Citrus Vanilla dropped the letter to floor, raising her trembling hooves to cover her face. Drop by drop, the tears began to stream down her forelegs, splashing onto the granite kitchen countertop. The pile of envelopes of the rest of the day's mail remained unopened.
"My baby," she cried, her shoulders shaking in restrained despair. "My sweet, precious foal ... in Tartarus!"
"We can appeal," offered Hickory Kindling, hugging her from behind. "It said we can appeal. We've got thirty days. Remember Bullhorn, my lawyer friend from back in Baltimare? I'll talk to him. He can get our Cozy back. Down Chester!" he kicked the family dog away. "Not now."
"She's gone," Citrus wailed. She pulled away from Hickory's embrace. "It was a Royal Decree. The Princesses don't change their minds." She swept the letter up and held it to her chest as if it were her daughter returned to her. "She's burning, now. She's suffering with the disgusting Monsters, and who knows what they're doing to her, and it's all our fault!"
"She's not a Monster," whispered Hickory. He went to the cupboard and pulled out a tall glass bottle.
Citrus glared at him with fire in her eyes. "Sending her to the School of Friendship was supposed to help her. All the doctors agreed, didn't they? 'Send her to Twilight Sparkle' they said. 'Move to Ponyville to be close to her if she needs you' they said. And now look! It made her worse! And now she's ..."
"Maybe dad was right," said Hickory. "Maybe I should have stropped her more. She always laughed when I ... when I ..."
"She needed help!" Citrus screamed, pounding the countertop. "She was sick! Our poor pegasus angel!" She sank to her knees and began biting her foreleg. The dog loped over and sniffed at her as she rocked back and forth.
"Oh honey, don't start," Hickory begged. He gulped the thin brown liquid from the bottle. "It's like you're not here when you do that. I can't deal with this alone." Turning back to the counter, he studied his reflection in the wavering surface of the drink. The house was quiet.
No pony was going to help them, he thought. They had moved only two months ago, and hadn't made friends. It had been impossible, juggling his fireplace restoration business and all the orders for Citrus's candles. No time at all. And Cozy had never been an easy child. Boarding school had seemed like the perfect way to lighten the load.
He took another pull at the bottle. Citrus always took the doctors' view of things. They had pegged Cozy as some kind of loony, like any filly that perfect and sweet could be sick in the head, and said that only way to plant the seeds of empathy was to get her out meeting other colts and fillies her age. So here they were, and look where all that mumbo jumbo had gotten them.
He sighed. What a child needs, he had always been taught, is strict discipline. It had worked fine for him. It seemed he just hadn't done his job, though the stars knew he'd tried. No, no pony was going to help them. They would be shunned after the trouble Cozy had caused. Now there was nothing left for it but to look at the pieces and plan his next move. Try to see even further into the game, and if there was a chance, come out the winner. Or at least stay in control.
The sound of his wife's crying grew louder. Chester began to whine, joining her. Otherwise, the house was quiet.