So, I guess because Celestia was also my adoptive mother now, I had to go visit her and Luna up in Canterlot. Mostly so they could do a whole ceremony with the crowning of a new Prince, which I shut down immediately. It wasn’t something I wanted; I don’t want to be royalty, I don’t wish to become anything more than what I am, which was just some kid making dumb shit in his basement. That didn’t stop me from agreeing to visiting Celestia and Luna; I might as well speak with Luna. It’s about time we became friends again… I won’t forget or forgive what she did, she’ll have to do a lot more for me for me to do that. And also chilling under Celestia’s wing sounds like a fun pastime.

She could read me one of the many plays she wrote. Those were always fun and surprisingly well written.

So Chrysalis and I were waiting in the changeling subway for the train to go under Ponyville, as we hadn't found a way to get up Mount Canterlot from the inside, aside from a really strong elevator. Of course, I had the concept proven, and some ‘lings were working on that as we were waiting. And because my adoptive mother doesn’t think I’m a needy little child, she had me laying on her back while she read an Equestrian newspaper. “It appears that ponies across the nation are getting sick from drinking water,” she hummed. “Quite the shame if I must say; it seems a stomach bug may be floating around.” I hummed.

“You know, I could make a little snack that keeps ticks, fleas, stomach worms, all that fun, parasitic shit off of ponies,” I hummed. “I could. Though I doubt it would sell, not many really choose to listen to me. Because I’m a dumb, stupid animal, and nothing else,” Chrysalis pulled me off her back and into a hug. “That feels nice,” I sighed and leaned into her neck.

“It is quite a shame that ponies treat you the way that they have. I do quite like Venice… perhaps you two are meant to be something more? I can feel how she feels about you.” Chrysalis giggled when I gave her a blank expression. “It is quite impressive, you both feel such love for each other, but none of it is the romantic kind. You two deeply care for and love each other… How Generosity ever thought you were being a pervert, or that you two would be a couple is beyond me… Perhaps we shall stop by Venice’s home on the way back? I would like to meet my surrogate nephew; you and Venice are like brother and sister, after all.” I could agree to that.

We hopped on the train, got out pretty soon afterwards under the Ponyville Hive, and then crawled out of it in order to get on the Equestrian railroad for Canterlot. “The ETA is around a day,” Chrysalis said, sitting her butt down and pulling out a newspaper. “So I would recommend finding something to do-” I sat down and cuddled up to her. The sound of surprise she made was kind of cute. “I suppose I can cuddle and nuzzle my son for a bit,” she did exactly that until I started feeling drowsy, and I almost fell asleep a couple of times.. Seriously, I didn’t think I’d have a mother that would love me, but I suppose having a bug horse as a mother, even an adoptive one, was quite nice. I took advantage of how oddly soft carapace that Mom had, and proceeded to use her as a pillow.

“Mom, I love you,” Chrysalis squeaked, and I fell asleep.

When I woke up, Chrysalis was hugging me, and drooling in my hair. Also, we were in Canterlot. We disembarked from the train, and there was Luna and Celestia, ready to greet us. “Howdy,” I waved. Luna walked up to me first, looking a tad bit shy. Or scared, one of those two. “Sup Luna?” She flinched. “What? Are you surprised that I would at least try being friendly with you again? I haven’t fully forgiven you for… what you did, but I can appreciate you trying to make things up with me. ‘Lot more than what I can say about my friends in Ponyville, that’s for sure. That said…” I brought my hand under Luna’s jaw. “I don’t think I can ever truly forgive you for what you’ve done, but I know it’s better if we move on. And let it be clear; I won’t ever forgive you unless you somehow almost die while earning my forgiveness.” I scratched the Lunar Princess’s jaw and she leaned into it. “That said, I did miss you, you know, the you that didn’t violate me.”

Luna sighed, withdrawing from my hand. “And for that, I deeply apologize… I still have some adjusting to modern Equestria, as it seems,” Luna hopped on her hindlegs and hugged me. “Thank you for at least giving me a second chance!” I flinched and backed out of the hug. “Oh…” She sighed. “I should have figured you wouldn’t have accepted a hug from me so quickly. Would a nuzzle suffice?” I nodded, and she nuzzled my arm. After our little meeting, I happily walked on up to Celestia, who had knelt down so I could easily scratch at her ears.

“It is good to see you, Bob,” Celestia stood up and her wings soon wrapped me up, and she hugged me.

“Nice seeing you, too, Sunshine,” I patted her back a couple of times. “Not gonna lie, I’m somewhat surprised at the fact that you aren’t going to officially announce the thing,” I said as the four of us and our small group of guards started strolling through Canterlot. “Mostly because you seem like the type to immediately announce that there’s a new prince in Equestria or whatever.”

Celestia snorted. “And I am quite surprised to see you so adamantly deny your titles. Especially if it would’ve made you accepted and loved,” she hummed. “Why don’t you want to be a Prince anyways?”

