Sorry, the posting date got messed up somehow which was not showing up for readers. I reposted just in case so readers don't skip this chapter to find out stuff in the next one. Kind of like watching Revenge of the Sith before watching Empire Strikes Back.

And for the record, Star Wars should be watched in the order they were MADE.

Each pony's curse was unique. Unique when, unique where, unique how...but the eyes, those yellow and red eyes of a vengeful god were always there. Civil looked into Liberty's eyes, his fear starting to fade away. Had it been Discord's eyes looking back...he'd have chucked this thing out the window.

No. It was her. He knew those loving mother's eyes anywhere. He shifted his hooves, trying not to drop her. Where were you all those years, he thought. Where have you been? They told me you had left, left us...me. All these years you were missing, how could it not be true? And then I catch them talking about you like you were dead!

NOW YOU ARE A BABY!?!

Blood pulsed through his head as tempestuous thoughts raged, mind all a turmoil. He tried to remember any stories, any similarities or mention of other ponies resulting in this, this phenomenon.

Nothing.

The miniscule creature continued wailing and wiggling. She was so tiny. The few infant foals he had seen from a distance might have been slightly larger than this, their dam bringing them outside after a week or two of indoor obsessive care. This was a newborn, mere hours out of a womb! Or at least, he was quasi-sure of it.

Civil held the tiny foal out at foreleg's length from him, barely able to keep the squirming thing in his hooves. He pleaded, "Mom?"

The foal stared at him, quieting. He turned his head to Karen. "Mom!"

Startled, his human mother exclaimed, "What?!" The foal began crying again.

"I...I don't know what to do. I don't understand this! Any of this!"

The foal possibly sensed his rising fear and reflected that same emotion, crying louder. Karen, ever the trooper when it came to babies, stepped forward with fierce determination and took her from his hooves. She may not have known much about pony babies, but she recognized distress in human ones and she was seeing that right now.

"Oh," she soothed, gently taking in the foal by using her arms like a cocoon, "she must be scared, confused, hungry-"

"She's not supposed to be a foal, Mom!"

"She is alive!" Karen said sharply in a glare at him. She winced when she felt the foal jump in her arms and saw Civil's ears laid back. Repeating in a gentler tone while forcing a relaxed facial expression, she said soothingly, "She is alive. I will take it." Then she looked down, all worry and negativity passing out of her. "Plus, all this cuteness doesn't hurt, either."

The little pegasus reacted instantly to Karen's tone, quieting down. She even started cooing softly.

"That's all she needs, just a soft voice, a soft touch..."

"...and soft food...or do they eat adult food right off the bat, son?" Daniel said from behind, all but ignored until now.

"N-no dad...they eat foal food...we....shit we don't have any of that here! Just my adult stuff!"

"Shhhhh, easy...easy does it," Karen said, rocking the foal slightly. "Let's stay calm." She glanced at Civil. "Ponies are similar to horses in dietary needs, correct?"

"Yes ma'am."

She turned slightly to her husband, "Dan, you know where to go? What to get?"

He nodded solemnly, already pulling out his phone. "Feed store, I'll look it up. She will need milk replacer, since she has no nursing mares available. In the meantime, she can go with warm milk." At his wife's dubious look, he quirked his brow, "I would say thin the two percent with warm water, fifty-fifty. Too much fat content might upset her stomach. Need to add pectin to it. Civil, you'll need to get that from the store across the street. I'll text you the proportions to use in the mix." He spent a few seconds on his phone while Karen cuddled the foal to herself. "Damn...nearest place is thirty minutes away. Hour round trip, not including traffic."

"You don't need anymore speeding tickets. Take your time. Just enough to last us until we head back. Civil can buy some diapers, bottles, nipples, extra bags for milk storage while he is out, the small ones mind you. If she has an accident, we can make do with old pillow cases for now."

Civil replied, "Swaddling works as well. A terry cloth towel or small blankets. I will check for some of those at the store."

She nodded, "Good job, dears." Karen eyed them like an old general complimenting her planning staff and sending off the troops. "Don't take long at the stores. No extra shopping, either of you."

"Yes ma'am," they said in unison. Daniel snorted at his son, who was now smiling slightly. He nodded to Karen and headed out.

Civil wished he could be more upbeat like his human father.

"Mom...how...?"

"Babies are babies. I don't care what planet or dimension they're from." She headed back down the hallway to the living room, confident her boys knew their business.

After placing his saddlebags on his back and securing his smartphone to his foreleg strap, he muzzled open the sliding glass door to the bedroom, stepped out onto the wraparound patio and hopped into the air. Screw elevators.

The store was across the street, slightly larger than a convenience store but not huge Walmart size. He immediately found everything he needed, including the pectin that was located in the baking aisle. He hesitated as he read the small package. Used for jams and jellies. He texted his father to see if he was positive on this. Daniel texted back, 'For the dextrose content. Trust me.' He shrugged and tossed it into the basket he had gripped between his teeth.

Civil trotted down the aisle to the register. The lady there grinned, delighted to see a pegasus in front of her. "Why hello there! And congratulations on your new baby pony, sir!" Her nametag read Sharlene on it.

He wrinkled his mouth and nudged the basket with his forehead. "She's not my foal, I sort of inherited her."

"Oh," Sharlene exclaimed softly, then grinned sheepishly and started scanning the items. "Then congratulations on your adopted daughter."

"She's my mother, not my daughter," he replied testily, then squinted his eyes shut as the human woman paused, her mouth opening but having a hard time to say something. He sighed and opened his eyes. "Look, it's a long story. I thought she left, then died, then she came back through my sister's body. Then she turned into a newborn foal and I don't know how to take care of foals, so my human mother is helping out in that department."

Sharlene clenched her jaw and continued scanning his items like a robot, not sure of what to say lest she offend this special customer. True there had been memos passed around to make sure employees did not offend or discriminate against this new race of beings walking (flying) among them, yet it was real hard when so many questions plagued her, not to mention the several more this pegasus just now raised with his weird story.

Several people who had lined up behind him to purchase their goods were staring at him. That was when after all the baby items were scanned, Sharlene picked up the pectin packets, then glanced at the baby products, a bewildered expression crossing her face.

Civil pursed his lips and said in a low voice, "If you think all that is messed up, wait until you find out what I do with jams and jellies-"

She tossed the packets into the bags and rapidly pushed some buttons to finalize the sale. A challenging glare back at the customers behind him showed they were more interested in those garbage magazines on the nearby racks, or gum, lip balms...anything but the pegasus. Standing up on his hind legs to lean against the register, he held his foreleg close to the credit card scanner. Both electronic devices beeped, informing him that the sale went through on his phone stored credit card. He grabbed the plastic bags in his mouth and trotted out, head held high.

Back at the apartment, the foal was still crying, but Karen had already set two pots of water on the stove to boil. She replaced the towel she had originally wrapped around the foal with one that Civil had purchased, then attended to the stovetop. Once the bubbles were coming up, per his human mother's directions, he placed bottles and nipples in one pot.

Five minutes later, Karen lifted the items out with a pair of tongs and placed them on a paper towel. She ended up doing a lot of the work with one hand while trying to hold and soothe the newborn in the other. Once she mixed cold milk with boiling water from the other pot into a bottle, along with a small amount of pectin, she was finally able to sit on the living room couch and bring the bottle to the fussy foal.

Initially Liberty fought by moving her mouth around and crying louder, but that only gave the experienced mother opportunity to shove the rubber nipple in at the right moment. A minute later, there was peace on earth in the form of a feeding baby pony. Civil finally collapsed next to them on the couch. He wasn't aware he'd been holding in so much tension until the crying stopped.

Karen smiled down at the small bundle. "There, see? That's not so bad." The foal mewled back at her, but those brilliant emerald eyes were closed. It wasn't very long before Karen gently pulled the bottle out. Using a bit of the blanket swaddling, she wiped the foal's mouth off lightly. Liberty's eyes remained closed. Karen smiled and looked at Civil. "I'm thinking she is going to nap for a little while, with all the commotion she was making earlier. You look tired, too. Go ahead and take a nap. I think we are fine for now." He made to say something, but she shook her head. "It doesn't matter how, or why. She is still with us, right?"

He nodded and settled down, closing his eyes. He knew he must have slept longer, but it only felt like he'd blinked his eyes shut before someone was nudging him awake. He looked up and it was his father. Glancing around slowly, he didn't see either of his mothers. Daniel noticed and whispered, "They are both lying down in the bedroom. We're good on food for now." Civil nodded and stretched a little.

Then Daniel said, "Son, come take a walk with me."

That was not a suggestion. Civil groaned quietly, already anticipating a talk he did not want to have. They made their way down to the ground level in silence, the elevator music of Royksopp's Remind Me setting the perfect mood of awkwardness. Once there, they both walked out of the garage to the street and followed the short sidewalk to the sand.

"Alright, Civil," his father said in a heavy voice, "Tell me that isn't some illegitimate child you had out of wedlock up there, that she's been floating around until she magically found you again, in your sister, in MY daughter." Daniel was very traditional. VERY traditional when it came to these kinds of things.

Just the accusation alone was like a slap of cold water across his face. Automatically skipping the adoption argument as nothing good would have come from that, he did what first came to mind. He defended her.

Pointing his wing up, he yelled, "There is no other cutie-mark like that! That's my mom in there, not some bastard filly!" He felt real heat in his own words. Civil couldn't recall when, if ever, he had yelled at the man. Daniel's eyebrows certainly rose a bit. He of course knew his son had NEVER done that before.

Immediately, loud crying floated down from above. A sliding screen door slammed open and Karen stuck her head over the railing, three floors up. She growled down vehemently, "You know the whole block can hear you two, including us! If you want to talk stupid, do it away from here!" With that, she went back inside, the screen door sliding shut with another metallic bang.

Daniel nibbled on his inner cheek and eyed Civil, "She might have a point." He lightened up a little and nodded to the beach. The pegasus wanted to say something more, but he saw the olive branch for what it was and just plodded on. After a minute of the two walking towards the water, he felt his father's hand settle on the back of his neck, kneading his muscles. Civil leaned into it slightly.

"I'm sorry if that came across wrong. I guess...I guess we can chalk it up to more pony weirdness."

Civil looked up at him quickly. "Pony weirdness? Not everything weird has to be pony related, dad. Come on."

He shrugged back. "Well you have to admit, even you didn't see this coming and you are our resident expert in these matters. I'm not blaming you. Just...it being Renee...."

"...Just trying to understand the weirdness." Civil had to give him that one, the man wasn't the only one weirded out about today's events.

Daniel nodded slightly, "Something like that. But you are not weird. And neither is...Liberty. I suppose that's her name now, too." They walked for a while, soaking in the sun and sounds and smells of the ocean. The compacted wet sand was nice under Civil's hooves. "Alright, so we have a baby in the family. Again. Lord knows we've had enough practice so far. What's one more. Hopefully she's a good sleeper on airplanes."

Civil's eyes slowly drifted down to his hooves. He got real interested in the sand. "About that. There might be a problem."

***

"Look, I understand you guys want to be cautious, but can't you make an exception? We're talking First Class tickets here." Karen glared at Daniel, though he did his best to ignore her look. "And it will be close to a week. That's the normal wait for a human baby." He listened some more. "Yah. Yah, I get it." He hit the disconnect on his phone, breathing slowly to reduce his blood pressure.

"I take it the answer is no?" Karen asked softly.

" 'No. We cannot accept the liability, especially with pony babies. Tickets are non-refundable.' " He frowned and added, "Somebody didn't purchase insurance for the tickets, so we can't reschedule without taking a massive hit in the wallet." He tried not to look at that somebody, but it was hard not to stare at the cute bundle of emotional mess. She was being fussy, her stomach adjusting to the new milk replacer Karen was attempting to feed her.

"Look, if we have to miss the flight, then we miss it. My brother will put us up at his place, no questions asked. I will just tell my boss I can't teach for the next few weeks," Karen reasoned.

Daniel wasn't keen on missing work either. "I suppose I can call the office, burn some more vacation time. They won't like it, but there's no helping it. We'd have to wait past the holidays, not to mention the one-way tickets will be a few thousand at short notice."

"Um...there might be another way," Civil ventured. Both his parents regarded him. He smiled. "It's not unheard of for Equestrians to carry their young, in their legs or on their backs."

Karen furrowed her brow, "Four hours, you are going to carry her that long?" She shook her head slowly. Daniel didn't say anything, merely studying his son quietly.

Civil put both his hooves together, "If she were swaddled properly, I could carry her in my saddlebag. With the strap secure, it will be fine. That way neither of you are docked for missed work, you don't have to purchase new tickets and waste lots of money, and I won't piss off Uncle Joey and everyone further."

His mother sighed and shook her head, "Civil, nobody is pissed at you, and this is not your fault." Naturally she saw straight to it. She raised her voice when he tried to protest, "I don't care what you think-" She stopped herself and sighed, continuing, "I do care, but you didn't do anything wrong, so don't feel like you have to be the hero and go out of your way to fix this. OR so we can make our 'First Class' flight." She eyed Daniel with those last words. He smiled weakly, but said nothing. She gave him a half-lidded stare, asking, "You're seriously considering this, aren't you?"

He shrugged, "Well...he did say Equestrians do it all the time. I don't see the harm in it."

She looked up as though asking for divine help. "We head back up to Joey's in four days, then fly back on the 23rd." Dropping her gaze to the foal, she said evenly, "We will see how she does in the car, and how the food settles with her before considering ANY air travel."

Civil made to say something, but 'the look' from his mother quelled that notion.

***

Four days. One of those days he'd gone out to the beach. He'd visited the boardwalk, too. It wasn't the same without Renee, despite her propensity to aggravate her family. Not that she was bad, per se, Civil mused to himself. She just had a way of pushing buttons. All the buttons. The true chafe was trying to figure out whether she was doing it on accident or on purpose. He sat back on the couch, listening to the waves crashing out on the beach. Normally they would have been calming. Normally.

Karen was sitting next to Civil, feeding the foal. It was the second or third day...maybe, since she had changed fully? He was losing track of time. This was why he hardly saw upbeat parents back in Equestria when a newborn entered their herds. The feedings were frequent and round the clock. They also had to be small or she would vomit them up, so instead of three square meals it was many many tiny meals.

"I miss her too," Karen murmured. Civil looked up, brow raised. She smiled, "I know she isn't gone. In tiny doses, I definitely miss her." Then she shushed Liberty when she started squirming and fussing. "Now now, I know you are hungry, you barely ate anything a while ago. Come on, eat up." Liberty was having none of it. A thought occurred to the human woman. She got up slowly, turned to Civil and offered the foal to him, along with the bottle.

He shook his head, "No mom, I'm not quite ready for that stuff. I...I don't think I can do this-" A baby foal and bottle shoved into his forelegs put the brakes on his protests. Instantly the foal settled down and gazed up at him, those large eyes sparkling brilliant green. With his forelegs holding her, he was able to move the bottle over with his wing and gently bring it to her muzzle. Gladly she grabbed at it with her legs, having worked them out of the swaddling, and crooned as she gulped down the liquid.

His human mother stood up and nodded, adding quietly, "Thought so. Babies know their own." A shadow passed over her face for a moment, and then it was gone. Civil noticed.

"Mom, she doesn't hate you, she's a foal."

She smiled at him, "I didn't think that. Instincts are something that cannot be reasoned with. They just are." She turned away and headed to the kitchen. "Try not to use anymore plates or bowls, or if you do, wash them completely. Tomorrow we leave."

Civil hummed softly to himself. Three days had passed. Guess it had been that long. Time flies when you are kept up all night for feeding a needy thing. He glanced down. She had sucked in a good portion of the bottle but she was done now, just mouthing the nipple once in a while. He slowly slipped it out of her mouth and set the bottle aside. Liberty turned into him, nuzzling his chest fluff. He tried not to dwell on yet another 'weird' moment. The term 'weird' had crossed his mind so many times in the past week, he no longer thought it a problem when his father brought it up, though now Daniel had coined the term 'pony shit.'

Just then, Daniel came in from the front door and walked down the hallway to the kitchen. "Hey guys." He glanced at Civil sitting on the couch with the sleeping foal. "Same shit?"

Civil grinned and replied quietly, "Different pony." They both chuckled.

Karen clenched her jaw. "I wish you two wouldn't say stuff like that, it could impact her developing mind."

Daniel sighed and stepped into the kitchen to kiss his wife and place groceries on the countertop. "I'm pretty sure when her mind is developed, she will be saying worse." He began emptying the bags. The items were mostly for the trip back up to New Jersey. Cold cuts, a loaf of bread, snacks, drinks, the usual fare for travel.

