We got 'em. We figured out who was behind the plot to kill me and my soldiers. Now, just because we managed to capture Soaring Skies, who would undoubtedly lead us to others, did that mean that it ended with her? Was Las Pegasus the one behind it all? Not necessarily, but I intended to find out, of course. Now that Soaring Skies knew that she had been caught, she wouldn't hold out for very long. I'd get all of the information that I'd need in short order.

But honestly, I didn't really care about that, right then. I mean, I knew that I should have. I had all of the answers sitting in a prison cell right next door, but I was honestly... tired of the whole thing already. What's worse is that I didn't know if I was almost done with the whole conspiracy to murder me thing, or if finding Soaring Skies meant that I was just getting started.

I prayed to whoever that it was the former.

I needed to wind down after everything that happened the other day, and I knew just the way to do that. I walked down to the medical wing of my palace. I had a pony that I needed to visit some time ago.

I entered the medical wing, and the head nurse bowed when she saw me. I smiled and inclined my head to her. "Good afternoon. Can you direct me to Tulip?"

"Of course, your majesty." She pointed to the right. "The bed at the very end of the hallway."

"Thank you," I said with a nod. "How is she doing? I wasn't even aware she was pregnant."

"Well you were kind of out of commission there for a while, Princess Antares." The head nurse hesitated for a moment. "We figured that you had bigger things on your mind than a simple pregnancy. Tulip is perfectly healthy, as is the foal, so far as we can see. We're going to do an ultrasound in a few weeks, so we'll know more about the race, health and gender then."

"Unicorn, if I had to guess," I said with a shrug. "Both of the parents are."

"True, but that's not necessarily an indication of the race." She returned my shrug. "At any rate, go see Ms. Tulip, Princess Antares. I'll be attending to some other patients if you need me."

I thanked her and walked to the end of the room, where Tulip was resting on her side with a book in her magical aura. She looked up when she saw me approach, and her eyes widened. She made to get up, presumably to bow, but I held up a hoof to forestall that idea.

"No, no, Tulip, you can stay in bed. You need to get your rest, okay?"

"Yes, Princess Antares." Tulip closed her book and put it on her bedside table. I pulled up a chair and sat down next to her bed.

"So, I suppose congratulations are in order." My gaze flickered down to her belly, which had begun to bulge out slightly. "A foal is no small thing, and I fully approve of your mate as well."

Tulip blushed and flattened her ears. "You flatter me. But yes..." Tulip put a hoof on her stomach and gave a fond smile. "I have to say that I didn't quite expect this, but I couldn't have been happier to hear the news. I mean, of course I was shocked at first. I thought I wasn't feeling well because of everything that was going on, but after the fourth day of vomiting in the morning, Valiant told me that maybe I should go to the infirmary. I got a pregnancy scan and, well..."

I nodded. "I was doing a lot better by then, of course. This would be, what, about a week or so ago?"

Tulip returned my nod. "Yeah, I think so. Given everything that's been happening lately, the doctors have told me to take it easy for a little while until they can run every test they need to to ensure that my foal is healthy, and to make sure my stress levels don't get too high. It could be bad for her."

"Her?" A slight smirk crossed my face. "You guessing or wishing?"

Tulip chuckled and nuzzled into her plush pillow. "A little of both. I'd like to have a little filly running around, helping me out with some of my duties to you. Valiant wants a colt, of course. Second generation guard, and all that."

"Well, no reason a filly can't grow up to be a second generation guard either." I stuck out my tongue. "But talking about second generations of my guard makes me feel old."

Tulip giggled and waved a hoof at me. "Come on, you're not going to get old."

"I'm not going to grow old. But a ten thousand year old pony is darned old." I let out a half amused scoff. "And the irony of all of this is that, being an alicorn, I look old anyway. Everypony knows that Celestia and Luna are thousands of years old, so if somepony saw me and didn't know better, they'd assume that I was too because I look and act so much like them. Some future generations who weren't there to see me coronated might even assume that I had a hoof in the creation of the world, or something." I raised a hoof and examined it. "But I'm only twenty four. You're a year or so older than I am, Tulip."

