Dad stared down the princess who towered a clear six inches over him, she looked back towards him with a proud determination as he asked once more. "So, Princess Celestia, that's what they call you?"

She didn't flinch as she answered with confidence. "Indeed, I am. I trust you were informed of me?"

I couldn't do anything but clench my eyes shut and pray to whatever god was listening. Twilight quietly waited as the tension in the room grew so heavy that walking almost felt like an unbearable task. Dad once again examined the woman and spoke. "...So you were there at the hospital?"

"Correct." She replied.

"That means you know the condition which my son was in. Can you tell me how he ended up in such a state to where he was admitted?"

The princess looked at me and calmly confessed. "He was stabbed, in the abdominal area. The perpetrator used a dagger and he suffered substantial blood loss. As you can see now, we have done everything we could to save him. And as a result, your son is standing here, healthy and just as colorful as he was the day you last saw him."

Dad glanced over to me and sternly ordered. "Nondis, stand up out of that chair." I did as he instructed with hesitation. "Lift up your shirt." He then directed, I also complied with that order.

Mother walked over to get a look at the scar and gasped heavily, covering her mouth with both hands. The wound was mostly sealed with the stitches still embedded within. Most of the skin was healed except for the areas where the stitches moved frequently. My father then looked at me with displeasure and pointed at the scar.

"Son... Don't you think this is a bit much to be doing?"

I quickly argued my case. "Dad, I run security, it's not a safe job. I just caught some crazy guy who tried to kill me and I stopped him from doing any further harm to anyone else."

My mother placed her hand on my scar, deeply saddened by the sight as she pleaded with me. "Baby, what did they do to you?"

After a long while, I finally grew enough courage to look my parents in the eye and tell them upfront the truth. "Mom, Dad, I was in a train, I was already hurting from that guy earlier because he got at me then and I managed to escape before he could kill me. He tracked me down, he got on the train, and he tried to hurt my friends so I just reacted and did what I could to save them. I got him off and I beat him, but then the next thing I saw was a knife in my stomach, so I passed out."

Twilight quickly intervened. "He did what he did to save one of my friends. And I know it probably won't amount to anything if I say that he just did his job. But in the moment where he had to measure someone else's life and his own, he did the unthinkable." Twilight stood beside me, holding my hand as she pleaded with my parents. "If there's anything I can say, it's that he put the life of someone else over his own, and I could never tell him how much we are truly grateful for his sacrifice. So we took him to the hospital, we paid his bills upfront, we made sure he was on the mend in time enough where he could come see you again."

"And I was there during his phone call with you, Mr. Haines." Celestia added, standing by my side as well. "I can understand the concern a parent would have for their child. But I could share with you several stories of how wonderful of a person he is. So we promise throughout this holiday, we will be as honest and truthful with you as possible, with the questions you have about your son."

Both the princesses bowed their heads in a show of humility, Twilight spoke as she did so. "Where we're from, we do this as a sign of respect and reverence. Your son has been more than a help to us, but also to others. We understand that these past months must have been a nightmare for you, but we stood by him and watched over him each step of the way. The character he shows is why I have come to love him so much."

"Are you asking us for our blessing or something?" Dad asked, staring confused at the two.

Twilight blushed lightly as she peeked towards me. "In a way... yes. But only to allow us to stay together. I promise to look after him when he gets a little wild. I'll try to keep him from getting into trouble. And even though he's hardheaded in a fight, I'll do my best to make sure he doesn't get himself in a bad situation. I understand that you may not trust us, that we're some people you don't know, but I do love this man. So please, let me the one to keep him in his right mind, to guide him forward safely." Twilight rose from her bow and looked directly to me, still holding my hand. "You don't have to trust me, but just give me a chance to show you what I can do."

While I felt some of those words were aimed directly at my parents, I knew that those last ones were more aimed towards me. Already, she was trying to plead me to start again with our relationship. But I couldn't give her an answer at the moment, I didn't feel right answering her.

Mom, on the other hand, was keen on the ears and she spoke up to Twilight. "Now listen here, missy. That's my son, you're trying to run off and do God-knows-what with him, gettin' him into trouble with your folks, and doing all this crazy stuff that causes him to get hurt. Now I don't know you enough to be doin' all of that, sweetie."

"I understand." Twilight acknowledged meekly. "And I'm willing to offer whatever time to gain your approval."

My mom looked at me and then back to her with a bit of a smile. "So... You love him, huh?"

"I do. And I would give the world to prove that I'm worthy enough to buy some of his time."

Mom looked over to dad and asked him warmly. "So what do you think, Harold?"

"I'm thinking that 'Perdita' girl grew a bag of skin to wear." He answered with a hefty guffaw. "You done found you that one in ten didn't you, boy?"

Mom clapped her hands together and brought her attention back to Twilight. "Sweetheart, you gotta know one thing about Nondis, he loves his dinner."

Twilight came up from her bow a bit frantic as she grew a bit giddy. "Really!? Thank you so much for the─"

"Now hold your horses." Mom interrupted her. "I wanna know if you've got it in you to satisfy my boy. If you can't keep him happy there, you ain't gonna keep him."

Realizing that was one of her shortcomings, Twilight quickly grew discouraged. "Oh... Then I might have a... teeny-teensy confession."

Mom shrugged in response. "Eh, most girls your age ain't about it nohow. Always trying to play trophy wife or something without doing the work to keep the guy there. If all you got to offer is a cute face, then you're in a heap of trouble. It's no wonder divorce rates are through the clouds nowadays, can't keep a husband fed."

Twilight gulped with genuine fear, glancing back at me. "Um... How interesting."

Mom walked over and placed her hands on Twilight's shoulders as she spoke to her from behind. "I know, I had to teach Vanessa a thing or two before she took off with Alex. And I'm still checking in on her whenever she makes a call for a certain recipe. It's alright sweetie, I got you covered. Starting tomorrow, I'm gonna get you in this kitchen and get you familiar with the basics of southern-home cooking."

"You mean, for the holiday!?" Twilight asked almost petrified from the idea.

"Baby girl, that's how it starts! I know you ain't familiar with the Thanksgiving celebration, but I do know that each mother will be teaching her daughter a little something about the kitchen when she comes of age. She can be working in the world for all her life, but that Thanksgiving cooking is what proves the mark of a matriarch in the family."

Twilight looked at me sheepishly as she replied. "Well, I suppose it would be an interesting learning experience. Maybe I should do some homework on the subject."

Mom shook her head as she escorted Twilight through the room. "Honey, you gotta realize that not all of this comes in a book or on a sheet of paper. Experience is the best teacher."

"I tried telling her that for years." Celestia cosigned with a smirk towards her pupil. "I guess my lessons weren't just from a standpoint of me being a bit old-fashioned."

Mom turned back to the elder princess and cheerfully grabbed at her wrist. "I'm glad you think that way, hun. You can come along too if you haven't been involved in a Thanksgiving dinner yourself."

"Well I haven't, so I'm more than interested in joining with you on your lesson!"

"Celestia... COOKING!?" Twilight said, almost mortified of the idea, meanwhile the elder princess appeared to be a bit offended by the younger's tone.

And to be fair, I've seen far too many staffers and chefs around the castle to where the idea of her cooking becomes anything short of Chernobyl. "Oh please don't touch the cake." I quietly pleaded with crossed fingers.

Celestia looked back at me with a confident grin and a wink. "You better believe I'm set to blow you away."

"Great. then I should be seeing you ladies tomorrow at around five in the evening. Vanessa will be joining us so we should be getting done faster than it would with me being all by myself."

"Will Nondis be joining us as well?" Twilight asked.

Mom laughed loudly as she guided us to the front door. "Heavens no! I can't bring him or the others in. I can barely trust Alex as it is, and Harold's too picky to be left around the food for so long. And I can't trust Nondis and Stanton to not be like their father. Call me sexist, but I believe there's a special thing about us women when it comes to cooking with love."

"I'll remember that the next time I'm at the grill this upcoming summer." Dad replied with a disgruntled tone.

"Just make sure you don't burn the meat this time." Mom said with a sharp tongue. "Other than that, I believe you three have someplace to be?"

Twilight bowed again to mom. "Thank you so much for the opportunity. Again, I can't say it enough."

"Sweetheart, if you love him, you gotta love his gut. Just be here at around five and we can get things going."

Celestia nudged at me as she whispered in my ear. "So, about the cake you offered..."

Oh shit, I'm not gonna lose a raise over forgetting something like that. "Hey ma, can I ask a favor?"

When we left, there was some level of frustration set on my mind over my dad's reaction and his list of questions. The main thing that threw me off guard was the question about Celestia. It took me around five minutes of driving around before I realized that dad was going off of what he heard on the call we had back in the medical ward last week. I myself thought Vanessa spilled the beans on us, but it turned out that he just relied on that memory retention of his. I suppose it's fair to give some mental apology to Vanessa instead of calling her and cussing her out over this. Cause God knows if I would've called her, I would've let loose. And that would've been an awkward moment at the dinner table on Thanksgiving day.

The rest of our day went on as normally as it would with two sapient ponies turned human experiencing a world unlike their own. We spent some time on the riverwalk, had a few other activities to run into, and I was even feeling a bit generous in letting Twilight explore the wonders of the public library. But little did I realize how much trouble I managed to get myself into with her eagerly going from section to section, picking up book after book, and having a debate with the librarian over the order of the books and how they were categorized. That last bit on it's own was a whole forty minutes before I could drag her out of the place for closing.

Naturally, she was saddened at the sudden closure, so I compensated her feelings with a trip to a local ice-cream shop. It was a little hard to find one still open past eight-thirty, but seeing Twilight smile again was worth the trip. And Celestia wasn't too shy about having a bit of sweets herself, although the cake I asked mom about was the main thing that consumed her thoughts.

I knew Twilight told me Celestia was enamored with cake, but this is ridiculous.

So after a day out in the land of Austin, we brought the wagon back around to my place of residence. The two women stepped out of the car and made their way into the apartment. I followed closely behind to cut my eyes over to a car with two individuals sitting in the front seat, their music blasting as the smell of marijuana smoke brushed against my nose, reminding me of the days before my venture to Equestria.

Admittedly, I missed that smell, the taste of the cannabis rolling though my mouth as the heavy smoke filled my lungs and the world suddenly became a much lighter place, not so many worries other than the local police searching the car for buds. Either way, it made me close my eyes and remember the days prior to my crossing the fires of the fraternity's process, even took my mind off of the hazing. Lots of funny jokes and theories went around the car, but I'm sure that those days are something I have to put aside. Besides, Mel didn't like the fact that I smoked weed in the past, one of the problems she had with the fraternity.

Probably a key reason why she didn't want me to join.

Shaking my head, I regained focus to the present. The two women walked up the stairs, with me lagging a bit behind. And with every step upward, I was even treated to small glimpses of the two's underwear. Again, I fell to my old habits of being a bit of a pervert and glimpsed up to see the now-clothed lap of the elder princess. The thoughts of earlier started to creep back in, making me a bit turned to the idea of sinking my hands into every curve of her body. And then reality ensued and I snapped my head back down, knowing that I couldn't afford to lose my balls for getting feelsy.

Twilight and Celestia waited at the door while I unlocked it. And as the warmth of the room started to flood out into the cold open air, Twilight rubbed her arms as she ran in. Celestia, seemingly unfazed by the cold weather, tried to walk in before I lightly tugged against her shirt. "Um, princess... a word?"

Celestia looked back toward her former student before she politely closed the door, stepping back outside with me. "Yes, Nondis. What is it, has my performance been unconvincing or unsatisfactory in any manner?"

