Author's Notes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Tgx_gC7KYTy0nmCbBXBQ8bCb1l_HdR5-XGP4LD0RKAE/edit

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When my eyes opened, the first thing I beheld was Twilight’s nose as it pressed against my own. Since it was in perfect range, I pulled back just a little to lick it. Twilight squealed and jumped away, rubbing at her nose in shock.

“‘Sup, Twiggles?” I said as I sat up. My body had been completely wrapped in a very fine cloth, covering everything under my neck. I could still move, but I really didn’t want to imagine what that cloth was for.

Twilight recovered quickly, at least. “Nav? You’re… awake?” she slowly asked.

“I really, really hope so,” I said. “If this is the coma just fucking with me, I’m gonna be super pissed.”

“No, you’re definitely awake,” Twilight said.

“That’s exactly what one of those spirits would say!” Taya shouted, hopping out of the bed. “Maybe we are still in there!”

“Was it really that bad?” Twilight asked. “And what do you mean, spirits?”

“Turns out the coma spell is actually a contract,” I said. “It invites spirits into the mind of the one it’s cast on. These spirits are able to use magic to connect to the host’s memories, along with memories related to that person from others close to them. It allows the host to experience those memories, along with a bunch of other interesting things.”

“I got to see the first bunker mommy went to,” Taya said. “It would have been really scary alone, but we beat it no problem together!”

“It’s a really intense hypnotherapy session, essentially,” I said. “We got to see all kinds of things we weren’t supposed to, like everyone’s slow realization that maybe I don’t actually like parties. Or the fact that Luna’s first meeting with me was planned by Celestia to get more information so they could decide whether or not they wanted to use me as a weapon. Or the fact that Reginald suspected Discord created me the instant he saw me. All kinds of things, really.”

“Oh.”

“And that Cadance thinks I’m scary,” Taya said, hanging her head. “And so does everyone else… I found out what the number one rule on the ship is…”

“...Oh.”

“I’m gonna have a lot to talk about with a lot of people,” I said. “Including everyone at once, for a big and important announcement.”

“That sounds pretty serious,” Twilight said, her ears twitching. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me first, in case it’s something you might regret? I mean, you did just wake up. And you did just say a bunch of other crazy stuff…”

“Sure, I guess,” I said with a shrug. “You, as a unicorn, are what Athena refers to as half-fae, half-animal. One of the quirks of fae is that they’re attracted to humans, to the point where they usually want to spend as much time as possible around them. Fae also behave very possessively toward humans, to the point where many humans were captured or enslaved back before Discord finished eradicating magic from the world. The fae part of every species on the planet makes them want to spend time around humans. The animal part comes in with the addition of hormones and breeding cycles. I finally found the answer to why I’ve been raped so many times.”

“That’s completely and utterly horrifying, if true,” Twilight said. “But you can’t just announce something like that to everyone without at least some kind of proof.”

“I have several years worth of evidence as proof,” I said. “Along with testimony from Athena. She told me the day I entered the coma and I didn’t finish processing it until the coma actually showed the effect in action. Princess Celestia suspected something was going on and Princess Newlestia confirmed it when she visited me in the coma. I don’t really know what you’d accept as evidence for something like this, but as far as I’m concerned, the effect is real and finding out how to counter it is going to become a top priority.”

“...That is a lot to process,” Twilight slowly said. “But it does answer one question I’ve had for the longest time, something that’s been kinda bugging me. The spell used to summon you was supposed to bring forth one of the most dangerous beings in the world. Despite your knowledge and your skills in combat, I never really considered you more dangerous than, say, a well-trained combat unicorn. But if what you just said is true… your very existence could cause our society to crumble!”

“Twilight… it did cause your society to crumble,” I said. “When I got here, Equestria had three princesses and a prince who ruled over everything as gods. They’re now down to a single princess, who is exclusively under my control. Gryphus was an absolute monarchy and now it’s a parliamentary democracy with a monarch that’s being phased out. Chrysalis was widely considered public enemy number one and the changelings were hostile to everyone. Now my Moonie is super cuddly and the changelings are opening whorehouses under the table to harvest lust. My very presence destroyed Celestia’s theocratic hold on this planet. And everything I just saw in the coma made me decide that what I’ve accomplished was only the beginning. I’m going to continue destroying it all to replace it with something better, and you are going to help me.”

“I’d say the coma worked,” Twilight said with a faint smile. “You actually look… determined!”

“I saw a bunch of things that really pissed me off,” I said. “And I determined that it’s time to start acting instead of just reacting. If I don’t want to be controlled, I have to control.”

“Uh… Control what, exactly?” Twilight slowly asked. “That one sounded a little ominous.”

“I just meant in general,” I said. “I saw several conversations between Luna and Celestia about how to make me obey. And I’ve heard several people laugh about how easy I am to manipulate. To be honest, a good chunk of what I heard didn’t make me happy. When I first got here, I was afraid of living up to your spell’s expectations, Twilight. I was afraid to change society too much. But seeing it all laid bare before me all at once showed me that it’s already far too late for that. So now, I’m going to begin accruing power. The process has already begun, but I think I’ll be taking a more active role. It’s time to start magiteching the fuck out of Equestria. How are Jak’s runes going?”

“Last I heard from Jak, he was about halfway to Equestria on the dreadnought,” Twilight said. “It’s unsurprisingly slow, which happens to be perfect for resource gathering. His crafters have been producing metal, stone, and paper golems of various shapes and sizes. They’ve also been experimenting with other things, but you’d need to ask Jak or Char for more information.”

“Excellent. Did we decide to name it Dreadnought?”

“No, Celestia insisted the honor was yours, since you insisted that it fly your flags. That’s just what the crew have taken to calling it. Apparently there was a push to name it after you, but Celestia shut that down quickly. The ship still hasn’t been officially announced, but you’ll have to come up with a name soon.”

“That’s low on my list of priorities,” I said. “Step one is getting this cloth off me and finding out what’s been done to my body.”

“Right, let me unwrap you,” Twilight said. Her horn lit up and the cloth around me started unraveling. I held my arms up to make it easier and finally stood when she was down to my legs. “Uh… Huh. I figured not eating for three weeks would have had… the opposite effect.”

“Isn’t it great?” Hera suddenly asked, appearing inches in front of me. “You’re finally awake, Navi!” Her arms wrapped around me and she gently pressed her forehead against mine so she could whisper, “Did you sleep well?”

“Decently so, yes,” I replied, doing my best to ignore how soft she felt against my body. “Did you happen to modify my clothes to fit my new body, too?”

“I most certainly did!” Hera sweetly said. “But wouldn’t you like a mirror to see your new beautiful self? Your wings are so cute! And you actually have a figure now, even if it’ll never approach mine.”

“No, looks aren’t that important in a world where I’m the only human,” I said. “Everyone just assumes I’m beautiful. To that end, I’ve honestly stopped caring. Thanks for fixing my clothes, though.”

“Ugh, you’re as bad as Athena!” Hera said, pushing me back in disgust. “Maybe I should have just left you ugly!”

“Wait, what did you do to Nav’s body?” Twilight asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Hera asked. “Just look at it!” I was upgraded from a small b cup to a comfortable c and I was no longer so skinny you could see all my bones. It also looked like I now had at least a decent booty. “Before, she looked so gross! All bony and malnourished. I barely even had to use beautification magic to get her to this stage! Most of it was just putting meat on her bones. Luckily, we had plenty of it lying around from that unicorn I skinned.”

“Wait, you fed me unicorn meat?” I asked.

“What? No, why would I waste time feeding you? I just used magic to infuse you with its energy and nutrients directly. The cloth was around you to make sure the energy couldn’t leak out and to help shape you into a better form. The longer you stayed in the coma, the sexier you would have been! Another week or two would have made a world of difference. Are you sure you aren’t still a little sleepy?”

“If you want to prettify anyone, why not Athena?” I asked.

“She said no. Besides, it would take ages. Either that or a whole bunch of blood, more than that unicorn had in him.”

“Blood is easy to come by,” I said. “How much do you need?”

“Well, it has to be virgin blood, for starters,” Hera said. “But if you really can get me some… Five humans worth should do it. It would normally be two and a half, but since we’re working with half-fae, we have to double it.”

“Where are you going to get that much virgin blood, Nav?” Twilight asked.

“Celestia, duh,” I said. “I can ask her to hold a few blood rallies at schools. The students will be interviewed beforehand with the truth spell. One of the questions will be if they’re a virgin or not. All the virgin blood can go to Hera. All the nonvirgin blood can be put to use in hospitals or by Blossom.”

“Oh, Blossom also prefers virgin blood,” Twilight said. “But that’s only a preference. And is it really okay to use foal’s blood like that?”

“There is no price too great to pay for beauty!” Hera said. “Especially when it comes to someone who needs it so dearly. Have some pity on me! I’m the one who has to look at Athena every day!”

That actually does kinda make me feel sorry for her… “It shouldn’t be hard to come up with it,” I said. “I’ll see what we can do. Now then…” I turned my head and spread my new wings. They were a translucent pale green and uncomfortably thin. I slowly flapped them a few times and the veins in the wings slowly lit up with magical light. That probably meant I could fly even if they were weak, at least. With my wings in check, I tried lifting my tail. It responded and my new whip-vine came into view. Something in it felt weird, so I narrowed my eyes and concentrated. With that, a long spike slipped out of the end of the vine. “That looks super deadly,” I said with a grin.

“That isn’t something you should be saying with a smile!” Twilight immediately replied.

“Would you rather I be afraid of my new body?” I asked. “Because I’d rather be smiling about what it can do instead of fearing what Discord plans for it. I will reject any of his so-called gifts by way of the knife and find some way to make use of whatever grows back. And super deadly beats super wimpy any day. Hera, would you point me to my clothes?”

“Do you really need them?” Hera asked. “It’s only us girls here! If you’d like, I could get rid of mine to make you feel more comfortable…” Her hands started reaching to the straps of her dress, but I quickly shook my head.

“I’m fine. I’d feel more comfortable in clothes than with everyone naked. Especially since I’m in a hurry to see some people.”

“But you’re not in a hurry to spend some time with the beautiful goddess who spent ages taking care of you?” Hera asked, thankfully sounding teasing instead of petulant. “If you aren’t careful, you might make me jealous!”

“I certainly wouldn’t want that,” I said, booping her on the nose. She didn’t seem to expect anyone to touch her and was too shocked to actually reply. “But despite how well you took care of me, three weeks out of the sun isn’t good for my tree sister body. My hair is actually wilting instead of just grey and lifeless.” To be honest, I wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but it sounded like something a tree sister would say.

Thankfully, Athena showed up next to Hera with a pure white dress in her hands. “Here you are, Nav,” she said. A moment later, the dress appeared on my body. It was perfectly fitted for it, unsurprisingly. I don’t think that’s what I came in with, but I honestly didn’t care. “How was your nap?”

“Enlightening. There’s a book I’d like to borrow, if you wouldn’t mind. The Legend of Eris, Most Cursed of All.”

“Here you are,” Athena said, holding up her hand again. This time, a book materialized on it.

“Thanks,” I said, taking it. “And thanks for taking care of my body. We’ll be getting out of your way for now. I’ll visit again soon.”

“There is a reason I did not tell you about that book,” Athena said. “But now that you have been told, there’s no reason to hide it.”

“I’m not looking forward to reading it, but it’s better than not reading it. Taya, are you ready to head back?”

“Yep! I bet they’ll all be surprised that I’m back so soon!”

“I certainly was,” Twilight said. “Taya just went to sleep! Were you really that close to being done?”

“No, that’s not it,” I said. “Turns out the reason another person can save the one in the coma is because time freezes around them. After Taya joined me, we had all the time we needed to get through things.”

“I advise giving your body another week or two to heal before attempting anything strenuous,” Athena said. “Despite appearances, you just went through a major surgery. You’ll need to get used to the new changes, along with making sure there is no remaining damage.”

“I intend to be careful. Now that I have access to Celestia’s manpower, I can make other people do strenuous things for me.” No one else wanted to take the first step, so I finally started walking toward the stairs leading to the book out. Taya followed right alongside me and Twilight hurried to join us a moment later. “I’ll see the two of you later. Thanks for the hospitality. I’ll be sure to bring some gifts next time I come.”

“Farewell for now, Navi!” Hera sweetly said. “Do come back soon!” I honestly didn’t want to, but I knew I’d have questions for Athena after reading the book she just gave me. With an elemental’s help, reading it would be easy, but actually processing the information inside was probably going to be unpleasant. Coming up with all the blood Hera needed to prettify Athena would take a little while anyway, so I’d have time.

When we got to the book on the pedestal upstairs, I stared at it for a few seconds before sighing. “It feels like I’ve been gone for ages. Certainly longer than three weeks.”

“It feels like that for me, too,” Twilight said. “If what you said about half-fae is true, I understand why. A part of me wonders if we can get addicted to whatever it is that makes us desire you…”

“A part of me wonders how inhuman I’ll have to become for it to stop working,” I said. “At this point, I honestly don’t think I qualify anymore. I’m probably more fae than human, so the problem might resolve itself, at least for me.”

“...I know you were worried about becoming inhuman for a while,” Twilight quietly said. “Is that still something that concerns you?”

“It’s not,” I said. “I was technically never human to begin with, after all. I just thought I was. So, when I open this book, where will we end up?”

“At the fort at the bunker,” Twilight said. “Due to various circumstances, Luna decided it would be better to stay in a room there instead of at your house in Canterlot. At the moment, she has taken charge of the book, since she’s your most powerful vassal. Flo requested it, to keep visitors to a minimum. Apparently all the warm wishes from your loving friends and family were annoying you, so we had to stop.”

“Kat spent thirty minutes just repeating the phrase ‘I love you’ over and over,” I said. “It was unsettling.”

“...I could see why that might make you want fewer visitors,” Twilight said. “I assumed she would have tried to hide it more after you made her cry for being insane.”

“So you heard about that, huh? Well, turns out she decided to use it as an excuse to stop hiding the crazy, instead. I’m going to be asking Cascade to increase their counseling sessions. I’m just about finished dealing with insane people with lethal skills. By chance, do you know if Luna has picked an elemental yet?”

“She chose Blaze,” Twilight said. “As the most experienced in war among your vassals, she decided it would be wise to link up with a communication source that can transmit orders across entire armies instantly. Especially since that communication source is also good at war. I thought she might be better with a soothing water elemental, but apparently she disagrees.”

“As long as there’s someone inside of her telling her not to do stupid things, I’m happy,” I said. “She was about an hour away from building herself an actual dog collar to wear to prove her loyalty to me, Twilight. She was talking about making a leash and a control crystal and everything. Bitch is crazy and I don’t wanna deal with that, but she’s too dangerous to cut loose. If Blaze is fine with babysitting her, that’s good enough for now.”

“...I certainly don’t envy your situation, but it seems like you’re starting to see some kind of light,” Twilight said.

“Hopefully. Now, it’s time to snap back to reality.” I opened the book and the tentacles grabbed us. Oh, there goes gravity… We got sucked right through and thrown back into the real world. Oddly enough, I appeared right in Luna’s chest. Her wings instantly surrounded me and her head pressed over my shoulder.

“My lady has finally returned!” Luna shouted as she snuggled me. “I knew when your filly joined, it wouldn’t be much longer!”

“I’m fairly confident this isn’t the correct way to greet your liege lady,” I said. Even if it is unbelievably soft and comfy…

“You are far from just my liege lady,” Luna said, though she finally backed away. Her grin gave me the feeling she wanted to hug me for longer, though. Probably forever, if I had to guess. “Are your legs moving properly after that long rest? Or do you think you might need a mount to get around?”

“My own legs will do the trick,” I replied. I finally took a look around the room. The small room was as spartan as I’d expect from Luna. There was only a bed and a writing desk. The light was coming from glowing lines on the ceiling. As I watched, their shapes slowly shifted. “So, I know we’re at the fort. Was there a place with personal rooms like this?”

“There wasn’t, but one was made,” Luna said. “This entire fort is modular, running off ancient human technology.”

“What time is it?” I asked. She didn’t even have a clock in there.

“It’s right around four,” Twilight said.

“Good, that gives me time to talk with some people before making the announcement. Luna, what’s the status of exploring the bunker?”

“We found a sealed vault that Flo said was storing items of cultural value. They have been transported to a warehouse in Equestria, awaiting your perusal. Celestia would like you to pick through them and see if there’s anything you want. The rest will go to a museum, where they’ll be displayed as artifacts of an ancient race.”

“Cool. Any ghosts of note?”

“We have run into things that Zecora was not able to handle alone, yes,” Luna said with a nod. “She has been keeping a record of what she discovers. All the dead have stories, or so she says. Apparently learning how to unravel their stories makes dispelling them easier. At the moment, the largest holdup is her. All the deeper portions are blocked off by dangerous spirits. Each can take her days to dispel, even with my assistance in keeping the ghosts back. If you allow me control, we can clear this place by the month’s end.”

“I’m not consigning any sapient souls to oblivion,” I said. “Not if I can help it. I don’t mind killing. But on the off chance there’s something beyond, I’m not okay with desecrating souls.”

“They would make a very good power source for a war on Tartarus,” Luna said with a sweet smile. “Powerful spirits like these don’t come around every day, my lady! Why can’t we just—”

“In other lives, these were my comrades,” I said. “Jonathan said he met many versions of me, each incarnated by Discord, each diving into the ruins to uncover the mysteries of their past, each losing friends along the way. And the original bunker itself was ruled by one Doctor Anonymous, the person I am, the person whose soul was taken from him to be put to use by Discord. I’m not forsaking these comrades of old, Luna. If they can find peace from the fate Discord inflicted on them, they’re going to find it.”

“It sounds like that coma did its job,” Twilight said.

“And with luck, more practice in freeing souls will help Zecora learn more about how to give them,” I said. “Alternately, doing Death’s job for him might get his attention so we can ask him about it instead.”

“...Are you using Zecora as bait?” Twilight asked. “Maybe the coma didn’t do anything!”