Tulip exhaled through her teeth and slowly shook her head. "I don't want to think about that. I can't possibly be."

"Exactly." I gave a little shrug with my wings. "This job is like the Earth presidency. You don't have to be doing it for very long before you start feeling old."

Tulip gave me a slightly confused look, so I smirked at her and waved my hoof. "Don't worry about it. A little joke for me. I just wanted to make sure that you're okay. I'll be checking up on you, and I hope you can come back to work soon, alright?"

"Me too." Tulip groaned and draped a foreleg over her eyes. "My youngest brother was born only a few years ago, so I remember when my mom got pregnant with him. She looked like a bloated hippopotamus. I guess I'm gonna start looking like that too, huh?"

"It comes with the foal, I'm afraid, but I can't imagine it's not worth it when you see him or her for the first time," I said, standing up. "Are you and Valiant talking about getting married?"

Tulip nodded. "I'd say it's almost definitely happening, Princess Antares. We love each other, and we want our foal to have both of her parents growing up."

"Good, then I wish you both well. I'm excited to see where that takes the both of you."

With that, I said my goodbyes and left the infirmary, my mood significantly improved with the promise of a new life coming to my palace to counteract all of the death that had plagued us in these past months.

I wanted no stress for my first day back to normal duties such as day court. I kind of wanted to ease back into everything, especially given what happened with the interro...

...

I did my best to push thoughts of that aside. Not to forget it completely and ignore it, of course, but I couldn't let it consume me. I couldn't let anything completely take me over. That was too dangerous. No matter how many times I learned that alicorns have more extreme emotions and that I need to keep mine in check, I felt like I needed to learn that lesson every day.

Didn't I?

I pushed those thoughts out of my head and spent the day focusing on a fairly restrained day court. I supposed that the nobles realized that, having just survived what I did and this being my first day back, now was not the time for petty squabbles and useless arguing. I mean, I repeatedly informed them in as many ways as I possibly could, both snarcastic and not, that there was never a time for petty squabbling, but it took me being shot for them to get that.

Eh, it bought me a week of quiet at most.

Once I ended day court, I only had about fifteen seconds of looking forward to a nice, peaceful dinner. I had only stood up from my throne when the door opened once more, and one of my soldiers came in. I smiled at him and stepped onto the floor.

"How can I hep you?"

"Princess Antares." The stallion bowed low. "You have a visitor."

"Yes, that does tend to come with being a princess," I said with a sigh. "But day court has adjourned, and I do need to eat dinner just like the average pony. You can tell this pony that she may come back tomorrow for court, or set an appointment with Time Keeper."

"Er..." My guard glanced up at me. "She's not a pony. And we were just as surprised by her arrival as you will undoubtedly be. She's... a griffin. Princess Kathyrine has arrived to speak with you."

My small smirk fell instantly, and I nudged the guard to a standing position. "Take me to her at once. Make sure that she is well guarded while she is in my palace. I cannot have her with even a scratch on while she's here, understood?"

"Yes, Princess Antares."

"Good. Have her meet me in my usual meeting room. I want Lieutenant Rapids to hoof pick two of her best soldiers to stand guard outside."

"As you wish."

The guard trotted off, leaving me to teleport straight to the meeting room. Princess Kathyrine here? If Aepnet's daughter had come to my palace without any warning, then something was seriously off. I briefly considered sending a letter to Celestia and Luna telling them about this, but that might be counter-productive. If I knew Kathyrine, she wanted to be anywhere but here right now, and all three princesses talking to her would be too much.

I heard a knock on the door just as I pulled out a chair for Kathyrine. I walked over to the door and opened it to see Private Valiant standing next to a cloaked and hooded griffin. Private Valiant had a large briefcase floating in his magical grasp.

