When we made it back through the portal, I was greeted by Button. My Button. He was in the mage tower, happily wagging his tail as Celly and I landed in the room. “Watch out, Button,” I got into a play bow, something I didn’t even know ponies did with their foals. Button play bowed as well. “I’m-”

“Now Source, Button,” Celly interrupted us. Oh, it feels so good to say Celly, or hear her talk to me in a normal speaking voice, rather than sounding like a motherly figure that Celestia apparently likes to take when speaking with strangers. “We are still in the Mage Tower’s experimentation room. Source, I don’t know what you’ve been through over the last two hours, but if Discord was involved in any way, shape, or form, it couldn’t be fun. So please refrain-”

I walked over to where Button was and picked him up by the scruff. “Okay,” my voice was muffled and sloppy because there was a colt hanging out of it. “I just wanted to hold my kid.” I took a long, deep breath and got in all of Button’s scent. My tail wagged as I followed Celly, practically pressed into her side, her wing was promptly draped over me. The scent of my wife and the scent of my son started easing back those suicidal thoughts I was having while in Prime Equestria. These were two scents that I thought my very sensitive, compared to the last nose I had as a human, nose could never pick up again.

Prime Celestia got close, and so did Daybreaker. One had light perfume, and Daybreaker smelled a little burnt. Not a horribly burnt smell. The pleasant kind that you’d get from lightly crisping cheese. Celly had no perfume at all… Button, I’ve not met another Button yet, but I’m sure it would smell off. Though that did get me thinking.

“Hey Celly,” I asked. I moved Button to the back of my head, where he was grooming my mane. “Dumb question, but does my scent influence yours in some way?” I asked.

“It does, why?” She asked. “Oh… I see,” she nuzzled me. “I suppose you’ve only noticed the smell of my otherworldly-self being slightly off, hmm?”

“She also had perfume, Celly. You and Luna don’t use perfume. The other yous actually used makeup, though not a lot. I know for a fact you and Lulu don’t use anything like eyeliner unless it’s subtle and you’re trying to try and break me and Tale’s brains. Because you both, in our eyes, are perfect, so of course you two feel the need to put makeup on for us.”

“...Would you rather me not put eyeliner on during dates?” Celly asked.

“No, I love it, whenever you put it on. Kinda shows some importance in whatever we’re doing; you deem it important enough to actually put makeup on for it.” I nuzzled Celly and chuckled when Button expertly worked through a tangle in my mane, without pulling on it. “Say kid, how much did Sweetie Belle teach you, grooming-wise?” I asked.

“...A lot. She told me while doing it to me,” Button admitted. “It felt nice, and she only did it because she heard me talking about how I wish I could do something for you.”

“...Button, you being my son is enough. Just don’t say I’m hovering when I come to ask about your day, alright?” Button nodded. “Now, how was hearing a bunch of rich, old, senile, smelly sacks of shit whine about something that really shouldn’t matter to them?” I asked.

“Rich ponies are stupid. Really stupid.” Button tilted his head. “One pony came in and tried saying that it’s wrong for a small business owner to be outcompeting him. Ms. Cheerilee said if you’re being outcompeted, in the business world, then that means you’re doing something wrong. So I guess that rich pony was being wrong by being a… what’s the word?” He asked. God damn, I can imagine him tilting his head from here, that adorable little head tilt.

“A sack of shit?” I asked. “But yeah, it sounds like that small business pony is just doing something better. Don’t explain why the already rich dude is whining, but then again Button, do as I say: don’t question how the rich ponies think. Most of them are crazy, which is exactly why your mother is a crazy horse-”

“You stupid Eejit,” Celly instantly replied. “Button, do not ever repeat that word. According to your father, it is a really bad word. He just never told me what it means.”

“Celly accidentally chose an Irish insult this time. It’s not even that bad; I’m your silly fool. So allow me to be a fool for you!” Celly raised an eyebrow. “It’s true, Celly.”

