Needless to say Gilda was surprised when I came home that early that night. She pulled and tugged and prodded my wing to make sure it was real. Once she was finished molesting me and was satisfied with my explanation we settled in for a nice dinner. Seth ate slowly. He seemed more interested in me. Now that I think about it he had only seen me like this once before. I'd been human around him the entire time. That got me started thinking strange things. Would he make the connection that both were the same? Would he wonder if he could change as I do? Or would he wonder where daddy went every time I swapped out? After we finished eating I spent a good hour just staring into those big, steely blue eyes of his. Time which he spent staring back into mine. Gilda was happy about that because any time he spent not crying or getting into trouble was considered a blessing. So, I laid on my stomach, with my head on the floor, looking at him, while he did the same to me. I could already tell that he wasn't some regular infant, eye's darting everywhere in an attempt to take in everything possible. It was the way he stared at me with such... focus, as though this was a thinker trying to figure out a particularly confounding problem. It occurred to me that the only reason he wasn't talking right now, despite being far too early in his development for such a thing, (he was not even a year old) was that he didn't know how yet. It was at this point I decided I would be the one to teach him.

"Gilda..."

"Hmm?" She hummed in reply as she took what little time for relaxation I was able to give her to read the newspaper, which had been neglected since morning.

"I think we need to take Seth on outings."

"What do you mean?"

"It's too cold right now because winter is almost here, but in spring I think we should take him out you know? Show him the world. Get him to see different things. Maybe once he starts talking more. We can bring him out and show him stuff, then explain it to him."

"That seems like a good idea."

Winter passed uneventfully. Well, I shouldn't say that. Seth started talking. Not really... talking talking but he knew several words. Mostly things that pertained to him. He didn't quite have sentence structure but not for lack of knowledge but more for efficiency. If he wanted something he'd say what he wanted. It took a while to get him to add some context to his words, such as 'Want juice.' instead of just 'juice' but at the very least he wasn't just pointing at something and screaming like most children tend to do. In fact, for all the claims Gilda made of him screaming constantly or being a trouble maker, he had done surprisingly little of that since I had come back. She'd often remark that he's much more well behaved when I'm around, but she attributed that to the fact that between taking care of him, taking care of herself, and working, she didn't really have the time to just sit there with him for an hour or two, something I did, and she was quite jealous of. I'd try to take the burden sometimes. "Do you want me to make dinner?" But she'd decline. I think she was so deep into her routine, a routine that was honed to perfection to make the most of every second, as she'd had to do when she was raising Seth alone, that she was having trouble getting out of it. I took solace that when spring did come, there'd be more fun things we could do, and not as much hassle dealing with snow and some such so we'd have more time to do them.

And then spring came. I had gotten an average job over the winter, sewing seams to mass produce comfortable cotton saddles which are exported all over the country. Why ponies would want to wear saddles if they're not being ridden is beyond me, but it was a steady job with a steady income. Wingsconsen didn't have many unicorns, so something that was solely tradition for Ponyville was more requirement for our town. Winter Wrap Up but with cow and sheep bells ringing to add to the cacophony of singing. Of course, with Winter Wrap Up also came my birthday. And at that moment I became greatly aware of the passage of time, and a great many things I had left undone.

"Gilda, can you believe it? It's been a year. Seth's birthday is only a month after mine. I'm just glad I'm able to be here for it."

"Yeah, but we'll worry about planning his later. We have to have yours first. I have no idea how to plan one though." She replied.

"Ah, don't worry too much about it. I've never really had a... wait." At this moment I began searching through the house. Opening every door, searching every container. Nope, nothing out of order. "As I was saying, on my birthday I'd normally just go somewhere quiet and think. I don't think I've ever had a proper birthday party, one with friends and cake and all that. Maybe I did as a kid, but I just can't remember it."

There was a massive gasping sound and Pinkie Pie's head burst from the orange basket on our counter, sending oranges everywhere, before vanishing again.

"There. Party planning is done."

"Griffin, I don't even..." She drifted off.

"Pinkie Fhtagn." I replied. She just sighed in defeat. "Besides that, It's just occurred to me that I have a crap ton of stuff I'm supposed to do, and I haven't done."

"Like what?"

"Well, to get the cash I needed to hire mercenaries to be a distraction at Ancientwell, I promised to model for Fancypants, and he gave me the money in advance. Then there's the public declaration of alliance between the New Dominion and the Changeling hive, by the way, I have to give Chrysalis a kiss on the cheek so she can win a bet with Cadence, dying wish of the guy who took my place and died for it, uh, then we need to visit Maria at her restaurant, find out where Shimmer and Steelhorn have their forge and go see them, and then I have to check in with the new islands. The zebras have colonized 2 in my absence, and one before I even left that I never went to the naming ceremony, and with the influx of refugees the griffins have grabbed another 3, the changelings have started a hive on a particularly large one, and I've been hearing rumors out of Signal about seaponies."

