Heritage back up chapter 3

Thirteen young colts and fillies stared up in awe at the sight before them.  They had only heard stories of the dragon that had sired them, but they had never seen him in the flesh before.  Visiting the cave had been off-limits to all young ponies, mostly due to the fact that the cave itself had some labyrinthine tunnels within and the youngsters could easily get lost.

“Hello,” Spike said, looking over what happened to be a very, very small portion of all of his offspring.  Applejack’s foals; Buckwheat, Brambles and Juniper.  Rarity’s foals: Walter, Humphrey, Marie and Phillipe.  Fluttershy’s own set as well; Stratosphere, Pin Oak and Aurora.  Little Typhoon, Rainbow Dash’s colt, kept flapping his wings, itching to fly, but his father’s gaze kept him grounded for the time being.  Young Shadow and Flare, completely serene and regal without appearing to even try; just like their mothers.

“Hi daddy,” they all said in unison, Aurora trailing behind a little bit in her greeting since she was hiding behind her brother and sister.  She was practically Fluttershy in miniature, save for the small spines down her back and the tiny fangs poking out from behind her lips.  Flare and Shadow were silent, content with simply staring at their father; they too were nearly mirror images of their respective mothers.  In fact, most of them were, with a few more obvious signs here and there that they were his children.  Some had scales on legs, others had hands instead of hooves and several had dragon-like tails.

“Do you know why you’re here?” the larger dragon asked, a small piece of his heart aching at the fact they had called him “daddy”.  He’d have never thought he’d hear those words in a very long time, if at all, and yet they were tainted by the knowledge that these foals of his were the product of lies and rights violations.

He refused to care about that last part.

“Well, momma said we’d be meetin’ ya fer the first time-,” Buckwheat said slowly.

“And she’s bin wantin’ us ta meet ya fer what seems like forever-,” Brambles continued.

“But she told us she was scared of yer reaction, so she hid us away fer a few hours before y’all brought us to the palace,” Juniper said, finishing her brothers statements.  “Why would she be scared of our reaction?”

“Children, do you know the difference between good and bad?” Spike asked.

“Yes sir,” they replied at the same time.

“Please, don’t call me sir; my name is Spike,” the dragon said, gently pinching the bridge of his nose.  Okay, this might be easier and yet harder than he had thought.  He didn’t want to crush their spirits and possibly scar them from such a young age with knowledge of what their mothers did, but... they had to know a few things; important things that only their father seemed capable of telling them.

“Okay dad,” Typhoon said, his squeaky little voice nearly giving Spike diabetes.

“Children, what do you think of when somepony does something bad?”

“Like eat all the cookies?” Humphrey asked.

“I knew it was you!” Walter shouted.

“Yes, Humphrey, like that,” Spike said, hoping these two didn’t fight all the time.  “Can you think of anything else?”

“When some ponies just want to watch the world burn?” Phillipe asked, his eyes going out-of-focus for a split second as he spoke.

Spike stared at the young unicorn for a few seconds.  “...sure,” he said.  “No, I was thinking about other things, like when somepony is mean to you or does something mean.”

“Ohhh,” the little foals said in unison.

“Why?” Pin Oak asked.  “Did somepony do something mean to you?”

“Yes.”  Understatement of the century right there.  “Some ponies did some very mean things to me.”

“Are they in trouble?  I don’t like it when others get in trouble, it makes me sad,” Marie said softly, curling her little dragon tail around her body like a blanket.  Come to think of it, she was probably still young enough to have one.

“You could say they are in lots of trouble,” the dragon said softly.

“Is it our moms?  It is, isn’t it?” Stratosphere asked, clearly one of the more developed of the group.  That, or he could really connect the dots in a conversation.

“Yes, Stratosphere; they all did something very mean to me several years ago,” the dragon said.  “They weren’t the only ones, either, but they were my best friends.”

“Are they going to jail?” Aurora asked, peeking out from behind her siblings.  “Is momma gonna got to jail?”

Several of the foals started tearing up at that question.

