Scowling, Sentinel threw down the newspaper and bared his fangs at it. He thought about hissing at it, but having everypony around him releasing their bowels would have been problematic.

“Something wrong?” Diamond Tiara asked.

The hard expression upon Sentinel’s face softened somewhat when he heard Diamond Tiara’s voice. “Some bad things were said about my father… the whole gun issue. He worked so hard to remove threats to future peace and they’re blaming him for the return of firearms. He was tasked with finding safe, reliable solutions that would allow us to battle our enemies. Somepony called him a hypocrite, taking away guns one moment and bringing them back for himself the next.”

“Calm down. Let them say stupid things. Maybe you should write something and explain what really happened.” Diamond Tiara grabbed the offending newspaper, wadded it up, and then stuffed it into her bookbag. “Sentinel, Bucky is at the mercy of what others tell him to do. Maybe you need to tell everypo… er, everyone about his dedication and how he is following orders.”

Sentinel let out a grumpy sounding grunt as he folded his forelegs over his barrel and began to sulk. He heaved out a sigh and when he didn’t feel better, he let go of another.

Covering her nose with her fetlock, Diamond Tiara looked at Sentinel. “What have you been eating? Mercy… I’m dying over here.”

The scowl upon Sentinel’s face intensified. “I got a whiff of pickled garlic bulbs at breakfast. They smelled irresistible so I stood up on my hind legs, got a better look at them on the counter, fished one out with my wing, ate one, and then I emptied out about half of the jar before I could stop.”

“Smelths lith thit,” Diamond Tiara said around her fetlock. “No kistheths forth thyou!”

“I also drank some of the pickled garlic brine.” Sentinel raised his eyebrow as he looked at Diamond Tiara. He slipped out his chair and took a step closer to Diamond Tiara.

“Whath areth thyou doingth?” Diamond Tiara lept out of her chair and backed away.

“I’m about to make myself feel better,” Sentinel replied.

“Ugh! No!” Diamond Tiara took off, running away and squealing. She didn’t get very far and she felt Sentinel grabbing her, wrapping a his foreleg around her middle. He reeked of garlic. “Mega-brute!” Reaching out, Diamond Tiara gave Sentinel a few cuffs with her well maintained and perfect hoof.

Hearing a commotion, Lyra Heartstrings got up from the sofa, landed on her hooves, stepped over Harper, lept over Cadance, sidestepped a zebra turtle, somehow avoided snapping her fetlock like a twig by not stepping on a stray wooden block, avoided a charging Peekaboo, and left Erebus to his fate of being pounced upon by Peekaboo.

The living room was a hazardous place. She stepped into the hall, turned right, took a few steps, and went into the dining room. The commotion had gone silent. On the floor, she saw Sentinel sitting on his haunches, one foreleg wrapped around Diamond Tiara, and both wings. It sounded like he was gnawing upon her face, and Diamond Tiara had both forelegs wrapped around Sentinel’s neck.

Lyra watched the two juveniles snog for a while and then came to the conclusion that neither one of them realised that she was standing there. She cleared her throat, and then, this time, adding some volume, cleared her throat again.

She watched as Sentinel jerked his head away, his eyes blinking, and a marvelous look of guilt appeared upon his face. Diamond Tiara’s whole muzzle was shiny with slick slobber. Lyra heard Diamond Tiara start to giggle, a nervous giggle.

“So I take it that you were helping Diamond Tiara with her homework?” Lyra asked.

“Yes!” Sentinel replied. It took several seconds for Sentinel to realise that this was the wrong answer. “No!” he cried, correcting himself. His eye glasses were fogged over and his eyes blinked several times behind the steamed lenses. “No… I, uh…” Sentinel, knowing that he was caught in the act, resorted to absurdity. “You came just in time… Lyra… I couldn’t help myself. I got hungry and it finally happened. I was consumed with the burning need to feast upon pony flesh and I started eating Diamond Tiara’s face… you came just in time to save both of us!”

