“Wakey, wakey sleepyhead!” Mom’s hazy voice sang, her melodic tones rattling my brain like a private HoofBeats concert in my head. Something was wrong with my head…

“Nnnnnppphhh…” I managed to grunt out, opening one eye but instantly closing it as sunlight drove a spear of white hot pain into my retina. “Gahhh! What the fuck is going on?!”

“Oh! Right!” Mom apologized in a soft tone, the faint glow that made it through my eyelids dimming significantly. “Sorry Athena…”

When my head stopped pounding enough for me to try opening my eyes again, I found I was still in mom’s bed wrapped snugly in her comforter. The lights were off and the big window overlooking Center Park was draped thickly in blinds casting the room in a soft, comforting glow as the sun filtered through the fabric. Vague memories meandered slowly through my head of the night before and I jolted more awake when I remembered exactly what had happened. I had made love to my mom. No, that was too soft given the kinky shit she and I had done together. I had fucked my mom. Sure I had thought about that and maybe gotten off to the idea before now but I never actually thought it was actually gonna fucking happen! Was it the alcohol? Had I seduced her into something she didn’t want to do? Did she even remember what the hell just happened?! Oh I was so fucked...

“For a first time drunk, you held your liquor like a champ!” She hummed softly, her soft furry muzzle nuzzling my cheek tenderly, the smell of musky peaches and crisp fresh mint heavy on her fur and breath only bringing back more lewd memories to mind. “You definitely inherited my liver, that’s for sure. Well, maybe not entirely but like...83% or something.”

“M-mom...I’m s-so sorry…” I whispered, fighting back tears as the pounding in my head was exacerbated to excruciating levels by the frantic beating of my heart.

“For what?” She asked in a confused tone, my eyes screwed shut against the pain again. “It’s not like you puked on the carpet or something. Even then I wouldn’t have been that mad about it, I did that my first time and you put down a lot more shots than I did my first time out with my friends. You think I was too drunk? You should have seen Rose Luck and Lily that night. Those two had their heads in the toilet for so long we had to go check on them three whole times to make sure they didn't drown trying to make out with the damn toilet. Ugh...don't miss those benders...”

She didn’t get it. We had committed a rather serious crime and I had inadvertently drugged her in a sense. It’s not like I gave much of a damn about the law but mom was a law-abiding pony for Celestia’s sake! How could she have let me act out my horny lusts with her? Where was the punishment? The scolding? The possible disownment….?

“M-mom...we h-had sex mom…” I whimpered, feeling the chaffing on my fetlocks from where I had struggled vainly against her binds before giving way to the passion.

“Yeah we did!” She laughed, laying down beside me as the sound of a lighter clicking sounded in my ear followed by gentle breathing in. “Goddamn I haven’t had that much fun in bed in years. You definitely inherited my flair for the kinky things in life...Hucks is a lucky girl to have that mouth of yours between her thighs every night. Err...whenever you two get a chance that is.”

A sweet, flowery smell tainted the air as she breathed out and I opened my eyes to see her laying beside me with a satisfied smile on her face and a Red Berryl pipe in her hoof, a dried nugget of the red and yellow flower softly glowing in the bowl. It wasn't just a simple pipe either like the small ones busted out in the backs of bars and trains I was used to. No, she owned a goddamn custom blown one shaped like a toothbrush with the bowl resting in the center of the blue-and-white bristles in her trademarked colors. It was just so sudden that I couldn't even come up with something to say in response to all the what-the-fuck going on.

“What? I know you’re not a drinker but you expect me to believe you haven’t snuck a toke in your life?” She asked me sounding almost offended as she cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Well yeah but...you?” I asked, stuck between feeling mortified mom was a drug user and proud to be the daughter of such a fucking dope ass mom. "What, white wine after dinner got too boring for you in your old age?"

She sighed and took another long drag on her pipe, the happy orange smoke flowing through the clear glass and into her mouth before she breathed out, the smoke now a faintly sparkly gold color and gracing the air with an aromatic flowery scent like walking through the flower market you could almost feel.

“Yes, me.” She said, seeming completely relaxed and content. “Rose Luck got me into it in college after we ended up as roommates in our Freshmare year. My college required you to live on campus with an assigned roommate so I couldn't just live at home like I wanted. I’m just glad I got her instead of someone like Blueberry Scone or what’s her bucket...that one mare with the dorky hat she always wore. Anywho, best thing after a good fucking is a bowl of Berryl and a good cuddle in the bathtub. Well, that or curling up in front of the T.V to watch some TLC-Trottingham. Speaking of...I wonder if that one place with the gorgeous veranda sold. You ask me, the asking price was a little much, even for Trottingham...”

Her logic was exactly along the same lines as my own but that’s what surprised me the most. Growing up she was the slightly raunchy, mostly refined dentist mom everypony associated with oral hygiene and a string of pearls and sapphires that she always wore with her work uniform. In this moment however, it was like she had taken up the mantle of that rebellious older sister everyone seemed to secretly want when they were younger. The one that taught you to take shots and how to snag boys when mom and dad weren’t home and who went through a box of condoms faster than a box of pizza on a weekend. I had inherited a lot from this side of her I was beginning to realize.

“Mind sharing…?” I asked, hoping this wouldn’t aggravate my hangover.

“Sure thing.” She giggled softly, putting the surprisingly light pipe in my hoof and showing me how to get the proper hit from the bowl without inducing a coughing fit. The whole process was simple to learn and was really just a fancy course in breathing techniques.

