//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Made Seen // Story: In a Crowd of Thousands // by Godslittleprincess //------------------------------// Twilight and Flash wouldn’t see each other again for another seven days. That day happened to be the day Flash went to the beach with his brother, their dog Banana, his best friend Micro Chips, and First Base’s best friend Button Mash. “Beach party! A-woo-hoo!” Base cheered. Button whooped in agreement while Banana yipped excitedly, the noise causing the two older boys to cringe. “Can you three keep it down until after I park?” Flash scolded. “I’m still driving.” Meanwhile, Twilight was also at the beach with her dog Spike and her friends Sunset Shimmer, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie. The five of them were crammed into Fluttershy’s car as they patiently waited for their cautious friend to park. Their other friends Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity were going to meet up with them much later. Since their car only had Pinkie’s exuberance to deal with, Fluttershy had a far easier time parking than Flash did. “Woohoo!” Pinkie cheered as she and her friends got out of Fluttershy’s car. As soon as Fluttershy opened the trunk of her car, Pinkie gathered her mask, snorkel, flippers, and pink flamingo floatie in her arms and screamed, “To the beach!” racing ahead of her friends towards the water. Her friends simply rolled their eyes and giggled affectionately as they unloaded their beach gear out of the trunk. Flash and his group had also parked and unloaded, and all of them were out on the beach ready for some fun. “Go get it, Banana!” Flash said to the black and white Boston terrier as he tossed a frisbee at First Base. Banana chased after it, but First Base caught the frisbee before he could. “Over here, Banana, over here,” Base goaded, running around with the frisbee in his hands with the dog chasing him before throwing it back to Flash. Banana skidded to a halt on the wet sand, sharply turned, and ran after the frisbee. Just as before, his human caught it before he could and threw it to his other human. “Keep away!” Base cheered, once again running around to let Banana chase him a bit before throwing the frisbee back to Flash. Banana bolted after the frisbee spraying sand everywhere as he did so. Then, he jumped and tackled Flash right in the chest. The terrier struck Flash with just enough momentum to knock the air out of him but not enough to knock him over. Flash quickly recovered and caught Banana in his arms, allowing the frisbee to sail past him. Then, Banana barked happily and started licking Flash all over his face. “Ugh! Banana! Gross!” Flash laughed as he wiped the slobber off his face. “Hey, Base,” Button Mash called, holding up a bucket and a shovel. “Let’s head out and do some digging.” “Sweet!” Base cheered, running up to meet him. “Which one of us is getting buried first?” “We’ll decide when we get there.” “Hold on, guys!” Flash called, running up to the two younger boys. He pulled a small Ziploc bag out of his shorts pocket; inside the bag was an emergency inhaler. “Oh, come on!” Button groaned. “Don’t tell me my mom made you bring that with us. I haven’t had an asthma attack in years.” “Hey, better to have it and not need than need it and not have it,” Flash replied as he was about to hand it off to his brother. First Base reached out to take it, but Flash pulled back before he could. “Don’t lose it,” Flash emphasized. “I won’t,” Base muttered. He reached out to take the inhaler from Flash, but once again, Flash pulled back. “I mean it.” “Bro, okay! Can we go now?” Base snapped. Flash just sighed and finally handed off Button’s inhaler. First Base shoved it into his shorts pocket and went with Button to look for the perfect digging spot. Once the two of them were out of earshot, Micro Chips laughed as he walked along the beach waving around a metal detector. He said to Flash, “I can’t tell if I’m annoyed along with the two of them or jealous that I’m an only child.” “Oh, come on! I wasn’t being that uptight about the inhaler,” Flash retorted before questioning, “was I?” “Eh, maybe a little, but you weren’t wrong.” “Hey, you mind if Banana and I join you on your epic quest for buried treasure?” “Oh, not at all. Maybe Banana can help sniff out some good junk.” While Flash and Micro were out hunting for random junk, Twilight was up in the lifeguard tower looking out into the ocean with a pair of binoculars. Her boyfriend Timber Spruce, who was employed as a lifeguard for that summer, walked up behind her and