I didn’t want Pinkie to say anything to anypony about this. Nopony else knew and I hadn’t told my friends yet, but one by one, they all called me a few days apart just to see how I was doing. They knew. They were just trying to make me feel better.
It never worked.
How could I be any more worthless? I had one job: eat enough, sleep enough, exercise enough, and I did it. I flew and walked every day, I made sure I was eating more than enough for the both of us, and I slept all the time. There shouldn’t have been a problem. It should’ve been fine. Everything should’ve gone smoothly. And yet…
I didn’t leave the house for months. I didn’t want to see anypony. I didn’t want to interact with anypony because the moment I did, I’d think about it, I’d think about him, and I’d break down and cry again. Looking at Prism made me cry. Looking at Soarin made me cry. Looking at foals and ponies in general made me think of what could’ve been, and I’d cry.
Why did it hurt so much? Everything was just so… so devoid of feeling. I couldn’t understand it. It didn’t make any sense. I was an athlete. Nopony was in better shape than I was, nopony was as healthy as I was save for the weight thing... Was that why? Was I still too light? Was I not eating enough? Had he starved in there, and I hadn’t known because I couldn’t tell?
How could I have known!? It’s not like he could tell me! What did I do? Why weren’t there any answers? What went wrong? I didn’t understand. I just couldn’t understand. Was this karma? A punishment from the Goddess? Couldn’t somepony, anypony, tell me what went wrong?
The doctors said this was normal. The doctors said mares slipped all the time. But this wasn’t normal, this wasn’t right, this wasn’t fair! He was supposed to be my baby! There had to be a reason! It couldn’t have been an accident or something, right? Right? Right…?
Why me? Why him?
Whether or not I wanted it to, life moved on and dragged me along with it. Prism got bigger every day, he got stronger every day, and got just another day further away from what could’ve been his little brother. I know I couldn’t mope like this forever. I still had to be his mom, and I still had to be Soarin’s wife. I couldn’t keep being sad like this all the time, but how could I ever… just… get over it?
Was I supposed to? Was I doing this right? Good Goddess, what if something happened to Prism too? My heart couldn’t take that! Why would you think that, you stupid, dumb bitch! Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it—
“Rainbow Dash!”
Mom had grabbed my hoof to keep me from banging my head.
I tried to look her in those disappointed eyes. Not a chance. My head turned down, ears flattened against my skull. I bit deep into my lip. I was… so tired of crying.
Mom sat next to me on her couch, breathing slow and steady. On the floor of the house I grew up in, Prism played with blocks. My blocks from a time long past. We were here because I couldn’t do anything right lately. Couldn’t cook, couldn’t clean, couldn’t focus. It was a good thing we’d decided to start feeding him solid food before… before it happened. I barely produced milk now too. Could I do nothing right anymore?
Mom clapped in my face and I flinched. “Rainbow! I’m talking to you.”
Rubbed at my eyes, shook my head. Even reality was slipping through my hooves. “What?”
Mom rubbed at her temples. “One of these days, you’re going to complain about Prism not listening to you, and I am going to laugh, I swear.” She looked me in the eyes, a frown on her face. “Do I have your attention now?”
I leaned back against the couch with a sigh. “Yeah.”
She leaned in close: an assuring hoof on my shoulder, an open wing on my side. “You cannot keep doing this, okay? November is just around the corner. Are you going to spend your birthday crying too?”
I clicked my tongue and rolled my eyes. “I might. Somepony didn’t get a birthday, so what does it matter?”
“Stubborn as your father, I swear.” She scooted closer to me so her flank pressed up against mine. “Look, honey, I know how you feel—”
“You do not!” I growled back. “‘All we need is you, and because we have you, that’s all that matters.’ That’s what you told me! You didn’t have one just to lose another, you have no idea—”
I received a swift pop to the back of the head. “Oww! Why—” Her face told me why: I hadn’t seen my mom so pissed in over a decade.
“I need you to sit there and shut up for a moment, okay, honey!?”
Despite the overwhelming despair I’d been stuck in since that day, old fear ran up my spine. My mouth shut in an instant.
