> Daughter(s)
>  by Zeck
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> "How do you feel about having sex outside of time?" 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Oof!” Minuette grunted as two thick thighs sat down on her lap. A second later, two hooves pinned her to the couch and she found herself staring at a wall of plum-shaded fur. “Really? Now? We still have some work to do,” she said in protest, but she had already given up. Even as she spoke, she was sliding her front hooves around the curvy pony’s hips. She stopped when they reached the plum cheeks of the Earth pony’s backside. 
“How much time do we have?” the pony sitting on her ask. Her tone sent a tiny shiver through Minuette’s left ear. The Unicorn knew she was in trouble because she heard her captor chuckle. She’d seen the ear twitch. She always saw the ear twitch.
“Well, let me just…scooch over…a bit herELLO!” Minuette had been trying really hard to make sure nothing touched as she tried to wiggle under the pony’s weight, but she failed spectacularly. To make matters worse, her captor squeezed her thighs just a bit at the right second, and now blood was rushing to the Unicorn’s blue face, turning in a funny shade of light purple. 
“Time, Collie,” the Earth pony whispered—twitch-twitch—as she placed her mouth close to Minuette’s ear. “How long?”
“Really making it…hard…” Minuette struggled to speak as a tongue licked the very tip of her right ear, causing it to go flat against her head while her left one stood straight up. “Really hard…”
“Hmm…” The captor leaned in close, her mouth looking for the hiding ear. She found it, and Minuette tried not to gasp as she felt a pair of teeth gently nibble on her, pulling the ear out of its shelter. 
“Okay, okay!” Minuette protested, pulling her head to the side in a vain attempt to get away. Her captor hung on though, playfully following the ear still being held in her mouth. “You win!”
“I always win,” the pony whispered, ear still held captive between her teeth. She made sure that the tip of her tongue touched the ear as she spoke, and it was all Minuette could do to not crack then and there. “But you still haven’t answered me, babe.”
With one blue eye closed in an attempt to stave off the inevitable, Minuette strained her neck so she could look past the wall of luscious pony in front of her and spot a clock. She then did a quick scan of the living room, noting all the decorations that still needed to be put up, and then leaned her head back. 
“Six minutes, twenty-three seconds,” the Unicorn said, practically panting now. With each breath, she felt her blue chest press against the plum one in front of her, and it was only making it harder for her to concentrate. “That’s really…only enough for…a quickie—AH!” Minuette gasped as her entire ear was suddenly pulled into the pony’s mouth and sucked on for a moment. She went stiff, her hooves digging into the prime flank pinning her to the couch as desire rushed her soul.
“Then we’ll make it a good six minutes,” Berry Punch whispered as she freed Minuette’s ear. She pulled her head back far enough so that Minuette could meet pinkish-purple eyes. She was in total control of her Unicorn at the moment, and she knew it as she blinked slowly.
Minuette decided to change that. Using her magic, she grabbed the back of her wife’s raspberry colored mane and pulled just hard enough that Berry gasped as her head went back. As it did, Minuette gazed at her neck, watching the pulse for exactly two beats before she leaned forward. Opening her mouth and turning her head slightly, she tried to swallow Berry’s entire neck. Her teeth closed down just enough to hold Berry without harm and she stayed for five seconds, relishing the strange sensation of feeling her love’s heartbeat through her teeth.
Berry’s thick flank clenched beneath Minuette’s hooves, causing her body to press against the Unicorn’s. Minuette released Berry’s neck from her mouth and began to trace a line along her jugular with her tongue as she set the rhythm for her wife’s rocking with her hooves. They only had five minutes and fifty-two seconds now, so the rhythm was a bit faster than normal. It wasn’t “slam-Berry-against-the-nearest-wall-and-go” tempo, but it wasn’t slow cuddling pace either. They were taking a break from setting up for their daughter’s party, and they both needed to be relieved in time, because if one of them was and the other wasn’t, it was going to lead to a grouchy pony. 
Minuette finished going up Berry’s neck. She used her magic to twist the mare’s mane into a tight ball and pushed her head forward into a kiss. The two mares locked together, their tongues trying to mimic their bodies, and Minuette sped the tempo up a bit more. Her wife moaned in her mouth and  Minuette, in turn, wrapped her forelegs around Berry tighter, pulling her closer as—
Minuette suddenly pulled out of the kiss and turned her head to the side as a sneeze escaped her body.
“Cute,” Berry said.
“Sorry,” Minuette replied with a blush. “Where were we?”
“I believe I had just decided on no more magic.” Berry leaned forward and licked Minuette’s horn. Minuette’s magic fizzled in an instant as her body ached with pleasure in a way that only a Unicorn could understand. 
“That’s…” Mniuette gasped when she was finally able to form words again. “That is…off limits. This…is supposed to be…a quickie…You do that…and I’m not…going to be able to…walk for thirty…minutes.”
“Forty-two, actually,” Berry whispered as she did it again, this time licking more of Minuette’s horn. She knew full well that playing with her wife’s horn was enough to make her paralyzed with pleasure if done correctly. It was one of the many things Minuette loved about being married to her.
“Beeeerrrrrryyyyy!” Minuette whimpered as her body tensed, and then, “Achoo!” 
“Okay, the sneeze is new,” Berry said as she pulled back. “You okay, Collie?”
Minuette twitched her nose in an attempt to clear it. “Yeah, I’m—Achoo!”
“Babe, are you getting cold or something?”
“Achoo!” Minuette’s body began to itch. It started in her right shoulder, and began to spread from there. In fifteen seconds, it felt like tiny little bugs were crawling all over her. 
“Minuette?” Berry asked, worry seeping into her voice now. “You’re scaring me…”
“I’m fine—Achoo!—honest,” Minuette said. She squirmed around on the couch, trying to scratch her back, when she noticed that her horn was tingling, and it not because her wife had just played with it. “Just a—Achoo! Just a sneezing attack.”
“Are you sure?” Berry asked as she pressed her hoof to Minuette’s face. “Because your sweating, and I don’t think it’s because of me, unfortunately.”
“I—Achoo!—I am?”Minuette reached up and felt her face. Sure enough, her blue fur was damp, and while she had been getting excited, it took her three minutes to reach this level. Two if Berry was being super frisky, which she hadn’t been. 
