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// I've been ghosting, I've been ghosting along 
// Story: Ghosting 
// by KorenCZ11 
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    It all began twelve years ago.

    My wife and I were Wonderbolts back in the day. I watched her rise through the academy until she was expelled around the end of our first year. For a while, I wondered what happened to her. I kept thinking about her, even as I left the academy and was promoted to Wonderbolt myself. Had she stayed, she probably would’ve been in my place, that rainbow tail always leaving a trail, lighting up the sky wherever she went.

    She was amazing.

    Years later, I find out she enlisted again after getting the crown to clear her name, and suddenly, she’s back in my life, faster than ever before, working even harder now that she had her shot back. I could only outpace her for so long.

    They say chasing rainbows is a futile endeavor, but I never gave up, always Soarin’. The Wonderbolt that never dropped, that was me. I chased and I chased and she rose and she rose, until one day, she fell. Stubborn ponies like her would push past their limits as often as they could, and that’s exactly what she did. Tore a wing in the middle of a race but one racer dips to save her. And I’ll never forget her words.

    “My Wonderbolt.”

    I’d finally caught the rainbow.

    We’re married a year later, and our first son is born in ‘09. Princess Twilight was in the middle of her big technological revolution, nine years after the return of Nightmare… er, Princess Luna, and life is good. Then, she asked me for another kid. Not in those words exactly; I had to really fight her to actually get her to say it, but that’s not important.

    We made an attempt, and we failed. She miscarried and she was devastated. Months of moping and crying—to this day, I still don’t think she ever got over it. But that’s just part of who she is. If she didn’t dwell on things, she wouldn’t push herself so hard. After her own mother told her the trials and tribulations she went through to have her, Rainbow learned of her family’s genetic disposition to infertility.

    Inspired by her mother, we tried again, and this time, it worked. Only, a new problem came up and this time, it was my fault. Sort of.

    My parents divorced when I was eight. As a child, I didn’t realize what it did to me then, but in the position of father myself, it turned me on to how aloof and distant I tended to be toward my own family. My oldest son, Prism, pointed that out to me, not unlike his mother would… if she hadn’t changed.

    My mother was an earth pony. To this day, I haven’t forgiven her for breaking things off with my father. 

My second son, Haze, is… also an earth pony. 

Sometimes, I wonder if that was some kind of revenge for holding a grudge for thirty years. Our life in Cloudsdale, our careers as Wonderbolts, the futures we had planned, all scrapped by a sonogram. It hurt, sure, but I was ready to make sacrifices where need be.

    Dash was not.

    Her friends are amazing, willing to help us every step of the way. Even after a rough period between us, they tried their best to ease the growing pains of our new family. The Princess, however, came up with a temporary solution: it was an elastic headband that gave the wearer the ability to use whatever spell was trapped inside it. For Haze, it was the cloudwalk spell. It gave us time. We could keep him in the house, I could finish out my contract with the Wonderbolts, and I’d be ready to take up a teaching position as a flight instructor at one of the many new schools popping up in the ever-expanding Ponyville City.

    It didn’t last long.

    May fifteenth, 2012. Dash is playing with the kids and she accidentally takes off Haze’s band. Haze falls through the sky, and right near all of Cloudsdale’s power supplies, Dash goes supersonic and creates a rainboom. Every piece of glass within ten miles shatters, the hospital loses power; ponies have to be evacuated to prevent several deaths, some of whom didn’t make it. With Princess Twilight’s help, we were simply evicted from Cloudsdale, instead of anything much, much worse.

    There isn’t much I wish I could go back to and change in my life, but that? If only there was a way to go back and stop it. Dash hasn’t been the same since. 

And Haze… well, his freedom had been indefinitely suspended that day.

    Most ponies grow, experiment, and learn in their childhoods. By the time they turn ten, they usually get their cutiemarks: self-discovery, personal journey, something deep and intrinsic to themselves that they realize all at once, cemented as a mark on their flanks.

    In spite of what could be, what should be, and what might be, the growing pains are on their way back.

    



    “Mom! Dad! I’m home!” 

