Chapter 61

1-11-15, 4:30 A.M.

Jeremy had woken up bright and early, savoring the pre-dawn hours as he got ready to depart for his flight back to Ohio. The last of the Christmas cookies had long since departed, and with no more parties or gatherings to put together, he and his wives were mainly concentrated on getting him back to school. Jeremy had attempted to make plans for the summer as well, but they were having none of it – Chrysalis had insisted that he take the summer off and spend more time with them, and the two princesses had agreed. Jeremy could almost hear Celestia talking about how he needed to start ‘integrating himself more effectively into Equestrian life’ as he cooked a quick breakfast. He smiled at the memory, and hurriedly ate before stepping outside into the cold Seattle winter.

The plane flight was, as usual, long and boring. Jeremy slept through half of it, and only woke himself up to watch as they landed – that never got old. He’d brought back more than a few comforts of home this time, as the last semester he had been too distracted by Equestria to think about what he could do in his off time. He was still stretching out his legs by the time he made his way to the train platform, and as he waited for the train to arrive, he was reminded of another conversation they’d had over winter break.

1-6-15, 9:28 P.M.

Jeremy gulped nervously as he made his way downstairs. He’d just gotten a message claiming there was a ‘family meeting’ occurring in two minutes, and he wasn’t sure if he was in trouble or if something else had gone horribly wrong. Catching sight of his three wives sitting around the table as though this were an important business conference wasn’t exactly helping, either. Chrysalis smirked at him as he took a seat.

“You’d think from the looks of things we were about to announce a divorce. Relax, nothing’s wrong,” she soothed, and Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief.

“I dunno about you three, but here on Earth, ‘we need to talk’ is the number-one sentence said before a breakup,” he answered with a short laugh. Celestia merely smiled as she sipped her tea, but Jeremy thought he could detect a gleam of interest in her eyes as she glanced back at him – and was that nervousness? By now thoroughly interested himself, he gazed around at the other three. “So… what are we talking about?” he asked after a short pause. At this, the three mares seemed to freeze up.

Finally, Chrysalis took a deep breath. “We want kids!” she blurted, then covered her mouth with her hooves.

Jeremy raised both his eyebrows – which, to anyone who knew him, was an expression of utmost shock. “All three of you,” he clarified, and Celestia and Luna slowly nodded.

Jeremy took a moment to consider this. Did he really want kids? Sure, the thought sounded nice – he’d heard plenty of romanticism on the part of childbearing families on the subject. But, on the other hand, he’d been a kid not so long ago himself – and he had been one of the worse ones, in his opinion. A bratty, loudmouth, cheating, lying, stealing, stubborn little kid – did he really want to put up with that for years on end? He decided to get more information on the subject.

“What are… what are kids like, on your end?” he carefully asked the three.

Celestia and Luna gave each other a look, before turning to Chrysalis. Grumpily, Chrysalis turned to Jeremy and began. “Changeling grubs are pretty much like what you saw in the hive most of the time – they’ll do just about anything for attention and love,” she explained briefly.

Jeremy smiled, thinking back to the many changeling babies he’d met – at all times, they’d presented themselves as nothing short of adorable. “Well, if that’s all, I can certainly handle that,” he claimed, satisfied. Chrysalis gave him a surprised look, and he returned it. “What? They don’t require food, changing, or anything like that, just cuddling and love, right? Most parents would kill for a child that easy to handle,” Jeremy retorted, stopping his smirk only when Celestia and Luna winced. “Oh, right, sorry. Uh… most parents would… Ah, you know what I mean,” he huffed. He’d been trying to tone down the inherent violence of his culture, but occasionally something like that would slip through, and ponies would look at him like he’d just said he wanted to murder Twilight Sparkle in public.

“Well, pony foals do require that kind of care,” Luna reminded him.

Jeremy nodded. “I know, just saying that changelings didn’t. Anyway, go on?” he prompted.

This time Celestia spoke up. “What you’ve seen on the show of the Cake twins and Cutie Mark Crusaders is, for the most part, an accurate synopsis – though most foals are less… headstrong,” she finished, looking guilty – Jeremy often wondered if it was actually difficult for her to think ill of her subjects.