"Then we shall enjoy the time we have until that happens." She turned her head to Civil, brow furrowed, "Honey, when exactly is she supposed to start walking, flying, all those things?"

Civil glanced down, then shrugged. "After two weeks they start to walk. Not long after, they begin displaying their magical skills. Figure the first two months, don't open any windows, else we might not see her again."

Karen started to laugh, then stopped when she saw the serious look on his face. "You're kidding."

He shook his head. "Let's just say I need to be there when she first lifts off. They learn to fly long before they learn to land, seldom without injury. The first time can be traumatic for them if not done right."

She closed her eyes, sighing to herself. Daniel put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed lightly. He said, "It'll be fine. With Civil around, I'm sure she won't go splat anytime soon." Karen shook him off, her sentiment obvious. He held up his hands and backed away. "I'll go pack our things. 'Leave out a change of clothes for tomorrow,' right?" He didn't stick around to receive 'the look'.

The rest of the day and evening progressed without any incident. Feeding, sleeping, changing diapers, cleaning, bath time. Dinner for the rest of them was squeezed in there somewhere. As for the diaper jobs, he hung around just long enough to get the basics down before quickly removing himself from the hazmat situation that was Liberty's...stuff. Daniel checked in one time, briefly.

Wrinkling his nose he muttered, "I'd have thought her stomach would be settled with the replacer by now."

Karen looked up and shrugged. "Civil said it would be at least two weeks until solid foods. Guess we bear this out until then." She wrapped everything up in the diaper, cleaned Liberty's bottom, puffed some powder on it and expertly put on a fresh diaper. "At least it's not explosive anymore. Baby steps, I suppose."

Daniel grinned, "If they had a Baby 500, you'd definitely be the pit chief."

She laughed and picked up the foal, who was burbling along as though nothing were out of the ordinary. "I do what I do," she replied and chucked the used diaper bundle into the trash. "We have to remember to empty the baskets in the morning." He nodded and followed her out.

A quiet night and a fresh morning with bowls of cereal found them on the road an hour later. The drive back up to New Jersey was much more pleasant and less awkward than the one down to the condo. Initially Civil had been sitting in the front, but the first half hour had Liberty crying nonstop. She didn't want a bottle, her diaper was clean. Even Karen could not comfort her, until out of desperation Civil reached back with his hoof to nudge her to shush. He wasn't going to hit her or jostle her, honest!........

The seat was facing to the rear so he didn't see her facial reaction, but he felt it. As he reached over the top, she grabbed hold of his hoof with both tiny legs and would not let go. Before he yanked his foreleg back, Karen placed a hand on him and said, "Wait, Civil. Look."

It was difficult to see at all since he was seatbelted in, so he unlatched himself and peeked over the edge of the carseat. Liberty's eyes were closed and she was smiling.

For a few minutes they held still. Soon she was breathing deeply, little snoring noises whistling through her nose. Daniel was monitoring all of this through his rearview mirror.

"Want me to pull over so you can switch places?"

Karen raised her brow at Civil questioningly. He replied, "Yeah, or my leg will fall off after an hour. I might go through the window if we wreck, too."

Daniel smirked at his son's opinion of his driving skills, but nodded and pulled into the next rest stop that came up. Liberty fussed for the four excruciating seconds he had to let go so he could get out and back in. Then all was quiet again. Karen settled into the front seat, strapped in, and they were off again. After a time she looked back and regarded the stallion quietly.

He noticed her expression and whispered, "What?"

She smiled and shook her head. "Nothing. Seems she is quite comfortable with you."

He snorted. "Yeah I know, babies know their own." His eyes dropped to the tiny form, all nestled and wrapped up like a pegasi burrito, two legs holding onto him. Liberty continued to sleep peacefully. He started to wonder if she had watched him like this back in Equestria, if he had held onto her hoof, too.

Unbeknownst to him, Karen and Daniel traded looks. Her husband tilted his head, a question on his mind that she already knew. She sighed and nodded. He couldn't help but smile a little, but he solemnly nodded back to her, to keep up appearances, of course.

When they arrived, Civil insisted on unlocking the seat and carrying it by the handle in his mouth to the house. "Gotta get used to this, right?" he mumbled around the plastic. His parents gave him his space. Karen had phoned ahead to let her brother know what to expect when they arrived.

There was some small shock that Renee had been reduced to a baby again, but the absolute cuteness more than made up for it. Joey, his wife Dorris, and Vanessa all fawned over the foal like a real baby. Liberty just soaked up all the positive emotions, burbling and making other one syllable sounds, sometimes to mind numbing repetition, or so Civil thought.

Joey made one attempt to ask Civil about what happened while he sat on the livingroom couch. A hoof held up in silence was all he needed. He smiled and ruffled the top of Civil's head, saying, "Whatever you need, sport. You have my number whenever you want to talk. Deal?" Civil smiled and nodded, then went back to staring at the others play with Liberty on the floor, a baby blanket spread out under her. Because floors are dirty, Dorris reminded him.

He rolled his eyes, not wanting to bring up the fact that he and Liberty would be walking all over dirty floors with their hooves, when they were not flying in the blue skies.

Later that night when everyone was sound asleep, he wasn't. Not for lack of trying, he really had been asleep. Until his damanably sharp hearing heard some rustling and scraping sounds. He slowly got off the couch and walked down the hall. The dim safety lights in the outlets were the only things to go by, and he didn't see anything.

He turned to leave when he heard a sniffling sound near the floor. Looking down he saw Liberty was crawling along the wall and scraping one hoof against a door. He noticed it was to the bathroom for the bottom floor they were on. Her baby blanket was halfway back to their parents' room. She must have low-crawled to here before the swaddling came apart. He sighed and scooped her up with one wing, checking her bottom with the other.

"What the Holy Hand Grenade are you doing," he muttered. No heavy mass, no warm or cold feeling from the diaper, so she hadn't wet herself. She kept mewling, stretching her hooves to the door. He wrinkled his brows in consternation. "Seriously, you want to be potty trained now?!" He grumbled to himself and pushed open the door, carrying her in. Sitting her atop the sink lip, he undid the stickers on the diaper and held her up. He looked down, noticing the hole in the toilet seat was way too big. He shrugged and looked her square in the eye. "Sorry, kid. Guess you get to make it rain." He held her out with both hooves and waited.

Her face scrunched up and she started crying. He eased her up and down a little, shushing her. "Hey, hush shhhh...come on, what do you want? You're over the target. Release!" Her legs squirmed around, twisting her lower half away from him. He blinked...and his face went red. "Really?" He deliberately turned his head away. "Okay, I'm not looking, do it already. Or I'm chucking you back into mom and dad's bed."

His words were met with the lovely sound of thin liquid dribbling into the toilet from a height of a few feet. When the dripping sound ceased, he LIGHTLY...lightly here, no shaking baby syndrome, lightly shook the last of it off, then turned back to regard her.

And saw her lower half was soaked because he'd made her hang there while peeing.

"...fuck..." he said under his breath.

The next twenty minutes of his prime sleeping time were spent cleaning her up, then putting the diaper back on. He didn't even bother trying to put her in their parents' room, but merely took Liberty with him to the couch. Once he was down on his side, he simply placed her against his chest and used the blanket and his wings to cover her. She sighed contentedly and was asleep quicker than he could yawn.

In a way, it was also comforting to him too. He never got a second yawn out before he was asleep.

***

He woke up to his aunt holding the foal in her arms, standing near the couch. He blinked and looked around, ears swiveling. The house was very quiet. A quick glance at the clock showed that it was almost noon. He sat up.

"Damn, I must have overslept. Where is everyone?"

She smiled at him, rocking the foal slowly. "Joey took your parents to the airport and Vanessa went Very Late Christmas Shopping. I stayed to make sure you had everything you needed for your trip back." Her brow quirked with obvious guilt. "And...I wanted to spend more time with this bundle of joy before she left us."

He groaned to himself and got off the couch, working his muscles to limber them up. He didn't do cute in the morning, mother/sister or otherwise. She reached over and picked up his bags with one hand, holding them out. "Your mother said she packed all the necessary bottles, as well as some blankets in case it gets cold up there."

Liberty started making her 'feed me' mewling sound. Civil raised his head, eyes closed in annoyance.

"Would you like me to feed her for you?" Dorris asked him.

"No," he waved his hoof. "I have to get used to doing it anyway." He took his bags from her and fished around inside, finding the supply of bottles and pulled one out, already prepared. Dorris waited until he was settled on the couch, then handed the foal over to him. He cradled her in his forelegs, bringing the bottle over to the needy thing with his right wing. Dorris smiled and picked up the nearby remote.

"Here, let me put the TV on for you." She clicked it on and flipped through some channels. He told her to stop when it was on the news. While he didn't care much for news channels, at least he could see if the world was burning or not. Dorris mentioned that she would be doing laundry when he was ready to leave so she could say goodbye. He nodded.

Since most of the items were either fluff or political pieces, he let it drone in the background while he concentrated on the foal in his arms. She had just finished her feeding when he overheard a report about another victim at a convention. By the time he looked up, the news anchor had moved on. He fumbled with the controller and rewound the DVR, replaying the last few minutes.

It centered around someone in the parking garage near the convention center building having been stabbed maybe not more than an hour ago. It was Baltimore. While the news video had footage of police covering up the body and not allowing cameras near, one of the initial witnesses who found the body had already given the news station a picture.

It was of a young woman lying face down between two cars. The feed jumped to other witnesses describing if they still felt safe in the city of Baltimore, if they would attend another convention there or anywhere else. He lowered the volume since no pertinent details were being released. His mind wandered.

That hair, it was colored, some of it pale purple while the rest was in shadow, at least from the angle of the picture that flashed by earlier. He rewound it again and paused it on the picture. He didn't see any strange clothing. And yet...was she another cosplayer maybe? He felt that familiar urge to do something.

But now...he glanced down briefly at the responsibility in his possession. He thought of all the times he'd stuck his nose into the affairs of other ponies, all the times said nose got snapped off for it. The reprimands, the badgering other guards would give him as he weathered the shit assignment he'd earned because a noble bitched about his meddling...even though that noble did get fined by the princess eventually, once she had stepped in. Even the term 'Don't pull a Civil if you know what's best for ya' was a thing.

He snarled to himself, "Fuck that, I've got my own problems." Liberty started whining as if on cue. He held her close, shushing her. Skipping ahead on the DVR he saw the news had gone to another item of interest, so he shut off the television. "Don't need to fix everypony else's."

Still....

He stared at the blank screen. She wasn't someone else's problem. She was someone else's daughter...wife....princess.

Sighing to himself, he felt resigned to the fact that he did have a heart. Looking down at Liberty, he said softly, "I guess I can make a few phone calls...what harm would that do?" She stared at him with those wonderful eyes. "Then I gotta get you bundle of ass pain back home." Her infantile response was to spit up. He grumbled, cleaning up the regurgitated mess off her muzzle and blanket wrap.

Once he was done, he reached over and pulled his phone over to him. "I need to contact Gary and...the girl, what's her name." He raised his head, "Renee I need your phone!" It had been so automatic to call out to her, until he realized what he'd done and looked down at the foal. She was staring back up at him, eyes wide. His voice was loud.

"Fuck," he said under his breath, "mom and dad have your phone." Another thought hit him. "Fuck, it's code locked! Damn this curse shit."

Liberty started crying. He consoled her, "Yeah yeah, keep calm, shhh shhhhh. We'll just get you fed, then zip back home. You were using a four digit motion on the lock screen. I'll just examine the glass surface, see where it is worn out the most. That should narrow down the number of codes you could have used."

Liberty was starting to quiet down as he gently rocked her.

Ding.

His shoulders slumped and he stared at his phone. Of course she would text him now. He wrote back while talking out loud, "Yeah I saw on the news. I will see what I can do."

Ding.

He texted back, muttering, "Because I am still a Royal Guard. That shit don't quit." He squinted his eyes shut, peeked at his phone while he backed out the text, thanking his lucky stars he didn't hit send and said softly while he REtexted, "I never rescinded my oath."

Liberty stared up at him with big green eyes. He noticed her look.

"What? It's true." He put his phone aside and used part of the blanket to wipe a missed spot on her cheek, thinking. He chuckled to himself. "I run away from home, still end up being a guard like my two prior herd generations." He smiled down at her and said in a doting voice, "We can't run away from everything. No we can't."

Liberty burbled back at him, smiling.

Ding.

He glanced at his phone and sighed. "Rescinded. It means to take back," he murmured as he typed. He thought about what he could do. Civil couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more to this. The pen he was using to poke at the cell phone idly found its way to looking up the Baltimore Police Department number. He hit the call option. Naturally he got an automated system. Eventually he was able to get directed to the violent crimes division. It rang. And rang. And rang.

So close to Christmas, of course nobody was going to be in. Not like crime ever took a vacation-

"Hello, Sergeant Watts here, may I help you?"

He spent a half second to be stunned before he spoke, "Uh, yes, I was just calling regarding the recent death you had just outside that pony convention. I was hoping I could help out."

There was a pause before the man replied, making sounds in the background. Most likely grabbing a pen and paper. "Of course. Any help is appreciated. May I get a name and number first?"

"Um, my name is Civil Patrol." He rattled off the number to his phone.

There was a good deal of silence at the other end. Then the man asked tiredly, "You wouldn't happen to be a pony, would you, Mister Civil Patrol?"

Civil frowned, not quite liking where this was going. "I most certainly happen to be a pony. Is that a problem?"

"No, not at all. Just figured the name was a giveaway. Before you comment about my tone, we've had several ponies already call in trying to get information about the ongoing investigation and I am not authorized to divulge anything at this time. I understand the conventions have taken on a new meaning in the way of making ponies a socially accepted people on Earth and we do not feel this is a hate crime at this time."

The pegasus could only blink at the phone. When a few more seconds passed and it appeared the sergeant was not going to continue, Civil said, "I...hadn't thought of the conventions like that. But that's not why I was calling. Have your detectives thought about there being a link between other victims from past conventions? Specifically, if your victims had colored hair. I have spoken to some witnesses that independently observed two of the victims being possible cosplayers."

The man's reply was very terse, "You realize witness tampering is against the law?"

"I was not tampering with anybody! There was one little girl I met at the airport and she told me her aunt was killed. Then another pair of humans met me at the beach several days ago, and they happened to have seen another victim. I'd think you'd want to have more leads rather than intimidate your sources." He was fuming now, daring the man to say something nasty.

"...like I said, we cannot divulge anything at this time, but we will be looking into that angle." The reply was slow and calculated.

Civil sat up, putting Liberty to the side. Normally she would wail about not being held, but the changes in his voice seemed to have gotten her undivided attention and she just laid there, watching him. "I doubt you 'will' be looking into that...since it sounds like you already have. I'm right, aren't I?" While Civil might screw up in social practices now and then, he had developed a skill that he rarely acknowledged even to himself. It was the ability to pick up nuances in speech patterns, especially when someone was outright lying, or trying to hide something. He could sense that now.

"If I may ask, do YOU feel that this is in some way a hate crime? Since if what you say is true, do you feel that someone might be targeting cosplayers depicting ponies? With you being a pony, you might be able to provide a valuable perspective on the subject."

The question was subtle, something a cop would query. Like a bomb tech feeling out the wires of a ticking device. If it was an honest question, it had dire portent.

Civil cleared his throat and said, "I'm not sure. Obviously if ponies or pony friends are being targeted, that would be a hate crime. I merely called about the hair. Granted, I have to contact the human brother and sister I met earlier to compare notes with the little girl's story, but I feel like that is an important thing. As for it being racially motivated? I wouldn't think so, on account that no ponies have died near any conventions...that I know of. Have any ponies been murdered?"

After a few seconds, the man replied, "Occasionally we hear about pony abuse here and there, but no, nothing like this. I suppose that's a blessing. Good instincts, though. Like I said, I can't talk about the case...but I wouldn't mind if you came to work for us. That would give the newspapers something to piss and moan about instead of Baltimore's crime rates. And I'd wager you could offer a lot to the department. In any event, I would appreciate if you didn't go public with this conversation. I will pass this on to the detectives. I'm pretty sure I know who the little girl is you are talking about. What about that couple you met at the beach?"

"Just a brother and sister. The sister only caught a glimpse of the victim's hair at the scene before they covered her up. You guys probably know more than she does."

"Still," the man replied, "Any little bit can help. They may have seen the victim before the incident, which could help with our timeline and narrow down the possibilities of who could have done it. May have noticed something during the days leading up to the event. Never know."

