Chapter Twenty-Two

On the Homefront

The skies above Equestria were clear that night, with the only lights being given off by the moon and the brightest of stars. The clouds of early morning were long gone, so that the moonlight shone through the windows of Ponyville’s library without distortion of any kind. Inside this library, a purple unicorn mare perused a few scrolls, a massive pile of already-searched paper off to her side.

“No, no, that can’t be it,” she muttered, her magic throwing the scroll on top of the pile. “Princess Luna said she wanted any information on draconic behavior, not history.” She floated several referencing books past her face, but the titles seemed slightly blurry.

The fact was the unicorn was tired, bone-achingly tired. She had been doing this all day long, and even the day before that, trying to find the information the princess had asked. After sorting through massive compendiums of work, knowledge not readily available to the common public and even some scrolls personally owned by Princess Celestia, Twilight realized something: none of it was doing her any good.

“Oh, Spike,” she said, looking at a framed photo of her and the dragon. “I do miss you.” The picture was from years ago: he was just a chubby little dragon back then, a helpful assistant and a good friend. But now, now he was gone: he had grown up sooner than she had expected and was already on his way to being a father. He was still a good friend, even a great friend: he had even forgiven her for overreacting to his marriage to a zebra. That kind of willingness to forgive and understanding nature was truly remarkable. But as with all friends, there was the fear of loss, and Twilight had had that in her heart since the day she had heard of his upcoming departure. The world was a dangerous place, and though she knew he was safe now, Twilight hoped he wouldn’t drift away due to his responsibilities.

Then again, she knew what she was doing would not make up for her mistake: it would take far more than sending him information for her to feel better about herself. To so alter another being’s body chemistry, and a very close friends at that, made her feel regret like she had never before. After hearing Celestia’s explanation of Spike’s role in Equestria’s future, she came to realize that it had not been mere coincidence Celestia had taken her under her wing when she hatched Spike. The alicorn had likely realized her to be the long lost Element of Harmony, Magic, to have such raw potential, and the unicorn had a funny feeling that the princess realized Spike’s role as soon as he had been hatched.

She looked over at the stack of books she still needed to look over and blew a few errant mane hairs out of her face.

Owlicious had gone out the study window to hunt for some mice or something: she was all alone in the room, and for once she felt rather sad about that. Usually when she was alone was the perfect time to catch up on some studying or do some quiet reading: but now, the library, her home, seemed... empty. As if it needed something to help fill it up, and for once the answer was NOT more books. The only problem was the purple unicorn couldn’t put her finger on what that thing was. She hated not knowing the answer to something, and right now she couldn’t stand to look at another scroll.

“No more for tonight,” she said, letting the scrolls and books drop into piles as she rose to her hooves. “I need my sleep.” With that, she got up and walked to her bed, her light nightgown rather see-through. She didn’t care, though: she was by herself, after all, and it didn’t matter what she wore to bed. That’s what beds were for: they were an ultimate form of quietness and solitude, shared only between the closest of friends and lovers.

Slumping over onto the bed with a slight groan, she rolled over and pulled a blanket over her body. With that, she fell asleep, her soft snores soon filling the room.

A ways across town, another unicorn was having a similar problem. Rarity was sitting by her sewing machine, barely managing to keep her head up as her magic kept the thing running. She did not have any deadlines or customers waiting: there was no colt or mare for that matter in the other room waiting for her, either. Opal had long since gone to bed, and Sweetie Belle was on a sleepover over at Sweet Apple Acres with her friends.

So why was she up? Once again, a certain dragon was on her mind. Spike had been in her thoughts every now and then for the last few weeks, ever since she had found out he was going to be a father. She knew there would be a proper herding ceremony when he got back with his wives, and alongside her normal projects, she had been working on a suit specially fit just for him. But every time she got it close to being done, she’d undo it all and start over again, suddenly unsatisfied with a design she had been praising mere days before.

It was driving her crazy: why was she feeling like this? She had always known of Spike’s infatuation of her from the start: likely everypony had. But she had kept him in a relationship strictly limiting them to being friends. She had felt their relationship would be ruined if they ever progressed past the “friend-zone”, as Dash called it, that they had placed around themselves. They had both been comfortable with it: Spike’s apprenticeship under Luna had left little-to-no time for relationships anyway, and Rarity had become far too busy to even be in a relationship for the longest time. She was a lady, and did not need to be constantly at somepony's beck and call in some relationship.

