It had been more than a week since Chrysalis had been banished to Tartarus, and things had returned to normalcy for the most part. I sat with Cadance at the breakfast table in her apartment, but I wasn’t alone with her. Next to us were the Element Bearers, along with Trixie and Hawk as well. Trixie and Hawk had taken up residence in a near hotel, while Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie were given room in the castle by my adopted mother. Twilight and AJ were housed with us. While Shining Armor recovered from some sort of magic feedback – had never understood what Twilight was trying to explain – we had gathered to discuss and plan the mission to my world. Meanwhile, the farm was being run by Big Mac, Caramel, and Braeburn.

Yesterday had been Changer’s funeral. It was a heavy farewell for both Trixie and me. That stallion did a lot of things that I would be grateful for as long as I lived. We buried him in the Canterlot cemetery with the ceremony he deserved. That was a small solace at least. Trixie had said her farewells to Changer a long time ago, so she took it much easier – I made sure of that. Nightmare had been extracted, just as I had planned, by the Elements from the body and locked into a crystal pendant now hanging around my neck. Interaction with it was not possible anymore – I had tried. I wasn’t able to look into my soul like before. Now, it was only a shining blue light. Nightmare was sealed and would stay like this for now.

“Are you finished?” Cadance asked as she picked up our dishes with her magic. It had become customary that we were the only ones having breakfast. Twilight, being head over hooves in her books all night, usually slept until noon or even longer if someone didn’t wake her up. AJ had taken to making regular visits to the toilet during the mornings and understandably felt no appetite after that. Shining was stuck with his soup in the bed. The only one who accompanied us after a while was Dawn. Twilight didn’t want to leave him in the library. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Spike, but she knew that the two together would be pillaging the ice-cream reserves.

“Yeah, thanks,” I answered and picked up the leftovers to put them back into the fridge. “Tell me, Cadance…” She raised her head from the sink where she had levitated a dish to and looked over at me. “How come you can eat in the morning?” Armor had told me that she was pregnant as well, and I somehow felt guilty for making AJ feel sick. She had assured me that it was going to be well worth it. I had no idea where she got that info.

“So dear Shining couldn’t keep his muzzle shut?” she said calmly and grinned. “There are a few spells for morning sickness. If you wish, I could teach you one.” She took a pot out of the cupboard, put water inside it, and placed it on the stove.

“That would be nice. I want to make it easier for AJ. I lived through two of my mom’s… biological… My human mom’s pregnancies, and I know how hard it can be.” She had to grin again over my stuttering.

“Magic can be quite complicated, right?” She had no idea. “Believe me, it will be all worth it. The spell only eases her nausea but not completely.” The water in the pot started to boil and she put different vegetables in like carrots and celery.

“How do you know?” She thought for a second, her hoof tapping on her mouth.

“I would say a mare knows such things. Also, you should have seen the results yourself.” Now it was my turn to think, and I came to only one conclusion.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She put some salt into the water and stirred the brew.

“Auralia of course. You do know her, right?” The gears in my head were grinding. Aura, Auralia, the equation added up, but the rest was still one big unknown variable.

“That little tramp? Yeah I met her.” Now that Cadance mentioned her, I realised that I hadn’t seen her since my return.

“Maybe you shouldn’t talk like that about your daughter….” she casually said while tasting the brew with a spoon as if it wasn’t a shocking reveal to me. There I stood now, as though struck with a paralysis spell. It must have shown on my face because Cadance slapped a hoof on her mouth. “Don’t tell me she hadn’t….” I did not hear rest as the puzzle pieces finally moved into place. Why she had been so interested in that photo, why she looked so familiar to AJ and me, why she disappeared with Twilight, and why she was so scared. All came together in my brain and formulated the following answer:

“Wait, what?”

“I’m sorry, sugarcube…” AJ stood at the kitchen door and trotted over to me. She still looked very tired and one could smell that she had been to the restroom recently. “I wanted to say, but there was no chance to and…” I sighed and put a hoof on her mouth.

“Let me guess. Our ten… eleven?” I gave AJ an enquiring look.

“She said that she was twelve.” I nodded thankfully.

“...Our twelve year old daughter appeared here and now, I think thanks to Twilight and a time travel spell, to do Celestia knows what. I presume it had to do something with the changelings.” I looked over to AJ in anticipation of an answer.

“Well, it was more about an error in the spell that we want to use to travel to your world—” Again I interrupted her.

“I stand corrected. Twilight sent our daughter back in time to correct her own formula although she knows what consequences such travels can have?” I shook my head to give expression to my indignation. Then I summarized everything. “You know what, AJ? I think I understand why you aren’t so keen on magic.” A thought crossed my mind as to how I would react to seeing my parents before I was even born. Cold shivers ran down my spine. “I hope the poor kid didn’t suffer any lasting mental issues.” I grasped around AJ while fumbling at her belly, which elicited a smile from her.

“Celestia sent her back and erased her memories about the journey. She should be fine,” Cadance stated while filtering the brew and went back to working on her husband’s breakfast.