I breathed in and was greeted with the surprising flavor of glazed pineapple doughnuts, a wispy feeling flowing through my mouth and into my lungs; the world around me slowing softly into a hazy, whimsical doldrum. Surprisingly...the pain in my head seemed to evaporate like morning dew and everything was right in the world. Literally puff and everything went poof right along with it. I had taken some hits of Berryl as a teen but either I had memory problems or this shit hit a lot harder than I seemed to remember.

“It’s got the added bonus of curing a hangover thanks to the inaprovaline in its nectar which is the most therapeutic part of the plant.” Mom giggled happily, kissing my cheek and tracing her hoof down my chest. “Saved my ass so many times before class let me tell you. I'm so glad there's such a huge underground market for this stuff now. Apparently there's more than one type of Berryl too!”

Within another puff of the pipe my headache was entirely gone and all was right in the world. Mom made a passing comment about letting me rest up from the night before and turned on the rather large television she had in her bedroom right across from her bed. She tuned into a cooking channel teaching you how to cook with prepackaged foods seeing as those were all the rage these days in modern households. As she adjusted the volume to the right level, she curled up into me and cuddled me in her grasp, petting my head and stomach while kissing my ear and sighing happily. Every so often we would pass the pipe to the other filling the room with flowery, golden smoke as every puff brought tranquility to our minds.

“So whatcha gonna wanna do is prep ya oven fer 350 degrees and open up ya box of Fancy Filly Snack Cakes!” The overly enthusiastic southern accented mare said cheerfully, opening her box of snack cakes and holding one up to show off. “Fancy Filly Snack Cakes is ah proud supporter of Cookin’ Fancy with Cherry Jubilee an’ comes complete with ahll th’ nutrients your foal needs tah grow up big n’ healthy! Fancy Filly Snack Cakes comes wit’ ah three-hundred year freshness guarantee or yer money back!”

“Three-hundred years?” Mom snickered, picking up the remote to change the channel. “Who the fuck would want to eat even hundred year old snack cakes? They’re not even that good.”

“They keep you in business though right?” I said lazily, the haze of the Red Berryl cushioning every fiber of my existence.

“Yeah, but doesn’t mean I sell out to them like she does. I mean, could you believe me if I supported that crap at my office? I even published an article to Shining Ivories explicitly examining the ingredient list of those cakes. Nutrients my ass...only thing you’ll find in there that’s on the food pyramid is fat and sugar.”

“Isn’t flour in cake?” I asked, reaching for the pipe as she took it from my hoof and set it on the nightstand. “That’s a grain...product...thing, right?”

“Humph, yes but only if it’s made from actual grains.” She snorted, floating in some breakfast cereal and milk for us to eat in bed. “Those cakes are made from a synthetic grain-like substitute called Wheat-X...tastes like the real thing but is anything but the real thing. They say in the ingredient list it doesn’t contain wheat but...common, who actually reads the ingredient list and nutritional facts these days? And that's even assuming they print all of them on there to begin with.”

“I subsist mainly on MREs these days so...I guess I’m one of those who doesn’t give much of a fuck…” I mumbled, watching as she flipped through the channels looking for something interesting to watch. "They don't really allow that kinda shit into Camp..."

“Well at least those are strictly regulated by the EFDA.” She sighed as she settled for the news channel given every other channel was either blasting Equestrian propaganda of some sort or was mindless drivel like the cooking channel. “They have to know exactly what kind of crap they’re feeding you so you can all remain stuffed full of calories on the go. I can only imagine the kind of workout you get everyday down there. Judging by last night, I'd say you're in even better shape than me at your age because damn did it take a lot to wear you out. I ain't as young and spry as I used to be, heh.”

I laughed lazily and glanced down at my lean, toned body. Even with the hell of a workout mom had given me the night before and all the sweat and juices that had soaked my grey fur, I was still surprisingly well groomed. In fact, my fur looked like it did after Huckleberry groomed me like a momma cat with her kitten…

“Oh...I couldn’t resist.” She replied after I had asked her about it. “After you passed out I didn’t want to potentially drown you in the shower and...you just taste magnificent. Before I knew it I had made it all the way up to your chest. It was...rather therapeutic to be honest. I can see why big momma cats purr so loud when they groom their 'lil cuties.”

“Ah…heh, well I'm glad to help?” I laughed shyly, my eyes being drawn back to the T.V as she flicked past the same news channel from the day before; a split second view of a very familiar face causing me to exclaim the need to change the channel back for a second. I knew that stallion...

“...Though as to why he decided to betray the Ministry of Morale, let alone Equestria itself, is still unknown in the wake of this horrifying report. This is an ongoing breaking-news report.” The anchor said in a bold but nervous tone, mom looking at me inquisitively then back at the television screen as the channel audio kicked in at the end of her sentence.

In the right side of the screen was a picture of a stallion with short brown hair, simple glasses and a business-casual style business suit. The same exact stallion I had met in Four-Star station the day before. I knew from my meeting with him he was someone of importance but...I had to keep listening. Betray the Ministry of Morale...? My guess as to him being someone government was correct it seemed and involvement with M.O.M would explain his uncanny headcount of the surveillance being employed at the station. Fucking hell, what was going on?

