Steeling herself with a quick swig of the wonderful vintage red that she'd been saving for a special occasion, Mary Chesterfield abandoned all hope and addressed her apparent daughter-in-law.
"Your name is, uh, Twilight Sparkle, correct?"
The little purple winged unicorn – pegacorn? – met her with a beaming smile.
"Yes, it is! And I'm thrilled to finally meet you, Mrs. Chesterfield. You've raised a wonderful son."
Said son ran a gauntleted hand over the mare's technicolor mane, pausing to rub her ears before coming to rest on the small of her back.
"Is … that a family name, or … ?"
Twilight shook her head.
"Pony names are far more personal than human ones. Our parents receive them from Harmony itself while we're still in the womb, and they invariably match both the character of our souls and content of our Cutie Marks. Certain families might have something of a shared theme, but that's more a function of like breeding like than any deliberate contrivance."
Mary forced a polite, if wooden, smile.
"Ah."
For a minute, there was silence, interrupted only by the clacking of silverware against fine china. Turning to her son – and deliberately ignoring the fact that one of his eyes had somehow turned a deep, glistening red – the woman once more took the plunge.
"So, Alex – "
"Constantine."
She paused, brow furrowed and eyes narrowed.
"Pardon?"
"I go by Constantine now."
Mary, to her surprise, found that this name change was a fairly simple thing to process and accept, at least compared to the revelation that her son was fucking a horse. If he wanted to be called Constantine, then that was that – certainly more meaningful hills to die on, the circumstances being what they were.
"How did the two of you meet?"
Constantine turned to Twilight, who tilted her head and nodded. Looking back at his mother, he leaned in and crossed his arms on the dinner table, his gilded armor inadvertently leaving deep grooves in the walnut.
"Well, about a month after I arrived in Equestria – that's where the ponies live, if it wasn't clear – an evil goddess named Nightmare Moon tried to bring about eternal night. Thing is, she tried to do that a thousand years before, but her sister, Princess Celestia, used these six magical artifacts called the Elements of Harmony to banish her to the moon instead. Twilight read about all this in a book, so these other five ponies and I decided to try and help her find Celestia's old castle, where it was said the Elements were last seen."
He reached for his glass and took a sip before continuing. "We reached the castle, but Nightmare Moon beat us there. Twilight and the rest activated the six Elements, but it still wasn't enough. Suddenly, there's a flash of light, and I've got this glowing sword in my hand – it was the hidden seventh Element, the Element of Justice. I dueled Nightmare Moon, the girls hit her with the other six, and the day was saved – literally!"
The horrid pun tickled Twilight absolutely pink, and she broke into giggles. Holding a forehoof to her mouth and shooting Constantine a look both exasperated and adoring, she waited until her laughter died down and then picked up where he left off.
"Of course, our relationship didn't truly begin until Prince Blueblood, Celestia's nephew, tried to have him executed for being, and I quote, 'a filthy, foreign peasant.' To get at Constantine, he had me kidnapped, and tried to frame him for my murder." She motioned towards her distinctly living form. "Suffice to say, his plan didn't work. Constantine rescued me, and, well … things just took off from there."
Constantine grinned and kissed the top of her head. "Took off, indeed." His arm snaked beneath the table, and Twilight jolted and blushed before leaning into his chest with a smirk.
Mary threw up in her mouth a little.
"Please, don't … don't do that at the table."
Franklin, the family patriarch, muttered into his third gin and tonic of the night. "Never should have sent the boy to Berkeley."
The armored man, utterly shameless, shrugged and leaned back in his seat.
"Fair enough, your house, your rules. Last I heard, Blueballs was stripped of his titles and sent to the crystal mines beneath Canterlot. Anyways, we started dating, saved Equestria a few more times, and then got married. That was a whole nother mess, but it worked out in the end." He smiled down at the mare, who was pointing to the golden ring at the base of her horn and preening. "Not long after, she earned her wings, and we became royalty."
Mary, if only to reach the bottom of this hole, forced a response from her lips.
"Royalty?"
"Yep," Constantine answered, popping the p. "We've got crowns, a palace, everything. Not without its problems, mind. The nobility only really seems to exist to cause needless drama, and the idea of a fourth alicorn spooked the griffons so much that they decided to invade. But we've been dealing with it all easily enough, no actual losses or anything."
Twilight interjected.
"Well, there was that tournament."
Constantine's eyes widened, and he nodded with a hum.
"Actually, yeah, there was that tournament." He removed his gauntlet, revealing a metallic prosthetic emblazoned with glowing runes. "Some minotaurs kidnapped the girls, and whoever won this gladiatorial contest would get them as their slaves. I won pretty, heh, handily, but, well … still hurt."
The small talk continued like this for the next hour or so, and over time, as the picture became more and more clear, Mary found herself feeling strangely relieved. Confirmation, she supposed, weighs far less heavily on the mind than does suspicion, if only because knowledge has a way of restraining the worst impulses of imagination. A bit like removing a bandage and discovering that the wound is only half as bad as you thought it was – it's gooey and inflamed, sure, but at least gangrene hasn't set in. For as questionable as she found Ale- Constantine's life choices, and as singularly unpleasant as she found his company, at least he was alive, healthy, and ostensibly happy.
At the end of the day, that's all a mother could ask for, really.
So as they folded their napkins and rose from their seats, Mary led the couple to the door with a slight but contented smile tugging at her features. Twilight trotted to the massive roiling portal that had overtaken the front lawn, and Constantine hugged his mother goodbye.
"We'll see you again at Christmas."
The smile disappeared.
"Christmas?"
Ending the hug, the Seventh Element jogged to catch up with his wife.
"Of course! You still haven't met the rest of the herd!"