“Don’t think of it as using her like bait,” I said. “Think of it like this… If you have a monopoly on a market for a thousand years, when you suddenly get some competition, you’d want to check in on their operation, right? Death’s senses are probably supernatural. If he can tell that a large pocket of malignant undead energy is gone, he’s gonna start wondering how and why. I’m not using her as bait, I’m just aware that acting openly with unique skills is a good way of attracting the attention of unique individuals. I doubt he’d have any hostile intentions.”

“His name is Death!” Twilight said. “How innocent could his intentions be? Didn’t you say the human personification of death was the grim reaper who killed people?!”

“Zecora and I have already met him,” I said. “He seemed alright, although dosing us with that bullshit was a dick move.”

“Oh yeah, Zecora said she found more of those mushrooms, if you wanna try it again,” Taya said. “She seemed to think you might be interested.”

“Hell no, that shit was mad spooksville. I’m not about to mess with stuff that sees through time. Now then. Luna, your punishment for cowardice will be therapy sessions.”

“C-cowardice?” Luna said, flinching back. “My lady, when have I ever betrayed your expectations?!”

“You waited until I was in a coma to tell me your original plans for me,” I replied, crossing my arms. “And said upfront that it was because you were too afraid to tell me when I could actually talk back. Plus, I got to see a whole lot of other stuff that deserves punishment, so you’re lucky this is what I’m choosing to base it on.” Her ears shot down, as expected. “Yeah, I’m not too happy about a good chunk of what I saw. You’re going to be my vassal for quite a while, Luna. We have much to work on.”

“...I look forward to it, my lady,” she cautiously replied.

“Good. Who all is here at the bunker?”

“In terms of vassals, just Watcher and I,” Luna said. “Zecora, Princess Gilda, and Spider are also somewhere about.”

“Spider but not Kat?” I said. “What’s he doing here?”

“Helping navigate and safeguard the tunnels below,” Luna said. “He’s ideal for scuttling about underground, and his web can act as hoofholds in slick hallways or when climbing is required. Due to all the combat inside this bunker, there’s more damage than the one you went to.”

“After learning more of the history of the other bunker from Ava, it’s hard to believe this place could have seen more fighting than the Russian one,” I said.

“This fighting was all after the fact,” Luna replied. “From your so-called companions of old that now haunt the halls. Whenever Jonathan was pushed back that far, he used his pawns as sacrifices to instigate the spirits into attacking the intruders. Since most don’t know how to properly exorcise the dead, all attacking them did was cause damage to the surroundings and temporarily run the spirit out of energy.”

“Makes sense, I guess. Well, as long as Spider’s being careful. I don’t want to expose someone that young to spirits. He doesn’t need to be any more traumatized.”

“We have taken care to ensure he only goes in areas that have been cleared, and only with battle unicorn escorts,” Luna said. “His skills are more adept than a professional pony scout’s. It’s quite impressive. And there are more of these on the southern continent?”

“That place is absolutely off limits until we come up with a mitigation plan for Arachne,” I said. “That woman is bad news, for real.”

“Celestia said something similar,” Luna said. “Was she truly so powerful?”

“Yes, without a doubt,” Twilight said. “Going to meet with her was a huge mistake. I’ve never felt any magic power that strong before. I still can’t believe she released us. Even Celestia was terrified.”

“Luna, we will make more time to talk later,” I said. “You have answers to give me. Answers about things like this wish-granting Genie.”

Her ears twitched again and she hung her head. “Of course, my lady,” she whispered.

“Come back to the house tonight for dinner,” I said. “We’re going to be having a group chat afterwards. I have some announcements to make that everyone needs to hear.”

“Of course, my lady,” she said. “But if you’d prefer, I can join you now!”

“You presumably have duties,” I said. “And you need to spread the word to Zecora and Watcher, who will also need to be present.”

“Where are you going next?” Luna asked.

“For now, back to my house in Canterlot. I have several more people to talk to and quite a lot that needs to get done. It’s time I finally get moving again.”

“Understood,” Luna said. “I will join you again around the time dinner is served. It will be good to share a meal with you again, my lady!”

“It’s certainly good to be back,” I replied. “I’ll see you soon, Luna.” She bowed and remained in place while the three of us left. I made sure to grab Athena’s book before leaving. “I don’t actually know where we are, so one of you lead the way.”

“Do you want to see anything else while we’re here?” Twilight asked. “If not, I can just teleport us to the circle leading to your house.”

“That works,” I said. Her horn lit up and we appeared in front of a door. She opened it and led the way into a small room with a teleportation circle drawn on the bottom.

“Are you ready?” she asked when all three of us were in.

“Yep, let’s do it,” I said. Twilight’s horn lit up again and I finally went home.

Of course, before I even had a chance to look around, there was suddenly a cat latched onto me. “NAVI!” Kat shrieked as she held her entire body against mine. I’m surprised I managed to stay on my feet.

“Well, I’m sure the whole house knows you’re back now,” Twilight said. “I guess I should have expected this kind of welcome…”

“I’m home, Kat,” I said, finally hugging her back.

“Your body feels so much softer now,” Kat sighed, adjusting herself slightly. “And your wings are so pretty!”

“Yep, I look like a real fairy now. I’m sure my father would literally murder me if he could.” I let Kat go, but her arms didn’t move. After a few seconds of silence, I tried prying her off, to no avail. “It’s gonna be hard to say hello to everyone else if you’re latched onto me.”

“I’m sure my lady can do anything!” Kat sweetly replied, not even making an effort to move.

“I’m flattered by your confidence in me, but I’d rather do things that are easy than those that are hard. So if you could let me go now, I won’t have to rephrase it as an order.”

“A-after so l-long, you don’t w-wanna be close to me?” Kat simpered, pulling back just enough that I could see her teary eyes.

“I’m tired of being manipulated, Kat. I’m tired of being used, I’m tired of bullshit, and I’m tired of people who are supposed to be loyal to me ignoring what I need in favor of what they want. I got to see a lot of things in that coma. Things like the memories of my followers, along with their thoughts and feelings at the time.”

Kat very quickly released me and backed two steps away so she could gracefully curtsy. “...My lady.”

“As I’m sure you can guess, a lot of those memories and thoughts were about how easy I am to manipulate. It usually included laughter and people sharing methods. Kat, from now on, there is only one path forward. And that is my path forward. All others will be rejected and burned. Is that understood?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not enslaving your children and giving them to me and Taya,” I said. “I don’t mind if you have children, but if they want to serve me, that will be their choice. I will not allow that decision to be forced on them.”

Before I could continue Kat’s disciplinary hearing, I was piledrived by my next hugger, Doppel. “My lady!”

“I’m home, Doppel,” I said, hugging her back. “And I got your message. It was well-received.”

“I’m grateful to hear you say that,” she replied. With that, she fluttered her wings and fell back to the floor so she could also curtsy. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”

“It’s good to be surrounded by friends once more,” I replied. “Have there been any problems with the house? Or worse, the spirits inhabiting it?”

“There haven’t been problems with the spirits, but there have been developments. Zecora and some of the guards have worked together to dispel some of the weaker spirits. I’ve been helping with the spirit of the maid. And there have been no problems with the house, though you have had many visitors and even more letters.”

“As expected. I believe you said you had two more maid candidates?”

“I did,” she replied. “A pair of sisters. One is a cook and groundskeeper. The other is a maid. Both have experience working in noble houses. Their personalities seem harmonious and they weren’t too afraid of Spider or the naga.”

“What made them pick Nav as their new lady?” Twilight asked.

“They’re interested in the great hero,” Doppel said. “And they’re aware that none of us have experience with real noble houses, so they’ve offered their expertise to the rest of us, to help us all get this house in shape.”

“I’m not really sure that’s necessary, but it’s probably for the best,” I said. “I’d like to meet them, but I doubt I’ll have any issue with them. I’m not sure what my schedule is going to look like in the coming days, but I’m assuming it’ll be super busy.”

“You do have a pageant coming up,” Doppel said, looking me up and down. “And… did you somehow get more beautiful?”

“I don’t know if you’re joking or not, but the answer is actually yes. Hera did something to my body without asking. I haven’t gotten to look at a full mirror yet, but I was upgraded from a six out of ten to around an eight, it looks like. Add in the cute fairy wings and in the spring, my flowery hair, and I’ll probably be at least a nine when I doll myself up right. The only things stopping me from being a ten are my face and my ugly green vine-like tail.”

“And… how does that make you feel, exactly?” Doppel slowly asked.

“I’m super pissed that Hera did it without asking. But in regards to the actual modification itself, I honestly don’t care. It’s not like anything’s left of who I was, anyway. And I know more of it is going to be gone, soon. I guess being attractive is marginally better than the alternative, but when I’m the only one around who can even tell, it’s pointless.”

“That’s obviously not the case,” Kat said. “Doppel could tell. That’s why she asked about it.”

“Oh, I just realized because she looks more like the porn stars on her laptop now,” Doppel said. “Nav’s right, being extra attractive means little when those around you can’t see it. I learned that lesson the hard way in Ponyville, since Nav wouldn’t let me change shapes to seduce the ponies. It means you’ll have to have all your clothes redone again, too.”

“Which means another visit to Rarity, who is aware I have a pageant coming up in a week,” I said. “Super. Who else is in the house at the moment?”

“Flo, Sentinel’s guard squad, Spike, Gilda, the naga, Aurora, and us,” Doppel replied. “Gourd and Silver Quill have been working with Shining Armor to get needed supplies to the Crystal Empire faster than a local noble merchant in order to undercut his profits and weaken his power, so both airships are currently away. Silver herself is at the changeling mine near Ponyville with another guard squad. She’s housed in the nearby hive as she calculates your income from the mine. She also redirected the flow of most of the gems from Rarity to a jeweler, since Rarity was selling most of them and depositing the bulk of the income into your account anyway. Apparently Silver is also helping calculate the costs of the new university being built, even though we’re building it for free. Watcher, Zecora, Luna, Spider, and the rest of the guards are at the bunker. I think Jak is on the big airship on the way back.”

“Of the people currently here, I only need to discuss some memories with Spike, Kat, and Taya.”

“Memories?” Doppel asked, tilting her head.

“Not me?” Twilight asked.

“The coma showed me memories and thoughts of those close to me,” I said. “Some of what I saw was heartwarming. Most of it wasn’t. All in all, I have things to discuss with a few people. And I did see a lot of memories about you, Twilight, but most of it was about what I was expecting. I can honestly say that I was rarely surprised by anything that you or Doppel did or said, so I don’t think I need to discuss anything with either of you. Aside from saying thanks to Doppel, since she’s the real deal.”

“Of course I am, my lady,” my slutty bug smugly replied. “So now that you’re finally back, would you like a bath? Or dinner? Or maybe… me?”

“I definitely want a bath,” I said. “I’m sure I was kept clean with some kind of magic, but I still feel like I’ve been in bed for three weeks. I’m going to want dinner at some point, but I’ll have some announcements to make afterwards, so I’d like more people to be back first. If some aren’t available, that’s fine. The rest can come later, after I’ve had time to settle down.”

“If you have no other orders, I’ll go draw your bath at once,” Doppel said.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” I replied. She curtsied again and left, quietly giggling to herself.

“So she’s the real deal, but I’m not?!” Twilight demanded.

“You spent five or six years trying to make me go to parties before finally realizing I hated them, and then you were talking about how to get me to avoid ditching them anyway. You also told Celestia all kinds of things that I didn’t want her knowing, like how I knew she was just turning me into a knight so she could use me. I got punished for saying things like that, especially since it was literally true. Although the one thing that saved me from being immediately enslaved by the princesses was the fact that you refused to believe anything I said about human technology or population levels, so at least there’s that. I’m sure Doppel has her flaws, but the coma didn’t show me any of them. After all, you have been much more impactful in my life than she has.”

“...If you have complaints about some of the things I did, why didn’t you want to talk about them?” Twilight asked.

“Because I wasn’t surprised by them. I knew exactly why you were doing the things you were doing and I can’t be angry at you for doing them. I decided there was nothing about the memories I saw we particularly needed to discuss. But if you want me to say something, I’ll say thank you for allowing me to open your eyes to what Celestia was. While watching the memory snippets, I could clearly see how you grew and changed. Even if I didn’t know you were the element of magic or whatever, I’d still say that you’ve become someone harmonious, someone who at the very least wants to represent the ideals of Equestria.”

“Well, I guess that’s good enough,” she replied with a small blush and a faint smile. “Would you like some company in your bath, Navi? I would love to see how your wings work!”

“I can also be of assistance!” Kat said, jumping forward. Her tail was writhing.

“I believe the bath is large enough for two attendants,” I said. “But for the moment, I would just like to bathe.”

“Don’t worry, I’m excellent at multitasking,” Twilight said.

“I’m sure. For now, I’m going to go find Spike. What I have to say to him won’t take long and it would be nice to say hi before jumping in the bath for a while.”

“They’re practicing out in the back,” Kat said. “It was my turn to stare forlornly at the teleportation circle while waiting for you, so I didn’t join them.”

“Of course, because that duty definitely couldn’t be shirked,” Taya replied, nodding. “I made sure to take my turns, too.”

“It’s good to know you’re both diligent in your duties,” I said. “I’m heading out back.”

“Would you like to test your new wings?” Kat asked.

“No, not at the moment,” I said. “Technically speaking, I did just have major surgery three weeks ago. I’m going to give my body another week or two before trying anything too taxing, though I might try flying a little later.”

“Understandable,” Kat said. “I got a new bath bomb set for your return. I’ll go get it and help Doppel!” She quickly left, probably hoping I would forget the need to talk to her.

“So… what exactly did Kat do?” Twilight asked.

“A whole bunch of really creepy things,” I said. “And I’d like to leave it at that. The remainder of my talk with her will be private. I’m gonna go bother Spike for a moment.”

“I’ll head back downstairs when the bath is ready,” Twilight said. Her horn lit up and she vanished.

“And I’ll follow right behind you!” Taya happily said, pressing herself up against my leg. “So where do you think Aqua is?”

“Probably bimbo-moding around Canterlot, if I had to guess,” I said. “I think I told her to do that during the coma. I’ll call her back tonight if she doesn’t return on her own.” I finally walked to the door leading to the back stairwell and let myself out. Taya followed and closed the door behind us, then cleared the stairs of snow as we walked down. Spike, Ames, and Gilda were all practice-fighting near the edge of the cliff, so they didn’t see us until we were actually close.

When Spike saw me, he froze. That led to getting smacked in the face with a giant hunk of wood. “You let yourself get distracted!” the naga shouted. “What even got your… Oh ho, the human returns!” He finally looked our way and beheld us as we walked over.

“Serves you right,” Gilda said. “That’s what you get for ogling a lady!”

“Well, I was gonna ask someone to pinch me to see if I was dreaming,” Spike groaned. “But I guess that works, too… Is that really you, Nav?”

“It sure is,” I said. “Taya, heal him. That looks painful.” Her horn lit up and waves of healing flew out, making the small flow of blood coming from Spike’s snout stop.

“Yep, that’s you,” he said, standing back up. “How was your coma? Do you feel alright?”

“It was enlightening and yes. I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes. Is now a good time? It’s nothing urgent.”

“Of course now is fine! But I’d prefer a lot more than a few minutes!”

“I know, and I wish I had it to give. But I feel super gross, so Doppel is drawing me a bath at the moment. After that, there’s a whole host of things that need to get done. But after seeing what I saw in the coma, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

“What about the rest of us?” Gilda asked.

“Taya can keep you company until he gets back,” I said. My filly’s giggle sounded quite sweet to me, but both of them seemed to blanch. “Come along, Spike.”

He obediently followed me. There was no reason to go all the way inside, so I just started walking to the rainbow fountain. “So what exactly did you see in the coma?” he asked. “Was it something fantastical, or more mundane?”

“I was shown the memories of those close to me, along with some of their thoughts and feelings at the time,” I said. “After seeing the memories, I was allowed to speak with representations of my inner emotions, who took the place of people close to me. For example, you ended up as the personification of Pride while Taya became Hope.”

“So… you saw some of my memories?”

“Yes, but only memories that pertained to me.” We got to the fountain, so I turned to face him. I almost started to sit, but remembered the snow and decided against it. “So, what I have to say probably isn’t what you’re expecting. But I’m sorry, Spike. I should have stepped up to help you sooner. I should have been a better role model for you. I should have started teaching you as soon as I realized there was a problem. And I should have helped us both escape so much sooner. I can’t say that I let you down, but I know I didn’t do as much as I should have, as soon as I should have. And for that, I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” he immediately said. And since it was apparently the cool thing to do, he followed it up with a hug. “Someone doing anything for me is better than all those who just watched,” he whispered into my hair. “And I never once thought you weren’t doing enough, or that you should have done more. I was always just grateful that you took any time to help me at all.”

“Also, we almost definitely aren’t having sex again.”

“I kinda figured,” he said. “I knew it was just what you needed at the time, which is why I was happy to comply. And I know there may be a time later when it’s the same, and I’ll be happy to comply then, too. Until that day, I’ll make do. Did the coma make you feel better about hugs?”

“I like hugs, Spike.” I felt his body stiffen in surprise. “I don’t like having agency taken from me. So if you pick me up without permission, expect that pain is likely to follow. But hugs that I can escape from are acceptable in moderation.”

“Hearing that alone made three weeks away from you worth it,” he said before finally releasing me. “Welcome back, Nav. You want to break your new body in while we’re all out here?”

“Not yet. I want to verify my new body parts are fully grown before exercising too heavily. Also, Hera messed with my body, so I’m going to need to modify my armor again.”

“Jak and Sunshine Smiles aren’t here, either,” Spike said. “I’m not sure if anyone told you yet, but the big ship we captured is flying back to Canterlot now.”

“I heard. I didn’t realize Smiles was on it, but I’m not surprised. Luna was supposed to make me a new set of armor anyway. I doubt I’ll need to fight any time soon, so I can give my new body time to settle.”

“Aren’t we going to Tartarus soon?” Spike asked. “And don’t we have to take down an assassin group?”

“Spike, I have both a Celestia and a Luna in my pocket now. Why would I ever have to fight my own battles? It’ll only be if I want to. And since I’ve decided to stop holding back, I’m going to be supercharging the fuck out of the Equestrian military. To that end, there probably won’t be a need for me to fight for much longer.”

“But that’s so boring! Didn’t you just unlock some kind of super cool clone ability? What’s the point if you don’t get to use it every now and then?”