“As part of the investigation, it has been...hold on. I have incoming information from our producer with a live update..." The anchor paused to lift a hoof to an EarBloom in her ear before nodding and returning her attention to the camera. "We have confirmation now of the name of the suspect. The suspect has been identified by law-enforcement as Mr. Winter Snow, a veteran analyst in the Electronics Division of the Ministry of Morale who has a warrant out for his arrest in response to a massive data breach of classified Hexagon documents earlier today. As stated previously, these classified documents were published by Mr. Snow in an article published in the Equestrian Daily newspaper titled, 'The Fault in Our Sun: How the Ministries Betrayed Equestria. Police affiliated with this case have notified us that the suspect has already fled the country and is now thought to be under asylum in the Kingdom of Griffinstone. Efforts are underway to extradite him from the country, however it appears that the Königreich von Greifenländer has sought to intervene on the behalf of its sister-kingdom on the grounds of Griffin/Gryphon sovereignty. As both countries allied willingly with NEATO rather than face annexation, Equestrian rule-of-law cannot apply there leaving the government with little recourse during these troubling times. This is an ongoing breaking-news story and we will update you with more information on the case as it unfolds. I'm Newsworthy Times, this has been Equestria News Daily.”

“Oh my gods…” I whispered, the cool, suave look of Snow staring back at me as if challenging me before vanishing to a commercial break pitching new Sparkle-Cola Cherry soda.

“What? Did you have the hots for him or something before all this? Is this like the whole Mac-Belle breakup scandal from a few years ago?” Mom asked as she reached across the bed to snag a bottle of Treehugger Rum set on the nightstand.

“Mom…” I sighed, rubbing my eyes slowly. “No. He’s a weird, creepy dude I met at Four-Star right before you got there to get me. He kept talking about the government and surveillance and even said he chose my spot because it was some sort of blind spot in the station that the cameras couldn’t see. The whole fucking thing was kinda freaky...”

“Oh? Huh, cool.” She said after wiping her mouth with the back of her hoof and licking the rum from off her fur.

“You’re being very cool about this…” I said suspiciously.

“I don’t really see a reason to get worked up over him.” She replied closing her eyes. “It’s not like he did anything.”

“Did you not hear what he did?” I asked her in exasperation.

“Yeah, I did Athena.” She said bluntly. “He's done exactly what thousands of others around him, before him and certainly long after him have, are or will do. You don’t think that this kind of corporate espionage and whistle-blowing hasn’t been happening for decades? Or still is? Hell it’s a million times worse nowadays thanks to this damn War throwing big budgets around like a clown with candy. Before now the worst it got was when those two coffee brands had that major advertising battle that blew up into a lawsuit a few years back. Even then, the paper trail clearly pointed to a bought-out third-party auditor who used his access to Jitterz Beans financial records to blackmail them into easing up on the advertising campaign or else risk their trade secrets getting leaked to the competition. Whole damn thing stretches back yearsssss, even back to when I was a filly so it was crazy to see those two blow up like that...”

I stared at her as she trailed off into silence wondering just how much ENPR mom had been listening to lately as she seemed even more well informed than usual. I had grown up listening to ENPR alongside her for all our favorite programs. She liked NewsHour from the TTC World-Service from Trottingham and Everything's Considered from PRX while I liked the weekly trivia games like Wait-Wait, Please Tell Me and Science Fridays. Growing up I never really wondered why we listened to that more than the regular radio stations. It just kinda was always there and I always liked to be taking in information when I had a down moment. It was so bad as a filly that if I didn't have a book to read or the radio to listen to as I ate my meals I would inwardly start to panic from the lack of information input. In retrospect, it was thanks to my ADD I was the way I was on that but it set a precedent that I couldn't shake even as an adult. If I couldn't eat with my Squad who would more than keep my mind occupied, I was in the company of books, magazines, field guides, maps, pamphlets...anything that had enough interesting shit on it to keep me occupied until my plate was empty.

“Look...long story short, this Winter guy is just like any of the other bozos out there selling insider secrets to the highest bidder, only difference is he got caught and the info for sale was pretty large. Doesn't change the fact that this case is only on the news because of what he leaked.” She said simply, rubbing her eyes before taking a long toke on the pipe, blowing out slowly and forming a perfect smoke ring that slowly faded into the air like a halo of gold dust.

“But...what if he...what if I…” I stammered, thinking immediately of my gun and the spare ammo I had packed in my duffle bag as well as the small pocket pistol I kept stashed away in my tail just in case I was about to be assaulted by the Royal Guard or molested by M.O.M.

“Nothing is going to happen to you, Athena.” Mom said softly with a slight airiness to her voice. “They won’t take you in just because he happened to sit down next to you at a train station. You didn’t know who he was as far as I know did you?”

I shook my head slowly, intentionally blocking out the horror coming from the television screen and taking solace in mom’s voice.

“Exactly. Worse they can do is just take you in for brief questioning and then send that pretty little butt of yours back home to bed with mummy where it belongs.” She growled playfully, rubbing my chest with the tip of her hoof.

Suddenly I was reminded at how much more...thorough my last detainment had been and I was overcome with a slight wave of nausea, the faint aching in my shoulders still noticeable from the day before and a night of heavy drinking and sex.

“You’ve gone a bit clammy darling, and your heart rate is up. What’s bothering you?” She asked with gentle concern as her head laid on my chest.

“Mom...there’s something I gotta tell you…” I began, feeling like a fifteen year old filly who had just decided that week to officially come out to her mom all over again. As much as I missed fillyhood, that experience ranked up there with the worst shit about puberty. I came out of that talk alive and still loved and understood by mom so I guess it all turned out ok in the end. Just like it would here.