“I think you need to go lay—”
“Achoo!”
“Go lay down.”
“But…we have to finish—Achoo!—finish setting up Pinchy’s—ACHOO!” The sneezing was bad enough, but now Minuette’s body was tingling just as bad as her horn. That, combined with the slight itching everywhere, was starting to wear on her. 
“I’ll finish setting up,” Berry said as she started to pull herself off her of wife’s lap. “You need to rest so you can actually be there for…”
“What’s wrong?” Minuette asked, holding back another sneeze as she looked at her wife’s face.
“Collie, babe, why is your cutie mark glowing?”
“Huh?” Minuette followed her wife’s gaze to her flank and her blue eyes went wide. Sure enough, the hourglass on her body was glowing like a dim light. It wasn’t pulsating like Twilight’s or her friends’ did when they were summoned, but it was glowing. And it was slowly growing brighter. 
“So…did I hit a really sweet spot or—whoa!”
Minuette leaned forward and wrapped her wife as tightly in a hug. She closed her eyes and focused on her horn. She channeled as much of her magic as she possibly could into in. Her head began to ring and she gritted her teeth against the pain.
“Collie?” she heard Berry say. “Minuette! What are you doing? Stop!”
Minuette’s eyes flew open and everything looked like a washed out painting to her. She opened her mouth to reassure her wife, who was now looking at her in sheer panic, but no noise came out. Instead, she forced her magic outward, forming a bubble around herself and the Earth pony desperately pleading with her now, but she couldn’t afford to listen to her. She couldn’t afford to break her concentration, not even for a millisecond.
Three seconds after she had encased them in a bubble, Minuette felt something slam into them with the force for a dragon’s tail whip. She winced from the pain, but it only served to make her hold her wife harder and reinforce the magical shield. Every bone in her body felt like it was being pulled apart, but she knew that wasn’t the case, so she fought through it, drawing strength form the pony she was holding and the love they shared.
Three seconds.
“Minuette!” The voice sounded distant, but at least she could hear it. Still, she held Berry tighter, just in case. 
Two seconds.
The pale living room faded away, replaced with a vast white nothingness. Berry had stopped screaming her name now and was eerily silent, so Minuette held her even tighter.
One second. 
Minuette had only experienced this once before, back when she was a filly. It had frightened her to no end at the time, but she had survived it, and when it was over, she had ended up having loads of fun. 
Of course, back then it hadn’t hurt nearly this much, which meant that this event was far beyond what she had experienced.
“Minuette!” Minuette’s vision cleared and feeling came back into her body. Berry was shaking in panic. “Collie! Are you okay? Please be okay!”
“That’s…” Minuette coughed a few times as her voice struggled to come back. She leaned forward and kissed her wife on the cheek really quick as she waited for her throat to clear. “That’s what you’re worried about?” she teased as she looked around at the nothingness that surrounded them.
Tears were in Berry’s eyes. Without a word, she leaned forward and wrapped Minuette in one of the tightest hugs she had ever felt. She held her there for a full minute, until Minuette finally stroked the Earth pony’s back to let her know she was okay. 
“Don’t you ever do that again,” Berry whispered as she pulled out of the hug, tears staining her face now. 
“Had to, sexy,” Minuette replied. “I didn’t want you to disappear.”
“What?”
“Hang on, I’m going to pop the bubble now. Might be a—” Minuette released the spell surrounding them and they both dropped onto what could only be described as solid white nothingness. Minuette landed on her back, and three-fourths of a second later, Berry landed on top of her. “Bit of a drop.” 
Now that the danger had passed, Minuette was keenly aware that Berry had landed in a rather perfect position on top of her, but Berry didn’t notice. She was too busy looking around at the emptiness that surrounded them. 
“Where…?” she whispered. “What happened?”
“That’s kind of tricky,” Minuette said. Slowly, she reached up and wrapped her forelegs around Berry’s waist, keeping her pressed down. “I’m not exactly sure what caused it, actually, but we’ll be fine in a few hours, at the most.”
“What are you talking about?”
A sheepish grin spread across Minuette’s face. She massaged the small of Berry’s back, trying to imitate the tail trick Aloe had used on the Earth pony for her birthday, but she was nowhere near the masseuse’s skill level. “Let me put this in a way you’ll appreciate,” Minuette said. “Brace yourself, okay?”
“Braced.”
“How do you feel about having sex outside of time?”
	
> "You Naughty Girl."
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Mm…sorry, what did you say?” Minuette asked as she tore her eyes away from Berry’s insane curves.  She looked up and met her wife’s gaze, and the smirk she received told her she was busted.
“Is this what you do to me?” the Earth pony asked. She gestured with her hoof at their surroundings. “You know, when you…stop time.”
The wink Berry gave made Minuette blush. 
“Uh, no, no…” Minuette said as she looked at the ground—or rather, where the ground should have been—trying to gather her thoughts. “All I do there is, um…freeze you, specifically. Or at least the time around you. The rest of time keeps going like nothing happened.”
“Oh, but stuff does happen, you naughty girl,” Berry teased. 
Minuette was pretty sure her face was now matching the shade of her wife’s mane. Once, back when they were still dating, Minuette had asked to try freezing Berry in time. She’d been practicing the spell and knew it was safe, but she had wanted to try something else. As Berry put it, something dirty.
What had ended up happening was Berry getting a full experience in less than two seconds. As Minuette had expected—hoped even—everything that she had done to Berry’s body during the ten minutes had all happened at once from Berry’s point of view. Every kiss, every lick, every bite, and every grind had hit her wife in the time it took a normal pony to blink twice.
Minuette still remembered the look of sheer shock and bliss after Berry’s mind had stopped reeling. While they didn’t do it all the time—Minuette was often left out because Berry was too exhausted to return the favor—it was a neat little trick to use once in a while. 
Minuette shook her head to clear the thought. “Anyway, this isn’t like what I do. To you, I mean.”
“Seeing as I’m still standing and not gasping for breath, I figured as much.”
Minuette swallowed and continued. “This is something different. Time’s being twisted at the moment. Somepony, somewhere, is messing with something they shouldn’t be. As such, here we are, outside of time.”