"She had this with her when she came in. You're gonna want to see this."

"That's why I brought it, you dolt," Kathyrine growled. "Now can you leave us alone? You already frisked me, and you got the briefcase, so you don't need to worry about me doing anything stupid, okay?" Kathyrine scoffed. "I'm here to stop a war, stickhead, not start one."

"Hey, cut down on that language, please," I snapped. I nodded at Private Valiant and took the briefcase from him. "Thank you. That will be all. I'll let you know when we're done."

But this might take a while.

I led Kathyrine into the room and motioned over to the chair I pulled out for her. She gave a grunt of thanks and sat down on it as I pulled out a chair of my own across from her. I set the briefcase down on the table and took a seat.

"So, what's this all about? Why the secrecy? You don't even look like you have a guard with you."

"Because I don't," Kathyrine growled, pulling her hood down. "I'm taking a huge bucking risk coming to talk to you, Antares, so you'd better not get me killed."

"I'm not going to get you killed, Kathyrine. You're safe here." I looked down at the briefcase and put a hoof on it. "So is this why you're here?"

"No, that's all my doing. I'm here on my dad's orders. He'd come himself, but that's too risky. Purgle doesn't care about me. I'm relatively invisible to him." Kathyrine scoffed and leaned back in her seat. "An oversight, but he never was the smartest of minotaurs."

"So your dad sent you." The back of my mind told me that staying in this room with her alone was a terrible idea. That she might be here to do something awful and I should just arrest her and let Aepnet and Celestia sort it out, but... I couldn't. She wasn't strong enough to hurt me, and my troops would know if more griffins were coming into the city.

"Yeah. He just got back from a meeting with Purgle. A rather nasty one." Kathyrine crossed her forelegs and grimaced as though she swallowed something particularly unpleasant. "He asked me to talk to you so that when Purgle finds his excuse to invade Equestria, you're not caught completely off guard and we get to be left out of it. We..." Kathyrine began blinking rapidly and balled her talons into a fist. "My stupid dad made a treaty with the minotaurs saying that if they went to war with you, we'd jump right on in with them. He didn't tell me to tell you that, but I'm saying it so that when we go to war and my dad feels like he has to honor his agreement, you know that he doesn't want to do it. If you guys win, don't, like, execute him, okay?"

I stayed silent, chewing over this new information. If what Kathyrine was saying was true, then Aepnet definitely didn't want war. But if we talked to him about him backing out of the treaty he made, then Purgle might get pissed and invade Griffonia, which was a far easier target than Equestria. Griffonia didn't have alliances with Saddle Arabia. Griffonia doesn't have alicorns ruling it. Griffonia has Aepnet and two, soon to be three, bickering dukes. I mean yeah, Purgle's army would have to go around Equestria to the south through Diamond Dog lands to get there, but Purgle would have almost no trouble picking up some allies along the way. As for Equestria? Well, the nobles wouldn't want war, saying that as long as it didn't affect us, then we shouldn't send our mares and stallions to die for the griffins, especially since it was griffins that just attacked us. It would take so long to make a decision that might be "no" anyway, that Purgle could lay waste to Griffonia easily, even with Aepnet's air superiority.

Then again, if we didn't talk to Aepnet about backing out, then when Purgle invaded us, he'd feel he had no choice but to jump right in, if what Kathyrine was telling me was true. Then Saddle Arabia gets involved as we're fighting a two front war with a sub-par military and...

Ugh. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

After a solid minute, I closed my eyes and slowly exhaled. "So what do you want me to do? What does your father want me to do? You know how mad Purgle would get if he didn't go to war with him."

"Yeah, we do," Kathyrine muttered. "This is us quietly letting you know that we think Purgle is just as crazy as you think he is, but we can't back down. You know how much our culture values loyalty. Breaking this treaty would be the height of dishonesty for dad, and with three dukes watching every move he makes..."

