Chapter 4: Father Meet Daughter

Twilight awoke early in the morning to the sound of Meta smashing around in the kitchen, making a feeble attempt to steal from the cookie jar, which she discovered the day before. When Twilight got downstairs she found Spike lying in the doorway to the kitchen with Meta on his back, happily chowing down on the oatmeal cookies.

"How did this even happen?" Spike muttered as he tried to get up, but the way he was laying down made it hard for him to do so. All Twilight could do was laugh at what she was seeing, quickly being joined by excited giggles from Meta. Spike moaned in annoyance as he tried to roll over, only managing to get himself stuck in an even worse position.

"Oh come on!" Spike said angrily as he ended up pinning an arm underneath himself, making it completely impossible for him to get up. Twilight decided to leave Spike where he was as she stepped over him to get into the kitchen so she could get her morning coffee and a banana. Meta watched her carefully pour herself a cup of coffee, adding in some milk and sugar to make it sweeter, and then Twilight grabbed a banana, stepping back over Spike as she headed towards the front door. With a banana, coffee, and now a newspaper suspended in her magic Twilight sat down at the main table, blissfully ignoring Spike's cries for help as his arm began to go numb.

After Twilight had finished her coffee and banana she went into the kitchen to clean up, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. When she opened it she found Shining Armor and Cadance standing on the other side, with Shining Armor bending under the weight of Cadance's travel bags.

"Twilight!" Cadance said happily as both her and Twilight jumped towards each other, giving a hug before doing what they always did.

"Sunshine, Sunshine, Ladybugs awake! Clap your hooves and do a little shake!" the two of them chanted while doing the dance that went along with it. They both giggled happily as they hugged again, a grunt from Shining Armor reminding them that he was still there, struggling with the luggage. Twilight and Cadance quickly took a bag from him and headed inside, a loud laugh coming from Cadance when she saw Spike.

"Stop laughing and help me!" Spike cried, his arm starting to hurt from being numb for so long.

"Oh fine" Cadance said as she lifted Meta off of Spike, turning to Twilight with the filly on her back, "Is this Meta?"

"Yeah" Twilight said as she put the luggage away, watching Cadance's reaction to Meta closely. Despite all of Twilight's suspicions Cadance quickly played with Meta as if she was any other foal, the two of them very quickly beginning to laugh happily together.

"Twilight, she is so cute!" Cadance said as she continued to play with Meta, making Twilight laugh. Meanwhile Shining Armor was carefully watching Meta to see if she was going to do anything suspicious. Twilight took note of this and walked over to her brother, snapping his gaze away from Meta with her magic.

"Shining, what are you doing?" Twilight asked, turning to look at Cadance and Meta playfully chasing Spike around the room as his still limp arm flailed about. She had to suppress a giggle, but Shining Armor stayed as stoned faced as ever, his suspicion of Meta stopping him from feeling any other emotion. Rather than fight with him Twilight just sighed and trotted over to Cadance and Meta, who were still happily playing even though Spike managed to get away to the safety of the stairs.

"Is something wrong with Shining Armor?" Twilight asked as Meta attempted to fly over to her back from Cadance's. Cadance looked over at Shining Armor to see him staring Meta down, almost hoping to see her slip up and give him an excuse to leave by doing something bad.

"I'll go deal with him" Cadance sighed as she got up, trotting over to stand in her husband's face, "What's your problem?"

"I just don't know if it's a good thing to trust her so easily" Shining Armor said, "Changelings can change shape at will, who's to say they can't make themselves look like a filly to get easy love?" Cadance gave him a confused look before she got right in his face, giving him a worried stare. He attempted to ignore her and move so he could see again, but she moved with him, eventually making him grunt in annoyance.

"What's wrong with you today Shining?" Cadance asked as she wrapped her hooves around his neck, using him to keep her balance. She could feel how tense he was and kissed him, making him relax a little bit.

"I just don't want to trust it so easily, not after what happened with their Queen" Shining said, a guilty look coming on his face as he looked up at Meta, the memories of when the Changeling Queen pretended to be Cadance coming back to him. He let out a loud sigh as he closed his eyes, being able to visually remember every moment of it, only now seeing the warning signs that it had been a fake. While his eyes were shut Meta ran over to him, latching onto his foreleg.

"Meta...?" Shining asked slowly, feeling slightly apprehensive about the small filly clinging to him. She laughed up at him and then began to climb, eventually straddling the back of his neck while she held onto his horn to keep her balance. He looked over to Cadance to see her giving him a look that said, "Have fun", so he did just that, and reared up onto his hind legs. Meta obviously enjoyed it as she began to giggle happily as she was swung around by Shining, soon landing on his snout.

"Hi there little one" Shining said with a smile, managing to get a giggle out of Meta. They laughed together for a while, soon being joined in by the two mares in the room, but as they all got dead silent Meta decided to say something for herself.

"Dada" Meta said slowly, followed by a chorus of "Awww..." from the two mares while Shining simply pulled her into a hug.

"That's right, I'm your dada" Shining said with a warm smile, getting some more "Awww.."'s from the mares.