I shook my head, waving my hands in denial. "No, not at all. You killed it with dad. I mean personally, I never had the emotional strength you had when it came to dealing with him. Usually we'd end up fighting or fussing, sometimes both. You just walked up to him and made it clear you were the boss."

The princess sighed dejectedly. "I would've hoped that he did have some knowledge of what was going on, but it seems that he was more invested in that one time you spoke with him on the phone. We could've used that opportunity to communicate to one another the issues on both sides."

"Your highness, it's not really that I was trying to hit on. It's..." I thought for a moment before I tried to get on one knee and lower my head before her. "I think I need to bow down for this one."

Before I could assume the position, she grabbed me and pulled me back up to my feet. "And here I was getting comfortable being away from the sight of me getting treated like royalty."

"Celestia, I'm sorry about earlier when you and Twilight were changing clothes. You opened the door, I was kinda leaning against it, and then I fell over and saw... yeah." I meekly confessed.

"Whatever are you talking ab─" The princess gave pause over the situation and realized what I was talking about. Her cheeks quickly reddened as she covered her mouth in embarrassment. "...Oh dear me, you saw that."

Feeling a bit of guilt, I looked away from her. "Yes ma'am. And admittedly it did stir a thought I'm not proud to reveal. But I'm coming to you to say that I failed to operate in maturity of the situation, and that my frustration may have been uncomfortable to you."

The princess couldn't help but chuckle to herself, blushing all the while. "Well, I guess that makes all three of you to see me like that."

"Huh?" I asked with a cocked brow.

"You and your brothers, you all are the only ones to see my shame in this form. Alex and Stanton were the first to see me in my transformed state, and I was completely without any clothing."

...Lucky bastards. "Well that explains me having to go out and buy clothes for Twilight."

The princess cleared her throat before she continued. "But in either case, I now know that those parts of me are somewhat of a distraction to those of the opposite sex. I know that now, and I can safely assume that the purpose of the underwear is to remove that obstruction by any means necessary."

"Actually it's more of a protective barrier for things like sweating and a few other things, hygienic reasons mainly, but yeah it can help leave something to the imagination. But you have to be careful of what you wear, as some of those things will attract just as much attention as you being naked."

"So that goes on here too?" She questioned quietly. "I never took humans for having a dressing fetish. But ponies are no different and you have seen that for yourself. Wearing something to show a lot of yourself ends up attracting a lot of attention."

"Which was why I was so hard on you earlier."

The princess started to walk towards the second floor balcony halfway down the stairs and stared out into the seemingly unimpressive apartment complex. "And humans aren't quite used to nudity around here, are they?"

"We have laws against that, it's called public indecency and public exposure, no genitalia allowed."

"So my not wearing underwear was a violation of that law?" She questioned.

"Not at all, but it gives some people a bad impression when you do that. And it's not like you're going around flipping up your skirt for people to see what you got. I'm just trying to protect you from all the bad looks and some of the perverts... which I kinda slipped back into."

The princess smiled gently before she looked at me with her fist balled up as she was still trying to get used to her human form. "I was told that I was attractive, but I never thought that I would draw your interest."

"It was a moment of weakness, I won't let it happen again." I said quietly.

"Understood." The princess answered plainly before walking down the stairs again. "Now if you excuse I have to get myself ready for tomorrow's cooking lesson with your mother."

"Don't burn the house down." I joked to myself, forgetting that she had sensitive ears.

"Hold on." She paused as I tried to walk past her as if I said nothing. She didn't hesitate to use her magic out in the open, pulling my arm back towards her. "Are you insinuating that I am incapable of cooking?"

Realizing I couldn't get away, I shrugged nervously as I answered the question. "Well I usually see servants and chefs, and stuff like that, but─"

She waltzed right past me, the scent of her royal perfumes and oils wafting my nose as her long ponytail bobbed on and off her back. She leaned down in front of me, pointing to herself and me. "Me. You. Dawn's light. Melanie's kitchen. I'm going to show you just how misguided you are, Mr. Haines."

Ah, so the sass has showed itself, don't think I've seen her this confident in a relaxed setting before. "I suppose you aren't one to back down from a challenge. So maybe I can─"

Before I could say anything else, she grabbed my shirt collar and shook me just once with her superhuman strength... Guess that's a thing that carried over from her pony form too. "You will sit down, and both you and Melanie will allow me to treat you both to breakfast."

"Sure, surprise me." I said with a dismissive roll of my eyes.

The princess released me and placed a finger on my nose, playfully poking it. "I believe your mother said something along the lines of 'the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach' am I not mistaken?"

For the first time in a long time, I was caught by surprise by the elder princess being flirty towards me. Of course she meant nothing by it, but even the thought of her being so carefree and playful grew to be a sight we guards would consider as extremely rare. Goes without saying I might have one hell of a story to tell the others when I get back. "Uhhh─"

This time, the princess balled her fist as if she was still being a pony, and raised my chin gently to guide my head up to look directly in her purple eyes. "Don't get too caught up in me. You'll wind up with expectations and it'll all end in disappointment."

"No thanks, I personally don't think I'll be able to handle another approval process." I said sheepishly, causing the princess to drop her hand from my chin.

"Are you saying that I'm not worth the challenge?" She questioned with a pout. "Is my desire for company so demanding that it scares you? Do I come with some warning label?"

"It's more that everyone knows they're going to have a specialized process to complete throughout the course of over half a year in order to even entertain the idea of being with you. And then you've been alive for over a millennium─" Celestia looked at me unimpressed by my direct reference to her age. The stare she gave me and her pursed lips immediately made me shut up.

"It's true I am a thousand years young, but that won't make any experience with any stallion so little of a significance or an impression. Maybe they need to open their minds to the idea of taking their chivalry to the next level. Enough of the courtly love, I've had so many 'suitors' in that regard."

"I probably never said this but you'd be surprised of what the guards talk about when you walk by. As dense or scared as these guards are, they sure do dream of the day of swabbing the royal halls, if you know what I mean." I turned back to see Celestia blushing profusely. "Sorry for the colorful comment, I just thought you'd like to know just how much of a fan club you actually have."

She looked to the ground, somewhat disappointed. "That still doesn't change anything. Granted I've had so few that really grabbed my attention, and even fewer where my move was the initial start of things. I think about maybe two or three in my lifetime I've had the conversation find me. But it always felt like the ones I placed in positions beside me were the ones to always find an interest before I did."

To be honest, I never thought Celestia would be so open to talking about her personal life. You'd hear about everything pertaining to some heroic exploits, the ponies she appointed in key positions, the students she took up, or even her preference for foods, but I don't think I've ever heard her willing to talk about herself. Many of us guards saw her as selfless to a fault, and yet... "Have you ever thought about lowering your standards?" I'm boldly asking her THAT question.

The princess shrugged. "My only standard is that you'd keep me happy and approach me when I need the company."

"But have you ever told anyone what exactly makes you happy?" I asked.

"...My sister being back was a large part of the emptiness I felt over the millennium. But as soon as she got back, I just focused on keeping her happy and making sure she was caught up with the times of the present. And then I continued to teach Twilight and tend to my school. And after that, I came to parliament and oversaw some proceedings. When I finish that, I have meetings with press, city officials, military staff─"

"You're veering off topic." I politely intervened. "I know Luna being back makes you happy, but after that what else is there? It seems like you focus so much on appearances and everyone else that you forget about the most important thing to your health: you."

She sighed with a despairing groan, folding her arms. "Cadance told me the same thing so many times."

I guess we can agree on that at least. "So if you heard it before, then why do you keep doing the things that you do?"

The princess smiled lightly before she gave me an answer. "I guess you could say that I'm in no position to receive it. I think that stuff is more of a reward for my efforts rather than an inalienable pleasure. Much of what confines my sister is all on me, so it is my goal to free her from that legal prison. Only then will I open the door for my own selfish desires to be satiated."

"So what about eating cake?" I questioned.

"That is an inalienable right and I will strike down any law that prohibits me from doing just that." She answered sharply.

"You love cake, don't you?"

"If I can't have anything else, I am allowed that one thing to keep me sane."

As we arrived to Mel's apartment, I started to look at Celestia in a totally different light. Instead of seeing her as the dominant alicorn princess that we'd often see her as, I saw her as a person. It was a different view opposed to the high ivory tower the populous seems to place her in while they praise her from the grounds below. She seemed like she wanted to experience more than her normal day-to-day, but she obligated herself to that image until she corrected the mistake she made all those years ago, or rather she wanted to correct the envy of a few old men long gone.

...At times I wonder if violence is the one true solution.

Again, I spent most of my time prior to bed washing clothes. Twilight and Melanie was supposed to go out shopping later ot get something else to wear instead of showing up in the same outfit she wore for the day prior. Also it would kinda help me in not trying to wash the same pair of panties. Unfortunately my time here has caused old habits to pop back up, but then again that was already being bred from the time I showed up to a little party in some random hotel in Canterlot. Rarity helped with the relief of the situation, but Twilight and Celestia for the past few days managed to stir me up far more than what I had anticipated. In short, I'm between just tossing the panties in the washer and using them for a masturbatory aid.

But I knew that I would've lost all sense of control and decency if I opted to do so.

I dropped her clothes in the wash, came back to the apartment, and crashed on the couch thinking of the things that I saw and experienced today. My conversation with my parents was a pretty influential topic, but the sight of a humanized busty Celestia going commando and Twilight slapping her ass just the previous night made me even more anxious for a means of release. And there's no fucking way I'm busting a nut on the couch, guests and friendly little dust bunnies sit here.

But don't believe that shit didn't permeate to my dreams. The moment my eyes closed and my consciousness drifted off, I was already envisioning myself waking up on the couch to the two women holding me down like I was a hostage and tying rope around my arms and legs. I don't think I even begged them to stop, they just kept tying me up, doing things to make me anticipate the one moment I could touch them, or that they would dare to do it to me. Twilight kissed me, showing me just how much of a human she really was. I got so engrossed in the moment where I opened my eyes and suddenly I'm swimming underwater.

My arms were suddenly freed, my eyes darting so quickly around to check my surroundings only to see a pink coral reef beneath me, swimming with life and brimming with exotic fish. Bright jellyfish cruised by me, lightly stinging my hand as they passed. The small jolts of energy persuaded me to swim towards the surface in an attempt to avoid them, but they grew in number and crowded my escape. However, the ones beneath started to lift me to the surface, where the water would turn a crystal clear green, allowing me to see the sun above. My hand reached up to break the edge, transporting me to the very surface where I was allowed to walk and partake of the clear blue sky.

Next, something grabbed my hand from underneath the waves of the sea, dragging me back down to the depths where the coral lied. Squirming and panicking, I fought vainly to get to the surface only to reach the bottom of the sea. My back rested flatly on the softness of the sponge resting on the coral, it too being as pink as the rest. My arms were bound above my head as Celestia's face hovered above mine. The woman smirked before kissing me from the unusual angle. Swimming over me, fish and other marine wildlife conveniently concealed much of her nudity, but my body was far from covered. Giving in to my curious yet lustful desires, I entertained the thought of touching her in the places that were hidden from me.

And then... a loud knock on the door was the first thing to break me from going any further.

I opened my eyes wearily, seeing nothing but the darkness of the room. Looking out to the window, I could see a slight tint of blue in the sky. I fiddled around for my phone for a while until I finally got a hold of the jeweled-encrusted device. The screen blinded me for about two seconds before the time read out as 4:48.

...Who the fuck knocks at somebody's door at 4:50 in the goddamn morning?