Berry looked around, making sure she turned her back to Minuette. She stood that way for six seconds, her tail swishing back and forth every other second. She stretched her neck, cracking it to one side as she snuck a glance over her shoulder. She blinked once, keeping her eyes closed a half second longer than normal, and then returned to looking around. 
“You’re saying you broke time this time around?” she asked.
Minuette bit her lip. Berry was keeping her backside to her deliberately. She had also been suggesting that this was Minuette’s fault for the past three minutes and twelve seconds.  
“For the last time, Berry. I didn’t break time. I pulled us out of it!”  The Unicorn raised her voice not because she was angry, but as a way to try and distract herself from the growing sensation that Berry was purposefully denying her. 
“So you ripped out time’s guts?” the Earth pony asked playfully. She made a point to look up at the whiteness above them, and then tapped her hoof on whatever it was they were standing on. The sound was both near and far at the same time, an odd result of being everywhere and nowhere at once. “Sure sounds like breaking it to me.”
“I didn’t—!” Minuette took a deep breath, closing her eyes and breathing through her nostrils. One, two, three, four. She opened her eyes again to find her wife facing her now, grinning seductively. “…You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am. You’ve stranded us in the middle of a white…nothingness. Teasing you is the least I can do.”
Minuette’s shoulders sagged. “You’re lucky I love you…”
“And my flank?” Berry asked, turning to the side so Minuette got a full view of a strawberry and grapes cutie mark. 
“And your flank,” the Unicorn said with a smile. Minuette knew Berry had a certain reputation around Ponyville. Berry knew it too. For most ponies, that was cause to stay away in public. Mineutte herself even got some strange looks when it became known that she was interested in the loose Earth pony, but she didn’t care. She saw Berry for whom she really was underneath the tough, sarcastic shell and drinking: a loving pony who was terrified of being hurt and left alone, so she kept everypony at a distance except her daughter.
It had taken Minuette quite a few tries to get Berry to open up, but once she had, she gave Minuette a sense of belonging that no other pony in Equestria could hope to match.
Of course Berry was amazing in bed too, which helped. And on the couch. And the table. And the floor. And pretty much wherever they could go. Berry’s reputation was something Minuette secretly loved, because it meant that the Earth pony knew exactly where to touch and what to do and when to do it. She had learned the fun way just how many tricks the Earth pony knew, some of which she was pretty sure others had never even heard of.
Tricks she was deliberately withholding right now, much to Minuette’s annoyance. She had thought Berry would jump at the chance to jump her in this place, seeing as they’d be the first two to ever do it here. Plus, it would be a great way to pass the non-existent time while they waited, but for some reason, Berry was playing hard to get.
“Okay, I give,” Minuette sighed. “You were raring to go just four minutes ago when we were on the couch. I mean, my horn is still damp.” She reached up and touched it with her hoof, and sure enough, she could still feel a trace of saliva. “And now we’re someplace no pony has ever been—except for me and maybe one other—and you're locking it down.”
“Yep.”
“Whyyyyy?” Minuette whined. 
“Is Pinchy okay?”
Minuette froze for two seconds. “She should be,” she answered. “You still exist, so she does too. Plus, like I said, time will fix itself. It’s kind of like a rubber band. You can stretch it and twist it all you want, but eventually it was go back to its usual shape. Even if she did disappear, she will show up just like everypony else the millisecond this is resolved. The only reason you and I are hear is because I felt it coming and instead of wandering through the past by myself this time, I wanted some company and you—”
“What?” Berry asked, her eyes suddenly wide.
“Uh…” Minuette wasn’t sure what she had said that stunned her wife so much. “I wanted some company, and you were sitting on my lap, so I—”
“No,” Berry interrupted. “You said you went through the past?”
“Yeah…” Minuette shrugged and crossed her front legs as she stared down. She didn’t really like to talk about her first time here because it had terrified her. “I’ve done this once before. Ended up stuck here, so I thought I’d try something. I ended up going back about a week before time fixed itself.”
“Can you…?” Berry’s lower lip was trembling and her eyes were filling with water. “Can you do it again? Can I go with you?”
Something was wrong. Minuette hadn’t seen Berry this on edge, this close to breaking, in a long time. She swallowed. “If it’s safe, probably…” she offered slowly. “Why?”
“I…I…” Berry swallowed, fighting back tears now as she stood in the white emptiness. “I want…”
Minuette walked forward and wrapped Berry in a hug. Whatever her wife was trying to say was so important that it was choking her. She felt Berry bury her face into her blue fur and return the hug as she silently cried into her neck. 
“It’s okay,” Minuette whispered, stroking the curly mane for seven seconds before gently raising her wife’s chin with her hoof. “Just think of where you want to go, and I’ll get us there.”
“Thanks, babe,” Berry whispered, wiping the tears from her eyes, although her lips were still shaking. “I promise I’ll play with your horn for an hour after this.”
Minuette’s knees almost gave out as the image flashed in her mind. “Uh…okay. A-Anyway, focus on where you want to go. Oh, and close your eyes. I found that it helps.”
“Got it.” Berry closed her eyes and Minuette put her forehead against hers. 
“This might feel a bit weird, but trust me.”
“Of course.”
Minuette smiled as she closed her eyes too. She focused her magic on Berry’s mind, tying it to the nothingness around them. As she did, the image of a river began to form in her own mind. 
Ahead, the river was a wild beast, crashing violently against jagged rocks and threatening to tear the two ponies apart. Something terrible was happening in the future it seemed, and Minuette quickly tore her thoughts from it less it accidently pull them in.
Behind, the river was still turbulent, but not nearly as bad. Small rapids filled the water, and one part appeared to forming a sort of whirlpool. Was that the focal point of this whole thing? It didn’t look too far in the past, which meant that whatever was causing it would be resolved soon. She would have to hurry if she wanted to help her wife. 
Minuette found herself being pulled up the river. The feeling of water washed over her, but she knew she was perfectly dry. Her lungs threatened to scream for air, but they were constantly filling with it. She wondered if Berry was experiencing the same feelings, or if it was just herself since she was the one guiding them. 
Minuette found herself and her wife slowly heading toward the whirlpool. They weren’t on a direct course for it, but the Unicorn could feel the pull of their destination somewhere near it. She would have to make sure she didn’t crash and the two of them got sucked in. Otherwise, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get them back out in time.