Civil sighed, "Look, if I knew it would help, I would text you their information, but it's locked behind my sister's phone and she's-" he glanced down at her, all wrapped up in her baby blanket. She stared back up at him. He grimaced. "She's a bit tied up at the moment. As soon as I can get in touch with them, I'll see if they are okay with me passing on their information. That alright?"

The man sounded a little disappointed. "Yes, that's fine. Like you said, it might not lead to anything. Then again, it could be that one detail that opens it up. I do appreciate you reaching out to us, Mister Patrol. I was being serious, if you want to come work for us, you'd have my recommendation."

"Thanks, I'll think about it." Civil hung up. He spent all of one second pretending what it would be like as a cop. "Spbpt, whatever. More guard BS, on top of which, I can't drive a car or hold a gun. I'm not going to be some novelty to be paraded around in front of their PR events."

Liberty started crying softly. Civil realized she must have been sensing his negativity, so he held her. "Shhh, it's okay. It will be alright."

Once he had settled her down, he got ready to go. Step by step he checked his flight equipment, filed his flight plan, secured his belongings, secured his pegasus mother in his saddlebag...and the crying started again. Groaning, he peeled the saddlebag flap back, twisting the buckle around so he could see her inside. She stared up at him, quieting.

"Liberty, dammit, you need to chill out, okay?" He started to close up the bag again, causing her to whine. "Fine, you want to see the light? There you go." He hitched the flap back, readjusted the buckle and strap so it was angled to keep the flap pinned back. "Happy?!" She burbled back at him.

He shook his head and walked out to the garage where he found his aunt. "Aunt Dorris, I'm heading out now."

She knelt down and hugged him, then she reached into the back and patted Liberty. "You two stay safe, and stay in touch, okay?" He nodded. She opened up the main door to the driveway and stepped out, waved to her with one wing and then leapt into the air.

***

It was maybe an hour before he started hearing her fussing again. He twisted his neck around, trying to look in the bag. "Come on, I fed you like, not that long ago, can't we just put in another hour before stopping?" It had taken him a little while to really get up to altitude, plus it was a pain in the plot to adjust his flight plan and sit on a cloud somewhere. Most times, since he was in a heavily traveled corridor, he would have to land if he wanted to pause at all, which meant time wasted getting to the ground and climbing back up to cruise altitude.

She cried louder.

In a moment of irritation and selfishness, he jostled his bags by rolling his barrel to and fro. That did it, he noted, when the crying stopped. Civil cruised along for a couple of minutes in peace and quiet.

The peace and quiet started getting a little unnerving. He'd been dealing with this little pegasus for almost a week now and during that entire time, she had been making some kind of noise awake or asleep, even snoring. Now there was nothing. He glanced back to see the flap of the bag fluttering in the wind, the strap and buckle undone from the readjustments he made, the wind, and finally his jostling of Liberty. Liberty! He looked inside, a sick feeling overtaking him.

Now there was nothing.

He yanked his wings in and immediately speared downward, brain running fast flier calculations. If his speed, knots of indicated airspeed (KIAS), was in the 400's, that meant at least 40 nautical miles (NM) every 6 minutes, 6 NM every minute. With the foal not having continuous forward propulsion or having dense mass, wind resistance would lower her forward momentum. He angled down a little more, predicting her fall would be parabolic. There were not that many layers of cloud...fuck! The clouds! He started to panic more.

With her small body, if she hit any cloud, her magic would create resistance. A human would pass through it as if it were smoke, but a pegasus would hit it hard. A tiny pegasus would suffer internal injuries.

"Flyboy 12, Center. We show you descending at a very alarming speed, what's your status?"

Fuck!

He swiveled his head left and right, looking for the pink blanket wrapped thing that was his past, present, and if he didn't succeed now, soon to be non-existent future.

"Pan pan pan!" He had to shut them up so he could listen for the foal's crying. Dear Celestia let her be crying now, unlike all the other times he did not want her to be crying.

Center replied, "Do you need air or ground assistance at this time?"

"Just air...unless she hits the ground, then maybe ground."

"Say again?"

He felt bad about joking, but he needed to do something to steady his nerves and humor was a good defense mechanism. Panicking in the skies never led to anything good. "Temporarily lost some precious cargo due to...wind buffeting, retrieving it now! Will be off radio a mike."

"Copy, clearing your vicinity of air traffic above and below, keep us posted and good luck."

No sooner had the transmission ceased, he finally heard it. A teeny tiny keening wail that barely touched his ears.

Civil spotted the falling ball of distress and angled his wings, missiling toward her. Just as he was about to crash into her, he popped out his winds in a braking action to match her speed, grabbed her and rolled over while twisting his wings about to catch the wind. His intent was to slow down quickly and use his body to plow through any clouds with his inertia before he could slow down and roll back hooves down again for a safe landing. At this speed if he did try to land, he wouldn't be able to hold onto her and she could continue on INTO the cloud. In addition to all of this, he was going to try a back glide, flying upside down while buffeting his wings against the wind to slow down. Trying to do too many things was going to cost him this time. He allowed his left wing to extend quicker than the other one.

AWS, or Asymmetrical Wing Spread. On purpose, it was called awesome when used in conjunction with other moves. And it looked awesome, when done right.

Basic backstroke, or...basic backstroke. On purpose, you simply fly upside down and backstroke your way along. On purpose at slow speeds, you look stupid. Done at higher speeds, it can allow a daring pegasus to slow down, and then transition into an AWS to flip back over. That looks awesome too, when done right.

He accidentally performed an AWS maneuver and the basic backstroke at the same time, not done right. This had the result of one wing catching all the rushing air like a parachute and trying to suspend his full weight instead of evening the load between two wings. The other wing was still tucked in, waiting to be deployed correctly.

He realized too late what he just did and felt his wing joint wrench.

Growling in pain, Civil tucked both wings back in, twisted around his body, then extended them out again. He didn't feel anything now, but adrenaline was coursing through him at this point. Their speed was much more manageable as he lowered his back half, wings almost perpendicular to the wind flow. He spotted a nice fluffy cloud and angled for it. Cycling both wings with quick flaps, he ignored the stitch in his shoulder, ran his hooves in a prerun but still stumbled into the fluffy bumps of the cloud and rolled. In that last second of horror, Liberty still tore out of his grip, but she safely tumbled a few feet away on the cloud before coming to a rest under a pile of baby blanket.

Catching his breath for a solid minute, he lifted his head out of the cloud to see if she was okay. After some fumbling, her tiny legs were able to pull the blanket off the top of her head. With his heart threatening to leap up through his throat so it could make a public heart attack, he was finally able to swallow, key the mic and try to say something to Center before they went ahead and scheduled his review board to strip him of his flying certification.

"You stupid stupid stupid....asshole!!!" was the very high pitched voice that overrode his.

Civil's hoof was still on the key when she shouted that, so he yelled back, "Shut up! I'm talking to ATC-!" His eyes went to pinpricks and his hoof let up off the button while he stared at her.

"Didn't quite copy that last part, Flyboy 12" Center replied, "but it sounds like you retrieved your, uh, precious cargo...just file a report when you touch down. Your flight plan is on standby when you are ready to resume your trip."

There was silence on that cloud of two winged ponies.

"Flyboy 12, did you copy?"

He squeaked out, "...copy..."

He stared at Liberty.

"..."

She stared back.

"..."

He yelled, "You can talk!" He planted all fours in the strongest stance he could muster, lest his shaky legs drop him.

She blinked at him in awe, that same impossibly high pitch voice exclaiming, "You can walk on clouds!"

He flexed his jaw like a fish before he exclaimed back, "...you can talk!?" The rest of him was frozen in shock.

She tried it out by standing, falling over, and then realized she didn't know how to walk yet as a pony, but still pushed her tiny hooves into the cloud. "I can walk on clouds! Awesome!"

A flare of heat flashed through Civil and he yelled, "Would you shut up for one minute?!?...you...you can talk!"

" ..."

She stared at him, mouth slowly closing. He stared at her.

" ..."

This again? His eyes narrowed.

"Goo goo gaa gaa?" was her response.

"I'll drop you again, I fucking swear it!"

"Alright alright," raising her tiny forelegs while sitting back, barely keeping her balance. She smiled sheepishly, "yes I can talk."

"Mo.....mommy?"

"Hahahahaha that sounds so cute! Do it again!"

He backed up a few feet. "What? No! N-no!! Why do you still act like my sister?"

Liberty rolled her eyes. "Because I am, you dolt. Dolt colt. Heh, that was pretty good, I gotta remember that one." She went back to pushing on the cloud like a cat making biscuits.

He stomped his hoof, cloud puffing up in front of him. "Focus already! Do you remember important stuff?"

Her biscuit making slowed and she looked up, "Like....?"

He growled, "Like being my mom, for Celestia's sake!? What's wrong with you!?!"

Liberty paused and tilted her head. "No...I don't remember, and there's nothing wrong with me. Well, other than, you know." She raised a hoof to move over her small body for emphasis. "Look, seriously I'm not fooling around right now, I don't remember anything about your world...our world, about Equestria." She shook her head. "When I changed, it was just my body. Not my mind."

Sitting back, he glared at her, and with good reason. "Soooooo, all that baby stuff, it was an act." Please don't admit to it, please give me something decent to remember you by if something were to happen-

Her guilty look said it all.

"You little shit," he said accusingly, jumping up.

"What!?" She threw up her forelegs. "I liked the attention our mother was giving me. She hasn't done that in years, to be honest." Despite the smile she put on, it was almost sadlike. "It felt good."

"I can't believe it, after all that has happened to me and you turning out to be...HER...all you can think about is our human mother paying attention to you? You selfish little bitch!"

"Oh for fuck's sakes I don't have to take that from you, I-" she yelled, then blinked, "Woh, wait. Did you just call your mom a bitch? That makes you a son of a bitch!" She jumped up suddenly, spinning while saying in an Austin Powers accent, "Yah baby yah!" She promptly landed in a puff of cloud, giggling when she fell over.

He lied down and buried his head under his hooves. "Sweet Celestia. Discord turned my mother into my selfish sister, and my selfish sister into an adorable little bitch." He was out of thoughts. Glancing at his flight display strapped to his foreleg, he saw that they had dropped about 14,000 meters during this whole fiasco. He was still waiting for his heart to stop racing so he could have his obligatory heart attack.

The little filly flicked her hoof as though to snap fingers she didn't have anymore. Then she grinned and clacked her hooves together against their sides, singing, "You're a son of a bitch, you're a son of a bitch! Eat shit and live, Civil." She hopped up on all fours and started doing a jig, stumbling around on the divinely squishy cloud. "Oh I need one of these for my room, definitely!"

All Civil could do was groan. He scratched at a very irritating itch behind his ear with a hoof and looked away, not wanting to watch this circus. "And die. It's 'eat shit and die.' Get it right if you are going to be nasty to me."

"I know what I said." She poked her head under one leg, staring at him cockeyed, "Living makes the suffering last longer, dingus."

"You are so twisted, there's no way I came from you."

"Well technically I had to come before you," she stared up in the sky, pondering the multiple meanings of what she had just said...yeah not going to explain them all. Liberty tapped her hoof against her chin, "biologically speaking, that's not entirely necessary for fertilization either, these days-"

"Bah I'm not hearing this from my sister!" He covered up his forelegs over the top of his head. Dear princess, end it now!

"Mom."

"Gah!!! Just, just be quiet for a minute, I have to think." Mother was alive, check. Sister was back...wish he could UNcheck that one, but...'She is alive. I'll take it,' Karen had said. Fine, CHECK. lil bitch... Flight equipment and other items accounted for, check. Can't stay up here forever, with ATC directing traffic around them. Guess it was time to get going. He stood up.

"Some help here...new body." She was on her back now, having an even worse time trying to roll over on this malleable cloud than she was earlier in Joey's hallway. He stared at her, watching the pathetic scene and truly wanting to laugh, but he didn't have the energy for it, so he walked over, scooped her up and deposited her into the bag again. This time he secured the strap properly, though she insisted on sticking her head out. She still hated the dark, but she wasn't exactly hiding her intelligence now.

True he was still fuming about that, but he wasn't in the mood and honestly just wanted to get home. He figured their mother would do more in three minutes than he could do in an entire week of guilt tripping. He wordlessly flexed his wings, felt the moving currents of air, and stepped off the edge of the cloud into the void. As soon as the wind filled his wings, he regretted doing a Celestiadamned preflight wing check.

Civil winced and his profile jerked all over the place. Liberty didn't have to be an expert to know something was wrong. "Civil! What's happening, are you alright?"

"No!" A thin yelp escaped his mouth as he pulled to the right, letting his left wing flag a little. "I think I pulled something in that dive to catch you." He quickly made his way to the next nearest cloud. This time was a much smoother landing, legs running at the appropriate rate to take the cloud properly. Once he trotted to a stop, his body shuddered and he immediately dropped his left wing low, almost dragging it in the white effervescence. "Dammit dammit dammit," he hissed, trying to flex his wing, then hissed several worse things under his breath.

There was silence for a little while....then....

"Tell mama where it hurts," she cooed.

He whipped his head around at her, "Would you shut up with that!?!" Visibly shivering, he carefully flexed his wing and felt a sharp spike of pain where the wing met his body, along with that stitch he thought he'd noticed earlier. The adrenaline must of covered the pain then. Not so much now.

"Are you kidding? I'm going to milk this for all it's worth!" She was standing up in the saddlebag now, head held high.

"Dear Celestia would you shut up? Don't mention milk. I practically fed on my mother's...your..." He paled, "I'm gonna be sick."

"....oh shit, that's right!" The foal looked down at her lower anatomy, all mirth disappearing from her face. "Hah. Heh...well...guess this...woh." She raised her head and looked her SON in the eye when he twisted his head back around to gaze at her. "I...I mean I really want to make a joke right now...mph...nevermind, now I feel nauseous." Her head sunk a little lower, ears turning green.

He said angrily, "Don't you dare throw up in my saddlebag."

The rebuke was enough to center her. Taking a deep breath, the small foal climbed out of the bag and clambered up onto Civil's back. Not willing to drop her again, he slowly settled down onto his belly, which would make the fall short if she did slip. She didn't even notice. He asked in an annoyed voice, "What are you doing?"

Once squarely between his shoulder blades, she delicately felt around the area where Civil appeared to be favoring. "You forgot I used to volunteer at the vet's, didn't you?"

"Um, no, but I thought that was just cats and dogs. I'm neither."

"Simpleton. They had other animals." Her tiny hooves prodded and poked, keeping it halfway ticklish and halfway painful. The effect was jarring. He really didn't want think about those certain other zones...shit! He squinted his eyes shut, trying to remember stats to hoofball games he had played in the past. She bantered on, "You wouldn't believe the number of stray and domesticated birds people brought in for us to 'save.' Mostly from cat attacks. Usually they would die or the doctor would euthanize them, but they made for excellent training subjects."

She frowned slightly. "Occasionally," she continued slowly, "a large parrot or macaw would come in." She reached over to feel the other wing's joint, just for comparison. That one was definitely not in pain- oh shit! -Windy Shores takes the ball up the midfield, Civil thought furiously. She goes for a basket, blocked by Sandy Shores. Those two always played opposite teams, hitting averages .356 and .418 respectively-

He opened his eyes when her words sunk in.

"This is just a wing injury! Don't you dare suggest I have to be euth-" She smacked him on the ear. His head must have been closer to her than he thought, what with those tiny legs of hers. "Ow! What was that for!?!"

"You are panicking, stop it! I swear...sometimes you act like such a girl." Despite her scolding, he made a concerted effort to calm down. She noticed he was breathing slower and his whole body was less tense, minus the injured muscles, of course. "There, much better. What I MEANT was, I got to know wing structure fairly well. Not this big, mind you. But this works to our advantage. I can locate the problem a hell of a lot easier than those birds back then. Let's see.....how is this?"

"Tickles."

"Okay. This?"

"Seems fine."

"Alright. How about-"

"Ahh! Dammit! Don't touch that again." He nearly nipped her, but decided against it.

"Hm....shit."

His anger disappearing, he exclaimed, "What? What shit!?" She didn't answer. He eyed her dangerously, "Don't screw around with me on this! What shit?"

Sighing to herself, she tapped her tiny mouth with her tiny hoof, perched there between his wings. At length, she said quietly, "Just...try extending this wing." She lightly touched further down the wing than where the injury was. He shakily put his wing out, level to the cloud they were standing on. "Okay. Are you flexible enough with your legs to push on it, like, to simulate air pushing on it?"