“This feels relieving somehow. I thought I had a while before getting used to being called ‘Daddy’,” I said and had to snicker.

“Same with me, sugarcube,” AJ added and kissed me on the cheek.

“AJ, could you do me a favour?”

“Mmm?”

“Brush your teeth…” The hoof to the back of the head was worth it.

Later that afternoon, we gathered in the large living room where Shining Armor was guarding the sofa with an ice bag to his head. The foals were outside playing, consisting of Sweetie Bell, Dawn, and a new addition, Holly. Apple Bloom had stayed at the farm and Scootaloo was with her mother in the hospital. Holly was the foal that Fluttershy had released from the cocoon and had lived with her since that day. She didn’t know who she was or how she had become like that. Against all concerns, her dark coat did not fall off and she almost looked like a normal pony. Her bright purple mane hung in short bangs to the left and right, with a crooked little horn in between. The thin shell on her back and the insectoid wings attached to it were the only evidence of her aborted assimilation. She lacked the holes in her legs, her purple eyes were normal, and she only had one sharp tooth that stuck out from the others. She would seem pretty normal at first glance.

“She’s slowly opening up towards me, and once she even called me mom,” Fluttershy announced proudly. “But she still won’t touch any solid food.” She had quickly realised that Holly could in fact digest both emotions and normal food. However, she wasn’t overly fond of the latter. “I like giving her my love… but it’s such a bad feeling,” she added and looked at the floor.

“You can do this, Fluttershy darling. She will be proud to have gotten such a good foster mother as you are,” Rarity assured her and laid a hoof on her friend’s shoulder.

The existence of Holly made me think more of our enemy. All Chrysalis had really wanted was to ensure the survival of her kin. I could not fault her for trying to do that. After all, humans were not better in that regard. We held animals for food even though there were better alternatives, but those were either not tasty enough or hard to get. The changelings didn’t have that choice; there weren’t alternatives for emotion. Holly’s luck was that her assimilation was aborted half way so she could still process both.

“Rarity is right, Fluttershy,” Twilight chimed in. “Even the princess has entrusted her to you, and I can’t think of anypony more suited for the job.” A series of nods went around the group. “Let’s move to the next point.” She made a mark on her checklist and went on. “Light, I finished analysing your DNA. Just as I thought, it matches Princess Celestia’s by about fifty percent.” I only nodded, for it wasn’t a surprise really. “However, the other fifty are a mystery to me. I found parts similar to Changer’s and then others that aren’t even pony in origin. My assumption is that those are remnants of your human body. Still, this assembly doesn’t make any sense.” She scratched her head.

“Twilight, let me give you some advice, the same that I’ve used every day since my arrival to explain everything around here: magic makes no sense.” Everyone laughed except for Twilight, who gave me an evil look. Before she could object, however, Rainbow Dash interrupted her.

“Give it up, Twilight, nopony ‘cept you would have understood what you wanted to say anyway.” Again a series of giggles went around the group, and with a moan Twilight marked that point on the list as well.

“Alright, Light, let’s continue.” I had used the last few days to tell them more about my world. I talked about humans in general, our anatomy, our eating habits, and whatever else came to my mind. I reached the point where I talked about cars and other vehicles and that brought up my next point. I talked about how we used horses in the early days and how machines had replaced them. Then I spoke about how the horses usually lived a carefree life and were cared for on farms. Fluttershy even noted a wish to visit one at some point.

However, when I told them about humans riding horses for leisure, I got a lot of odd looks and many blushes. I had to ask first what the matter was, and after a private chat on the pony term of “horseback riding”, it was my time to burn of embarrassment. I had to assure them that it was nothing really sexual, or at least not in every case. Anyway, as we were talking about technology, we came to speak about weapons.

“Humans warriors these days rarely use bladed weapons such as swords, and really only combat knifes in close combat. We have developed ranged weapons that shoot small metal pieces called bullets that hit their targets at high speeds,” I summarized the concept.

“So more like the fight against me?” Armor asked.

“Exactly, except that the projectiles are sharp.” He nodded to Twilight.

“Our shields should protect us then if the humans decide to attack us.”

“I really hope it won’t come to that. I think they’ve already got their hands full with the Nightmares,” I told them.

“I devised a plan about how we could protect ourselves at night.” Twilight searched through her saddlebag lying next to her. “More precisely, your idea about Nightmare gave me the hint.” I looked down on the pendant around my neck. The little ruby had turned black when we had imprisoned it, just like the essence of Changer. Twilight retrieved a large diamond from her bag and put it on the desk. “Can you use a sunlight spell on it?” she asked, shifting the attention to me. I had slowly shifted through the runes that mother had given me and could control one or two spells so far.