Careful, the Unicorn thought as she steered them. Time was out of place here for her, and it was making her dizzy. The whirlpool had been over fifteen years away three seconds ago, and now it was right next to them a lifetime later. Fearing they were in danger of falling in, she doubled down on her magic and tugged harder at the memory in Berry’s mind.
They began to drift past the whirlpool an eternity later. Thankful that whenever Berry wanted to go was apparently behind the swirling time pool, the Unicorn relaxed a little and—
Something shot out of the whirlpool like an arrow. Minuette saw two purple beings, one smaller than the other, go whipping down the river, their screams echoing in the Unicorn’s head. 
Twilight? Spike?
Minuette lost control of the magic. She and Berry began to sink toward the whirlpool. Panic overtook her then as her lungs filled with imaginary water and her body threatened to freeze in non-existing currents. Desperate, she spied a single rock that suddenly jutted out of the water. Clasping Berry, she reached for it as the whirlpool pulled them into its grasp.
Almost…got…
“It!” Minuette suddenly found herself face down on real floor, her foreleg outstretched in an attempt to reach a rock that had never really been there. She shook herself, both to clear her head and because her body still felt like it was covered in water, and looked up. They appeared to be in some sort of locker room or something. 
“Berry?” Minuette asked as she picked herself up. “You okay? That was really close.”
“What was?” her wife asked. “One second we were hanging out in that white space, and the next second, we were here.”
“Answers that question then,” Minuette mumbled to herself. Apparently Berry hadn’t experienced any of the time travel oddities. “Anyway, sorry if this isn’t where you wanted—”
“Paging Doctor Homestead,” a voice suddenly announced over an intercom. “Doctor Homestead to patient room five please.”
Minuette made a face as she looked at the intercom speaker. “A hospital? That’s where we ended up? Shoot. I’m really sorry, honey. Give me a three minutes and I should be…able…to…Berry?”
Berry had gone as stiff as a board and the color had drained from her face and was threatening to seep out of the rest of her body. Horrified that some unexpected side effect was taking hold of her, Minuette rushed to her side and began to shake her as she frantically called her name. 
“We’re…” Berry mumbled after forty-four agonizing seconds. “It’s…I…Collie? Collie, we’re here.” Tears streamed from Berry’s eyes and she collapsed on the floor, Minuette down at her side two miliseconds later. 
“Berry!” the Unicorn cried. Was she time sick? Was that even a thing? Had pulling her through time somehow threatened her very existence? There were some many things about time magic that Minuette still didn’t understand, and her mind was threatening to drown her with questions as she clung to her wife. She’d never forgive herself if something happened to Berry because of her. How would she explain it to their daughter that one of her moms was never coming home again because of something the other one had done? “Berry, please! You have to…I don’t know what to do without you! Don’t leave me!”
“Celestia help me,” the Earth pony whispered. “I…I can’t. Not again.” The mare looked up and her eyes seemed to finally see Minuette again. “Collie?”
“Berry, are you okay? Don’t worry, I’ll get us out of—” Minuette stopped when Berry put a trembling hoof on her shoulder. 
“No.” Slowly, with Minuette’s help, Berry rose to her hooves. “Collie, I’m…I don’t think I can do this alone. But…we can’t leave. Not yet. Please…”
“Are…” Color was coming back into Berry’s face now, but her eyes still looked like a pony on the edge of shock. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” The Earth pony blinked several times, forcing her eyes back to some semblance of normal. “But…you’re going to have to help me, okay?” Berry smiled, a forced smile that told Minuette that she was far from okay. “Babe?”
“Anything,” Minuette pleaded, the terror in her chest barely being held back by the sight of her wife standing up. “Name it and it’s done!”
“Just…” Berry looked at her in a way that made the Unicorn want to wrap her up in an embrace and never let go, but terrified her into stillness as well. “Just…we need to change. Grab…some outfits out of those lockers.”
Minuette nodded and pulled out two sets of clothes. She floated one over to Berry and began to slip into her own. “What are we doing?”
“We need…” Berry stopped and swallowed, choking back tears. “I need to go look around.”
	
> Heeelloooo Nurse
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	To say that Berry looked sultry in her nurse outfit would be an understatement. Minuette had simply grabbed two available garments from the locker room and tossed one to her wife without checking its size. As a result, the white button-up shirt with red crosses on the short sleeves was stretched to its breaking point on the Earth pony. Berry’s curvy body looked as though it was about to bust out of it at any moment, the juicy hips squishing seductively around the edges of the outfit. She had been forced to leave the top three buttons undone because the shirt simply wouldn’t close. 
Even other ponies in the hospital were taking notice of her. Some just stopped and stared, mouths hanging open, while others did double takes and risked crashing into the nearest wall or cart. 
In short, Minuette’s wife looked more like she should be popping out of a birthday cake instead of walking down hospital hallways. And Berry should have been grinning ear to ear about the whole thing while she deliberately tried to embarrass Minuette, and Minuette should have been bright red but secretly loving the whole display. 
But right now, Minuette wasn’t noticing the same things about Berry that all the other ponies were. She wasn’t staring at the tight outfit or luscious curves. She was noticing that Berry’s steps were quicker by over a second per step. She turned her head every four seconds on the dot, looking up and down the walls and hallways, but never really seeing anything. The dip and sway in her hips was cut down from three seconds to less than half a second, and her ears twitched every other moment as if a small bug was flying near them. 
Something was seriously stressing Minuette’s wife out. Everything about the Earth pony was off, every movement faster than normal. Minuette had seen her like this only a few times, and most of them involved Pinchy to some degree. 
But Pinchy’s not here, Minuette thought with a frown. It wasn’t possible. They had gone back, past the point of Pinchy’s birth. So whatever was eating at Berry couldn’t be her daughter. So what was it? As far as Minuette knew, no other pony besides herself and their daughter drove Berry to this state. 
Asking the mare was out of the question. Minuette had tried five times while the two of them had gotten dressed—Berry in her nurse’s outfit and Minuette in her doctor’s outfit—but Berry had refused to say anything. She had just asked Minuette to follow her, tears swelling in her eyes, and so the Unicorn had done what was asked of her. 