I’d just gotten out of school. I was flying, and I was flying better than most pegasi in the area, better than even some of the middle school kids. They’d all been saying I had potential, but Trotwood was a small place. It wasn’t much more than a village, and the races were mostly earth pony and pegasi. Even if I could fly better than our little town weather team my father led, that wouldn’t mean much if I never got a chance to reach higher altitude.

    But I’d been eight. I didn’t care about any of that. My life was happy, and it was easy. I loved my parents, and my parents loved me. Sure, it could get lonely when they were both away, but that was fine too. Loneliness didn’t last long.

    “…What are you saying, Downy?”

    I’d never heard a tone like that from Dad. He and I, we had similar dispositions: we were easy going; float along with the breeze, enjoy the air as it passes us by. For him to be so serious… did they hear me come in? I did yell and all. Maybe I should—

    “You know what I’m saying, Hang.”

    Mom? I didn’t know she could make a voice like that. Like a cold heat from a pepper in a salad. Something was wrong, but I didn’t dare interrupt.

    “No, I don’t! You’re not making any damn sense! What’s not working!? I thought things were getting better!”

    Not working?

    “Things can never get better! Things will never be better! This is never going to work! My parents were right. I never should’ve—”

    “You can’t mean that! Downy, look, whatever it is, we can fix it, just… look—”

    “No! We can’t do anything. We’ve been at this shit for nine years, Hang, and you know what? It’s enough. I can’t do this anymore. I’m going back home.”

    “You’re already home!”

    Thwack!

    It’d gone too far now; I had to see. My little mind, even back then, knew what this was.

    “Downy, please!”

    Pushing her way out of the kitchen, Mom knocked me over. She looked at me, disgusted, then darted to the couch where a bag had been waiting. Packed full like she’d planned for a long trip, she threw it over her shoulder with ease. 

Dad flew out to catch her, but she glared him down to the ground. He had a big red hoof print on his white cheek.

    “It’s over, Hang. If I see you again, I’ll call the police. And you keep that, that little—”

    She looked so… hurt when she finally laid eyes on me. Her face so contorted in pain. How much it twisted her heart to speak.

    Mommy, please, don’t do this.

    “—this little defect out of my presence! If it weren’t for you, if it weren’t for you!”

    A picture of us was framed and sitting in the open on a drawer by the front door. Seeing it, she snatched it with a hoof and launched it right at me. 

Dad was quick enough to shield me from the projectile, but the damage had been done.

    The glass had been shattered.

    



    When Mom slammed the door on us, I sat up in bed. Dash was still dead asleep beside me, the light outside the window was barely more than the glint of streetlamps splattered against fat rain drops, and the alarm clock at our bedside read 5:15 AM.

    I rubbed at my eyes. Any day that starts with that dream is bound to be a bad one. She’s like a ghost who haunts my nightmares, coming back when she wants to torment me again. A soft chuckle escaped me, making Dash stir.

    “…It’s too dangerous… Grandma and Grandpa can just come see you…”

    She rolled over and fell back into her dream.

    Would my life have been worse if mine had been like that? A mother mismatched with her son, taken from one extreme to another. As much as Sweet Wing did her best, she was never the mare I wanted her to be.

    You didn’t have to go.

    I suppose… it’s been a while. Fall break is coming up. Maybe I should escape one day and go see her.

    Downy Snow.

    With that resolved in my head, I carefully made my way out of bed and into the shower. At one point, there was nothing I could do to ever wake Dash. After Haze was born, though, she’ll hear a pin drop in her sleep. 

Before the water had even been hot, a wing tip ran up my spine. This assault wasn’t a new one, but it always got me. She nipped my ear and whispered, “My Wonderbolt wasn’t about to get in the shower without me, was he?”

    We weren’t normally up this early. That meant we had time.

    An extended shower was in order.

    



    When the alarm clock finally rang at six, we actually needed to get clean and ready for school. Once that was taken care of, I was assigned to the kitchen to start on breakfast, and she went to wake our kids. Pan on the stove, eggs and haybacon and rice. Dash and Haze will want the orange juice, while Prism and I are coffee junkies.

