Clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac.

“Honey?”

Twilight Velvet grunted something unintelligible before raising her eyes from the typewriter she had been using for the past eight hours. The clac-clac-clac stopped. Right in front of her stood Night Light, looking at her with a soft grin and a plate carrying chocolate cupcakes.

Silence.

“Whatever you want,” Velvet said, turning her attention back at the typewriter, “no. Now go away, I’m busy.”

Clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac.

“Aw, come on.” Night Light gave a soft chuckle and approached his wife with a smooth movement, still smiling. “You can’t—”

“You always bring me chocolate whenever you want something you know I won’t like,” Velvet said. Clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac-clac. “I still remember the cake you bought me the day you proposed to me.”

“Actually, that was our wedding cake.”

The clac-clac-clac stopped as Velvet looked at her husband once more. “Wait, what?”

“We were already married by the time I bought that cake, honey.”

“Really?”

Night Light nodded. “Eeyup. You had the ring and all that.”

“So I was writing when we got married?”

Night Light raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you realize that you were single before Daring Do and the White Lion and married afterwards?”

“I don’t know, I thought it had happened naturally over time.”

“Putting it in perspective, that actually explains a lot about your behavior back then.”

“Oooh. Wait, then what was that humongous pie that I ate when—?”

“Our honeymoon,” Night Light said.

Silence.

“We had one of those?”

“Oh, yeah. We had a great time.”

“Oh.” Velvet blinked. “Well, that’s good to hear.” She got one cupcake and bit it, typing just with one hoof. Clac. Clac. Clac. Clac. Clac. Clac. “We should get another at some point.”

“That would be amazing, actually,” Night Light said. “And that actually brings me to what I wanted to ask you!”

Velvet raised an eyebrow and got another cupcake. “You wanted to ask me about our honeymoon?”

“Yeah, more or less it’s the same thing,” Night Light said. “I wanted to talk about Frackle.”

Silence.

“Our honeymoon reminds you of dragons?”

“We had an awesome honeymoon. Anyway, here’s my idea: What if we…”

Golden Oaks Library trembled with the screams of its owner.

“MY PARENTS ARE GOING TO DO WHAT?!”

“Adopt a giant, multiple centuries old, probably murderous dragon, who will legally become your new little brother,” Rarity said without raising her eyes from the newspaper she was reading. Slowly, she took a sip of tea, the cup glimmering with her blue magic. “Hmm. I can’t believe professional journalists can have such a hard time finding a calendar.”

“Rarity!” Twilight tossed the letter away and glared at her friend. “This is serious! My parents can’t do that!”

“Funny.” Rarity took another sip of tea, still not looking at Twilight. “Judging by what that letter said, I’m pretty sure they can.”

“I can’t have a dragon as a little brother! That’s just… That’s just stupid!”

“Woah.” Spike, who had been busy reading a recently purchased comic, frowned at Twilight. “Well, nice to hear that. What am I? A parrot?”

“Oh, for crying out loud!” Twilight slammed the table with her hooves. “You know that’s not what I meant!”

“Yeah, you’re not adopted, are you?” Rarity asked. “You’re just… Twilight’s assistant, right? But legally talking… what is exactly your position in the family, again?”

“I’ve always thought I’m, like, the cool uncle or something. It’s complicated.”

“STOP UNDERREACTING LIKE THAT!” Twilight screamed, her voice reaching levels that made the windows tremble. “I WILL NOT ALLOW GETTING A DRAGON IN THE FAMILY! IT’S JUST… I DON’T KNOW. IT’S IMMORAL OR SOMETHING!”

“Okay, this conversation just went into offensive territory,” Spike said, getting up. “If you need me, I’ll be drowning my sorrows in three and a half liters of ice cream.”

“Ah, do you mind bringing me more tea, now that you’re going to the kitchen?” Rarity asked, finally putting her newspaper down. “Please, be a dear.”

“Of course!”

“CAN SOMEPONY PLEASE GIVE ME A LITTLE ATTENTION?!”

“Sure,” Spike said, turning back from the kitchen with a cup of tea and a glass of wine. “Here.”