“My Goddesses…” Mom swore under her breath a solid forty-minutes later after I had explained everything that had been happening the last two weeks or so, a mandatory bathroom break happening right in the middle of my exposition dump. “My Mummy-Senses have been going crazy the last few weeks...I constantly worry about you but these instinctual… taps on the shoulder in the dead of night...they finally make sense.”

“Ma’am, I perceive that thou art a prophet. What other little ticks or mannerisms do you have that tickle whenever you think about me?” I asked her with a small smile to lighten the mood as I usually tried to do to avoid needless anxiety.

“Ha...if I were a prophet, you think I would have gone into dentistry?” She asked with a snort, pulling a long string of floss deep from out of her mane followed by a small box of toothpicks. “Cavities you can generally see with ponies, especially after all that junk food that’s polluting the shelves. You would think a mare could find some decent tomatoes at the market but by Celestia there is nothing fresh anymore that’s sold in the big cities unless you go to the hippy side of town where they’re more into full on environmentally-friendly and nutritional foods. Anywho, if I were a prophet, I’d go into banking.”

“Banking?” I asked, wondering how having psychic powers would help you aside from spotting fraud and/or theft which admittedly would make you employee of the year. “What do you have to gain from there being an assumed psychic?”

“It’s simple really.” She said with a satisfied smile and opening the drawer on a small cabinet/desk she kept in the corner for her personal paperwork and filing purposes, levitating out a modest sized file of papers and bringing it over to us. “I simply join up, gain some credence in the profession and then become a financial consultant of said bank. I’ve got all the research right here.”

I looked at her in surprise as she flipped through some of the material that included news clippings and what looked like a copy of Banking for Eggheads, one of Twilight Sparkle’s earlier book series ideas that had taken off with insane success. Either she was intent on actually switching professions this late in her life or she had been on one of her old Subjectable Hearings. When I was younger and she still had some form of free-time, she would periodically let her inquisitive mind wander a bit and select a subject she had either heard about on ENPR or had discovered on her own and would then analyze the fuck out of it. It was a habit instilled in her after so many years of writing papers, dissertations and the like for school and left her with an intense love of research. With school out of the way, she was much more free to explore the topics she was interested in outside of dentistry and weeks would be poured into these projects. At the end, she would have a fifty-to-five-hundred page file containing detailed, concise notes on the subject and appropriate details from any secondary subject that was pertinent to the research topic. Given her current file seemed cluttered and contained roughly torn news clippings rather than the finely cut edges of more official notes, I assumed she was still in the first draft stages of her process. She certainly had plenty of free-time now that she was in a quasi-retirement and could focus on more than just the day-to-day bullshit of running a company.

“Ok...so you’ll do a lot of good for other people by helping them control their finances. Cool.” I said after blazing through that thought process in a split second. “What else is in it for you? Remember, you’re going in on the assumption that you have psychic powers. Don’t waste its potential with something so...asinine.”

“I’m not.” She grinned. “You see, if I can become an active manager of ponies’ retirement plans, specifically the act of using statistics and such to try and beat the market price for your stock shares, then I have a huge earning potential. I am higher on the chain of income for the bank and so am more than likely to be left anonymous to the retiree unless they request the information in writing. With my abilities, I’ll be able to do a good deed by helping ponies prepare for retirement in this inflated, receding economy and I’ll make bank off of commissions because the average commission rate is about four-grand a stock transaction. The funniest part? The term ‘financial advisor’ doesn’t mean a damn thing! That and ‘wealth manager’ and ‘economical overseer’ and ‘money witch’ and all the other permutations you can think of are all titles that bankers use that mean absolutely nothing and take little-to-no requirements at all for somepony to become one. That being said, that commission though be looking mighty fine in that field.”
"Sooo...what you're telling me is in another life you could have been a psychic banker. A banker? Really?"

“Heh...well if you want to be a cynical little shithead about it, yes. Really. Long story short sweetie is I make money, a lot of money, helping ponies prepare for the future. If Celestia came down right now and accused me of wasting my pretend power on making money, I can show her I have done good things. Of course I will. Would. Donate most of my earnings to charities like the Canterlot Filly Fund, the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame or stand-up comedy. Ever since Fluffy died from obesity a few years ago, music and comedy ain't been the same…”

“As stupid and boring as that sounds...I think that would be the best use of your pseudo powers mom.” I laughed after sitting and thinking about her arguments in greater detail.

“I know what you’d do with it.” She said with a grin while a billion possible uses for psychic powers went through my mind trying to figure out which I was most likely to use it for.

“Oh…?” I asked with a small blush as the obvious passed by unspokenly.

“Figuring out if those poor stallions stuck down there with you are scared enough of you yet so as to not try anything funny.” She giggled with a mischievous grin.

“Huh…” I hummed as the proposition struck that particular chord of amusing irony that saw me choose more than one stupid option in my life just because it struck me in the right ways. “That actually would be something I would do with it to be honest. Amongst dozens of others.”

“I know it is.” She purred as she pulled my head over and onto her chest so she could pet and nuzzle my ears and cheek. “You always loved to make an example of boys. And the best part about it was you were never doing it, and still don’t as far as I know, out of some girl-power agenda. You were just a angsty teenaged filly who hated getting looked at only as a fleshlight and wanted to remind those horny dumbasses that you had muscle and knew how to throw a gut punch hard enough to down someone twice your age. That little bastard nugget Paisley Doily had it coming and I'm glad you showed him what for. That principal was a total ass anyway...”

“So you don’t see me as some wayward daughter acting out against the laws of the land and 'traditional' status-quos?” I asked with a soft coo into her big fluffy blue ear.