"So he's let hundreds, maybe thousands, of his soldiers die for his pride?"

Kathyrine glared at me, and her mouth twisted into a slight snarl. "Don't you dare judge him, Antares! You have no idea how griffin monarchs are raised! You'd believe that too if from the very moment you heard what loyalty meant that it was the most important thing ever! Loyalty to your country, loyalty to your clan, loyalty to your word, loyalty to your family..." Kathyrine rolled her eyes. "You practically get that stupid word etched into your egg, especially if you're an emperor or empress."

"Alright, I understand," I said gently, raising a placating hoof, "but that still leaves the question of what you want me to do about it. If you had to meet me here in secret, your father is obviously worried about us talking to him. If Purgle finds out, then that could be bad."

"Would your country go to war for mine?"

I shook my head. "I'm sorry to say this, and I can't say for sure, but I really rather doubt it. We'd be more than happy to be mediators, but reinforcements would be an unpopular idea, especially after..." I hesitated for a moment. "You know."

"Yeah," Kathyrine grumbled. "Stupid little wannabe big-shot punk. If you didn't beat him to death, someone else would have." I flinched back slightly at that, but Kathyrine didn't notice. "Just... we want you to help however you can, alright? You can't talk sense into Purgle, no one can, but... I dunno, threaten to drop the sun on him, say you'll firebomb Schunie if he crosses into Diamond Dog territory. Something!"

"Giving him the excuse he wants to go to war, which your father will join in with." I sighed and shook my head. "I'm sorry, Kathyrine, but I can't give you a definite answer right now. I can say that the three of us will speak about this in great detail. This is something we can't ignore, obviously."

"Yeah."

I took a deep breath and looked down at the briefcase. "Now, this. A gift from your father?"

Kathyrine flinched back and lowered her head slightly. "N-no. He doesn't know I have it. That was all me. I just... I wanted to let you know what he was up to and what he could be doing, but just so you know how to counter it peacefully!" She said that last part quickly.

I gave her a slight nod and undid the latches of the briefcase. With a single burst of my magic I opened it up revealing...

I flinched back and shot to my hooves, pushing the briefcase to the opposite end of the table from us. I felt a slight ache in my chest, right where I had been shot. I snapped my hoof out towards the briefcase.

"Where did you get that?!"

"I have some friends in Dad's armory. Friends who know that I'm next in line for the throne and wanna play nice to the new monarch early. They let me in and I took it." Kathyrine lowered her head even more until she stared at the ground. "If you want me to be more specific, all those rumors of Dad having Nightmare Weapons are true. He has four just like that. Also... Cadance isn't the only one who's been scouring the planet for Nightmare Weapons. Dad and Purgle have been too. I know Purgle has at least two."

It took every single ounce of my practiced alicorn stoicism to not begin hyperventilating then and there. I internally let loose every single swear word, both Earth and Equestrian, that I could think of multiple times as I stared at the pitch black short sword hidden inside the briefcase. Aepnet had four more, and Purgle had at least two?

I took a few deep breaths to steady myself as I thought of a response. It wasn't really working, but it helped at least center me to pretend for Kathyrine's sake.

"Okay," I began after a few moments. "Th-thank you for telling me this. Is there anything else you'd like to share?"

"Not really," Kathyrine muttered. "Just don't hurt Dad, okay? He didn't know what he was getting into when he signed with Purgle, alright? He didn't know he was as nuts as he is. He thought he was protecting himself against you and helping the minotaurs unite at the same time."

"Uh-huh." I blinked once and used my magic to shut and lock the briefcase. Even touching the briefcase from across the room felt dirty. "So I guess we'll be in touch, then." I turned my head to look at her. "Which brings up an interesting question: why is it okay for you to come? Why are you supposedly 'invisible' to Purgle?"

"Well, minotaurs are a male dominated society, especially Purgle's clan." Kathyrine shrugged and stood up from her seat. "From the moment he met me Purgle treated me like I was beneath him because I wasn't a dude. Not overtly, but it was still kinda obvious. It doesn't really matter what I do."