A deep breath first, then, “I only have so much patience for you to chew through. My grandson is on the floor right next to us, and I’d hate to teach him some colorful language. You understand?”
I nodded quietly. “Y-yes ma’am.”
She tried and failed to smile. “Good,” she said through gritted teeth.
Mom smoothed her short orange mane down and took another deep breath. She set her hooves on her lap. Her eyes fell on Prism as he built himself a castle. The colors were all over the place, but the attention to detail was impressive for a sixteen-month-old. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was building the Wonderbolt museum.
“I never wanted you to be an only child.”
Reality crashed back at my door. “You… what?”
Like she couldn’t find the words, Mom’s lips shifted uncomfortably from one shape to another. Eventually, she took a third deep breath. “You were… you weren’t supposed to be the only one. We wanted more. We wanted three in fact, but that… it wasn’t possible.”
What she told me made no sense. Not possible? “What does… what does that mean?”
The multi-color castle grew a few blocks taller before she started again. “Sometimes I wonder: if we dropped you headfirst and a block of lead together, which would make it to the ground first?” She put her elbow on her knee, rested her head on her hoof, stared me down cold.
“Before you, I miscarried twice.”
I almost hit the back of my head on the wall. She what now? Twice? How? Why? “What? You… you never told me about this.”
“True.” Her frown dug itself deeper in her face. “I also never told you that I miscarried again after you were born.”
It was like a block fell, stopping up the gears of my brain. “I’m sorry?”
Mom breathed so heavy, she might’ve made fog were we over the ocean. “Three times. We tried and failed three times to give you, or… somepony who would’ve been... siblings. The doctors told me my womb just wasn’t very hospitable. It was a miracle you lasted in there as long as you did. You were born premature: did you know that?”
“Uh, no.” Why didn’t she tell me this? “I… I was?”
“You were. You and I, my side of the family as a whole, really... we’re not very fertile. We’re lean with small statutes, so we don’t do well in pregnancy.” It was like her voice and her words mismatched each other. One was flat and emotionless, and the other was working to shatter my world. “My family comes from a lengthy line of mostly purebred pegasi, so we have none of the advantages the other races do. Like say: I know a few of your friends have had many foals at this point, even the one with… what, four right now?”
I always thought being the way we were was… part of what made me so fast. Why Dad and I have such unique manes. Pure pegasi were special, right? Maybe that has its own consequences. “Uh, two, actually.” It felt so much more biting to say that now. “Pinkie and Applejack both have four, though Applejack has one newborn this time and Pinkie has two.”
I doubt she meant to show it, but Mom’s ears drooped like a deflated balloon. “I see….” She inhaled and straightened up, wings going stiff. “I’ve always been… jealous of other mares. Especially earth ponies like your friends: how lucky they are to get twins. Two foals for the price of one pregnancy! Eleven months of suffering through mood swings and cramps and strange cravings, and you don’t get just one wonderful little bundle of joy, but two!”
Her gaze fell to the ceiling with a longing for something lost, then slowly found its way back to me. This time, after she’d snapped me out of my anger so I’d pay attention, I could see how hurt she was. She’d kept this to herself for so long… who else even knows she went through all this? Grandma and Grandpa Flare? I know mom has always had friends here, but would she have told them? I know I didn’t exactly tell mine…
“I really did try, Rainbow, but I couldn’t do it. Losing the first one was hard, but I was still young: I could try again; I’d just have to wait a month. Everything was going to be fine. Mares slip all the time. It shouldn’t have been a big deal.
“But that didn’t make it… not hurt. Life begins at the moment of conception. Given the right conditions, any fertilized egg can become a pony one day, and who that pony could be or what they might become is laden with infinite possibilities. I’m sure Princess Twilight’s mother never thought the little baby she had in her would one day become a monarch. I certainly didn’t know my daughter would grow up to save the country a few times and fly five years for the Wonderbolts. To see you soar so high makes it all so much more… upsetting to know that there could’ve been four of you.”