"The kite thing?"

"Exactly!"

He tried it. "....seems fine."

"Okay, now slowly flex it as though you are normally flying or trying to gain altitude-"

"Eeeaaaaw! Son of a bitch, fuck!" Once the torrent of pain subsided, he looked back at her, only to notice her mouth was quivering as she attempted to hold in her laugh. "Oh for fuck's sakes, fuck off with that SOB shit, I'm in pain here!"

She covered her dainty ears. Good Lord...celestia...whatever, why was she so damn cute AND annoying at the same time!?! "Ack, you swear like a dirty pirate hooker." Lowering her hooves, she stared at the joint. It was already starting to swell a little. "Yeah well the 'shit' part of it, as you so eloquently put it...is a sprained joint."

He blanched, "I know what a sprained joint is! I've had a few accidents before I was-" He caught himself before he continued. Mouthing off to the one person trying to help him, the one PONY who had been given a raw deal in all this, was a horrible thing to do, and he felt horrible. Civil scrunched up his face and sighed, blinking away moisture in his eyes. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm sorry about all of this." He settled back down onto his stomach, letting his left wing drop to the cloud. The material gave way just enough to make it the perfect cushion.

She laid down on his back, chin on her forelegs. "You were saying 'before you were'...human? Like when you came to Earth, the first time?"

"Yes. There are memories that help me deal with all this stuff, and here I am freaking out about you when you have absolutely nothing to go on except the internet, and me. Big hero I'm turning out to be. When the time came, I didn't save my mother like I had dreamed. All those silly dreams when I was growing up without you, dreams of being there when you needed me most. I tossed you out of my saddlebag like, like some rotten fish..."

It was finally starting to affect him. The reappearance of his mother, albeit in a miniscule state. The fact that she wasn't dead, that something really weird had happened to her, the years he had spent hating his father and grandfather for what he thought were lies told him. Even the few years he believed she had left them all, which was a serious breach in pony social customs. All of it came crashing down on him like the waves his mother had him fly through in order to build up his strength, to deal with dense clouds later in life. Granted, wave crashing was an old learning technique his family bloodline had preserved throughout their generations since they his ancestors had moved to the coastline. But now, seeing all these things as those waves...he was a foal again, a foal's mind repeatedly crushed by waves of memories.

Renee felt the shuddering under her and knew this wasn't from physical pain. This was the pain of history meeting the present.

"Shhh, Civil, shush, don't be like that. It's going to be alright. I'm just helping where I can, when I can!"

He sobbed back, "How can you be so upbeat all the time? Everything you do is based on good intentions and you are never selfish, even though I keep thinking it is most of the time, and I'm always thinking you are some horrible person and mmmfff mfmf mm" Renee had scrambled atop his head and held his mouth shut with her legs wrapped around his muzzle, though she was hanging upside down now.

"Would you get a hold of yourself Jason! You are rambling!" Once he stopped trying to talk, she let go, dropping a few inches to poof into the cloud. Trying to roll over with her legs flailing was so pathetic that Civil nudged her over with his nose. She sighed and clenched her jaw, looking up at him. "Civil, I don't know how this happened or why I'm a baby and, um, your pegasus mother too, but let's get one thing clear."

He nodded, completely focused on her as she stood up on two hind legs and pressed her forehooves into his nose. "First, you will NEVER speak of that little rolling thing I just did. Got it?" He nodded, then shook his head no quickly, then kind of stayed still, eyes darting left and right to figure out what answer he was supposed to give.

She grinned and sat back. "I'll take that as an agreement. Second, there are going to be many more of these, uh, situations where this body is going to SEEM funny. It isn't! And I'm pretty sure experienced those same situations when you were small, both as a human and as a pony, so we will not be making fun of me or I, you. Right?" He nodded in response. "Naturally, because I'm sure you've sat in the tub as a young pony boy, colt? Colt, yeah, as a young colt you sat there, laughing at your own fart bubbles..." She paused, noticing his widening eyes and ear tips pinking up. "Holy shit, you did!"

She caught herself and raised a hoof when he shifted around. "Like I said, we have both done these things, so let's spare each other's dignity and work together to get through this." She took some deep breaths. That was a lot to say for a teeny tiny baby, she thought to herself. She took another deep breath.

He nodded, again, not having much to say. Or not. "Just two things-?"

She cut him off with, "And the third thing is...you can either live your life laughing or crying." She crossed her forelegs and raised one eyebrow at him. "I prefer to laugh. What about you?"

"I prefer to do both." His grinned slightly, some levity returning to him.

They stared at each other. Liberty spoke first.

"MiB...?"

"MiB."

"I walked into that."

"Yes, you did."

She flicked a hoof his way and got back up, walking/falling around him on the cloud to get back to his saddlebag and pushed up on the flap with her hooves. "Fine, whatever. You get what I mean. Anyway...are we stuck up here or can you, you know, glide down or something?" She paused while still outside the saddlebag, leaning on it with the flap sitting on her head.

"Well you already proved I can at least glide." He waited for her to climb in and situate herself. This time he buckled the flap down properly, but still had it partially open so she could peek out. He paused, staring back at those eyes. "Hold up. How do you know about gliding? And don't tell me you learned how to fly at the vet's. Are you...do you remember...being my mother?"

She pushed her head out just enough so he could see her shake her head. "No. I'm sorry. I don't have any pony memories, Civil."

He sighed. "Then how?"

"I've been watching you."

"Me?" He exclaimed, utter shock on his face. He sat down and watched her for a few seconds. "This entire time, like from the moment I flew over your head until, like, NOW??" She nodded at him. "Watching me?" She nodded again, though at this point she was starting to get irritated. How many times was he going to ask the same thing? He finally said something different. "Aside from creepy, why?"

Why. A very small question with a very big answer. No sooner had her cheeks turned rosy, she pulled her head back into the bag, only her eyes reflecting the light. She muttered, "I was envious."

"To have wings?"

"Of course, numbskull!" She got touchy when she was embarrassed. He should have known that, but kept forgetting. "Why do you think I asked you to be a kite? Yeah, okay, a very very SMALL part of it was revenge...but I wanted to experience what you had." Her voice was muffled from inside the bag. "I watched how you would take off, hover, all those things at home. I even moved over to the other side of the plane to study you." Her eyes disappeared. Civil guessed she must have been looking down. "When I found out I was...well, your mother, that I would be a pegasus..."

She poked her head out again, eyes moist, "Civil, that was the happiest day of my life. Yeah it was only a couple of days ago, but it's the truth! I wanted so badly to tell you that. Then, you got so upset, about what you grew up believing. I'm so sorry you thought I was dead." She wiped her eyes with her forelegs, and although her eyes were a little red, they were no longer soft. They were steel. "I promise to make it up to you, to remember my past, somehow. I vow to find out why I had left or why I didn't come back, or whatever happened, and why you were lied to about it." She growled, and not the cute growl of a puppy learning to fend for itself. This was the growl of a wolverine that was no bigger than your head, and yet would take your head off if you dared to place it next to her for size comparison.

"I plan to find out HOW I became this fucking little thing!" Civil fidgeted as this tiny creature forced her way halfway out of the saddlebag, raising a tiny leg to the sky. "Fuck you Discord, WHEREVER YOU ARE!!!!!"

His ears were ringing for a long while after the foal had slipped back down into the saddlebag. A momentary regret for not recording that on his phone was immediately dashed by her earlier speech of not mentioning such moments to others, not to mention that dangerous edge he heard in her voice. He realized he had underestimated this tiny thing.

It struck him that while growing up, this was the pony he relied on as his rock to lean against, his pillar whose strength he had always known. Deep down, even though most of his memories were of her wasting away in bed, he had known a strength in her, rediscovered by that one instant where she was screaming at a hopefully dead god and had no fear.

Civil saw her in a new light, now. Despite her size, her squeaky voice, hell, the damn diaper she was still wearing. Even despite her having his sister's personality, in that one moment of adorable defiance, he had witnessed the strength of Civil Liberty. This was something he had always heard about when growing up, from family and parental friends. Even from some older guards, they would mention the bravery of the savior of Manehattan, a hero in fact, but never the details.

Sure, at night his mother would tell him stories, with the names, places, and events changed to protect the innocent. The few times he ran into Celestia before he was changed into a human, she would take a moment to praise his mother, though any questions were diverted for 'historical secrecy.' At least, that was early in his Royal Guard career. Later on, Celestia seemed not to notice him as much. The new guard polish wearing off, he supposed. Certainly not post-curse when they were back in Equestria. The rebuilding of their entire society alone warranted nothing but thoughts and actions for the present and future, with only brief fondness for those recently deceased. None for those long dead.

Despite that, he felt uplifted now. He didn't see a statue standing in that harbor, holding a torch in the likeness of his mother. He saw her, a beacon of strength.

How could he have forgotten such fortitude? Well, he chided himself, dimension jumping a few times does that to a pony. He snorted to himself.

"What?" She squeaked out from under the flap.

He looked back to quintuple check she was there and the flap was secured. Two blue eyes peeked out from under the flap, waiting for his answer. He shrugged, "Was thinking about the past, about you before Discord happened. At least we both hate him. That's one thing we can agree on." Slowly he raised his wings, trying to not force the left one too much. "Ready?"

Nervously she responded, "Ready!" The bravado was gone. She must have been thinking about how she can't fly yet, with her recent fall underscoring that fact.

Reaching his head around to nuzzle into the bag, he said quietly, "I'm not going to drop you. Again. I swear it."

"I know." Liberty giggled nervously and pushed his nose out. Seeing her, as a pony, and thinking of her as not just his mother now, but as LIBERTY, gave him more comfort than he thought was possible in this situation. It felt good, weirdly enough, knowing she was there, with him now.

He asked slowly, "How do you know?"

"Because I still trust you...and I won't be a pain this time." He snorted and looked out in front of him. There was the old Renee, denying she would be the old Renee.

"Promises promises."

"I mean it." Along with a slight edge in her voice, he also felt a little poke into his side through the bag. She must have put everything she had into that punch. It almost tickled.

He wasn't going to antagonize her now. They needed to get going, or the very least figure out if he was flight worthy. He readied his wings and replied, "Okay. This time, if you need anything, scream loudly. Not that teeny tiny keening shit like before." Fuckit, antagonizing her was fun.

"Oh shut up! I hope your wing snaps and you bounce on your fat white ass instead of on me so I at least get to see it kicked by planet earth, since these damn legs are too short to reach that big fat-" He jostled his bags around a little so she tumbled inside them, cutting her off.

"Sheesh, and you think I'm the one with the mouth. Give me a break, I could barely find you, just this falling speck and a teeny tiny keening wailing, like a hyped up mosquito that ate too much sugar blood while stalking foals on Nightmare Night-"

"I'll tell mom you dropped me-"

"Alright!" He quickly cut her off before she could develop her threat. "So, like I said, scream loudly." He had to raise his voice over the grumbling from bag, "Otherwise, hold on. This time."

She poked her muzzle out, "You are a jerk." She looked like Tweety Bird from the old cartoons, how her face stuck out from a burger bun, or burrito, or whatever Tom had stuck the bird in on any given episode. Catching her movement in the corner of his eye, he turned to regard her, a thought coming to him.

"And you are my little birdie!" The label simply popped out of him before he realized what he was saying. He remembered his pegasus mother laughing at the way he hopped around and flapped his wings when he was very young, his voice chirping in excitement. So long ago....

Before he could apologize or take it back, she answered, "Heh. I like that." She pulled her face back into the bag, but stuck a wingtip out sternly, "In privacy only. If you call me that in public, I'll kick your ass." The wing whipped back inside, replaced by two eyes curious to see his gliding performance.

Civil nodded and stared straight ahead. "Yes, ma'am." There was a comical nature responding thusly to a near newborn foal.

And yet, in some weird, transdimensional Discord-fucking-everypony-in-the-ass just-for-the-hell-of-it kind of way, it was almost more natural to say 'yes ma'am' to this foal than it was to his own human mother. Their mother, he supposed. He shook himself, mindful that he needed to pay absolute attention to the winds now, in favor of his injured wing.

The trick to gliding was simply understanding that while flying allowed you to get back up in the air if you screwed up the approach, gliding was a one-shot deal. Whatever decisions you made in choice of terrain and approach, you had to eat the consequences, for better or worse. 'Make it work, no matter what.' That was his pegasus father's greatest lesson when Civil was first learning to fly. Second saying was 'Any crater you can crawl out of is still a landing.'

He glanced back at the foal he was carrying. Yeah, forget the second one for now, think of the first one. He nodded to himself and walked to the edge of the cloud.

Make it work.

***

The wind drifted serenely over the two...and the cloud they were still standing on.

Liberty poked her head out. "Hey, Dolittle, anytime now." Seeing if she got a rise out of him, his only response was his left ear flicking once. If that was some kind of 'It's a pony thang' sign language he learned while going native, she wasn't having it. "Dolittle, as in you are doing very little...and like World War Two when the Dolittle bombers dropped screaming helpless foals over Japan-"

"I get the references!" Civil twisted his neck around a few times, working out some kinks. Surprising Liberty, he sat back on his haunches and lowered his wings. "Funny you should mention Japan."

Liberty giggled. "Oh?"

Glancing back, he noted the smirk on her face. "Hello Kitty is Japanese."

The smirk disappeared. And so did the tiny head as she hid back into his bags.

"Yah okay, good trivia to know," she muffled back, "Can we go now?"

He shook his bags lightly, eliciting a yelp from her. "Alright, little Miss Impatient. But, in case either of us don't make it, and just between the two of us," he lowered his voice before continuing, "that whole butter thing wasn't REALLY for science, WAS it?"

A guilty pair of eyes hovered inside the dark opening. "No..." was her quiet response.

"Thought so." He stood back up and readied himself.

"Wait don't you want to know why?"

"Nope. That way when I get you back I won't feel so guilty about it."

"You asshole! I was getting revenge for oh shit oh shit oh shit!" He had launched off the cloud with all the strength left in his legs, trying to get speed and lift with fixed wings since he could no longer flap them, else he would further injure himself.

No matter what.

Without much else happening, it was a peaceful glide down to the ground from 20k up. He angled for what looked to be a field of dead grass just south of the northern border of North Carolina, as noted by the map on his phone. He typed in a message to Center informing them of his injured wing, which was why he had to use a glide profile and cut his trip short. They acknowledged his message, set about closing out his flight plan, and reassured him that the report would only be a formality, given circumstances seemed to be outside his control. He didn't reply, lest his guilty conscience give way to him truthfully ending his own flight status by spilling the beans.

The landing was just as uneventful, one a vet flier would acknowledge textbook. He looked back at Liberty as she peered around them, her distrustful opinion of their surroundings apparent on her face. He murmured, "Well, all the important stuff is done. We're on the ground...hm...I think we are going to need a better solution than you being in my bags."

She raised her eyebrows, "Meaning...what?"

He tilted his head in thought. "Somepony who might know someone or pony that works with leather. Maybe make some straps to hold you down better."

She blushed and glared at the same time, "Oi, no kinky shit!"

He shushed her. "I need to make a phone call. Behave." She blinked at his audacity, but let it pass. Who was he calling, she wondered to herself.

His phone rang on the other end a few times...and she picked up. He sighed, finally something going in his direction.

"Hay long time, never called me, Civil. What's up?" He clearly heard a sucker clacking around in her mouth.

"Haya Pink, I know, my bad. Well, I meant to call earlier but...it's been busy."

Hot Pink replied, "Uh huh. Still good to hear from ya. Visiting soon?"

"About that. I might need a favor first, that is, if you don't mind." Liberty's mouth formed a tiny 'o'. Her ears could pick up the FEMALE person's voice coming out of the phone. Since when did this guy know girls? ANY girls!?!

"Anything sweety. By the way," her voice got a little husky, "I like this new bold version of you, makes you even cuter."

By this time, Liberty couldn't contain herself. "Who's that?"

Then Hot Pink asked, "Who's that?"

He stared at both his mother/sister and his phone, then sighed and put it on speaker. "Liberty, this is one of the other ponies I met in my flight rules class shortly after my return to Earth. Hot Pink, this is Civil Liberty. She used to be my sister, human sister. But now she's my mom. Pony mom. Who talks and acts like my sister with no mom memory. Ugh, it's complicated."

Both mares squee'd in stereo, followed up by 'omygosh omygosh you found your mother!' and 'omygod omygod you found a girlfriend lemme talk to her!' from Liberty.