“Okay,” Celestia nodded. “I suppose if it’s just an endearing insult, it is not that bad.” She hummed. “Don’t call other ponies 'horses’ either, Button. It means you’re a brute; a dumb, stupid animal.”

“But horses were physically stronger than ponies,” Button hummed. “Sweetie and her friends used it once.”

“That’s because, like most insults,” Celestia began to lecture the two of us on how context is very important when it comes to words. For instance, horse is a slur for ponies, but horse can be used as a way of saying ‘stay strong’ since horses were definitely physically stronger than ponies… If you took away an earth pony’s magically induced strength. “And that is why you need to be construed with how you speak, or you could accidentally anger somepony when you meant something entirely different.”

Button nodded, he even wrote down some of what Celly said. “So that’s why Dad constantly pisses ponies off, aside from his weird accent, he usually just yells incoherently at strangers that he deems as stupid.”

“...Hey. I only incoherently yell at Solar and Shining Armor!” I chuckled as we left through the front door… after being joined by Exo. “ah, Exo, what are you doing here?” I asked.

“I was wondering if you learnt anything about portals while you were… in the portal. You were gone for a few hours.”

“Oh yeah, despite Discord screwing with me, he did tell me a few things. For instance, if I have the magical signature for any one dimension, I can reliably travel to it again if I had the ability to make portals to begin with,” I picked up the notebook I’ve been writing the portal spell into. “I can’t figure out how the hell I can do this. No matter how hard I’ve tried; I think it’s easier for me to learn spells because of the apparently unique diagnostic spell I run all the time. It’s how I picked apart DragonFire, notated it, and turned it into a repeatable spell.

“However, just trying to understand magic theory, at this level at least, is hard.” I rubbed the back of my head. “I may try and find a way to make a user interface to make doing all that portal shit easier when I learn how to do this,” I sighed. “I won’t be able to work this into Python either; it’s too complicated, too long, and too complex for me to understand, so if I can make portals, I could only make one per day.” I hummed. “So, what are we doing for dinner tonight? I’m still cooking, right?”

“Well, Chrysalis has asked if she can have dinner with us, and Luna and Tale are joining us as well. And don’t worry about Chrysalis, she’s apparently found herself a coltfriend recently, and she loves him very much apparently. Why do you ask?”

“I was hoping to have the three of us attempt to cook dinner at the same time; I wanna spend time with y’all, now more than ever. I want to do something with the two of you, and this seems like a good opportunity to teach Button how to cook.”

Button looked excited. “Can we make-”

“Yes, I’ll teach you how to make all those human snacks that you love,” I ruffled his mane with my magic. Instead of flying to the castle, or taking a chariot, we all opted to walk through Canterlot for once. The walk was rather peaceful and very relaxxing. It was a nice contrast to the action of dealing with a couple evil alicorns, two friendly dictators that happened to be Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon, or dealing with my damn near suicidal thoughts in Prime Equestria.

We did get a bunch of bows, ‘Princess Celestias’ and even a couple ‘his Highness’s when a few ponies actually acknowledged that I was nearby and had wings. One particular interaction did leave me chuckling though.

A little filly had run up to me. “Good evening, your highness!” She was a cute, very cute, red little unicorn that had the brightest eyes I’ve ever seen on anypony that wasn’t Derpy Hooves. Her little, yellow tail was wagging as she did a little dance as she sat in my path. She was bucking adorable, so I couldn’t stay mad at her, or get mad in the slightest.

“Good evening, young lass. Is there anything I can do for ya?”

“My name is Fire Light, and when I get older, I’m going to marry you!” I blinked a few times. She was so cute, and she was so damn adamant about this. I ruffled her mane, and rubbed her belly for a moment or two.