“Hardly…” She sighed, pausing yet again to take another long hit on the pipe until the red and gold nugget of Red Berryl was nothing but silvery metallic ash with hints of electric blue scattered throughout like sprinkles on a sundae. “You’re the snarky little girl who studied how to sew skirts and dresses so you knew the best ways to sneak peaks up those wearing them. You’re the sneaky little butt-head who refused to wear diapers by the time you could walk and was potty-trained at the age of two. You’re the sarcastic little know-it-all who punched the best-looking colt in the class for deliberately putting a hillbilly accent with a lisp over his reading of the intro to The Queen of the Crowns when it clearly was meant to be read by a graceful mare from Trottingham. Of course with the accent and ‘fairy’ like mannerisms of the ponies of the Trottingham Lochs with all the proper dainty grace it deserved. *Sigh* I long for those simpler days...”

She pulled me father onto her chest and hugged me tightly against her soft and fragrant chest, nibbling on my ears affectionately after kissing me on the horn.

“You’re the Lieutenant Colonel who’s off destroying the enemy for the sake of her country and her mother’s safety...and who’s always been and always will be the love of my life. You’re my little girl...the accident of my late college years turned miracle of my late life years. I will always support you no matter what my darling.”

I cuddled into her more feeling flushed with pride and love for my long-suffering mother. She had been nothing short of amazing given the tumultuous nature of the world shortly after my birth and had done it all, the endless hours at the office as well as the endless hours spent at home caring for me, as a single mother fresh out of medical school with a short resume to her name. The grace of friends and neighbors kept us solvent as a small family until mom caught a break with the local clinic in PonyVille after their last orthodontist retired. Still...a question always lingered in my mind. My origins were as vague and filled with bad choices as any superhero and I didn’t have any idea which father figure I had to thank for the amazing powers of insane never-ending libido, constant anxiety, slight OCD tendencies, possible cognitive dysfunctions and of course, the curse of the Big Gay with its little trademark sticker in the corner put there by M.O.M. My own mom by contrast would have made the government proud with how much sex she was having with stallions at school. Provided she had kept on fucking like she had before she had me and had a couple more kids to help balance out the casualties on the Fronts. The Meatgrinder needed lives to grind in order to keep on turning after all.

“Still don’t know who my dad is…?” I asked, sorry to break the lazy summer morning peace but curious enough to breach the sacred silence.

“I’m sorry darling…” Mom said after a long sigh and looking at the curtained window. “That was my last semester as a Senior...if I wasn’t blacked out, at work or at school, I was riding every dick within a five-mile radius. All the girls on my floor at CGNU decided we’d have a whore-off where everyone in their Senior year tried to fuck as many people as possible in two-weeks. Bonus points for multiple partners, bigger bonus points for interspecies play and extra bonus points for going bisexual if you’re normally straight. Oh, and you were rewarded with alcohol if you took pictures of it and with small cash rewards for the more kinky things you did. Damn those were the days...you would have loved 'em hun.”

“Did you ever…?” I asked with interest.

“What? Get paid for being a dom or something? Only a few times. I was way more into the offer for Pics-4-Shots. I was totally fine with people on campus seeing a picture of me deepthroating the hoofball quarterback and getting double-boned by one of the better looking guys in the chess club and the library assistant.. Long as I got my next bottle of Firestorm or Treehugger...I was doing alright at school. Sure, I walked with a limp from all the pounding my ass got and I usually had at least some cum somewhere on my body even after a good shower but I passed most of my classes and didn’t get pregnant. Always knew when I was going into heat and would stick to Rosey for that miserable two-and-a-half weeks. Of course...that was until I lost track of time in my Senior year and spent more time drunk than sober...”

“Annnnd I popped in and fucked everything up?” I asked, half-laughing and half-serious.

“Hardly, darling.” She crooned gently, feeling the curve of my flank under her hoof. “You were certainly a surprise as you honestly could have come from any number of thirty-to-forty guys. I let 'em breed me absolutely braindead when I was in heat my last month before graduation. That and I don’t remember which day I forgot to perform a temporary Sterility Spell...the days are hazier now than they were even then.”

“One of forty?” I asked slowly, taking in the sheer scope of the statistical problem my birth had created.

“Somewhere around there…” She said with a lot of remorse. “Darling...I hope you know I truly didn’t plan on having you out of wedlock...I was young, stupid, drunk and in college with the world ahead of me with a booming economy and just a big enough knife to cut me a comfortable slice of the proverbial cake. The moment I first started getting morning sickness and feeling changes in my mood I knew I had to own up for my reckless behavior. I always wanted to have a filly...if not to just tell you to ask your grandmother if you ever asked me what it was like to be raising the best daughter in the world. Speaking of, you never asked me that. Not once in the eighteen-years I raised you did you ever give me the chance to make a good, burning mom joke and I'm kinda miffed about that.”

“That a bad thing?” I asked, hopeful I hadn’t ruined a fillyhood dream of hers.

“Nah…” She sighed with a smile. “You were never the spoiled brat type so that question never thought to pop into your head. That or you had enough respect for me to control even your rather witty sarcasm.”