I was upset enough to put on the shirt and pants I wore the day prior and opened the door, expecting to cuss out whoever had the balls to kill my sleep, not to mention the dream. But before I could come up with some foul words to use, the familiar face at the door made me reconsider on whether or not this was some sort of emergency. "Mel, what are you doing here so early?"

"Well if I can't get any sleep apparently, neither can you. So c'mon." She said, pulling my arm with the disregard for the fact that I wasn't wearing socks or shoes. So my feet came into contact with the coarse cool concrete, sending one hell of a jolt to my brain to wake up a bit.

"Hey, where we going?" I questioned as I was dragged across the parking lot.

"My apartment. Your princess told me to drag your sorry ass over for breakfast."

The time we arrived to the place, the sky got a smidget bluer, the sun was still backstage before it made it's daily premiere of being our source of misery and some unfortunate person's start to the day. Opening the door, I was already praying to myself. "Oh God, I hope she's not a morning person."

"Be ready for disappointment." Mel said as she opened the door.

"Aw, fuck me." I groaned with disbelief.

"I would but somebody already did that a few days ago." She quipped, looking at my now-fading love marks.

Walking into the apartment, I could already smell the various scents battering against my nostrils. Looking over to the kitchen, Celestia stood with a beach towel over her body, not even wearing a pair of pants to begin with and a lot of cheeks to accent the fact that she was without underwear again. "Good morning! And how is my captain of the guard doing on this lovely day?"

...If she ain't gonna stop doing me like this, I am going to find myself breaking quite a few Equestrian laws. If the walk here with a case of morning wood wasn't enough, this was probably a good way to make that issue persist. "I could be sleeping in for another hour."

"Well I hope you're hungry, because I made you a little something special." She said with a cheerful disposition, not even giving a damn about her ass sticking out from behind that towel. Melanie didn't seem to care too much about her appearance, but she obviously cared enough to dress herself to come over and get me. Don't mind me, I'm just wishing she and Mel had wore similar sizes so she could borrow a few things to keep me from losing too many brain cells to blood loss, cause my other 'brain' is running in overdrive today and reserves are running D R Y.

"What, is it cereal?" Obviously my mind wasn't low enough to fail in coming up with retorts.

The princess levitated her spatula and smiled as she pointed at the table. "How cute that you think I'm so incompetent. I need you to sit at that table for me and wait a few seconds."

"How long have you been up?" I asked.

"Since she dragged me to Equestrian Walmart for fruit and whipped cream ingredients. So it's been basically north of an hour, and she's still not dressed." Mel complained.

"And I thought I had room to complain." I said as I looked down at my still throbbing crotch.

"And here we are!" She announced before setting a plate of flawless golden-brown pancakes dressed in a variety of toppings. "Buttermilk pancakes with homemade whip cream, fresh cherries, and all natural maple syrup fresh from Equestria."

While I was staring at the immaculately-made dish, a familiar noise clattered into the room boasting a familiar voice. "Morning sister."

"Oh, hey Princess Luna..." I replied dully, then I instantly remembered that this was Mel's apartment. "LUNA!?"

"Nondis, neighbors." Melanie warned me quietly.

"Right, sorry." I replied, also forgetting that it's not even five in the morning. "Luna, what are you doing here?"

The blue mare pulled up a chair and sized it up for herself to jump onto as she sat at the table. "You pressed the 'Tia can't cook' button. I had to show up for this."

"Would you like some, Luna?" The humanized princess inquired tenderly.

"Well I'm not here to wander around for fun, though you could cast the spell on me and allow me to experience this world for myself. But you never let me have fun, as usual." Griped the lunar princess.

"You need to look after the kingdom while I'm away. That's why I haven't invited you." The elder sister explained.

"Just call it a summit to negotiate with the humans, the politicians and staff will understand." Luna said, trying to find a reason to join in on the fun of exploring our world.

"Without a full guard escort, Luna? Like they'll let me do that." Celestia replied hypocritically, knowing she's done it just a few days ago,

As a similar plate landed in front of Mel with Luna glaring over like she was going to vulture the plate away from her, she took a fork and sliced into the topmost pancake. "So it looks pretty. The fork sinks real nice into it."

"Pretty ain't what makes it food." I replied, slicing into my own plate and shoving the contents in my mouth to nose dive into the food, just to get it over with. But as the food touched my tongue, I quickly reconsidered the idea of 'getting it over with quickly.' Instead my mind shifted from hurry and eat to slow down and savor it. The initial twang of the bread made me clench my eyes shut and throw my head forward from the overwhelming taste of fall flavors and fruit. The moment the fork left my mouth, it immediately found a second slice caught in it's prongs, and that slice was quickly shoveled into my mouth to join with it's horribly abused predecessor. "Okay... that's good."

"But can you stop yourself at one bite?" Luna snickered as she made fun of both the reactions of Mel and I.

"Okay, now who are you and where's Celestia?" I asked, trying to resist destroying the rest of this plate.

"You should keep eating, Nondis. An empty stomach is no way to start a day." Celestia chided cheerfully.

At that point, all I could do was shake my head and chew, barely even talk for that matter. "I was wrong. I was so wrong."

"Did you notice what she did?" Luna asked, looking into my plate.

"What?"

"Did you happen to have anything to eat yesterday?" She asked once more.

"Well I remember going to IHOP yesterday, had pancakes and a steak omelette." I answered.

"You went to IHOP without me, you and I are going to fight." Melanie fussed before chomping down on her slice, having a similar reaction to mine.

Celestia started to set herself up with a similar plate to give to her younger sibling as she explained herself. "It was a fun experience but there were somethings to be improved upon. I can tell that the batter was filled with premeasured ingredients. So I took the moment to add in what they did not, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, a touch of salt for a bit of balance, pecans, and buttermilk. I also threw in some bananas to help with the inclusion of the cherry topping. and the maple syrup is of the finest quality in all of Equestria."

"It's because she made the syrup herself." Luna further explained. "She's done it for over a thousand years, she went out to the Everfree Forest, drained some of the sap from the trees, and babysat the whole entire process of the boiling, the caramelizing, all of it. Every morning she made pancakes, I'd used to wonder if I would get so caught up in her syrup that I'd get stuck in that for over a thousand years."

"I call it 'Amber' for it's incredible viscosity. It's almost like molasses but with less sugar and it brings more focus on the dish as opposed to drowning it. But I have to warm it up before I use it, otherwise it'll take too long to pour." The elder princess concluded.

"Did you fall in love yet? Don't you just wanna kiss my sister and tell her thank you?" Luna asked mockingly.

Celestia blushed a bit as she hid her smile. "Luna, stop it."

"I might actually have to say grace." I confessed.

"I'm gonna have to say it again. Big momma Celly, this is amazing!" Melanie stated, finally finding something to say instead of drowning in all the flavor.

"I aim to please, I strive to pamper, I long to satisfy." Celestia bragged in a motherly way.

Mel dug her fork in the pancakes again and stuffed an entire half in her mouth and just chewed like she was introduced to food for the first time. "Why aren't you married?" She asked as soon as she found room enough to speak.

"Because stallions are too afraid of us, they swear we're gonna do something like eat them alive and enslave their families or something." Luna joked lightheartedly before taking a more serious tone. "It's our position, as well as the laws placed to suppress us."

"Other than that, you pretty much have a hint on why." Celestia added placing a plate of pancakes before Luna.

Though much of my attention was still on the food, I couldn't help but to impulsively glance back at the humanized princess when she walked by. The only that distracted me was the sharp pain I felt when Mel kicked my leg to get me to stop staring. Wincing a bit, I tried to talk through the discomfort. "Well it's safe to say you'd be married in a good two or three years if you lived in our world. The only marriage law we have is that you can only have one wife."

"Sounds a bit unfair really." Luna replied, digging into her plate. "Isn't love supposed to be without limits and available for everyone? Where's the freedom in that?"

"Well we sure don't have laws preventing us from having sex, as long as you're of a suitable age of course. Wouldn't want any creepers to take advantage of any young and budding minds." Mel added as she dipped her fork into the final pancake on her plate.

"Well that's a good thing." Celestia added. "For our society, estrus season is the time where some stallions unable to attract mates normally resort to filly-fooling. And the ones who were new would so often find themselves in the eyes of some leering pervert. A truly disgusting act, it's a reason why I changed the staff at my school to all mares in recent years."

"Well it's much better than it used to be. Back when we were younger, they used to be far more aggressive." Luna stated. "If they wanted you, just talk with the parents and arrange a marriage. You'll be whisked off in as little as a fortnight. Sister and I were highly sought after when we got our wings to go with our horns."

"Wait, you two weren't always alicorns?" Mel questioned.

Celestia hummed as she tapped the handle of the spatula against her chin, looking up to the ceiling. "Those days were so long ago, even I cannot remember much of them. The days of my young self running around tripping over my long pink mane. I swear I was just so vain back then."

"And you were considered the mean one, playing pranks on everypony just because you could. She rigged the entire castle to torture me and a few of the other servants with booby traps." Luna replied.

Mel choked on her pancake and guzzled down a glass of water before she spoke. "Seriously, that was you, you put all that bullshit in the castle ruins?"

Celestia shyfully smiled and giggled. "I wasn't always the highly-esteemed ruler many portrayed me to be."

"She's a bit of a nuisance, and she went from playing too much to being no fun as we got older. The things we enjoyed when we were foals no longer amused her, we even started to grow distant because her natural talent made her so much of an overappreciated figure in our society. So I went from being the princess of the moon, to the princess of darkness." Luna explained, growing a bit gloomy as she went on.

"The terminologies from those times were never kind to us. They saw me as the Princess of Light, the grower of food, the bringer of the dawn, the mother of life. They called me all of those things, worshiping me as if I was the all-creator Faust herself." Celestia expanded further. "And Luna, they called her many unfair things."

"The Princess of Darkness, the taker of light, the bringer of strife, the mother of death. But all I sought to do was to bring them the beauty of my night, shaping the stars to please foals and grown ponies alike. I couldn't offer the light my sister did, but I wanted to bring something. So I thought that I could show them just how harmless the night was, I wanted to show it to them by giving them the night a little earlier than usual."

Celestia placed the spatula on the counter, frowning painfully as she spoke. "I wanted to offer my sister that one chance to be seen. I truly did, but the cries from the ponies would've grown from everything between scorn to fear. It would've caused chaos, especially since the ponies were already pleading with me to make the days longer. So I listened to them and by doing that, I shortened my sister's night to a total of nine hours. So I pleased the subjects, by subtracting my little sister's gift to the world. It was like that for a few years... until my silence on the matter grew a monster I failed to tame with my own strength."

"So you banished her to the moon?" I summarized.

"I only wanted it to be for a decade or so, that was my wish. But due to the Elements of Harmony, the tool I used to send her away, my wish was amplified by ten, and that was multiplied by ten for being an element wielder, a punishment bestowed upon her by the Tree of Harmony. In short, I was punished for my greed by taking away the opportunity to speak with my sister for over a thousand years. It is something I regret to this very day." Celestia concluded as she walked over to her younger sister. "I couldn't be more happy knowing she's with us again."

"She still doesn't let me have much fun nowadays. Here I am stuck in Equestria while she gets to turn into a human and make you pancakes. What fun is there in being stuck behind a desk filled with paperwork?" Luna griped, looking back at her sister with a petty pout.

"It's only because I love you sister, I have so much trust in you that you'd succeed in where I failed."

"That's code for 'do my chores for me'." I replied. "Don't think I don't know the bullshit code, princess."

"Least somepony's caught on." Luna said with a smirk.