He gave a thoughtful hum. “Well, that sounds doable as well. Really, the only thing I can think of that would convince me to not have kids right now is our culture’s insistence that we wait until we’re in our 20’s – and seeing as I’m not going to age…” he trailed off, still thinking.

“Thy birthmother had thee when she was but a year older than thou,” Luna pointed out – this had come up in the few conversations about Jeremy’s childhood that he had been able to tolerate.

“True, but I don’t think that was a wise decision – after all, I was adopted…” Jeremy rebutted. Luna considered this, finally giving a snort of frustration.

Celestia looked at her, amused, before turning back to Jeremy. “Well, as our relationship can attest to, you’ve never been one for ‘following the rules’, so to speak,” she replied, and this stumped Jeremy for a moment.

He thought about this for a solid minute, finally coming up with a blank – they had him there. “Okay, well, if you three really think I can handle it, then I suppose we can give it a shot.”

From there, they had moved on to discussing the ‘how’. Jeremy had been quick to point out that he was genetically incompatible with all three of them in terms of offspring, and Chrysalis was just as quick to rebut that hybridized offspring were possible, as well as genetic transformation.

“Would that be… permanent?” Jeremy asked cautiously.

Chrysalis shook her head, giggling slightly. “No, we could change you back at any time. After all, we’ve had plenty of opportunity to ‘study’ your body…” All four suppressed chuckles.

“Well, I suppose that takes care of that. Turn into a pony, have a wild night, and wait… how many months do your species ‘carry’?” Jeremy asked.

“About eleven months,” Luna informed him, and Jeremy raised an eyebrow. Nine months was bad enough, but eleven? Wow. Mares must be incredibly resilient to be able to do that, he reflected.

“Gestation takes about two months for the average changeling – faster if there’s a lot of love available,” Chrysalis continued. Jeremy raised his eyebrows at her.

“Just two months? Impressive,” he remarked. Judging from the expressions on Celestia and Luna’s faces, this came as news to them as well.

“Not quite, I’m not done,” Chrysalis replied irritably. “That’s for drones. For queens, gestation takes a lot longer – anywhere between six months to a year, and the egg is almost always a queen egg. Queens usually didn’t breed much until they were near the end of their cycle, but with our relatively new societal structure, it’d probably be best to raise a changeling queen normally rather than dump the responsibility on them,” Chrysalis finished.

“Agreed,” Jeremy responded simply.

They had discussed the myriad other aspects of raising children, and ended the conversation with the usual kisses and hugs. After that, Chrysalis had taken him upstairs, as it was her day of the week, and Jeremy grinned as she led him along.

1-11-15, 7:02 A.M.

Jeremy’s memory-induced grin slid off his face as he realized he was late for his boarding group, and he hurriedly packed up his stuff and made his way to the line. Apart from the usual mild crowding issues, he got on the plane without incident, and texted his wives a status update. With that done, he turned his phone to airplane mode and settled back in the plane seat – it was going to be a long and restless ride. After he had watched the plane take off from inside the window with all the fascination that such an event demanded, Jeremy settled back once more and closed his eyes, figuring he should get some shuteye. Before he quite made it into dreamland, however, another memory made its way to the surface…

1-8-15, 3:22 P.M.

“Ethan! It’s been all of one day since I last saw you, how’s life been?” Jeremy asked as the aforementioned veteran traipsed through his front door.

“Move-in to the Roaming Hive finished yesterday – and Myocia still thinks I should’ve packed more,” Ethan mock-complained. Jeremy laughed and motioned him over to the counter, where Jeremy quickly began preparing a drink.

“Anything new with you?” he asked, as Ethan took a seat and politely waited.

“Nah, except all the other queens are ticked at Myocia. They all say it’s because she married too quickly for a queen of her composure, but she and I both know they just want a piece of this hot action,” Ethan joked, motioning to his chest. Jeremy chuckled, but took a moment to look Ethan over. Gone were his gaunt, hallowed face and thin chest with visible ribs, and in their place were the beginnings of toned muscle and healthy features. Ethan had kept his shoulder-length, curly brown hair, but it was starting to look significantly better-kept.