Minuette was still chewing over possibilities in her head when Berry suddenly stopped as if she had walked into a wall. Minuette’s face slammed into the Earth pony’s wavy tail. The hair filled her mouth for a moment and she instantly pulled her face out of it, trying to clear her tongue with her mouth. 
“Berry?” she asked, but her wife didn’t turn around. She was frozen in place, her gaze locked on something further down the hall. Curious, Minuette slowly edge up next to her, keeping her blue eyes on Berry’s face. When she stood shoulder to shoulder with her, she followed her gaze down the hall. 
Two ponies were walking toward them. One of them was a stallion, and he looked as though he was barely holding himself together.  His wavy brown mane was a mess, and the beard on his face was clearly not there by choice. He had a strained smile on his face as he looked down at the filly walking slightly in front of him. 
The filly was small, smaller that Pinchy would be now. Her face was a swirl of anguish and confusion, but she still wore a smile. She looked over her shoulder at the stallion following her, and Minuette noticed that her dark raspberry mane was tied back in two pigtails. She said something to the pony behind her as they continued to walk down the hall. 
As they drew closer, Minuette noted that the little filly didn’t have a cutie mark on her plum purple coat. And as she looked at the stallion, a strange sensation came over her. She felt like she recognized this pony, or at least she had seen him somewhere. 
“We’ll come back tomorrow, okay?” the stallion said to the filly as the two drew closer. “You heard what the doctors said. She needs rest.” The two ponies reached Minuette and Berry and the stallion looked up at them. “Oh, excuse us.” 
“No problem…” Minuette said as she stared at the stallion. Frustrated that she couldn’t place where she knew this pony from, she looked down at the small filly before her. Two fuchsia eyes looked up at her and the little mare smiled for a moment, but then she and her apparent father continued walking along. 
“Berry…?” Minuette’s blood ran cold as she watched the pair go. It was the eyes. The eyes made everything fall into place. She had seen that stallion before, in a picture. And he had been standing next to the little filly with him, as well as a third pony. “Where are we?” 
Berry was shaking now, her body trembling so fiercely that Minuette worried she would shake herself out of time. But the mare didn’t answer her wife’s question. Instead, she forced herself to move forward, taking one step at a time as she drew closer to a room at the end of the hallway. 
Minuette caught up with her in two seconds. They reached the door together, and Minuette was fairly certain she knew who was on the other side of it. One look at her wife’s face—a torrent of emotions that Minuette couldn’t begin to name—was all it took for her to be certain. 
The two ponies stood at the door for three minutes and fourteen seconds, Berry staring at the knob like it was a poisonous snake and Minuette unsure of what she should do. Finally, the Unicorn forced her mouth to speak.
“Um…why don’t you wear your mane like that anymore?” Berry didn’t answer. She didn’t even seem to realize Minuette was standing next to her, much less speaking. “Too messy? I mean, your mane’s pretty wavy now, and it looks like it was a swirling typhoon when you were younger, so I bet bunching it up like that made it really hard to…”
Minuette trailed off, fighting the growing panic in her chest and tears in her eyes. Her wife was drowning in her mind, and if she didn’t reach out a hoof, there was a chance Berry would crumple into something that Minuette wasn’t sure she’d be able to save her from. 
“Berry?” Minuette touched Berry’s chin with her hoof and gently turned her wife’s head so they could look at each other. “Hey, babe,” she whispered, struggling to keep her voice in check, “listen to me. We…you don’t have to do this. I…I know you don’t like to talk about this, so we can leave. I can pull us out right now, send us back, and we…we can try again.”
Berry’s eyes finally focused on the pony in front of her. “You…can do that?” 
Minuette wanted to say yes. She saw the longing in her wife’s perfect face, marred by grief that was climbing out of the darkest part of Berry’s soul. She wanted to banish that pain back to the abyss, no matter the cost. She would have gone to the ends of…everything if it would prove to be enough, but she knew that lying would only warp the grief into something much worse.
“I…can try.” So Minuette compromised instead. She didn’t want to dash Berry’s hopes, but she didn’t want to raise them so they could fall from a higher place. “But whatever’s causing time to twist is starting to diminish. If we leave now and get back to that voidy place, I might be able to push us further back.”
“Might?”
Minuette’s ears drooped and her eyes found Berry’s legs. “Yes. I…” She swallowed, almost too afraid to force the next words out because of what they meant. “The magic I need to travel like this is fading. Once it’s gone, we’ll snap back to our own time if we’re in the void. And I can’t promise that, if we do go back now, there will be enough magic left for me to even try a second time. We might just end up waiting to be shove back to our time.”
For two painful minutes, Berry remained silent and Minuette dared not raise her eyes from the floor. 
“So, we either risk this chance for a better opportunity,” Berry finally said, a bit of strength returning to her voice, “or I take what you gave me?”
Minuette winched at the mention of herself. “Uh-huh.”
“Tell me, Collie. One thousand percent truthful. What are the odds you could take us to another time?”
Minuette stilllooked at the floor as she focused her mind. She could feel the time magic slowly receding. When she had first felt it, it was as if she had fallen into the deep end of a pool. Now, if she stretched her legs, she could just barely touch the bottom and keep her head up. The magic was bleeding away at a slow but steady pace. If they stayed here, they probably had a few hours at most.
But if they moved, if they shifted the magic again, it would go away faster, like water being splashed out of the pool. If it was just Minuette, she figured she’d be all right. She kind of knew how to move through time, but Berry was another story. The two of them would cause a huge ripple, and after it settled, Minuette wasn’t certain there would be enough magic left. 
“I would say…thirty-two percent chance,” Minuette whispered. “At best. Probably less.” She hated herself for giving those numbers. She wanted them to be higher. She wanted to tell Berry that they could go anywhere she wanted without worry, but she couldn’t. She dared not risk taking this chance away from the Earth pony, even if it was a horrible chance. 
I’m making her choose between the worst time in her life, and a lifetime of regret. What kind of monster am I? 
The thought threatened to rip Minuette’s mind to shreds, and the Unicorn felt her knees begin to give out. Then a single hoof lifted her head and she found herself wrapped in a hug and pressed against the body she loved. 