    First door on the second floor gets a couple of hard knocks, and Dash opens the door unceremoniously. “Prism, it’s six fifteen. Get up.”

    “Ugh, fine.”

    The standard greeting. Prism is the future star in whatever he decides to do, a prodigy in his flight skill and a special talent in architecture, and Mom goes hard to make sure he’s at the top of his game. She treats him like she treated herself when she was that age, and her biggest dream in the world was to be the best Wonderbolt there ever was. Had she not torn that wing, she would’ve done it. Hell, some ponies would say she was back in her prime, Only now, she has a usurper to train.

    A few clip-clops down the hall become soft. Gently knocking and quietly opening the door to the next room, she coos, “Haze, buddy, it’s morning. Your Dad is working on breakfast, so go brush your teeth for me, huh?”

    The disparity was genuinely unreal.

    “…Five more minutes, Mommy…”

    “Come on, buddy, you can’t stay in bed forever! But if you won’t get up…”

    Rustling, then an exclamation of surprise. “Mom, get off me!”

    “Only if you get up and go take care of business!”

    “You’re too heavy; I can’t!”

    This, and I knew for a fact, was untrue. Haze would get away from the house at any opportunity. A lot of the time, he’d visit the Apples in District 2 and even go so far as to help work the orchard. He wasn’t bad at it, either. If he really tried his hardest, he could carry his mother. The sad truth is that he’ll be stronger than me in just a few years. Another disparity.

    “Wow, rude. You callin’ me fat?”

    “When you’re smothering me, yes!”

    More rustling, then hooves hit the floor. “Fine, be that way.”

    “Thank the Goddess…”

    “Uh-huh. Breakfast will be done in ten minutes. Be at the table for me, kay?”

    “Yes ma’am…”

    Haze skulks to the bathroom, and Dash happily flies down to the first floor. She wouldn’t listen if I pointed it out, so I simply said, “You’re something else, you know that?”

    It flew right over her head. “I love you too, honey.” Blushing, she kissed my cheek, then went ahead and set the table for the four of us.

    In her defense, those were the first words I ever spoke to her, and back then, it was out of admiration. Only now, it’s more like I can’t believe she became this pony. The way the morning started, that’s how she used to be all the time. Spontaneous, free, putting her feelings out before she could think, saying what she meant, sticking to what she lived. The bright and colorful Rainbow Dash.

    Then, there’s… this. Being Prism’s mother mellowed her out, softened all those edges, made every great quality shine even brighter by forcing the worse ones into submission. But with Haze, a wire crossed. All her soft edges are simply gone now. Too bright, too shiny, sharp to the touch, bristling with needles if you dare dig below the surface. The duality of the mother bear.

    With both the boys at the table, we all sat and ate. A quick prayer, breakfast dispatched in rapid succession, school bags were gathered, and we all moved to the car.

    “Hey, Haze, help me get the top down,” she calls as we enter the garage.

    The youngest looks at the window, then back at his mother. “Uh, no.”

    Thinking this was some kind of play, Dash scoffed. “What, you not big enough anymore? Come on, help out your little mom.”

    Joining his brother, Prism eyed his mother as well. “You do know that it’s raining right now, right, Mom?”

    Finally, she turned her eye toward the window, though she definitely heard it as soon as they said anything. “Oh.”

    “Yeah,” I said, unlocking the vehicle. “Come on, everypony in.”

    I’d opened the driver door of our sedan and plugged the keys in the ignition, but Dash hesitated. “Uh, hey, Prism, why don’t you sit in the front?”

    Knowing this was going to happen, my son had already opened the door. “Yeah, sure, Mom.”

    Haze groaned, escaped into the car, and immediately turned on his hoof-held game-thingy. I’ll be entirely honest, I don’t really get video games, but I try to play when they share them with me. Muscles I never even knew I had hurt when I really got into them, but they’re so complex now that it makes me feel old. This modern generation is going to be way, way different than we were as kids.