“No, no, Aurora, none of them are going to jail,” Spike said softly, feeling an overwhelming urge to cuddle and coddle these little foals.  Male dragons, as it turned out, were nearly as protective of their offspring as a female was, so if the situation was reversed, and Spike was the mother of each and every one of these foals, then (s)he’d likely spirit them away from all of this.  But Spike couldn’t; he was a male dragon, and as much as he may have wished that none of this had happened, he couldn’t care for thirteen young foals like they needed to be.  He just wasn’t built for the task, both physically and mentally.  In time, he would be able to care for them as a father should but for right now, they didn’t need an authoritative figure; they needed their daddy.  “They just made mistakes was all.”

“But... they didn’t mean it, right?” Aurora asked, slowly walking up to Spike and looking him right in the eyes.  “They didn’t meant to hurt you, did they?”

“They didn’t mean to, but they didn’t not mean to,” the dragon said, gingerly pulling the little filly in for a hug.  As a group, the dozen other foals slowly walked over and cuddled against their father.  “They didn’t ask me if I was okay with what they were doing.  What they did was bad, yes, and I forgave them all for it, but it’s something they will be living with for the rest of their lives.”

“Why didn’t they ask you?  What didn’t they ask you?” Juniper asked softly.

“They didn’t ask me if they wanted to start a family,” Spike said softly, breathing in the scent of his children.  Each of them had a unique smell, and as a dragon, once imprinted in his memory, he would always know them by smell.  Highly developed olfactory senses, as Twilight would say.  “They didn’t ask me if I wanted foals.”

“But... you did, right?” Pin Oak asked.  “You... you did want a family, right?”

Telling them right now that Spike had not wanted a family so soon would destroy them; telling them they were the spawn of some rape-enabling program designed to save the country and that Spike had not even been there to see them born... it broke his heart to even consider telling them the truth.

No, they would not know; not today, not tomorrow, not for a great many years.  In time, they would know the whole truth, hopefully when they were old enough to make their own decisions in life and be their own selves, but for now, at this tender, trusting age, they didn’t need that.  They needed a false lie; something to make them feel better.

“I did; I did want a family,” Spike said, nuzzling the top of Pin Oak’s mane, earning a cute little giggle from her.  “I just... I just hadn’t expected to be blessed with one so soon was all.”

“But... what our moms did was bad, and I thought all ponies who do bad are bad,” Walter said.

“Not all ponies who do bad are bad ponies, Walter,” the dragon said, already thinking that “Wally” was a much better nickname for him.  “Ponies make mistakes; we all do.  You just have to forgive yourself and others if you are going to be free from your choices.”

“We were mistakes?” Marie asked quietly.

Right in the feels.

“No, no, of course not,” Spike said, his tone dropping several octaves to a soothing, smooth whisper.  “You thirteen are my treasures; you are the farthest things from mistakes.  I just wish I had known you all when you were younger; I wish I could have been there when you were born.”

“Why weren’t you?” Buckwheat asked.  “Ma said you were off somewhere, doin’ sun dragon stuff.”

“She’s right; I was off, doing dragon things,” Spike said.  “Dragons can sleep for very long naps, and we grow during those naps.  I was growing these last five years; before I went to sleep, I was just a hair taller than your moms.”

“Now yer bigger,” Brambles said with a small giggle.  “Alot bigger; yer even bigger than Uncle Mac!”

“Dad,” Flare said, speaking for the first time.  “Do you love our moms?”

“Of course I love them,” Spike said with a sigh.  “I still love them, even if they did bad things to me.  I’ll always love them, because they’re family; you always love family, and you always look out for them.”

“But why?” Shadow asked.  “Why do you love them after they did bad things to you?”

“Because I forgave them,” the dragon said simply.  “Loving and forgiving go hoof in hoof; it’s not easy.  It’s never easy to forgive, children, but I forgave your mothers for everything.  They just need some time to forgive themselves and think about what they’ve done.”

“So... they’re on a timeout?” Typhoon asked.

“You could say that,” Spike said.  Off in the distance, a bell rang.  “Okay kids, go find your moms, and send back in Auntie Twilight.  I need to talk with her about some things.”