“I’ve never been a good gambler, Collie,” Berry whispered as she buried her face in Minuette’s neck. “Drink my flank off, sure, but my luck’s shit. Landing you and Pinchy are the only times I’ve ever been lucky.”
“Flatterer,” Minuette choked as she squeezed her wife.
“Just…promise me you’ll help. With…what comes next.”
Minuette felt a tear leave her blue eyes. “Of course,” she replied, and then the mares pulled apart. Minuette brushed her doctor’s coat a few times with her front hoof to straighten it, then used her magic to adjust the little nurse’s hat on Berry’s head. Finally, she turned to the door in front of them. “Do you want to open it?”
“I…” Berry took a deep breath through her nose and closed her eyes. “You do it. I’ll follow.”
“Enjoy the view,” Minuette said, swishing her tail in Berry’s face as she stepped forward.
“Not as good as mine,” her wife countered, and Minuette smiled. At least Berry was trying to put on a brave face. Whether or not she’d be able to hold it once they entered the room was another story. 
Minuette wrapped the doorknob in her magic and turned it, then slowly pulled the door open. She took a breath and walked into the room as quietly as she could, thinking the patient might be asleep. 
The room was a typical hospital room in every way. Sterile white walls and floor mixed with the soft blues of blankets, beds, and curtains. A single window provided a nice view of the lawn outside and let in comforting sunlight. A vase on a bedside table was filled to bursting with flowers, giving a vibrant splash of color to the whole place. 
And on the bed lay a pony that Minuette had only ever seen in pictures. She recognized her immediately, mostly due to the fact that she had recognized the two visitors they had passed in the hall, but also because she had caught Berry looking at her pictures quietly from time to time. The Unicorn had never pried too deeply whenever she’d seen Berry looking at the mare’s photos. She usually just ended up sitting next to her in silence, listening to the few things that Berry would say about each one. 
The mare in the bed was the same mare from the photos, but she looked frail. Her dark pink coat, only a few shades different from Berry’s, was faded in color. The shine was gone, likely a result of having to stay in bed for longer and longer periods of time. Her muscles were withered, making her body look like it was almost a skeleton with flesh and fur stretched over it. Her mane—Minuette recognized Berry’s signature waves and curls in it—was thinning, and what should have been a blaze of reds and purples was instead closer to dying embers
Two green eyes—Pinchy’s eyes—slowly opened and turned to look at Minuette as she entered. A smile appeared on the mare’s face then, and while she still looked like a ghost, life seemed to ooze into her body with the gesture. 
Just how close to the end did we come?
“Hello, doctor,” the mare said. Her voice was smoother than any wine Berry had ever made, and Minuette marveled at how strong it was despite the state of the pony it came from. “I...don’t think I’ve seen you before. But if I have, I’m sorry for forgetting you.” The mare closed her eyes and smiled to herself. It was a long time before she opened them again. “I’m afraid it’s getting harder for me to…remember things. I’m so tired, you see…”
Minuette swallowed the lump that had grown to the size of an orange in her throat. “That’s…quite alright, Mrs. Punch. My name is—”
The mare waved a hoof—weakly, but Minuette saw a hint of Berry in the gesture—and shook her head. “I’m too tired to…be so formal. Call me Sangria.”
“Very well,” Minuette said. She took three seconds to taste the name on her tongue. It was one she had never heard spoken outside of her wife’s weakest moments. “Sangria.” 
“Mm…” Sangria closed her eyes and nestled herself against her pillows. “Sounds…spicy when you say it.” Her green eyes opened again. “So what can I do for you, Doctor…?”
“Ah, of course!” Minuette said to stall for time. “Colgate. Doctor R. Colgate.” 
“Colgate?” Sangria asked. “Any…any relation to the Colgate family in Canterlot?”
Minuette bit her lip. She knew she shouldn’t have used her real name, but she had panicked and it had just popped in. “Yes. Distant relation though.” 
“Hm…so, as I was saying, what can I…?” Sangria trailed off as her green eyes looked past Minuette. The Unicorn turned her head to follow the pony’s gaze and saw Berry standing behind her. 
Minuette had seen Berry hit some low points in her life, some of them more frightening than others. The first time had been when they had first screwed each other—Berry had been beyond insistent on using that term to describe it at the time. To Minuette, it had been a special moment, but to Berry it had just been another mare to grind until she was satisfied and passed out drunk—or at least, it should have been. But something had broken in Berry that time; Minuette had shattered something in her, and the experience had left the Earth pony as a heap of raw emotions, weeping in the bed, yelling at Minuette to get out one moment, then pleading with her to stay the next. It had gone on for over an hour, and had only ended when Berry had curled up and fallen asleep, whispering that she wanted the Unicorn to stay, but wouldn’t be angry if she was gone when she woke up.
There had been a few other times when Berry had broken down, sometimes involving Pinchy, others involving gossip around town, but Minuette had always remembered that first instance because she had never seen a pony more utterly destroyed than Berry had been at that moment. 
But now Minuette realized that there was a level of Berry’s anguish that she had never thought physically possible. The mare that had caused Minuette to climax so hard that she had pulled a hind leg muscle and then had curled up into a sobbing ball on the bed seconds later looked like a pillar of strength compared to the Berry that stood behind Minuette now.
Berry’s pupils had grown so large that her eyes were nearly black.  The smile on her face was too tight, stretching the veins in her neck so they looked like wires jutting out of her body. Her face looked worse that Sangrai’s, the skin pulled in so many direction that Minuette swore she could hear it ripping. Her nostrils were closing and opening too fast, almost as if they were eyelids trying to blink away dust. Her tongue was skipping behind her teeth, lunging at them like an animal behind a white cage. Her body shook as if she was freezing to death, but sweat poured from her like a pony trapped on Princess Celestia’s sun, staining her white nurse outfit. 
One push. One tap. One simple breeze would be all it would take to scatter Berry to the four corners of Equestria. She looked as if her body was coming apart on a level so small that science had not found a name for it, and it was taking all of her strength simply to remain present and tangible.
“Heeelloooo nurse,” Sangria said, a hint of fire in her voice, “…Who is…your luscious companion, Doctor Colgate?”