flirtatiously greeted, “Whatcha lookin’ for?” “Answers,” she replied as she lowered her binoculars with a serious scowl on her face. Much to Timber’s disappointment, she didn’t even seem to notice he was flirting with her. “Huh?” “Don’t worry. I’ll let you know when I have them,” Twilight assured as she went back to looking through her binoculars. Timber just shrugged and walked away. Not long afterwards, she saw a seaweed-covered, animal-shaped creature heading for the beach. Twilight gasped, seeing that the creature was making a beeline for Sunset Shimmer and Pinkie Pie. “Oh, no! My friends!” she cried, racing out of the lifeguard tower back towards the beach. “Sunset Shimmer! Pinkie Pie!” By the time, she and Timber Spruce reached the two of them. The monster was already six feet away from them and getting closer. Timber screamed and grabbed on to Twilight, holding her in front of him like a shield. Thankfully, the “monster” turned out to only be Pinkie’s floaty covered in seaweed being retrieved by Fluttershy. Twilight glared at Timber as Pinkie happily reunited with her floaty. Timber smiled sheepishly and walked away, whistling awkwardly. Twilight just frowned and went back to where and the girls had spread their beach blankets. Twilight smiled, finding Spike sunning himself on top of hers. “Oh, hey, Twilight,” Spike greeted, not even moving a muscle. “How did looking for that sea monster go?” “There was no sea monster, Spike. Long story,” she replied as she sat down beside her dog. Then, she frowned, replaying what Timber had done in her mind. “What’s wrong?” Noticing his human’s frown, Spike got up and padded up to Twilight’s lap. “Oh, it’s probably nothing,” she shrugged, her frown getting deeper the more she thought about what happened. “Come on. Tell me,” Spike prodded with a whine. Twilight gave a small smile and relented. “Okay, I’ll tell you,” she began, “Timber used me as a shield when we thought a monster was about to come out of the ocean and get us.” “Really?” Spike frowned, raising an eyebrow and an ear in confusion. “This might just be because I’m a dog, but aren’t people in relationships supposed to protect each other, especially the guy?” “Well, certain people believe that last part is totally outdated, but for the most part, I would say yes,” Twilight replied. “I mean, sure, if that thing had been a real sea monster, I would have been capable of taking it on, more so than Timber would have been, and would have been in less need of protection than he would have been, but,” Twilight trailed off before grunting in frustration, “I don’t even know why what happened bothers me so much. Like I said, it’s probably nothing, and maybe I’m just overthinking it.” Spike looked as if he wanted to say something in reply, but before he could, Twilight’s phone rang. Twilight grabbed her beach bag and began rummaging through it. She pulled out her cellphone and checked the caller ID. Weird. What could Micro Chips be calling for her for? “Hello?” she answered the call. “Twilight! Oh, thank goodness! Please tell me that you’re with the other girls right now!” Micro replied. His voice sounded like he had seen the face of death and somehow escaped it but was still running from it. “Just Sunset Shimmer, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy. We’re meeting up with Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity later.” “That’s going to have to do for now. Listen. I need you and everyone you’re with at the beach NOW, the south side of the beach. Hurry!” “What? Why?” “Giant hermit crab! Possibly magic! Actually, incredibly likely to be magic since no known species of hermit crab has ever been recorded to grow that large, but I think you get my point. Anyway, just get over here!” Before Twilight could formulate an answer, Micro Chips hung up. Earlier, while Twilight and her friends were busy looking for sea monsters, Flash, Micro, and Banana had managed to find a handful of loose change, a cheap ladies’ watch, a child-size charm bracelet, several crushed soda cans, and a half-eaten sushi cone, which Banana wolfed down eagerly. “Do you ever find anything good when you go metal detecting?” Flash asked, skeptically looking through their findings. “I did find some guy’s wedding ring once,” Micro recounted. “The guy who lost it gave me a hundred bucks for finding it.” “Lucky,” Flash chuckled. His good spirits were interrupted when he heard his dog barking and growling at something in the water. He couldn’t see what it was, but it was likely a crab or a turtle. “Hey, Banana, calm down, boy,” he scolded as he went