    With Dash in the back, reflexes on high alert and wings ready to jump ship with her beloved baby boy, we left the house in District 10 and made our way to the private school where we worked in District 1. We owe a lot of our lives to Princess Twilight, and the jobs we now enjoyed were another one of her gifts to us. All of Dash’s friends send their kids to school here, it’s personally sponsored by the Princess of Ponyville, and it’s easily one of the best schools in the city.

    The massive metropolis was a grid overlaid with highways, everything leading out from the castle. In all the world, this city was the capital of commerce, the home of modernity, and the birthplace of borrowed technology. In about twenty years, we went from trains and wagons to cars and planes, and things have only accelerated since then, with the princesses entering a joint project with private enterprise to go into space. The tech is there to be borrowed, but even the world it comes from considers that kind of stuff ‘new.’ Off onto new horizons under the guidance of our erudite princess of the future.

    Of course, of all the new and necessary things her friend has brought into the world, vehicles are something Dash hates with a passion. Her distinct and overwhelming fear of being trapped in a car or plane crash verges on madness, and that was before Haze fell. If she weren’t so unfalteringly determined to do anything and everything she could for Haze, just riding along in a car would be off the table. Still, she makes compromises by doing things like riding in the back with the windows ready to be rolled down in an instant, or insisting that we have a convertible and keeping the top down no matter the weather. One time, she even asked me about getting some kind of eject button like in those spy movies.

    Sometimes, I wonder just what exactly I’d gotten myself into when I married this mare. Then again, the ‘hot/crazy’ scale is pretty absolute. If things like this morning are the reward for putting up with her insanity, I believe I’ve done pretty well for myself.

    “So, what’s the plan today, coach?” Prism asked.

    It took about half an hour to drive from the house to the school. We live in the third ring; so long as you use the highway, it takes about fifteen minutes to cross from one district to another. Traffic can get bad and make times worse, but it usually doesn’t this early in the morning.

    “Well, the forecast said rain through tomorrow, so we’ll be working on precision drills in the gym, though this might be a good opportunity to put all these groundborn kids through a rainstorm. I’d have to see Health and Safety about that, though.” I tilted my head toward the back, making sure I kept my eyes on the road. “Hey, would you be up for bringing the girls in for rain drills?”

    Since we applied together, we were given charge of one class of our choosing from the four basic academics—Math, Science, History, Equestrian—and then put in charge of everything and anything related to pegasus sports. Since Ponyville was such a massive city, even the private school we worked for had us set with seven classes every day, with a single period for lunch. It was hard sometimes, but between the two former Wonderbolts, we got results. All that aside, we don’t actually see each other much during the day. I’ve got the colts, she’s got the fillies, and we work mostly in two different gyms or fields when it’s nice out.

    Dash, of course, wasn’t paying attention.

    “So, I was talking to Mrs. Trebuchet the other day, and she told me that you got a B on one of your tests.”

    Ah, here we go again.

    Haze groaned, and he pressed his face closer to his game. “Why are you talking to her? Don’t you work in another wing of the school?”

    “Well, yeah, but I still have a physics class to teach every day. Come on, dude, you know you can ask me for help if you need it.”

    “B’s are fine! I don’t need your help!”

    Dash scoffed. “B’s are not fine, thank you very much. You can do better. I know you can do better.”

    “Ugh, what does it even matter?” Haze set his game down, finally turning Dash’s own eyes back at her. “I’m not gonna be some Wonderbolt, and I don’t care about physics. It’s so booooring. Can’t you bother the kids in your own class?”

    Crossing her forelegs, Dash grunted. “Nah, dude. They aren’t my kid. You’re my kid. Besides, what’s boring about physics? Physics is cool! I know you hang out with Ace and his brother; don’t they talk about the skate park and all that? All of that is just physics, the math of motion! All the tricks, flight or otherwise, are all physics in action. Physics is totally cool.”

    Again, the disparity was absolutely unreal. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if Mrs. Windy had received the exact same answer about some failing grade in Equestrian or History back when Dash was in school. And again, hers would’ve been a failing grade because she didn’t give a single shit back then.

    “Hey, Dash,” I called.

    She finally paid attention. “Yeah?”

