Twilight Velvet was a mare who took joy in the simple things in her life: Coffee, reading the morning paper, coffee, completing crosswords, coffee, analysis of biological samples and, on rare occasions, coffee.

For the most part, she lived a stress-free and productive life. Her daughter was going to a nice college whose Principle was paying for her tuition, and she had just received a special medal for completing an important essay, her son had become a security guard at Floormart and her husband was definitely not up to anything devious in the evening - or something along those lines, anyway. Life was quiet, and that was just the way she enjoyed it.

During the night in which the Dragon emissary arrived at Canterlot, Mrs. Velvet was sitting in her personal lab, which she had designed herself, working to analyse DNA samples which her daughter had sent to her around a month ago. It was nearing one in the morning, and yet she showed no signs of stopping.

“Fascinating…” Mrs. Velvet muttered to herself, reading the results of various tests. She smiled gently and took a sip of coffee. “Yes, I do believe I’ve cracked it…” She set the data down onto her desk. “One last test should be enough to know with certainty…”

Sadly for Mrs. Velvet, she did not notice the shadowy figure who approached her from behind, nor did she notice conspicuous metal pipe they swung.

As unsatisfied as she had been with Cloud’s nondescript, unquestionably TV Y actions, Mawr had gained the energy she needed to survive in the desert for a short while.

“Was it really that bad?” Cloud asked croakily, his throat sore.

“You missed twice, lasted ten seconds and cried into a pillow for an hour,” Mawr reminded him, frowning. “Yeah, I’d say it was pretty bad.”

Cloud’s gaze fell to the ground and another tear ran down his face.

“Go into the kitchen and eat,” Mawr instructed, “I need to check for a few things before leave.”

Cloud nodded sadly before trudging into the kitchen.

Mawr rolled her eyes. Idiot… She walked back into the library room. Rather than look at any books, she made her way to a small safe at the foot of the front desk. Cloud had not noticed the safe, nor did most Horses who visited the library, but Mawr was more perceptive than most. She transformed into a Gryphon to improve her hearing, then knelt down, pressed her ear against the metal and began trying to crack the safe.

It took her thirty minutes, but Mawr finally managed to get the safe open. She took a moment to smirk before turning back to her normal form.

Inside the safe was a little amount of paper money; sandpaper. One note of sandpaper was equivalent to five bits, and in the safe were a dozen notes rolled up and tied with a small amount of string.

While the holes in the legs of most Changelings went directly through, on rare occasion a Changeling would have a few with cavities larger than their entrances. Being one of these Changelings, Mawr often stored small objects within her leg cavities - such as the map of Saddle Arabia and the roll of sandpaper she had taken from the safe. You may be wondering what happens to these objects when she transforms: The shorter and less gruesome answer is that they stay in exactly the same place. It would be a poor idea for Mawr to transform into anything particularly small while storing items within her cavities.

“Alright, I’m done,” Cloud called out as he walked through to the library room. “I’m ready to leave.”

“Good,” Mawr replied. “Let’s fly out of the window, it’ll be much faster.” Plus I can’t turn into anything small right now anyway…

“Alright.” Cloud nodded. “Are your wings still injured?”

“Yes,” Mawr growled. “Asshole…”

“Then I’ll make the Support Circle big enough for the both us.” Cloud closed his eyes, focused slightly and summoned a Support Circle. Sure enough, it was big enough for the both of them. I’m becoming much more efficient at this, he thought to himself as Mawr walked onto the circle. Ideally, I should be able to become better with the Shock Circle too, with enough practice.

Both aboard the circle, Mawr and Cloud were ready to-

“Wait, crap, I need to open a window first,” said Mawr walking off again.

Cloud floated along behind her as to avoid the awkward scenario of waiting for her to walk back. My jimmies are rustled just thinking about it…

After opening a window, Mawr walked back onto the circle and the two of them flew outside. Cloud took them upwards, high enough that they wouldn’t noticed, before flying west by Mawr’s instruction. They traveled like this for a good hour before finally landing and dismissing the Support Circle.

“Alright, where are we going?” Cloud asked. “How far is it to the next town?”

“We need to go to… ugh…” Mawr groaned. “This entire fucking thing is stupid. All I wanted to do was kill things, get paid, and maybe go bowling. Now I’m walking through a desert with a Pony with no name.”

“Hey, at least it feels good to be out of the rain,” Cloud replied.

Mawr groaned again.

“We need to keep our spirits up and-!”

“You know, if there was ever a time to be stressed about your situation, now would be the time.”

Cloud blinked. “Stressed?” He laughed nervously. “W-Why would I be stressed? Things are looking up and…!” His positive attitude finally broke down. “Yeah, okay. My life is fucking atrocious right now.” He sighed. “Screw trying to be an optimist, let’s just go.”

They started walking.

After apologizing to Princess Celestia countless times for Spike’s actions, Twilight (Sparkle, that is) decided she needed to spend some time with people who weren’t idiots. It was for this reason that she went to her parents’ home, and it was for this reason she discovered the front door broken down.

“Mom?” She called, lighting up her horn. “Dad? Hello?” Please just be wacky hijinks, please just be wacky hijinks, please just be wacky hijinks… Her hopes were extinguished upon noticing drops of blood leading either to or from her mother’s personal laboratory.

Twilight gulped before pushing the door open. Her jaw dropped.

“M-Mom?!”

Author's Notes:

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_THejnk424

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I finally get to use the picture!
It's the biggest, best and my favourite of anything I've done so far and it took eight solid hours of work!
Here's a link to the full res version!