“I’m sure you’ll find somebody you’ll love more than me,” I chuckled. “Trust me, marrying a ‘prince charming’ isn’t all what it chalks up to be. For instance, I married Princess Celestia here,” I gestured to Celly. “It’s not so great. She yoinks my toast every morning and is gassy at night because her choice in a midnight snack is garlic bread. It gets really stinky-” Celly immediately moved Button over to Exo’s back and sat on me. “-So you can see, she’s also abusive!”

“Oh…” she hummed. “So if I marry a prince, he’ll sit on me and fart at night?” She tilted her head.

“Yes, my dear. He will also lie about who is stinking up the bed with their toots,” Celly glared at me. She was sitting on me as a punishment, little does she know that I’m enjoying this.

“Oh. I don’t know about a smelly Prince,” Fire Light looked at me. “Do you have a less smelly prince?”

“I dunno. Shining Armor?” I shrugged. “There is Prince Blueblood, but he’s still in the hospital because somepony, I dunno who, assaulted him at a party.” Celestia knew exactly what I was talking about.

“So will you marry me when I get older?” Fire asked.

“Mmm, we’ll see when you get older.” I patted her on the head. “Go find your dam, alright? Talking to idiots like this,” I pointed at myself. “Is a bad idea. You will lose brain cells.”

“Yes, your Highness.” She trotted off into the crowd. “Wait!” She turned around. “Can I have your autograph?” Celestia gave me a pen with a smile. I sighed and nodded.

When we got home, I guess Exo was joining us for some reason, she went to go to the dining hall. Celestia, Button, and I quickly found ourselves in the kitchens. Chef Beet stared at the three of us like we were idiots. For good reason. While me and Celly were semi-competent in the kitchen, Celly with breakfast items, and my bootlegged imitations of human foods, and Button not knowing how to use a stove, our good unicorn chef really had no other choice but to let us cook. After all, Celly at least, was her boss, and the boss lady wanted to cook for her sister and her coltfriend, and Queen Chrysalis and her apparently new coltfriend.

“Uh…” Chef Beet indiscreetly levitated a fire extinguisher to her side. “Sorry if I’m not confident in your culinary skills-”

“If you refer to me as ‘highness’, I will tickle the shit out of you,” I threatened.

“-I’m sorry that I’m not confident in either of your culinary skills, Princess Celestia and Prince Source Code,” she said with a smirk. Fuck. No tickling the cute chef. What? Most mares, by default, were cute. It’s like they were deliberately designed by some higher being to be cute or something. “But in truth, I am still scarred by Princess Luna’s many, and continuous attempts at trying to treat you to breakfast in bed, your Majesty,” Chef Beet shivered. “How do you burn ice? Why the buck did she put lettuce, mayo, and potatoes on eggs!? EGGS!? THOSE DON’T EVEN GO TOGETHER, LUNA, AND THEN YOU BURNT THE EVER LIVING BUCK-”

She started sounding like a Scottish chef that I knew of. We let her get her rant about Luna being god awful at cooking. Chef Beet started panting heavily, before she cleared her throat. “Just say what you three need, and me and the rest of the cooks here will try and get them for you. Source, I know you’re a competent chef, despite how little you actually know about cooking, so I’m trusting you to keep Her Majesty from burning my new oven; Luna blew up the last one after somehow getting the toaster stuck in there to ‘preheat’ the toaster.”

What?

What the fuck has Luna been doing recently?

“Why did Lulu stick a toaster in the oven?” Celestia asked. “That sounds like a fire hazard, and I would know; I am a living fire hazard.”

“...Princess, if I could answer why your sister thought a toaster in the oven was a good idea, I would. I genuinely don’t know what she was trying to accomplish. What was worse was that there was half a salmon in the toaster when she did that. That was the only edible thing she’s made in months, somehow.”

The three of us, Button, Celly, and I, looked at each other before nodding. Stay out of the kitchens with Luna in them, lest we get burnt, or in Celly’s case, would get to rock a new fur color.

“So, what are we making?” Celestia asked.