What was I supposed to say? Mom and Dad always tried to smile when I was around but she looked like she was gonna cry, and if she started, I was gonna start, and we’d both become big blubbering messes, and then Prism would join in like last time, and I… I just couldn’t deal with that.
I settled on putting a hoof on her shoulder, “Mom…”
She put her hoof on mine to rub it. A cheap smile flashed my way. “Oh, don’t cry for me, Sweetie. I think you’ve done plenty of that in the last few months.”
I rolled my eyes. She chuckled and rubbed her nose. The tension faded, and we both let our eyes fall on my son. Another block carefully and slowly put into place, the roof growing ever more complete. She continued, “I… felt responsible for it. For losing them. It was painful the first time, but it didn’t seem like the end of the world. When it happened the second time though, that one stung so... so much more. I pray you never have to feel like I did, but… but you’re my daughter. You have my bad reproductive genes. I can’t promise that you won’t.”
She shut her eyes, painful memories flooded back. “I was… just as bad or worse than you are now the second time it happened. I nearly gave up. I didn’t want to try again; I didn’t want to cry again for another pony I’d never get to meet, but… when it came down to it, I just thought… if I can’t have one, then what was all this heartache for? Why should I give up when we’ve gotten so close twice?” Mom tilted her head and scratched at her chin. “Well, I say I thought that. They were actually my father’s words.”
That didn’t quite line up. “Grandpa Flare said that? That sounds kinda—”
“Toned down, free of expletives? Yes, it absolutely is. Maybe you’ve forgotten, but your little prince is building himself a castle.”
Mom motioned to Prism’s grand palace. I had to say, the kid had a knack for shape and style. It resembled the ‘Bolts museum even more now. Three stepped flat roof, the beginning of columns that lined the front of the building and fell into stairs that surrounded the thing and raised it above everything else on a pedestal. If he doesn’t end up a ‘Bolt himself, he could totally be a sky architect.
“So, finally, a pregnancy stuck. That ended up being you. However, it could never be that simple since there were… complications.”
“Like… what?”
Mom scratched at the freckles under her eye. “Like most of my family, I was very thin with a high metabolism to boot. I was never very good at gaining weight in the first place, so lo and behold, you were getting malnourished. To save you, I had to stuff myself ‘till I was sick for a week, and I made sure I kept it down, because if I didn’t, you might not be getting enough of what you needed. All that painstaking eating would’ve been for naught.
“But that was only the beginning. Toward the end, on the last days of October, I had these awful cramps. I thought it was nothing, but by November I saw blood in my pee. I was so close. If I just held out ‘till December, you’d be here, and I’d finally meet one of my children for the first time. But I didn’t have until December. You had to come out, and you had to come out right then.
“I overate too much and you’d gotten bigger than you were supposed to be. Despite everything about us, you’d outgrown my womb already. Why was there blood in my urine? You’d started to crush my kidneys. They sent me to Canterlot so I could deliver and you could be incubated if need be. Luckily, however, you’d developed enough to survive on your own, so we got to take you home the next week.”
I scratched at my mane. Maybe I… shouldn’t be eating as much as I have been… “Oh, geez. That’s awful.”
Mom shrugged. A foreleg and a wing went around to bring me to her. “Maybe, but I’d say you were worth it. We were overjoyed to finally have you. All the trials, all the failures... everything had led up to the first moment of your life, to see you take your first breath. Happiness, love, joy: no matter how many times you say the words, they could never measure up to the pure emotion we felt that day.”
As her story went on, Prism started to finish the columns to the front of the building. No doubt about it; this was the ‘Bolts Museum.
“Time went by. We had your birth under our belts, I recovered, and we prepared to try again.” Mom let her head fall to the side. “I thought I’d be willing to suffer through more failures. I thought that if something went wrong, I could just… chin up and try again next time.”
She closed her eyes. I was hesitant to move because I wasn’t sure if she was about to cry or not. “I was never that strong. The day the last one slipped was the day my will to carry on slipped too. I gave up. I couldn’t take the pain anymore. I didn’t want to suffer through that again.”
In a single motion, she pulled her chin back up and met my eyes. Mother to daughter, the same eyes passed down a generation. “I had you. I at least had you. As long as I had you, you were… all that mattered.”