“Okay dad,” they all said in some form or another.  With tons of hugs and a few nuzzles from his daughters, Spike watched the thirteen of them either trot or fly off.  After they disappeared around a corner, Spike saw Twilight emerge from around the corner and slowly walk over to him.

“So?” she asked as Spike rose to his feet.

“They are incredible,” Spike said softly.  “I just... I just wished they weren’t born into the same world they live in.  I should have been there: I should have been a willing participant in their creation.”

Twilight flinched slightly; he was never going to let go of that point, and she was hoping he never would.  “Did... did you tell them?” she asked softly.

“Of course not; they are not privy to the same sorts of surprises I was so recently subject to,” Spike said.  “Now, I’m still going to be needing to visit all of my other children, which means I’ll be moving around the country a lot.  Tell me, where are the largest groups of my children located?”

“Well, outside of Ponyville, only several major cities have fairly high concentrations,” the purple alicorn said.  “Manehattan, Los Pegasus, Baltimare... places like that.  After that, most of your foals are scattered across the country, with many of them living in rural areas.  You were a big hit with the Apple family’s relatives, after all.”

“Great, I was banged by Applejack and all of her cousins,” Spike said, partially enjoying the sight of Twilight squirming at his words.  “Which reminds me, you said dragons are immune to the effects of inbreeding, correct?”

“Y-Yes, I said that, though I don’t see-,”

“Purebred dragons are immune, but I’m willing to be hybrids and those greater removed from their original ancestor are not.  This means that after the names of each and every one of my offspring are known and every little one is accounted for, there will have to be a registry put up in order to prevent them from interbreeding.  I have no idea just what sorts of trait they could inherit from their mothers should they chose to give me an even larger family in the years to come, but I will not have them dating their own flesh and blood.”  Spike didn’t like the fact that dragons were immune to inbreeding; this meant somewhere in the deep past, the ancestors of dragons were likely boning every relative they had, a thought that made him feel rather ill.

“A-Anything else?” Twilight asked.

“Yes,” the dragon replied.  “I will want to see some of my other children tomorrow, after I get a good night’s sleep and mull over the events of today.  At the top of the list, I wish to meet my son, Minos, and soon after that, the griffin princess.”

“Well, the journey to the lands of the minotaurs may take several days and the griffins longer, even if you could fly, and from what I’ve heard, those children attending school for the first time,” the purple alicorn said slowly.

“Attending school?  Aren’t they near the same age as all of my other children?” Spike asked, slightly confused.

“Yes, well, hybrids age in appearance slightly faster than purebred counterparts, Spike, though only for the first few years.  After this initial period, they have the same appearance and mental faculties of one about two years older than them, so think of it as them being chronologically around five or so years old, but being mentally and physically seven or so.”

“So, in a few years...”

“Yes, the school systems of Equestria will be absolutely flooded with new students.  Don’t worry, I knew that would happen and took extreme precautions for it.  Still, building new schools was harder than we thought, seeing all of the ones that will be educating your foals have to be retrofitted to be at best “mostly” fire-proof.”

“Ah, good,” Spike said, taking a step towards Twilight.  “Then I will depart for the Badlands as soon as possible next morning.”

“The Badlands?  Why would you want to go there?” Twilight asked.

“To visit my son, Chromus,” the dragon said simply.  “Also, I’ll be needing to talk to Chrysalis about all of this; surely she will be very interested to know about dragon property claims and such.”

“I’m not sure she’ll be exactly happy to hear that,” the alicorn said.

“I said interested, not delighted,” Spike said.  “Now, come with me to the archives.  We have some videos to watch.”

“Of your matings?” Twilight asked.  “Do I have to be there for that?”

“I wasn’t “all there” during the videos, so yes, you have to be there when we watch them,” Spike said, crossing his arms.  “I’m sure you can handle several hours of watching hardcore, dragon-on-pony mating, right?”

“S-S-Sure, of c-course,” Twilight muttered, her blush deepening the color of her pelt to near black.

As the two of them walked off, Spike glanced over at Twilight, a thought entering his head.  “She’s still a virgin, I bet.”