I noted the large amounts of bread we have nearby. “We could make vegan chili; you two would probably like it and it’s pretty hard to mess up. It’s just a matter of blending a bunch of spices together in the broth, getting the right vegetables, and cooking them in the broth to the right temperature. With beans and stuff. Oh yeah, I can show Button how to make cheese sticks; those are good for dipping in chili if tomato…” I grinned. “Tomato fucking soup sounds good right now, but Chili is harder to make…”

“We could make an assortment of dishes; Chrysalis and Luna are bound to wish to try many dishes. Luna in particular does enjoy your cheese sticks.”

“Can you make potato fries?” Button asked. “Those were good,” he asked from atop of my head. I dunno when he got there.

“We could; the assortment of dishes it shall be. Make a good portion of everything we wanna make, but not too much.”

So we decided upon making mac and cheese, not that shitty cafeteria shit, some proper mac and cheese with an actual cheese blend, and not shitty noodles. We also made chili, which we all had a hoof in helping because it was actually kinda fun. Button was being taught how to bread cheese sticks and fry them, which was going relatively well.

“So first,” I grabbed some milk. “Dunk the cheese stick in this,” Button did as told. “Roll it around in the batter that we just made,” I demonstrated. Button watched like a cat as I rolled it around. “Get good coverage, but cover it too much with batter. Enough to cover, but if it’s dripping, it’s over-battered.” Button nodded and did as told… and over battered one. “That’s not too bad,” I nodded. “It’s really not a big deal if it’s overly battered, but then that’s just more breading in the way of the cheese.”

“So…” Button stuck his little tongue out the side of his mouth, as his horn lit up and dunked stick after stick, into the milk, before covering them in the batter. “Like this?” He lifted what he believed to be his best one yet. Lo and behold, it was pretty good. All of them were. “This is really easy… what is the cheese made out of?”

“Milk and stuff. The specific cheese you want for this is mozzarella, specifically sticks of the stuff. You should always have access to them in the castle, but if you ever move out, I’m sure it’s not hard to buy sticks of the stuff.” I hummed. “So next, we can either use the oven, or the pot full of cooking oil,” I gestured to the aforementioned pot. “One is better, and it’s not the oven, but the oven is technically healthier. However, it’s literally just cheese and breading; it’s not gonna be healthy anyways. So leave the mozz sticks in the cooking oil,” I heated it up with some magic. “Cook’em for a minute if they’re fresh like this, or if they’re frozen, since we can just do that if we want them later, cook them for three and a half.”

Celestia was off, with her tongue out the side of her mouth, stirring chili while also chopping up potatoes for wedges.

I wonder where Button got the ‘stick the tongue out the side of your mouth’ thing from.

“Hey Dad, your tongue’s sticking out,” Button pointed out. I pulled the now cooked mozz sticks out of the cooking oil. Oh. I guess he got it from both his Mom and Dad. “So now we wait for the oil to drip off and then wait for it to cool?” Button asked.

“Yeah, unless you like burning yourself-” Celly took one and popped it in her mouth. “Or can’t burn yourself, apparently.”

By the time we were done, we had fourteen different dishes. It was a small, for an alicorn, portion of everything. Fries, nachos, blah, blah, blah. Basically, we actually did a pretty cromulent job at cooking everything. Celly led the way to the dining hall while Button happily rode on her back. I was pushing the cart, but not really paying attention to where we were going. It was still mating season, so Celly was… making those smells. Okay, basically hormones. This is all a nice way to say that I was watching her hips as she walked ahead of me. She knew what she was doing too, but didn’t do anything to make her hips sway more.

“Are you enjoying the view, Source?” She asked as we turned another corner.

“...Maybe.”

“Mom, is Dad staring at your butt again?” He asked.

“He is. He’s a naughty little colt,” Celly said, looking back at me with a side eye.