“Yes,” Minuette said, not completely registering the actual words Sangria spoke. She was terrified to look away from her wife, fearing that she might vanish if she did, but she forced herself to look back at the pony in the bed. “This is Nurse…”
“Noir,” Berry said in a voice that cracked in a thousand different ways. “Pinot Noir, ma’am.”
“A favorite…of mine,” Sangria said. She waved Berry forward, and Minuette watched her wife carefully put one hoof in front of the other until she stood side-by-side with Minuette. “Do you…think you could turn around…for me?”
Berry didn’t say anything. Instead, she turned around in a slow circle, showing off her body and taking care not to brush Minuette’s chin with her tail as she did. When she finished, she faced Sangria again. “Like that?”
“Very…nice,” Sangria said. She leaned back in her bed and closed her eyes again. While it was only for two-dozen seconds, it seemed like a day passed before she spoke again. “Tell me, Noir…”
Minuette and Berry waited with baited breath, but when Sangria didn’t finish her sentence, Berry prompted, “Yes?”
“Sorry,” Sangria said with a small smile. “Perhaps the Doctor…would be a better pony to ask.”
Minuette swallowed. She ran a dental clinic back in Ponyville, so she was sort of familiar with basic medical stuff. But she was a far cry from a doctor, or even a nurse. If Sangria asked for anything specific, they were going to be in trouble. 
“Go ahead,” Minuette offered, bracing herself for the worst. 
“Could you tell me…” Sangria locked her eyes with Minuette and a familiar smile—the smile Berry used when she was up to something naughty—crossed her pale face. “Does Noir there…taste as good as she looks?”
Minuette felt her jaw drop and she heard a gasp. Whether it was hers or Berry’s, she couldn’t tell. Maybe it came from both of them. 
	
> Breaking A Promise
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Moth—” Berry caught herself and cleared her throat. “Sangria, that’s not exactly an appropriate question, is it?”
Minuette cocked her head as she stared at her wife. She wasn’t sure what was more shocking now; Sangria’s question, or the fact that Berry was scolding another pony for making a dirty joke. 
Sangria pouted and slouched back in her bed. “For a pony who looks like you, you’re not very fun, are you?”
“Excuse me?” Berry asked, taking a step forward instantly. “I’m loads of fun! Isn’t that right, Collie?” She turned and looked at Minuette, her face twisted into a scowl. 
“Er…” Minuette tugged at her coat and cleared her throat. “What Miss Noir does on her free time is not really up for me to say.”
Berry’s face fell, but then her eyes went wide as she realized how close she had come to blowing their cover. “Uh, right. My apologies, Doctor.” 
“Fine,” Sangria said with a sigh. She closed her eyes and for a moment, Minuette thought she had fallen asleep. She looked so frail in the hospital bed, and just asking the question appeared to have taken a toll on her. 
But just when Minuette was about to ask if she was still awake, the pony slowly opened her eyes. “So…what brings you two here?”
Minuette’s mind went blank. Sangria had been in control of the conversation since the moment they had entered the room, despite her frail body. Minuette had been so caught up in answering her questions and worrying about her wife’s reaction that she hadn’t thought of a good cover story. 
“Doctor Colgate and I are simply walking,” Berry said after a full twenty seconds. “This room was next on our…rounds?” Berry looked at Minuette as she spoke and Minuette nodded. “Yeah, rounds.” 
“Wish…you’d been my nurse…before,” Sangria whispered with a weak smile. “I bet…just seeing you makes a lot of ponies happy. Did you happen to see my husband and little girl out there?”
“Yes,” Berry answered, her body going stiff. 
“Passed them on the way here,” Minuette added, glancing at her wife’s rigid form.
“Did you now?” Sangria asked, a smirk forming on her face. She closed her eyes and nodded just a bit. She opened her eyes once more, taking twice as long as before. 
“You have a very cute daughter,” Minuette added. “The pigtails are adorable.” 
“Mm…I don’t think she’ll keep them much longer though.” Sangria looked at Berry. “Gets too tangled with a mane like that, right?” 
Berry bit her lip to stop it from quivering. She blinked several times, but her voice never came. Instead, she just nodded. 
Minuette inhaled sharply as an odd sensation pricked the back of her neck. She reached up and rubbed it, thinking that it was nothing more than a bug-bite, but as she did, she felt the tingling creeping into her hooves. Two seconds later, her nose started to itch, and a second after that, a sneeze escaped her body.
As she closed her eyes from the sneeze, time froze for her. It only lasted for the length of a blink, but she felt the familiar disturbance wash over her. Afraid she had just been ripped from Berry and Sangria, she flung her eyes open, but was relieved to see that she was still in the hospital room with them. 
“Are you all right, Doctor?” Sangria asked. 
“Yeah,” Berry added, the terror on her face saying what she could not.
Minuette scrunched her nose a few times. “Yes, I’m fine. Just a little—achoo!”
This time, Minuette grabbed onto the time stop with all her might. She didn’t open her eyes, but she could tell that she had caught herself in its effects this time. 
“Not…now!” she said through gritted teeth. She channeled magic through her body and forced it outward, trying to stabilize time around herself. If she could find a way to do it, then they could stay a bit longer and talk to—
“I…I don’t want to lose another Mom…”
Pinchy’s words tore thought Minuette mind with such clarity that she screamed. Her eyes flew open and she gasped for air, only to find herself standing in the hospital room once again, two very concerned mares staring at her. 
“Doctor?” Sangria asked, strength returning to her body for a few moments as she sat up in her bed. 
Minuette’s blue eyes darted between the two ponies looking at her. It was unnerving in a way, because the faster she looked between them, the more their faces looked alike. 
“Collie…?” Berry asked, tears running down her face. She wiped them away quickly, but Minuette saw Sangria turn to her with a worried look. “Is it…time?”
“No,” Minuette said. She looked down at her front hooves, the tingling sensation slowly spreading up her forelegs. This wasn’t like before with Berry on the couch. This was different. This was something pulling her somewhere, like a current, instead of a wave crashing over her. 
Pinchy’s in trouble!
As the thought formed in Minuette mind, the sensation of being pulled grew stronger. She had to anchor herself in the room mentally to keep from vanishing.
She looked up at her wife and the frail pony she had been robbed off much too early in life. This was going to be the only chance Berry would get to see her again. The only chance she would get to say things she had never gotten a chance to say, or tell her all about her life, or just sit and talk about nothing like they should have been able to when the Earth pony was young.