"I would never─"

Luna interrupted Celestia's coy performance. "Coming from the one who integrated a switch to lock me in a small room in the basement, knowing I didn't like how creepy that place looked to me. That place always gave me nightmares."

"You mean the small room with the glory hole?" Melanie questioned.

Both Luna and Celestia looked to each other completely oblivious to what Mel talked about. Luna tilted her head as Celestia stood silently behind her. "What's a gloryhole?"

While I looked completely lost on how the subject came up, Mel slapped both of her hands over her mouth in shock. "Oh my God, you are an innocent little muffin. I just wanna hold you."

Meanwhile in my little world. "That dusty-ass Stonehenge has a gloryhole!?"

With breakfast concluded and my words being one hell of a sidedish to Celestia's pancakes, I crept back to my apartment to find Twilight occupying the shower. For me it was a bit of a surprise, especially considering she was just using whatever I had in the bathroom. Hell, she even had her own shower and the portal to her world was sitting just right beside it. When she finished, she proceeded to walk around the place with naught but a towel on her body. What is up with ponies and their not wanting to wear clothes here? I get it, ponies don't normally wear clothes, but still...

It's like her and Celestia are tag-teaming me over how long I'll keep my sanity.

After about an hour of me being stuck to the couch, watching TV, Twilight finally got dressed in a pair of panties and an old high school t-shirt I had. At least it proved to be a somewhat decent dress to hide herself, though it stopped halfway up her thighs. There's no doubt about what she's doing, she knows this is what gets me riled up, she's been very observant of what turns me on throughout the course of our relationship. And her doing it as a human takes it to a whole new level. And I'm not gonna lie, I wanted to show her just how rough I could be when healthy.

While I was watching T.V., I saw some coverage over a kid being abducted and the parents pleading with law enforcement to find their child. Somewhere inside me, I wished some otherworldly spell was cast to drag that little girl from here to their world, but reality often states that lighting doesn't always strike the same exact place twice. More often, she would be taken by a vengeful parent, or a perverted uncle, some strange man for ransom, or worse. Just looking at the fear in the mother's eyes as she spoke made me realize just how much pain mom was in when I was reported missing. I'm nowhere near as young as this little girl, but I can definitely see just how much it hurts anyone to lose their child.

Even then, my mind flashed back to Mrs. Plush sitting at the front desk of her hotel, staring at the picture of her deceased son. And somewhere in my heart I knew that the poor mother of her missing daughter will feel that same loss. It just happens so often that you can't help but to expect the worst. And I can't just step in and play Superman like I did in Equestria, I don't have the resources or the pull to do it, in this world I'm no different from a stranger walking down the street.

After the summation of the story, the feed quickly transferred to the topic of local sports and former athletes doing things for the community. Apparently Traitorous Snake made an appearance in town to give a donation to a local school for their basketball court, they also made a mention that he suffered a broken foot and will continue to miss more games until sometime next month.

Following the news cycle, Jerry Springer popped up on the screen. Granted, most of the stuff had to be scripted, but it was classic American trash that just kept me entertained for a bit. And of course, the show runs on an insane amount of commercials, most of them talking about workers comp, car accidents, insurance fraud, life alert, home security, an infomercial on the risks of mesothelioma, and a few other product placement commercials that included one obnoxiously unforgettable jingle.

♪8-HUN-DRED-588 2-3-HUNDRED, EMPIIIIRE!♫ I swear they've been running that shit since I was 7.

Following up the drama ladder was none other than Maury. Ah, the classic who's-the-baby's-daddy episode. And then just as the results are about to be read, they cut to commercial, tease you with a spoiler, then talk about the next segment they had recorded, and then the teasing of the conclusion to the segment you were just watching. You have to watch the entire show just to get to THAT, but for now they run the same old commercials again and again. It's no wonder why people are moving on to the internet nowadays. The commercials come to a temporary end and the program runs once more.

"How sure are you he is the baby's father?" The host asks.

Apparently the woman he referred the question to was named 'Brooke' or something. "I swear to you, Maury, that man IS the father of his child!"

And the guy's name is Malcolm. "I ain't even sleep with you like that. F**k on out of here with your s***** a** looking for a n**** to ween on! I ain't the one!" Of course, the obscenities are bleeped out due to FCC regulations.

"Yeah, well we're about to find out." The host declares with the audience applauding him as he picked up the envelope. The camera pans to the man, then the woman, then the host opening up the envelope, then the woman's face again on split screen with the baby backstage. "In the case of one year old Denise, Malcolm... You are NOT the father!"

As per usual, the man jumped out of his seat and started dancing wildly in celebration of his not having to take any responsibility for anyone other than himself, while the woman runs backstage to another room and flails onto the couch crying. It plays out like it normally does, and the man starts marching backstage to rub it in.

"That's a bit cruel, isn't it?" I looked up beside me, seeing Twilight standing there staring at the screen. She took a seat beside me as she spoke. "How does he get to dance around knowing that he could've been the father? But now that he isn't, he's just treating it like she's a fallen enemy at a dance party. So now that he dodges responsibility, he gets to bask in her misery? She's completely unaware of who the father of her child is, it's sad."

"Don't feel too bad for her. This kind of stuff isn't a requirement." I explained coarsely. "Anyone who values their personal life don't go around parading their circumstances for the nation's amusement. These people know what they're getting into, they're in it just for the pomp and circumstance. Half of this stuff will end up being scripted anyways and this was probably recorded either yesterday or sometime last week."

"Is this what humans call entertainment?" She asked.

"For some, of course. For me, it's just a time waster. I don't know what to do with my time other than wait around for Mel to bring you some new clothes to wear."

"You could be teaching me more about your world instead of lounging around. I don't necessarily know everything I should about this place and I can't get that information from anyone else other than you. I need to know about your family. You should be in the room talking to me about this stuff." She complained, folding her arms with frustration.

"You do have a point. But I just can't really take you seriously with what you're wearing. It's a major distraction to see you, a shirt, then outta nowhere, legs." I replied.

"You've seen my legs before, and ponies walk around with four of them. You shouldn't be that fazed by it."

"Not with what you've been doing lately. Don't think I haven't seen you try to catch my eye with what you wear. You tried it yesterday."

Twilight scoffed as she reclined on the sofa, kicking her legs across my lap. "You caught me there, but you still shouldn't be so easy. My legs aren't anything to look at. They're just appendages filled with blood and various bodily tissues for the purpose of mobilizing the body to any general direction."

"That's cute how you tried to be completely anatomical with it." I said with a chuckle. "But for me, or any other human for that matter, legs are an invitation to let my mind wander about your thighs. And your thighs are the main thing that make me wonder... Just how much can I make them sweat?" I said, running a finger up her inner thigh.

Using a hand to push me off, Twilight denied my playful advance. "How about you make my brain sweat instead? I know we're here to somewhat pretend that we're still in a relationship, but that doesn't mean that I'm willing to go overboard."

"Then how about you stop taunting me and get your legs off of my lap before I start taunting you back?" I said, trying to lift her legs off of me.

The indigo-haired woman did as she was advised and sat up straight on the couch. "Okay, so what do I need to know about your mom?"

"She's religious to a fault." I answered. "If you want to get on her good side, you'd be better off not talking about religion at all."

"Yesterday, you said that I was some strange religion, as if I was to be witnessing something." She said while straightening out the shirt she wore.

"You're not actually witnessing anything happening, not in the literal sense. A Jehovah's Witness is some people who go around knocking on people's door asking if you'd like to take a minute to read their pamphlets and speak with them about any stuff pertaining to their religion. They want you to read up on their doctrine by having you read up on some familiar passages in terms of the dominant religion."

"And what's the dominant religion?" She inquired.

"That would be Christianity, and it is not fun to be a follower."

"Why is that?" She asked.

"They teach you a bunch of stuff about how the world was created in seven days, then onto how mankind was punished for our disobedience, then there was a great flood, a man who freed the slaves from an ancient civilization, how they became a nation, a bunch of stories in between, how this one guy was supposed to be born to bear the burden of mankind's sins and die for our sake, only to be revived from death and raised himself into the sky. And something about his return being a violent one where he pulls a sword from his mouth and slaughters everyone who's left after the rapture. A highly paraphrased version of that stuff, but it sums up why that's a questionable religion to follow."

"Sounds like a violent religion to follow." Twilight mumbled.

I then proceeded to quote an excerpt from second chapter of Psalms. "Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and for thy possession, the ends of the earth. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces, like a potters vessel. Be wise now therefore, ye kings. Be admonished, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son lest he be angry, and ye perish in the way, though his wrath be kindled but a little."

"Now that's terrifying. And here I thought Faustian teachings were controversial." Twilight stated with a hand over her mouth.

"I know, that's why it's going to be off of your curriculum, consider it a subject to avoid at all costs. And try not to bring it up either because I won't be giving you that crap to study."

"Why, is it in a book or something?" She asked.

"Don't worry about it. Consider it a forbidden practice." I quickly responded.

Twilight didn't say much after that, only staring at the television screen as the next segment of the show started. Apparently there was some woman who held a secret of cheating from her husband and she's scared that the baby isn't his. For a moment, the two of us were distracted by what was shown on the screen before the inevitable cut to commercial. "Yeesh, I never thought human monogamy was so conflicting."

"Most of us are brought up with the mindset of having that one for just us. But when we have that one for so long, it starts to tease the mind the thought of having another on the side." I explained. "In your world it would be considered as herding, which is openly accepted in your society and not so much in mine."

"Herding isn't like that at all." Twilight rebutted passionately. "Herding is when you have emotional attachment to more than one mare or stallion. If you wish to embrace that similar partner with the anticipation of seeing your lives through together as a unit, then it becomes herding. This is just infidelity."

"Is that why you were against my using the 'saving grace' clause?"

Twilight looked at me sternly as she spoke. "I'm more of the mindset of your society, one union for only two. It's what I was brought up in, so it's what I want for myself."

"But you're from Canterlot. Isn't herding a common practice where you're from?"

"You already know I'm a plain pony. I'm not a strong follower of trends."

A knock on the door sounded before I called out to whoever stood in wait. "Who is it?" I hollered.

"Mel, I came with Twilight's clothes."

The princess groaned with childish frustration. "Aww, I was just getting comfortable."

While she was groaning with disapproval, I proceeded to thank fate for bringing Mel around with the goods. If I had to stare at Twilight's exposed legs anymore questioning if she was wearing anything beneath that shirt, my mind would've quickly tried to turn this couch into a love seat, not to mention the mess to follow. I answered the door to see the woman holding the bag in her hand as she looked at Twilight prancing around the place bottomless.

"So you're just gonna let her roam around the place without pants on?"

Oh the irony. "This coming from someone who let Celestia walk around her apartment in nothing but a towel."

"It was too damn early in the morning for me to care." She replied with a shrug. "But this is mess-around hours. Booty calls happen just around this time of day more often than at night."

"Does this look like a booty call?" I asked while Mel looked past me to see Twilight hobbling on one leg trying to get her pants on, inadvertently exposing the pink boy shorts she wore.

"She's wearing nothing but your old shirt and she apparently doesn't have on a bra, Survey says─"

Dear Lord, she's wearing my shirt without a bra.... Between her and Celestia, I swear...

I got dressed and we paid a visit to Melanie's place to pick up Celestia, then we made our way to Nondis' old house again. Mr. and Mrs. Haines greeted us all as soon as we arrived. From the moment we got out of the car, his father was already trying to peel him off of us and drag him off somewhere else. He even went so far as to give him a ride in his car, which was bigger and a little bulkier than the other. And within seconds, Nondis and his father disappeared, making me fear the worst was to come for him.