“The point is having a backup option. What, are you saying you want me to go out and die?” Luckily for Spike, he was saved by an unusually loud squawking noise. We looked over and saw Taya and Gilda playing together, having a good time.

“...Should we go save Gilda?” Spike asked.

“I’m sure she doesn’t mind working on her flexibility. I think Gilda has a few more centimeters before things start snapping.”

“I’m gonna go save her!” He ran off to pry the magic away from Gilda’s wings and legs. That just gave my filly another dolly to play with, of course. Since they all seemed to be having a good time, I decided to go check on my bath. Heading up the outside stairs would be hard with all the snow on the upper levels, so I went in through the back door.

“Welcome back, my lady,” Sentinel said, hopping up to bow. She was the only person in the sun room at the moment. One guard was probably watching the door, so the other was presumably wandering around somewhere. “Did you have a nice coma?”

“Yeah, it was pretty neat. I got to see all kinds of interesting things. Most of them were memories about things that pissed me off, though, like how Celestia blatantly bragged that it was her right to make use of me after hitting me with a massive lust spell when she was in heat or about how the only reason I touched Princess Gilda is because Aqua made me. It was a hell of a ride, I tell you.”

“I was kinda wondering about the griffin princess. I knew you were dumb about some of your conquests, but playing with her while her guards were just a few doors down on a rickety wooden airship was something else entirely. And… I’m sorry for what Celestia did to you. That sounds awful.”

“I’m going to be having some announcements after dinner that I’d like as many people to hear as possible. It’s nothing too terribly urgent, so you can be filled in later if necessary.”

“I’ll be there, of course,” she said. “I assume you came back from the bunker. Did you let Watcher and Luna know?”

“I told Luna to spread the word. I know what’s going on at the bunker is important, but I felt a need to return home as soon as I woke up. I’ll get status updates on all of our projects tonight.”

“We’ve been compiling documentation to make it easier to catch up on,” Sentinel said. “Though I think Silver has most of it, and she’s currently away somewhere near Ponyville.”

“She can catch me up on the particulars later. Just a general overview will be enough for tonight.” Twilight joined us via teleportation before I could make up an excuse to leave. “Way to make an entrance, Twilight.”

“There are just so many stairs here,” she said. “I don’t wanna have to walk all the way down just to turn around and walk all the way back up!”

“It’ll make relaxing in the bath that much more worth it,” I said. “Now, I’m gonna go cleanse my flesh prison. Keep on keepin’ on, Sentinel.”

“I’ll… try, I think?” She didn’t seem to know what that meant. Twilight didn’t give her time to ponder it and teleported us back to my room.

“Flesh prison?” Twilight said.

“I guess that’s not really accurate, since I don’t actually have a soul,” I said. “But for you, it would be. Technically speaking, you’re just a soul trapped in a body, right? That means you’re surrounded by a fleshy prison.”

“It’s not trapped if it’s supposed to be there! Saying that is like assuming death is the natural order!”

“I’ve killed enough people to realize we all have our end some day, Twiggles,” I said. “Death is gonna be the great equalizer. Now, let’s go.” I slid out of my dress as I walked to the bathroom. I wasn’t given underwear, so that was all I needed to do. Twilight was quietly muttering and I was dutifully ignoring it.

Kat and Doppel were waiting on us, as expected. The bath was full of bright pink bubbles, presumably from Kat’s bath bomb. “Would you like any drinks, my lady?” Doppel asked.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m not sure how I was kept hydrated, but it probably wasn’t natural. Getting some fluids in me is probably wise. Just a few minutes outside did wonders for my energy levels.”

“I’ll bring up some juice for you,” Doppel said with another small curtsy. Her wings fluttered and she buzzed off. Since the way was clear, I finally walked over to the bath. Kat stepped to my side and held out a gloved paw. After a second of thought, I realized she was trying to help me get in. I didn’t need the help, but I allowed her to assist anyway. The bubbles yielded to me, then surrounded me up to my neck when I sat.

Once I was in the water, Kat and Twilight joined me. We immediately lost Twilight in the bubbles and she had to use magic to save herself. “Was all this really necessary?” she asked as she did her best to snort the bubbles out of her nose.

“It was critical, yes,” Kat said. “I wanted only the best for my lady!”

“I’m not particularly partial to bubbles,” I said. “Even if they do smell really nice, kinda like cherries.”

“It’s also supposed to be amazing for skin,” Kat said. “It’s supposed to make you positively shine!”

“You better mean that figuratively. If it literally makes me shine, I’m going to be upset.”

“I don’t think there are bath bombs that can make you literally shine,” Kat said, waving a paw. “Now let’s get you clean, my lady. I’ve been waiting for this for three weeks!” Her paws pulled one of my arms out of the bubbles, where we could all clearly see that it was quite literally shining. “...Um.”

“This wasn’t an enchanted bath bomb, was it?” Twilight asked. “Because there actually are bath bombs that do things like that.”

“Yep, I shoulda just stayed in the coma,” I sighed, before letting myself sink into the bubbles. Flo, where are you hiding? I thought they said you were here.

“I’m hiding in the bath, of course,” Flo replied. I suddenly felt the water pressure around me grow tighter. “I am patient. We have all the time in the world to talk at night, in your dreams. With Aqua dead, I will once more have your mind all to myself!”

I wanted to continue sulking underwater for a few minutes, but Kat pulled me out for some reason. “M-my lady, please forgive me! I had n-no idea!”

“Twilight, are these things advertised as enchanted?” I asked.

“No clue,” she replied with a shrug. “I know they exist and I’ve heard some of the effects, but I’ve never looked into getting any. I imagine anything enchanted would have to list the effects, though.”

“Then that leaves two options. Either Kat did know or she gave her lady something that she didn’t bother reading the effects of.” Kat quietly whimpered.

“That… does sound kinda accurate, yeah,” Twilight said.

“I’ve forgiven a lot, Kat. Do you think my kindness is boundless?”

“...I will do better, my lady. May I begin cleaning you?”

“Go for it.” I didn’t really need or want attendants to help clean me, but company was nice after being trapped in my own head for ages.

As it turns out, my new wings did feel good while being rubbed. It wasn’t as good as the original pegasus wings were, but the new magical veins were very sensitive to something Twilight did with her horn.

Unfortunately, when I got out, my entire body was lit up. Kat dug up the packaging, where we learned that it made skin shine. To the ponies and cats who were covered in fur, that wasn’t too big of an issue. For a hairless ape, it was kind of a big deal.

“So what am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“Obviously you leave them a glowing review,” Twilight smugly said.

“So you’re saying I should have Taya burn down their store,” I said. “Good idea, I’ll make sure I tell everyone I got it from you. So, how about an alternate solution that involves fixing my skin?”

“Put on clothes and makeup?” Doppel asked.

“I could turn you into a pony until it wears off,” Twilight said.

“There’s really no magic to fix this?” I asked.

“There probably is, but beauty magic isn’t my field. If you want, we could pay Hera another visit.”

“I’d literally rather die than ask that woman for help. I’m terrified by what she might demand in repayment. Flo, what about you? You got some technobabble solution for us?”

“Of course,” she replied, finally joining us in person. “It’s less of a magical enchantment and really more of an alchemical mixture. One moment.” She slid forward and hugged me for a moment before completely engulfing me. When she finally pulled back, my body was no longer shiny. “I separated the mixture from your skin.”

“And so magic once again loses in the face of human technology,” I smugly said.

“It sounds a lot like I need to prove a point,” Twilight said. “Should I use magic to remind you of a few things, Navi?”

“My body is a result of magic, not human tech,” I said. “So beating me down would just prove that magic beats magic. Now, my only choice of clothing can’t possibly be that one dress. I’m sure I have something I can still fit into. I don’t care how slutty it looks, as long as it covers enough of me.”

“I’m sure I can find some pasties,” Doppel said.

“Enough of me being at least forty percent of my body, including the parts that are used for fun. I’m definitely not just putting stickers on my nipples. I have no plans to go out until I get more things fixed, but I want to at least move around the house.”

“Well, a robe would always work,” Kat said.

“If you bring me something that’s pink and fluffy, we’re gonna have problems,” I said.

“...What about black and fluffy?” Doppel quietly asked.

“That’s fine,” I replied. Kat sighed in relief and rushed to fetch a robe. I noticed her frantically hiding the fluffy pink one further in the wardrobe before pulling out the black and dark green one. “So when did I get fluffy robes?”

“This black robe is from Chrysalis,” Doppel said. “I think the pink one came from Fleur. You would have had a few closets full, but we made everyone stop since we knew your body would be different when you woke up. None of us were expecting how different, though…”

“Who was making all those clothes?” I asked. “And… why?”

“All of your paramours, plus Rarity, Celestia, and Cadance,” Kat said. “They were trying to deliver outfits they wanted to see you in while you were sleeping and couldn’t tell them no. Well, some of them were also trying to bring you clothes for the upcoming pageant. Rarity has given me several outfits.”

“I only brought you a few bits of racy lingerie,” Twilight said. “...You know, something we could both appreciate.”

“Well, I’m sure they’ll look even sexier on me now.” But for the moment, Doppel was wrapping a warm and comfy robe around me.

“W-what?!” Doppel shouted, springing away from me.

I spun around to see what was wrong and almost immediately realized it myself. “Whoa!” I shouted, turning my head to look at my wings. They actually phased through the clothes, so we didn’t even have to fit them through the holes! And the tail… “Well, can’t win ‘em all.” It was poking out from under the robe.

“I know I touched those wings earlier,” Twilight said. “They’re definitely solid. So… how does this work?”

“We can try to figure it out later,” I said. “For now, I’m going to enjoy a convenience that was long ago stolen from me.” I walked over to the desk and opened the gene-locked chest stored under it. From it, I pulled out one of the cherry blossom seeds and a small piece of tape. Once the sweet seed was safely tucked away deep inside me, I closed the chest and stood back up. The dayglass was still sitting there, so I flipped it over. “Flo, does Celestia know I’m back yet?”

“She doesn’t. Would you like me to inform her?”

“If you’d be so kind. Of the group of people offering to clothe me, she’s the closest one who can get it done the fastest. I need to talk to her about some other stuff, too. Once I can actually go outside, I’ll arrange a meeting with—”

Before I could finish, Celestia teleported just inches away from me. The sudden change in air pressure started to throw me back, but she compensated by grabbing me with magic and pulling me in with her wings so she could hug me. “Welcome back, Navi!” she sweetly sang. “Oooh, you’re almost as fluffy as I am!”

“Don’t you have princess-like things to be doing?” Kat asked for me. I wanted to, but I was being smothered by Celestia’s freaky hair.

“Luna and I need to compare notes,” Celestia said. “I’m aware of it, but she isn’t. I want to see if she noticed it as much as I did. Since it’s not hitting me hard right now and you just got out of the bath, I think it might be pheromone based, but I’ll need more sample data. We’ll have to get you nice and sweaty later, Navi. And then I’ll need to get very close…”

“That sounds a lot like an excuse,” Twilight said. “I doubt it would be something as simple as pheromones.”

“Oh, so you actually did choose to tell the others,” Celestia said, finally releasing me from her hellish yet angelic grasp. “I assumed the coma would make you change your mind.”

“Tell the others… what?” Kat slowly asked.

“That’s part of the announcement I’m going to make tonight,” I said. “Essentially, my very existence as a human acts as a drug to all the species on this planet, making them addicted and forcing them to want me. It seems to affect people more based on proximity, but my very presence has destabilized this world. And it’s going to continue doing so until we figure out how to stop it, assuming I continue remaining human enough for it to matter.”

“...What do you mean, drug?” Kat asked, her head tilting slightly. Her eyes seemed very devoid of life, all of a sudden.

“There is something about humans that attracts us,” Celestia said. “The old me suspected it. I broached those suspicions with Nav and had them confirmed, though she apparently just learned herself.”

“Athena told me the very day I went into the coma, just a few hours before,” I said. “I realized how true it was while I was in there.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Celestia said. “I’m sure you got a whole lot of memories of Luna and I talking about you, right? We were incredibly possessive.”

“You weren’t the only ones,” I said. “I think the only thing that stopped Moonbeam from claiming me is that she knew from the start I was created by Discord and formed a secret deal with him while she was a prisoner in Canterlot.”

That stunned everyone into silence for a few seconds. Thankfully, Kat even lost the crazy look in her eyes. As expected, Celestia recovered first. “You say she made a deal with Discord, yet you still call her Moonbeam?”

“The deal was made in the panic and chaos of defeat. I later watched her rescind it. You and I are going to sit her down and make her explain exactly what happened. Then we will decide if she is Moonbeam or if she is Chrysalis. But until then, the last I saw is her casting Chrysalis aside.”

“She’s pure fae, Nav,” Celestia said. “And you’ve helped supercharge her. I alone am not strong enough to deter her anymore.”

“Then we’ll invite Luna as well. We can have Shiny and Twilight on standby in another room.”

“Wait, I want to be there, too!” Twilight said. “If she betrayed us, I have a right to know why!”

“She doesn’t like you,” I said. “Celestia was her student, Luna was the last foal she delivered, and I’m too sexy to stay mad at. She can talk to all of us with few to no reservations. We’ll fill you in on the important parts later.”

“You’re not just tl;dring me!” Twilight shouted. “You’re gonna spill everything!”

“We’ll see,” I said, reaching over to tousle her mane. I changed my mind before my hand got there and chose to scritch her ear instead. “So, Celestia, I need some clothes changed to fit me. Hera did things to my body and now it’s sexier.”

Her horn lit up and my robe flew open. “Oh, indeed!” she said, looking me up and down. “You look much squishier now! So this is what humans find sexy?” Her magic gently lifted one of my breasts, testing its weight. “Why did Hera do this?”

“Because she’s crazy.” I pulled my robe closed and actually tied it properly this time. “Don’t you have princess-like things to do?”

“Flo and I learned a neat new trick,” Celestia said. “And we borrowed a drone from Moonie to make it work. Whenever I’m giving open audiences, she can disguise a drone as me, transmit the appeals directly to my mind, and deliver my reply from the disguised drone.”

“That’s just delegation with extra steps!” I said. “Stop being half-assed and make a proper bureaucracy already!”

“We did that once,” Celestia said. “We became a super efficient empire that ended up caring little to nothing about the value of its citizens. After Luna departed, I decided to rule as the eternal loving princess, which meant I had to show off my loving side. Part of that was being available to all of my citizens.”

“And then you end up wasting your time to tell a farmer to get rid of fire ants with a water hose while your kingdom stagnates around you,” I replied. “I know you can come up with a better way of doing this, some kind of check system to make sure nothing so unimportant gets to you. You’re the princess of a good chunk of the planet. Your time is more valuable than that.”

“You think I should tell my citizens that the value of my time is more than that of theirs?” Celestia asked.

“What citizen of Equestria doesn’t automatically know that by default?” I asked. “Even Kat, who isn’t from Equestria, asked if you should be doing your job right now. That’s because it’s important, time-consuming, and you’re the only one who can do it. But if you’re just gonna shirk by hiding behind a masked microphone, you might as well stop pretending you’re doing it for the people. At this point, you’re just blatantly manipulating and lying to them.”

“Just as brutal as I remember,” Celestia whispered with a shudder and what she thought was a concealed smile. “Was the coma worth it, Nav?”

“Yes. There’s only one thing I want to say to you, and it’s more like a message to the old you, one I hope she’ll never hear. I’m glad we made a mockery of your death. I’m keeping those pictures.”

“My, that’s quite a thing to say,” Celestia said. “You must have seen more than I thought.”

“While you’re here, I wanted to ask about Tartarus,” I said.

“The invasion is cautiously on,” Celestia said. “This is pending a few things like proper field tests of all the toys your engineers are coming up with, of course. We know the golems work here, but we don’t know how well they’ll fare in the corruption of Tartarus. In the worst case scenario, we could have some of them turn on us.”

“I’ll be giving them more toys to play with soon,” I said. “I decided to stop holding back and open the floodgates. If we’re going to take this world, we’re doing it by storm. Tartarus will be our show of gunboat diplomacy to everyone.”

“I ask that you consult me before making any weapons,” Celestia said. “If we build anything, it must be with the knowledge that it will be copied by others. That means we need countermeasures in place for everything you design, before the designs are sent anywhere.”

“Understood. I’ll consult with Luna. She’ll know more about magical defenses than I do. Humans were usually more on the offensive than the defensive.”

“I can also assist,” Twilight said. “It’ll be a fun chance to prove that magic really can beat technology!”

“There’s no such thing as a winner in an arms race, Twilight,” Celestia said, trying to look sagely and wise. “All we can do is ensure that we can defend against our own creations.”

“And that’s why there’s a comet hanging over the tower instead of just a big crater,” I said.

“Exactly,” Celestia replied with a nod. “Before you can give a punch, you must always be able to receive one.”

“I feel like I’m missing something,” Twilight said. “What does a comet have to do with anything?”

“Oldlestia destroyed Nightmare Moon’s capital with a comet during the civil war,” I replied. “Nightmare Moon replied with a comet of her own, but the tower caught it and used magic to turn it into a research center.”

“I give you a ninety-five out of a hundred,” Celestia said, grinning. “They actually left the comet in place for a while, but only because they had to break it up in the air to be safe. While it was up there, some of the heads of the tower decided a floating research tower would be the perfect symbol of their power, along with acting as proof of their victory. So once the rare resources in the comet were mined out, they gathered some inexpensive stone, had the figure constructed on the ground, then anchored it in the sky.”

“So, question,” I said. “What’s stopping someone from making a floating city made of rock?”

“The maintenance,” Twilight said. “The runes have to be kept completely clean at all times. Plus, parts of it need to be charged with magic power. That’s easy at the tower, since it’s just a single large rock and there’s enough ambient magic in the air to keep it charged without much interference. But a city would take a lot of power to keep afloat. It might even require unicorns working there as a full time job just to keep it operational. And since the only races who’d want to live in a flying city can also live in clouds instead, building a floating city like you’re envisioning is unfeasible.”

“Makes sense, just checking. So, Celestia, how long do you plan to be here? There are probably some things we need to talk about privately, but if you’re just here to say hi, I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”

“I plan to stay here at least long enough to fix your clothing,” she said. “For that, I’d like to borrow your body for a few moments, then Flo.”