“I think…” I began to concentrate and a circle appeared around me. One advantage of my new body was that I could, like Celestia, use the old spells without incantation. At least the smaller ones. The magic flowed into the ruby but nothing else happened. “So, here you go.” I gave it back to Twilight. She took it and instantly smashed it against the table. Now it shone like a lamp, a lamp of pure sunlight. “Cool, a glow stick!” Once more, odd views were aimed at me. “Humans have something similar, but it works with chemicals and isn’t sunlight.”

“Really?” Twilight asked and threw the rock aside to grab her notebook again. The stone rolled into the chimney from where it illuminated the room. “Can you tell me how it works?”

“I am a mathematician, not a chemist, Twilight.” Her enthusiasm vanished from her face again. “But I will see that I grab one for you.” If the military was as active as the papers had said, then finding one wouldn’t be an issue. Pleased with my suggestion, she nodded and continued with her explanation on how she enchanted the stones so they could now hold a spell for about twelve hours. Pinkie Pie, in the meantime, had disappeared into the kitchen to make us some cookies. I had politely turned down her proposal of cupcakes. After some refreshments for us and the kids outside, I continued with my lecturing.

“I have no idea how large Equestria is, but the Earth is gigantic and unfortunately we’ll have to travel a lot of it. I also don’t know where we will have to go to find the camps of the survivors.” I had to think about the many roads on the German Autobahn, the many hours being stuck in traffic jams.

“Can’t we use one of those… cars instead?” Hawk asked and I just shook my head.

“Not without a human driving us. We’re too small.” I played with the thought of working around that issue like in the old cartoons, attaching something large to my hooves. I scrapped that thought pretty quickly.

“Aren’t there any trains or airships, darling?” Rarity inquired.

“We have trains but I doubt they still work. Almost all trains run on electricity, and I doubt most power plants are still running. Airships are also out. Ever since a terrible accident a hundred or so years ago, there hasn’t been any further development. There are aircrafts, the flying machines I told you about, but those need an even more skilled and trained human than cars do.” The mood had dropped significantly.

“Can’t we take an airship from here?” Rainbow asked.

“No, Rainbow, the portal is not….” Twilight didn’t get any further as she suddenly turned tail and stormed out of the room. The door behind her snapped shut and one could hear how she rushed into her room. Trixie, her barrel still wrapped up in bandages, took her place and looked at the list.

“I think we can check the point of transportations?” She looked at everybody around as we all nodded.

“What did she write here…?” Rainbow flew over Trixie’s head and took a peek at the list. I observed her eyes scanning down on all points until she reached the end, whereupon her face became awfully red. “Erm… Light, maybe you should see this….” Trixie followed Rainbow’s gaze down to the bottom and turned red as well. I snatched the document away from them and went through it myself.

“Attendance list...Training...Holly...Blue Light’s body, notes below?” I read out loud and looked to where the note had directed. There were a few notes about my DNA, features like my age, appearance, and an accurate account of my physical dimensions...all physical dimensions. “What the?” Twilight had examined me in order to see if everything was alright and at the right place. However, how the hell had she managed to note it all. I mean really, everything? Cadance bent over and found the data that was upsetting me.

“I see Twilight hasn’t stopped when it comes to thoroughness.” She observed quickly and handed the parchment over to Shining. He just chuckled a little before hoofing it back.

“You’re lucky. You should better not ask about her younger years when our parents explained to her the facts of life. I had to sleep on a sofa by one of my friends for a week.” He laughed lightly. Not wanting to think about it any longer, I put the checklist back into the bag and quickly forgot about the matter.

After having wasted the rest of the day with further planning, I was happy to have some private time with AJ.

“You know, sugarcube, the city is beautiful and all, but I’m missing the farm.” She was right. Canterlot was beautiful but also quite loud.

“I know what you mean. I’ve lived most of my life in the countryside and nothing beats the lovely silence of the night.” She laid herself next me and pulled the blanket over us.

“I see we speak the same language in this matter.” I leaned over to her and we exchanged a few kisses. However, I pulled back before it would become too heated, causing her to look at me oddly.

“What’s the issue, sugarcube? You look like you ain’t all here right now.” Oh, how I would have loved to switch off my brain right now.

“I don’t like the thought of putting everyone into danger. I mean, you girls have saved Equestria many times, but this is a lost battle. I don’t want you putting yourself into harm’s way for this, and I want prevent Fluttershy from seeing all the misery.” AJ smiled and gave me another kiss.

“I appreciate your concerns, but we want to help you. You are our friend, my friend. And it’s like you said, we saved Equestria two times now, first from Nightmare Moon and then from Discord. Shining Armor and Cadance sent Chrysalis’ changelings packing together once before. We’re pretty capable of handling ourselves.” She hit me with a hoof in my side. I flinched, and when I looked up again, I saw her smile. “Now get over here. We’ve done enough talking for the day.” She grabbed me with her hooves and pulled me over to her. I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face.

Author's Notes:

Happy new year to all of you. I will make it short today, because I'm still very hung over.
Because stuff, only every two weeks a chapter for now, love you all, leave a comment etc...

Thanks to LtcWest for translating this chapter.
Special thanks to JBL for proofreading and editing.

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