Civil groaned and simply dropped the phone into the bag. He plodded on, tuning out both of them while heading for a line of trees. He wasn't easy with staying out in the open. The girls began a very long and animated chat together that included longer introductions, catching each other up on the last couple of years of their lives, where they lived as humans, and embarrassing moments centered around him, for some reason. They've never even met for Celestia's sake, he groused to himself. At length, Liberty was finally able to get his attention.

"Oi, Tall Dark and Grumby, she wants to talk to you now, lover boy." This elicited a giggle from the other end and a low growl from him.

"Gee thanks, glad we can get back to why I called." During their girl chat, he'd made it to the trees and simply sat inside their shade. He could see what looked like a road on the opposite side of the field, but there was no movement. Why should there be? Every normal person or pony would be home now, it being Christmas Eve tomorrow...Hearth's Warming...either or, he grumbled to himself. He was still at odds with which part was more important, human experiences or pony ones.

He must have forgotten he was holding the phone near his head because, "Yeah, that lovely Mrs. Liberty mentioned you were injured." Her voice changed to one of concern. "Civil, what happened? I know we recover quickly, but in this world you have to be careful. It's almost like the Everfree now if you are out by yourself and grounded. How did you hurt your wing?"

"I...mm, twisted it the wrong way doing a stunt, and...anyway this injury is not a big deal."

"He's a terrible liar, Liberty."

"Yes, he is."

"Look," he said, getting exasperated, "I feel bad about it and would like to get to the problem at hand. Hoof. Hmm."

"Okay Mr. Prickly Bush, what's yer boggle?"

He froze, "....how do you know that name?" He'd read it in a book back in Equestria, when they were putting the library back together. Aside from other things done, Discord had made a mess of their lineage records.

"Um, we have allthorns all over the place so we call them prickly bushes, why?"

He shook his head, "Nevermind. Do you guys have anypony that makes custom straps, or saddles, for ponies?"

"Hun, you and I live in Texas. I'm near Odessa, remember? If you'd ever visit...watcha need, sweets?"

"I have a special request for something to allow a foal to sit securely so she won't fall out when I fly. That doable?"

There was a gasp. "You want to give your mom ponyback rides, pegasus style?! That's so adorable I could cuddle you for ages!"

Liberty was laughing up a storm while Civil turned beet red and squirmed. "Yeah. Anyway is that doable?"

"Sure thing hun. Once you heal up, just come on by with her and we'll get you set right up. I can't wait to meet your mother, although its customary for the mare to bring the stallion home to meet her parents for approval, you know."

Civil groaned, much to Hot Pink's delight. "Is it always going to be this way with you?" he said into the phone in a lowered voice. Not like that helped.

Liberty exclaimed, "Civil! That's rude, apologize!"

"It's okay, ma'am, I like making him squirm."

Liberty cackled, "So do iI"

And in a softer voice, Pink said, "I really have missed you, Civil, since that night."

Another gasp from Liberty. She whispered harshly, "Civil, you slept with her already? I thought I raised you better!"

Civil yelled quickly, just as Hot pink also said nonchalantly, "Nothing happened," both in unison. "And anyway," he added, "you don't remember how you raised me!"

Liberty opened her mouth in astonishment, then said, "Ouch, hitting low now, are we?"

Civil whined out of frustration, then glowered when he saw Liberty's not so injured smirk.

But Pink said, "He's a well mannered stallion, Mrs. Liberty. You raised a good one."

That made Liberty's cheeks burn and she settled down into her bag, mumbling, "Yeah, I suppose the evidence is in the pudding...."

"Anyway so when should we expect you? Today maybe? Or tomorrow once you heal up?"

"Definitely not today. We didn't get too far on my flight plan until I dropped...uh, altitude and twisted my wing, but we landed alright," he finished. After a few seconds, he continued, "We are still three hours out as the pegasus flies, somewhere in near the North Carolina-Virginia border. Figure it may be a couple of days, to heal up, fly home-"

"Civil," Pink said quickly, "you are out in the middle of nowhere. Remember what I said about being stranded? It's the Everfree and, and you are grounded! You'll get picked off...find some tall grass, hunker down!"

"I walked us to some trees-"

"Hide in the shadows then! Liberty!"

"Yes ma'am!" she replied, saluting. Civil mumbled that they were in the shadows, but nopony was listening to him now.

"His phone has a sidebar tool with a ruler. Use that to take measurements of his barrel and yourself. I'll walk you through the process, just give me a minute to get our leather specialist."

Liberty saluted the phone again, "Jawolh mein kommandantin Pink!" and began pulling herself out of the saddlebag. After a few seconds, he dropped the phone onto her back, which she begane balancing as she climbed. His part in all this already seemed small.

Despite the question of how she knew his phone better than he, another more relevant question persisted. He raised his voice, "Hot Pink....what are you doing?"

"A rescue op, silly. Lay down so that foal doesn't fall and bonk her head while trying to measure you."

He laid down quickly, surprised at the authority in her voice. He blinked and looked at the phone to verify it wasn't using the facetime video app. "Um, how did you know she was a foal." Liberty paused and opened her mouth.

"Her voice. It's squeaky like a foal's. And in case you feel conscientious about it, Mrs. Liberty, I absolutely love it. I wasn't going to say anything about it until we met, but circumstances have changed and I don't care to have Civil there bonk his baby mama."

Liberty nearly died from laughter while having a hard time staying on Civil's back.

"That is so wrong...in ways that corrupt my inner child," he moaned.

"Uh huh. Suck it up, buttercup. Yer a navigator so text me your exact coordinates and we should be there ASAP. Once we have you saddled up...oh yeah, that is going to look so saucy on him, mmhm...nono, THAT one, yah go with that black one...mmhmm, the silver accents, your read my mind."

"Uh, who are you talking to? And what is this 'we' thing?" He started to get worried. He used his good wing to reach back and tap on his phone, Liberty wincing everytime he pressed down hard. She could swear he was doing it on purpose.

"Don't you worry, Civ, we got this handled. The cavalry is on the way. Liberty, ready to get measuring?"

She grabbed the phone away from Civil, made sure the text of their location was sent and nodded to the phone, "Yes ma'am!"

"I like her already, Civ. We'll start at the withers and go from there. Ready, sweety?"

"Sure thing, Hots!"

He groaned and laid his head down in the grass as the two mares went back and forth over the phone and his body. He refused to think about what that previous sentence. "This is going to be a long day," he mumbled to himself.

His mother patted him on the neck with a dainty hoof and went back to work, talking to Hot Pink. His mother. He smiled to himself. He had his mother back. Sort of. It could have been worse. A pause in the background conversation made him look up from his internal musings. Liberty was holding the phone out to him, smiling.

He made a face at her and took the phone.

"Still there?" he asked.

"Yep, but not for long. Give me and Blazing...half an hour, then we'll be on our way. I’ll send somepony ahead of us, in case we are delayed. Don't move from that spot."

He stared at the phone, amazed anypony, any-ONE would go out of their way for him.

"Hot Pink, you don't have to do this. What you are doing is beyond-"

"Civil. Shush," she replied. Solemnly, she said, "We are ponies."

And that was the way of things.

***

"He was there, Civil! He was there, and he was angry, and...he was so angry I never want to see those eyes again! Those eyes, those yellow and red angry eyes!" She was trembling now.

"Shhh, it's okay, mom, I'm sure you won't have to see him again. So you did see the eyes. When did this happen?" They were huddled down in a nearby ditch, her body pressed up against his under his wing. To pass the time, he had asked if she had experienced anything during the events since her full change. He had pronounced it 'foal' change, but she had given him a withering stare. She said 'no' to the morning she woke up ponified...and 'yes' to the fall, of all things.

"My life flashed in front of me. No seriously, you don't get to laugh about this one!" He tried to wipe the smile off his muzzle. The whole 'life flashing by' motif was so overplayed, he was trying not to laugh. "Anyway...I DIDN'T remember it that night I changed, but the FALL caused me to remember it now." She glared again, daring him. He tried his poker face. He was terrible at poker face. She acknowledged his effort with the barest acceptance and continued, "There was red color all around me, like before, and the booming sound again. After the wave of pain, I remember looking up and those eyes loomed over me. They were so angry at me, Civil, so angry. What did I do to him that made him hate me so much?!"

"I...can't say...that's not the impression I got...." he mused quietly, remembering his own dreams of-

"What? How could you...?" She searched his face.

"Being angry," he said quickly. "With you.....I mean....why would he be angry with you? You are so adorable. Now...as an infant." She absolutely did not need to know some of the dreams he'd been having lately, not in her condition. In her current state of mind, she would just as soon forget about the whole ordeal if she could.

"Please stop teasing me. I don't feel good right now."

"Sorry, I was trying to lighten the mood."

"No. It's my-" Gurgle. Her eyes went wide and looked down, then started whining, "Civil! I'm so sorry!" She took a moment to snuffle...and bawled out, "I made a meeeeeeeeeessssssss!"

He gently pulled her to him and checked her diaper, very carefully. The smell reached his nostrils before any valuable feathertips touched anything horrid. "It's okay, mom. It happens to everypony, even old ones. We'll just take care of this as quickly as possible." He pulled out the proper supplies while continuing to hold her, then laid out a baby blanket and placed the weeping foal on it. The next sequence of steps were of the mundane and horrid variety. He groaned, "I don't like this part," turning his nose away as he clumsily wiped her lower half down with baby wipes. Probably more than was needed, but it was all over the place!

"You think you have it bad?!?!" she quailed, her eyes squeezed shut. "It came out of me...ugh, I can feel it still on me. Hurry, get it off!"

"I am! This is wrong on so many levels," he muttered nasally. He attempted not to breathe through his nose, or think of said levels, not the least being he was cleaning his MOTHER and SISTER all around her...stuff.

Once the nasty was done, he buried the tightly wound up diaper into a nearby hole he'd dug up with his hooves. Thank Celestia he had bought biodegradable ones. Yes, they exist. He would have buried the plastic ones too, he thought guiltily, but this way he could sleep at night. Properly powdered and deftly diapered, it was a happy foal that finally took in big gulps of air. He was about to say something when she held up a hoof, looking away. "No comments."

They settled down again, listening to the wind sift through the tall trees, the long reeds of grass flowing in waves out in the field.

"Civil, I'm scared."

He looked down at her, huddled there under his wing. "Why are you scared?"

"Because we are out here, all alone, in the wilderness." She paused and took a deep breath. Then she yelled at him, "and I'm fucking tiny! What am I supposed to do with these!?!" She shook her hooves at him.

"Walk on them?" His ear swiveled in the opposite direction.

"Ha ha!" she laughed, crossing her forelegs. "I find your lack of appreciation of the situation disturbing." He merely rolled his eyes.

A deep voice drifted down to them from the branches high above their heads. "Hay. You haven't seen two helpless ponies around here, have you?" They looked up and spotted a pony shaped head in the darkness of the leaves looking down at them. The head glanced around briefly, "One is really uptight with new fancy ponyshoes. Other one makes squeaky sounds, screaming to the whole world how she is scared? Not that any wild predators run to the screams of a tiny animal in need, but...you know...maybe they do."

After nearly having a heart attack, Liberty raised her hoof at the pony staring down at them. "I'm not scared of you!" A few seconds of freefall followed by a gust of wind later, a very large stallion towered over the tiny pegasus. Her eyes barely flicked from his giant head down to his fluffed chest, further down to his barrel and then his...she sped back behind Civil's leg to hide.

Civil snorted, glancing down to make sure she was okay before lifting his other foreleg to hoofbump Barro's. "Har har....good to see you, Barro." That was the most Civil had heard the large guy speak in one breath. He must have been expanding his horizons when it came to conversation.

"Same." Barro stared at him, unmoving after he put his hoof down.

...hm, probably too soon on the horizons thing.

"I mean it," Civil repeated. "It really is good to see you. You don't know the shit we've been through."

Barro looked around. He noted the forest and open field, in the middle of nowhere far from any kind of civilization. He saw Civil drooping his wing. He replied evenly, "I might know."

"What is Strat up to these days?"

The larger pegasus shrugged, "Laying low last few days. He got real weird after his own injuries."

"Oh? He got injured?" Civil's brow raised.

"Yeah. Went into Odessa for a few minor errands. Came back in splints. He healed up before you called, wanted to come with us, too. Then he started talking about the universe informing him not to, so he didn't. Odd pegasus."

Civil hummed to himself softly and looked down at Liberty, who was still hiding behind his leg. "Very."

She got even further behind his leg, if that were physically possible, and retorted, "I have no idea what you are talking about!"

He glanced up, " 'Come with us?' Hot Pink is on the way, then?"

Barro smiled knowingly, "She is, along with a unicorn. Figured you might need some firepower out here in case the locals take to us unkindly. And she has a surprise for you."

Civil shook his head. "I don't need any surprises, just a means to carry this little tyke around without....stuff happening." She blew a raspberry up at him. Barro leaned low.

"What is your name?" he said in his deep rumbling bass voice.

She got wide-eyed again and hid, squeaking out, "civiliberty!"

Civil chuckled, fighting the urge to remove the leg she was using as a hiding spot. "Her name is Civil Liberty, my mother. You want to say hello to the big guy? His name is Barro Metric."

"no" came the very small response.

Civil shook his head, sighing. "Sorry, she can be weird like that."

His friend chuckled, "No sweat." Then he started to walk around them, eyeing the area they were in. "Good ditch, should be fine for the campfire, hard to spot from that road." He settled down and started preening.

"Campfire?" Civil asked. Barro merely eyupped and continued his work. Mother and son glanced at each other silently.

It wasn't all that long before they heard some flapping overhead. A pink form soared between the tree trunks, the mare loaded with heavy bags and carrying a unicorn under her, large straps holding him up. When they were hovering low enough, his horn glowed and the straps undid themselves, dropping him to his hooves. He adjusted the spectacles on his face with one hoof. Hot Pink flapped a few more times and alighted gently next to the group of ponies.

"Civil!"

She practically galloped over to him and engulfed him in her wings. Liberty scampered away to avoid getting trampled as Civil steadied himself. After several long seconds of Civil squirming in embarrassment, Hot pulled back and looked him up and down. The corners of her mouth dipped into a frown. "Your blacks are starting to fade. Shame."

He glanced down to examine his forelegs and wingtips. Oh, the coffee stains and ink...technically he hadn't decided whether to keep the coloration or bleach it out. He supposed he could try a longer lasting dye-

Civil shook his head and replied testily, "I hadn't thought about it. I'm not exactly Cloudsdalian, I'm an east coaster. You know, shells for earrings, seaweed woven into our...uh, all that crap they spew about us."

She snorted, grinning. He did not like the look in her eye. "Shells and seaweed. Now that is a look worth exploring..." He felt very much like a rabbit before a wolf. "They say other things too, if I remember correctly." Her look softened when she saw his drooping wing. She peered closely at the joint. He wasn't surprised when Hot muttered 'joint sprain' under her breath.

She added, "It could have been worse, you know." He nodded guiltily, cheeks red.

A tiny throat cleared below them and they looked down.

"Even though my entire sky is full of undersides and nether regions, and we are NOT discussing my preferences at this junk, j-JUNCTURE!!!...I would prefer to be eye level during our conversations, if you don't mind."

Civil rolled his eyes and shifted to the side so Liberty could have more G-rated sky. Hot giggled and stepped forward, glancing to Civil, "Do you mind?"

He smirked and shrugged. "She's fair game."

Hot Pink leapt forward and scooped up the foal. Liberty exclaimed, "What the hell, why is everyone always scooping me up!"

To which the larger mare said, "Because you are so adorably scoopable!" She began to tickle the foal with her wings, eliciting peals of laughter from Liberty. Civil shifted awkwardly as he stood to the side. Hot asided to him, "I've got this. Blazing should check your injury with his horn, in case it is worse than it looks." He eyes flicked over at the unicorn. The two mares basically picked up where they left off from the phone conversation.

Civil knew a dismissal when he heard one, but he felt her concern in it. Sight and touch could do only so much in the medical field. He wandered over to the unicorn and found him inspecting the contents of the bags Hot Pink had dropped off. "Hi, my name is Civil Patrol," the pegasus said. The unicorn nodded to him briefly, then went back to the bags, magicking out rolls of leather, awling needles, a small hammer and other tools.

Okay. The pegasus added, "Hot Pink mentioned you could look at my injury in case it was worse off."

"I already did," the unicorn responded, his head still in one of the bags. He backed out, his horn glowing light brown. A black saddle with silver accents floated out, along with several buckles and a roll of leather strap.

"You did? I never felt it."