“For one thing, I don’t want to earn respect simply by being of ‘royal blood’ or some shit. If I wanted to be accepted by ponies, a notion that no longer interests me, I would rather earn it. I’ve earnt Filthy Rich’s respect by being not completely stupid, and by having a couple of good ideas and inventions that he sells. I earnt that respect with what I brought to the table. Venice loves and respects me for the person that I am; I don’t overstep boundaries and was her favorite babysitter when I was in Ponyville. Oh, and she loved ear scratches and belly rubs, which also definitely helped. Changelings, in general, seem to all like me because I either fed them some affection, or by earning the affections of their Queen, or by me improving their quality of life through various things like water filters or bullet trains.”

“And you scratch their ears, you cannot forget that tidbit,” Chrysalis said with a chuckle. “I still occasionally get a changeling or two, asking if I would marry you off to them. So far, the answer is no. I know how you feel about dating horses, and bug horses as you so formally call me and the rest of our subjects,” I snorted in response.

As we kept on walking, I noticed a guard slightly jolting every now and then. “Yo,” I walked up to the guard, who was actually a foot or two away from the Princesses, and a little ways away from the next guard. Occasionally he would rub the back of his neck with the pole of his spear. The stallion bore the usual colors of the guard; white, blue, gold. Same Equestria patch on the breastplate, all that fun jazz. The guard actually flinched a little. “Sorry sir, but I would advise not walking so close to me,” well, it was actually a she. “I might have a flea or two, and I don’t want it hopping on you.” Of course, I didn’t listen.

“Take your helmet off; it’s in your mane, back of your neck, right?”

“...Yes sir. Why do you want me to take my helmet off?”

“Because I could probably get that flea; fingers are better for doing that than hooves I assume.” The guard nodded, she came to a full stop, our group really didn’t seem to notice and kept walking. That made sense, I guess, since Chrysalis and Celestia started discussing stuff that sounded political, and I wanted to stay out of talks like that. After helping her take the helmet off, I got super close to her mane, which was surprisingly long given that she was in the military. I dragged my fingers through it before eventually grabbing a little, black spec. After snatching it off of the guard, before flicking it into a nearby fountain. “If you ever feel like you’ve got a flea, use a fuckload of soap, and a lot of cold water, and take a bath.” I scratched at the guard’s ears.

“Thank you, sir, and I will take your advice into consideration.” She sighed. “As much as I would like to stand here and get my ears scratched, we should… Buck.” Oh sick, our group’s missing. “Well, I can just lead you to the castle, or we can fly; I don’t mind being the new Prince’s mount.” Wat. “You did help me deal with a flea, after all, so I have to repay you somehow.” I chuckled and just wrapped an arm around her neck.

“You don’t gotta do that for me. Just lead the way to the castle, and I’ll take any blame for us getting lost; it was my idea to stop and take care of your flea problem, after all.” The guard flinched. “What?”

“Sir, I was the one with the flea that you wanted to-”

“I wanted to fix it because you looked uncomfortable as fuck. Did it even occur to you to take the day off and try and fix your flea problem?”

“No…” I sighed and hugged her. “Sir, this is unprofessional.”

“And I’m telling you to take a day off tomorrow. As your ‘prince’, your well being means way more to me than you needing to guard me or some random door in the castle. It’ll only be one day, somebody else can fill your spot for the day, and then you can come in the day after that like nothing happened. You’re a living, breathing person-pony, not a drone that must fulfill their duty as a guard.” The mare actually squeaked a little and had a little blush forming. “C’mon, let’s finish up the day, so you can have your day off sooner rather than later.”

After my guard put her helmet back on, we started making our way towards Canterlot Castle. I got a bunch of weird stares from ponies, but that was shut down when my guard would side-eye and glare at them. “So,.” I said as we turned a corner. “What is your name? It would be nice to know.”

“It… It is Sunny Smile, sir.” She then gave me a smile that lived up to her name. ‘You’re one of the first royal that I felt like I could relax around. And you’re forcing me to not treat you like you’re Princess Celestia’s son. It’s a bit weird,” she almost whispered that last bit.

“Well, I’m not some royal; I’m just some dude that the Princess liked enough to adopt. Plus being stuffy and treated like I’m somebody important isn’t how I roll. I’m just a human, making its way through life, not some great Sun and Moon raising Princess, or the Queen of an entire race. Sure, I come up with ideas and do my best to make those ideas a reality, but I’m not all that special. And those working for me… I want them to relax around me, I want them to feel like they can come and have a drink with me in their free time. My titles don’t mean shit; I’m a commoner just like you are.” Sunny’s tail had started wagging as she walked beside me.

When we got to the castle, I was led right up to the throne room, where Chrysalis was dashing here and there, going on about how I went missing. She was probably a moment away from demanding a search party in my name. After a moment of Chryssy playing the worried mother, Celestia had dragged her off to… relieve stress. Or in other words, those two were going to do some funky shit in the bedroom. So that just left me and Luna, the Lunar Princess was staring down at her hooves while we sat in a lounge room that she had been led to. I leaned back in my chair, enjoying a tea loaded with more sugar than tea. “So, Luna,” the Princess flinched and looked up at me. “What do you want to do today?”