“Uh…” I chuckled. “Look, I’ve been through a lot of shit in the last few hours. Can you blame me for taking in the lovely sight before me, that is my wife?” I asked. “Can you really blame a man for appreciating what he almost lost?” Celestia stopped dead in her tracks, Button hopped off her back. I stopped pushing the cart and sat on my rear. “I thought I lost you both.” I stared at the ground, before smiling. “And I didn’t. I am so, so fucking thankful that you kicked the shit out of Discord to bring me back home, Celly. I cannot begin to say just how thankful I am that I made it back to you and Button,” I walked around the cart as Celly spun around.

Button jumped up between us as we hugged. Squishing the little colt while me and Celly hugged each other tightly.

“That is why I was so mad. Not at you for thinking you could go through a portal and be fine; again, if Discord did not interfere, you would have been home within an hour at most. Instead, he basically stressed you out. I may not be a doctor, or a therapist, but I can discern that the stress of losing me and Button wouldn’t have been good for you. Thus why I… nicely asked Discord to show me where you were in the multiverse.” Celly let go of me. “So you were taking a moment to enjoy the sight of the setting sun?” She asked, tauntingly.

“...Can you blame me? You are my wife, it’s only fair that I get to enjoy the sight of you.” I kissed her, and then kissed Button on the back of his head. He was still squished between us.

“I suppose it’s fair, if I get to enjoy the night with you and my son, cuddled up together.” She hummed. “Unless that is too much to ask?”

“...I ain’t gonna let that shit happen. We’re cuddling tonight; I need it, I really do right now.”

We stepped into the dining hall. Celly’s horn lit up and started quickly moving everything as I made my way over to Tale, who was currently showing Luna what he was in the process of writing. I hadn’t even noted what Chrysalis was doing, but she was holding a stallion. The… he actually looked content. The mark on hhis butt was blue raspberry. Huh. Ponies don’t have blue raspberries.

Blue raspberries aren’t real fruit. It’s just a flavor.

“Hey Tale,” I wrapped a hoof around his shoulder. “How’s writing Magic Wars?” I asked.

“I just finished the draft for the whole story. Luna’s been helping me proofread it, rewrite certain scenes, and reword certain things to make it clearer.” He gestured. “It’s taking a while.”

“We could ship a copy of your draft to Twilight. She’d find every error, give suggestions, and everything. She’ll probably love doing it, since it’ll be something new that she can read. If you just got done with writing the draft, give it a week, even just a day, and reread it.” I hummed. “I’m not much of a writer, anything that I rewrote from back home was written based on my horrible memory and filled in blanks and words. So I wouldn’t be of much help.”

After that little exchange, Chrysalis cleared her throat. “Good evening, everypony. I would first like to thank Princess Celestia for allowing me to dine with you all tonight.” She took a sip… Wait a fucking second. Chrysalis? Courteous? What the fuck? “It is rather nice to be dine with everypony without some sort of backhoofed compliments, or Source blatantly telling me to ‘fuck off’.” She took a sip of her tea. “So, Princess Celestia, you must be wondering why I asked to join you and your family tonight, hmm?”

“I am rather curious, is it to introduce me to your new consort? That stallion’s been rather quiet since he walked in with you,” Luna pointed out. The stallion in question was a brown unicorn, blue raspberry cutie mark, white marking going down the ridge of his snout. He was happily snuggled up, with the back of his head, pressing into Chrysalis’s chest. In his hooves, he gingerly held a glass of water… I can tell off the bat that he’s a pretty competent mage. He’s giving off almost as much magic as Twilight does while she’s hiding as much of her magical signature as she could.

“Sup,” he greeted. “I’m Fruit Punch,” he waved.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Fruit Punch. Where are you from, Manehattan, I presume?” Celly asked, tilting her head.

“That I am,” he’s lying. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, your Highness. Just as everypony says, you are a lot brighter in person.” Fruit nodded. “And this is your husband?” He asked.

“Sup lad? I’m Source Code, nice to meet ya.” Fruit slowly looked over all the dishes present on the table, and that Luna was already helping herself to a cheese stick, after levitating a generous amount of them to Button first, of course. “So are you why your marefriend’s behaving herself?”

