Twilight Sparkle and the Stupid Original Pony

Here, in the Outside, I ran to ground like a feral creature. Months after reporting the crime against me, my body told me that I would give birth soon and raw instinct led me on a fugueish departure. In the forest outside the city walls, away from the illegal village of outcasts, I found a hideout in the basement of an empty foundation. Almost no trace of the above ground structure remained, but cracked wall had tilted, leaving my corner protected, a dry, shallow, cave.

I would do this alone.

Or die trying, Doubt whispered in my ear; I didn’t listen. I had seen her, my daughter, galloping under a distant star and that vision of the future was no less real to me than the air I breathed. As the pain increased I took hold of faith and did not let go of that power.

—

Power crackled around her horn, a roseate glow.

It was coming together, the magic was, it had to be.

She had studied so much that she must be near to a breakthrough –not that her results gave any indication of one.

But sooner or later she’d bust through and collect her lost pony and bring him home. Hopefully he wasn’t getting bored in his boring old world.

Had he caught Celestia’s oblique turn of phrase declaring them wed? A far cry from meeting him at the centre of the national cathedral in Canterlot for a public ceremony, but despite her current thaumaturgical challenges, the knowledge that they were married was something she could smile about.

Maybe she was working too hard, maybe she should take a break and rest. But for now it was time to try a different sequence.

Another setback would be too much.

—

“Much delay, anypony? Doesn’t she have it figured out yet? What’s taking so long? You should help her.”

“It’s really not at all the kind of magic I can help her with, any more than she can sew a dress that doesn’t look like a lampshade.”

“I hope he’ll, um, be okay waiting for her.”

“She’s tryin’, she’s tryin’. Dang if I can tell if she’s tryin’ hard enough.”

“All this waiting is no fun! It’s making me worry a little.”

—

Little sis was lying about something, that much was clear. Lying, or omitting some crucial detail.

Even if he had chosen, and promised, to trust her judgment, he still wanted to check her stallion friend out himself. That was a big brother’s responsibility, after all. Did this outsider have any idea how fortunate he was, landing a princess? Rank and royalty be damned, this was his little sister and he sure hoped the stranger wasn’t some loser.

He would trust sis, but verify.

Another thought, what about her worries about the transformation, it was a good question.If she had turned him into a pony, was he still a pony back in the human world? He chuckled at the thought of Equestrian magic shaking the human’s life up with a persisting transformation. That would certainly be an unexpected change.

—

Change had come to one of the royal suites.Nothing extreme, but now it was their rooms, where it had been merely hers for a thousand years, and it showed. The ponies of the castle staff had seen many things in their generations of tending to royal needs, but this was the first time a consort had moved into the Princess’ own chambers.

The fallout of a strange pony’s magical accident had brought changes to the decor.A sturdy carved chest full of yakish garments, a portrait of the king of Yakkul in the parlor, a rough battle axe now hanging beside the elegant golden sword. And two pillows on the bed.

Surely this magic would have far reaching repercussions, and none could imagine what he might be up to now. Surely much more would change, but nopony could guess how.

—

How much should he tell her, he wondered. Honestly, if she was merely suspected of knowing even of tenth of what he could reveal, she’d be in more danger than if she actually possessed the forbidden knowledge. Without certain facts, she would be unable to appease interrogators whose methods would grow ever more insistent. With these keys, not to mention some luck and guidance, she might avoid raising suspicion in the first place.

Until she was able to rise up and complete a task begun long ago.

It seemed inevitable that he would have to tear down his carefully constructed wall of secrecy just a little further, as soon as the time was right.

But for now, she was missing again.

Dammit.

—

“Dammit, she’s out of range,” he said. “Wipe the search, she obviously doesn’t want to be found.”

A captured frame of video feed was frozen on the display. She was only an out of focus blur, dark against the washed out light blearing into an access tunnel. In the next frame, she was gone.

“Yessir. Do you think she’ll be okay? It’s dangerous out there.”