“Thanks, Spikey.”

“And you, Twilight, drink that.” Spike handed her the red wine. “It will help you calm down.”

“What’s the big deal anyway?” Rarity said. “I mean, think about it: two dragons, two unicorns, two alicorns. Your family is symmetrical. Could be worse, if you asked me.”

“RARITY, A GIANT, WINGED BRINGER OF DEATH IS GOING TO JOIN MY SUMMER FAMILY PICNICS FROM NOW ON! CAN YOU PLEASE—”

Rarity would never know what Twilight was asking her to do, as she was interrupted by a burp from Spike, a green magical flame, and a small note appearing from it and slowly falling on the table.

After a second of silence, the three of them read it.

Dear Twilight,

By the way, Frackle’s getting your old room. I hope you don’t mind!

Love,
Dad

“Huh,” Rarity said, and then she took another sip of wine. “Well, that’s surely…” She blinked. “Twilight? Are you trembling? And why are your eyes getting all white?”

“Shining! Come back here right now!”

“WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—”

“SHINING!”

“—EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—”

“Oh, for my aunt’s mane, how can you be so fast if you had never flown?!”

Princess Cadance was having a very hard time trying to catch her husband, which was a pretty impressive thing when one had in mind that Shining Armor hadn’t stopped flying for three days and Cadance had only started pursuing him five hours ago. At least finding him wasn’t hard—one just had to follow the girly screams.

“Come back here or you are going to regret it, Shining!” she screamed again, but her husband didn’t stop. Cadance couldn’t help but grid her teeth in frustration. She wasn’t sure if Shining Armor wasn’t listening to her or if he was just too taken away by the child-like wonder of flying for the first time to listen to her screams.

“Which, actually,” she muttered to herself as she pursued him, “is pretty cute. Still, come BACK OR SO HELP ME, SHINING!”

Her screams were interrupted by a sudden spark which quickly turned into a blinding light, as from some point in the west something exploded in a burst of white and purple. Both Cadance and Shining Armor stopped immediately, and less than a couple seconds later, the sound came.

BOOM!

There was a gust of wind that pushed both alicorns a couple meters away, and then a mushroom-shaped cloud rose, many miles away.

Then, as Shining Armor was still flying on the same spot, Cadance approached him. Neither of them stopped looking at the giant mushroom cloud.

“So,” she finally said. “Is it me, or is Ponyville in that general direction?”

When Shining Armor and Cadence finally made it to the castle, they discovered that Night Light and Twilight Velvet were already there. As there were still no Guards, though, the only other ponies in the room were Celestia and Luna.

“Oh, hey, an alicorn reunion!” Night Light said after seeing his son and daughter-in-law entering through the window. Shining Armor was carrying a semi-unconscious Twilight in his arms. “Nice wings, son!”

“Thanks, dad!”

“You were ready to welcome us?” Cadence asked, turning to her aunts. “Wow. News travels fast, huh?”

“Twilight? Oh, dear, what has happened?” Velvet ran to her daughter and caressed her mane. Twilight sat on the floor, unable to remain still. Her eyes were glassy. “Twilight?”

Celestia stood there, blinking for a while, till she shook her head and sighed. “Oh, dear,” she muttered. “Okay, may I ask why my star student is unconscious and why you two are here?”

“What?” Cadence frowned at her aunt. “Are you telling me you don’t know? Then why were you four reunited in here?”

“They want to adopt Frackle,” Luna explained, pointing at Night Light and Velvet. “Twilight Velvet was wondering about the legal issues, and both figured asking us about it would be the smartest option.”

Silence.

Cadance squinted. “They want to adopt the dragon?”

“We also think it’s a little… unorthodox, to say the least.”

Velvet raised an eyebrow. “His idea, not mine. I’m just here for the chocolate.”

“What?”

“A new brother?! Yaaaaaay!” Shining Armor clapped his hooves. “This is going to be so much fun!”

“I know, right?” Night Light smiled at his son. “And you can go fly with him if you want, now that you’re an alicorn!”