“I’d like to think I am.”

“I’m not ‘behaving’ myself,” Chrysalis hummed. “I’m merely… concocting a plan. Yes! Concocting a scheme to make a very lovely product, that is legally acceptable, to sell to ponies, and then… Okay, so I am trying to be a better mare because Fruit is asking me to, so bite me. I no longer have my eyes set on you, you delectable little morsel, after all. Fruit is thrice the stallion I’ve ever met. He’s a unicorn with sharp biceps, if you’ve not noticed.”

Holy fuck, Fruit is actually ripped. He’s relatively short, still taller than me, but he is packing so much muscle. His legs were slender, though hard as rock. His chest muscles, his back muscles, even his neck, were solid. I could see how Rarity was probably smitten by this dude at first. Shame that the two broke up, but I guess there was something going on between the two of them that ended up with them breaking up. For a unicorn, he was very, very, very fit.

“Mmm, I wouldn’t say that.” Fruit waved dismissively. “I’m just some dude that wanted to try and date a changeling queen.” His horn lit up and he poured himself a bowl of chili. “I’ve not seen chili anywhere before… not this kinda chili at least.” He sipped. “Vegan chili?” he asked.

“Eeyup,” I hummed and poured myself a bowl and grabbed some bread that was off to the side.

“Oh, that is good,” Luna hummed. “Very nice.” General consensus; chili is good.

“Jesus fucking christ!” My chili was still hot, like, hella hot though. I didn’t blow on the spoonful of chili before sticking it in my mouth, though. Everypony else, and Chrysalis, did.

“...What?” Fruit slowly asked before looking me over.

“What?” I asked, my tongue was hanging out the side of my mouth, while Celly’s horn lit up to heal the tongue I just cooked in chili.

“...Are you, or rather, were you human?” Fruit asked.

“How do you know what a human is?” I asked.

“I was one.”

Everypony that wasn’t Chrysalis blinked. In fact, the sound of cutlery hitting the table was pretty much the only noise that resonated across the room.

“Oh my god…” I hummed. “You’re from New York, ain’tcha?”

“You’re Irish, if your accent is anything to go by.” Fruit nodded. “You and I are going to chat a bunch in the future, I’m assuming.”

After we all had our share of food, we all made our way down to the shooting range, a part of the guard training fields used for unicorns to shoot spells without accidentally hurting anypony, or blowing something up on accident other than a target. Fruit threw a few spells and nodded to me. Chrysalis, Celly and Lulu were also throwing spells as we had our impromptu… I wouldn’t call it an interrogation. More like a talk. I shot my own spell, a Fireball, and Fruit’s eyes widened.

“Fuck, you got me beat in terms of being a mage,” he chuckled. “All I can do is bolster how hard I can kick somebody in the face with my fist.”

“Because you know karate and ninja stuff?” I asked.

“FINALLY!” Fruit laughed. “Oh man, finally, I can make references to things and have somepony understand them!” He patted me on the back. “Ah shit, I shoulda came out of hiding earlier.”

“Aye, I thought I saw you with Rarity during the Gala.”

“Yeah, that seems to be something that happens to me consistently. Last time I woke up in Equestria, suddenly after coming from Earth, basically my first time coming to Equestria, I woke up during the first Gala that occurred after Luna’s return from the moon. The only difference is I didn’t wake up in the sky and promptly fall on Luna and get hospitalized. Instead, I wake up outside and find Rarity looking for a stallion to sweep her off her hooves. I think I did a decent job, but Rarity never was my type.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. She’s a bit of a drama queen,” I nodded.