“You remember how much she changed? She’s not the same girl who Angstrom mistook for an easy victim.”

“But why the Outside?”

“Think about it. Last time she went to a city doctor. You know what.”

—

“What d’ya think those kids from the water park are up to these days?”

blaaat

blaaat

blaaat

“Nice shooting.”

The blueish skinned alien was pinned down by repeated bursts of small arms fire, allowing time for—

“Let’s do this.” The machine-gunner’s teammate flipped a protective cover back and keyed an arming code. “Cover me.”

blaaa—

BLOOMPH

—aaat

“You’ve been dying to use that smartfrag.”

The steerable burst shrapnel munition lofted over their opponent's position had decisively ended the encounter.

“Yessssh, I have been. Betcha a pack of smokes they’re in the family way.”

“Uh huh, high stakes there, for a sure bet like that, really high.”

—

High above the city, a courtesan peered into the gathering darkness.

Wearing nothing but the shoes which caused her to present her ass just so, and the semen slicking her thighs, she was backlit, easily seen by anybody who happened to look up. But nobody ever looked up in the city.

Change was afoot tonight and she sensed that it was more than just the fact that she would be taking on a new patron. Something, out there in the city or beyond, was going to change everything.

Her current, really former now, partner had skulked uffishly away after sex. The blunt indifference with which he had fucked her suggested that he knew that his usefulness had been tapped out. Leaving before a more powerful individual took his place was only rational.

—

Rational analysis suggested that a human might obtain a certain amount of sardonic amusement from the situation. Free of such emotive taints to his thoughts, he was nevertheless keenly aware that it was sub-optimal to have her out of his immediate supervision and protection.

The odds of running into anything truly dangerous were low, but not low enough for his liking.

He could see close to everything through the borrowed eyes of satellites, but not close enough.

Eventually, she would be able to protect herself, but for now there were some physical precautions he could take.

His hired agents maintained their distance, prowling the overgrown streets of a long vanished suburb on their patrol.

—

Patrol jobs in the woods were a boring way to spend an off-duty night, but it brought the squad some extra income. Their current employer had always proven very reliable. Clear objectives, detailed rules of engagement, refreshingly honest threat assessments, and prompt, generous payment. There was, of course, no proof that this was the same client that they had served in the past, but the whole squad thought so, and didn’t speculate further.

Promoted two grades to chief gunner on the combat vehicle after a friendly fire training accident (had their day-job military commanders put them in harm’s way on purpose? It sure looked like it. Another reason to appreciate these outside contracts) the redheaded soldier watched the multispectral scanner attentively.

There was no sign of anything to actually guard against, neither man nor beast nor the more dangerous in-between. But he stayed on task and kept the scan running.

—

Running an Outsider clinic kept the new village doctor busier than he had ever been in his old city practice. Busier, ill supplied, under equipped, and more satisfied than he had ever been before.

He had cut all ties with his old life and there was nothing that he regretted leaving behind.

Except.

“I wonder if that girl is okay, staying in that fucking rat warren.”

“Hmmm?”

“Must be about her time.”

—

Time, from the divine perspective of the concept, was a complex thing, no simple linear here-to-there. Multiple threads of the possible pasts could have lead to any given moment; infinite threads of possibility diverged outward. The holy sight perceived these all together, one fabric of both reality and potential. But the focus, thenow, there was only one now, a mystic cusp where mortal mind dwelt. Limited in perspective, but limitless in scope of effect.

Divine sight was fogged by the possibilities; it was mortal choice that picked what became the next now.

A human female groaned again. On this now balanced great swaths of the future, a degree of variability too great for even the divine to comprehend. Almost.

—

Almost invisible and forgotten, I completed my preparations. Mundane supplies, and what charms I could muster, were close at hand.

Nine months had slipped past; how much time would that amount to Equestria? One day? A month?

Another contraction shook me, my daughter’s birth was coming, she was almost here.