And Minuette knew Berry would throw all of that away in a heartbeat for Pinchy. 
So Minuette decided she needed to break her promise to Berry. 
“Um…Nurse Noir?” she said. “May I have a word with you?”
“Sure, Doctor…” Berry replied with a look. She looked back at Sangria for a moment, and then walked out of the room. 
“Excuse us for just a moment, please,” Minuette said with a forced smile. She then followed Berry out of the room and closed the door behind them.  She didn’t even get a chance to turn around before her Earth pony was in her face.
“You have to make this last longer!” Berry almost shouted her demand in Minuette’s face. “Please, Collie! I…I haven’t…I just need more time!”
Minuette reached out and wrapped her wife in the tightest hug she could manage. “Of course,” she whispered as she inhaled the mare’s scent. She knew Berry’s limit for public hugging was no more than five seconds—real, emotional hugs like this one—but she held her close for an extra three before finally pulling away.
And immediately regretted the extension. 
“What’s wrong?” Berry said as her raspberry-shaded eyes glared at Minuette. 
“Nothing…?” Minuette tried to worm her way out of Berry’s gaze, but she had no where to go. The door was right behind her, and all that was in front of her was Berry’s form struggling not to burst out of her nurse’s outfit. 
“You’re lying,” Berry said darkly. “You only do that when something serious is bothering you.”
Minuette took a deep breath through her nose.  “I have to leave for a bit.”
The color drained from Berry’s face and Minuette had to lean forward to stop her from collapsing. 
“But…” the Earth pony whispered as she steadied herself on Minuette’s shoulder. “You…I can’t…Collie, I need you here! Please!”
“Berry, I have to go and fix something in the time stream. And” Minuette put her hoof on her wife’s mouth to stop her from protesting “if I do this, it should give you more time with her.”
Minuette could see the gears turning in her wife’s mind. It took her a full minute before she finally sighed and nodded. “You’ll be back, right? I…I want to…I want her to know you.”
Minuette smiled in an effort to keep a tear from her blue eye. “Of course. And if I do this right, I’ll only be gone for a few minutes. After all, I’m a pro at this time stuff. Kind of.” 
“I’m holding you to that.”
Minuette stepped aside and Berry went toward the door. She pushed it open a bit before Minuette whipped the Earth pony’s plump flank with her tail. 
“Besides, I’m not about to leave that stranded in the past where I can’t get it.”
Beryy shot the Unicorn a look that made her weak in all four of her knees. “True. You’d go insane without it.”
With that, Berry went back into the room and closed the door. Minuette counted to six before she looked around. The hallway she was standing in was completely deserted. Confident that no pony would see what was about to happen, she took a deep breath and opened her body to the strange magic that had been tugging at her moments before. 
At first there was nothing, not even darkness, but a moment later Minuette heard in her mind that familiar sound of a gushing river. Her eyes snapped open and she found herself engulfed in the rushing, thrashing tides of the familiar stream of time. Panic threatened to overtake her once more, but she knew she had a lifetime to calm her nerves, and she immediately found herself casually treading water. Without having to worry about Berry, she found navigating the strange disturbance much easier. 
Where do I go?
“Leave Mom alone!” 
Pinchy! 
The filly’s terrified and defiant voice screeched through the vastness. It was as bright as Princess Celestia raising the sun on clear morning, and it drowned the area in a darkness that shamed Princess Luna’s night. It warped the river around the Unicorn, flipping it over her heard before making it crash down on her left side. 
Another whirlpool opened to Minuette’s right. A pillar of light lanced out of it, the same shade of pink as her daughter’s coat, and the Unicorn wasted no time. She swam, flew, and fell toward the whirlpool as fast as the distortion allowed her to. She reached out for it with her hoof and barely managed to touch it—
Minuette screamed in pain. Something was biting into her neck. No, something was tearing into her neck. It ripped through her fur and she felt it gouge into her flesh and then sink into her blood. She screamed even louder and then countless more things dug into her flesh just below to original points. She had the brief sensation of fluid pouring, and even being sucked, out of her gaping neck wound as she screamed, writhing in the dirt—
Dirt? 
As soon as the thought crossed her mind, the pain in her neck vanished. Minuette’s blue eyes snapped open and she gasped for breath, her throat raw from screaming. It took her a long time—she didn’t know how long exactly, and that unnerved her—before her brain was stable enough to begin figuring out where she was. 
“The Everfree Forest…?” she whispered as she looked around. Why in Princess Celestia’s good name would Pinchy be here? Minuette, and especially Berry, had told her time and time again never to venture into this place without at least one of them, and yet she was positive that she was now laying in its murky depths. 
Oh, she is getting such a talking to when I find her! 
Confused, Minuette started to stand and then something akin to a hammer slammed into her mind. She gasped, just as much from shock as from pain, as memories flooded into her crowded mind. 
Changelings. Attacking Canterlot. Trapped. Berry and Pinchy have to escape. Do something! Draw them away!
Pieces of thoughts plunged into the Unicorn’s mind, driving her back to the ground. She gritted her teeth, silently begging for it all to stop, but it kept coming.
Run! It’s working! Berry! Protect her! Dead end! No! Tell me they got away! No, no, stay back! STAY BA—!
The pain in her neck flashed again, this time more like a dull ember than a searing flame, and Minuette realized what she had just gone through. 
For three and a half minutes, she lay in the dirt, shivering in the comforting darkness of the cursed forest. What had happened in this timeline? How had the Changelings managed to invade Canterlot? How had they managed to defeat both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna? How had any of this come—?
A scream of pain echoed through the forest, along with what sounded like miniature fireworks. Minuette turned her head in the direction and saw flashes of light in the distance. A moment later, she saw a dazzling green light that she recognized all too well as Changeling magic, and then she heard a sound that drove every other thought from her mind:
Pinchy’s terrified squeaking. 
Minuette was on her hooves and running before her heart had a chance to pump the blood she needed to move. She tore through the forest toward the lights. As they grew brighter, a single thought slowly burned in her mind:
Death. 
She was coming, and whatever was frightening her precious daughter was going to experience death in ways that, until just moments ago, Minuette didn’t think were possible.