over and picked up his dog who continued to bark and growl. “It’s okay, boy. It’s probably nothing. Just leave it be.” Banana suddenly became quiet. The dog’s eyes widened, and he let out a whimper. Flash looked down and saw that the ground he was standing on was suddenly shrouded in shadow. He looked up and saw Micro Chips wearing the same wide-eyed look that Banana was wearing. “There’s something right behind me, isn’t there?” Flash stage-whispered to Micro. Micro nodded stiffly as he bit his lip. Flash slowly turned around and looked up. The first thing that he saw were two giant, orange-brown pincers each flanked on the outside by two long, crustacean legs. As his eyes moved upwards, Flash then saw two giant beady, black eyes. On the creature’s back was an enormous mollusk shell. Flash gulped as he slowly backed away from the creature, pausing every so often to shush his whimpering dog. He had just managed to step out of the giant crab’s shadow when a high-pitched scream rang through the air. He, Micro Chips, and the crab turned toward the scream and saw a little girl a short distance away staring at the crab in fear. Her parents turned to her and saw what she was screaming at. Her mother screamed as well while her father grabbed her and began running. The crab screeched in response, and soon, everyone on the beach was screaming and running away, well, almost everyone. The crab began lumbering towards the panicking beachgoers, ignoring Flash and Micro entirely. Once the shock of the encounter had passed, Flash gritted his teeth and placed Banana in Micro’s arms. “Take Banana and get help,” he ordered before taking off after the crab. “Hold it! Where are you going?!” Micro yelled. “To find my brother! And Button!” Micro Chips groaned, unable to facepalm because his arms were full of dog. However, as annoyed as Micro was with Flash for taking such a huge, potentially deadly risk, he couldn’t help but admire his friend for being such a caring, selfless older brother. He reached into his shorts pocket, pulled out his cellphone, and called the first number that would be most helpful in this situation. “Bro! Button!” Flash called as he ran through the fleeing beachgoers. Flash could barely make out anything or anyone in all the chaos, but he had to make sure that his brother and his brother’s best friend were safe. “Watch it!” someone yelled at him as he searched. “You’re going the wrong way!” Someone else shoved him before running past him. Flash continued to fight the crowd before a particularly terrified and desperate beachgoer simply pushed him to the ground. Flash grunted as he hit the sand, but he forced everything in him to keep moving, crawling on the sand and dodging the mess of running legs that threatened to step on him or kick him. As soon as he reached a part of the crowd that was more thinned out, he scrambled up to his feet and looked around. “Aaaah!” a little boy who had fallen behind screamed. The crab roared in response and raised a claw, ready to bring it down on him. Thinking fast, Flash grabbed an empty, forgotten beach bucket and hurled it at the crab. The bucket struck the crab causing it to pause in surprise. “Hey, you overgrown beast! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?!” Flash knew that he possibly signed his own death warrant with those words, but he had to do something. The crab roared again, turning his attention from the fleeing beachgoers to Flash. It gave chase as Flash took off running. “Yeah, that’s right! Come on, big guy!” Flash shouted when he saw that the monstrous crustacean was following him away from the crowd. When you’re a normal, unremarkable, completely average in every way human teenager with no superhuman abilities or attributes, there’s only one thing to do when you’re running away from a rampaging hermit crab the size of a small building, and that is to pray. Flash Sentry did exactly that. “Dear God,” Flash prayed silently to himself, “if I die today, please take care of my family. Help them recover from losing me, and let them live long, happy lives, especially my mom. Please look after my brother as he grows up. Help him learn how to be a man that he can be proud of. Above all, please, please, please, don’t. Let. Me. Die. Today.” After Flash had lured the giant crab a distance away from the other beachgoers, he slipped and fell face-first onto the sand. Unfortunately, that fall gave the crab just enough time to catch up with him. Flash pushed himself up to his knees and turned himself over so that he was facing the crab. The crab screeched as it raised its