I rolled my eyes and batted at her ear while she traced circles on my chest and back in a slow, therapeutic fashion. Oh to be five or even six years old again… But, that was decades ago and I am a very different girl than I was back then. Not only mentally but physically as well. My hair (when allowed) was much longer, I was now five-foot four and was a full head taller than most. I had a lot more scars and burns than when I was younger as well, but I suppose most of all I had lost my innocence in the interim of twenty-years separating me from myself. The world was scary back then because I didn’t understand everything that was going on around me. Now the world was even more horrifying and that was only because I knew what the hell was going on. Too well even; more so than most Equestrian citizens or even soldiers I felt. With all the darkness and dread of adulthood sagged my shoulders beneath its weight...it felt better now to have my burdens made lighter by my loving, wonderful mother. As an adult I needed her now more than ever before.

“When do you think you’ll be coming home?” She whispered into my ear in such a soft, pleading tone that even an inch from her mouth I still had a problem hearing her plea. “I don’t mean on leave...I mean for good Athena.”

“I...don’t have an answer for you mom.” I replied shakily as I wondered the same thing. “I'm never told anything anymore about much of anything. As a Vet, I’m relatively well-informed more or less of the situation happening on the Southern Front but as a Lieutenant Colonel...I’m usually left in the dark about stuff going on elsewhere. All I hear about the Eastern Front and the Zulu Campaign are second-hoof stories from radio chatter people overheard and the occasional thrilling tale from an eyewitness who got reassigned to our Front for some reason or another. I don’t get civie news out in the Badlands and even then, I wouldn’t give its reporting skills high praise. Whole thing is too edited and full of propaganda to get any meaningful information out of it anyway.”

“Wait, how do you not know what’s going on?” She asked quickly, lifting my head up so I could see the concern in her eyes. “You’re a goddamn LC, you should know what’s going on!”

“Yeah well in the eyes of the military, I’m a Veteran Ranger and have stewardship over just my Squad and not much else. If it doesn't have anything to do specifically with my Squad, I'm just left outta the loop usually just to save on time wasted in meetings. If anything, ever since I became a Ranger, the hierarchy of the GA is basically just a fancy title and a pay raise for people like me. I have the title but hardly any of the responsibility aside from the addition of the kind of paperwork I did as a Captain. I checked with Colonel Horn about it and he even said, ‘Crete, the thing about promotions around here is that, unless you’re already a desk jockey before your promotion or are seen as a stand-out leader, you could become a fucking General and still only be in charge of a single Fire Squad. Unless yer askin' for it squeaky-wheel style, it's just easier tah keep y'all in yer existing groups.’ Info is kept tight-lipped about just about everything and the only way to make sense of anything is to piece together rumors, accounts and...illegal rummaging through files.”

"That is...disheartening." She sighed softly. "When you talked about the higher-ups being an exclusive club sort of deal, I didn't think it was this bad. Nothing about these promotions has made any sense to me..."

"That's probably thanks to Equestria's modern military being only 40-something years old. Ranks, responsibilities, logistics and everything else is still a complete work-in-progress everywhere you look. I mean, we're fielding three whole Armies with well over 100,000 soldiers in each spread out across five, officially four, Corps with all five expanding in size and scope every year. It's a logistical nightmare from the bottom to the top and quite frankly I'm amazed we've adapted as quickly as we have. From over a thousand years of relative world peace to all-out War in a little less than fifty-years."

"Wouldn't I know it..." She sighed again, this time even harder and sadder than before. "I've lived through that change in real-time. I remember the Little Bighorn Riots of the '50s, the Food Riots of the 40's...I even remember when the first guns started being imported from the Greifenländer at the end of the 20th century when I was still making watches and hourglasses. The world has grown darker the older I get..."

"Do you...regret living for so long...?" I asked softly, asking this for the first time.

"Do I regret having lived with the Elements and winning sixty-plus extra years of good looks and stable health? Never. It let me exhaust all my cutie mark's profession had to offer and let me discover my real passion as well as give me lots of time to actually see it grow and evolve over time. Not many ponies get the chance to evolve their career path outside of what their cutie mark dictates so I consider myself incredibly blessed for the chance to see what it is like to live and work in a profession that is somehow better suited than what my mark dictates. I'm not so bound to Fate as everypony else is."

"Heh...yeah, I forgot you used to be a clockmaker." I laughed having never seen her once pick the trade back up while I was alive as dentistry had become her life by that time.

"Once upon a time!"

She giggled, giving me a playful bop on the head then a noogie which I could feel throwing my mane in all sorts of crazy directions. Then I remembered there were some patches of my hair that mom hadn’t gotten to leaving my fur and mane slightly dry or crunchy from dried cum. Mare cum was better in every way than stallion jizz...but even then, if you didn’t clean it before it dried, it would get flaky and crusty and feel like patches of tree sap stuck to your fur. It was one of a few reasons I kept romps with guys as an occasional thing. That and you could pass off the smell of mare cum as some kind of perfume or candy you ate; stallion jizz...well, just about everyone over the age of puberty knew what that smelled like.

“Shut it…” I growled sitting up and stretching myself out, every single bone seeming to pop with the same satisfaction as opening a bottle of cold Sunset Sarsaparilla. “Mmm...I need a fucking shower.”

“Hm? What, my tongue bath wasn’t thorough enough for you eh?” She pouted with a wide,playful grin. “Very well, let’s go get cleaned up. We can’t go to the Chez-Parez smelling like each other now can we?”

“To be honest I would love to smell like you longer…” I said quietly as I got to my hooves and nearly collapsed from the sudden weight on my sore legs, especially my strained shoulders.