"I see." I took the briefcase in my magic and held it far away from me, but close enough that I could carry it around. "Well, if there's nothing else, I will speak to you later. If you wish to stay for the night or would like to have dinner before you go, please feel free to tell one of my guards, who will assist you. Good day."

Before Kathyrine could say anything else, I threw the doors open and trotted out of the room right past my guard. I heard Lieutenant Rapids say something to me, but I didn't bother to listen. No time for whatever. If it was really important, she'd tell me later.

I turned down an empty hallway and, seeing my chance, teleported straight into a completely empty room that I used sometimes for assemblies of my staff. I shut and locked the doors with the most powerful shield spell I could pull off, threw a sound spell over the room, then proceeded to throw the briefcase against the opposite wall with an ear-splitting shriek.

The briefcase hit the wall, but did not break open. I whimpered and backed as far away from it as I could go, flinching at every step as a little prick of pain coursed through my chest wound. I undid the strap of my breastplate, letting it fall to the floor as I hit the back wall. I slid to the floor and began massaging the spot where the Nightmare Arrow had hit.

"Please no," I whimpered as the first tears streaked down my face. "I don't want anymore!" I let out a sob and held out a hoof as if the briefcase would lunge and attack me. "Just make them go away!" I cried to no one in particular. Or everyone. "M-make them go away!"

I closed my eyes and images began flashing in my head. Images of looking down and seeing the arrow sticking out of my chest. Images of my blood. My blood. Images of Sinosis wearing my tiara and reclining on my throne as I bled out before him. I violently flinched as the image of him loading another arrow into the crossbow played in my mind.

"Just stop!" I moaned, curling into a ball and massaging my chest with such force that I was starting to damage some of the fur. "Please stop killing them! D-don't hurt me anymore!"

It wasn't very "regal" of me, but that's why the sound spell was there and the door was locked. I cried until I couldn't anymore.

I don't even know how long I was there, but I think I might have fallen asleep on the floor. I opened my eyes and raised my head, looking over at the fallen briefcase. It had left a dent in the wall where I threw it, but that could be easily fixed. I shuddered and tore my gaze away from it. That would have to be dealt with sooner rather than later, and I didn't look forward to telling Luna that both Aepnet and Purgle had Nightmare Weapons.

I exhaled deeply and wiped my eyes with the back of my hoof. My staff and guards would certainly be looking for me. I wasn't the type of pony who could randomly disappear for a little while. Even in my moments of complete solitude, pretty much everypony in my palace had to know where I was.

I groaned and levitated my breastplate back over to me, glad that it covered where I had been rubbing when I put it back on. I cast a quick fur clearing spell over myself before picking the briefcase up and getting to my hooves. I could guess that I didn't look perfect, but good enough. I straightened my tiara and powered down the spells I had over the room before opening the doors and walking back out into the hallway.

To my slight surprise, I saw Lieutenant Rapids and Private Valiant both standing at attention next to the door. I raised an eyebrow and closed the door behind me. "How did you know that I was in there?"

"It was too quiet, Princess Antares," Rapids responded. "I figured it had to be a sound spell."

"Well you were right." I began walking towards my throne room, and the two quickly followed. "This whole situation just got a whole lot more severe. I need one of you to contact Princess Celestia and Princess Luna right away. Did Princess Kathyrine leave?"

Lieutenant Rapids nodded. "Yes, Princess Antares. I let Princess Cadance know she was in Equestria. She has a Blade Wing following her to make sure she's safe."

"Good. For now we need to figure out a way to stop Purgle, or at least slow him down a little bit."

"How do we do that?" Private Valiant asked.

I paused for a moment as something Kathyrine said made it into my mind. In my rush to get out of the room with the weapon, I hadn't fully registered it. But now that I needed to begin making plans... Oh, Kathyrine had no idea how much she was going to change by saying that.

