It was a quiet night. This was not a bad thing, but it made things boring. Ponyville, for the most part, was having a quiet boring night, and this left Sparkler with nothing to do but prowl the streets. It was cold, almost bitterly cold, much colder than it should have been for this time of year. Nightmare Night was certainly going to be frigid and little foals would need something warm under their costumes.

The badges they all now wore were imbued with marvelous magic. Sparkler could see quite well in the dark now, the badge given to her by Luna offering her night vision. It also greatly affected her hearing, allowing her to hear trouble, faint far off cries for help, and gave her quite an advantage in keeping the peace.

Above her, she heard the fluttering of wings. Sparkler looked skywards, saw a dark silhouette outlined against the stars, and could not immediately make out what it was. Something landed a few yards away on the rail of a wooden fence. Peering ahead, she could make out an owl sitting upon the fence, it was staring at her with one nearly luminous amber eye.

“Good evening owl… here to help me keep watch on the town?” Sparkler asked.

The owl did not respond, not that Sparkler expected it to. It was just an owl after all. She smiled, glad for the company, and then said, “I can’t wait to go home and get warm.”

Sparkler watched the owl flutter its wings, bounce up and down upon the fence rail, and then she heard something quite peculiar.

“When?”

Taken aback, Sparker was not quite sure what to expect. She was tired, cold, and perhaps a little overworked. She shook her head, tried to dismiss what she had heard, and found that she couldn’t. “Excuse me, owl… but did you just say something to me?”

“What?”

Something was amiss… Sparkler stared at the owl and her eyebrows angled downwards. “Shouldn’t you be saying ‘who’ when you hoot?”

“Why?”

Sparkler felt one eyebrow now raising as her ears perked forward. “I think I’ve lost my mind,” she said in a low voice as she reached up to rub her head with her right foreleg.

“Where?”

Her foreleg dropped and Sparkler felt the side of her face twitching from her Shivers. “I can’t believe I’m talking to an owl… I should have found somepony to patrol with me.”

“Who?”

“Who indeed Mister Owl. I can’t believe I’m talking to an owl,” Sparkler said. Snorting, Sparkler stared at the owl for a moment and then took a few steps closer. “You’re a funny looking owl.”

“I know… I’m missing an eye,” Sparkler heard the owl say.

“Mister Owl?” Sparkler asked. She stared incredulously at the bizarre bird and took another step closer. The owl was ignoring her now, it was preening its feathers, getting itself neat and orderly, and paying her no attention whatsoever. When she was close enough to bump it with her snoot, the owl sat up and turned its head around to look at her once more.

“So Sparky, are you lonesome?”

“Daddy?” Sparkler asked as she stood there blinking.

“Yes?”

As the realisation of who this was flooded through her mind, Sparkler felt a complex rush of emotions. “You jerk!”

“Sorry Sparky… I had to have a little fun with you. It has been a while since we’ve had a chance to spend time together. I’m always working at night if I can’t sleep, and you are always off in Ponyville, doing a fine job at making me proud,” Sparkler heard the owl say after she made her scathing accusation.

Feeling relieved as well as annoyed, Sparkler pushed all of her feelings aside and told her father exactly how she felt. “Daddy, I thought I was losing my mind… I swear… you are a nuisance.”

“The city looks downright peaceful. The city proper is mostly asleep, only a few lights are on. Hardly any ponies are out and about, the night scares most of them, the cold is keeping most of them indoors, and even in the refugee sections, it is quiet. Most of the residents are secured inside of their little gourd houses sound asleep. I can sense them all dreaming because of my connection to shadow. You have done a wonderful job of cleaning everything up… can you live with the boredom?”

“I suppose that I will have to learn how,” Sparkler said in reply as she stood staring at the owl and trying to keep her left hind leg from involuntarily kicking.