enormous, hammer-like claw and quickly brought it down. Flash absolutely did not want to die screaming. However, keeping yourself from screaming when staring down a monster crab claw about to beat you into mincemeat proved a borderline impossible task because even though Flash tried to hold in his screams, he couldn’t help but scream anyway. Thankfully, he didn’t die. Unbeknownst to him, he began to glow with a magical, purple aura, and a certain bespectacled girl pulled him away before the crab could crush him into a pulp. When the sand cleared, Flash was happy yet confused to see that he was still sitting on the beach alive and unharmed. “What? How?” he sputtered as he looked himself over. The answer to his questions came when Twilight Sparkle and her friends touched down between him and the crab in their magical girl forms with Fluttershy in the front. “How dare you!” the normally timid girl scolded, glaring into the crab’s beady, black eyes with an intensity rivalling that of a white-hot furnace. “Do you think you can just come up to this beach and go around scaring people just because you’re giant with big, meaty, shell-covered claws?! Well, you can’t! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” To Flash’s shock and amazement, the crab let out a squeak and retreated slightly back into its shell. Fluttershy’s expression softened, and she nodded as if she understood what the creature said to her, which she did. “Oh, I see. Don’t worry. I’m sure my friend Sunset can help you with your problem,” she said to the crab. “What problem?” asked Sunset. “Oh, well, Salty here says that he was just minding his own business when a weird glow came out of a hole in the rocks, and before he knew it he was huge, and everyone was screaming at him, so he got scared,” Fluttershy explained. “Wow! You got all that from one squeak?” Pinkie pointed out. “Fluttershy, can you ask him where the glowing hole is?” Sunset requested. After Fluttershy relayed the question to the crab, the crab used its claw to point at a large rock formation out in the water that was shaped like a horse’s head. “Stallion Rock,” Twilight identified. “We’re going to have to get over there and investigate later,” said Sunset, “but for now, I’m going to send a message to Princess Twilight.” “Wait,” Fluttershy exclaimed as the crab let out a series of squeaks and clicks. “He’s wondering if we can help him get back to his normal size.” Twilight and Sunset looked at each other, unsure how to help the crab out of its predicament. “Oooh, we could always try lighting him up,” Pinkie suggested. “That worked the last few times we’ve had to deal with magic.” “Well, none of us have any better ideas, but we’ll have to wait for the others,” Sunset agreed before turning to Fluttershy. “Can you tell him to wait for us over at Stallion Rock?” Fluttershy once again relayed Sunset’s message to the crab. The crab seemed to nod before retreating into the ocean. During that entire conversation, Flash was still sitting on the sand, processing the whole ordeal, and trying to get his breathing back under control. Once he was calm enough, he stood up and walked up to the girls. “Hey, thanks for saving me back there,” he said to them. “You’re welcome,” Sunset replied curtly before tearing him a new one. “Geez, what were you thinking back there? You could have been splattered across the beach!” “I was thinking that if I didn’t get that crab away from all those people, someone in that crowd could have gotten hurt, and two of those someones could have been my brother and his friend,” Flash retorted. “Speaking of which, I’ve got to find them and make sure they’re okay.” “Bro!” First Base’s voice called from a distance. Everyone turned towards the call and saw First Base, Banana, Micro Chips, and Button Mash running towards them. First Base reached them first and pulled his brother into a tight hug. “Thank goodness! You’re okay.” “Yeah, I’m fine, and you?” Flash replied, returning the hug. “Yeah, I’m fine. Button’s okay, too.” The rest of their group caught up with them as they broke the hug. “Dude!” Micro Chips cried. “That was insane! You sure you’re alright?” “I’m a little shaken, but I think I’ll be alright,” Flash replied. Then, he frowned, noticing that Button Mash was wheezing a little bit. He turned to his brother and asked, “Bro, did Button have an asthma attack?” “At the worst possible time too,” Button affirmed with a slight wheeze. “I was up to my waist in sand, the monster was attacking, and everyone was screaming and going nuts.” “On top of that some random guy ran into me just as