The unicorn nodded, then levitated a rolled up kit of tools, awls, punches, and various leatherworking items. "While you two were hugging. The proximity of your magic and hers allowed me to do a preliminary scan, skim some excess energy off the top as it were, with it being only a wing injury. Plus I needed you relaxed. A full scan can be done later, but it will be more invasive and requires more of your magic directly, which may be exhausting for you. We can do that after the fitting. I want to check the saddle for discomfort in your current physiological configuration."

Numbly, Civil nodded. "Right..." He understood scans to some degree, in that they tingled and took a little out of you. Everything else went over his head.

Blazing peered over his glasses at him. "Trust me." The pegasus shrugged, what choice did he have? The unicorn began his work rather diligently, Civil noted. With horn glowing, strips of leather, buckles, and all manner of implements flew around him to tailor the saddle and straps securely. At some point, Hot Pink squawked in protest as Liberty lifted out of her grasp and over to Civil where she alighted atop the saddle on his back. He was familiar with unicorn magic, yet it was always a sight for him to behold, like a symphony of chaos.

Liberty, however, was dazzled at the cloud of activity swirling around her, like a child seeing something shiny for the first time. And like a child, her fascination waned. So she began staring at the unicorn himself. Eventually he paused and stared right back at her, simply asking, "What?"

"I have a question to ask," was her high pitched reply. Civil snorted softly, shaking his head. Of course she would state it rather than ask, so as not to invite the typical 'you just asked a question' response. The unicorn smiled ruefully, having thought the same thing and went back to work.

"If it is within my capacity, I can answer any question you like."

There was a time when you've known someone for so long, that you have heard the most idiotic things from them they could muster, such that they can never top the stupidest shit said to date. Normally this acclimates you to embarrassment in public and you no longer have anything to worry about.

Apparently he did not know her long enough.

"When the stories say only a virgin can summon unicorns, do they mean real human virgins, or just any virgin? Like do pony virgins count? On that note, can a unicorn virgin summon himself...or herself? But as for Civil, I'm pretty sure he is still a virgin, or he wouldn't act so weird around women. And he somehow summoned you, a male. That actually raises several other questions-"

Everything floating around fell straight down. Barro and Hot Pink scattered to keep from getting pelted while Blazing stepped this way and that to avoid the items, laughing his pony ass off. A needle poked Civil in his bare flank, causing him to buck sharply...which launched Liberty screaming off into the air. Hot Pink spotted her and dove to the ground, catching the foal in her forelegs as the larger mare slid to a stop on her belly. She laughed, "Just like buckball!"

A very angry Civil winced as the needle was extracted by the apologetic unicorn. He yelled, "I am not a virgin!"

Liberty crossed her legs, having completely put her most recent flight behind her already. "Prove it!"

"What!?!"

"Name one time where you slept with a girl. Any species, I'll give you that one." Hot Pink carried her back over to him to place on the saddle, but he took a step back, holding up his good wing.

"That....I am not...I'm not talking about this to my sister slash mom...or in front of them! And that's none of your business anyway!" He shrugged off the saddle and walked away, despite Hot trying to get him come back.

Hot Pink sighed and put the foal down on the saddle and looked at Blazing questioningly. He shrugged and said, "I can make do for now. The sizing is done for him. Just need to attach the straps for her." Hot nodded, then looked at Liberty sternly.

"Was that necessary?"

Liberty responded by crossing her forelegs and retorting, "I'm his mother. All things to do with him are necessary!" Hot Pink stared at her longer. She finally wilted and murmured, "Maybe not ALL things...but he shouldn't get so shy around girls. He's a grown adult and he's allowed to do grown adult things with pretty adults like you-" Hot Pink placed a hoof over Liberty's muzzle before she babbled even more delicate things.

"I think it's cute. I may not be a mother yet, but I do understand our pegasi protective nature." Liberty meant to reply but Hot Pink nudged her hoof a little more against her muzzle, "Part of that protection is giving our fillies and colts room to grow, or they will never learn."

Liberty gently pulled Hot's hoof down, which meant she practically suspended herself on it to apply any force. "I'm...sorry. This is all just a little new to me."

Hot Pink nodded, "I get that, but you shouldn't apologize to me. I'll go speak to him..." She paused, thinking, then she eyed Liberty more closely. "You have a peculiar way of making things your business. A unicorn myth to address his shyness?"

Liberty shrugged, nonplussed. "It's all or nothing with me. What better way to get his honest feelings then to thoroughly shake things up."

The older mare snorted softly, standing straight. Her lollipop clacked around for a few seconds. "Mm...shake things up. I like that. I just hope he likes the saddle." That last part was more to herself than anypony else. Liberty took note of it, in any case.

Civil had found a nice little clearing where some wild flowers were growing and decided to eat away his feelings. He didn't even care if they might be hazardous.

"Save some for me, Civ."

He glanced up, saw who it was and moved over to the other side of the clump to offer her some. "Enough here for the others, I guess."

She smiled and nodded, sitting next to him instead of opposite. "We'll take some back when you are ready." Then she lowered her head to eat.

He was sure she was going to say something more, then figured she was waiting for him. He wasn't so much upset as he was simply annoyed. It showed in his tone when he did speak up, "Liberty does that all the time. Says the most aggravating things in the fewest words possible. As Renee, she did that, too. You'd think she would know all of this stuff is hard to deal with."

Hot Pink paused in her chewing to swallow, then regarded him, "She strikes me as the kind of pony to just get things out in the open. Light that stick of dynamite and get it over with rather than sit on it. And she is concerned about your love life." He groaned and turned away, but stopped when he felt her wing on him. "Civil...it's okay if this makes you feel uncomfortable, being near me. I understood then and I understand now."

He turned around in surprise, "No, not at all! Actually, it is comforting...um, being near you." She smiled warmly, without judgement in her eyes. He swallowed, "Just that...I don't have a job, I don't even have a cutie-mark." He raised a hoof before she could respond, "And I know you think that is alright. I don't. I need a foundation of some kind, some acknowledgement for me, that I am on the right track. Otherwise, even if I want to settle down, it won't feel right."

She nodded, "I remember what we talked about back in Randolph." When Civil gave her a look, she shook her head, "I didn't tell your mother anything. You are correct, it is your business, but she cares about you. Yes," she rolled her eyes at his expression of disbelief, "she tends to be bombastic about it. But hay, makes it more fun, right?" He snorted.

Civil began gathering up bunches of flowers. Hot Pink helped. When they had enough tucked under three wings, they started walking back. Before they reached the others, she whispered to him, "You are comfortable near me?"

He blushed and muttered, "Yes...and not in the Barro friend sort of way..."

She nodded and smiled wanly, whispering, "At your pace, Civ." He nodded and said thanks. As they neared the other ponies, they dropped off the flowers and were greeted with thankyou's and a small apology from Liberty, which Civil shrugged off with a promise of revenge later. Liberty laughed half-heartedly, not really sure if he was serious. Blazing offered to put the saddle back on, along with Liberty for finally fitting.

That was when she truly got to appreciate the work the unicorn had put into the piece. Liberty pawed at the supple feeling of the seat, the stitching and scrollwork patterns imprinted into the leather. Granted it was shaped differently to allow room for pegasus wings, as well as the fenders having been moved further back to accomodate a larger pony rider for later on, since no human would be riding on him (I'll buck the first fucker that tries to mount me, he had sworn, despite the unicorn reassuring him otherwise).

Liberty leaned forward and hissed, "She bought you a saddle. The unicorn said so." Blazing glanced up briefly, nodded, then went back to some minor cleanup work with his needle and the skirt of the saddle

"Hush," muttered Civil. He stared straight ahead. He had been trying to figure out how he was going to repay Hot Pink.

"I don't know shit about pony culture and she bought you a saddle! And it's almost Christmas!"

"Shut up!" While Hot Pink had been lounging nearby, playing with her phone, her ears swiveled his direction. A new lollipop stick also pointed his way. He whispered harshly, "We call it Hearth's Warming....dammit, I don't have anything for her! For you!..." He looked at Barro and Blazing who were standing right there. They both shrugged. Stallion on stallion gifting wasn't a big deal, unless two stallions were a big deal to each other.

"FUCK!" Civil exclaimed.

Hot laughed, the lollipop stick clacking around. "Oh Civil, seriously, you didn't know you were going to see me or other ponies, or could have foreseen any of this." Her eyes took him in, wearing the saddle, with Liberty nearby. "Tell you what. Just to make sure you get home safely, I'll escort you back to your parents' house. You can introduce me. That will be a fine enough gift. Yah?" While Civil grudgingly nodded. Blazing glanced over to Barro.

"Might need to rearrange our travel plans," he said quietly to him. Barro simply nodded with an eyup.

When Blazing looked to be just about done, merely eyeballing his work from different angles while his tools slowly levitated back into the rollup kit, Liberty dug out the Deadpool figure from Civil's bags. It then glowed, floated out of her hooves to the pommel of the saddle and snapped into place. Civil turned his head, raising a brow. "Seriously?"

"Magnets," the unicorn replied.

"No! I mean, are we really going to stick that thing up there...and how does it just so happen to fit exactly in place..." He stopped and stared at the pommel. The figurine briefly lifted up to show the spot had a small flat circular depression to fit the figurine base exactly, then it floated back down, magnets snapping together again. Blazing smiled, admiring his own work. Civil then eyed the two female ponies. Both their eyes twinkled. He shook his head. "I don't even want to know."

Liberty giggled, "Nope, you don't!"

"My work here is done." He peered closely at Civil's left wing joint. Looking up he asked, "May I?" Civil shrugged.

"It's still gonna be sprained, unless you are a doctor too."

The unicorn smirked, "Hardly. Rudimentary first aid is a requirement when learning to use your horn. I can still give it a proper scan. Take a deep breath and don't fight the tingling." The area around the joint glowed, along with Blazing's horn. Some of the pain went away, Civil sighing in relief. The glowing ceased. "Just a little easing of the inflammation. It will still need a good night's rest to get working again safely, if a bit stiff." He looked Civil in the eyes, which were starting to droop a little, "You feel okay? It does take part of your energy for the healing as well, remember."

"Yeah, I remember. I could have taken it earlier, I'm strong."

The unicorn shrugged, "Maybe. But I also needed to see how the saddle sat on you in rough conditions, like wing injury. Now you can wear it anytime, even in the most dire circumstances. Plan for the worst..."

Civil nodded, finally accepting that this whole time he was in pain, wasn't because the unicorn was being a prick, "Hope for the best." Blazing winked and smiled, then looked around, spotting the ditch.

"I can put up a light inversion bubble over there and we can hunker down for the evening."

Barro nodded in agreement. "Thought so."

"You don't want to teleport back?" Hot Pink asked.

"Not enough time to memorize this area." When all three winged ponies stared at him, he rolled his eyes. "It's a teleport thing, trust me."

Barro said, "I heard about the cell phone trick-"

The unicorn held up a hoof, "Nope. I'll leave that to the true eggheads to play with. Knowing my luck, I could go in 5G and come back out 3G. Anyway, my horn will give you plenty of protection out here against predators, more than any stern wingslaps."

"Oi," quipped Hot Pink, grinning, "a stern wingslap has been known to change the course of history."

"Maybe in Equestria. Out here...? Barro," he turned to the other pegasus, "I was hoping you would hang out until the morning. Fly me back once Civil here is able to grab some sky."

"Wouldn't have it any other way, Saddles."

"Saddles?" asked Civil, curious. "I thought you were called Blazing." He gently puth Liberty down and then proceeded to extract himself from the saddle.

The unicorn nodded back and lit his horn, this time a crystal clear bubble expanding to encompass all of them and a few feet more. The bubble settled down until it was halfway into the ground, then disappeared. A faint blue circle on the ground continued to glow. "Inside that line, we cannot be seen or heard. I prefer Blaze. They insist on calling me Blazing..." He glowered at Hot Pink's tongue sticking out at him. "But if you must...Blazing Saddle." He showed his flank slightly to Civil, the proper introduction. It showed a picture of a saddle ringed in fire.

"I still think you should dye your mane red, hon," Hot quipped, which was summarily ignored by the unicorn.

Civil gave him an odd look. Most times, pony names were normal to other ponies, except these days with human memories behind them, it could get weird. It also reminded him of somepony he'd met earlier.

"I know," the unicorn explained, "strange coincidence to the Mel Brooks movie-"

"Actually, while that is true, that's not what I was thinking of. I met somepony else with the Saddle name."

"Saddle Soar, up in New Beginnings?" Blazing asked. Civil nodded. The unicorn hummed to himself. "That would be my cousin." Just as Civil was thinking the cousin was a pegasus and Blazing was a unicorn, "Not all tribes stick to their own." Civil grinned sheepishly, caught red-hooved. Blazing put his tools back in the bag.

"If you are wondering, I changed my name. Saddle Blaze got too many 'Rainbow Blaze' type questions, back before the curse. I got tired of it and switched the names around. Before the curse, naturally. Behold my surprise when I rediscovered my name...and there is a movie here with the same name. In an odd way, that movie helped me remember some things. Anyway, I'm still good with saddles and leather work, as long as it's not from a talking animal." He snorted, "Or a talking plant, for that matter. So don't give me any gripe about what your saddle is made of. It is perfectly ethical."

Civil raised his hooves, "No complaints here, the work is beautiful. I'm at a loss as how to even thankyou."

Blazing snorted, smiling, "Just don't paint it red," watching Hot huff indignantly out of the corner of his eye.

It was early evening later and the fire was stoked up a bit. They had all made a nice meal of the flowers, plus a few things Hot Pink had as well. Liberty was still unhappy with having to drink from a bottle. Hot Pink wanted to suggest an alternative, but Civil vehemently shook his head. While he fed her on the other side of his body, he motioned to the older mare and tried to pantomime. Hot even started to pull out a container from her own bag until Civil shook his head. She shrugged, sibling revenge taking precedent here.

Some time later, "Civil?"

He looked down at the foal, "Yes ma'am?"

She stared up at him, "Huh...hm, we'll get back to that another time. But I have a stupid question, if you don't mind?"

He raised an eyebrow at her politeness. "These days, the only stupid question is the unanswered one."

Blazing nodded sagely.

"Okay mister high school teacher of wisdom," Liberty smirked, "If I'm Civil Liberty and you are Civil Patrol...um...calling you Civil is silly, isn't it? We'd be calling each other Civil."

Hot grinned devilishly, sitting up. She knew where this was going. The proverbial kettle was just placed on the stove.

Civil could sense danger, but hoped he could steer this train wreck off track. "Well, yeah. I wouldn't call you Civil. If I were a stranger it would be Mrs. Liberty, or Civil Liberty for a formal addressing. In my case," he paused and glanced at Hot, then back at Liberty, "I would say 'Mom'."

Hot stifled a giggle. The kettle was warming up. She could see the tips of his ears reddening.

"Wait! So why are you, specifically, called Civil? I mean, was I ever called Civil?"

Furrowing his brow in thought, he shook his head and sat up, trying to remember. "I don't know. It would have been before I was born. Heh, ironically enough, it was you who explained it to me when I was younger. It's an old custom that some herds follow. You see it with a lot of larger clans, though as herds have broken away and spread out, it's kinda falling out of style."

Hot chimed in. "The pegasus and earth tribes still hold to surnames. Some unicorns too, like the Twilights. Don't forget the Rainbows and the Apples. Especially their clan."

He smiled weakly at her, slightly annoyed. "Yeah yeah, it's all about the superstars. There ARE other bloodlines that follow customs besides the mane six."

In response, she smiled back sweetly. "Like the Civils."

His annoyance was replaced with wariness. Why was she so interested in this subject? With Liberty, he could understand her need for information and that constant penchant for trouble. Why was Hot Pink pressing it?

"I understand the surname, but only you are called Civil? Not me?" His mother was not letting this go.

"Well...it is like a right of passage, at least in our herd. My father was Civil, and his father was Civil. Once they joined a herd and had foals, they passed the surname on. In my case, I am the youngest, so I hold the Civil name. So the youngest sibling, or youngest generation." As Liberty raised a dainty hoof, he cut in, "if there are siblings or twins, the last one pushed out gets the name." The tiny hoof went down.

" 'Pushed out?' How uncouth, AND overly simplified." Hot shook her mane out and tsked. "The matriarchal mares, typically the lead mares, would normally pass on the name. If your sire and grandsire had no siblings, they carried the name. As for the Apples, their whole clan has some form of the apple name worked in, so slim chance of their name dying out. For us pegasi, it's a matter of will power. The stallions sometimes hold the surname, or the mares, based on a lot of things. And that is still oversimplifying it. It would take all night to explain pegasus traditions, starting with ancient history. Not all lead mares pass on the name, either. Trust me, it's far more complicated than that."

