//------------------------------//
// What's left 
// Story: The day Twilight saved love 
// by TwiwnB 
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“So, is everything in order now?” Twilight asked.

“Yes.” Shining Armor replied.

“I’m really sorry about it all.” Cadance said on her part, still too ashamed to look at Twilight directly.

But Twilight hugged her again, as she had several times since their big battle.

“You are taking this way too seriously.” Twilight told her with a smile. “You were right on almost everything. Love can be very destructive and ponies do make too much of a big deal out of it all. Only the conclusions were a bit hasty: we need to study the magic of love the same way I study the magic of friendship. To know how to handle them, to enjoy the best aspect of them and limit or suppress the worst.”

“I will. I assure you I will.” Cadance said. “And I will write to you about everything I find on the subject.”

Twilight blushed. But she agreed.

Shining Armor decided to let the two mares alone and Cadance took the opportunity to make another confession to Twilight:

“Here is a first report I can make: A few weeks back, I had my first fight with Shining Armor. I can’t even remember what it was about. And then I became very afraid that I might lose him and that’s when I noticed how much a pony could suffer from being in love and how irrational it actually is. The lesson is, I guess, that love is very complex, can hurt a lot, but it’s worth it in the end.”

“There is still a lot to learn, but that’s a very good start.” Twilight replied with a smile.

At this moment, Flash Sentry entered the room and Cadance decided to leave Twilight alone with him.

“I am really sorry for what I took away from you.” She whispered in her ear before disappearing through the door.

Flash approached and sat at a certain distance from Twilight.

“Quite an adventure, wasn’t it?” He innocently asked.

“Yes. And you started it all, didn’t you?”

Flash nodded. But he had merely done his duty as a royal guard.

“Any regret?” Twilight asked.

Flash didn’t reply. He just offered a sad smile.

“You are a hero now. I hear my brother wants to make you a captain and form a new special unit of investigation that you would become the head of.”

Flash still didn’t reply. He couldn’t care less about being a hero, or being at the head of any kind of special unit. He could have been offered the world and still wouldn’t have cared one bit.

“Why don’t you say it?” Twilight asked him.

Flash looked at her and, from the color of her eyes, he knew what she meant.

“Because it wouldn’t make any difference now, would it? I mean, it’s gone, I imagine I will have to spend the rest of my life with that loss.”

They stayed silent for a moment. It had, indeed, been quite an adventure. A very weird one. And somehow an exhausting one.

“I would like to know.” Twilight finally told him. “I’m sorry if it may hurt you, but it is important for me too.”

Flash looked at her again and realized he couldn’t deny that request. In fact, he wanted to say it to her. He got up, went near her and whispered the three words in her ear, which hurt very badly and felt incredibly good at the same time.

“Thanks.” Twilight told him. “I did love you too, I truly did. It was crazy: any time I would think about you, it was like I was melting.”

“That’s pretty much how I feel.” Flash told her.

But there wasn’t much more to be said. They had saved love, at the price of their own.

It was stupid. So incredibly stupid.

Too stupid for Twilight to accept.

“You know…” She began.

She could see Flash’s hope from every single part of his body and soul. She couldn’t back down now that she had begun. And she didn’t want to back down:

“… I can’t make any promise, but… It could help Cadance in her study of love if, well, as a case study, if we were to hang around a bit, if that’s okay with you.”

Flash exulted, hugged her to the point of almost breaking her in two and, in a scream of joy, responded:

“I would love to!”


THE END