Diamond Tiara, collapsed into a fit of laughter and buried her face down against Sentinel’s neck as her whole body convulsed from her guffaws.

To Lyra’s credit, she kept a straight face, even though it took a monumental effort. “I see.” Lyra cleared her throat as laughter tickled her uvula. She then coughed and her golden eyes focused upon Sentinel. “So I am living every mother’s nightmare. My little colt has grown up and has reached the age where I need to worry about him eating fillies.”

The double entendre waited for a few seconds, an act of courtesy on its part, it then smashed into Sentinel with all of the force of an inebriated full sized dragon jumping off of a cliff and diving into a pony proportioned apple pie, simply because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

There was a pained wheeze and then Diamond Tiara howled with more laughter, clinging to Sentinel’s neck as she struggled to breathe. Tears streamed down her slick, slobber soaked cheeks.

Sentinel fell over as though he had been poleaxed, pulling Diamond Tiara down on top of him. He lay on the floor and whimpered, knowing full well there was nothing he could say or do. Lyra had him dead to rights.

“What stinks like garlic?” Lyra asked, her nostrils crinkling. “Oh by Luna’s stars, you really were going to eat her, weren’t you? You slathered her up in some kind of garlic marinade first, you sicko!”

“What about my stars?”

Lyra Heartstrings turned and looked at Luna. “I just caught Sentinel gnawing upon Diamond Tiara’s face. He was eating her. He even slathered her up in garlic marinade first.”

Blank faced, Luna stared down at Sentinel and Diamond Tiara on the floor. She then turned her head and looked over at Lyra. “This house is weird, so very, very weird.” Luna shook her head as she rolled her eyes. She then looked down at Sentinel once more. “At least you started off in the right place. Too many colts are over eager, skip the main course, and go right for dessert. Always start on the face, work your way down along the neck bone, and then continue to work your way down. Slowly. And with a great deal of patience. With practice, you will never have to go out and catch a mare, the mare will come to you.” Tossing her head back, Luna trotted off towards the living room to be with Erebus.

“Hmm, that’s helpful advice,” Lyra said. “Anyway, now that you’ve been sufficiently embarrassed, I hope you’ve learned your lesson. Carry on.” Lyra stepped away and followed after Luna.

Diamond Tiara, still sprawled over Sentinel, cried with laughter.

Leaning against her mother’s stomach, Dinky pressed her ear down onto Derpy’s belly and tried to listen to her siblings. She wrapped her forelegs around the bulge and gave her little brother and her little sister a hug.

“So you teleported today,” Derpy said as she felt her belly being squeezed. Derpy couldn’t complain. It felt kinda good. She hoped that Dinky would keep squeezing.

“Yeah I did, mama,” Dinky replied. Dinky’s ear twitched and flapped against Derpy’s taut stomach flesh. “I did it. I have separated myself from the common dabbler and joined the ranks of well practiced unicorn magi.”

“Dinky, just don’t grow up too quickly.” Reaching down, Derpy patted Dinky on the back. “I’m proud of you. I suppose all of the study and practice has been a good thing. You haven’t pulled any pranks in quite a while.”

“I’ve been busy.” Dinky felt something kick up against her cheek. “With Apple Bloom’s cloud project, my own studies, delving into enchantment, dabbling with transmutation, and my mentalist studies for Stargarden’s class, all of my magic gets exhausted and there just isn’t enough left for pranks.”

“You sound like Bucky… always busy.” Derpy stroked Dinky’s neck, feeling her foal’s silky mane against the inner folds of her bent fetlock.

“I am trying to live by his example.” Dinky lifted her head and turned her whole body around to look at her mother. “You know, I am what I am because of both of you.”

“Explain to mommy what you mean, Dinky.”

