Twilight Sparkle and the Stupid Original Pony

Twilight would rather have been in her laboratory, working to break the spell trapping her in the world of Equestria, testing the lore she had extracted from the most obscure tomes she could get her hooves on. Instead, she was back in Canterlot, having tea with the other princesses. The summons had been cool, distant, but insistent in its phrasing.

She was tired, strung out from a stimulant fueled marathon work session, irascible, and if she was to be thwarted from her efforts she did not aim to let anypony else enjoy themselves. The older Princesses sensed her defiant mood and there was tension around the table as tea was poured. Would she pout, rage, or provoke?

“The tea is nice, Tia dear, but I do wish my lover were here to add a little… cream …if you know what I mean.” Just in case there was any ambiguity to the obscenity of her remark she raised her hoof and reciprocated it lewdly in mid-air.

Provocation, then. Cadance blushed and Luna stifled a snicker.

“Twilight,” Celestia spoke gently, seriously, “it’s not often the four of us take an evening to do our team updates over tea. You rebuffed my last attempt to speak privately with you (and you were quite snippy with the innocent page I sent to fetch you), but there are matters of state to discuss. Maybe you could save your charming little tantrums for later. Our informal agreement stipulated that you would not let your personal concerns impact your kingdom duties.”

“While my duty to self continues to blocked by personages unmentioned, my public duty is unimpeded, I assure you. Construction is started on the project you assigned me and work is well ahead of schedule. I have organized, designed, collaborated and submitted it all for approval. Have you read any of my letters before signing the requisitions?”

“I stopped reading after the first few missives filled with interminable school-filly angst and how much you missed your precious human.”

“Luckily I have copies of the plans you authorized with me. Who’s presenting first?” Twilight sounded almost like she might get over her snit.

“For today we are tabling the non-corroborated changeling sightings and all matters of routine business. The purpose of this gathering is to sync up on preparations relating to the impact of a magical event that nopony understands: to recap, a coitus mediated magical lust leakage, affecting family planing for hundreds of families. (Please don’t look so smug dear.) From the financial side, the crown will be contributing significantly to the costs of raising these hundreds of foals. If alicorn magic was used, accidentally even, to influence these ponies’ choices, it would be improper to leave the parents on the hook. Go ahead next, please, Luna.”

“As per due process,” Luna said, “we will remind all present that the identities of any specific ponies that we mention are protected by priest-penitent law. With that out of the way, we have no specifically pressing concerns to voice; none that would fall in the scope of the foregoing disclaimer. There is plenty of pre-parenthood angst out there, but nothing unhealthy or dangerous. We have noted a small number of mares who exhibit morphological lemmas in their dream narratives which indicate some risk for postpartum depression. The centralized care facilities Princess Twilight has organized will aid E.M.H. in providing counseling and augmented support network services to ponies who need an extra hoof, without putting them on the spot or making them feel singled out. A number of ponies have dreamed of financial worries, and we just heard that the treasury is already bracing to make sure that the support of these foals is an appropriately funded investment in Equestria.”

“Thank you, Luna. Cadance, is your research complete?”

“Yes, Princess. In line with the anecdote I shared with you before initiation of a numerical review, without a single exception, all of the mares affected by this magical incident had a dedicated provider at the time of impregnation -or have acquired one. Two have lost their provider due to unrelated events – one construction accident, and an unexpected illness. These two mares have have both been contacted by social workers and enrolled in A.S.N.

“Current total is over eight hundred mares who were fertilized at almost the same moment under wildly different circumstances. We don’t have an exact geographic boundary for the effect.

Also noted in our review were a number of mares in—” Cadance sniffed “—unsatisfactory relationships,” she spoke the phrase with icy distaste, “who, even though fertile, were not affected at all by the magic.

“My researchers and I went through this data very thoroughly and we are confident of our conclusions, but deeply alarmed by them. What we see is nothing short of groundbreaking. The magic scales will need to be re-calibrated or extended. Neither I, nor my staff have ever heard of a spell with such wide geographic reach and such finesse of targeting.

“Also, you’ll be glad to know that we’ve compiled all the prenatal exams and every single one is healthy. No twinning either!” Cadance’s eyes sparkled with that bit of good news.

“One other detail emerged. At least a quarter of the mares did not expect to be fertile. Anypony can mis-judge her cycle, but this many ladies making that mistake could indicate… I can hardly imagine it, Celestia. It’s frankly disturbing. A spell that displays sentient judgment in who it affects, overrides the subject’s biological rhythms, and has the ability to make her suprareceptive. Now, as to how an earthpony caused a mid-coital arcane excursion of this magnitude—”

“Thank you, Cadance,” Celestia interrupted, “for doing the groundwork and bio/relationship data here. We have top mages here in Canterlot working on the love spell forensics.”

“Who?” Cadance asked. She was the expert on this kind of magic.

“Top mages. And, not to put too fine a point on it, you’re off the case now. No further research unless I authorize it. I want you to focus on business as usual so that if I need you again on this project you come back with fresh eyes. Twilight, can you update us on the infrastructure planing, which sounds like it has moved past the planning stage?”

“Yes, it is a bit late for changes, with the reqs approved… Here.” Twilight passed papers around the table. With a task to accomplish her efforts to disrupt had faded.

“Um…” said Cadance “was this meant to be in here?” She held a photo that had fallen out of her copy of the plans. “Is this you and the human?”