“Explain what you mean by borrowing my body.”

“I need to magically scan it to get all of your measurements,” Celestia said. “Then I can use Flo as a sizing model to magically resize each outfit as she tries them on.”

“There’s a spell for that?” Twilight asked.

“I said magically resize each outfit,” Celestia replied with a small grin. “You are welcome to use this as a lesson, Twilight.”

“Well, go ahead and scan me,” I said. Celestia looked me up and down before lifting an eyebrow. “What?”

“Can she scan you while you’re wearing the robe?” Kat asked.

“I don’t know, can she?” I asked.

“I would like you to remove it,” Celestia said.

“Is removing it necessary or would removing it make scanning me easier?” I asked.

“Not in the slightest,” Celestia cheerfully replied.

“Thank you,” I said, untying my robe. “If all you wanted was to see me naked, you could have just said so.” I slid the robe off and placed it on my desk. “There, happy?”

“Would it be too much to ask for you to offer to bend over in front of me, too? I mean, I’m also royalty, right?”

“What, did Twilight tell you about that?” I asked.

“No, Aqua told Oldlestia,” Newlestia said. “Aqua kept her informed of several of your antics. Celestia found joy in hearing about the ways Aqua was ruining you. If you’d like, I can tell you all of them in detail later.”

“I got a front row seat to her shenanigans in the coma. So, mind scanning me?”

“Oh, I did that when I opened your robe earlier,” Celestia said. I rolled my eyes and put the robe right back on. “It’ll take a few minutes for us to go through your entire wardrobe. Longer, with me using it as a lesson for Twilight. It’s been some time since you last ate, Nav. Head downstairs for now and get something in you. We’ll join you when we finish.”

“Works for me,” I said. “And only adjust the clothes to fit my size, please. No making them girlier just to watch the light in my eyes die a little more.”

“I would never do that, silly,” Celestia replied, booping me on the nose with a wing. “Now run along and get some snacks, Navi. We’ll be downstairs soon!”

“Sure,” I said. I didn’t really want to watch them play dress up with Flo, so I started walking to the door. Kat and Doppel joined me.

While we were walking out, Twilight asked, “So why do you even know magic like this?”

“I learned it as part of my practice to be the perfect wife,” Celestia said. “Luna and I have taken several classes about it over the course of our lives. She failed all of hers, but I passed mine with flying colors!”

She probably wanted me to keep listening to her brag, but I did my best to tune her out as I walked over to the staircase. Doppel, of course, flew straight down like the peasant she was. Kat properly tended to her lady, joining me as I trudged down the endless stairs that Twilight so effortlessly bypassed.

When we got to the ground floor, we encountered a sight I honestly wasn’t expecting. Aurora, the griffin guy I hired from Atlantis, was standing next to Doppel. They were wearing matching maid outfits.

“So. Doppel. Was this your doing?”

“I offered my employee the full selection of outfits we had planned,” Doppel evenly replied. “Aurora made his own choices.”

“...My lady,” the griffin quietly said, not meeting my gaze. To be quite honest, the only reason I could tell he was a guy is because I already knew. Someone taught him how to apply makeup, so his facial feathers looked much more feminine. “Um… Sunshine Smiles also helped me pick…”

That fucking slut! “Does Gilda rate him as passing?” I asked.

“The princess thinks I am a hen,” Aurora said with a smug smile. “I’ve been tending to her needs while she’s staying here.”

“Wait, she’s still staying here?” I asked. “Why?”

“Because you offered to let her stay here,” Doppel said. “Do you not remember?”

“Of course I remember, but that was while I was awake. Why would she stick around when I went into the coma?”

“She wanted to study the bunker,” Kat said.

“So why isn’t she staying at the palace?” I asked. “Doesn’t Celestia have her own teleport circle set up now? The palace is more secure than my house and that’s where their embassy is, right?”

“Twilight has also been staying over,” Doppel said. “We’ve had to change the sheets in the princess’s room every morning because of it. I believe their… research might be hindered if the princess was in the palace.”

I sighed again before looking Aurora up and down. It’s not like I could say the maid outfit didn’t suit him. He made for the perfect trap. “...I’ll allow it, I guess,” I said, my wings sagging slightly. “It’s not like trying to have a new outlook on life actually meant anything normal would happen… Just don’t make me regret this.”

“I would never, my lady!” Aurora happily said. The only thing that might make people wonder was his voice, and I’m sure he could practice speaking more softly. I really didn’t care anymore, so I just walked past them toward the day room. “We’ll prepare tea and snacks at once!” My two maids walked on to the kitchen.

“Kat, would you happen to know if I’ve had any important guests stop by?” I asked as we walked to a table. “Aside from the obvious ones, of course.”

“Two come to mind,” she said. “The hornless mare from the tower has visited at least once a day since a week and a half ago, trying to talk to you. And a griffin noble has visited a few times to see if you’re available. He seems to want to ask if you know someone and can introduce him.”

“What did the dehorned mare want?”

“A job, I believe,” Kat said. “She seemed to think an up and coming noble needs an experienced mage, even if that mage has no horn.”

“I have a bunch of those,” I said. “Watcher, Twilight, and Luna all probably know more than this chick. I could probably find uses for her, though. If nothing else, I can use her as a professor at the academy. Speaking of, what’s the progress on it?”

“They’re still drawing plans and collecting materials,” Kat said. “No one wanted to break ground without your word, after all.”

“Understandable.” Before I could get more of a status update, the four people practicing in the backyard joined us. Taya was bubbly and energetic. Gilda and Spike were limping and seemed a little out of sorts. The naga was watching Taya’s back with a look of concern. She, of course, ignored it and hurried to join me and Kat at our table. “Did you have fun?” I asked my smiling filly.

“Yep, it all still works! Magic use was weird in the coma, but it’s all back to normal now.”

“You could use magic in there?” Kat asked. “Did you have to fight?

“I don’t know if you could call what we did fighting,” I said. “The upside of fighting enemies that you’ve already beaten is that you know for a fact you could beat them when you did it. Given the extra skills we’ve both gotten since and even the things that once traumatized me were nothing in the face of both of us.”

“So is this the part where we get cool coma stories?” Spike asked, sitting as far away from Taya as he could get.

“Hey, why are you wearing that robe instead of the one from Princess Gilda?” the other Gilda asked. “Don’t tell me you like that bug more than our princess!”

“First, I didn’t know Gilda brought me a robe. Second, why do you know Gilda brought me a robe, Gilda? And third, why do you care which I’m wearing or who I prefer?”

“I know because I gave her all my suggestions when she asked. And I care because she’s paying me well enough to care. What, did you really think you could just leave for three weeks and come back like nothing with the kind of herd you have?”

“It’s not like there are armed factions forming for the rights to my vag,” I said.

“You should be careful what you say, actually,” Spike said. “You made a lot of powerful women very interested, Nav. Watcher is certain there are at least four spy groups watching our house at any moment. He knows three of them are definitely connected to your paramours.”

“And the fourth?”

“Journalists,” Spike said with a shrug. “And bounty hunters, sometimes. They usually take one look at the security and decide to take on different jobs. Not many people are dumb enough to attack a house guarded by night guards, a naga, a dragon, a giant spider, a griffin, and an alicorn. Especially if they know the lady is out.”

“And now that the lady is in?” I asked.

“Anyone strong enough to get past the dumb muscle will be put in its place by the smart muscle,” Kat smugly said.

“I’m not a fan of having a bounty on my head. What have we learned about it?”

“Do you remember the Dog Father?” Kat asked.

“Yes, the crime lord I brought down in seconds, literally just by standing there.”

“As it turns out, he had family,” Kat said. “The bounty was apparently placed on you a long time ago, but traffic between the land of the dogs and Equestria was so low that news of it didn’t spread here until you started doing things to improve the flow of traffic and trade.”

“I didn’t do anything, though,” I said.

“You are the one who discovered Atlantis, are you not?” Kat asked. “The existence of a friendly nation between Equestria and China that allows for the safe transport of goods and information regardless of the weather conditions. That was you, wasn’t it? And it was also you who convinced the leaders of that country to join back together with the world, right?”

“Anyway, get to the point.”

“Someone in the Chinese underworld was upset enough at you to hire people to capture or kill you,” Kat said. “And we know this person is related to the Dog Father. Apparently Celestia’s contacts in China are lacking, because that’s all we know for now.”

“So, basically what we knew from the start. And even once we deal with the source of the bounty, it’ll still take a while for the news to spread that the bounty is no more. And then some new asshole will decide to put a bounty on me and the process will continue.”

“The solution to that is simple,” Kat said. “We don’t just kill the source, we make him into an example.”

“I can work with that,” I said. “I’m done being gentle with this world. The kiddie gloves are coming off.”

“What do you mean, gentle?” Spike scoffed. “Since when were you gentle?”

“Celestia and Luna asked me to make weapons,” I said. “I told them no. That was me being gentle. And now, I’m the one telling Celestia and Luna to make weapons. If you think I haven’t been gentle up until now, you’re going to be in for a rude awakening by the time we get to Tartarus.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “Tell that to the dragon whose soul you stole.”

“Was that disrespect I heard?” Doppel sweetly asked from behind Spike. She placed the plate of snacks on the table with just a little more force than was necessary, making the dragon jump a little.

“No, of course not,” Spike instantly replied.

“Good. Our lady has finally returned to us. You should be grateful.”

“Yeah, Spike,” I said. “Start showing some of that gratitude, huh?”

“Oh, I’m gonna,” he said. “Just you wait, Navi. It was already decided that Gilda and I got to be in charge of dinner when you got back. Or at the very least, your part of it.”

“Good. Gilda, the frillier and pinker his apron, the better it tastes. I think it’s remnants of Rarity’s mental conditioning.”

“The worst part is, I can’t even deny the possibility,” Spike sighed, hanging his head for a moment. “But on the upside, I know just how to make our lady look pretty now!”

“Are you saying she isn’t always pretty?” Kat asked.

Listening to people fighting over me made it finally sink in that I actually was home. It’s sad that’s what it took, but I was still very glad to be awake. Being reminded that I was alive made me realize I actually was kinda hungry, so I started eating. Aqua, where are you?

“Out and about in Canterlot,” she replied in my head. “Would you like me to return ahead of schedule?”

Yes. I have a single job for you before I kill you for good. You will undo some of the damage to my filly.

“Understood. I will be back shortly.”

“You just got back and you’re already tuning us out again?” Spike said, making me blink and actually focus on him.

“I was speaking to Aqua. I’ve seen Flo since my return, but not her. I have two orders for her, so I was telling her to return.”

“Why order her to do anything?” Spike asked. “You have Flo, right?”

“One order is something Flo won’t do and the other order is something Flo can’t do.”

“Cascade is very worried about that,” Kat quickly said. “Any order from you that Flo won’t obey is probably something that shouldn’t be done… according to Cascade, at least.”

“And I’m very worried about Cascade,” I replied. “You’ve been in her possession for quite some time now, yet your mental state has done little to improve. Water elementals are supposed to be healing presences, are they not?”

“I determined that my state as insane is better for my lady,” Kat proudly replied.

“Your owner disagrees,” I replied. “Allow Cascade to help you.”

“Yeah, why would the crazy person get to decide their own treatment?” Taya asked. “That’s like letting a prisoner pick their punishment.”

“...As my lady wills it,” Kat quietly replied, looking down.

A blob of water suddenly entered the room and zoomed right up to me. Once it was close enough, the blob expanded into a bimbo-ified Aqua. She immediately bowed, which made her huge boobs jiggle delightfully. “I have come as my lady called,” she said.

“You already know your first order,” I said. Remove Taya’s crush on me.

“As you command,” she replied. She reached over to poke Taya and pulled away a moment later. “It is done.”

“And your second order is simple,” I said with a cheery grin. “Die.”

“With pleasure, my lady,” Aqua said, hopefully the last words she would ever utter. Her body collapsed into a small black bubble. A small amount of water dribbled out of me and slid over to the larger blob.

“Whoa, you’re really gonna kill her?” Spike asked.

“She’s already dead,” I replied. “I left her alive for so long because I knew she did things to me while she was in my head that she hadn’t told me about. The coma showed me the events clearly and Aqua was given the opportunity to explain herself. I declared her guilty and decided to figuratively lop off her head the next time I saw her. This is the result.”

“So what was your first order?” Gilda asked. “All she did was poke your filly. It’s not like Aqua made Taya a host, given that she just died.”

“She was dealing with a personality quirk that Taya and I both decided was better off gone,” I said. “Flo disagreed with our method, so I decided to use Aqua before I got rid of her. Taya, how do you feel?”

“Like everything’s right with the world, mommy,” Taya said, sighing in delight. “I can actually think straight again!”

“Good, though I don’t mind you thinking gay either. I’m sorry it had to come to this, but sometimes taking the easy way out isn’t the worst choice.”

“I don’t need convincing, mommy,” Taya sweetly said.

“Why didn’t you just have her fix my insanity instantly?” Kat asked.

“Because Cascade might not accept that. And because I didn’t have your permission, so it would be kinda rude. Besides, I told Aqua I would only have two more orders for her. Raising it to three would make me a liar.”

“I understand, my lady,” Kat replied. “You wish for me to work on it myself.”

“So, what, did you just not listen to anything I said?”

Before she could reply, what used to be Aqua flashed and turned blue. Flo slid into the room right as the new elemental took a female form. “So it’s finally done,” Flo said. “Welcome, sister. How do you feel?”

“Intrigued,” the new elemental said. “My name is Darya. I have memories of the one called Aqua.” Her eyes moved straight to me. “Do you feel any hostility toward me, now that I am reset?”

“You aren’t Aqua anymore, are you?” I asked. “As long as you aren’t, as far as I’m concerned, you’re a completely new person.”

“She definitely isn’t Aqua,” Flo said. “She will have Aqua’s memories, but the personality is different and all the corruption has been wiped. She is still an alpha model, so any orders from you should require her to obey.”

“Orders will not be necessary,” Darya said, bowing to me. “After a quick search of available memories, I have determined you are one of the more powerful entities in the world. I would like to serve you until I am more comfortable with things.”

Flo, would it be viable to use her as a communication relay between me and my followers? If she’s not actually listening to their thoughts or whatnot, it wouldn’t take much effort to keep in contact, right?

“That is viable,” Flo said in my head. “Though I would prefer to be your sole elemental.”

She isn’t offering to be my elemental, she’s offering to serve me. “I can use your help,” I said out loud. “First, I want to see if you can act as a relay. Can you enter the heads of everyone here just enough so that you can talk to them? Don’t make them full hosts.”

“Understood,” Darya said. She reached thin tendrils out to Gilda, Spike, Kat, Taya, and me. Once everyone had been marked, she nodded. “Done.”

Repeat my words in their heads. Raise your right hand. None of them moved. If you make me say the name of each appendage you all own, I’m going to get a sword to raise them all myself. In response, all of them raised their front right appendage. Lower them. Just like that, they did. Spike, pinch Gilda’s cheek. Spike did so and Gilda immediately slapped him.

“Relaying speech is simple,” Darya said. “Though I would like the opportunity to obtain an actual host.”

“If you find anyone willing, feel free,” I said. “If you’d like, I wouldn’t mind you sitting in my head until you can find someone better. I don’t know if I can technically call you young, but you are a new existence. You’d probably feel better with someone to talk to.”

“If you would be so kind,” Darya said, her eyes glowing pink. Another tendril shot toward me and she put more water in my head. “Though I think Flo might be jealous…”

“I just got finished telling her I would like being her sole elemental,” Flo said, not even trying to hide her slightly green body.

“Darya isn’t my elemental,” I said. “She’s my servant, apparently. Besides, this way, she can ask for clarification about anything I tell her to relay.”

“And it gives you another alpha elemental to do your dirty work for you,” Flo coldly replied.

“Hey, I was only thinking that!” I said. “It’s not fair to share someone’s inner thoughts! It’s not like I’d actually make someone innocent do anything wrong. Aqua was already guilty of plenty of terrible things, so I didn’t feel bad about making her do other terrible stuff. But as of now, I’m not about to ask Darya to do anything I wouldn’t ask you to do.”

“I would not have wanted to help fix your filly’s personality quirk,” Darya said. “One reason I asked to serve you is because I did not think you would force me to do anything.”

“If I ask you to do something you aren’t comfortable with, let me know and I’ll find someone else,” I said.

“Couldn’t you just… not do it, instead?” Flo asked. “If it’s something a pure water elemental wouldn’t want you doing, it’s likely something you don’t need to do.”

“Eh. So, is Darya really a water pun? It’s not as on the nose as the rest.”

“It means ‘sea’ in a human language,” she replied. “The obvious ones must have been taken already.”

“Tell that to Carl,” Spike muttered.

“Well, I chose not to pick a name for you so you could fit in with the cool kids. Flo, where are the other elementals, anyway?”

“Most are currently at the bunker,” Flo said. “Waterfall and River are currently in Gryphus, guarding the prince.”

“Good, he’s still just the prince. But I take it things are going downhill fast?”

“They aren’t just guarding him. They’re also attempting to soothe tensions. But without any kind of reputation, they’re just blobs of water speaking about peace. They at least have the benefit of your name behind them, but that means nothing for the other faction, who hates you.”

“As long as they can keep Hooters alive long enough for us to fix things once it comes to fighting, we’ll be fine,” I said. “Now that I’m awake, our response time can probably be minutes.”

“The princess and Twilight set up a teleport circle to the palace at Gryphus, actually,” Gilda said. “It’s a small three person pad that links directly between Princess Gilda’s two rooms.”

“That makes things easier. I’ll only need two vassals to finish things.”

“...I feel like you’re severely underestimating griffins,” Gilda coldly said.

“Magic and hands beat wings and claws any day,” I said with a shrug. “Griffins have their strengths, but Luna is stronger. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do intend to bring more than just two people, but I don’t need to bring more than two. I’ll only do so for convenience. Wait, can the waters heal the king?”

“That was their original goal,” Flo said. “However, his body was still weakened. He has longer, but not by much. At this point, proceedings are underway to transition the crown to Hooters while Bloodbeak is still alive.”