“...Why are you asking me?” Luna’s ears flattened. “I doubt you would want to do anything with me. You’re only saying that to be courteous.”

“No, I want to hang out with you,” I got up, walked around the table, and sat down beside Luna. I wrapped an arm around her neck, hugging her from the side. “I told you, Luna, I’m not exactly forgiving what you did to me, but I suppose we were both at fault to some extent; I shoulda thought before I sent a letter with that wording to somebody that’s a thousand years behind everyone else.” I started to rub the Princess’s shoulder. “The fact that you’re actually showing remorse, unlike a few mares that I know, is enough for me to at least be friendly with you. Perhaps even go back to being friends?” I hummed. Luna was softer than her sister. “I won’t fully forgive you, yet, Luna. I want to make that very clear. But I also want you to know that I’m not going to be openly hostile to you, or privately hostile. We can move on, but you’re going to have to do a damn good job at getting me to fully trust you again.”

Luna nodded. “I… Suppose that is acceptable,” Luna’s ears perked up as she nuzzled me. “So do you actually wish to hangout with us?” I nodded.

“What happened to the Royal We?”

“I… Am getting a little excited. You are willing to be my friend again, even if it will not be the same as when we first met.” Luna started leaning into me. “Perhaps we can just sit here and talk? I have heard of… how Equestira’s national heroes are treating you. You were being charged seven bits for an orange?” She asked.

“I was. It kinda sucked, but it doesn’t matter anymore,” I shrugged. “As you can tell, I kinda moved into the Hive, and with most Hives implementing a Greenhouse, I can get oranges all I want.” I booped Luna on the nose and she reeled back slightly, glaring at the finger. “And I no longer have to worry about how ponies are treating me when the only ponies I speak to are… Celestia, Venice Arrow, Golden Arrow, you, and sometimes Twilight. Twilight Sparkle’s not exactly happy about me treating Chrysalis like my Mom, even though she basically is, and treats me like her son.” It also didn’t help that Chrysalis charges Twilight and her friends ten bits a train ride, or twenty bits to just visit me and go home.

Chrysalis really does not like Rarity or Rainbow Dash. Everyone else just got punished because of them, and then Twilight was just openly racist towards changelings. She still refers to Chrysalis as a thing, it, or some other demeaning thing.

So, we just idly sat in the sitting room, I sipped on tea, Luna read a book, and I idly petted her.

The door opened up again, Celestia walked in with Chrysalis laid across her back, with a dopey expression on her face. She was hiccuping slightly. Luna’s nose wrinkled. “Sister, you should take a bath before you attend day court. I can smell… what you were doing with Chrysalis. I know you two are dating, but please wait until you are about to go to bed before you two decide to have fun? You two go at it more than Cadance and Shining Armor do.”

“I suppose I should take a shower before I go attend Day court, and so should Queen Chrysalis; she is helping me out with it today, as a showing of good faith; that she is willing to help out her allies no matter the task.” She whispered something to Chrysalis, which made my adoptive mother blush. “I see that you and Bob have made amends?” Celestia asked, cocking her head to the side. “Given Bob’s resolve to not forgive Twilight’s friends over what they did, I thought he’d be a lot less forgiving with what…”

“Celly, I haven’t forgiven Luna, but I am willing to try to move on. And unlike some of Twilight’s friends, Luna’s shown remorse. Rainbow, after talking shit, kept talking shit. Rarity called me a creep while we were heading to lunch, and called me a creep again over some retarded gossip. AJ, Pinkie, and Fluttershy were alright, even if the first of those three only tolerated me because I was a business partner. Pinkie just straight up scares me, and Fluttershy and I haven’t hung out one on one, so I don’t have much of an opinion on her. They seem more inclined to be loyal to Rarity and Rainbow than to me, which is understandable. Though it doesn’t help that occasionally AJ or Pinkie would sometimes chime in when Rainbow started saying shit behind my back; basically, Luna’s making the effort to make amends. Twilight’s friends have not. I like Twilight, she was one of my best friends, but she really is dead set on hating changelings for the wedding. Even if time, and time again, I tell her what those guys do for me, and what they have done for me.”

Celestia nodded. “Well, it is nice to see you and Luna are at least attempting to be friends again; it’ll certainly make her happy that we’ll be having a sleepover, hence why-”

“You and Mom had some kinky sex now instead of later?” That made both the Queen and Princess blush like mad. “What? I’m seventeen, not a four year-old. I know what you two were doing.”

“WE WERE READING A BOOK TOGETHER!” Chrysalis shouted. She had that ‘defensive’ look in her eyes.

“Likely story,” Luna said with a smug grin. “You reek of sex, and even Bobs knows what you two are doing. Why are you embarrassed?”

“Seriously,” I chimed in. “You two are a cute couple, after all!” I then got beaten into the couch by two angry, pillow wielding mares.

Author's Note

Luna and Bob maybe trying to be friends again, but Luna’s going to have to… take a lot of pain for true forgiveness.