“Whatcha doing Bucky?” Derpy asked, sticking her head into the library and looking more than a little concerned. She saw her husband reading a big book bound in black leather. “Studying magic?”

“Trying to find a solution to a problem,” Bucky answered, not looking up from his book.

“Problem?” Derpy asked, stepping into the farmhouse library completely.

“Cadance is my foal. My responsibility. I foresee her becoming very unhappy at some point and being a good doting father, I’m trying to find answers now,” Bucky explained, his face still in his spellbook.

“That’s a dark magic spellbook,” Derpy said in a soft voice. “No more dark magic on foals,” she insisted in a very small voice. “I’m putting my hoof down upon that issue.”

Looking up from his book, Bucky looked at Derpy with a pained expression upon his face. “That wasn’t what I was planning,” he said in a quavering voice that was full of guilt and pain. “Not a day goes by that I don’t feel bad about what was done with Dinky.”

“I… I want to know what you are planning. I’m worried,” Derpy demanded, her eyes narrowing as she stepped a little closer to Bucky. “I have a right to know.”

“Derpy… love… right now, I’m not planning much of anything. I’m looking for answers. This book has a few spells, but it is mostly notes. It doesn’t look very big, but the book is extradimensional and has about eight thousand pages. Sombra and Star Swirl understood how to manipulate and alter time. I don’t even know what I’m looking for exactly, except that one of Sombra’s memories is nagging at me and it is in my mind sort of but it is not completely formed, like he is teasing me or something. He’s making me hunt for the answer,” Bucky responded, being open and completely honest.

“Sounds like Sombra, wherever he is, is trying to be good to you by offering you a distraction. You keep reading and relaxing. Semillon is fixing chocolate mousse. You need anything, you give a shout,” Derpy said, still looking worried and concerned. “Thank you for being open with me.”

“Sentinel, what are you doing?” Berry Punch asked as she watched Sentinel crawling over the floor on his belly.

“Playing with my siblings,” Sentinel replied as he continued to stalk his younger sisters.

Harper and Cadance were piled together, with Cadance sucking on Harper’s ear, while Peekaboo stood guard, trying to defend the two smaller foals from Sentinel, who advanced slowly, growling softly. Peekaboo had her wings out, she was stiff legged, and she bounced and gamboled about with her barrel inflated as large as she could get it, glaring at Sentinel with narrowed eyes. She hissed, spat, and sputtered, spraying drool all over the floor. Nearby, Bittersweet was shaking with silent laughter.

“Gonna getcha,” Sentinel growled in a low voice, creeping forward.

“No,” Peekaboo replied defiantly, flapping her wings a bit and trying to look scary.

Lifting the camera, Berry Punch snapped a picture. The whole scene was just too good to ignore. After waiting a moment, she snapped a second picture as she chuckled to herself.

“Gonna getcha,” Sentinel growled again, sounding especially spooky this time.

Letting out a tiny squeak that was her warcry, Peekaboo pounced. She soared through the air, landed on wobbling legs just in front of Sentinel’s face, and then she steadied herself. Rearing up high, she whinnied and then she brought both of her front hooves down upon Sentinel’s snoot.

Going cross eyed, Sentinel let out a grunt from the double hoofy slam snoot punch. “Ugh, you killed me. I’m dead,” he announced as he rolled over onto his back and died.

“I say you no,” said Peekaboo as she pranced in a circle around Sentinel, ignoring the camera flash. She lept up onto Sentinel’s barrel, let out a warbling cry of victory, and then sat down while she slapped Sentinel across the muzzle a few times with her foreleg.

Giggling, Berry Punch snapped another picture.

Grunting with effort, Loch Skimmer queefed in the tub, releasing a stream of bubbles into the steaming bathwater. “Wooo! that was a good one.”

“This tub is kinda cramped,” Sparker remarked, not impressed by Loch Skimmer’s efforts at bathtime flatulence, not knowing the source of the air bubbles. She had shared a tub with her mother Derpy, whose bubbles typically came from another source. She lifted an old plastic cup in her magic, filled it with hot bathwater, and poured it over her own head, feeling full body tingles as the hot water sluiced over her scalp.