He had always been so generous, always giving: he had even given her the fire ruby she still had in her nightstand drawer. Every now and then she would take it out and look into its gleaming surface, almost as if trying to see Spike’s reflection in it. She missed him more terribly than she had dared thought she would: to see his smiling face, to hug his strong and warm body, to have him help her around the boutique without any sort of recompense or payment, just like he used to...

“Oh, this will never do,” she said abruptly, her magic separating the clothing she had worked on for the last few hours in a mere matter of minutes. “His wings are larger than that: come now, Rarity, you know these things.” She slumped in her chair in frustration, several mane curlers falling out due to improper fastening.

She turned to look in her mirror and was met with a rather ghastly sight: her mane was all frazzled, her eyes were bloodshot, and- celestial bodies forbid! -there were bags under her eyes. She looked and felt more tired than she ever had been, with everything she was going through taxing her to no end.

“I believe I shall call it a night,” she said to her reflection, the light shutting off by magic as she made her way to her bedroom. The floorboards creaked slightly underneath her hooves as she slowly walked, not even having the energy maintain a fast lady-like pace. Even as she walked through the moonbeams shining through her window, she felt distant from the world she inhabited, as if she belonged somewhere else. Then Rarity did something completely unlike her: she did not change into her sleepwear. Instead, she simply stripped off the dress she had been wearing for the whole day and crawled under the covers, her magic slowly taking the remaining mane curlers off of her head. She closed her eyes, and like Twilight before her, she was soon fast asleep, her very soft (and entirely lady-like) snores drifting through the room like musical notes.

Speaking of Sweet Apple Acres, there was one pony there that was up far past her bedtime. No, not Applebloom: she and her two friends were already fast asleep after eating marshmallows and telling stories. No, the pony in question was Applejack, carrying a small lantern with her as she made her way past the newest additions to the orchard.

The seeds Spike had sent back several weeks ago had already sprouted and were growing into fine young saplings, the leaves a good, green color. Applejack’s eyes were drooping as she made her last patrol, but she couldn’t help it. She just had to check that the newest batch of the seeds Spike had sent back were growing.

“Ah’m getting’ too old fer this,” she muttered as she slowly walked along, her hooves leaving soft imprints in the ground. Truthfully, she was not getting too old for this: she was only a few years older than Spike and she was in the prime of her life. Heck, she would be for a few more decades before she started to feel like Granny Smith. It would take been longer than that before she started to look like her granny, who was so old nopony bothered to ask any more for her specific age.

Crossing the last marker dividing the edge of the older orchard and crossing into the new set of trees, Applejack walked slowly down the rows, looking through heavily-lidded eyes at all of the tiny trees Spike had sent back.

Spike: she couldn’t have been happier for him, to be honest. Well, she was the Element of Honesty, so it wasn’t that hard for her to admit it. Here he was, married (and hopefully happily, too) to four beautiful mares, who were coming back to Equestria with him. “He’s already gonna be a daddy in nine months,” she thought with a tired smile. “I plum reckon he’ll have a dozen of the little fellers runnin’ around. Maybe when they get older, he can show ‘em how good, hard work on a farm can give ‘em the tools they need in life ta succeed.” Tools being a relative term: she was really talking about work ethic, if it wasn’t obvious enough.

She did love foals, especially whenever the newest batches of the Apple family came over for reunions. There were countless nieces and nephews she met every time they gathered around, and every time she saw them she got the feeling of want. She too wanted her own foals someday, but there was always so much work to be done, and none of the ponies in town caught her fancy. That, and she couldn’t find that special somepony who would be able to help on the farm: most folks weren’t cut out for that kind of labor.

She did miss Spike, as did Applebloom and her friends: shucks, they all missed him. He had been one of those things that you always appreciated but never realized just how much until it was gone. Shoot, when he had been helping out on the farm after Big Macintosh got hurt, the Apple family had come to realize just how useful he was. Using his flames to start campfires or the stove when the lighter wasn’t working, pulling heavy loads neither of the Apple sisters could, even helping make cider when the situation called for it.

Applejack walked past the last row of saplings, glad Fluttershy had managed to control the animals well enough to keep them out of there. Rabbits and deer always had a tendency to try and eat the shoots of newly-growing trees, and fences were hard to put up. Never mind that half the time they didn’t work: Fluttershy’s stare was a much easier way of solving those problems.

She came to the last spot, where one tree in particular was growing strong. She had forgotten the name of the species, but to her, the tree itself was more important. It was growing strong, same rate as the others, though the trunk did seem a bit thicker at this stage. The small leaves were the right color, the outermost bark had a healthy look to it, and she could tell by the way it stood tall that the root system was doing great.