Apparently, I was so bad that I just stared down the street for an unmeasured amount of time. It was as if the further the car drove down the well-manicured street, the bleaker this new world started to feel. I wasn't quite used to the pressure of trying to impress someone's parents. But before I could feel the world grow darker for me, a warm hand settled on my shoulder. "Oh don't worry your pretty little head off, dearie." I heard Mrs. Haines say soothingly. "They're just off having a bit of guy time, it's been a while since those two had a chance to bond. I think it's better that they do it every once in a while."

Just like that, the color of the world seemed to jump back in their designated lines. I was so relieved to know that this wasn't some depressing moment of watching the train leave the station, with a friend who'd never return. I don't know why I felt like that then, but hearing Nondis talk about him made me feel fear for him. But with that out of the way, my mind was already pointed towards what my tasks were for today. I was already looking into seeing if I was going to have to actually use some magic to clean up the messes Celestia and I were going to make today.

If I should make any correction, it was only me who was making a mess of things.

"Celestia, could you pass me the onions?"

"Why of course, Mrs. Haines."

"And while you're over there, can you cut the celery stalks, I need those for the stuffing."

"Already ahead of you."

"Okay. Bella, how are you and those potatoes?"

As if I had a good answer. Celestia was so skilled at her tasks. It was like everything she did, she knew exactly how to do it. We're not even in our own world, but it was like she knew the kitchen from the back of her hoof. Every bit of direction she was given, she'd snapped to place herself in the best position to complete the job assigned. Meanwhile, I was standing in a pile of shavings with more potatoes unpeeled than completed. And it wasn't like the potatoes were that neat either, they were misshapened from my amateurish hands. I was already feeling like a failure. "Heh, heh... they're coming along... somehow."

Celestia looked over to see me struggling with the assignment and walked over to me. "Now do you see why I tried to enroll you in home economics?" She whispered.

I couldn't do anything but sulk as my reddened cheeks showed through the fingers I tried to hide them under. The clatter of the kitchen came to a brief standstill as Mrs. Haines stepped away from the stove to speak to me. "Is everything okay?"

My mind was already filling with shame and disappointment in my life decisions. The visions of each of my failed ventures within the kitchen started to play out in my head. So often I had Spike take over in that department, but now that I was the one onstage, I couldn't perform up to standard. I was so upset with myself that I wanted to cry. "I'm so sorry I messed up everything. I failed you both today."

Seeing the tears welling in my eyes, Mrs. Haines gave me a quick hug as she spoke. "Sweetheart, is this your first time in a kitchen?"

"It might as well be." I replied with some frustration in my voice.

"We had someone to make her food every now and then. I tried to get her in a home ec course, but she refused it in place of science. She's an incredibly brilliant mind, I assure you. It's just that she might be a bit unnerved at the thought of failing, a trait her parents instilled in her." Celestia answered, also coming to my rescue.

"Oh, well that ain't nothin, hun." Mrs. Haines said with a calm voice. "I can understand how it feels, to think you've done something throughout your life and then think you came up short when something happens. When I was a teenager, I didn't wanna take no home courses because I wanted to prove myself to be better than some girl in a kitchen. So I took up metal work and I worked in that field for a good fifteen years before I retired. My back kept having spasms and I just couldn't keep up with the labor. Do you wanna know what I did after that?" Mrs. Haines asked.

"What did you do?" I questioned.

"I started volunteering at the church, showing up for my sons' school functions, being an active parent in my sons' lives. I couldn't go to work anymore and I felt like I needed to be of use somewhere. So I found a way to make it work. Now a lot of that stuff I did I had to learn, and let me tell you how much time it took me to learn it all. But it helped me discover more ways I can be active for my health, to keep me happy when I sometimes felt like I wasn't worth anything. I always wanted to contribute to something, but now instead of doing it to help put food on the table, I'm doing it to help others, so they can put food on their tables, clothes on their kids backs. Does that make sense?"

Wiping my eyes from the tears, I nodded with acknowledgement.

"Now I know you feel like you ain't about nothing because you feel like you made a mistake somewhere. But we all make that same mistake somewhere down the line. It's up to you whether or not you feel like it's too late to learn a valuable lesson for yourself. If you wanna work on it, then you have to accept the cuts and hurts of it all. You wanna focus on something else, then it's fine as long as you're of use to someone, even if that means you can be of use to yourself."

Feeling a bit more encouraged by her words, I finished wiping my tears and firmed myself for more work. "Okay, maybe I am taking this entire thing a little too harshly."

The older woman took the peeler in my hand and guided my fingers into various places along the handle. "But if you want to improve, then we'll have to work on the little things. Like for example, if you place your thumb on the metal piece here, it'll hold that blade in place. So when you grab the potato and turn it around, you'll start to peel off these long pieces of skin. Now I'm not asking you to give me an endless ribbon, but just take it easy and guide your blade along the potato, let it work for you, not you for it. Okay?"

Taking her kind words and shared wisdom into consideration, I found a new drive within myself to do better at the task I was given, even though I wasn't quite adept to using my hands yet. "You can count on me!"

A few hours have passed since we started, the kitchen started to get a little warmer while the items we prepped started to find their way in the oven. Even though I was working in the kitchen as well, my exposure to the heating elements was severely limited to placing something inside of the oven or turning down the heat on a specific item when instructed to do so. The way everything was lined up made it seem a lot easier than what the books made it out to be. The food didn't come out bland or tasteless like the cookbooks in the library instructed me to do. And even though we were working with raw meat items, Celestia didn't seem phased in the slightest.

I wonder if she's ever had to deal with meat before.

As far as I knew, Celestia was just rolling from one counter to another, hitting one dish after the other. The sight of the two women made me marvel at their efficiency and their attention to detail. But as we came into a bit of a lull of activity, Celestia's production hit a bit of a snag.

"Ow!" She yelped, dropping the knife she held. She stared at her hand as blood quickly started to reveal her fresh injury. "Fingers are quite sensitive."

"You okay, hun?" Mrs. Haines asked.

"Oh, I just just got a little nick, nothing worth mentioning." Celestia replied, holding her hand away from the counter to not get blood on any of the food. "I should probably clean myself up."

"C'mere, I don't want you getting infected with anything." Mrs. Haines said as she walked over to a drawer beside the stove, pulling out a bottle of antiseptic, some band aids, and a few cotton balls. She quickly opened the bottle of alcohol and doused one of the cotton balls in it, reaching out for Celestia's hand. "Now this is gonna sting a little so be prepared."

The moment the saturated cotton ball came into contact with the princess, she didn't even budge one bit. She just stood there while her finger was cleaned of the blood. "It won't bother me none. Pain is a part of the experience with life."

Mrs. Haines chuckled as she started to dry the wound. "Do you know how long it took me to nail that into my husband's head? Took me years to get him to understand that women were just as capable of handling pain, if not more than men."

"Did it really take him so long?" Celestia asked.

"Honey, if I ain't got a story for that one." Mrs. Haines said as she concluded her treatment, wrapping Celestia's finger with a band aid.

"Well we're bound to be here for a while, so I don't see why not." Celestia replied cheerfully, flexing her fingers with her newly bandaged wound.

The next sound in my ears was a moderately loud squeak as a wooden chair was pulled against the floor. I was once again distracted in my duties and looked over to see Mrs. Haines inviting us both to the dinner table. "Pull up a chair, we'll be minute before we're up and at it again."

As I approached, I presented them with my finished assignment. "Okay, I've peeled the potatoes, the onions, the carrots, and put them in the bowl, each in their own section. What do I do next?"

Mrs. Haines looked over to the trash can and saw endless ribbons of brown and orange shavings. Some of them appeared to be ceaseless, others broken by the inconsistencies in texture of the surface, but they were as neat as I could get them to cut. "She's a real perfectionist isn't she?"

Celestia chuckled a little bit, realizing I fell into another one of my habits. "Just a tad bit compulsive, but she's very astute."

As I pulled up a chair to sit in, Mrs. Haines started to tell her story. "Well I'm praying for you, especially dealing with Nondis. That boy's brain is cut from the same as his father. Would you believe me if I told you about how when I first got pregnant, I tried getting Harold to read on how to deal with pregnancy as a man? I gave him so many books to look at and he ain't study not one."

Sounds like when Nondis was getting shipped to basic training. I tried to get him to read up on the material prior to training so he could already know the history of the E.U.P., but he and Pinkie decided it was better to learn it through song instead. And the result was a highly-abridged, sloppily and hastily paraphrased version of the events of it's creation. He wouldn't even go over the flash cards I had saved up for him. "Well that's definitely Nondis-like." I responded under my breath.

"That ain't the half of it sweetheart." Mrs. Haines said as she tossed a hand in the air. "I tried to do whatever it took to get that man ready for the day I fell into labor. He just assumed that if the time came, he'll know what to do. But when that time came and my water broke, he was just as clueless as he was about those books. He didn't read em, so he just took me in the car and drove me to the hospital, speeding through the street, getting stopped by the police, and they were nice enough to get us escorted to the hospital, especially since it was one of the fellas from the neighborhood watch association. But the moment I got out that car..."

"The pain started to hit." Celestia answered.

"Honey, if I wasn't the angriest woman on two legs right then, I could've made a case for it. Harold just took me to the emergency entrance and had me shipped right off to the doctor. From the moment they walked in the room, it was like they knew Harold wasn't ready for any of that. So they started asking him questions on whether or not he was going to leave for the day, or go to work, he told them that he 'wanted to be in the room for the moment I gave birth.' Some of the nurses thought he was being real sweet-like, I knew he was thinking about being in the WAITING ROOM while I was just being in need of an exorcist."

Celestia chuckled lightly as she settled in to hear more of the story. "That sounds like a recipe for disaster."

"You know what I'm saying?" Mrs. Haines said with a laugh of her own. "I mean it was like he in his own little world while I was being rolled off into one of those rooms with the curtains and everything. Then we get up to the room and he's like 'I don't know if I'm supposed to be in here.' And I turn to him with a real stupid look and told him 'You said you'd be there for the moment I gave birth. You better be in this room before I put you in one somewhere down the hall.' And you know what he did?"

"He waited in that room?" I guessed.

"Fourteen hours of his life that was all mine. And I'm thinking I wasn't ever gonna get that kind of attention anymore after that, and he's just nervous watching the doctors coming in and out of the room with all these scissors and clamps and knives and junk. And they're just doing whatever it takes for me to finish as easy as possible. But he's just down there watching like it was a mad science experiment. And lord knows it didn't help since he wanted this to be a 'perfectly natural birth,' which meant that I was gonna have to go without a lot of that good medicine they had for me. So guess what I'm doing?"

"Screaming." Celestia answered with a eye roll and a sigh of amusement.

"I think I came up with a new note to sing, it's called AAAAH!" She sang horrifically.

The three of us broke out into laughter, I had to hold my mouth closed while Celestia shook her head with disbelief. "That is just hysterical!"

"So I'm in the bed still. Fourteen hours and forty minutes later, he's just as clueless as he was when everything started and Harold's just looking from the bottom of the sheets, and I can imagine it's not a kind sight. He's just gawking and covering his face at everything and I'm calling him over to hold my hand. He just tells me 'Martha... you ain't pretty right now.' And I just look at him stupid and say 'How about you come over and hold my hand?' So just then, I get another contraction, painful as all get out, and he just looks at me and says 'I can always get another lunch down here, I can't get no new ears up there.'"

The three of us continued to laugh while I started to feel the pain of my sides aching from all the laughter. "You must be making this up! This is so terrible!" Celestia replied, almost breathlessly.