I was getting Button’s inhaler out of my pocket and knocked it out of my hand, so I had to crawl around looking for it,” Base added. “If that crab hadn’t started going the other way, we would have been smashburgers.” Twilight’s eyes widened, First Base’s last sentence triggering a realization in her. “Guys,” Twilight began, “if Flash hadn’t led the crab away, those two could have died before we got here, and who knows how many other people could have as well.” “Yeah, you’re right,” Micro Chips agreed. “In Button’s case, Flash might have been doubly responsible for saving him because if he hadn’t made Base take Button’s inhaler with them, Button could have asphyxiated even if they had managed to get away from the crab.” “Can we please talk about something other than me suddenly running out of air in the middle of a monster attack because I’d really rather not think about that?” Button butted in. To everyone’s relief, his wheeze was completely gone now. “Come on, guys. Let’s get Button to a doctor just to make sure everything’s fine,” said Flash. He picked Banana up and began to lead his group away from the girls. “Flash, wait,” Twilight called out to him. Flash stopped walking and turned towards her. “Yeah?” he replied. “Uh, you, you just saved a life, two lives, maybe more than two lives. Aren’t, aren’t you proud of that?” Twilight mentally facepalmed herself. Good grief! Of all the things to ask about, why did she ask that? Flash stared at Twilight utterly confused by her question. Twilight turned away from him and tried to will her face to stop heating up. After an uncomfortably long half a second, Flash spoke. “Well, yeah, I guess I’m proud of myself; I mean, who wouldn’t be? I just don’t think what I did is that big a deal,” he replied. “Besides, I think the fact that everyone came out of that whole ordeal okay is WAY more important than whatever role I played in making it happen.” “Oh, I see,” uttered Twilight. For some reason, she had expected Flash to brag over how much of a hero he had been for risking his life like that, but he didn’t. Okay, why wasn’t he bragging, and more importantly, why had she been expecting him to? True, she didn’t know Flash very well, but he didn’t come off to her as a showoff or a braggart. “My boyfriend, on the other hand, loves bragging,” Twilight thought grumpily to herself, her mind going back to the fundraiser gala at Camp Everfree when Timber had made a big deal out of saving her from falling off the dock which somehow made him responsible for saving the rest of the campers from misused Equestrian magic. “Wait a minute. Gosh! Why did I just think that? Timber obviously meant what he had said as a joke, so comparing his and Flash’s responses isn’t even a fair assessment. I mean, I’m not really comparing my boyfriend to another guy and finding him lacking, am I?” “Hey, before I go,” Flash said to her, pulling her out of her thoughts, “I just want to say thanks again for saving me. I’d love to stay and talk some more, but I’ve really got to get Button checked out.” “Oh, right,” Twilight stuttered, “and you’re, uh, welcome.” The day went on. Twilight and her friends found and plugged up the hole in Stallion Rock that was leaking Equestrian magic and rainbow lasered Salty the Hermit Crab back to his original size. Button’s pediatrician gave him a clean bill of health and allowed him to return to the beach with his friends. The sun began to set, and everybody returned home. When Twilight got home, she greeted her parents, fed Spike, and took a shower. While she was doing all this, the events from earlier in the day kept replaying in her mind and stirring up questions in her heart. Why did Timber hiding behind her during the “sea monster attack” bother her so much, and why did thinking about Flash thanking her for saving him make her face flush like crazy? No matter how many times she replayed the events, she just could not find the answers to these questions, or maybe she did know the answers. She just didn’t want to face them. After getting dressed, Twilight went downstairs to join her family for dinner. The confusion spinning inside her mind and heart kept her from eating. Once again, her parents and Shining Armor took notice. “Twily, are you alright?” Shining Armor asked her. Twilight looked up from pushing her food around and replied, “Yeah. Why?” “Sweetie, I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” her father began, “but you haven’t taken a bite of your food since we started eating.” “Did something happen with that boyfriend of yours, who you still haven’t introduced us