“So, are the other queens even allowed to try, with you married?” Jeremy asked in return.

Ethan hummed in thought. “Well, the rules for ‘normal’ marriage are already right properly screwed, as you know, because of the whole ‘interspecies’ thing and stuff. So… I dunno, maybe? If it did work out, I could maybe do a series of marriages or something like that,” Ethan mused out loud.

He trailed off, mumbling to himself as he became lost in thought, and Jeremy set down the finished drink in front of him. “Oh, what, no alcohol?” Ethan said after a moment, having finally noticed his drink.

“I don’t keep alcohol in the house, for age reasons,” Jeremy explained. Ethan grumbled, taking a reluctant sip of the beverage.

“One day, you and I are gonna go out to an Equestrian bar and get hella drunk,” he admonished sternly, as though educating Jeremy on a life lesson.

Jeremy snorted in amusement. “Not likely – I don’t think my public reputation would be strong enough to survive that.” Ethan considered this for a moment.

“What is your P.R. at the moment, anyway? Last I heard, the civvies like you just fine, but I haven’t heard jack from the higher-ups besides the princesses themselves.”

Jeremy shrugged, now ruminating on this as well. “No idea. Every time I ask, they always tell me it’s nothing to worry about and that they’ll take care of anything that goes wrong.”

Ethan looked at him askance as he took a sip. “You sure that’s a good plan? Seems like something’s gonna boil over eventually, and then you’ll all be in for it.” Jeremy rolled his eyes.

“That’s what I said,” he grumbled in response, and Ethan laughed.

“Ah well, Canterlot nobility can’t be all that bad – especially compared to their Earth counterparts. Imagine if we had to deal with Congress, for example.” This successfully put a smile back onto Jeremy’s face as he contemplated the thought of having to deal with human politicians.

1-11-15, 8:30 P.M.

Jeremy sighed in relief as he collapsed onto the hotel bed, kicking off his shoes and pulling out his phone. Once he had texted his mares about his arrival, he set about unpacking the bare necessities for the night: Toiletries, a pair of pajamas, and a few other things. They quickly responded back in acknowledgement, and Jeremy smiled as he slowly got up to take a shower – he’d spent upwards of six hours sitting in place, and it had been bothering him for quite some time.

Once he got out of the shower, skin still slightly steaming from the hot water, he pulled out his laptop and checked his email. Finding nothing of interest, he browsed around for a brief period and then decided to go to sleep, as he’d be catching the train back to campus tomorrow and it was quite a walk.

As Jeremy dozed off, he became aware of a persistent buzzing, as though someone were mentally trying to reach him. Before he could discern if it was actually anything of note, however, he fell asleep.

To his surprise, he ‘awakened’ immediately in the dream world, Luna by his side.

“There thou art! We were just trying to reach thee, when thou decided t’would be a good idea to fall asleep!” Luna chided.

“Sorry, didn’t know. What’s up?” Jeremy asked, as the scene around them shifted to a memory of the royal castle. At this, Luna stopped puffing up her chest in indignation and almost looked contrite.

“Ah… well… we were to inform thee that perhaps it would be best if thou didst avoid returning to Equestria for some time,” she told him.

Jeremy’s jaw could have hit the floor. “Wha- what happened, what did I do?” he asked, mind racing.

"Nay, tis’ not thy fault – well….” Luna paused for a moment in consideration. “No. Thou hast done nothing wrong. Just… do it? For us?” she asked. Jeremy looked at her – what was even going on?

“O…kay…” he finally answered, still very confused and more than a little dismayed.

“We thank thee, and would like to apologize – this was not our intention for thy return to school,” she sadly remarked, head lowered.

“It’s okay, I’m sure you have a good reason,” Jeremy comforted her, wishing he could comfort himself. At this, Luna looked away, seemingly more uncomfortable than ever.

“Yes… er… bye!” she called over her shoulder as she teleported out of the memory.

For a moment, Jeremy was left standing there, even more thoroughly confused than he had been a minute ago, and slightly wishing the conversation had never happened. However, Luna’s usual dream enchantment wore off just a few seconds later, and his conscious mind slowly slipped away once more as his dreams took back over.

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