"Buh..." Gilda balked.

"Well, there will probably be a lull at work since winter is ending and there won't be as much of a need for warm clothes, maybe we can get some time off here and there. Besides, we wanted to show Seth the world didn't we?"

"One thing at a time Griffin. Maybe we should start small? In a few weeks there's going to be a breezy flock coming through town. That would be a good family outing, don't you think?"

"I agree."

Gilda and I arrived home after work and opened the door of our little home to find that the door to our house no longer lead to our house, but rather to a grand hall filled with cake and balloons and streamers. Discord popped out of the cake and threw confetti everywhere.

"I'm super duper excited to be throwing this party for you Griffin!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she bounced along. "Buuuut your house was a teeensy bit too small to hold everypony so I asked Discord to move it all here! Besides, I'm pretty sure not everypony has met the baaaaby yet."

Forget what Rarity said about Discord. To have any sense of normalcy, one must distance themselves from Pinkie Pie, and we all know that's impossible. Seth was, of course, startled by all the havoc and started to cry. That was when Discord poked his head into Seth's travel bag.

"Griffin, I knew you had a son but I had no idea he was so cute! Why haven't you introduced us yet?" At this point, Seth climbed out, grabbed hold of Discord's beard and gave it a mighty tug. Now, I've never seen a chaos spirit in pain before but the sound they make is somewhere between a howl and the squeak balloons make when you rub them together. He giggled and clapped his claws together, releasing the beard in the process.

"Well, we know where he gets that eh?" Discord nudged me in the side. Other than the two mentioned, the rest of the mane six were there, and Spike. None of the crew from the ship were present, except for Surprise and even then she spent most of the time talking to Seth. Not baby talking, but actual talking to him. This was the first time I'd seen her after I went down the rabbit hole.

All in all, it was alright. It wasn't too lively as we were all being conscious of Seth, we didn't want to make too much noise, though the kid did enjoy a bit of vanilla lemon cake. As it wound down and we prepared to leave, Surprise and Discord wanted to speak to Gilda and I in private.

"Griffin." Surprise began. "I've learned a bit about 'Godparents' and I know normally the parents are the ones who pick, but Discord and I said 'Too bad, it's us.' Now, I know it's your birthday, but we've decided to give Seth something, something that should give the both of you some peace of mind."

"Oh? And what might that be?"

"Weeeeeellll I did a bit of experimenting with my magic, you know, how I have Whiskers and Munchkin and Ludvic and Ulfgar and Sasha and Tiny Tim and Tiny Tanya and....................." At which point she listed off three hundred and sixty-four of her shadow mice.

..................... and Olaf Yeerganson and Alexander and.... and anyways.... I thought It would be nice if Seth had a friend of his very own! Soooo I had Discord help me give him one. He's uh... quite a bit bigger than the rest of them, and he's not really a mouse either."

"Uh? Wha?" I lost track during her tirade.

"Oh, it'll just be a surprise." She giggled. "A surprise from Surprise. And Discord. His new godmother and godfather!" I looked at Seth and saw his shadow had taken on a distinctly... darker.... hue than the rest of ours. It seemed strange... swirling... almost alive. I remembered how effective... and adorable, Surprise's shadow mice were, so I didn't see any problem with it.

Gilda on the other hand...

"What did you do to my son?" She said in a tone almost... bordering on anger.

"I just told you silly! I gave him a shadow friend to keep him safe!"

"Gilda... it's fine. Remember the helpful shadow mice that let us get in that one den? How cute and helpful they were? And not dangerous? And how they didn't need any maintenance or cleanup?" I reminded her. She had gotten very defensive about Seth, but relaxed when she remembered that these are our friends who want to help us.

"Yeah..."

"Well Seth has one of his own now. It's... like a pet. That you don't have to feed, or train, or clean up after."

"I don't know. When he goes to school, I don't want the other's making fun of him for talking to his shadow is all."

"School? Gilda, he's only a year old. We're not near that point yet. We'll worry about it when we get there."

"Yeah... just... one day at a time."

Author's Notes:

Ugh... mmust..... fffight...... writer's... slump...
Must.. .get... song... out of head...
Winter... is....

It is cold, it is cold, can't take this weather anymore.
It is cold, it is cold, there's six feet of snow outdoors.
I don't care what the weathermen say,
I'm sick of winter, why can't it just go away?

My niece's obsession means I can't get this bitch out of my head.

Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to write when everything just comes out Frozen?
I have literally come up with 4 different FULL parodies of that stupid song, for various topics. All I need is the permission of Disney and (Travel Company here) and I'll make a commercial about winter sucking and needing to go on vacation. Hmm.. 'Expedia.ca' rhymes with 'say'

*facedesk*