“Goodnight, Spike,” she said softly to the little tree. With that, and a dimming lantern in hand, she set off for the house, until only the light of the moon shone on the rows of seedlings.

Off a ways, in a cottage not too far from Sweet Apple Acres, a lone candle flickered in the window. The animals inside the house, a few small songbirds and a white rabbit, were fast asleep in their small beds. Why they were in beds and not, say, nests or a burrow, was something only the yellow pegasus could explain.

Fluttershy walked past the window in her evening wear, a rather plain but nice green gown with frilly edges and large sleeves. She had been in her study for the past hour, poring over the tomes and photographs she had been receiving from her draconic friend. As a rather lonely pony, through choice and not circumstance, she took up an interest in literature pertaining to animals. They were, after all, the basis for her cutie mark, so it seemed natural that she found herself fascinated by them.

Her largest project had begun almost as soon as Spike had sent back the first tidbits on information. On the walls of her study were copies of the maps of the world Celestia had sent her. It had been a polite and rather timid request, she had to admit: she could barely speak in front of other ponies, let alone the royal alicorn princesses.

Along with these maps were tacked-up pictures of the animals her dragon friend had sent back: mostly birds and sea-going creatures, like some dolphins and whales. There were scatterings of some land animals, though Europe was not necessarily known for a lot of large native creatures.

“Oh, I can’t wait for some new pictures,” the pegasus said softly to herself as she picked up the candle. She knew Spike would deliver something amazing: he always had. “Hopefully he’ll have some pictures of hippos.” Sure, she sounded rather underwhelmed at the prospect of new photos adding to her collage and compendium of creatures, but to be fair, Fluttershy had never been an excitable pony. Easily frightened, perhaps, but never really excitable: the closest had been when Rainbow Dash had wanted a pet.

Wandering up the stairs and towards her room, the pegasus stopped for a second, a thought entering her mind. Spike had a zebra wife now, and the pegasus had told Zecora all about that. She had seemed rather happy, more so than most ponies would likely be: perhaps the thought of somepony similar to herself was making her feel like more of “home” was being brought back. Fluttershy felt good that she had told the zebra of that bit of news: she rarely got out much and it felt good to socialize, even if it was with close friends.

But then again, she rarely socialized with anypony who wasn’t a close friend: her and Zecora both. Fluttershy entered the bedroom, softly blowing out the candle since the light of the moon was more than enough to illuminate the darkness. She lay down on her bed so that her wings were to the window.

She never could sleep on her back like most ponies could. She had wings to contend with, after all. That, and a certainly substantial pair of “assets” in her dress that she did her best to hide. Corsets could only hide so much, but the bindings did their job and she never forced herself to try and look smaller than she really was. It would have been a lie, and Fluttershy really did hate lying. It made her feel sad, the same kind of sad a pony felt when a good friend left.

To be entirely truthful, she missed Spike in a way most different from the others, if she knew how they missed him. She missed him not as a companion, not as worker or not even as an assistant. She missed him as a friend, one of her admittedly few in the whole world. He was close to her without trying to cross a boundary, a boundary that admittedly Fluttershy hadn’t realized until she had heard of his marriages.

Most ponies would not believe she had only a few friends: her figure alone would have had stallions from all over drooling over her. But her shy nature and her feature-hiding clothes did little to help her make any friends of either gender, and she had no stallion friends to speak of. Big Macintosh was a good friend, but a close male friend... not so much. He was nice and all, and a very hard worker, but his single-minded determination seemed a bit intimidating to the shy mare.

Still, when she closed her eyes, she was smiling. The next day would undoubtedly bring news from Spike, who was off somewhere in Neighypt, or so she believed.

High above that lonely cottage, a floating city lazily passed through the night skies. Cloudsdale, made entirely of, you guessed it, clouds. The architecture, the walkways, the houses, the furniture: everything was a cloud. It was in one of these cloud homes that a certain blue pegasus stepped out of her shower, her towel doing an adequate job of drying out her pelt.

Rainbow Dash loved water, even though she’d never admit it: she did have an image to maintain, after all. The feeling of it running through her fur, soaking into her skin underneath, the way it buoyed her whenever she took a bath... It felt great, to be honest.

That being said, there was a new Daring Doo book that she had been dying to read, and so far had made it almost half way through after getting her hands on it. Crawling under covers, she picked it up off her sheets and placed it on her nightstand, having read enough for the night. On the cover Daring was up against a horde of reincarnated Roaman legionmares, the byproduct of black magic and science gone wrong. It was simply titled Roam of the Dead, a rather corny title, but effective at showcasing the action of the book. She was already past the part where they had risen from their graves, but now Daring Doo had to escape from the horde in order to find the weapon to put them back to sleep.