"It's simple: we do something that I should have begun researching a long time ago: we turn me into a male again."

I turned the Nightmare Weapon over to Celestia and Luna, who were equally disturbed by the idea that Purgle and Aepnet were both gathering Nightmare Weapons. Luna didn't say much during that meeting once she saw what I had brought, but her emotions were clear. This hurt. Having said that, between the one I brought, the four that Aepnet had, the three that Cadance had destroyed, the two that Purgle had, the one that Sinosis shot me with, and the ones that Celestia had destroyed in her purge after the war with Nightmare Moon, Luna estimated that there were two, maybe three Nightmare Weapons that weren't accounted for at most. It was just a matter of who got to them first.

The idea that Kathyrine seemed to be acting slightly independent of her father interested us as well. She gave us a Nightmare Weapon and told us where to find six more. Aepnet wouldn't have wanted her to do that. We agreed to keep an eye on how that developed.

But once that was over... it was hitting the books on how to turn Princess Antares into Prince Antares. The idea that Purgle's entire attitude would change around me if I turned myself back into a male was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Heck, being a dude again was too big an opportunity to pass up. There just... always seemed to be another reason I had to put off the research on it. There was always something more important to focus on. As a servant of Equestria first and foremost, if I needed to decide between researching a gender-swap spell and figuring out how to feed homeless foals... well, it's not even a contest. After a while, I just kind of got used to being female and it got less and less important. But now! Oh now I was going to become the very first alicorn prince.

The very first thing that I did was... er... I began research into that sex spell that Celestia used on me our first night together. She'd used it many times since, but now I began researching it for science!

Any other time that would be just an excuse. A lame one, at that.

My initial avenues of research went into combining that spell with other spells; something to make it more stable and permanent. I didn't want to have this only work for a month then have it wear off again. I couldn't wear a "man suit," so to speak. I had to be an actual dude.

That... sounded a lot less creepy and off-putting in my head.

My guards were sworn to secrecy on the whole thing. If it didn't work in time, I didn't want word to get out that I was doing this. Not until I had a definite answer. I could see the headlines otherwise. Princess Antares Attempts Gender Change: What Mad Experiments is She/He Doing in His/Her Palace? Or Princess Antares Attempts to Switch Gender: Fails in Every Way Possible. I could just imagine Aepnet and Purgle reading that one.

Still, even if it worked, this would need to be handled delicately. I had been a princess for about three years now, and my entire cultural setting was deeply tied to that. I mean, yeah, it was common knowledge that I had once been a human male, so ponies would at least see the rationale behind this, which had major benefits and would make the transition smoother.

Oy. Even so I knew things were going to be rocky for a while if I pulled it off.

The days turned into weeks, as the cliche goes, and every free moment was spent on changing my gender back to normal. After three weeks I finally hit a breakthrough. I managed to combine the gender spell with one that "calms the stallion down" so to speak, and made it so that it lasted quite a while. I spent an entire day as, according to my scans and experiments, a 100% regular, healthy, normal stallion. Er, except for the alicorn part. I just couldn't make it permanent, no matter how much magic I poured into the new spell I had created. I could make its effects last longer, but that would eventually become draining.

After another few days of research, I realized that it would take something really powerful to make the spell completely permanent. Something with a history of completely changing genders...

"Thank you for coming today, ladies. I know you're all busy, and I respect that, so I won't keep you for longer than is necessary."

I looked around my throne room at the six mares whom I had brought in to help me with my little issue. Each of them was wearing their Element of Harmony, furiously blushing, and doing their best to avoid eye contact with me. I let out a small sigh and rubbed one of my temples.

"Now girls, each and every one of us is a mature, intelligent mare. We can be mature and intelligent about the fact that we're about to change me back into a dude using the... uh..." I sighed and snatched the Element of Magic off of Twilight's head to begin tuning it to my spell. "Yeah, I know, this is awkward as all else. Let's just get this over with. Just trust me when I say that this is a matter of national security."