“Well, it’s always good to smell minty fresh!” She laughed as she stood beside me and allowed me to lean on her for support, hobbling alongside her across the bedroom to her master bathroom. “Always a hit with first impressions I would hope. After all that's what I used to pay advertisers to say. Boy am I glad to not have to deal with those pesky idiots anymore...they're at least a quarter of the reason I decided to resign from my position.”

Her bathroom, though smaller than the standard master bathroom, was still spacious and simply dignified like the rest of the building. The walls were painted a light tan color with a hint of orange and were adorned with graceful golden candelabra that held aloft small, candle-shaped lights that could be dimmed by a switch on the wall. The floor was a creamy-white ceramic tile while the shelves and built-in cabinets were of some kind of honey-colored wood that gave the room a sort of rustic, down-to-earth kind of vibe. The bathtub was separate from the shower (unlike my apartment back in Las Pegasus which was way cheaper than this place) and was obviously purchased to replace the bathtub that had come with the room. What lay before me was a veritable altar dedicated to the sudsy relaxation of bath time carved out of fine white marble into the shape of a simplistic rowboat. I knew she had been planning awhile back on buying a bigger, more personalized bathtub but this was even fancier than I expected, even from her. The apartment alone was rather modest for the amount of money she pulled-in monthly but that had always been her style. Keeping things modest was security against economic downturns and prevented the shock that came from riches-to-rags situations.

“Is that…?” I asked, looking over the boat-tub and noticing subtle details in the carvings that were almost painfully recognizable. The more I looked, the more her odd choice in tub shapes started to make sense.

“Yep.” She replied with a wide if sad smile. “Grandpa’s old fishing boat. Had them carve it out using the old scrapbooks your Grandma made for us all those years ago.”

“Lot of memories in this thing…” I murmured, putting a hoof on the aft portion of the boat as faint visions of days far away spent at their lake house flittered past my eyes.

“I even paid extra to have that old patch he had in the right side carved-in with insane precision.” She said with tempered pride, gesturing my eyes towards the stern where a large, rough and ugly patch of stone had been cut into the exact shape of the emergency patch Grandpa had made decades before, just a few months before he died. “I managed to snap a picture of the old thing before your Auntie Dew threw it out as junk when they were going through the estate. It's been over twenty-years and I have yet to forgive her for it. It meant a lot more to you and me than it ever did to her...”

The graceful white dingy held a lot more than water. It held memories. Very old and very personal memories. I had gotten spooked by the sudden flopping of my very first fish catch in the bottom of the boat and kicked a small but significant hole in the side of his prized boat. Even in his late-eighties, he was still quick on his hooves and he made that patch out of whatever he had in the boat. The patch, despite being bumped, nicked and even frozen solid when the boat was accidentally left in the lake over winter, never gave in. It was the one constant about Grandpa you could always expect. After the dementia set in...eventually it became the only thing you could expect from a trip to Grandpa’s house. But even those depressing and frustrating final months were vastly overshadowed by the happier memories mom and I had both shared there. Both alone as well as together. Of course, this was all so long ago that I could almost have called the world a happier, more peaceful place to live in.

That boat patch experience actually had occurred during a family reunion there. Back when the family actually felt like making the effort of setting one up and attending it instead of canceling at the last minute. It was strange to think that the older I’ve gotten, the more friends feel like family and the less family feels like...well, anyone in general. I had grown so distant from my cousins and other relatives (not exactly of my own fault as I did try) that I would need a week-long family reunion just to put vaguely remembered names with poorly remembered faces. Since I was eight my life was a whirlwind of events and information making every reunion a giant game of guess-who as I tried to remember ponies who definitely remembered me. On that topic, they really had to stop expecting me to remember all their kid's names and ages and all that...

Speaking of nieces and nephews...I never even tried to keep up with any of them. By the time I was twenty, the entire family had decided to not even try and organize a reunion anymore; besides, it felt like every single reunion I went to, the number of nieces and nephews I had (not to mention obscure cousins) seemed to quadruple. My cousin Peppermint alone had probably twenty-kids by now if her previous three twin-pregnancies had continued their terrifying construction project in her uterus. In all honesty...if it wasn’t for the regulated hormonal benefits of ovaries (and the satisfaction of a good fucking during estrous) I would have been scooped clean by the time I had graduated high school because...well, fuck kids. The older I get, the worse they seem to become and the redder the tint on my glasses looking back on my time at that age. I wasn’t an angel filly as mom would immediately tell you...but I sure as fuck didn’t think it was funny to take a shit in the wrong place or set the carpet on fire unlike my own cousins had done. I had to keep myself around adults at all times just to save myself the hassle of restraining my hoof from bitch-slapping some random chick's annoying little brats in public.

"Lost down memory lane?" She asked softly, nudging me back into reality.

"Heh...yeah. Just...thinking about the old, old days. Back when we actually used to have family reunions and shit and ponies like Peppermint and Éclair being massive pains in the ass over budgeting and travel expenses...not like we asked her to have twenty fucking little shitheads..."

She blanched and nodded in agreement replying, "Oh please don't remind me of those two...I've had to ask the front desk to block their numbers from being forwarded to my home phone and I've blocked them on my cell. They won't stop begging for money and I've already loaned them both over ten-grand."

"Ah yes...'money problems'?" I asked, sitting casually on the toilet to wait as she turned on the water taps to fill the tub.

"Yep...and I'm sick of entitling those two idiots. I told Auntie Pepp years ago when she had number six to get a hysterectomy because having a foal every year is going to be hell on her body. But no, she and Uncle Éclair refused and just kept right on fucking like a bunch of Ferals and now they can't make ends meet with only one of them working. If she didn't keep blowing my loans on stupid home appliances she saw on TV I might've been willing to keep offering my sister some support until at least half of them moved out. Screw that and screw them. If she can't get her spending habits under control then I'm not going to entitle her into thinking she can keep coming back to me for cash."