"I didn't quite win the lottery with him, but he'll do. So after a few more minutes and out pops a head, Harold's covering his eyes like it was all a horror show to him. So one of the nurses moved him out of the way and politely escorted him to my side while the doctors and everyone came in and did their thing. I'm grabbing Harold's arm and he's telling me how much I'm hurting him. I'm just yelling at him telling him how I would never have another kid with him, not ever again."

"Goodness, I can imagine how that went." Celestia said, starting to come down from her boisterous show of exuberance.

"Right?" Mrs. Haines said, trying to come back down herself. "So I was operating in the flesh at point in time and told him to get his head out of his own a-s-s and be a man and take it. Because he was a man, I felt like he could at least take a little bit of what I was getting. Oh no, he had a note of his own to sing. But after a while, everything was finished and Alex was finally brought to the world. My husband just stared at me from a distance and didn't say anything while they were getting him cleaned up and everything. When they finished with it, they finally let me hold him. Alex finally opened his eyes and I saw right then that he was my little boy."

"What about your husband?" Celestia questioned.

"Him? I had to tell the nurse that I was tired of holding him and had Harold to hold him. He said 'That alien ain't nothing like me.' And I, of course, told him to get his a-s-s over here and hold the baby. So he held him for a while, being real quiet for about thirty minutes, just staring at that little bundle of joy. He told me 'This thing is so small.' And I had to tell him 'That thing's gonna grow up real big and make us real proud.' So he just held him and stared at him for another five minutes. And from that moment on, I realized... That man didn't know a darn thing about being a father."

That final statement elicited yet another giggle from the two of us while Celestia took a few breaths to calm herself again. "Well I suppose he learned something from that moment on."

"Oh yeah, with Nondis, he tried to do everything by the book then. But when Stanton came around, he just finally said 'whatever happens' and strapped himself in for the ride. But if I can say one thing to that man's credit, he was there for every darn one of those boys from the moment they popped out."

"Well you can't argue something like that. That kind of dedication and loyalty doesn't come often." Celestia said while wiping her eyes of the tears from laughter.

"Yeah, though I was a bit concerned when he tried to celebrate Stanton coming into the world with a crock pot, some canola oil, and a baseball glove." Celestia couldn't even feign enough dignity to stop herself from showing her more natural side, falling out of her chair before holding herself on the table to support her weight. She rocked back and forth a few seconds before she could move of her own free will. Even though I was experiencing some pain from laughter, I didn't care because it was so funny to imagine a Nondis look-a-like standing at the foot of a hospital bed with an entire catcher's outfit, complete with a crock pot at his feet, a bottle of oil beside the bed, and a few balloons with the words 'Happy Birthday, Sport!' written on them. It took me a minute to recover from that imagery while Mrs. Haines spoke again. "Obviously he grew a sense of humor on the subject."

"I'm sure he did." Celestia said, sniffling from the laughing fit she suffered through.

The mood then shifted from laughter to one of tenderness as Mrs. Haines continued to fawn over her husband. "But still... you couldn't tell me that Harold wouldn't do for me when he's done so much. I love him to bits, and if Nondis is anything like him, you better be ready for one hell of a ride, cause that man might just not stop loving you. And if you find yourself in danger, then expect him to take a bullet for you."

Finally finding a moment to join in the conversation, I asked her a question. "...Do you think he'd be so loyal to where he'd go as far as to fight for others?"

She shrugged as she started to talk more of her son. "I wouldn't put it past him. That's the main reason why I'm so scared that he'd be the type to do something foolish, like go and enlist in the army or something. Ever since he was a teenager, he had an interest in all those military games, shooting up people from half a world away. I couldn't understand what he saw in that stuff really, maybe it was all the stories glorifying violence and death, but I told his butt that college or a job were his only alternatives."

Even though I was told she had a sensitive spot for military work, I proceeded to ask her about it, hinting at his actual job. "What if he did enlist in the military? What would you say then?"

The mood quickly shifted yet again, growing quite a bit more serious. "I'd get him out of it myself. I don't need him finding out about that life. I've seen and heard too many stories of brave young men being sent to a world foreign and too far away to fight a war for the pride of not even a nation, but it's politicians. My father did just that and came back, only to be spat on and called a murderer. It got so bad that he stayed up at night screaming. I never wanted that for any of my boys."

"You don't think Nondis would be strong enough?" I asked, inevitably getting a stern look from Celestia.

"I didn't go through all that pain, all that carrying for nine months, raising them for eighteen years, only to get a flag to hold when they die. Some of them folks don't even get to see their kids when that happens. Not my son, not my baby..." Mrs. Haines quickly stood out of her chair, turning to me with a frown. "That's why when I saw all those scars on him, I had to ask... what his he doing for you to have all of that done to him?"

Just the reaction she gave reinforced Nondis' suspicions. I figured he was over-exaggerating with her, but never would I have assumed that she'd be so disgusted with the thought of him being a guard. Just that fact alone made me realize just how much of a risk he was taking with his personal relationships. I started to feel bad, then terrible for knowing I was the cause of it. I decided to withdraw that subject for the time being until the time was right. "I wish I knew." I lied.

The woman leaned down, grabbing my hands. Hers was significantly rougher than mine, her eyes were filled with a plea for help. She knelt down and stared me in the eye. "Nondis can be a handful, and sometimes a bit dangerous to himself. You need to be able to get him out of whatever he's doing. I know you don't like seeing him hurt, I saw it all over your face just when he left earlier. And I might be a bit biased, I honestly thought Melanie would be the one in this kitchen with me this year, but you somehow got my son running after you like a puppy fresh in love. If you can do that for me, then I ain't got a problem with you."

Even though I knew that Melanie was more of a first for Nondis' heart, it still ached a little to know that this wasn't real. She didn't even know I broke up with her son already. And I probably wouldn't be in any good standing if she knew that. Already, I was having to live my existence as a lie before Nondis' parents, making empty promises and giving words of comfort despite the situation being the contrary. "You have my word." I replied.

I started to realize just how much Nondis was really trying to shoulder. And in the end, I had only one question to ask myself. Just how much did I hurt him by not asking?

How long must we lie about this?

***Point of Perspective: NONDIS***

Our day was pretty fun and event-filled. It was like the moment I fell into dad's grasp, he dragged me everywhere throughout town with him and the others, those 'others' being Alex and Stanton. First off we went bowling, and dad proceeded to wipe the floor with all three of us as usual. It's like the older he got, the better he was at it. That was always the case when we were younger, but now it's like he managed to find the time to get better. So yeah, a curbstomp served by our dad wasn't the most fun to go through, might as well play for second place.

He then made it up to us by taking us to do laser tag, a field he had no experience in. Meanwhile the rest of us weren't all that great at it either. Real world usage of firearms had little to no effect on how quickly a laser could hit you from some obscured angle off of a mirror. And it wasn't like we weren't trying to nab anyone else either, the top guy named himself 'ch0z3n 1ne' and racked up about fourteen-hundred points. To give some context to the runner up's score, 'Glossy' had up to six-hundred. Dad came in second to last, Alex finished in fifth, I finished in seventh, and Stanton finished in eighth. After that, we hit up a Fuddruckers for dinner and made our way back to the corners of our own lives.

Dad didn't ask much of anything about Twilight until we showed up at the house. Nothing too unusual, just asking if I felt she was really worth giving my life to. He wanted me to be sure that I wasn't making any mistakes concerning my future. I politely told him that she's my girlfriend and that we haven't made any plans to our future just yet. He then brought up the fact that my time to finish school was just around the corner and that I should start thinking about a five-year plan and how to approach my venture into the world of dating. Typical father to son stuff.

But he did have a point. I didn't really have a plan that lead me past five years, I only focused on what I could change in the immediate future, or at least within the next three months. But after that, what else was there? After I finished with a certain law's removal, I didn't have much of a sight for anything past that. I guess it would allow me to start publicly dating Twilight again, or I could already be in it too deep with Rarity to consider it a possibility. I could live my life out as a guard, building the legacy I've started for myself. Or I could come back home to Austin after everything's said and done. I might not have much of a purpose for staying in Equestria after that or I might find it too painful to stay, especially if I screw up with both Rarity and Twilight.

Or I could be dead by then... but that's a grim possibility, one that's too easy to see.

When we stepped out of dad's Ford Expedition, Twilight and Celestia were already in the foyer waiting. The moment we stepped in, the smells of tomorrow already had me anticipating the results. When I asked if there was anything new on the menu, all three of the women looked to one another and kept their lips sealed. Dad asked more on it and Twilight simply told him that he'd have to wait until tomorrow to find out, a response my mom obviously scripted out for her.

At last, the two princesses stepped into the rental and we were on our way back to the apartment. The night was already starting to grow on us and all the energy the two had coming into the day was all but spent in the kitchen. Twilight fell asleep in the back seat while Celestia continued to ask me to ride around town a little more so she could take in some of the sights. Her surprising request had me thrown off for a bit before I inevitably obliged. As we roamed the city streets again, Celestia stared through the window as she asked me a simple question.

"Do you find a future in the E.U.P.?"

Again, the princess had a way of surprising me. "Of course." I replied plainly. "Granted some of the subsidies aren't quite what I was expecting, and the pay is a bit skiddish, I think if I stay in for long enough that my future will start to pay for itself."

Celestia didn't break her eyes from the world outside of the car, keeping her view towards the illuminated skyline of Austin. "But is that all you want in your future?"

Thought the connection to the conversation dad had with me was uncanny, I gave her my honest answer. "To be frank, I haven't quite put together the usual five-year thing. I'm just kinda riding things out for now."

"Then if you were given the chance to leave, to come back to this world, would you?" She asked.

"Didn't I already have that option?" I rebutted.

The princess threatened to turn back towards me before she reconsidered and kept her eyes out to the world beyond the window. "This place, there aren't any changelings to fight, no arimaspi to slay."

"Boring, isn't it?" I replied mockingly.

"The technology this world possesses, the peace it contains, the dangers that don't come with everyday life, why do you insist on living a life of peril instead of one in this serene world?"

"Because this world isn't serene." I replied brutally. As we rode down the highway, I noticed a distinctive lack of traffic from the left side of the interstate. "Look out in front of you, you see the road ahead, right?"

Celestia turned her head to notice the lack of traffic from the oncoming side. "It's a lot less people on one side than the other."

"But does that mean the road is peaceful?" I asked.

"An open road is usually indicative of peace. If you've ever been to Manehattan, the traffic there is dreadful. Carriages and one-way streets, backed up so badly that emergency transports can hardly navigate."

"Well much like pony Manhattan, our world has more of that in even the smaller places." I said just before the flashing lights of some emergency vehicles shone from down the road. As we got closer, it appeared to be a scene of a terrible collision. One car was sitting in the middle of the road while the other was tapered against the concrete median wall. Paramedics were on scene along with police rerouting traffic through the road while the afflicted parties conversed in safety. "Yikes, that's a bad one."

As we quickly passed the site, the traffic on the other side was incredibly chaotic, cars running bumper to bumper while appearing to be at a standstill. Celestia then questioned. "What happened here?"

"Traffic accident. Doesn't appear that anyone was seriously injured, though I could be wrong. Maybe it was just some impatient asshole trying to merge at the wrong time."

She looked at the traffic and saw the complete disorder that just randomly appeared from thin air. "Goodness, this is almost as bad as─"

"Manehattan?" I concluded, receiving a direct look from Celestia. "Yeah, but that traffic accident could've been much worse. Those people could be walking out on pure adrenaline right now, not even knowing what the hell's wrong with them. And then if you weren't wearing a seat belt like we are now, you'd be flying right through this windshield here." I said, thumping the glass above the dashboard.