It’s a shame they’re going from a king with an awesome name like Bloodbeak to one with such a lame name like Hooters… “Gilda, is Hooters a popular griffin name?”

“No, all rulers are given powerful names,” she replied. “Hooters is the name of a great general, according to the princess. Apparently he did some cool stuff. Most griffins I’ve met think the prince has really grown into it.”

“Huh. Well, whatever. With luck, the current king and the two elementals can help smooth things over so we aren’t needed, but I doubt we’ll be that lucky. Doppel, Kat, do you know of anywhere that offers noble training courses?”

“Fleur recommended two,” Kat said.

“Good. I’ll enroll Taya in young lady courses soon.”

“What about yourself?” Doppel asked.

“Frick the police,” I replied with a shrug.

“That’s… not really an answer,” Spike said. “I mean, I guess you could probably get away with it, since you’ve always been rough around the edges, but… shouldn’t you want to improve yourself?”

“Not like that,” I said. “Besides, I can blend in with nobles if I really want to, I just don’t like doing it because acting vapid and super polite all the time isn’t fun. However, Taya can’t blend in at all. That needs to change. So she’ll be taking young lady courses to learn how to mimic noble fillies so the noble adults won’t have fodder to use as insults against us.”

“If I’m going to be a permafilly, I have to be the ideal permafilly!” Taya proudly replied.

“So where’s Celestia?” I asked. “Is she still messing around with my clothes?”

“She used my body to make the models she needed so I could greet my new sister,” Flo said, bowing lightly to Darya. “But she should be finished shortly.”

“I won’t call you mom if you marry her,” Spike said. “But I do think you should do it.”

“Your opinion has been noted,” I said. “At least you didn’t sell yourself out like Gilda.”

“Money’s money,” Gilda replied with a shrug. “Besides, I think it’s hilarious you turned our princess into your little sex toy. Especially since you did it while her guards were around and somehow got away with it. Marrying Princess Gilda just means you’ll keep finding new ways to get away with doing things to her, right? Also, having you married into the royal family would seriously boost the power of our kingdom. I don’t usually care about that sorta thing, but I’ve been paying more attention ever since you got turned into a noble. With you at the helm, Equestria’s getting a little too powerful, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s just your imagination,” I replied. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Blaze has told me full well what kinds of weapons they’re building on that ship!” Gilda said. “And we all saw what that golem was capable of!”

“Golems can’t fly, silly,” I said with a smile. I bet they can fire huge hand-held cannons, though… Load one with a net or buckshot and you could take down a horde of griffins.

“I don’t think that matters to a castle,” Kat said. “From what I saw of the royal palace at Gryphus, ten golems could completely wreck the place in an hour or two. With them to lead the way, unicorn assault squads could follow behind to tear it down brick by brick.”

“And I think you just mentioned something about the kiddie gloves coming off,” Gilda said. “About how you’ll be telling Celestia to make you weapons.”

“Yeah… Tartarus is gonna be fun,” I said. “It’ll be a good opportunity, I think. Luna and I are going to be working together for a while coming up with things. That part isn’t gonna be very fun, but I’ll manage. Spike, do you know how common the letter sending ability that dragons have is? I know Kumani can do it, but she’s some kind of high ranking dragon.”

“I’m not really sure,” he said. “Why?”

“I’m going to start some businesses,” I said. “One of them is going to be a transportation company. Sometimes documents are high priority and need to get from one place to another as quickly as possible. Normally, the fastest way to get across the country is a train or an airship, but those still take a week. Dragonbreath can get a letter from one person to another instantly. If I can hire two or three dragons per location that have that skill, I could make good money. But if the skill is uncommon, I’ll have to pay more for their services, which will drive the cost of the business up. If it’s not a common skill, I’ll work on an alternative while we start setting up the teleport circles. We’ll need infrastructure, but that shouldn’t be an issue.”

“...Teleport circles?” Kat slowly said. “Are you going to offer passenger services, too?”

“Yes. Plus, they can be used to send large amounts of packages. Say we open three stores in Canterlot, with a single warehouse in a central location. The three stores will collect packages from people every day, then send them to the central warehouse. From there, they can be sorted by location and placed on teleport pads that correspond to different warehouses in other cities. Add a little bit of magic and you can have next-day delivery for any package. If you were going to do passengers, set it up with a schedule for each different city and have groups of people teleport out at certain times. With the circle to make teleportation much easier, just about any unicorn can do it.”

“That… seems so obvious though!” Spike said. “Why hasn’t anyone else done it?”

“Because those old fogies at the tower hoard their knowledge,” I said. “And most of the nerds who bother learning shit like that don’t have the kind of mind required to monetize it. I’ve been thinking about stuff like this for a while, but I didn’t want to step on any toes or change things too much. But as Gilda just said, the kiddie gloves are coming off. That means more than just weapons. I’m tired of living in a bullshit pseudo-Middle Age civilization. It’s time we revolutionize and industrialize. We’re going forward two hundred years into the future in one big jump.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Spike asked.

“No, that’s why it took me so long to decide to do it,” I said. “But it’s too late for me to consider the consequences. I’ve already irrevocably shattered society as you knew it. The way I figure, now that I have the momentum of taking Celestia behind me, I might as well see what I can do to force this world back into motion.”

“...You say things like that a lot,” Kat slowly said. “About how the world seems to have stopped, and yet now that you’re here, it’s finally in motion. What do you mean by that, truly?”

“What, you haven’t noticed?” I asked. “Celestia turned this place into her Garden of Eden, a veritable paradise, with her as the goddess ruling over it. Of course, the requirement for staying in the Garden of Eden is the complete lack of knowledge. Basically, staying ignorant and blind, like sheep. Celestia froze this world in time. She was too afraid of finding something she couldn’t control that she halted all technological and cultural advancements. She also sent out spies and saboteurs to make sure the other races stayed in constant states of conflict so they couldn’t mess with her garden.”

“You describe it so well,” Celestia herself said. Apparently she was done with my clothes, and was standing right behind me with Twilight. Both of their horns were lit up, along with their hooves. That probably meant they used magic to keep themselves silent so they could eavesdrop easily. “When did you notice, Nav?”

“There was an ancient book hidden in Twilight’s library that detailed the true founding of Equestria,” I replied. “It didn’t have all the details, but it told me enough. After that, all it took was a few conversations with the two of you to confirm it. Being forced to choose between being sent to Egypt and being imprisoned for life was when I knew it was too late for me, and that I had been caught in the goddess’s web. After all, I was something that wasn’t supposed to exist in her garden, something with forbidden knowledge.”

“Something that made me panic,” Celestia said. “But that is now behind us. Soon, I will no longer be a goddess of the sun. And with luck, my sister will no longer be Satan.”

“What, did Luna tell you I said that?” I asked.

“No, Aqua did,” Celestia said. “She relayed that conversation back to me, because she knew hearing that it was initiated by Twilight would break my heart. Oldlestia was quite vexed that you stole her sister and her student.”

“Then she shouldn’t have been a cunt. Thank you for fixing my clothes.”

“You are very welcome, Navi,” she said, leaning in to nuzzle me.

Since she was in a perfect position, I snatched her crown again, making her jump back. Instead of parading it around, though, I just looked at it more closely. “Luna said these were runes. Did you carve them yourself?”

“No, I didn’t make the crown,” she said. “That relic was crafted by a smithing team composed of minotaurs and dragons. I did make my own shoes and peytral, though. They were all remade recently due to your abilities. I’ll be happy to share some of my knowledge, but for my own safety’s sake, I don’t want to spread the word of what my personal equipment can do.”

“Makes sense,” I said, holding the crown up. Instead of taking it back, she lowered her head for me. I was the one who removed it, so I guess it’s only fair I put it back. I gently lowered the crown back in place. “I don’t think a princess is supposed to be lowering her head for people.”

“I don’t think a vassal is supposed to be stealing her princess’s crown,” Twilight replied.

“It’s not like there isn’t a precedent for this,” Celestia said with a grin. “I don’t mind if Navi borrows my crown. I know she’ll give it back. Or, you know, have it sent back. After all, she is the one who allowed me to keep it.”

“I wasn’t the only one who made that choice,” I said. “You have five people to thank for still being alive.”

“Speaking of which, should we have another summit?” Twilight asked. “Now that you’re awake, everyone could meet again, this time only with rulers.”

“But I don’t rule anything,” I said. “There’d be no reason to wait for me to wake up.”

“Don’t be obtuse,” Twilight said. “It’s not a summit if you aren’t there, is it? No one else would bother agreeing to it if you weren’t going!”

“She’s right,” Celestia said. “Both that we should have another summit and that no one would agree if you didn’t attend. The last time was more of a trial for the mare I was and less of a true political summit. After I was informed my country would be heading to war, I had Flo tell me everything that was discussed. I believe, now that each party has had more time to think about everything, we should meet again.”

As if I didn’t have enough shit on my plate. “We can use that opportunity to confront Moonie, I guess,” I said. “Though if we’re just inviting rulers, wouldn’t that only be four people, plus me? I guess maybe one more, if you add Shining Armor.”

“I think it would be best to start small,” Celestia replied with a nod. “There’s no reason to get too many countries involved at once. It’s better that we use a small subset to see how things go before we try branching out to more unknowns. There are several small independent groups here and there around the outer edges of Equestria, but there are no true strengths anywhere on this continent outside of the ponies, the griffins, the changelings, and the Crystal Empire. All other groups would either refuse to join or would be more trouble than they’re worth.”

“Wait, how many different power bases are there in this place?” I asked. “I thought you had everything here basically under lock and key.”

“Remember the naga?” Twilight asked. “That’s an independent faction living directly under a group of Equestrian farmers. Then there’s the buffalo out in Appleloosa.”

“And the deer in the Whitetail Woods,” Celestia added. “They have several small city-states set up all over Equestria, mooching off the peace we give them by keeping their predators out and acting high and mighty like we should be grateful for the privilege.”

“Why haven’t you just conquered them?” I asked.

“More trouble than it’s worth,” she replied with a shrug.

“Why haven’t you just subjugated them?” I asked.

“That’s just conquering with fewer steps,” she replied. “It’s just about as much trouble and it gives far less value.”

“Why haven’t you just wiped them out? I mean, deer tastes delicious.”

“Because the only pony willing to eat them was Luna, and she got her fill from the tributes they sent to the predator races.”

“...I chased the rabbit-hole too far,” I said, hanging my head for a moment. I didn’t let it bother me for long, though. “So, let’s have another summit. Geographically speaking, Gryphus is probably closest to the middle for all of us, right? Cadance hosted last time, so should we do it there next?”

“No, Cadance will be hosting this time, as well,” Celestia said. “I’ll arrange teleportation for the griffin representative. I’m not sure if they’ll send Hooters or Bloodbeak. We’ll have Cadance send out the invitations, as well.”

“Shouldn’t Nav do that?” Twilight asked. “Cadance may be hosting, but it’s Nav who will bring everyone together.”

“I’ve read the invitations and letters that Nav sends,” Celestia replied. “Cadance will handle the invitations. They’ll just be a formality, anyway. By the time of the summit, everyone necessary will be informed.”

“Before the summit, I’d like to talk to some demons and familiars,” I said. “More information about Tartarus will be valuable when discussing an invasion.”

“Agreed,” Celestia said. “Luna and I have already collected the familiar summoning books you requested. I’ll have a few inquisitors on standby before we begin summoning things. Their knowledge will help us ensure the information we’re given is as accurate as possible.”

“Good. What’s the ETA on the dreadnought?”

“A week and a half,” Celestia said. “Though that time is variable. The ship could get here in a week, but I’m having it detour around heavily populated areas so it can avoid attention and pick up more resources. The dock for it has already been completely constructed, but it hasn’t been attached to the mountain yet. That will be done when the ship is finally in view.”

“Cool. Do you mind if I revolutionize, industrialize, and just generally overall break Equestria?”

“Come to me before you do anything in particular, please,” Celestia replied. “It’s possible that some of the things you want to try have already been done before, but were stopped for various reasons.”

“‘Kay. It’s not like I have to worry about you stealing my ideas anymore.”

“Wait, when did Celestia steal your ideas?” Twilight asked.

“Nav never gave me the opportunity,” Celestia replied with a warm smile. “After all, she knew I would steal them. There’s no way I would have allowed a nonpony to accrue the kind of power Nav is capable of attaining. That’s why, as soon as I had access to the memories you gave Chrysalis, I had my pony inventors start churning things out. And yet, I don’t think we were given a fraction of what you’re really capable of, were we?”

“You sure weren’t,” I said. “I gave Princess Gilda the most, and even she didn’t have enough time to learn much. I have quite a lot to do in the future. Thankfully, having a few water elementals around means copying schematics and transferring knowledge are both instant. Flo, Jonathan knows how to turn matter from one form into another, right? If we gave him all the schematics on the laptop, do you think he could clone objects? If we could feed him magnets, metal, and silicone and get a computer or a generator back, we could speed things up even more.”

“That’s not viable,” Flo replied. “We already tried. His matter conversion control isn’t that precise.”

“It’s precise enough to literally modify someone’s mind, but not atoms?”

“It’s a difference in design,” Flo said. “He was not designed with the kind of precision necessary to clone things as you desire. He was designed to be able to modify minds.”

“Fair enough,” I said with a shrug. “I can’t blame a screwdriver for not being able to drive a nail. Even without that, we’ll be able to get along quite nicely with the elementals helping. They can copy human designs and we can ship them to the university to have the final product modified to work with magic as the source of power.”

“I’ve always dreamed of being a xerox in my spare time,” Flo sarcastically replied.

“You’re better than a xerox, Flo,” I said. “Replacing your ink is cheaper, you work more often, I don’t have to worry about networking you or plugging you in, when something is wrong I can usually understand when you tell me about it, and you only overheat when you get angry. But if you don’t wanna, I’m sure I can find other water elementals who would enjoy spending time with me.”

My chair suddenly disappeared, only to be replaced by pink water. I fell back into Flo’s very wet embrace. “It’s so nice to have you back, Navi,” she sweetly said, cuddling me close.

“I guess even a coma isn’t enough to change getting nonconsensually cuddled,” I said with a sigh.

“Why does she get away with it?!” Spike demanded.

“Because I’m incapable of beating her into submission,” I replied. “Plus, she’s soft and squishy instead of hard and unpliable.”

Celestia gasped in surprise, then used magic to drag me out of Flo’s grasp and into her own. “I’m also soft, squishy, and someone you’re incapable of beating into submission!” she gleefully shouted. “I’m sure petitioners won’t mind if I’m cuddling you while on the throne…”

“I think I also fit that criteria,” Twilight said with a creepy smile.

“Yeah, Nav’s kinda wimpy,” Gilda said. “I think most of us fit that criteria, assuming we get the drop on her. I’m pretty sure even Spike could get her in a good enough grasp to forcefully cuddle her for a while, but I guess he doesn’t count since he’s not soft or squishy....”

Two wet hands pulled me out of Celestia’s warm and fuzzy legs and placed me back in my chair. “Please do not bully our lady overly much,” Darya said. “She has, after all, just returned. For now, space out your bullying to give her more time to acclimate.”

“...I’m not going to thank you for that,” I said. She bowed and slid a few steps back.

“If I’m not allowed to toy with her anymore, I should probably depart,” Celestia said, hanging her head. “I would like to speak with you again soon, but unfortunately, princess-like things await…”

You were staying here just so you could mess with me? “I’m glad you came to see me as soon as you could, and helped me fix my clothes while you were at it,” I said. “I intend to announce that thing to everyone tonight. With luck, we can start looking for countermeasures soon.”

“Between me, Luna, and Twilight, it shouldn’t take us long,” Celestia said. “Farewell for now, Navi. If you have time, you should join Spike at the castle tomorrow. I added another chef to my staff recently…”

“I’ve heard,” I said. “If I have time, I might. I wouldn’t mind putting some of your thick meat inside of me.” Twilight groaned and shook her head in disappointment.

“I’ll be sure not to disappoint,” Celestia said. She licked her lips for a moment before grinning and teleporting off.

“So, all my clothes are fixed?” I asked.

“They are,” Twilight said with a nod.

“This robe is super comfy, but I’m pretty sure it’s not appropriate for a lady to lounge around in one, right?”

“Only if it’s in her bedroom,” Doppel said. “Now that you have other clothes, you should change.”

“Very well,” I said, standing. “Kat, come assist your lady.”

“As you command,” she said, following me out. Thankfully, everyone else got the message that I wanted to talk to Kat alone. Either that or they decided they didn’t want to spend time with me anymore.

I stopped when I got to the main room with the staircases. Before, I was too focused on the crossdressing griffin to really pay attention. Now, though… “What the fuck is that?” I asked.

“That is your noble portrait, my lady,” Kat happily replied, latching onto my arm so we could gaze up at it together. It was a painting of me and Taya standing together in very fancy dresses. Apparently it was spring in the painting, because our hair was green and covered in flowers. My tail even had bows on it!

“Who is responsible for this?” I quietly asked.

“Isn’t it so purrrfect?” Kat asked, snuggling up close to me. “You both look so cute!” We weren’t even smiling, so I don’t know what she was talking about. Although… In another time, in another place… I might have wanted to ask myself out…

Suppressing my urge to burn down everything, I just turned and dragged Kat up the stairs. There were several new paintings now, but that was the only one I featured in. It was front and center in the main room, so it would be the first thing most visitors saw. Having it moved was tempting, but I’m pretty sure pictures like that were prestigious or whatever, so I decided to leave it be.

Even if I did want to slash it to pieces.

When we got to my room, Kat closed the door behind us. By the time I turned to face her, she was already almost naked. “I shall be prepared to service you in a moment, my lady,” she said, walking over to where she hid the toys.

“That’s not why we’re here,” I said.

“I know, but I don’t want you to be cranky after dinner,” Kat said. “It won’t take—”

“Kat.” She froze. “You told me once that you’d follow any order I gave without thinking about the contents, without questioning its purpose, and without any doubt in your mind. And yet now you’re running roughshod over me. How does that add up? How can you swear to obey me and then behave like this?”

“...All I do, I do for you,” she quietly replied.

“I’m not particularly interested in another sob story. I don’t think I’ll need to be serviced for a while, either.” She flinched and spun my way, eyes wide. “I’ve gotten addicted to sex again. That’s going to change.”