“Yeah! I can…” Shining stopped clapping and frowned. “I can go fly with him, but… Hmm.” His words died in his mouth as he looked at the floor and scratched his chin. “Hmmm…”

“Okay. So.” Celestia pointed at Twilight, who had fallen asleep. “What exactly happened, and why do I get the feeling it’s not a good thing?”

“Hmm.” Cadence looked at her sister-in-law, then back at Celestia. “Long story short? Twilight accidentally exploded Ponyville.”

Silence.

More silence.

“…I’m going to ask you to repeat that,” Celestia said, scratching her temples, “in the hopes that I’m suffering some kind of auditive hallucination.”

“Twilight accidentally exploded Ponyville. She actually told us so before getting all dozy. I guess she used all her magic.”

Silence.

“Well,” Luna said, “that was unexpected.”

“There have been no victims, as far as Shining and I have seen,” Cadance said. “It was a magical explosion, so everything just turned into pines. Coniferous things as far as the eye can see.”

Celestia sat down on the floor. “Oh, for crying out loud…!”

“Except for Fluttershy’s porcupines,” Cadance added. “Surprisingly, they just turned a little green and got melancholic.”

Thunk.

Cadance blinked. “Uh…”

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk…

“...Aunt Celestia? Why are you banging your head against the wall?”

“Hey, she’s had a hard week,” Luna said, looking at her sister with sympathy. “And believe me: it’s either this or setting the whole kingdom on fire, and we already have a dragon in Canterlot in case we need that.”

THUNK! THUNK! THUNK, THUNK, THUNK, THUNK!

“Uh.” Luna blinked. “I shouldn’t have mentioned the dragon.”

“That’s it!” Shining yelled all of a sudden, clapping once more. “Princess Luna, if you allow my parents to adopt Frackle, can you take my wings away?”

“What?”

“What?”

“What?!”

THUNK—“What?”

Night Light didn’t say a word. He just smiled.

“You see, I can’t have them,” Shining said. “Spike likes to sleep during our family picnics, and with both me, Twilight, and Frackle flying, mom and dad will feel alone on the ground! Right, dad?” He turned to Night Light. “Right?”

“Hmm. Quite a sacrifice you do for your old folks, son,” Night Light said, patting Shining’s head. “I’m proud of you!”

“Thanks!”

“Now,” Night Light said, clapping his hooves, “with Shining Armor renouncing to his wings and returning the balance to the world, we would have one less problem to care about, right?”

Every mare in the room looked at him with a mixture of a frown and a baffled expression. Well, all of them except for Twilight Velvet. She just shook her head, still caressing her daughter’s mane.

“I’m a problem when I have wings?” Shining asked.

“Too many feathers in our bed, darling.”

“Oh.”

“Now we just need to bring all those pines and pining hedgehogs here so we can turn them back to normal, seeing how Twilight can’t do anything.” He smiled. “My, we’ll need something really big to carry them here, right? And seeing how Canterlot is on a mountain, that big thing will better be able to fly.”

Silence.

“And we also need to get the Guards out of that cave,” Night Light continued. “Now, son?”

“Yeah?”

“You know more about magical barriers than anypony in Equestria, right?

Shining Armor grinned. “Yeah!”

“What’s the only thing that can go through that barrier?”

The prince bit his lip. “Without the caster’s permission? Only dragonfire.”

“Hmm. I see.” Night Light nodded. “So, let me go through it all again: we need something big, something flying, and something which can breathe enough dragonfire to get the Guards out of that cave. And, as a bonus, Shining Armor renounces to his wings.” He smiled. “So, just to be sure, I’ll ask you again, Princesses: can we adopt Frackle, or is it too unorthodox to work?”

As Night Light and Twilight Velvet walked back to her house, her carrying the adoption papers and him carrying the sleeping Twilight on his back, Velvet sighed.

“You know, I’m actually curious. How much of this was planned from the beginning, and how much was just dumb luck?”

“Twilight can’t be the only one who sends letters every time she wants, right?”

“You know we don’t need to adopt Frackle to do that, right?

“Yeah. But dragons are awesome.”

Author's Notes:

Betcha you weren't expecting this!

Now things are finally wrapped up and we can all go to sleep.