"Wouldn't that be dangerous?" Celestia asked.

"That's a cute way of saying 'fatal'." I replied, causing the princess to instinctively tug at her seat belt. "Life comes at you fast, any accident can threaten your life just as easily as a changeling attack can, and those are less frequent. Remember, we use these things to get around. There's always a high chance that some person who's not paying attention could get themselves or someone else killed. City street, definitely. Dirt road in the country, someone's livestock. County road in the woods, you don't wanna hit a moose cause you'd be just as banged up. Even the community we live in, just let your kid go chasing a ball in the street with an oncoming car and an inattentive driver."

"I get it." Celestia replied, started to appear somewhat annoyed. "Must you be so negative to your world?"

"I love it here, but I'm not gonna ignore what's real. Don't you love Equestria?"

"Of course I do." She answered.

"Then why even compare the peace of your world to this one? You bring up changelings and arimaspi, but I never knew anything about that stuff till I was shipped out to the E.U.P.. And don't you have a marriage law that punishes you in an unjust manner?"

Celestia remained quiet at that question, seeming to not want to incite any kind of argument.

"Either way, my world isn't perfect. It's got it's own laundry list of bullshit, but it's a big, beautiful place regardless."

The princess folded her arms as she sighed with defeat. "But still... Don't you have a plan?"

"I'm pretty sure I can plot one up when the time comes. But for now, I got other things to worry about."

"So you're staying in the E.U.P.?" She asked.

"Dunno. That's a future I'm not certain of. If I can't be certain of a relationship, then what makes a career path any different? I have to be ready for anything."

"And you don't have a plan for that yet?"

"I'll come up with something, mom." I groaned mockingly.

Celestia grew silent for a few minutes before she unfolded her arms and stared back out the window. "You and Rarity are seeing each other, aren't you?"

The sheer magnitude of the question she asked made me swerve the car a bit as if I had actually hit something on the road, but I quickly recovered and we were back in our lane as I peeked back into the back seat from the rear-view mirror. Twilight was still asleep as I turned my attention off the road to the princess beside me. "Can we not?"

"I just want to know. You were already trying to get her here for Friday, a request that she and you came to ask personally. Does that not account for anything?"

"She and I are just friends." I reiterated.

Her lips didn't even move as I heard the words come through in her voice. "I can easily tell when you are lying." I turned to her and saw her staring directly at me, again her lips didn't move as her voice spoke again. "The two of you have a bit of a benefit system in place."

"That's not your business to know." I said sternly, my hands tensing around the wheel.

"I'm sorry for invading your mind." She said, this time through her own lips. "I've known it since you came to ask. I just wanted you to understand that my rejecting you was my way of saying that I wasn't going to interfere with any of the affairs you may have with Twilight and her friends. If you want to entertain the thought of the two of you sharing a day in this world, then it should be Twilight's responsibility alone to permit you the access."

"I guess that's your way of protecting her. Well that I can understand, but my mind isn't a playground, you know how I feel about that."

"Again, I apologize for overstepping my boundaries. But I do want you to realize that Twilight worked hard to appease your mother today. Would it not be fair to reward her for her efforts? She's already taken her breakup with you quite harshly."

"Then why did she do it? Why didn't the so-called 'Princess of Love' step in and stop that from happening? Why didn't you object to it?"

Celestia glared at me with her lavender eyes, growing unusually cold for their beauty. "Because I know how it feels to have a relationship impeded upon by the decision of outside forces, some of which you could never understand."

"But if you knew Twilight was hurting from it, then shouldn't you have done something?"

"She is grown enough to make her own decisions. I've allowed her that independence. And personally I didn't appreciate Cadance's meddling in your affairs either. If I can recall, Melanie was the one your mother decided for you, but you chose differently. If you knew it would hurt Melanie, then wouldn't you have done something or come up with another conclusion, especially after so many months of not seeing you?"

"How am I supposed to know her heart if she wouldn't let me in? I made the decision to move on from that."

"But you didn't take it very well." She said, causing me to swerve the car a bit before I settled back in place. Instead of staying on the interstate, I took the next exit to head home. We waited at a red light as I started to speak.

"Yeah, I didn't. I was still hurting. But now I've come to the conclusion that I couldn't hate her for that. Even if I poured my heart out for her and got nothing until it was too late, I wouldn't dare bring myself to hate her for what she did." As the light turned green, I made the left turn to the overpass. "And when Twilight broke up with me, it wasn't like I was content with the circumstances. I wanted to hate her for the way she left me like that and my brothers knew it. But something inside me made me not do it. I'd call her out of a few things, I'd have arguments with her, I'd say things to spite her, but I couldn't ever bring myself to hate her. I guess between Twilight and Mel, my heart was more outspoken than my mind. I guess my love was stronger than my own pride."

"And yet you hate Cadance?"

"Annoyed to shit, yeah... hell yeah. But I'm willing to compromise if Twilight wants me to do so. And she wants me to do that, I just can't do it right this instant cause it takes time. I want things to be simple but they aren't. So I have to fight for that to happen. Somewhere in my heart I want to snuggle that purple alicorn on my mattress again, but that can't happen right now."

Celestia grew silent for a few seconds before she spoke. "But what about Rarity?"

"I have to see where my heart is on that one. That's why I'm not going to entertain the idea of us being together right now." I said before mumbling into the steering wheel. "Even if I wanna take this human girl in the back seat and poke fun at her for hours."

Celestia blushed lividly while she slapped my leg. "Mind your tone, captain. That kind of lecherous conduct is not permissible in my presence."

"Sorry, guess I'm letting out too much."

Celestia folded her arms as she muttered into the window. "...And I am not on the menu."

"Who said you were on the menu?" I asked, quirking a eyebrow.

"I just said that I'm not." She pouted.

"Yeah, you aren't."

The princess glared at me again and grinned. "And what is that supposed to mean, Mr. Haines? Am I not a topic of discussion amongst your kind?"

"To be brutally honest, I wouldn't mind breaking Equestrian law for a night with that human body of yours. And let me be clear of how much you were flaunting those assets this morning at breakfast. If I was past me, you would've got some sausage for the morning. But you're not on the menu." I teased.

Celestia gasped with shock and awe over my comment. "You are so utterly crude!" She announced furiously, threatening to slap me.

"Please don't slap the driver, I want all of us to live."

"Well I will slap you when you've finished escorting me." She said, seething through her teeth.

Breathing a sigh of relief for the time being, I went to adjust my rear view mirror to see what was behind me. As I did, I saw Twilight sitting up in the back seat, her eyes lazily looking out the window.

Guess she's awake now.

When I arrived to Mel's apartment, Celestia allowed herself out of the car and quickly ran up the stairs before I could even get a chance to take my foot off of the brake when we parked. Twilight just sat groggily in the back seat while I made a quick ride around the corner towards my apartment. When we got out, the young princess dragged herself up the stairs as I opened the door to the apartment.

She stepped in and started walking towards my room. I just made my way toward the hallway bathroom while she leaned against my doorway, appearing very tired. After I had finished relieving myself, I washed my hands and stepped outside to see Twilight still standing in the doorway.

"Something wrong?" I asked the tired-looking princess.

She didn't move from that spot as she sank onto the ground, sitting in the doorway. "I'm just so tired."

"Thanksgiving dinner prep got you like that?" I asked with a light chuckle.

"Yeah." She said almost lifelessly.

"You need me to get you anything, water, snack?"

She didn't say anything as I walked towards the kitchen. When I opened the fridge, I could see a collection of water bottles and a few sealed bowls of fruit salad. At the bottom of the fridge was a bin filled with bags of pre-prepped salad. Apparently Mel was stocking me up while I was away. I settled for one of the bowls of fruit and a bottle of water, grabbed a fork from the drawer, and made my way back to Twilight. She still didn't move until I tore off the seal and started feeding it to her. She opened her mouth slightly, allowing a small grape to fall past her lips.

"Tell me how it is, too bitter?"

Twilight smirked for a few seconds. "You can tell they tried to make this with quality, but it's just not quite there."

Figures, it would be hard to fool a princess who's exposed to fresh produce daily. "Well that's what happens when you try to please a whole bunch of people. You get a product that isn't quite there."

I offered the bottle of water before she politely pushed it away, whispering to me. "Celestia's really pretty, isn't she?"

I wanted to lie to her and tell her something that would make her feel better, but considering the possibility that she might have overheard our conversation in the car, I decided to be upfront. "She is. By human standards, she'd be an unquestionable level of attraction. Men universally would fawn over her."

"Would you fawn over her as well?" She asked.

"That's something I'm quite sure I'd be unwilling to do. Celestia's the kind of individual you'd look at from a distance. Of course you can say she's more than capable of stirring the imagination, but I consider her to be nothing more than a mutual business partner."

"Even if she had some emotional feelings towards you?"

"That would be impossible. Her heart is probably more bent towards solitary confinement over someone like me. And I don't think my mind would be able to handle that level of emotional baggage." I confessed before I rambled on. "I'm barely able to handle you, and you're a few years shy of me."

"And Rarity?" She inquired.

"She and I are more in the realm of 'friends with benefits' over some emotional attachments."

"How do you know if she's not lying to you?"

"Am I supposed to ask? I know I don't wanna lead anyone on because I know how that feels."

"But what if she wanted to be led along, just to know what it feels like to be infatuated?"

I stopped to think for a moment, my mind running back to the date we shared in Canterlot before she left. All throughout the day she made it clear that it was just to see how it felt between us. But I never considered if that was what she was doing. "...I might have to ask her about it then."

Twilight took the bowl of fruit and sat it down next to her as she grabbed the fork from me. "So... what did you do today?"

"Dad took us bowling. He waxed our asses up and down the lanes for an hour and a half. But after that, we went out for laser tag, he was almost in last place. Then we went out to eat before we came back."

Levitating the fruit bowl and the fork, she poked one of the pieces of fruit and presented it to me for me to eat. "Well, I know now you weren't kidding about your mom not being all-too thrilled about you being in the guard."

"You told her about it?" I asked, almost jumping at the thought.

"No, but I did present a hypothetical scenario, to which she responded to in a negative manner. In short, I'm astounded you're even thinking of staying in the guard."

"Realistically speaking, the guard is my only source of income right now. I'm already trained for it, so I might as well put my training to good use." I stated, calming down a little. "But still, I don't think she needs to know about that right now."

"But you've done so much good. Surely she'd understand that. If she even started to realize the thousands you saved, the hundreds you rescued, she should be swayed to reconsider."

"But who's to say how she'll act when she figures out what the politicians tried to get away with?"

Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but only producing a choked gasp. Her eyes wandered off to the bowl of fruit. "I guess she would be upset to know they tried to have her son's body donated to science."

"Oh yeah, that'll do it for real. Let's not even talk about sending me off to a mountain filled with blood-thirsty horrors, or the idea of them sending me to pony Siberia."

"I suppose your concern would have substantial merit." She said, twirling the fork in her possession.

"Yeah. Don't want her knowing I've already had multiple assassination attempts on me. I think I'd rather keep her as comfy as she is now. What we told her about my adventures yesterday is more than enough for now."

She pulled out another grape, munching on it while she pondered out loud. "But isn't there some way to ease them into this?"

"That's the million dollar question. Tomorrow may be all food and football, but somewhere between all of that is an opportunity where they'll recall on a bunch of the conversations we had for the past few days. We need to make sure our stories are straight from here forward."

"But what about... us?"