“Princess Twilight Sparkle, the head of the Bureau of Thaumaturgy, wanted me to ask you a question. She has noticed your hard work, your careful use of magic, and the fact that not a one of your captured perpetrators has been seriously injured when you have subdued them.”

Sparkler cleared her mind and focused all of her attention. The owl was staring at her intently now. She could almost see some of her father’s mannerisms in the owl, or at least she thought she did. It might have been her imagination. Sparkler found herself intrigued by her father’s words. “What does she want?”

“Twilight wants to know if you would like to wear a black cloak… not for anything major… sorry, I won’t allow that, I would lose my mind if you were ever in serious danger, but for investigating minor infractions. There has been a couple of incidences right here in Ponyville actually… and Twilight does not want to spend what little bit of time we have hunting down minor offenses. A while back a unicorn mare used a minor compulsion spell on a stallion selling his services so she wouldn’t have to pay. She’s in Canterlot now, she is being charged with rape as well as a variety of charges for her magical infraction. This is the sort of thing we want you to look after and have some authority over,” Sparkler heard Bucky who was in owl-form say.

Sparkler scowled. “I heard about that case from Flash Sentry. Right now there is a bit of discussion about making prostitution legal and I understand that you are in favour of it.”

The owl seemed to shrug and Sparkler heard it say, “Can’t stop it, might as well profit from it. Besides, a pony has a right to do as they please with their own body just so long as it doesn’t hurt others.”

Nodding, Sparkler took a step backwards and said, “Mister Chips calls that ‘ethical hedonism’ and there was quite a discussion about it. Most of that conversation was about Loch Skimmer now that I think about it.”

“NOPE! No… no no no… I don’t want to hear about what you, Rising Star, and Loch Skimmer do, especially in relation to the word hedonism. In my mind, all of you are sweet innocent little yearlings all snuggling together innocently, dreaming sweet innocent dreams, and all of you are—”

“Engaged in hot sweaty pony piles, just like how you are with my mothers?” Sparkler asked in a flat monotone.

“Why Sparky… why? How could you? Have you no love for your father?”

The owl’s feathers were ruffled and Sparkler could see that the owl looked a bit out of sorts. She felt her lips pulling back into a wry grin as her ears splayed out sideways. The muscles over her ribs on her left side spasmed, but Sparkler ignored those. “Daddy, we’re a herd of teenage fillies with one fey colt, all of our hormones are raging, and we’re married. There is nothing holding us back from doing what ponies our ages have a natural desire to do. I am actually starting to think that more fillies and colts should be married in their teen years… if they have enough maturity. Might be a good thing.”

As Sparkler stood there staring, the owl danced from one foot to the other, its wings flapping as its head twisted from side to side as if shaking its head ‘no’ in an over-enthusiastic manner. The owl was clearly having a conniption fit.

“Daddy, you are so silly sometimes…”

“Mister Monogamy is at it again…”

Staring down into her coffee cup, one of Derpy’s ears twitched at Berry Punch’s words. Berry Punch sounded really annoyed and worked up over this issue, and the name ‘Mister Monogamy’ struck Derpy as being sort of funny. If she was more awake, it was something she might even laugh at.

“This morning his bit in the paper is how herd marriages turn the ‘responsible’ monogamists into a minority… since herd marriages have more foals, and they are raised in a herd, the foals will grow up thinking herds are ‘normal’ and because of this, eventually, herds will outnumber monogamous couples, eventually destroying monogamy and responsibility completely,” Berry Punch said.

“You know, there were arguments made about how same sex marriages were going to destroy ‘normal’ stallion and mare marriages,” Derpy heard Lyra reply. The grey mare looked over at Lyra and saw that she was dumping sugar into her coffee.

“I think to generate sympathy for a cause, a group has to pose that the group in opposition is going to destroy it somehow… like monogamists saying that herds will destroy monogamy or straight ponies saying that homosexual ponies were going to completely ruin the straight way of life by raising little gay foals. It is all a load of horseapples,” Bon Bon said.