“T-there’s no harm, my lady!” Kat immediately replied. “I think it even helps you keep calm!”

“And I think it should be my decision to make,” I said. “And I’ve made it. Now, about your therapy with Cascade. She needs to start helping you clear your head. You have some darkness up there that needs to be purified. Or if you’d prefer, you can try your luck with a coma instead. My head’s on straighter now, I think.”

“It would not do for me to leave your side!” Kat said, rushing forward to grab my shoulders. “If it means I can stay with you, I’ll allow Cascade to make whatever modifications you want! Please, my lady, turn me into your ideal tool!”

“Yeah, but Cascade probably won’t agree to that. I killed the only person who would have agreed to do so specifically so I wouldn’t be tempted. What I did to Celestia should be relegated to those who are hostile. I’d like you to change the right way. I’m tired of being surrounded by very dangerous crazy people. Cascade, can you help her?”

Kat’s eyes lit up blue as Cascade assumed direct control. “I can, yes. She honestly thought she was better off as she is, that she could be of more service to you while broken than she could while fixed… I will do my best to piece together Kat’s mind, Navarone. Expect it to take time.”

“Do your best. Now then, Kat, help your lady pick an appropriate outfit.”

Kat’s eyes returned to normal and she curtsied. “At once.” She walked over to a wardrobe and started pulling things out.

“While I was in the coma, Doppel mentioned that some people considered making the same potion Taya made,” I said. “What’s your opinion on becoming a tree sister, Kat?”

“I would be pleased to serve you eternally,” she warmly replied.

“I kinda figured. Well, having Cascade in your head will give you a lot longer, anyway. Once Taya and I have a more clear idea of what our abilities are, we’ll talk with everyone and let them decide. But until we know more, it seems like a bad idea to allow anyone else to go through it.”

“I’d happily serve as a guinea pig to test the seed for you,” Kat said. “We aren’t sure yet how the resurrection process works, or how it changes you. If I become a tree sister, I could plant a seed and kill myself to see what happens.”

“No you couldn’t, Cascade wouldn’t let you,” I said. “And I wouldn’t let you, either. No one is going to go out of their way to test it, but if it happens, it happens. Even if we change, it’s better than the alternative.”

“...Of course, my lady. Why do you value my life so highly?”

“Because despite any faults you might have, loyalty and skills are more valuable than gold. You have both, so as long as your behavior remains acceptable, I can deal with quirks. However, you have traits that need to be curbed. The fact that you so readily accepted this means you know what I’m talking about, at least to some extent.”

“It utterly delights me to know that my inner thoughts were laid bare before you, my lady,” Kat said, bowing her head to me. “Despite how vile you must find me, you still keep me around, and even allow me to personally attend you…” She finally walked forward and started untying my robe, a large smile on her face. “Allow me to help you change, as you ordered!”

I did just that, letting her dress me up in a fairly boring green dress. It didn’t take her very long, so I had a feeling she had been practicing somehow. Judging by some of the memories I saw, it was probably with Doppel.

Once I was ready and she had put her clothes back on, she stood me up in front of a large mirror that they bought for some reason. “What do you think, my lady?” Kat asked. She stepped in behind me, placing her paws on my shoulders and her head next to mine.

“It’s acceptable,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere anyway, so as long as it’s something I can wear without Doppel complaining, it’s fine.”

“Wonderful!” I suddenly felt some sharp points on my shoulders. I looked at her paws in the mirror. Her claws were sticking out of her gloves. “My lady, I believe you mentioned something earlier about… drugs. Specifically, about how you are a drug. Would you like to tell me more about that?” My eyes met hers in the mirror. Kat’s eyes were now utterly devoid of emotion, staring at me with a very blank expression.

“What would you do with that information?” I asked. “I believe you said you would follow me without question and without doubt. Is there something you might learn that would change that?”

“It’s just… I’m so interested in you, my lady,” she said, pulling me closer. Her claws got a little more painful and she finally smiled. “I’m quite curious about what drew me in, you see… I never thought to rape anyone before, after all! And yet just a few days after taking care of you, I wanted nothing more than to be with you! To… own you.” Her face moved in closer to mine so she could rub her cheek against mine. Her eyes never moved away from mine in the mirror and they stayed completely lifeless. “So. My lovely, beautiful lady… What happened to me?”

“Kat, step away from me and stop being creepy. It’s overly dramatic and unnecessary.” She took a moment to nibble on my ear before stepping away with a giggle. “Athena and Hera say that humans automatically influence the fae around them. All of the sapient species on the planet that I’ve run into so far have been at least half-fae. Effectively, everything I meet will either want to own me or want to be around me. The actual effect depends on how powerful the being in question is, or what percentage of fae it is. More powerful and influential beings want to own me while the weaker ones desire to be around me. I knew something was weird, but I had no idea what until Athena spelled it out for me. We’re going to look for countermeasures.”

“...I see,” she said, looking down.

“Does this change anything?” I asked.

“Not one,” she replied, looking back up. “I live to serve, my lady.”

“Good. Shall we return below?”

She looked away for a moment. “Um… Was I really being… creepy?”

“Your eyes and sharp claws made me think you were trying to intimidate me. Adding on the grin just made it worse. I figured you were flaunting how close you were and yet how easy it would be for you to kill me. How is that not creepy?”

“M-my lady! I was j-just trying to pull you close to show you I still loved you, despite the drug! My claws were there to show that I will always keep you safe! The smile was to help your heart be at ease, to show you that I’m truly happy!”

“Right, uh huh. We’ll go with that, sure.”

“Hm… Are you sure you should inform the others of something so important? It sounds like a valuable tool.”

“Yes. I don’t want any more princesses to show up to try and claim me. I need to find a solution for this. Until then, I need to inform everyone so they can keep their heads while they’re around me. I’m tired of all the nonsense associated with people wanting to own me. Plus, manipulating people is wrong or whatever.”

“I understand.” With that, we finally went back down to the sun room.

When I got there, I was in for a fairly decent surprise: Taya was petting a cockatrice.

“Taya got one as a pet while you were in the coma,” Darya explained for me, thankfully in my head. “I imagine she wanted to wait until you weren’t around to tell her no.”

Obviously. “So, this is your new pet?” I asked, walking up to it.

“Yep!” Taya said, looking up with a surprisingly noncreepy smile. “Flo named her Rocksy!”

“...Because she turns people into rocks?” I slowly asked.

“Wait, what?!” Taya shouted. “I… I thought it was Roxie, with an x!”

“I’m pretty sure that was Flo’s punishment for making her tame a cockatrice,” I said.

“Wrong,” Flo herself said out loud. “I did it just to annoy you. I knew you’d be the only one who got it.”

Of course. “Thanks, Flo,” I said. “Truly, elemental of the year.” I sat next to my filly and finally looked around the room. Gilda, Spike, the… maids, and the naga were no longer in the room. That just left Taya, her pet, Twilight, and the two elementals. “Twilight, how goes the search for instructors at my academy?”

“Um… About that…”

“If you’ve been too busy, I understand,” I said. “I never gave you a real time frame, so that’s fine. I will need some names before we actually break ground, though.”

“No, that’s not the issue,” Twilight said, sighing. “Celestia heard what you were planning. A day later, she gave me a full dossier of basically everything you were asking for. Inventors, craftsponies, mages, alchemists… Hay, she even included active members of the royal guard who would serve as guest professors!”

“...I’m not going to be able to do anything without that woman getting her hooves in it, am I?” I slowly asked.

“Oh yeah, it’s far too late,” Twilight said. “She’s essentially gonna have you bound hand and foot, Nav. In hindsight, it was obvious this would happen when we chose to spare her, especially since you were one of those who voted to do so. She liked you before all this happened, so now that she’s actually purified, why do you think she’d want to let you go? She enjoys spending time with you, she knows your plans will help everyone if they’re implemented properly and with care, and since you chose to leave her autonomous, she has the authority to force her way into any project she can’t manage to finagle her way into.”

“Thankfully, it’s not all downsides,” I said, though my wings and shoulders sagged. “It’ll be super annoying, but having the power of the princess directly behind me, working with me instead of against me, will be valuable. And as much as I hate to admit it, she’ll probably be able to more wisely do some of the things I planned so they’ll hurt fewer people.”

“Wait, what are you planning?” Twilight asked.

“Well, I do plan on making a bunch of weapons, but that’s not what I meant by that. Every time there’s a technological breakthrough of some kind, someone always walks away hurt. I mean, think about using Jonathan to harvest massive amounts of crops so we can give free food to everyone.”

“...Applejack would be out of work,” Twilight slowly said.

“Anyone with a cutie mark in farming would be done for,” I replied with a nod. “Obviously a few would be needed here and there, but on the whole, their livelihoods would be gone. One possible solution is to have him only harvest a few staple crops like wheat, lentils, and oats. I’d need Celestia’s information on crop yields to find out what would have the least impact, and her knowledge of historical trends would be just as valuable.”

“Yep, the coma definitely did something,” Twilight said, smiling. “You had a lot of grand plans before, but it’s sounding like you’re starting to put more thought into them.”

“Good, I’m glad I didn’t waste three weeks. After everything that’s happened, even having Celestia in the same room with me puts me on edge, but I’ll just have to keep reminding myself that Newlestia is different. I don’t like the idea of her meddling in all of my business, but I know there’s no choice in the matter and I’m also aware that it’ll be mostly beneficial. So… Whatever, I guess. Now, I have a different question. Have you begun research into Tartarus?”

“I haven’t,” Twilight said. “I decided to leave that to the actual soldiers, since they’ll know more about what’s important and what isn’t. I’ve been too busy with other things, unfortunately.”

“Understandable. I did dump a bunch of work on everyone before leaving, after all. Luna will probably be the only one with the info I’m looking for. I guess it would be easier to ask what you have been working on, then.”

“I’ve been helping at the bunker, studying some of the artifacts that were pulled out, comparing them to similar artifacts mentioned in various archives to see if there might be other possible human settlements to dig up, writing some of my own things, and working on necromancy here and there.”

“Did you find any other possible human settlements?” I asked.

“I’ve found four locations of interest,” Twilight said. “One is the capital of the minotaurs. Given that you’re their forerunner, that was an obvious one. One is on the island north of mainland Europe, what Flo calls Britain. Another is on mainland Europe. The last item was said to originate in China, but I don’t know the exact location.”

“Interesting. So it’s possible there are more human bunkers out there waiting to be discovered?”

“It’s entirely possible, yes,” Twilight said with a nod. “Zecora believes they’ve lasted so long due to the undead energy permeating them. After spending so much time around hostile undead spirits, she believes she can actually track large sources of their energy. It’s possible we could use her to pinpoint the locations once we get close enough.”

“That’s super spooky, but kinda cool,” I said. Before we could continue, the cockatrice jumped up into my lap. It was surprising, but after a moment or two, I began petting her. Her body didn’t feel that great against my hands, but she seemed to enjoy it. “Where’s Princess Gilda’s thief, Felix?”

“He’s also been working at the bunker, helping explore the lower levels,” Twilight said.

“Has he been useful?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been on any expeditions with him. I haven’t heard any complaints, though.”

“Then I’ll probably end up hiring him, I guess. It’s a shame about his personality, but if I can put up with Luna, I guess I can put up with him.”

“Is that going to be possible?” Twilight asked. “Isn’t Gilda going to execute him when the expedition is over?”

“No, she promised him freedom in exchange for working with us,” I said. “And if she means to break that promise, then I’ll talk her out of it. Royals can’t go around breaking promises, after all.”

“No one should break promises,” Twilight said.

“True.”

“Oh, and Rainbow Dash is upset with you,” Twilight said. “When Spike and Gilda started telling her stories about the bunker, she demanded to know why she wasn’t invited.”

“I’m sure she’ll probably get over it,” I replied with a shrug.

“Ava says you should consider the feelings of your friends,” Taya said.

“Wait, what? Why are you talking to her?” I asked.

“I wanted to know what a xerox was,” Taya replied with a shrug.

“Is talking to a ghost wise?” Twilight asked.

“Ava’s not an enemy,” I said. “But I’m hesitant to call her a friend because that might make her feel full of herself or get all smug and annoying.”

“She’s offended by that characterization,” Taya said. “And she’s encouraging Rocksy to petrify you.”

“Is she saying petrifying or is she saying stone?” I asked.

“Yeah, she’s telling Rocksy to stone you. Is that different from petrify?”

“Stoning someone means to kill them by throwing rocks at them,” I said. “It’s a thing that was popular with her religion a few hundred years before either of us was born. She was just making a pun. Anyway, there’s really nothing I can do for Dashie. It’s not like I can turn back the clock and invite her. Has anyone taken her there yet?”

“Of course,” Twilight said. “Though she wasn’t allowed to go past any of the haunted areas. She was mostly interested in the weather control, of course. She was also really disappointed that we already knocked down the shield. You better do something to make it up to her, Nav.”

“I’m sure I can figure something out,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Flo, Twilight said we found some cultural stuff. Anything interesting?”

“No, nothing you’d want,” Flo said. “They’re all either things you don’t recognize or things you don’t care about. Celestia just wanted to make sure you had the chance to pick through them in case there actually was something you wanted. Since, as you reminded her so pointedly, your expedition was the one that succeeded.”

“I’m a little interested just to see what’s there, but I don’t see any reason to keep a human artifact just because humans made it. I don’t need any old boring junk lying around the house. I’d prefer old cool junk. Zecora did make sure none of it was haunted, right?”

“Yes, we cleared it all,” Twilight said. “From the locations of the artifacts we’ve recovered so far, it seems obvious that the previous explorers didn’t have anything like an elemental to assist them. It really seems strange to me that none of them encountered any of the other iterations of… you.”

“There’s no telling what the other mes got up to,” I said. “Or who their allies could have been. I’m sure some of them had things more fantastical than I do. I’m also pretty sure some of them died horribly shortly after they woke up, assuming Discord didn’t help keep them going. Equestria’s incredibly dangerous in some places, and that’s even with a dictator ruling over it with an iron hoof. I’m sure in the past, conditions were probably worse at times. Speaking of, has anyone found a hint on getting me a soul yet?”

“Unfortunately, souls don’t just grow on trees,” Twilight said. “Instead, they grow in wombs. And since everybody I know of also grew in a womb, there wasn’t really a need to impart a soul on anything before. So I’m sad to say the search is going to take some time.”

A simple no would have sufficed. “The emergency surgery solution seems to be an effective option, at least,” I said. “It’ll be harder to make me look like him if I can just cut off everything that bastard gives me. It’ll really suck to be without an arm or a leg for a while, so we can visit the dragons in Iceland, let me become a fire host, and then push the fire in a volcano. After that, we can chop everything off and it’ll grow back instantly.”

“What do you think about your new extremities, now that you’ve had a few minutes?” Twilight asked.

“I think it might be time to test out the wings. Want to go out back and throw me off the cliff?”

“There are probably safer ways to test it,” Twilight said as we all stood. Lacking any better options, I draped the cockatrice around my shoulders. It hung on, gazing all around us menacingly. To be honest, I kinda wanted to try using it like that in a fight, but that would have to come later.

“What’s wrong with throwing mommy off a cliff?” Taya asked. “That sounds like fun for the whole family!”

“If it works for birds, I guess it’ll work for tree sisters,” Darya said, lifting me up with a small tidal wave. With her as my chariot, we slid out into the cold. Everyone followed us out, all the way to the cliff’s edge.

“Are you really sure this is a good idea?” Twilight asked. “You could literally just try flapping them first. I mean, you did just have surgery!”

“Don’t be a fucking pussy,” I said. “That’s Kat’s job, after all. Darya, toss me!”

“As you command,” she replied with glee. Her body sucked me all the way in and spat me right back out, throwing me clear off the cliff. Thankfully, she held onto Rocksy for me.

Since scaring Twilight was the goal, I decided to let myself fall for a few seconds before actually trying to fly. As soon as my wings flapped once, I slowed down a lot more than I should have, given their weight. I looked over my shoulders and saw that the veins were lighting up as they flapped. At this point, they seemed to work more on magic than logic or physics. With that in mind, I finally pulled out of my plummet and started angling back up.

The first thing I noticed was that flying was now considerably easier. Before, my wings were large and ungainly, which made flapping them a nightmare. They were also in a bad location on my body, so the muscles there really weren’t built for it. Since the new wings didn’t seem to require muscles, that meant I could become a leaf on the wind, hopefully minus a huge spear through the chest.

The second thing I noticed was really more of an addendum to the first: Not only was flying easier, I was also more agile in the air. Smaller wings that I didn’t have to flap as often gave me a very small turn radius. That would make fighting in the air much easier.

And the last thing I noticed is that I still wasn’t all that fast. It couldn’t have all been good news, of course. Since teleporting was still faster than flying, I wasn’t going to complain about the results. Speed has its uses, but my body probably wouldn’t be capable of flying too fast anyway.

By the time I discovered everything I was interested in, it was getting dark. I flew back to the cliff where everyone was still waiting. As soon as I landed, Taya hugged me. “You were so pretty, mommy! Just like a fairy dancing through the air!”

“I’m sure my parents would be so proud,” I said, patting her on the head. “These wings work much better than my previous sets.”

“That’s good, at least,” Twilight said. “I could feel the magic usage from here, though. I could also clearly see it, from the green lines in your wings. You probably won’t be able to fly stealthily anymore. It looked like you were definitely moving around better than before, though.”

“Yep. I’m interested to see if my speed can actually increase, but that’ll have to wait until I’m sure I’m healed. Now I just need a victim to test my tail on.”

“That’s easy enough,” Taya said. “Once I finish up a new seed, you can just—”

“I’m not murdering my filly,” I said.

“It’s still pretty easy,” Darya said. “We can change the density of our bodies to some extent, at least to the point where it would be as hard as a pony. I don’t know if I’ll be able to mimic bones, though.”

“It won’t hurt you, will it?” I asked.

“No. That would require fire or magic.”

“It’s possible my tail is some kind of magical attack,” I said. “I think I’ll wait until the next time I go to the Everfree. If my new wings work more on magic now, I don’t want to risk testing my new tail on an ally. Now, let’s get back inside, out of the cold.” At least the weather was better than when I went into the coma.