to?” her mother asked. That question made Twilight feel like crying, but she managed not to. Twilight sighed and replied, “I, I’m not sure. I mean, he did use me as a shield earlier at the beach when we thought we were in danger, but the whole thing turned out to be a false alarm, and I’m sure what happened isn’t even that big a deal, but I can’t stop thinking about it.” “Hold on,” Shining Armor exclaimed. “He was willing to put you in danger to save himself? That’s the kind of guy you are dating?” “Okay, when you put it that way, it does sound like a bigger deal than I think it is.” “It is,” Night Light added. “If he’s going to throw you into danger now while your dating, how do you expect him to protect you and your kids when you’re married?” “Dad!” Twilight exclaimed. “It’s too early in the relationship to be thinking about that.” “Well, you’re going to have to think about that at some point in your relationship, maybe not now but someday. It’s not like you can keep the relationship in the dating stage forever.” Twilight groaned. She hated it when her dad was right, especially when the thing he’s right about is something that she already knew but didn’t want to admit to herself. “Twilight, not even your self-proclaimed scaredy cat of a father treated me like that,” Velvet pointed out, eliciting a laugh from Night Light. “You’re talking about that time we thought we had gotten broken into, aren’t you?” Night said with a chuckle. “We got broken into?” Shining exclaimed in shock. “How come I don’t remember that?” “Because you hadn’t even been conceived yet when it happened,” Night Light replied, causing Twilight to giggle and Shining Armor to frown, “and no, we didn’t get broken into. We just thought we had.” “What happened?” asked Twilight. “Well, it was pretty early in our marriage, and your mom and I adopted these two cats who we named Aslan and Hippolyta,” Night recounted. “On our first night with them, your mom and I wake up in the middle of the night to this noise, and we think we’re being broken into. She wanted to go out there and chase away the robbers, and I wanted to call the police and keep hiding in our bedroom, but before we could come to an agreement, your mom leaves the room holding one of her workout weights like a club. I briefly considered just hiding in the bedroom without her, but after maybe half a second of thinking about it, I throw my hands up, grab a pillow, and go after her.” “Then, he passes me in the hallway and says, ‘Honey, get behind me,’” Velvet continued. “When I asked him why, he says, ‘Because as much as I don’t want to get gunned down by a burglar, I won’t be able to live with myself if I let anything bad happen to you,’ and he was shaking like a wet chihuahua the whole time.” “Well, after a few, uh, unimpressive attempts at trying to seem threatening on my part, we go into the living room and turn on the lights. It turned out that the ‘break-in’ was just the cats knocking stuff off the shelves.” Twilight and Shining’s parents shared a laugh over the story. The two siblings found themselves laughing as well. “Man, were you guys lucky,” Shining Armor pointed out. “If that had been a real burglar, what you guys did would have been really dangerous.” “It was, but if we had gone with your father’s suggestion, we would have ended up calling the cops on two cats,” Velvet countered, getting a laugh out of her husband. Watching her parents laughing together made Twilight smile a bit, but then, she frowned as two pointed questions skewered their way to the forefront of her mind. “Gee,” Twilight thought to herself as she stared at the way her parents smiled lovingly at each other, “will I be able to have anything like that with Timber? What about with, with that boy?” Twilight shook the questions out of her head and spoke up, “Mom, Dad, is having a boyfriend fail to protect you when he should have grounds for breaking up with him?” Her parents stopped laughing and looked at each other before looking back at Twilight. “Well, Twily, as appalled as we are that your boyfriend would willingly put you at risk like that,” Night began, “everyone does make mistakes and bad choices from time to time. Unless you’ve noticed that he consistently puts himself before others, especially you, I’m going to have to say no.” “I say bring the guy over to meet us already so that I can give him a piece of my mind and straighten him out real good,” Shining Armor interrupted. Twilight ignored Shining Armor’s statement and asked, “What if I have other reasons for not wanting the relationship to continue?” Everyone at the table