"N-national security?" Rarity whispered. "Oh, I suppose that's comforting."

"I'm trying to avoid the most destructive war in the history of this planet, Rarity." I placed the tiara back on Twilight's head. "So yeah, it should be. And I'll thank you to remember that I was born male, and was male for twenty one years of my life. This whole female thing is a relatively new development, if you'll recall."

"I know, TD," Twilight muttered, adjusting her crown on her head. "It's just... well, if you want to talk percentages, you've been 'Princess Antares' to us for about three times longer than you were 'TD' to us, you know? So I've actually known you as a girl for a lot longer than as a guy."

My ear flicked, but I ignored the comment. "Right, so, in the interest of respecting your time and figuring this out as soon as possible, we should get started."

Twilight sighed and nodded to her friends. "Okay, girls..." Her ear twitched at the word. "Let's get this over with. You all ready?"

"I know I am," I pointed out.

"I know, TD," Twilight muttered as the Mane Six all got into a line in front of me. "Alright, here goes nothing."

Twilight ignited her horn.

I made it to Canterlot a few hours later, just as the hustle and bustle of the castle was winding down. I knew that Celestia and Luna would both be having dinner together, so I wouldn't wake Luna up, which was good. I landed at the castle gate, where Celestia's guard saluted me. I nodded back and trotted inside, where I met one of Celestia's secretaries and asked her to let Celestia know that I had arrived. The secretary bowed and went off to go find Celestia, leaving me to go to the throne room.

I only had to wait for about five minutes or so before the two of them walked in. Luna inclined her head in a greeting nod, and Celestia gave me a warm smile.

A smile that fell just about instantly.

"Antares..." Celestia blinked once, and I bit the inside of my lip to hold back a grin. "Something seems... different about you. Indecent, almost, if our past experiences are anything to go by."

I chuckled and shook my head, glancing over at Luna, whose eyes had gone as wide as dinner plates. "No, not indecent. I've just done what I should have done over two years ago." I grinned and spread my wings out to their full extent. "I changed myself back into a male. Permanently. I got the idea from speaking with Kathyrine. She said that Purgle respects males far more. Well, he would look at a male alicorn far differently, and our negotiations may improve if he had reason to respect, or at the very reason, be cautious of us. Maybe that's why he thinks he can go to war with us: Equestria was ruled by three princesses. Now he will have Prince Antares to deal with."

Which, admittedly, sounds really weird.

"Besides, I was born a dude. I know I just kinda got used to being called a 'she' and all that, but it's not really going to be an issue anymore."

"Oh?" Celestia quietly sighed and brought a hoof up to her temple. "Antares... I realize your rationale, both from your past and from the perspective of Purgle, but I do not believe you thought this through. Have you any idea what our subjects will think about this?"

"I know it will be difficult for them to accept at first but really, I am also immortal. Give it a hundred years and no one's going to even remember."

"I understand your thought process, but I am very disappointed in you, Antares. You didn't even speak to us about this first."

"Well, I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up or anything if it wasn't going to wo--"

"Regardless of your reasoning, you clearly have much to learn about putting your subjects before yourself." Celestia sighed and shook her head. "I am so disappointed. So very disappointed in you, Antares. You are in trouble." She pointed to one of the side doors. "Go to my room at once. Do not disobey me."

"I..."

"No backtalk. My room. You. Now."

That's when it clicked. I smirked, but made a show of flattening my ears and trotting out of the room with my head low. I walked out of the room and shut the door behind me, but stopped for a moment and cast an eavesdropping spell.

"Really, Tia?" Luna groaned.

Celestia lightly chuckled. "Is that a hint of jealousy I detect, Lulu?"

"Absolutely not!" Luna snapped.

A pause.

"Perhaps a little."

Author's Notes:

So he's a dude again... for the first time since chapter one. Over 190,000 words later.

Yikes. Did not expect that either.