Of course, saying something like that meant Kat immediately cuddled up against me. Taya was about to push up against my leg, but graciously allowed Twilight to take her spot instead. Walking back to the house like that was something of a pain, but it was a lot warmer than walking back alone.

The team stationed at the bunker was waiting for us in the sun room, all sitting around tables. To be honest, I was kinda surprised some of them didn’t join us outside, but I guess they were working on self-control.

“Welcome back, my lady,” Watcher said, standing up to bow. The rest of his soldiers followed suit.

“It’s good to be back home,” I replied. “The coma was pretty interesting. I got to see all kinds of things. After we eat, while everyone’s still down here, I have some things to talk about.”

“How are you feeling?” Watcher asked. “Did you get the answers you were looking for?”

“I’m feeling pretty swell, I guess. I can’t say I got all the answers I was looking for, but I learned far more than I was expecting. I’d say it was worth three weeks. If nothing else, it served as a good recap for me. Also, I’ve discovered a new means of communication via water elemental, so I can contact all of you whenever I need. Darya, would you kindly?”

“Who is Darya?” Watcher asked as the new elemental slid forward to embrace him.

“I killed Aqua,” I replied. “Darya is the new elemental. Apparently her name means sea in a human language.” She finished hugging Watcher and slid over to Luna. “She’s giving you just enough water to facilitate communication, instead of actually making you hosts. This way, we can communicate wherever we are.”

“Blaze and I were working on a similar network,” Luna said, but she didn’t make any attempt to avoid Darya as she was hugged. “Instant communication is incredibly valuable. It makes responding to the flow of the battlefield considerably easier.”

“Sure does,” I said. “Especially if the other side doesn’t have it.”

“Should I infect the others as well?” Darya asked, releasing Luna and turning back to me.

“No need to stretch you too thin,” I said. “Besides, the chain of command exists for a reason. Just get Gourd whenever he returns, so I have all my vassals covered. Wasn’t Princess Gilda at the bunker, too? I figured she would have been here with everyone else.”

“She’s been pining for her lost lover for three weeks,” Watcher said. “So obviously, we waited to tell her you were back until we got to the house. As soon as we told her, she flew straight to her room.”

I really hope that means she doesn’t miss me, after all. I’m not holding my breath, though… “Luna, block the door for a moment, so neither of the Gildas can get in or hear us.” Her horn lit up and a barrier appeared over the door. “Alright, I need an out with the princess. I discovered that I slept with her entirely due to Aqua. She set the whole thing up to get Gilda under her influence. Gilda’s way too immature to be my type, even if I do enjoy the noises she makes.” And even if the thought of teasing an innocent princess in public is super hot… “Telling her might be an option, but I’m worried she’ll get angry and my relations with the griffins will suffer. So, what’s the best way to break things off?”

“You really don’t give us any easy tasks, do you?” Watcher asked.

“Maturity is something that can be grown into,” Twilight said. “Getting her while she’s still young means you can teach her to be whatever you want.”

“Well, there’s also another problem with that,” I said. I was getting tired of standing, so I walked over and sat at Luna’s table. “Luna, tell me what you know about the wish granting genie that Nestorats supposedly owns.”

“...I know enough that what you wish for might be possible. However, I also learned that this genie is evil and conniving, and that any wish made contains the risk for great consequences. The wishes have certain rules, but I believe nothing you’d ask for would violate them.”

“And when were you planning on telling me about this genie?” I asked.

“Once I was certain it actually existed. As of now, I am only fairly sure it’s out there. As soon as I was certain, I intended to inform you.”

“Do the descriptions of the genie mention if it had three eyes?” I asked.

“...That does match, yes,” she slowly replied. “Were the memories you witnessed truly that detailed?”

“No, that was a hint from Pinkie Pie,” I said. “Before I left Equestria, she came by my house and told me to look out for the three-eyed genie. Neither of us had any idea what she was talking about, but she’s weird enough that I’m willing to bet it was some kind of prophecy. And if what you said about prophecies is true, this is one fate that we are going to turn into reality.”

“So, a wish granting genie?” Twilight said. “Does that mean you can wish to become male again?”

“That’s what I’m hoping,” I said. “Princess Gilda’s a carpet muncher. It wouldn’t be right to give her hope when I have every intention of trying to turn back.”

“Regardless of how it’s worded, you’ll basically need to tell Gilda it’s off,” Watcher said. “As it is right now, you could blame it on the coma. The longer you put it off, though, the more difficult it will be. If you want to do this, it needs to be done quickly.”

“Man, maybe I should have just married Celestia after all,” I said.

“That’s a very permanent solution for an extremely temporary problem,” Twilight said, huffing just a little. “I understand your reasons for wanting to break things off with Princess Gilda. Why don’t you just tell her that you’ve found a way to become male again and break it off because of that? It’s better than telling her that you just don’t like her personality. Even after three weeks away, she still seems infatuated with you.”

“If sooner is better and I have a plan for what to tell her, think I should bite the bullet and do it now?” I asked.

“What does ‘bite the bullet’ mean?” Luna asked.

“Humanity’s art of war grew faster than its art of medicine,” I said. “Specifically, we developed guns before we developed ways to cure gunshot wounds effectively. A single round fired from a gun is called a bullet, and they’re made of lead. After a battle, wounded soldiers would be told to bite onto a bullet while the medic gets to work on them, to stop them from screaming or biting their tongue off from pain. Apparently bullets were in bigger supply than sticks or leather. What it basically means is to stop putting off an unpleasant task and do it immediately.”

“Then yes, that would probably be best,” Watcher said. “If I had to guess, I’d say she’s upstairs in her room, trying to pretty herself up for you.”

“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I shrugged Kat off and started walking.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Twilight asked.

“I feel like that might be twisting the knife a little too much. I’ll hold you in reserve, in case she gets angry or too distraught. Just stay down here for now. Darya or Flo can let you know if you’re needed.”

“What does ‘twisting the knife’ mean?” Luna asked. “And why are all human sayings so interesting?”

“When you stab someone and twist the knife inside them, it hurts a lot more and damages them even more internally,” I said. “It basically means to increase the amount of damage something does. In this case, I’m about to deliver bad news to Gilda. I feel like having Twilight there would hurt Gilda more. This is something that’s better done alone.” With that, I left the sun room behind.

As soon as I got into the anteroom, I smelled something amazing. Someone was obviously cooking a lot of meat in the kitchen, presumably Spike, his Gilda, and the naga. Soon their meat would be filling me up, so I ignored it for now and went to the stairs.

I stopped in front of Princess Gilda’s door. Avoiding confrontations like this was usually my standard solution, but I couldn’t let myself stay nonconfrontational forever. A deep breath did nothing at all to calm me, so I just forced myself to knock instead of waiting for what felt like the right moment.

To my surprise, the door opened only a few seconds later. Aurora was on the other side, wearing a gentle smile. It’s kinda hard to tell with the beak, but he conveyed it well. “Yes, my lady?”

“I’d like to speak to the princess. Also, what are you doing here?”

“I am assisting her highness in getting ready. She was hoping to see you afterwards…”

“How long do you think it’ll take?”

“A princess can’t rush these things, my lady.”

“Do I need to ask again?”

“Probably not more than half an hour.”

Just how dirty did she get at the bunker? Or does she really want to impress me that much? Ugh, this is already becoming a pain. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m about to do something unladylike.”

“As an unladylike maid to her unladylike lady, I can’t and won’t judge you.”

“Good. Move.” He curtsied and stepped aside. “Normally they’d make you be a eunuch to do this kind of thing. You lucky dog.” His warm smile became more of a smirk, but he didn’t reply. I finally entered the princess’s room. Aurora left behind me, closing the door.

Of course, it happened to be right as Gilda was walking out of her bathroom, almost completely soaked. “N-Nav?!” It only took her a second to recover, though. “W-well… I did just get out of the shower… Shall we celebrate your joyous return together, Navi?”

“You really cut straight to it, huh?” I said. “Not even a welcome back or a hello?”

“You barged into my room!”

“Fair enough. So, I’m pretty sure I found a way to become male again.” She blinked. “It’ll take me a little while to get it, but if I do, I have every intention of turning back.” I swear to someone, if you say it doesn’t matter and you want me anyway…

“I see. Well, marrying you was always a long shot… I got here late to the race, after all. Anyway, shall we celebrate your joyous return together, Navi?”

“I just told you that I had every intention of turning back.”

“What does that have to do with the lovely lady I see before me right now?” Gilda asked. “Actually… Wait, did your body change? It looks… softer, I guess?”

“Yes, one of the goddesses in the book messed with my body. And right now, are you thinking with your princess head or are you thinking with your lewd birdgina?”

“L-lewd what?!” She looked back at her lower body for a moment before turning forward with a glare. “It’s a lionessgina, thank you very much! I don’t have a cloaca! And it doesn’t matter which I’m thinking with if we don’t get caught. Why do you ask? Did your coma tell you something?”

“The coma told me a lot of things. One of them is that I got addicted to sex again and that I seriously need to cut back. Another is that I really need to either get married to someone with an established power base or I need to establish my own power base. I’m going to start working on the second while considering and shopping around for the first.”

“...Shopping around. You make it sound so debasing.”

“That’s all marriages of power are about,” I said. “I come with knowledge, influence, and a variety of skills, along with a few very useful vassals with invaluable talents. I’m looking for a place where my safety will essentially be guaranteed no matter what. That means leveraging what I have to marry high. Now that I think I have a way to turn back to a guy, I actually feel comfortable considering marriage.”

“Tch, figures,” she muttered, looking away. “So you’re saying you want to cut what we have off, then?”

“I don’t want to, but I know it’s for the best. That said, I can absolutely introduce you to some people who have no idea you’re a princess and would be happy to do things with you.”

“With the coming pageant, that’s unwise,” she said.

“Alright, second option,” I said with a grin. “Twilight knows a spell that can turn you into a pony. Or a changeling. Or human. Or house cat.”

“She’s shown me a few of those,” she said, blushing slightly. “I hadn’t thought to use one as a disguise, but it makes perfect sense. But… Are you sure you’ll cut me off? Truly?” She finally drew closer and smiled. “I’ve been practicing to get better for you…”

Darya, buff my willpower! I don’t know if she actually did anything, but I powered through anyway. “Unfortunately, I’m sure. I enjoyed it while it lasted, but…”

“But a princess can’t be a lesbian,” Gilda said, hanging her head.

“Being a lesbian has less to do with it than sleeping around, I think,” I said. “We’d both probably get in just as much trouble, if not more, if I got caught having sex with you as a guy.”

“Forced marriage would be the best fate waiting for you,” she said. “And I know I threatened it once, but… I have no intention of telling anyone about this. And I have every intention to continue my studies with Twilight. And… you will introduce me to a few of those friends, later.”

“I will,” I said. “Come downstairs when you’re ready. After dinner, I have some things to announce that you’ll want to hear.”

“I shall be down shortly. Would you mind sending Aurora back in? Hm… Do you think she would be willing to comfort her princess?”

“Aurora is dating someone else who works here, so no.” I booped her on the beak and let myself out. My crossdressing maid was on the other side of the door, still smirking. “The princess requests your presence.”

“You know, I wouldn’t mind taking care of her highness’s lewd lionessgina…” he quietly replied.

“Well I mind,” I said. “If you try your luck, I’ll tell her what you’re hiding under that uniform.”

“Of course, my lady,” he replied with a perfect curtsy. I left him there, finally heading back down the four ridiculous flights of stairs.

When I bought this place, it was with the assumption that I could at least fly down the stairs. Being a lady is the worst.

Before I could continue internally complaining, I got swept away by a flood of pink water that quickly became Flo hugging me. She was also slowly ferrying me down the stairs. “You really do feel nicer in my arms now, Navi,” Flo sweetly said. “You know, I have a question for you… Why did you ask Darya for a buff instead of your favorite?”

“I didn’t ask her to, I told her to. If I wanted to ask someone to do something, it would be you. But since she volunteered to be my servant, I was giving her an order. It also served as a test for her adaptability, to see if she was capable of following orders like that.”

“But you don’t even know if she followed it or not,” Flo said.

“Did she?”

“That has nothing to do with the point here,” Flo said. “You blindly trusted in her in your moment of need instead of me!”

“Relationships can’t be built without giving trust,” I said. “I have to start somewhere. Or would you rather I just ignore her request to serve me and just let her talent go fallow?”

“Hm, your mind is so fun to watch,” Flo said, snuggling me slightly tighter. I felt my arms slip inside of her and she clamped them in place. “It works so quickly to come up with excuse after excuse!”

“...I missed you too, Flo,” I said, trying not to sound nervous. “But isn’t this a little too much?”

“I learned things from your coma, too,” Flo said, leaning in to kiss my nose. “I learned that no one but me can be trusted with you, Navi.”

“Well, you made that sound ominous as shit. Darya is brand new. We don’t know if she can or can’t be trusted with me. It would also help a little if she’d speak up to defend herself.”

“Sorry, I was having fun just listening in,” Darya replied in my head. “I have no intentions of mishandling Navarone. I’ve seen the things that happen to those who do. I also have no intentions of usurping Flo’s place. I do not need the title of favorite. Being useful is enough. Outside of willpower, I can temporarily buff your endurance, dexterity, perception, and overall combat abilities. Aqua was quite the warmonger in her younger days, if you can believe it.”

Much better than being able to play a piano, that’s for sure. The hug got tighter and this time my legs were sucked in.

Flo giggled and said, “I heard that, Navi!”

“It’s extremely unfair that you can hold things I think against me. I can’t help that I’m internally ungrateful.”

“I’m not holding it against you, silly,” Flo said. “I’m holding you against me!”

“Well, we’re downstairs now, so you can let go.”

“As you wish.” She slid away, making sure I safely returned to my feet. “There will be all the time in the world to snuggle in your dreams!”

I thought several unpleasant things. Instead of commenting on any of them, she wrapped her arm around mine and led me into the sun room.

“So how’d it go?” Taya asked as soon as she saw me. The grin on her face was a little unwarranted, in my opinion.

“Better than expected. I now have one fewer royal plaything, and I didn’t even have to deal with any tears.” With Flo guiding my steps, I didn’t get to choose a seat. She planted me down between my filly and Kat. The table also contained Luna, Watcher, and Twilight.

“It’s such a surprise to hear you say that fewer royal playthings is better than you were expecting,” Watcher said. “I thought you liked bragging about how many you’ve slept with.”

“Yeah, but that was kinda rude,” I said. “And unwise for a variety of reasons. I got to see a lot of scary catfights in that coma, some of which involved royalty.” Luna looked away, rubbing the back of her neck. “My life will be easier and safer if I stop most of my lecherous ways. You know, assuming the others actually let me stop.”

“...So who all is making the cut?” Twilight slowly asked.

“I hope to have that completely determined by the time we find the genie,” I said. “Gilda was the only one I was in a hurry to get rid of, because that started entirely on false pretenses.”

“Then it’s time to start competing in earnest,” Twilight said with a nod. Her horn lit up and she used magic to swap places with Kat. My kitty glared at her, but was smart enough not to say anything. “I’ll make sure to welcome you back properly tonight, Nav!”

“I’m pretty sure I got addicted to sex again. I don’t know how often I should scratch that particular itch.”

“It’s been three weeks, right?” Twilight said. “I think that’s long enough for a reward night…”

“It might be. For now, I need an energy boost. The dark is starting to get to me.” Twilight’s horn lit up and poked me. “Your delicious purpleness is rejuvenating my weary bones.” For some reason, that made her blush.

“...Delicious purpleness?” Kat asked, sounding a little bit disgusted.

“Right, I forgot you guys don’t see magic auras. I guess that wouldn’t make sense. Whenever unicorns use magic, their horns light up a certain color. Twilight’s is purple. The things their magic affects also glow that color. So when she uses magic on me, I get covered in a purple aura.”

“Does it actually taste good?” Taya asked.

“No, it doesn’t taste or feel like anything. It’s entirely visual and it usually matches a unicorn’s coat color.”

“Is mine pink?” Watcher asked.

“Of course it is,” I said. “I wondered why at first, until you told me you were originally pink. It’s not as bright a pink as Shining Armor’s, though. Speaking of, Luna, is it a problem that these guys still look like night guards despite not being on Celestia’s payroll?”

“It’s not my problem,” she replied with a shrug. “And if Celestia hasn’t complained about it, I doubt it’s something she cares about, either.”

“The new Princess Celestia seems too mellow to care about something like that,” Watcher said. “And the old Princess Celestia was too high-strung to pay attention to unimportant details like that. There’s nothing wrong with us keeping these colors.”

“Suuuure, uh huh,” I said, squinting my eyes at him. He nonchalantly stared back.

“When are you going to inform my sister of your return?” Luna asked.

“About an hour ago,” I said. “She stopped everything she was doing to come give me a hug. It was very unprincessly of her.”

“Perhaps, but it certainly seems like something she would do,” Luna said. “We’ll need to find a way to keep her busy so she doesn’t get her hooves into all of our business.”

“It’s too late for that,” I said. “She already has. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I’m still somewhat wary of her.”

“Is our long-term plan to stay in Equestria?” Watcher asked.

“That depends on a few factors,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind establishing a nation of my own in Tartarus, if the local races are willing to support me. Everyone knows the best move when it comes to global conquest is to hole up in Australia.”

“Your own nation?” Twilight said. “I thought you didn’t want to be a queen. Or king, I guess.”

“I don’t want to be forced to be a super prissy and lovey-dovey queen. I wouldn’t mind leading a federation as a dictator of sorts, though. But again, that depends on a lot of factors and I highly doubt it’ll work out. If it doesn’t, where I go will probably depend on who I marry. That said, Equestria is still going to remain one of the more dominant world powers going forward, purely due to how much territory they control. That means I’ll always have a reason to come back.”

“Can’t we just subjugate Tartarus and take it by force?” Luna asked. “Then it wouldn’t matter if the locals supported you.”

“If I have to rule with fear and hate, I’d rather not bother taking it in the first place. From the visions I saw in the coma, I know there are fortified cities inside Tartarus, along with roads that connect them. There seem to be defense contracts between the cities to fight back against the demons. I can’t rule over a place with a pre-existing society with fear, not and expect anything good to come from it.”