“It feels nice to be doing nothing,” Rising Star mumbled, resting his head along the back edge of the tub. “I have a few more stoves to make, but I think I can get those done before it becomes seriously cold.”

“Princess Celestia is going to pin a medal on you for your heroics in Baltimare,” Sparkler said as she looked at Loch Skimmer. “I’m really proud of you.”

“I’m not going to accept it,” Loch Skimmer said in an unusually subdued voice.

“You sound like father,” Sparkler replied, shaking her head.

“I was just doing my job,” Loch Skimmer said in a soft squeak.

“Yep, father,” Sparkler sighed, still shaking her head.

Scrubbing at his belly with his hoof, Rising Star snorted. “You did things that impressed the Wonderbolts. You flew in gale force winds for hours. Long after most rescuers almost fell out of the sky from exhaustion, you kept flying and doing what needed to be done.”

“I paced myself, that’s all,” Loch Skimmer responded, looking over at Rising Star. “I’m a young healthy pegasus that gets a lot of exercise, most of it sex or rubbing one out whenever I have the chance, I eat well, I don’t drink too much, and I focus on being positive. I’m nothing special.”

Sparkler and Rising Star both exchanged a knowing glance with one another but said nothing, little ear flicks and raised eyebrows said everything that needed to be said from Rising Star, and Sparkler simply smiled.

“I’m not special like you, or you, or Ripple,” Loch Skimmer said as she looked at Rising Star and then at Sparkler. “I’m the normal one. I’m okay with that. You’re the famous fey smith that is making a name for himself and the young politician that everypony wants to know, Sparkler is the hard boiled police officer on a crusade to fight crime and protect the city she loves… Ripple is… well, Ripple is Ripple. I don’t even know what to say about my sister sometimes. If father is meant to be the alicorn of war, Ripple is meant to be his announcer… his, um, trumpet blower… you know, the thing that lets you know that something is coming…”

“Herald?” Rising Star suggested.

“Harbinger?” Sparkler proposed.

“Those work!” Loch Skimmer agreed, nodding her head. “Anyway, somepony has to be the normal one in our herd.”

“Bittersweet is very likely going to be in our herd. How does everypony feel about that?” Rising Star asked, looking at the two soaking wet mares in the tub with him. “Personally, I think it’s great. Ripple is adorable when she’s making those embarrassed ‘I’m so in love’ faces.”

“I’m okay with it,” Sparkler announced.

“Well of course you are, you’ve been snogging her,” Loch Skimmer giggled.

“And we all agreed that it was okay,” Sparkler stated, looking at Loch.

“I wasn’t complaining!” Loch Skimmer responded, shaking her head. “I like Bittersweet.”

“Like her enough to marry her in?” Sparkler asked as she felt her thigh muscles convulse. The intense relaxation brought upon by multiple orgasms was wearing off.

"Well yes… I want my sister happy,” Loch Skimmer stated, making her feelings known. “Have you seen the standard Ripple is having Sentinel work on for the Raptors? It’s a white donkey head on a black background. Kinda an outline… it’s so romantic!”

“Oh wow, she has it worse than I thought,” Rising Star remarked, his expression becoming serious. “I wonder how the griffons feel about a donkey as their standard, considering everything that’s happened between donkeys and griffons.”

Laying on his back, Sentinel could feel Peekaboo sitting on his barrel. He took small steady breaths, trying to make sure she wasn’t disturbed too much. He lifted his head and cracked open one eye to peer out at Peekaboo.

“No! Stay dead!” Peekaboo commanded and then booped Sentinel on the snoot.

Obediently closing his eye, he dropped his head to floor and Sentinel resumed being dead for a while. After a few moments, he lifted his head and then he cracked open the other eye to have a look.

“No. Dead. Now,” Peekaboo stated, booping Sentinel once more.

“Oh come on,” Sentinel begged.

“No. You dead,” Peekaboo insisted. “Scary growly no no.”

“I’ll help you get cookies,” Sentinel offered, not above trying to bribe his way out of his situation. He gave Peekaboo a hopeful look and she gave him a doubtful look in return.

“Nope. Dead,” Peekaboo responded, shaking her head. She reached out and booped Sentinel on the nose. “Dead,” she insisted.