She shifted herself, put both hooves on my shoulders. “Rainbow, I so wish that you had three other siblings. I wish I’d never slipped, or suffered any of that heartache: we would’ve had a bigger family, a happier childhood for you.” She let out a breath and sniffed. “I just couldn’t do it... so I moved on. It didn’t matter how much I wanted for more of us; it was a miracle I even got you at all. I resolved to be content.
“You, on the other hoof, are still young. You’re fitter than I was, you’re healthier than I was, and more than anything, you are stronger than I ever could be. It’s fair to mourn the loss. It’s fair for you to grieve. But you cannot do this forever. So do me a favor. Do your dad a favor, do your friends a favor, do your husband a favor, do your son a favor, do yourself a favor, and chin up already, alright? If you ever feel up to it, you can still try again. Your world is building himself a little world of his own on the floor, and if you blink, you might just miss it.”
And he certainly was. His castle was complete, and though it lacked for details, it was clearly recognizable as the Wonderbolts museum we visited last week, columns, pedestal stairs and all. Now he was off to another set of blocks, prepping to build something else. My kid was amazing. He was awesome. Already, he’s gonna be somepony special, and it was more than just me who can see that. If… if things had been different, then he might’ve had a rival to grow up with, but that’s just not how it was. I couldn’t help Prism reach the heights he might if I sit around moping about ponies I’ll never know, right?
For the first time… in a long time, I felt my frown break. “Thanks, Mom. I’ll… it’s definitely time to move on.” Remembering future plans made me snort. “We’re supposed to see Grandpa Flare next week anyways. If you didn’t snap me out of this, I bet he would’ve.”
Mom relaxed on the couch and her eyes drifted upward. “And Prism would’ve learned a host of new words. Dad taught you one of your first words, and I was furious with him for weeks on end.”
“Mama!” Prism shouted.
He’d climbed halfway up the couch and used his little wings to push himself the rest of the way up here. Once he made it, he directed our attention to the castle. Instead of building another structure, he’d taken a couple of white blocks and set them up in a Z shape, did the same with a pair of cyan blocks, and then set up two square blocks that were white and cyan just outside his museum.
I scooped him up in my forelegs and scooted onto the floor with him. “That’s great buddy! What’s this?” I pointed to the museum and Prism said,
“Moozem!”
“Huh.” He was intentionally building the museum. From memory, at that. I looked at the beaming little colt, then to Mom.
As if seeing him smile gave her a jumpstart, Mom lit up and got down on the floor with us. “Wow, Prism! That’s impressive! What’s this?” she asked, pointing to the white Z.
Prism hopped out of my lap and glided over to Mom’s. “Dada!”
Again, I sent Mom a look. If… if there are four block ponies here…
“And, this one?” She pointed to the other Z.
“Mama!”
That left the two square blocks. Mom pointed at one of them. “Who’s this?”
“Pree-zem!”
“So this is you, huh? It makes sense; you’re not quite as big as daddy and mommy yet, are ya?” She rubbed his little mane, then pointed to the last block. “What about… this one?”
The last block was a little cyan square, same size as the Prism block. He stared at it for a little while. I almost dreaded what was coming. I had an inclination that I knew what it was, but then turned his big green eyes on me. “Bro-tha!”
Mom picked up the little guy, tilted her head back, and bellowed a sharp, “Ha!” She smiled at her grandson and kissed him on the head. “Everypony was at the museum that day, huh, little guy?”
“Yeah!” He buried himself into her chest and tried his best to grip around her.
Filled with a joy only a parent knew, Mom turned to me and said, “And here I thought you were demanding when you were little! Sixteen months old and he already expects you to deliver on your promises.” She brought a hoof to her mouth and held back a giggle. “My beloved daughter, whatever will you do?”
I picked up that little cyan cube to study it in my hoof. After all the shit Mom went through for me, after all the shit that I gave her about siblings over the years, after all this heartache… Do I even have the right to say no? There’s really only one way out.
I exhaled in defeat. “If he’s saying it, then what choice do I have?”