The pony thing, almost forgot about that. "I think we can avoid that tomorrow. It'll have to be something we'd walk them through. I mean, I got a cute human girl with me and that's all that matters."

"Even though we haven't made any attempt to convey our relationship physically? Personally, I'm not sure how to respond if you were to make an attempt to display human affection."

"What have we been doing for the past few months?" I asked.

"You and I were ourselves. I'm a human now, that means I'm not quite sure on how it would look if I tried to convey some affection to a human as a human. It would be like you trying to do it as a pony."

I shook my head and sighed dismissively. "Just close your eyes and pucker your lips."

"Liikh dhiis?" She asked, contorting her face into a bit of an angry scowl. Her nose was severely crinkled and her eyebrows were too closely brought in as if she was clenching her eyes in a sandstorm. I couldn't help but to laugh at her while she pouted over my reaction. "What's so funny!? I did what you asked!"

"You're overthinking again." I stated, placing my hands over her cheeks. "Look a little more natural, like you're about to wake me up in the morning."

"Okay." She complied, closing her eyes a lot more loosely. "Now what?"

"Stick your lips out a little." I ordered. She did just as I instructed, but leaning herself in forehead first. "Hold up, raise your chin a little. We don't have muzzles, so try to not rush run in or we'll be butting heads."

"I told you this was going to be a problem." She chided.

"It ain't gotta stay one." I replied. "Now do you feel my hands on your cheeks?"

"Yes." She said before snorting out a slight giggle. I couldn't stop myself from joining in as our minds both took a slight detour to the raunchy back road. She cleared her throat and refocused herself. "Okay, enough of that. Let's continue."

Her eyes shot wide open as my lips joined with hers for just a second, and my hands quickly slid off of her face to her shoulders. Though the situation might have appeared quite anticlimactic from an onlooker, somewhere inside me I felt a bit of a tingling rush in my system. I smiled at her as I shrugged my shoulders. "See, not that hard."

Twilight didn't say anything, but she dropped everything in her magical possession. The contents of the bowl were scattered across the floor while she moved a finger to her lips, feeling the warmth of our temporary union. She smiled as she tried to look away, covering her mouth.

"Not bad for your first kiss as a human, huh?"

"I almost had one like this before." She confessed before she grabbed my cheeks in a similar manner. "But we were interrupted before we actually did it. So... it's not that bad."

"What, you wanna try it now?" I asked, readying myself for yet another.

Instead of immediately leaning in, she draped her arms around my neck, almost as she would in her equine form. "I just feel more comfortable doing it this way."

As she leaned in, her forehead collided with mine. The young princess giggled as she leaned her body into mine as well. "I like how you just bopped your head on me when I showed you how to avoid that."

"Maybe I like this kind of stuff." She said, finally bringing her chin forward to have our lips reunite. Her eyes closed for a second before her arms closed in even more around my neck. She pulled herself away, biting her lip as she moaned quietly. "I like this. Too bad I can't go any deeper like we normally do."

I didn't even offer any words for a tutorial. I just pressed my lips into hers, pulled myself back a little and quietly snuck my tongue against hers. My eyes propped open a slight amount, my hands wandering down her waist to the hem of her shirt. Her eyes shot open immediately as her instincts started to kick in. She quickly removed her arms and forced some separation between us, awkwardly laughing.

"Whew! Woah there! I think we got it." She said, fanning herself with both of her hands.

"Yeah!" I said with a quick nod, already feeling my pants getting a bit tight. "Any more of that, and it would've gotten real heated."

"I mean I wouldn't mind it any, but that's not what we're here for." She said, standing to her feet and inadvertently stepping on a piece of pineapple on the floor. "Whoops, I think we should clean this up first."

"Yeah. I'm not too fond of ants."

Shortly after cleaning up the fruit and mopping behind the mess, Twilight gave me whatever laundry I needed to complete before she took the liberty to sleep in my bed again. As I was washing her clothes, I had to once more resist the temptation to use her panties as a masturbatory aid, as just my throwing them in the washing machine gave me a fair indication of where her mind and body was on the subject.

But instead of just shoving the goods in the washer like any normal person would, I was peeking around and seeing if anyone was walking by while the idea started to manifest the temptation of the act. Not only would it have been rather taboo, but it would've been quite kinky to use the panties as a rag. My mind was already still on the kiss we shared and it didn't help that her skin was so damn soft. Just sinking my fingers into her waist made me want to unzip my pants. The idea of her getting so turned on in a human state made me idolize the possibility of whether certain laws would apply to humans that so happen to resemble princesses.

It was like the sight of her being so close to me again, the smell of her perfume mixed in with the slight musk from her fatigue, I wanted to do some pretty morally questionable things to her. And then my mind went to Celestia walking around the kitchen in nothing but a towel. I couldn't help but clasp at my crotch at the idea of making her into a victim. She had to clarify the fact that she wasn't on the menu, so somewhere on the perverted shelf in the closet at the back of my mind was already thinking about if she was quietly insinuating that she was open to the idea.

But when I heard a gasp, I shot my head over to the door to see a middle-aged woman holding her son in her hand, pulling him away as she gave me a disapproving stare. That shocked me right out of my lust real quick. So I just shoved the panties in the washer and came to terms over my sleeping with blue balls tonight. On the bright side, I didn't actually masturbate in an open washroom with my ex-girlfriend's panties.

And somehow, that's supposed to be an accomplishment? My life is a mess.

After dragging my sorry ass from the washroom with Twilight's clothes, I knocked to check if she was sleeping. She wasn't quite there yet, so she answered the door and had me give her everything through a crack due to her being completely naked.

It was going to be another night of my not being able to fap until Twilight was in the shower or something. So with frustration on the mind, I dove to my couch, turned the channel to CSPAN, set the timer to cut the TV off, and bored myself to sleep. The only thing I needed on my mind then was what I had to do for tomorrow.

However, my phone was the first thing to wake me up in the morning.

"Who dahellz callin' me this late?" I mushed through my lips before slapping my hand against the table, feeling for my phone as it vibrated loudly. Feeling around, I finally grabbed hold of the phone and squinted my eyes so I couldn't be blinded by the backlight. "H'lo?"

"Nondis, get up. We need to talk." Shining urged from the other end of the line.

"Dude... I. Am. Sleep." I mumbled slowly.

"You're awake now, so get your ass up." He said, this time even stronger than before.

I shook my head and mashed the hang-up icon and dropped my phone to the ground while I turned over. "I ain't even trying to hear that shit."

I closed my eyes, sleep slowly finding it's way back into my system... that was until the phone rang again. I rolled back over and dropped my arm over the couch to feel for the phone again. And as I read the screen, I couldn't help but to groan out of tired frustration.

"Why is you tryin' to call me now? Go a-fucking-way." I grumbled, hitting the icon again. But before I could drop the phone again, the call came right back. "Fuck it, I'm turning you off right now. If it's that important, leave a message."

I held the side button until the power icon came up and quickly swiped right. The phone gave me a farewell message and it cut off completely. When I finished, my eyes were already trying to shut themselves and I was quickly subdued to the land of dreams, if only for another forty seconds or so.

"I could've sworn I turned off this goddamn phone." I said as I slammed my hand on the table again.

The phone stopped ringing for a moment, this time Discord's voice coming up in place of Siri and talking through the phone's loud speakers. "I think you should be a bit more attentive to the concerns of others. After all, is that not something that could've contributed to the situation with Melanie?"

Though he had a legitimate point, it was still annoying to hear his voice on speaker so early in the morning. "Discord, I've got words with you after I'm done with this bullshit." As soon as I finished my statement, Shining's name quickly came up onscreen. "Hello?" I answered groggily.

"I'm not fucking around, Nondis! We need to talk!" He hollered from the other side of the line.

"Dude, if it's something you're dealing with up there in frozen tundra, then I'm gonna have to stop you because I'm not even in Equestria." I mumbled.

"Where are you now!?"

"In my apartment, here in Austin, sleeping on my couch. Could be dreaming of magic sheep but I'm stuck with some asshole yelling at me when it's 3 a.m.." I snapped back.

"Well I'm glad you've gotten something I can't have today. Maybe you should tell me more about that urban myth of yours." He replied with a sarcastic tone that made me want to hang up on him again.

"Look, let's make this quick. Are we under attack?"

"No."

"Is people dying?"

"No."

"Is there a threat of war?"

"No."

"Okay then, I'm off to bed. Goodnight." I said, swiping at my phone's disconnect icon. But instead of hitting the hang-up icon, I ended up hitting the speaker, making Shining's voice obnoxiously loud. I snapped out of my rest and angrily scanned the screen to see the red icon missing from the queue. Already, I knew the reason for that happening. "...Discord, I need my hang-up icon onscreen, please."

"Again, you should really hear this one out." He replied, making me throw my fist into the air, punching my arms into nothing as I sat up and spoke to Shining again.

"Make it quick Shining. I've got stubborn parents to please when I wake up."

If anything, I could've called Shining's response nothing short of a complete bitch-fit. "You try sitting on a train for five hours, staying in a doctor's office for another twelve, catching up with some imperial paperwork for the majority of a day, going back to the doctor's office for an hour, dealing with your stressed-out wife for another three, and then riding back to get a signal on one of these damn things. I just arrived in Canterlot to talk with you about this. If I have to spend another hour hunting you down in YOUR world to do so, then I won't mind the time."

I couldn't help but to reciprocate the emotions displayed to me through the phone. "Oooookaay. What is the problem?"

"The problem is that our plan ran into a hell of a snag. So we're gonna have to get our shit together and fast. Waiting's not much of an option anymore."

I rolled my eyes as I questioned the prince. "Did Blueblood say that?"

"No. I did." He answered quickly.

"Then don't you think we should be a little more conservative instead of just rushing in? Yes it's me of all people saying that shit, but the argument still stands." I replied.

"Nondis, please work with me."

"How about you chill and tell me what's making you so irrational?" I asked.

The prince sighed before he started his explanation. "I have a lot on my mind. And I know when I get back to the Crystal Empire, Cadance is going to kill me because I left her there alone. I'm already doing good by getting her to go to sleep before I took the train back here. And now I'm here talking to you because I have no fucking clue on what I should do next."

Yeah, he's really in a panic. I don't think I've heard him talk like this since... ever. At least my waking up a little pointed me out to that fact and I inevitably became a little more patient. "Okay, but what's the problem? You're running me in a circle expecting me to find the answer somewhere except where the problem actually is. Can't lead a horse to water if you're busy beating around the bush."

"When we showed up to the doctor's office, we had to undergo a few tests and treatments to get Cadance to recover from her sickness. But then the doctors had us taking the same test over and over and over, almost like they were trying to make sure what they were seeing was happening. So they sent us out, a day goes by and our messenger calls for us to return to the doctor." Shining paused for a moment as he took the time to catch his breath. "They found something in her urine sample, chorionic gonadotropin. Soon as the doctor said that, Cadance passed out immediately."

Something in her urine, that doesn't sound healthy. "What the fuck does that mean? Is it cancerous or something?" I questioned with genuine concern for her health.

Shining quietly whispered through the receiver. "Nondis... Cadie's pregnant."

Yikes, it's been a while. I'm sorry for the extended absence. To be honest, I was just caught up in my annual summer malestrom of gigs and engagements to where I was more invested in practice and hand preservation due to the frequency of the gigs I had to perform in. And traveling between Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana by car was nothing short of taxing. Anything further than that will have to be on a damn plane, at least then I could spend the free time hacking through chapters.

But again, thanks for reading and I will see you all shortly (I'd like to say, but who knows if gigs don't start to pick up again.