turned and stared at her. Her parents looked at each other again, and Shining Armor frowned in thought as he kept his gaze on Twilight. “You’re losing interest in the guy, aren’t you?” Shining deduced. Twilight whimpered pitifully as she nodded her head. “It’s not that am not trying to stay interested in Timber because I totally am,” Twilight explained. “It’s just that whenever I look at you and Candance or Mom and Dad, I keep wondering if Timber and I will ever be anything like that, but no matter how much I try to see it, I’m just not seeing it.” “Sweetie, is there anything else that you should be telling us but aren’t?” Night Light asked, raising an eyebrow at her in suspicion. “Great!” Twilight thought to herself sarcastically. She had hoped to avoid talking about that one other detail, but there was no point in hiding it anymore, was there? “Well, I guess there’s this one, small, tiny, unimportant detail,” Twilight half-lied. “I don’t think it’s worth mentioning, but I supposed I can let you in on it.” “Uh-huh,” Velvet replied, nodding knowingly. “You see, there’s this boy from school,” Twilight began before hurriedly continuing, “I wouldn’t quite call us friends, but he’s really nice, uh, almost too nice. I want to believe that he’s genuinely like that, but I’m afraid to. I mean, what if I start believing he’s actually that nice only to be completely wrong in the end? On top of all that, we actually met before as kids, and ever since I remembered that first meeting, I’ve been having a hard time not thinking about him, and whenever he gets into my head, I suddenly can’t think straight. I don’t understand it. What is it about that boy that just drives me crazy?” “You like him,” Shining Armor bluntly stated, rolling his eyes as he reached for his water glass. “What?! N-no! Of course, I don’t,” Twilight protested. “Gosh, BBBFF, didn’t you even hear what I just said? The two of us aren’t even friends, so I don’t even know him, and I’m not so silly that I’d just fall for a guy over a few chance encounters and his reputation with the rest of the school.” “How did you end up with the guy you’re currently with?” Night cut in. Twilight just stared at her father in shock. Not only did the question surprise her, but it also forced her to face more facts that she didn’t want to. “Well,” Twilight stuttered, “I met Timber at Camp Everfree. He was helping his sister run the place, and I thought he was cute. Then, I ended up talking to him for a bit, and it turns out that we both liked little-known facts and other geek interests, and, and I guess that was just it. I mean, at the time, I was also totally stressing about the possibility that I’d turn into a monster again, and geeking out with him distracted me from that, and, and there’s no ‘and’. All he was to me was just a distraction from my actual problems. Now that he has nothing to distract me from, being around him doesn’t seem as special.” “Compared to that, how you’re feeling about this other boy doesn’t seem so silly, doesn’t it?” Twilight turned away from her father and looked down at her lap, feeling the tears well up in her eyes. She tried to hold them in, but they eventually fell, one drop at a time, followed by the sound of soft sobs. Velvet got up from her seat and put her arms around her daughter, letting Twilight cry into her chest. “Oh, Mom, why did things have to get so complicated?” Twilight managed to say between sobs. “I know what I have to do, but I don’t want to do it.” “Oh, sweetie, you’ll be alright,” Velvet assured, stroking Twilight’s hair. “I know it doesn’t feel like you’ll ever get over it, but you will, and all of us will be here for you.” “But what about—?” “Hey, don’t worry about that other guy,” Shining Armor advised, anticipating Twilight’s question. “You don’t have to jump into a relationship with him right away just because you like him. Give yourself time to get over your breakup, and, well, we’ll see from there.” There were many phrases in the English language that Twilight hated having to say and having to hear. “I don’t know” was at the very top of that list; “we’ll see from there” was a close second. However, as much as she wanted to punch her brother for saying that, she knew he had a point. The situation she was in had too many variables to account for, and therefore, no ideal solution. Twilight’s crying died down to a few barely audible, intermittent hiccups. Even so, her mother continued to hold her and stroke her hair. All the while, Twilight couldn’t help but wonder why she didn’t come clean about her relationship to her family sooner.