“I’ll beg Semillon to make rice pudding just for you,” Sentinel promised, smiling slightly. “Rice pudding. With cinnamon.”

“Ooooh… promise?” Peekaboo asked and then reached up and wiped away a bit of drool from her lip, leaving her muzzle with a wet smear of slobber.

“I’ll help him beg,” Berry Punch offered. The earth pony mare was beaming broadly, enjoying this unfolding drama between siblings. Her eyes moved to Cadance and Harper, who had fallen asleep upon the blanket covering the floor, drooling all over one another.

“Okay. No dead no more,” Peekaboo said and then bent her head down to plant a kiss upon Sentinel’s snoot. She then crawled off of Sentinel and looked towards the kitchen hopefully. “Rice puddy.”

“You’ll get your rice puddy tomorrow,” Semillon shouted from out of the kitchen.

“Yay, puddy!” Peekaboo cheered as she sat down on her haunches and clopped her front hooves together.

“Whatcha doing Dinks?” Piña asked as she bounced up onto the bed beside Dinky Doo.

“Thinking,” Dinky replied, sounding distracted.

“Dinky thinky?” Piña questioned.

“About everything that’s happened,” Dinky admitted, squirming uncomfortably.

“My dad?” Diamond Tiara said from her bed.

“Yeah,” Dinky sighed, closing her eyes and then rubbing them with her folded fetlocks. “I’m having some thoughts that I don’t know how to put into words,” the foal confessed. “I kinda want to keep you as my sister.”

“I can be your sister no matter where I go,” Diamond Tiara responded in a raspy emotional croak, her voice cracking.

“See, some ponies have forgiven you and accepted you. Both the Apples and Rarity and Coco have offered to take you in,” Piña said as she looked over at Diamond Tiara, who was laying on her side and holding her stomach.

“After all I did to Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom,” Diamond Tiara murmured miserably.

“I wish daddy would keep you,” Dinky grumbled. “This isn’t fair.”

“Ponies would see Sentinel and I as siblings,” Diamond Tiara said to Dinky.

“I know why… if you two get all smoochy smoochy kissy kissy later it would gross everypony out,” Dinky muttered in a sullen pouting voice. “This isn’t fair,” she repeated.

“Life isn’t fair,” Piña sulkily agreed.

“Mister Rich accidentally dying has made me think about how easy it is for life to slip away. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Makes me want to hug the ponies I love a little more often just because I could have an accident or one of them could have an accident and then it would all be over… like with poor Shining Armor and Cadance,” Dinky said, spilling her guts and saying everything on her mind in the best way that she was capable of.

“I wish I had hugged him instead of saying the awful things I said,” Diamond Tiara grumbled. She lifted her head and slammed it down into her pillow. “I hate myself.”

“Don’t say that! Haven’t you learned anything! You said bad things to your daddy and you lost him! And now you’re saying bad things to yourself! NO! Don’t do that!” Piña shouted at Diamond Tiara while kicking and pounding her hooves upon the bed.

“I’m sorry,” Diamond Tiara apologised in a soft raspy whisper.

“Don’t be a horseapple head!” Piña cried out.

“Okay!” Diamond Tiara shouted weakly. “I’ll stop saying bad things about myself.”

The door opened and a grey head with a straw coloured mane poked in. Derpy looked around the room, one eye shut and her good eye open. She squinted at each one of the fillies in turn, looking concerned.

“I heard shouting,” Derpy said as she came the rest of the way in. She walked beside Diamond Tiara’s bed and smiled. “How ya feeling?”

“She said she hated herself and I scolded her,” Piña said to Derpy.

“Good Piña,” Derpy responded, looking over at Piña. She looked back over at Diamond Tiara. “Semillon fixed mashed potatoes and a cream gravy. There are some other soft foods. I want for you to come down and have dinner with us if you feel up to it.”

“Okay… smashed potatoes sound good,” Diamond Tiara replied.

“She also fixed a glazed carrot soufflé with you in mind. It smells nummy,” Derpy said, hoping to encourage a good appetite in Diamond Tiara.

“Oooh… Fancy food,” Diamond Tiara moaned, sounding somewhat hungry.

Author's Notes:

This chapter caused some respiratory issues and for those of you with functional pancreases, they die now!

Look out for typos.