“They have the coolest armor,” she thought, her fascination with military history a rather new development in her life. Along with aspiring (and looking like she was going) to be a Wonderbolt, the blue pegasus loved all things historical. She had started feeling this way all the way back when she participated in the jousting tournament in the Crystal Empire, and then it had sort of built up from there. It didn’t help that Spike was feeding this newfound addiction: heck, she had made a small journal of the pictures he had sent back detailing the armor of his Spreignish wife’s ancestor.

To be honest, Dash wanted to meet this “Maria” just to hear of her family’s history. To think, Spike had married into a unicorn family that had ancestors who included a famous general in that part of the world. She couldn’t wait to meet her and the rest: she was sure they would all become good friends, given time.

“I wonder what they’ll be like?” the blue pegasus thought as she lay on her side. Her bed was a bit on the small side, but it wasn’t a matter of convenience: it was simply a matter of space. Her room didn’t exactly have a lot of, well, room, so to speak, and it wasn’t like she had any visitors staying the night with her.

She frowned slightly at this, a recent gossip article popping up in her head. There were benefits to being famous, and as always there were downsides: this was one of those. Why did some articles always say she was a lesmarian? She never had a problem with the term, as she had several good lesmarian friends. She had a problem with that these so-called “journalists” were always speculating what mare she was sleeping with or something along those lines.

“No-good punks,” she muttered, fluffing up her pillow. She wasn’t a lesmarian: ponies just assumed she was due to her more tom-coltish attitude and athletic prowess. Why? Maybe they were threatened by her strong femininity and lack of “curves”, as they put it. What, just cause she was toned and slender meant she didn’t like stallions? The mere thought was a bit insulting, and worse of all, the previous article had put her in a possible relationship with, get this, her friend Applejack.

“Ugh,” Dash thought, remembering the look on Applejack’s face when she read the article. Luckily Twilight had resolved the matter before the editor of the article had gotten seriously hurt by either of them. That sleaze ball would make up anything to sell a few papers; maybe that was why he and his partner-in-crime, Diamond Tiara, got along so well.

Still, when the pegasus looked back at her Daring Doo book, she couldn’t help but smile. She had thanked Twilight more than enough for turning her on to reading, but maybe she’d have to thank her again sometime in the future.

Far below Cloudsdale, a bakery was closing up shop for the night. Why it was still open that late was anypony’s guess, as the rest of the town had gone to sleep hours ago. The twins Pumpkin and Pound Cake were fast asleep, and their parents were doing the same. The only awake pony in the building had just finished the last of her dessert, a triple banana-split sundae topped with crushed walnuts and a cherry. Oh, and the chocolate sauce: she poured it all over that dessert like she couldn’t get enough of it.

“Time for bed,” Pinkie Pie said. Whereas the sheer amount of sugar she had just pumped into her body would have kept any other pony up for the next week, Pinkie had a peculiar metabolism. Maybe it went along with her Pinkie Sense: she could eat almost anything sweet and feel no real side effects afterwards.

Still, she bounded up the stairs in a way that should have been as silent as a rhino rampaging through a glass house. Yet, somehow, her hoofsteps barely measured above the noise level of a sneezing mouse. When she hopped into her bed, she did a 360 back-flip pirouette into the covers, somehow landing without making the entire bed bounce like a rubber ball.

“Party tomorrow,” she said to herself as she mentally checked off her internal calendar. Tomorrow was the mayor’s birthday and as a special request it was going to be a masquerade party. Pinkie normally wouldn’t have had the supplies to put on so extravagant a celebration, even with her amazing partying skills. But thanks to Spike and all the things he had sent back from Europe, it would be an easy feat to accomplish.

Even as she closed her eyes, the hyper pink pony was going over everything in her mind. All of the masks would have to be passed out and/or selected by the guests, as it would be silly if everypony looked the same. The catering would be taken care of by Sugarcube Corner and Sweet Apple Acres, who Pinkie remembered had just harvested a fresh batch of apples for pie and cobblers. She licked her lips at the thoughts of all those sweets: perhaps she could sample some of them before the party.

No, that would be rude: Pinkie hated being rude, and being rude was just one step away from being a mean old grumpiepants, like the no-good griffin Gilda. She was glad Spike had married only unicorns and a zebra so far: a griffin might trigger Pinkie’s instinct to dislike the griffin, even though nopony had seen beak nor feather of that meanie since she left that day.

