled broadly in conscious imitation of Twilight. I was almost confident enough to convince her friends.

“Trust me.”

—

And then Twilight and Gloam were back, having avoided the awkward confrontation. I had the pleasure of introducing my daughter to the five heroes, her father’s boon companions. Gloam made a good impression on them (how could she not?) and they decided en mass to adopt her as an honorary niece – this was after Pinkie squeeed for a solid three minutes without inhaling. By the time they were ready to go, Gloam had been promised a visit with baby otters, a treat at the bakery, a fitting for a bespoke dress, VIP tickets to the next Wonderbolts show, and I was scheduled to go do pruning at the apple orchard again.

—

“…and there’s a shrubbery in the garden shaped exactly like a wee-wee!”

At dinner Gloam was recounting her day’s discoveries.

“It was hidden behind a shed full of tools and junk. I couldn’t find any treasure or weapons or monsters in the shed.”

“I’ll have Smythe speak to the gardener,” Twilight promised after she finished choking on her soup.

“Please don’t make a fuss, dear,” I said, making a point to enjoy my soup as casually as possible. The broth had a pleasantly familiar taste. “It was merely a high spirited shenanigan, and truthfully the blame is mine not Ken’s”

“Ken?”

“Your gardener. A first class pony, and when I chose to try my hoof at topiary, he could hardly deny me. Sadly, misunderstandings ensued.”

“Really, dear?” Twilight returned to her soup.

“I think he was hoping for a rooster.”

Again she choked.

—

“Did you find any of the lost rooms?” I asked Gloam later that evening.

I hoped one particular lost room was beyond her ability; during our tour she had walked right past it without betraying any awareness of a hidden door. But perhaps the unknown other might be found.

“No,” she said, mumbling around a sticky mouthful, “I found the butterscotch.”