Lifting her coffee cup, Derpy found herself in agreement with Bon Bon. It was a load of horseapples.

“Think any of our foals are gay?” Berry Punch asked.

This got Derpy’s attention. Her ears perked as she sat up straighter. She looked around the table, wondering what her fellow-wives were about to say.

“Ripple is as queer as a three bit piece,” Derpy heard Bon Bon say.

“I dunno Bonnie, I’ve seen the way she looks at Rising Star sometimes. She likes what she sees,” Berry Punch said.

Derpy saw Berry Punch shovel in a bite of fried eggs and look around the table, for a moment, Derpy and Berry Punch looked at one another, and then Derpy said, “No, our younger foals. This is actually a good question. Will any of them be gay? Are they going to grow up and form a herd? Will they be monogamists out of a sense of rebellion against us?”

“Very well said Derpy,” Bon Bon said.

Feeling her cheeks grow hot, Derpy looked over at Bon Bon and struggled to overcome her bashfulness. “Aw, thank you Bon Bon.”

“Sentinel is clearly fixed on Moonbow and Diamond Tiara,” Derpy heard Lyra say around a mouthful of fried potatoes. There was a bit of bell pepper stuck on Lyra’s nose… or perhaps it was a booger. It was hard to tell with bad eyesight.

“I have a hard time with the idea of being gay,” Berry Punch said.

Derpy heard Bon Bon inhale and she turned just in time to see and hear Bon Bon say, “I don’t know what you mean Berry.”

Then, Derpy heard Berry Punch reply, “It is nothing personal, you like what you like, but I was straight for years… then one day I found my best friend attractive and now I sort of swing both ways. I’ve doubled my chances for getting laid by somepony when the mood strikes. Apart from that though, what if you fall in love with somepony for what they are, but the outside of their body doesn’t fit in with what you find attractive? Do you just stop loving them and move on? How do you just stop loving somepony or someone just because you don’t like their plumbing?”

Suddenly, it was too early in the morning for this kind of talk and Derpy felt very confused. She took a sip of coffee, stared down at her own plate, picked up a fork, and then began to prod her food.

“That is actually a really interesting point,” Derpy heard Bon Bon say as Derpy stared down at her plate. Derpy took a bite of potatoes, chewed thoughtfully, and had no idea what to think or say at this point in the conversation.

“At some point, no matter how much we try to establish them and keep them defined, the lines of sexuality blur. We live in a herd, we are all very involved with one another, have deep emotional ties with one another, and because of the sort of trust that we have in one another, because of everything we have been through together, there is bound to be experimentation that would exist outside of the usual areas of attraction for our genders as well as sexual orientation. I’ll admit… not long after Bonnie and I had that night with Bucky when he was a mare, I had a very hot and sticky dream about Bucky as a stallion… only he didn’t slip anything inside of me, he just rubbed it against me and I could feel it on my belly—”

“Lyra!” Bon Bon said.

Lifting her head up away from her plate, Derpy stared at the pitcher of mare milk on the table. It was fresh and perfect in coffee. “About the whole monogamy thing… I’m glad I have all of you. If it was just Bucky and I… and something happened to me, who would take care of the foals? What about Bucky? Let’s face it, Bucky is a big foal and he would be lost without us. I like the idea of knowing that we are a big family and that should anything happen to me, Bucky and my foals will be looked after by all of you because you’re all my friends… my fellow-wives… and ponies I love.”

As she watched her fellow-wives go silent, Derpy wished that Belisama and Thistle were here for this moment, but the two of them were outside, Thistle in the lake and Belisama out with Thistle having a breakfast of fish together.

There was no sign of Bucky, but Derpy wasn’t too worried.

Author's Notes:

One is a unicorn with the Shivers... the other is a unicorn with a cold disposition... together... they fight crime!

On tonight's episode, the typo ninjas attack our daring duo!