“She knows she can be a drama queen. I’m from Earth, but I went to a different Equestria than you did. Apparently there’s multiple, two that stand out are ones where I became an alicorn in both. One of my other mes was a real douche bag that seemed to live in a constant, shitty comedy sitcom, which randomly disappeared for some reason. Another was where I showed up in Equestria, slightly older, fresh out of college. In that, I’m less of a dickbag, and deal with an asshole changeling queen that sorta came out of nowhere because… reasons. That timeline also went missing-”

“You know about timelines?” I asked.

“Yes, actually. Back home, I’m the consort of Queen Chrysalis, much like I am now, and also spearheading the research of timelines. One big accident later, and I’m here, lying in the grass, coincidentally in a suit, outside the Gala ballroom.” Fruit shrugged. “I wanna go home, but I know I can’t leave this Chrysalis alone either, hence why I want to get into the Mage Tower and whip everypony’s asses into shape; I could easily bridge the gap between my timeline and this one, and keep both Chrysalises happy.” Fruit hummed.

“So Fruit,” Celestia spoke up. “Source wouldn’t explain to me what this one word meant, he said it was a really bad word. Can you teach me what it is?”

“What is it?” Fruit asked. The horrible word was spoken. “Hmm,” he slowly looked at me. “Dunno, must be an Irish thing. Those idiots can barely speak English as is, I bet they made that word up.”

“So you cannot tell me what that word meant?” She asked.

“Yeah, Celly, we can’t tell you what the word ‘cunt’ means.” I nodded. “As Fruit said, we Irish can’t speak English, so our version of English is just really screwed up and probably make-belief.”

Both me and Fruit had a good laugh at Celly’s expense.

Celly took a deep breath, before turning to her sister and Chrysalis. “What?”

“You get played like a fiddle by Source whenever he says human stuff,” Luna smirked. “And he has a second one to confuse you even further.”

“You know,” Tale said, his nose still deep in his draft for Magic Wars. “If Celestia didn’t ask Fruit what that word meant, and just asked Luna, she’d know. Source told me and Luna what that word meant.” He kept reading. “I bet Button knows it too.” Celestia groaned and facehoofed.

“Source, you are sleeping on the couch tonight.” She deadpanned.

“No I’m not, you wouldn’t let me after today.”

“...Why’s that?” Fruit asked.

“I almost got lost in another timeline and was a hair away from trying to get myself killed.” Celly wrapped her forelegs around my neck. “Hence this,” I nuzzled into my wife’s embrace. “It can’t be great-”

“Oh no, I know how to open portals, and how to make them go to specific timelines.” Fruit waved a hoof dismissively. “The only safe place to do it is in the Mage Tower that I was never allowed in.”

“...Do you know how to open a portal to Earth?”

“Oh yeah! I modified the Crystal Mirror to open up to a world similar to Earth, but it’s with everypony here, and then it has a second setting that straight up leads to Earth. Anywhere you want.”

I hopped out of Celly’s grip. “Fruit, you and I are going to go to the Mage Tower… maybe tomorrow or next week. I need some time to relax after these last few hours and constant bullshit. What? With my wedding, which involved me getting kidnapped, then Sombra, and then my being stuck in various timelines, I want to spend some time with my kid. And Celly. Heck, my kid has a playdate scheduled with a filly he just met, and they’re heading to Ponyville to play with his friends down there. I wanna be there for that.”

Fruit nodded. “I gotcha, my man. I really feel that. Just grab me, I’ll be in the Hive below Canterlot, before you head into the Mage Tower next time you go. Alright?” I nodded. We brohoofed, and Fruit waddled on over to Chrysalis, he saluted me as the Bug Queen latched onto her coltfriend, before carrying him off to their home, I’m assuming. Celly and I grabbed Button, who was actually asleep, and headed for bed after bidding Luna a goodnight of ruling the kingdom with Tale at her side.

Fruit’s my ticket to bringing my family to Equestria.

However, I'm going to try and enjoy a week without dealing with any sorta excitement. I can't wait.

Author's Note

Fruit and Source have interacted, and Fruit has plot relevance holy shit. Source and Fruit are pals too?!