The hot water cascaded into the bathtub with a loud but comforting hiss and while we waited for it to fill we discussed some more about what had been going on down South. Eventually, the topic came around to Zecuro and everything that revolved around him. She had been as deeply shocked about his survival as I was and expressed a desire to potentially see him again one day but, we both knew that was a level of risk that neither of us were willing to take. Her eyes teared up in gratitude as I recounted how he had saved my life though I had been strategically vague as to just how close to suffocating I had gotten with the Cheetah just to spare her any further cause for worry. After all, it was the least a soldier daughter could do for her poor worrying mom right? Already had to tone down everything I did down there anyway.

“Well...when you see him next please do send him my best regards alright? Not my basic regards, the best ones.” Mom said as she carefully went through her armory of mane and coat care products so both of us would come out softer and fluffier than before. “I always knew he was loyal to you.”

“Oh? What do you mean?” I asked her curiously as I sniffed deeply of a bottle of some conditioner that smelled like what I assumed walking into a nutmeg themed bakery smelled like.

She selected several from her arsenal and returned the others before laughing softly and cupping my cheek as she said, “Darling...you would be surprised how many ponies look up to you. You’re a natural leader and ponies can feel that when they talk to you. You have just the right balance of cocky, air-headed idiocy and a heart of gold.”

I blushed at her ‘cocky idiocy’ comment but shook my head all the same. I wasn’t a leader. I was the glorified follower who ended up in charge more often than not because other people were too lazy or too stupid to take up the challenge of getting ponies in and out of firezones alive with a completed objective. I also had to disagree with the whole ‘heart of gold’ bit. Mom had seen me do competitive Judo at EastPoint plus get into plenty of fights over the course of my life but those were competitions. Competitions with rules and no chance of brutal death via striped or spotted bastard. As far as I knew, she hadn’t ever seen me take a life let alone multiple at once like I had done almost daily for the last nine years.

If anything...it felt like I was living two separate but very similar lives. How do you explain that to the one mare who will love you above all else…? How to explain you’re not that precious little filly of hers anymore? That you’re...well, an adult. An adult whose life profession is War. Like as I said before...I never claimed to be a saint but I was loathe to consider myself as evil. I just felt comfortable on the fence. Able to hop down into the Black or White spectrum when the situation and my mood called for it but always able to hop back up onto that damn fence of moral ambiguity that had become the throne on which my morals seemed to reside reigning over my life; adding a flavorful brand of chaos to my life that made me the loose cannon I was. But again...how does a daughter even begin trying to explain these things?

“Mom…” I began, hoping to express a fraction of my side of things before she snuffed it out with her favorite finishing move: Unconditional Love. Only the truly most despicable of acts could hope to withstand the healing effects of this Category V. Mega-Mom Spell.

“Ah, ah…” She chided softly though with surprising firmness, a gentle hoof pressing against my lips in warning. “Don’t say anything that will fuck up our time together alright?”

“In what way…?” I asked, hoping I was permitted to speak.

“Any way really…” She sighed, standing and gently splashing the bathwater with her hoof testing the temperature. “I’ve only got a day and a half and one more night with you and I’ve been waiting for your little ass to come home for way too long now. Don’t ruin this with sad thoughts alright…? I know you already have something bought for me for my birthday next month but I would rather have a peaceful vacation with you. That’s all I want Athena. All I’ve ever wanted for the last nine years ever since you left home for the South.”

“I…” I began, thinking through the diction and prose of my sentences so I could present my depressing ideas in as positive a light as possible. “I...alright. I can do that.”

She smiled and gestured for me to join her by the tub as it was just about filled enough for two mares to relax but neither drown nor flood the bathroom floor with water. As a precaution (as well as out of instinct for my own bathing regimen) I set a pair of towels on the floor around the tub to act as a sort of rudimentary bath mat that honestly worked better in the long run. Of course, this was an old habit. The last bath I had taken was well before I joined the Army as showers were the way to go.

“I see some things never change.” She giggled as she set herself down into the water and groaned loudly in a heavy sigh of relief. “Mmm...like the feeling of a good hot bath on a girl’s body after a wild night.”

I laughed a little and crawled in beside her finding myself likewise unable to cut off the mewling gasp of pleasure as the water engulfed my body like a discount mom hug. She snickered at my ‘cute wittle noises’ and embraced me in the hot water as an added layer of safety from the angry outside world. After we both adjusted position so we would both be comfortable for our soggy bathtub cuddle time, everything went still and silent throughout the room making everything feel enshrined as a golden moment in Time. After a few minutes I heard the gentle, tinkling sound of her magic above my head and a moment later a small record player started playing a compilation of traditional Connemara music from the mysterious and highly magical portion of Trottingham referred to as ‘Éire’. Flutes, fiddles, drums, guitars and angelic mare voices singing softly about...life. The greenery of the world, the mystery of death, the innocence of childhood and of course...the magic of Éire. I didn’t even stay awake long enough for the second track to play. I knew that record by heart and it was the last layer in my pile of snuggly things and so my only option was to fall asleep given the circumstances. Sail away, sail away, sail away...

Next Chapter: Chapter Thirty-One: NER Territory Discoveries Estimated time remaining: 14 Hours, 38 Minutes