The photo showed a human male and demi-human female. The male the colour of rich cocoa, the female was purple, sported dainty horn and wings, and had the same blaze in her bangs as Twilight. The two humans were naked and glistened with sweat and post coital flush. The perspective of the photo suggested a camera held high in the purple girl’s hand, her arm foreshortening to the edge of the frame. The pose was awkward – he held her up with arms around her waist, her feet off the ground, her breast pressed against the side of his face. Neither looked at the camera, they shared a tender gaze. Behind them yawned a cavernous declivity vanishing between spire-like buildings as tall as mountains.

“Yeah, that’s us. We had the scenic viewpoint to ourselves and commemorated the moment after we made love.” Her expression softened as she reached for the photo; Cadance did not release it yet. “I thought I had lost the picture, I spent three days digging through Ponyville landfill before I gave up.”

“What a foal I am—” There were tears in Cadance’s eyes as she looked at picture of the young couple. “—I never saw true love before now.” She began to study the photo as if she would paint it, giving it back after a long pause.

Celestia rolled her eyes. “Another true believer,” she groaned.

“Ahem. Let me continue.” Twilight was all business as she carefully tucked the photo into her files. “What I’ve done is pulled together a multipurpose architectural thesis consisting of structures which will undergo a planned evolution, with with a mix of early and JIT construction to moderate peak labor demands, as generation-T ages. A single, central, birthing center will grow and adapt to become foal care facility, then a grade school complex, secondary school, eventually becoming commercially zoned when the target cluster age into the workforce. It’s a more centralized approach than we are typically used to in Equestria but over the planned life cycle of the project it will serve the public better than a larger number of smaller faculties. Smaller satellite sites will provide services to families located further from ground zero in Ponyville without every little hamlet needing to raise bonds for construction. Questions?”

Luna raised her hoof for recognition. “Generation-T?” she asked when Twilight nodded.

“T is for Tangent, as it was his smoldering seduction of yours truly that is held to be responsible for the boom. We may not know how he tampered with my magic, but everypony here knows exactly what happened when he did!” She seemed almost proud of his accomplishment and for a moment she was again the smug provocateur.

“Using Cadance’s estimates (thank you, Princess),” Twilight continued “we anticipate that Gen-T will diverge several percentile before they reach adulthood so the educational facilities will be gradually phased to cover a broader range of educational needs as the foals age. The expected spread is no more than three grade-years and many will not choose to continue with tertiary education.

“This evolutionary approach to managing the boom driven infrastructure demands minimizes redundant construction and wasteful build/demolish/rebuild cycles. Second boom when Gen-T reaches reproductive maturity will be less tightly temporarily focused. If we estimate a reasonable level of voluntary—” did Twilight stress that word subtily? “—cooperation with requests that the females not all begin foalbearing the moment they reach menarche there should be minimal need for significant infrastructure changes for second boom. Third and Fourth boom should only be visible in sensitive statistical analysis and there should be no further echoes. I do have a less cheerful looking worst-case projection which I seem to have left behind – it does not require immediate attention but I would like to review it with you all some time in the next ten years.”

“Thank you very much Twilight, that is excellent work in spite of other challenges.” Celestia tried to focus on the positive. “Your diligence is a credit to you. I don’t know how you’ve found the time to get all that done.”

“Bucking amphetamines, your Highness. I haven’t slept in a you-damned week and a half.”

Celestia sighed. “Language, Twilight. No need to be a potty-mouth.”

This was just the opportunity Twilight was waiting for. Time for the big guns of shocking conversational gambits.

“If you don’t wanna hear about potty-mouth, well I better not tell you too much about the scat games or you'll never think about chocolate the same!”

Cadance hastily pushed her unfinished chocolate cake away. “Eeeeeewwwwwwwwwww” she shrieked. Some kinks were too much, even for the Princess of Sex.

Luna merely raised an eyebrow. There was no telling what depravities she might have witnessed in the twisted dreams of Equestria’s more hedonistic sleepers. “Forsooth?”

“Please, sister.” Celestia’s patience was wearing thin. “Do not give her an excuse to go into tiny, squalid, details.”

“I jest, I jest! As if I would.” Twilight watched Celestia while pretending to study Cadance’s graphs. As soon as Celestia sipped her tea, Twilight continued, “but I did pee on him to mark him as mine!”

Celestia swallowed her tea, slowly and deliberately. Not even the least hint of choking shook her regal frame. “Clearly this little get together will not be accomplishing any more progress. Thank you ladies. Twilight do be a love, and grow up just a little. I really need to meet with you in private, when you can be bothered to attend me.” Certainly Twilight’s behavior at the moment was not compatible with the confession the diarch must make.

Luna and Cadance focused on their cake and tea and avoided making eye contact with their verbally dueling peers. Twilight was ready to argue but Celestia cut her off.

“I’ll be leaving now,” Celestia said matter of factly, “I have a yak to buck.”

Twilight had already walked in on Celestia and Tajrahaz flagrante delicto once — it would take more than this simple announcement to make her spew her tea. Nothing, she thought, would phase her.

On another hoof, the other Princesses were both caught completely off guard and choked, spraying Twilight with Cadance’s tea and Luna’s cake crumbs.

“And that, my dear,” Celestia pronounced as she strode to the door, “is how comedic timing is done.”