“Did the coma really show you into Tartarus itself?” Twilight asked.

“A little. It showed me a vision of the alphyn I worked with to take down Trixie. Apparently Grogar the lich is also in Tartarus, and has a huge bounty for information about humans. Since I happen to have a lot of that, hopefully getting his support will be easy. Luna, could you take him in a straight up fight?”

“Me versus him, no problem at all,” Luna said. “But add in an undead horde and things get more difficult. Most necromantic spells focus on debuffing your enemies, raising the dead, and buffing your strongest pawns. If we have to fight him in his home base, it’ll be a nightmarish quagmire. We’ll win, but we will take losses. And the worst part is that he wouldn’t even die. He keeps his soul tethered to a place that’s impossible for the living to get to, so he’d eventually be able to create a new body.”

“Then let’s hope it doesn’t come to a fight,” I said.

“If he wants information about humans, what makes you think he won’t just want humans?” Twilight asked. “How do we know he won’t try to dissect you?”

“Obviously we don’t meet him without discovering his intentions first. We’ll do recon around Tartarus to determine if talking to him is safe. If I’m still in doubt, I can send a few vassals in to negotiate with him directly.”

“Not it,” Watcher immediately said.

“Well, I’ll also be at the head of an Equestrian army when I do go to meet him, so that’ll be something he has to consider,” I said. “I know he doesn’t care about making enemies with the living, but pursuing his own goals would be easier without the biggest country in the world gunning for him. Judging by what we saw in Athena’s book, he seems pretty reasonable. I’m confident we can make a deal with him. With luck, part of that deal can be a soul, or information on how to get one. If anyone out there would have info on souls, it would be the person who’s capable of taking his own out.”

“Could you really trust a soul that he gives you?” Twilight asked.

“I’d rather be turned into an undead monstrosity than become Discord’s wife,” I replied with a shrug. “Any soul is better than no soul, as far as I’m concerned. If whatever Grogar gives me is corrupt, I’m sure we can find a way to cleanse it later.”

As we were talking, I heard the sound of scaled feet. It was followed by the smell of cooked meat. Moments later, there were plates in front of me. “I hope you’re ready to feel my meat inside of you,” Spike said.

Before I could reply with some of my own dirty puns, I felt a very strong grip on my shoulder. I glanced over and realized Flo was staring me down with an eerie smile on her face, as if she was just daring me. Instead of giving in to my urges, I decided to take the lessons learned from the coma to say, “Thanks for cooking, Spike. Are you going to be joining us?”

He seemed a little disappointed that I didn’t play along, but noticed the hand digging into my shoulder and decided to give up. “Once everything else is out, yeah. I’ll be back soon.” Flo released me as Spike went back to the kitchen.

“...Spike better not put his meat anywhere near you,” Twilight said when she was sure he was gone. “If you give him any ideas, I’ll punish you!”

“I’ve already told him that it’s not happening,” I said. Of course, that was just a few minutes ago. And it was also after his meat had already been in me. But she definitely didn’t need to know any of that, of course. “That said, I’ll still happily let him cook for me. I do enjoy the taste of his—” Flo’s arm returned, with a vengeance. “What’s wrong with puns, Flo?! Why do you hate fun?”

“You went through a three week long coma to correct undesirable habits,” Flo said. “I just want to ensure that time wasn’t wasted. After all, pun-making is the most undesirable trait one could have.”

“It’s tied too deeply into my cynicism and sarcasm,” I said. “Without my soul, those things are basically my core! You can’t just get rid of it!”

“Wait, your core is cynicism, sarcasm, and puns?” Twilight asked. “I feel like that explains a lot of things.”

“Yeah, that kinda sums her up,” Taya said. “It really does make complete sense.”

“Is that why you hate Equestria so much?” Luna asked. “Because all the names of our cities are particularly awful puns of human city names? If one of the three pillars of my core was insulted so, I would likely hate the cause as well!”

“Didn’t you have a hoof in naming some of those cities?” Watcher asked.

“Yes, but I didn’t realize the names I was making were puns on the original human names,” Luna said. “It took a history lesson from Flo and Athena, plus information on hauntings from Zecora, to realize that. Didn’t you find it so strange how everything so closely mirrored your own time?”

“I did,” I said. “But without what Zecora told me, there’s no way I ever would have figured out the root cause. Did you feel anything at the time when you were naming the cities? Anything like an outside influence?”

“No. It never occurred to me to watch out for it. Who could have expected the dead to so greatly influence the living?”

“Fair enough. Anyway, the point is, you’ll pry my puns from my cold, dead hands. But don’t get comfortable, because I’ll be coming back for them as soon as I wake up.”

“If you say that too much, it loses its effect,” Flo replied. “And surely I’m not the only one who agrees. We could use this opportunity as an intervention. Everyone, let’s work together to get Nav to give up on puns!”

“I order my vassals not to do that,” I replied, crossing my arms. “And since my eternafilly and the mare who proclaims herself the best for me prefer me as I am, you have no power here.”

“I guess you’re practicing your dictator skills?” Watcher asked.

“If I don’t take a stand for the things that matter, then what kind of lady am I?” I sweetly asked.

“So puns are the hill you’re choosing to die on?” Kat asked. “I can’t say it’s the most noble of choices, but I will support my lady in all her endeavors.”

“I’m not choosing to die,” I said. “I’m choosing to fight. And since the vote is clearly in my favor, I’m declaring myself the victor. That said, I will try to limit the naughty ones, especially in public.”

“...It’s a start, I suppose,” Flo said with a sigh.

“Some of them are pretty bad, though,” Twilight said. “I’ve had to restrain myself from shaking you around a few times.”

“That’s just one of the many sacrifices we have to make to deal with mommy,” Taya said. “Think less about how annoying she can be and more about how fun she can be.”

“That’s the right way of looking at it,” I said with a nod. “I should be treasured, right?”

“Absolutely,” Spike said, joining us with even more plates. “You’re the best treasure of all. That’s why the crazy dragoness claimed you, right? She saw your value immediately.”

“Don’t you start flirting with my human!” Twilight quickly said.

“Then you should flirt with her more, so I don’t have time to,” Spike said, booping her. With that, he took a seat on the far side of the table. His Gilda joined him, almost filling the table up.

“Then I’ll take the chance to feed her tonight!” Twilight replied, using magic to grab a fork.

“Not in front of Princess Gilda you won’t,” I said. “That would just be rude. But since Aurora said it would probably take her about fifteen to twenty minutes to get ready, I don’t see any reason to wait for her…”

“Then I’ll stop when she arrives,” Twiggles said, cutting into the thick steak in front of me with magic. I don’t know what kind of animal it was from, but it tasted pretty swanky when Twilight fed it to me. “...I didn’t think you’d actually let me do that.”

“I’d hate to betray your expectations. I guess that means I should stop…” Her horn lit up slightly brighter and three more bites lined up in the air before me. She kept the juices in place with magic. Getting fed really wasn’t something I wanted, but fighting it would be more time and effort than it was worth. I guess that was her way of treasuring me, or something.

“It’s definitely good,” I said. “It’s worth being my first meal in three weeks.”

“His meat better fill you up in all the right ways,” original Gilda said. “Doppel and I had to put up with his whining from wearing that fluffy pink apron.”

“...Why did you have a fluffy pink apron for him?” I slowly asked.

“It was another gift from one of your lovers,” Kat said. “I think the goal was for you to wake them up with breakfast in bed while wearing only the apron.”

“Oh.” I left it at that, deciding it best not to probe more. Besides, talking was hard when a mare was trying to choke you with her meat.

Dinner ended up being a pretty lively ordeal. Princess Gilda was spared from seeing Twilight feed me, but she still complained about us not waiting for her. Since it was her fault for being slow, I didn’t let it bother me much. Almost everyone was also disturbed by how much meat Luna ate. Disturbing was her normal mode, though, so I wasn’t too concerned.

When everyone was satiated and all the people in the house were congregated, I walked up to the front of the room, opposite the windows. “So, as you can all see, I am now out of the coma. I saw a bunch of stuff and I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about some things. Some of what I say may be shocking, but given the nature of our work, I figure you’ll get over it quickly. To cut straight to the most shocking part, apparently I’ve been unconsciously and unknowingly drugging or brainwashing everyone into liking me.” That got a few grunts and raised eyebrows. “It’s a slow, gradual effect that hits people depending on how powerful they are. Those like royalty get hit harder than others and the urge to like instead becomes the urge to own.”

“What are you saying, exactly?” Princess Gilda asked, eyes wide.

“Athena explained it to me the day I entered the coma and over the course of it, I saw enough evidence that made me think she was telling the truth,” I said. “I am a human, or at least a derivative of one. You all are half fae, which are magical beings, and half animal, which are physical beings. The fae part of you wants to be around humans. The animal part of you adds hormones to the mix, which wildly changes the nature of how you act around humans. According to Athena, this is basically just… how things work. Since all of you are part fae, you’re naturally drawn to me. And the stronger you are, the more you feel the need to make me yours.”

“That’s… preposterous…” Luna whispered, sinking down into her chair.

“Yeah, it’s not the greatest,” I said. “So we need to find a way to get rid of the effect.”

“Celestia also confirmed it,” Twilight said. “She noticed it by herself, but wasn’t sure until after being turned into Newlestia.”

“Are you sure you aren’t just using this as an excuse?” Princess Gilda asked. “You’ve slept with a lot of royalty. Is this your way of getting out of it all without any consequences?”

“No, I’ll admit to being a slut. But a good chunk of the times I’ve slept with royals have been initiated by the royals, as I’m sure you’re well aware. Think back to your brother. He invited me to join the royal harem less than ten minutes after meeting me. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

“No, not at all,” Princess Gilda replied. “You’re beautiful, intelligent, and can revolutionize any country you want at any time you want. Obviously that’s something any royal would want, disregarding this mysterious effect you supposedly have.”

“...Nav’s telling the truth,” Luna slowly said. “Oh, how I hate that it’s true… How could I have lost myself so heavily to it?!”

Because you’re insane and have basically no sense of morality? “As I said, the more powerful you are, the stronger it affects you. I don’t think this refers just to magic power, which means other royalty like Gilda and strong fighters like Kat and the naga were also probably influenced by it. Obviously, this is a bad thing. You magicky types need to start working on fixing it.”

“Why do you assume it’s something magical?” Taya asked.

“I’m not assuming it’s caused by something magical. I’m just assuming we can use magic to fix it regardless.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Twilight said. “And even if not, magic might be able to give us some way to measure it. The only problem is, how can we tell if Nav is still human enough for it to apply? Or do you think Athena and Hera would be able to tell us?”

“That’s something one of you magicky types will have to ask, I’d say,” I replied. “Even if I could understand what she told me, I wouldn’t be able to put it into practice until I get a soul. Magic requires one of those, sadly.”

“...But it is possible that this effect is already gone, right?” Princess Gilda asked. “It could have disappeared ages ago, right?”

“I mean, maybe, but my guess is that it’s still there. Or that if it is gone, it was only after I got out of the coma and was more tree than human. It’s okay, Gilda. You don’t have to feel bad for falling for my irresistible human charms. It also happened to affect all the female royalty in Equestria, plus Moonbeam. And for all I know, the real reason Blueblood hated me is because he was secretly attracted to me and was angry that I made him gay.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Luna said. “He almost definitely hated you because you nearly murdered him at a party and got away with no repercussions. Before that, he was just angry.”

“Well, he’s dead, so we’ll have to agree to disagree. The point is, whatever this pull is, it’s caused me no end of suffering. I wanted to make everyone aware of it so you can start watching out for it. If you ever get the urge to either own, molest, get close to, or otherwise bother me, it might just be because I’m human. If you realize that applies to you, please rethink your actions.”

“I don’t think any of us feel that way because of the pull anymore,” Twilight said. “I think we want to be close to you because we enjoy spending time with you, not because we’re being influenced or drugged. I mean, that’s probably the only reason some of us here gave you the time of day originally, but that’s not the case anymore!”

“Well, it’s still something to keep in the back of your mind,” I said. “Let’s move on to the second thing I wanted to talk about. Long story short, when I got to this world, I was too busy being angry that my old life was over that I never really focused on the new one I was given. After going through the coma and seeing what happened in the background of my life, I realized that spending the rest of my life angrily reacting instead of intelligently acting was a bad idea. I’ve spent too long sitting on money-making ideas and things that could possibly change this society for the better. I’m going to start working to shape society. After all, if I’m going to be living in it for a while, I might as well make it a better place.”

“That’s kinda broad,” Twilight said.

“Magitech will be a good chunk of it,” I said. “But that will also include interesting ways of applying magitech. With luck, it means I can get a bunch of businesses going. Accruing wealth will be another way for me to build power over time. Money plus businesses will give me influence wherever I go. Basically, I intend to get busy soon. If any of you have skills outside of killing, let me know later. Now that Celestia’s on our side, it’s less important for all of us to fight. We can just get her army to fight for us.”

“Can we kill freelance-style and give you the money we make?” Kat asked.

“No, I’m not going to form an assassin’s guild in Canterlot,” I said. “I intend to stay above the law.”

“What about your soul gem harvesting idea?” Watcher asked.

“Those soul gems will be made in changeling territory, and I got permission from their queen,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, that makes it legal. We’ll also be using those to fuel our war in Tartarus, not as a business venture.”

“Wonderful excuse,” Flo said with a wide grin.

“Thanks, I’m good at them. The third thing I want to say is part of an addendum to the second. Since I spent most of my time being angry at the world, that meant I wasn’t usually pleasant to be around. I’m going to work on changing that, though I can’t promise how well it’ll work. We just recently discovered that the core of my being is cynicism, sarcasm, and puns, so I’ll probably be a scumbag until I can get a soul, but I’m gonna do my best to change.”

“Wasn’t the point of the coma to make you change?” Spike asked.

“No, apparently it was just supposed to show me why I needed to. That said, if I wasn’t as emotionally dead inside as I am, the things I saw would have changed me considerably. As it was, I got pretty upset at a lot of the memories, but none of them truly changed me.”

“Yeah, some were kinda brutal,” Taya said. “But apparently I missed a lot of the good ones with Celestia and Luna!”

“Another fun point is that Taya is going to work on being less terrifying,” I said. “I knew some people were afraid of her, but neither of us had any idea that the number one rule on the ship was to avoid her.” Everyone suddenly wanted to avert their gazes. “That’s okay. She understands that she’s supposed to be a good little eternafilly. She’ll be taking young lady courses soon.”

“I’ll be the perfect, least scary filly ever!” Taya said. “And then when you’re all finally fooled, I’ll get my revenge.”

“...Are you sure you’re trying to be less scary?” one of the more suicidal guards asked.

“My revenge will be with snuggles, of course,” Taya said. “And a camera, for blackmail material. You know, maybe. Or maybe not. Because I’m scary, right?!”

“It’s a work in progress,” I said with a shrug. “If she does something scary, please let her know. Having a predator as a parent has warped her sensibilities a little.”

“Oh sure, that’s the reason,” Princess Gilda muttered. I did the adult thing and ignored her, obviously. Taya did the filly thing and stuck her tongue out at the princess.

“And that’s really the last thing I wanted to say,” I said, looking around the room. “I’m going to start working on becoming better. It’s the responsibility of everyone here minus Flo to help me in that endeavor.”

“Why not me?!” Flo demanded.

“Because you hate puns and I don’t want to be led down the wrong path.” She sighed and face palmed. “With that, I think I’m heading upstairs to go to bed. Luna and Kat, I’d like to talk to you in the morning, so don’t head out to the bunker immediately.”

“What about the rest of us?” Spike asked.

“I wouldn’t mind talking to the rest of you more tomorrow as well. But it’s already past dark, so I don’t want to stay up too much later. My plant-like body demands rest.”

“We’ll have our meals before the sun sets, from now on,” Doppel said with a smile.

“Good. And goodnight to all of you. It’s good to see everyone again and to finally be awake.”

“I’ll tuck you in,” Flo said, surging forward. I’m sure more people wanted to bother me before I could leave, but Flo carried me out of the room with a large wave. “I had a feeling you would have been there all night if something wasn’t done.”

“Probably,” I said. “But couldn’t you have used Taya to teleport me upstairs instead?”

“Yes, but then I wouldn’t get to tuck you in!”

“Is that really necessary?” I asked.

“Unless you wanted Kat, Doppel, Princess Gilda, and Twilight to all volunteer one after another, yes. This way, Twilight can join you surreptitiously. Or if you’d prefer, I can do the job instead and put you to sleep after!”

“I’ll be fine waiting,” I said. “If she doesn’t show, that would be fine, too.”

We finally got to my room. She barged in like she owned the place, used tendrils to strip the dress right off me, and tossed me onto the bed. By the time I could bounce, she was already back on me. One of her hands gripped my mouth and I felt some water gush in, surrounding all my teeth. It swished around a few times before her hand pulled away. “And now your teeth are clean. They’ll lack a minty scent, though.”

“That’s acceptable. But… I could have just brushed them.”

“I enjoy taking care of you,” Flo said, carefully pulling the blanket up around me. “I assumed you would be more receptive to it, if you’re allowing Twilight to feed you. Especially after all those awful things you saw in the coma…”

“If I start letting everyone do everything for me, I’ll either end up a layabout or like Hera.”

“I’ll be sure to restrict it to when we’re alone, of course,” Flo said, booping me on the nose. “Would you like me to sing you a lullaby?”

“No. I’ll relax for a bit on the energy I have left over and if Twilight doesn’t show up, I’ll just have one of you put me to sleep.”

“...Fine. I’ll just play you one on the piano, then.”

Please don’t. “If you want, I guess.”

“Maybe three or four, then. Goodnight, Navi!” She slid out the door, giggling at all the mean things I was thinking. Hopefully I wouldn’t be able to hear it with the door closed, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

Of course I could. She began playing seconds after leaving my room, so she probably didn’t even bother using the staircase.

For better or worse, Twilight quickly arrived to… distract me. As if I wasn’t sure before, that was enough for me to be positive that I was finally out of the coma. Since I had those thoughts right as I was finally falling asleep, they didn’t really mean all that much.

Still, my first day back felt like it went pretty well.