And then, just like that, she was asleep.

High above the town of Ponyville, in the highest tower in Canterlot, the two royal sisters looked on from their bedroom balcony.

“They are all asleep, sister: I now know of their dreams once more,” Luna said, looking over at the tired Celestia. Both had rather plain nightgowns for princesses, with Celestia's being a very dark red and Luna's a pleasant shade of light green, almost the same green as fresh spring grass.

“Excellent, though I do sometimes wonder if we do the right things by intruding on such private thoughts,” the elder sister replied. She was indeed very tired: all of the work involved in running a smooth and efficient kingdom was not the hard part. The hardest part was working with the nobility and their wealthy friends who were constantly butting heads with one another. There were even questions as to what the new addition for the castle was for, even though the princess had clearly stated there would be an extension to the royal family sometime in the near future.

The truth was, none of the ponies knew what that truly meant. They all assumed that some distant relatives of the princesses were coming to stay with them or something. They had an inkling Spike was gone, but to where, they still did not know. It was one of the best-kept secrets in the kingdom: everypony knew Spike was on a mission, but nopony knew where. There was wild speculation he was off in the land of the dragons, visiting the Crystal Empire or even mapping out the surface of the moon.

That last rumor had made Luna laugh when her sister had informed her of it. She knew the surface of the moon like the back of her flank. There was nothing new to discover up there: that was certain.

“What we do is for the best of our subjects and the kingdom,” Luna replied. “You and I both know this.”

“Of course, of course, but sometimes I just wonder,” Celestia said. “Tell me, what are their dreams of?”

“Rarity and Twilight dream of Spike, sister, though their settings are vastly different.”

“How so?” the elder sister asked.

“Twilight is apologizing to Spike for her actions, and right now it seems like he is forgiving her, though she has had this dream in the past and it turns dark near the end. Rarity, on the other hand, is... dancing with Spike.”

“She is?” Celestia asked, a twinkle in her eye.

“Yes, though it would seem it is at the herding ceremony that is to take place when he gets back,” Luna said. “The others are similar or typical dreams. Fluttershy is dreaming of the animals Spike is undoubtedly seeing and Applejack is working with Spike in the fields.”

“Does she ever stop working?” Celestia said with a smile.

“It would seem not, sister,” Luna replied. “I have also observed Pinkie’s dreams of masquerade balls and Rainbow Dash is currently... fighting off Roaman Legionmares?”

Both sister chuckled at this, settling into their seats for some times. Luna, however, could sense an uneasiness coming off of her sister. “Is there something that bothers you this night, Tia?”

“I don’t know: King Sombra hasn’t been seen in ages, and Discord has been behaving himself admirably.” Celestia knew something was brewing out there, but for once she hadn’t the faintest idea of just what it was.

“I noticed, though those Appaloosans didn’t like those chocolate wells,” the princess of the night said.

“Yes, well, even they could stand to have a little fun every now and then,” the princess of the sun replied. “I was thinking more along the lines of... the changelings.”

“Ah,” Luna said, understanding. “I too have noticed their subdued presence. It is as if they are hiding, preparing for something.”

“But what that is, I don’t know,” Celestia said, leaning back in her seat. “Ever since the failed invasion all those years ago, surely they would have tried to come up with some plan to try again. Their queen is a crafty one, and I have no doubt whatever she has come up with will be something none of us could have foreseen.”

“Indeed, though perhaps we over think their capabilities,” Luna said as her sister yawned. “They took us by surprise back then, and now we have many more spells and safeguards against such infiltration. Come now: get to bed, sister. I will watch over the night.”

“Yes, yes,” Celestia said with a smile, hugging her sister goodnight. “Keep watch over my little ponies, Luna.” With that, she walked into her room and closed the door behind her.

“Yes, I will,” Luna said, looking out over the dark horizon. Somewhere out there was her pupil Spike, and as luck would have it, it was night for her when it was day for him. Her powers could not peer into the dreams of others during the day, so she could not contact him. But she would see him again, before he returned home. She had some business to take care of in the Far East, and it might do him some good to see a familiar face or two...

Or six.

Author's Notes:

There, a chapter entirely dedicated to the Mane Six and the royal sisters. There will be more snapshots and such in the future, just to give the story a bit more depth. Maybe its about time I started showcasing more of what they are doing and less of Spike shagging his wives.

Then again, that's what a lot of readers want to read, right? XD