Dinky’s muzzle crinkled and she pressed her two front hooves together in front of her. “You raised me like a pegasus. It helped to shape how I see the world and how I deal with stuff.” Dinky’s face contorted even more as she struggled to think of complex thoughts and concepts that challenged the limits of her understanding. “Bucky taught me how to be a unicorn. In a good way. From you, I learned how to look after a flock. How to look after a group as a whole. Bucky taught me control. He gave me discipline. That day when he worked me until I was stupid taught me something. Taught me a lot actually. By looking after my flock, by keeping myself busy, by channeling all of my magical energy into helping those around me, I keep the neurosis away. I can still feel it sometimes. I still get weird urges and I sometimes get angry for no reason. But I know how to make it go away. I know how to deal with it now. I find my friends and I help them. I use my magic to make their lives easier. Or better. By giving all that I have of myself, I keep the angries away and I don’t have the crazy thoughts very often.”

“It makes me very happy to hear you say that, Dinky,” Derpy said to her daughter in a proud voice.

“We taught daddy pegasus manners. Daddy taught me unicorn work ethic. I don’t know what else to call it. Not every unicorn has it, and the ones that don’t, they have a lot of problems if they have strong magic.”

“You’ve grown up so much in the past year, Dinky. You’re making mommy want to cry.” Reaching out, Derpy got one foreleg around Dinky and then pulled her closer. She crushed Dinky into her barrel and gave her foal a squeeze.

“I wonder what it is going to be like having a little brother…”

“Big Mac?”

The big red stallion turned his head and looked at Babs Seed as she spilled her school books out of her bookbag and onto the kitchen table.

Seeing that she had Big Mac’s attention, Babs asked, “Is it wrong for me to act like a colt? Some foals at school said something to me today about me wearing a tuxedo jacket to the school gala.”

“Eenope.”

Babs rubbed her chin. “Applejack is a bit of a tomcolt, isn’t she?”

“Eeyup.”

“But when the mood strikes her, she can doll herself up and look real pretty.”

“Eeyup.” Big Mac squirmed a bit about agreeing that his sister was pretty. One had to be careful to avoid stereotypes.

“I like being a filly, and I guess I am a tomcolt, but when I get dressed up, I want to look handsome, not pretty. I guess pretty just isn’t my thing.” Babs looked Big Mac in the eye and noticed that he was squirming. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“Eenope.”

“Everything is so simple for you. Nothing is complicated at all. It all boils down to a yes or a no. I wish everything was so simple for me.”

Big Mac gnawed on his lip. Granny Smith wasn’t home. Cheerilee had not returned yet. Applejack and Silver Shill were gone. It was just Big Mac and a tiny filly from Manehatten that needed to talk. He gulped and cleared his throat. “Let me simplify things for you…”

Babs blinked a few times as her ears fell over in astonishment. She looked up at Big Mac. “Okay, Mac, let me have it.”

“Just answer yes or no.” Big Mac felt himself start to sweat and his leg muscles quivered with nervousness.

“Okay. Hit me.”

“Does Larch like you just the way you are?”

“Yes he does. He’s always—”

“Yes or no,” Big Mac said, cutting Babs off.

Babs sighed.

“We’ll try this again.” Big Mac cleared his throat. “Does Larch like you just the way you are?” He looked down at Babs and could see that she was deep in thought.

“Yes.”

“Is he and Piña your best friends?”

“Yes.”

“Does Piña like you just the way you are?”

“Yes.”

“Did either one of them seem bothered by you being in a tuxedo jacket?”

“No.”

“Did you have a nice time at the gala?”

“Yes.”

“When you are with the both of them, do you forget what time it is and does the world around you just sort of fade away?”

Babs nodded. “Yes.”

“Do you love me?”

Babs rolled her eyes. “Yes.”

“Have you kissed Larch or Piña yet?”

“Hey!” Babs shook her hoof at Big Mac. “You tried to trick me!”

“Eeyup.”

Author's Notes:

I had enough material ready in the background for a second chapter today.

I thought about having Lyra step on a typo as she struggled to escape the living room.