"It's not complicated! Youngest one carries the family name to represent the herd and their honor in public!" Now he was testy, having been challenged about what his mother had taught him. He had an inkling that Hot Pink might be more knowledgeable in traditions but he wasn't going to be bullied over it.

"While in private, you are called something else," Hot replied quietly.

"Exactly!"

Both mares traded looks, then stared at him expectantly. After a few seconds it dawned on him what had just happened. The red in his ears was traveling down his neck. The kettle had just boiled over.

He stared at the fire. Then he lowered his head onto his forelegs.

"I don't want to talk about it," he mumbled.

Both mares exploded with cries of outrage and exasperation. Hot flicked some dirt at him with a hoof. "What a tease!"

His mother exclaimed, "What!? Did something bad happen? What aren't you telling us?"

Brushing dirt off his nose, he sputtered out, "I'm not a tease! I just..." He paused and watched Liberty with a guarded expression. He murmured, "It's embarrassing, is all." He laid there, hoping they would give up. They stared at him, waiting.

Fine.

"You used to call me Little Bird."

Liberty's eyes widened, "You mean, Little Bird as in, what you said earlier-?"

"Yes," he said, cutting her off. He said in a calmer voice, "You would stand against the railing on top of the lighthouse and yell, 'where's my little bird?' and I would fly up from the beach or down from the clouds to hug you. I remember the hugs. You could barely move your atrophied wings to even hold them up, but you would use all your strength you had left to hug me."

His voice lowered and he muttered, "I would hop up and down like a little bird. You said I tweeted a lot as a colt." Now his face was on fire. He also felt twisted inside as more memories were dredged up.

Nopony said anything. The only sounds were from the crickets in the woods and the pops from the fire. Hot Pink REALLY wanted to comment on how precious that scene must have been...and yet, she could see pain in his eyes.

He cleared his throat. "There was a time...I thought I must have been so demanding that you wore yourself out just hugging me. That because it was such an effort, you had decided to leave so you wouldn't have to hug me anymore." That memory was one of his more bitter ones. As he had grown, he knew it wasn't true, but it didn't stop it from existing in his past.

"That is insane! Nopony would ever think that!" Liberty exclaimed.

Hot Pink added, "You actually thought that she'd left because of that?" She was horrified, more at the possibility than anything else.

"An angry adolescent stallion would think that," he muttered, staring into the fire.

"Point taken," Hot Pink replied softly.

Liberty said tentatively, "I can't recall any of this, Civil, but I swear to God, I know in my heart I would never have left my family, not unless it was so important that staying would have caused you all more harm. That has to be what happened. I mean, I had a child...good Lord, I was married!...wait, was I married?" She sat up with a surprised look.

"Not like royal marriage. You and dad were a herd. Before you ask, he was very good to you, and me."

Liberty blushed a little, trying to imagine...nevermind. She shuddered. "Okay that is going to take some getting used to. A herd." She thought longer on it. "Your father, sire, he carried the name and his sire..then that would mean..." she drifted off.

"You were not always a Civil," said Hot quietly.

It was Civil and Liberty's turn to exchange looks. "Oh shit, I should have known that. Mom, you never said what you were called before you met dad. I'm so sorry-"

She shushed him, patting his ribs with her hoof, "It's okay. If I didn't tell you, then I didn't tell you." She cocked her head to the side, "That could mean we have more family, right? Somewhere?"

He shrugged apologetically, "If you did, you never told me of them."

She scrunched up her nose, muttering, "I swear, if I ever get to time travel, I'm kicking my own ass for not telling you this stuff." The other ponies chuckled at her. Civil hugged her gently with his wing.

"You are here now. That is all that matters," he said.

The two mares awed while the uninvolved stallions smiled quaintly. After a while, Liberty smacked her lips a few times. "Um..."

"What," asked Civil wearily. He wasn't sure he could take anymore of her odd questions.

"I'm still kind of hungry."

Ah, something easy for a change, and a snack of revenge before they went to sleep. He got up, "Okay. Replacer milk time-"

"UGH, no! Don't make me drink that fake milk crap again!" She clapped her mouth shut. You Shall Not Pass!!!! was her expression. Civil contemplated keeping more emergency replacer around in the future, just to shut her up.

"Look, you are too young to eat flowers and adult pony stuff. You have to drink-"

"Ahem, Civil...?" Hot Pink waved her hoof a bit. "How about this time she tries something we brought along, instead? I had a feeling we might need it, so...yeah."

He saw the tortured look on Liberty and relented. "Sure, I guess."

She brought out a bottle and shook it up. It appeared to have a rainbow swirling liquid inside. Hooving it down to Liberty, the tiny pegasus took the bottle and licked a drop off the spout. Her eyes widened and she shoved the thing in her mouth, gulping and moaning. She got the bottle away from her mouth just long enough to say, "THANKYOU!!!" and went back to feasting.

Hot Pink also dug out a list of ingredients to show Civil. As he read, he muttered, "Woh. I never would have thought of all this. You used a blender?" She nodded. He skimmed down the list, then blinked, looking up at her. "Skittles...? You blended Skittles into this?"

She grinned and nodded. "Of course. It's great for energy, and we fliers need it. What's wrong with tasting the rainbow?"

His right eye twitched, remembering online meme posters, glimpses of the Element Rainbow Dash back in Equestria during the hayday of the mane six and their visits to Canterlot, as well as a few other stories from Cloudsdale and what those pegasi got up to in their rainbow fountains.

Liberty removed the bottle from her mouth again and exclaimed, "This shit is awesome! I am totally tasting the rainbow!" and went back to sucking it down.

He looked like he was going to be ill and just waved the list at Hot to take it while looking away. "So much wrong here...I'm just going to lie down now." He waited until she eventually took it back.

The mare frowned slightly. Then she walked over to his bags and slipped the list in them. "That was for you when you get back home, so you and your folks know what to feed her. There are other recipes on there, too, for variety. Don't want a finicky feeder the first few months, trust me. Dare say you might like a few of the meals, yourself." She quirked a smile at him, "And THAT was the big surprise, since you already knew about the saddle.

"Hmm, thanks." he said, smiling. Then he sat up and bowed his head, "Thankyou, all of you, for all of this." His gaze took in the new saddle, Liberty and her bottle, and the other stallions. The adults nodded back nodded back. Liberty ate greedily.

Hot Pink smiled and settled down near the fire. "We do what we can, when we can, right?" He nodded in agreement, lying down next to the foal. Eventually she slowed down on her feeding and he reached over to take the bottle.

Despite her protesting, he said, "Too much and all of that goodness could come back up on you." She thought about it and grudgingly agreed, then she scooched up against his side, under his wing. He looked down, "What are you doing?"

She looked up, "I'm tired...can I sleep with you?"

He looked a little nervous, "The one night was a fluke because our parents were already asleep. And besides, you are my sister, AND my mom. You don't have the mind of a newborn. This is awkward."

She sat up, looking at him sternly...or as much as a foal can stare down a stallion towering over her. "And if I was a lost foal, afraid of the dark, hunted by a god of chaos with those eyes, then what?"

He snorted softly. That was a low blow, even if she wasn't low to the ground in the first place. He sighed and lifted his right wing.

She wee'd and scooted right up under it.

"I think YOU are a god of chaos."

"Why thankyou, son-slash-brother."

He grumbled.

Before long, Liberty's breathing settled into the more rhythmic pattern of sleep. In the glow of the dying fire, he noticed Hot's open eyes watching them, a small smile on her muzzle. Embarrassment warmed his cheeks and he glanced around, trying to say something.

"As soon as she finds out about pony sleep piles, you'll never peel her off," she said quietly. He grumbled some more but didn't reply. "You are good with foals," she whispered, saving him from further awkwardness, at least that was her intent.

He still felt out of place. "I don't see it," he replied softly. "My last few seconds on Equestria were me trying to protect them, and I failed. Before that, I've always felt uncomfortable around...little ones."

Hot propped herself up on her fore legs, curiosity taking hold. She inquired, "Why's that?"

He replied, "When...my human brother was alive, as a toddler, I would babysit him. He didn't exactly behave himself with me. I tried to warn my parents later on that he was headed for a bad way but he was the youngest, so he got away with the most. He burned so brightly in life...Now, I can't even say 'I told you so' without feeling like shit." He stared at the dying fire, the similarity not lost on him.

Hot pink watched him for a time in quiet. She caught him stifling a yawn and figured he was staying up for her benefit. "I won't ask anymore questions, I think you've had enough." He chuckled to himself and laid his head down. She curled up, putting her back to the warm fire and her eyes to the outer ring of the group and said, "And I won't even ask for an innocent pony sleep pile." She giggled when she heard him shift uncomfortably.

***

Civil was standing in a field of tall grass, the hissing noise of wind causing them to bend in waves. It was not in the United States, but ancient Japan, like a typical scene of two samurai facing off. A storm brewed all around in the sky. A strawman shaped crudely like a draconequus stood before him. He stared at it, anger barely kept in check.

Another draconequus stood behind the pegasus, this one far more animated.

"Really, this again?"

The pegasus replied without turning, "For what you did to my mother." He charged at the strawman and took a single swipe at it with his reinforced wings. He landed on all four hooves, the dragonlike straw head hitting the ground a second later. He turned around and eyed the other Discord.

"I did you a favor. What do you want now?" the creature asked him.

"A favor? By making her a baby foal?!?"

The draconequus snarled, anger in the form of a fiery aura enshrouding the creature, "Oh pipe down! That happened before I could even think of the idea. Any simpleton that can detect magic would see it was NOT chaos magic." He paused and noticed Civil had wings. "Hm, nevermind. In any case, it was very deliberate UNICORN magic. Stew on that one for a while." Discord watched the different emotions play across Civil's face. "Yes. The magic was already in place when I found her. In a vault. Celestia's special vault." The fire faded, as did the anger. His face took on a calmer expression.

He flashed away and reappeared next to Civil, leaning in close to whisper, "And believe me, she had quite a few 'special' vaults." Civil took several steps away from him and faced him, readying for a headon attack. Straightening, Discord looked up wistfully, "Still, this was one of the more generic 'Stick-em-in-until-we-find-a-better-solution' kind of vaults. The stasis spell on her masked a vastly more complicated spell underneath. It was part of her molecular structure, a kind of extreme rejuvenation hex. Very volatile, so volatile in fact, she bounced back into Equestria as a newborn! Made two drops of pee come out of me."

Two drip sounds were heard in the distance. Civil's ears swiveled, picking it up.

Civil grimaced, "Celestia's vault?...wait...you cursed her twice, then. That would mean any recitation of the words, it would have twice the mental trauma!"

"Yes...diabolical, actually. I doubt their spells were meant to interact with my magic in such a way, well, in any planned sort of way. But like I said, I did not turn her into a newborn." He chuckled lightly, "In fact, mine was the beneficial of the three spells. Spiritual transportation, if you will. I am still at a loss how it happened, her bouncing back, though I would love to find out. It was not what she deserved, coming back like that." His eyes smoldered slightly. "And they call me a monster. Anyway, quit your whining. You got your precious mom back."

Civil's mind started to work its way between random dreamthink and actual cognitive self-awareness. "...you are really real. You are still alive...somewhere..." Civil's eyes went to pinpricks. All this time he had hoped he was working with a darker version of his own mind, fighting reflections of his own inner workings. There was no way Civil could have come up with that information about his mother, not on his own.

This was a vastly darker mind, belonging to the real god of chaos!

"You cannot kill chaos," Discord hissed. "Merely setting it aside for fun later is the best you ponies can do. I was set aside. Hmm...I AM inevitable." The tall dead grasses turned into green pastures stretched out before them, though discolored by the approaching storms. Discord looked down at the grass, frowning.

"Everything you've said, it's not a lie? She was just sitting there doing nothing all those years?!"

"Hah!" the god laughed and rolled around into a pretzel, peeking out of a loop made by his own body. "That's literally what I said! To your mother, in fact. 'Hello yet-another-troublesome-pony, whatever are you doing just sitting here doing nothing all these years?"

"What did she say?" he asked with bated breath.

"Initially? Nothing of course! She was frozen in a stasis field, I recall saying. For a detective, you tend to miss the obvious."

Civil nodded, hopped up into the air and smacked Discord, making him unravel into his normal self.

Instead of being angry, he grinned lopsidedly. "Yes, I deserved that. Though your temper still needs attention. Pity, you won't be able to accomplish great things with that directing your actions. Still, I on the other claw have been quite well-behaved up til now. I suppose that comes from a brief stint of eating grass and licking salt."

Civil wanted him to get to the point. "My mother?"

"No, I do not lick mothers, but thank you for the offer."

Once again, anger flashed through the pegasus, but this time he tried to calm himself. He needed answers. "How can I believe you, believe all this about my mother...the vault...the princess?"

One yellow eye slid over to regard the pegasus, "To ask a liar if he is lying is a fool's errand, but you summoned me and this takes some of the dreary boredom out of my current paradigm of reality."

The pegasus shook his head. "No, I'm not a unicorn, I couldn't have summoned-"

The draconequus whipped around quickly, eyes raging. Civil flinched, but he dug in his heels. He was through running and reacting. Discord raised a brow, "Hm...you're getting there. Certainly not in the brains department." Then he smiled, "Your desire to see me, even if it is to cause violence, calls to me. Like tweaking the signal thread on a spider's web," he spun around, arms spread wide, "This dream realm is the ultimate web and I hear every call." The skies started to darken further, the storms focusing on their position. The wind had turned cold, a wetness in the air. Discord sighed while staring off into the distance, "Yes, even you." Civil got the feeling Discord was not referring to him.

Discord turned to Civil. "While I do enjoy these little chinwags, other forces inconvenience me. Treat your mother well. Not many get second chances, or first ones...." He began fading.

Civil reached out with a hoof, "Wait! What spells!? What happened to her???"

The last thing he heard was a female's voice in the rumbling of the storm, "Truth has its own inner light that will always reveal the lie for what it is...."

***

It was still in the early morning hours. They had set up a loose watch, allowing Civil to rest up and get the full healing done for the morning flight. Hot Pink watched as he kicked awake. He blinked owlishly, then checked to see that Liberty wasn't disturbed. He looked up and saw Hot watching him.

"Bad dreams?" she whispered.

"Something like that." It struck him odd that she hadn't asked him much about the foal that would be his mother. "You don't think it strange at all that my mother is...." He poked his hoof at the sleeping ball under him.

"Not at all. Given what we've dealt with already, lets just say this is par for the course. I bet there's a really good story behind it, though."

"Well that's the problem. We're trying to figure out that story. I have a feeling some older ponies might know."

"Okay, so you need help tracking down ponies. Any guesses as to who we need to contact?"

"I was thinking unicorns."

Barro snorted, slowly sitting up and yawning, "My observational skills might not be as sharp as yours, but you have one here."

Blazing's eyes came off the small leather pouch he was working on just long enough to eye them both, then he went back to his needlework. Civil glanced up and saw he could make out the trees against the lightening sky. He supposed it was wakeup time for everypony.

"Har har. I was hoping for somepony that might know about arcane magic. Heavy stuff that includes stasis spells, rejuvenation hexes..." His mirth disappeared and he swallowed, continuing quietly, "perhaps Celestia's vaults...."

The unicorn's eyes widened and he looked at Hot Pink and Barro. She shrugged and nodded to Civil while asiding to the unicorn, "He is a Royal Guard-"

"Was," interjected Civil.

She rolled her eyes. "Was-ever. I imagine you've had more access to shady stuff than we ever would," she said. Blazing nodded slowly, his project now set aside. This was far more interesting.

Civil shook out his mane and sighed irritably, "That's not how it works-"

"However it works," the unicorn stated, "it sounds like it's outside my understanding of magic. Those exclusive avenues of study would have been maintained by one of the internal branches of the EUP."

Civil frowned and asked, "Which branch?" while Hot Pink repeated the three letters. The unicorn raised a brow at her.

"Earth. Unicorn. Pegasus. The royals had various bodyguard units back before the curse."

Hot Pink replied, "Yah, I know that."

"Well," he continued, "some of the auxiliary units specialized in roles other than military," he explained. Civil wore a bored expression, remembering Basic Administration 101 required for new recruits to learn. "Some of those units were Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, the well known Wonderbolts, of course," he nodded to Civil, "and the Science Corps, if those units are still there, now." This made the 'former' guard perk up a little.

"She was trying to rebuild the school before I left Equestria, last I knew," Civil said cautiously. He tilted his head, "Celestia, I mean. You said the Science Corps? What do you know about them?"

The unicorn nodded. "If you want to know about heavy duty spellwork, they are the ones you need to find. More specifically, the Anointed Science Corps of Unicorn Engineers. I'll put my feelers out, see if any other unicorns might remember being in that group."

Civil frowned and nibbled lightly on his lip, thinking. "ASCUE. Those guys. I had asked about them briefly in my recruit days in the guard. Came across a reference to 'the Science Corps' and got curious. I never knew their whole name, so the answer I got was, 'you don't ask about them, they ask you'." He squeezed his eyes and grumbled, "They were just saying 'They ASCUE'."

"Yes," the unicorn replied sourly. "I'm a unicorn and they had a bit of a snobbish reputation beyond even my tastes. But they were at the forefront of magical advancement. If you weren't on a path to join their group, you didn't have much reason to hang around in Canterlot, though that didn't stop many of us from trying. I found my calling and left for better pastures." He glanced at the half-sewn bag he was making.

Civil was left to his thoughts, finally understanding more about the Science Corps than he ever did snooping around in his off hours back before they were all cursed.

"Internet wouldn't hurt either, Civ," Hot added, hoping to change the mood. "I'm sure if you ask around online, somepony should remember something. Maybe one of them is not so stuck up anymore, might be willing to talk to you? They'll help you put this puzzle together, I'm sure of it."

He smiled gratefully at her, seeing what she was trying to do. Then he perked up and addressed Blazing. "Oh yah, that reminds me. Do you mind if you try to mend this? My cousin gave it to me...and there was an accident." He reached into his bag and pulled out the two pieces of the sticker he had ripped apart while back.

The unicorn peered at it, then shrugged, "Looks easy enough." His horn glowed and the two pieces melded together into one whole sticker, just as new as the day Vanessa purchased it in a fangirl flurry of pride. "There." It floated back to Civil's hoof.

He looked at it. Not a single imperfection. It might have even been restored to its original quality. "Wow...my cousin will be happy to see this. Hope my mother's memories are just as easily restored."

"We can only hope," murmured Liberty.

***

Barro and Blazing had just about flown out of sight as Civil, Hot Pink, and Liberty's route took their group in another direction. Well, Barro was doing the flying. Blazing hung comfortably from the makeshift net of straps he had devised. Until New Beginnings had their supply of chariots up enough to start exporting at a national level, he was selling underslung nets left and right back home. In addition to holding other ponies, they could be quite useful for bulk cargo and even humans, if one had the wing strength to haul the weight. Blazing had gone down the list of useful applications he had devised, from medical transport to construction for non-unicorn movers, but Civil merely smiled, happy for his fellow pony's success.

Civil's wing had healed up nicely, even the stiffness working its way out once they were in the air and putting it through its paces. Center had processed their flight plans without issue. That was always a blessing. All of them had passed over the navaid that signified a split in their routes and they headed in slightly separate directions, saying their final goodbyes to each other.

While Blazing was free to take a nap, though not likely since he didn't care for being hung at 35,000 feet, Liberty was having the time of her life. This time she was out in the sunlight instead of a musty old saddle bag (it was brand new you ignorant-!) soaking up that rad vitamin D, her words, and waving her hooves in the air like she didn't care. She was even singing that line from a song and he was doing his level best to avoid a singalong. Not that he hated singalongs...mostly. He had other things to consider at the moment.

Celestia. Vaults. ASCUE. Discord. Liberty might have other family members around, but without knowing her family name, he had very little to go on. If the Solar Wind had done a good enough job scrubbing records of her life prior to whatever event won her a free statue, it would be up to somepony out there to step forward and volunteer the information.

Unless I get off my plot and go out there myself, he thought. He supposed he could visit some conventions, despite the danger to any attendees these days. Oh yeah, he remembered darkly, have to call that couple once they got home, now that Liberty SHOULD be able to access her phone. Something else wormed its way into his thinking. A job. Granted, he knew his human parents would help him out anyway they could, but it felt wrong to mooch off them any more than he had to. That meant getting a job so he could pay his own way into conventions, unless he got celebrity access. That meant stage time.

Fuck that.

Yeah, he thought to himself, I'm going to need a job. He seethed out a long sigh.

"Oi yer brooding again. Stop that." Turning his head slightly, he spotted Liberty out of the corner of his eye. Her forelegs were crossed and she was no longer enjoying herself, which meant she was going to start harassing him. Perfect.

"What's on your mind Civ?" Hot Pink slid closer on his left. She had initially took station on that side to monitor his wing on the way back, something he was well aware of, and appreciatively of as well.

"Life," he said over the wind. "The future. Looking for a job." He could have dumped all the other concerns on them, but he didn't trust his own mouth to keep his dreams and Discord out of the discussion, or the murders. Those were things he definitely needed to work out before alarming anypony else over.

"Oh yeah, your momsis mentioned that," replied Hot.

"....momsis?" He glanced at her incredulously. "We're going there now? And when did this discussion about my personal life happen?"

She grinned, not the least bit offended by his touchiness. "When we were chatting on the phone. You were there, weren't you?"

He spared a glance back at Liberty before he said, "...eh, not really, I suppose. But that stone isn't giving up any blood."

The two mares exchanged bewildered expressions.

He explained, "A job. Me finding something to do with my life. Remember?" Glanced back at his flank. "Can't squeeze blood out of a stone."

"Oh that? Hon, nobody is judging. At least in this world. And I wouldn't sweat the job search. Shouldn't be too hard as a pony. Unique skills." She glided a few seconds to brush her wingtip against his before resuming her flapping.

He snorted back. "What, flying? Delivering a few small packages or courier mail? Yeah, that might be swell for some young intern back in Equestria, but they've got drones here, and you don't have to pay a drone."

"Courier?" asked Hot.

He nodded and glanced behind him meaningfully, "My mother used to do it when she was young. Said it was a minor intern assignment to build up experience later on."

"Me?" Liberty leaned forward. This was new.

"Yeah." He shrugged, briefly glancing behind to give her a self-deprecating smile, "You mentioned it a long time ago. No, you didn't say much more about it. Anyway," he refocused forward again, "I checked into that, no ponies needed at this time. Too much liability for untried 'technologies,' they had the balls to tell me. I get Blazing has those nets...but hauling freight is not for me. And they don't need navigators in the Air Force or anywhere else, checked that too. I have a lot of skills and interests, but...it's like they say, I'm a jack of all trades, master of nothing." He growled out that last word through gritted teeth.

"Master of none, hon," Hot replied in a low voice. She and Liberty traded glances. "Who is they?"

"People...when I was a person. And...a lot of ponies before that. Story of my life."

Hot Pink's face took on a very neutral pose. She said levelly, "I don't say that."

"You are different," he replied, then clamped shut when he realized what he just said.

"Oh?" she smiled. "I'm so different from normal ponies?"

"That's not what I meant." Now he was staring straight ahead, cheeks red. Liberty was enjoying this, so in a rare moment in history, she was keeping her trap shut.

"Uh huh. So, while doing these job searches, has anything grabbed your interest? Blown your mind, made your heart race?" He glanced over to see Hot's eyebrows wiggling.

Civil rolled his eyes. "Nothing grabs my interest. I think I am worse off now than when Celestia kicked me out." He meant to mumble that last bit but she still picked it up in the wind.

One look at Liberty was all it took for Hot to nod and say authoritatively, "Seems to me you need to 'shake things up.' "

Liberty started humming, "shake things up, shake things up..."

Percussion started playing, cymbals, snare drum and claps. Both mares had their heads bobbing now.

Civil's wings began beating to the rhythm of their own accord. He muttered, "We're doing this, aren't we?"

"Oh yeah, we are doing this," grinned Hot Pink, weaving back and forth, settling back to his right.

"But what about copyright-"

"Oh please, I know the rules. Artistic license sweety." She shook out her mane and rolled up and over him back to his left.

"♪ I fly way too high. ♪" She sang and soared up higher.

"♪ There's nothing in the sky. ♪" She looked around and spotted them.

"♪ That's what ponies say. ♪" Hot came back down, grinning.

"♪ Mmm mmm. ♪" Liberty hummed.

"♪ That's what ponies say. ♪" She stared at Civil.

"♪ Mmm mmm. ♪" Liberty hummed again.

"♪ I've got way too many skills. ♪" She giggled, her wingtips flaring into sparklers while rolling to make corkscrew contrails.

"♪ Enjoy way too many thrills. ♪" Then she crossed his path and he had to weave through the smoke.

"♪ At least that's what humans say. ♪"

"♪ Mmm mmm. ♪" Liberty hummed.

"♪ That's what humans say. ♪" Hot shrugged at Civil.

"♪ Mmm mmm. ♪" Liberty hummed.

"♪ But I keep flying, ♪" Shaking her head no.

"♪ Can't stop won't stop trying. ♪" Hot flew backwards ahead of him, pointing at them both.

"♪ It's like I've got these, ♪"

"♪ Pony friends, by my side saying, ♪" She drifted close, muzzle to muzzle without touching,

"♪ You're gonna be alright. ♪" Civil looked away, slightly embarrassed as he tasted her cinnamon breath.

"♪ Cause the ponies gonna pone pone pone pone pone.♪" She started dancing in the sky. Yes, dancing.

"♪ And the phonies gonna phone phone phone phone phone. ♪" She zipped by, taking videos with her phone.

"♪ Baby, you just gotta shake shake shake shake shake ♪"

"♪ Shake things up. ♪" The mares sang in unison. "♪ Shake things up! ♪"

Civil shook his head, pulling out his wallet.

"♪ But the takers gonna take take take take take, ♪" He threw his wallet in the air, which Liberty angrily caught and shoved back in his bags, dismayed.

"♪ And there's nothing I can make make make make make ♪" He held up his hooves, looking down at them.

Hot Pink grabbed both his hooves and held them in hers, eyes locked with his.

"♪ Baby, you just gotta shake shake shake shake shake ♪"

"♪ Shake things up, shake things up. ♪"

Liberty cleared her throat and sang:

"♪ I've seen he perseveres, ♪" She was straining against the straps, "♪ Despite his deep dark fears, ♪"

"♪ And that's what they don't know ♪" She nodded as he looked back at her, "♪ Mmm-mmm ♪"

"♪ And that's what you will show ♪" She patted the saddle confidently, "♪ Mmm-mmm ♪"

"♪ You've fought through many wars, now you want to work in stores ♪" Liberty sang.

"♪ And that's just not for you, noo-noo ♪"

"♪ There's better stuff to do, Ooh-ooh! ♪" Somehow Liberty had pulled out the want ads from a newspaper she had hidden away, but he rolled, causing the paper to whip away in the wind.

"♪ So just keep flying, ♪" Hot Pink watched the paper fly away, then regarded Civil. "♪ Don't stop won't stop trying ♪"

"♪ It's like you've got these pony friends, by your side saying ♪" She flew closer.

"♪ You're gonna be alright. ♪" Then she shoulder bumped Civil and sang, along with Liberty:

"♪ Cause the ponies gonna pone pone pone pone pone ♪"

"♪ And the humans gonna moan moan moan moan moan ♪"

"♪ Baby, you just gotta shake shake shake shake shake ♪"

"♪ Shake things up! ♪" Sang Liberty.

"♪ Shake things up! ♪" Sang Hot, nodding back.

"♪ So I just gotta try try try try try ♪" Sang Civil.

"♪ But don't forget to fly fly fly fly fly ♪" Sang Hot Pink.

"♪ Then you might get somethin right right right right right ♪" Sang Liberty, which got her a jostling from Civil.

"♪ Shake things up shake things up! ♪" They all sang, and continued to sing:

"♪ Shake things up, shake things up! ♪" Then Civil solo'd, "♪ I gotta...shake things up, shake things up ♪"

"♪ You gotta...shake things up, shake things up, ♪" responded Hot, "♪ Shake things up, shake things up! ♪"

"Hay hay hay!" Liberty yelled out, to...nobody in particular. "Just think while you've been wasting time moaning and groaning about me being dead and gone, you could have been wowing the heads of all....those...job headhunters!" He glared back at her. Oh, HE was the audience.

He groaned loudly as she held up a hoof, all haughty like.

"My grown son got a new girlfriend," she said shaking her hoof back and forth.
"She's like 'Oh my, Civil!' " Hot Pink grinned slyly.
"But I'm just gonna laugh!"
"And to the mare over thare," :P
"With that sick pink hair," Hot Pink 'who me?'d to herself, as if she didn't know.
"Won't you come over here, baby,"
"Pick me UP...NO.....FEAR......." She had unbuckled the straps and was standing up on her rear legs, waving to Pink, who grinned ear to ear and slid into position above Civil. Upside down.

Liberty grabbed onto Hot's saddlebags and they slowly floated higher. tte foal dangled by her forelegs and started yelling while para-Hot-Pink-gliding,

"♪ Yeeaah oooooohhhh!!!!" ♪" Liberty's voice rang out.

"♪ Cause the ponies gonna, ♪" Hot Pink continued singing, "♪ pone pone pone pone pone. ♪"

"♪ And the humans gonna moan moan moan moan moan. ♪"

"♪ Baby, you just gotta shake shake shake shake shake. ♪"

"♪ Shake things up. ♪" The mares sang, "♪ shake things up. ♪"

"♪ So I just gotta"♪ Try try try try try. ♪" ♪" Civil chimed in,

"♪ But don't forget to ♪" Hot sang back to him, "♪ fly fly fly fly fly ♪"

"♪ Then you might get somethin right right right right right ♪" Liberty added, now handstanding on Hot Pink's back since she rolled right side up.

"♪ Shake things up ♪" All three sang, "♪ shake things up! ♪"

"♪ Shake things up, shake things up! ♪"

"♪ I gotta...shake things up, shake things up ♪" Civil responded.

"♪ You gotta...shake things up, shake things up, ♪" The mares answered back.

"♪ Shake things up, shake things up! ♪" All three ponies chorused,
"♪ Shake things up, shake things up! ♪"
"♪ I've got to, shake things up shake things up! ♪"

"♪ You have to ♪"

"♪ Shake things up, shake things up! ♪"
"♪ Shake things up, SHAKE THINGS UP! ♪"

The music faded. Liberty was standing right side up now on Hot Pink's back as the trumpet peel ended. She suddenly realized what the hell she was doing and threw herself low, grabbing hold of the tassels on Hot's bags. The older mare smiled, keeping an eye on the little one and slowly moved close to Civil. He leaned in close so the saddle seat was next to Liberty. She jumped into the seat and quickly strapped in again as he regained some of the altitude they all lost while getting her 'reseated.'

The words of the song stuck with him, Harmony doing its thing like it always has. He was content to fly quietly the rest of the way, now more at peace than he had been for a long time. His mother could feel the tension had left his muscles, so she was content.

Hot Pink saw he had taken the song to heart, and there was no baby pegasus falling to her doom either, so she was content to enjoy their company in the peaceful blue skies back to Texas.

***

"Hi mom! It's me, your daughter. From another world...but I was talking earlier. And after, but I lied because I didn't talk."

She blinked at the red painted door. Then she muttered, "Stupid...stupid."

Liberty was mumbling to herself while they stood in front of their parents' front door. "What are we going to tell her?" Her voice was very small now. Not the belting peals of mareness they had experienced earlier in the skies. Not even the baby foalness of her youth. This was the voice of a nervous little girl that knew she was before judgement.

"You have to tell the truth." Civil didn't see what the big deal was. And seeing her squirm after all the shit she had put him through in the past would be fun, too.

"But then she won't treat me like a baby anymore," she whined.

He snorted and looked back at her, still nestled on his saddle. "Really, you're still gonna go with the attention getting act?"

"You don't get it! It was...like...." She sat back and tapped the bottoms of her hooves together.

He sighed and felt her pain, "I get it. Like when they paid you all the attention in the world and you didn't owe them anything but a smile. Everypony wants that kind of love and attention from their parents."

"Exactly."

Hot Pink stepped closer, pointing her wing to the door, "Liberty, if she is the kind of mother that can raise decent humans like you two, she will continue to pay attention to you. Good mothers do that." Liberty glanced at Hot and smiled her thanks. Civil nodded to Hot and turned to the door, raising his hoof.

Three knocks rang on the wooden door, his not so new shoes adding a similar oomph as last time. Not too hard to alarm the occupants inside, yet loud and confident enough to not sound strange. There was so much one could communicate in knocking on another's door. This time he was NOT trying to communicate that there were three TALKING ponies at the door, instead of the expected one and a half talking ponies that were expected.

Please don't let there be coffee this time, he thought.