    “If I asked Grandma about your performance in school, what do you think she might say?”

    She froze in an instant. “W-well, things were different back then!”

    Haze caught on. “Wait, wait, wait. What would she say?”

    “I mean,” Prism added, “all you have to do to know how Mom was in school is look at her Wonderbolts exam scores.”

    Frantic, Dash wrapped her forelegs around the front seat to cover Prism’s mouth. “Nopony needs to see that!”

    “Well, now I have to know.”

    “You absolutely do not!”

    “The truth is, your mother failed it eight times before she finally got lucky and made the minimum passing score. She never would’ve gotten in at all if one of the guys wasn’t caught… uh.” I thought better on that. “Well, he got kicked out immediately after getting in, so Dash took the spot.”

    “Dude!”

    Haze, Prism and I all laughed while Dash tried to justify her poor performance the rest of the way to the school. 

I say that, but Haze kinda… withdrew back into his game pretty quick. I caught a glance of him in the rearview a few times, and he didn’t look all that happy. If anything, he seemed more upset than before.

    I should probably talk to him.

    



    We arrive at the school at seven. Since she wasn’t listening before, I asked her about those rain drills, but suddenly being sensible about things, she offered that it’d be better to ask Health and Safety about doing them next rainstorm rather than run around trying to get approvals that won’t come till after said storm passes. So, we resolved to put that request in when lunch comes around.

    Haze and Prism help set up the boys’ gym for our practice with me while Dash goes off to her meeting with the science teachers. In spite of her own performance in school, as it happens, her students consistently get the best scores for the class, and only the Goddess knows why. If it weren’t for the whole Wonderbolt thing, they’d probably have her teaching more physics classes than just the one.

    As for me, I’m just a history buff and not exactly a good one. Half the time, I feel like I learn things I simply didn’t know when reading out the textbook or going over modern history I’d lived through. I can get most kids to go along with my own interest in the subject, but I’m nopony to light up a room.

    Forever chasing rainbows.

    Once the gym was all set and Prism had successfully run the course, I adjusted for the skill level of the other students because, as we like to say, our boy is the best there ever was. If he had any of his mom’s bravado, everypony would hate him, but because he takes after me so much, he’s not nearly as boastful with anypony he comes across. He’s just good at what he does, he knows it, and he takes it in stride. A good kid, a whole family; a happy, easy life.

    Is it strange to be envious of your own son?

    “Dad?”

    Well, envious of that one. This one, on the other hoof, I’ve probably got more in common with. I ran my hoof through his mane. “‘Sup, kiddo?”

    “Why does…” 

He paused, looking for the words. Unlike the rest of us, he was pretty good with those. If he didn’t have his mom’s temper, he’d probably be pretty slick. Quiet and considerate but blows up easily and betrays his emotions after a single poke. Oh, the disparity.

    “Why does she treat me like that?”

    That’s anything but easy. He doesn’t remember Cloudsdale and I’ve been sworn to secrecy, but that really is the root of the reason. Her whole personality warped around that day. It wasn’t so much her fault that things went so wrong, but the entire ordeal could’ve been avoided if she would’ve just listened to me when we first found out about Haze.

    And yet, the past is the past. I draped my wing over my youngest. “Well, she loves you, buddy.”

    Letting his hind fall to the ground, Haze sighed. “Methinks, too much.”

    It basically goes without saying that Haze is the best scholar of the four of us. Where he found a good head to put on his shoulders, I wouldn’t know, but the kid is just damn smart. His mom’s love of books, my tenacity to keep trying, her determination to succeed, my calm contemplation. He’d have been the best of us, if only…

    “Come on, what do you really mean, Haze?” I shook him into leaning on me, and finally, he gave in:

    “Why does she baby me? Why does she hover over me every second of every minute? She bothers me about getting a B once, but Prism is over here struggling to pass chemistry, and she doesn’t even bat an eye!”

    Prism, at the mention of this, had his ears fall. The pep he’d been circling the track with up till then simmered down. Yeah, not expecting a perfect score on the ‘Bolts exam from him either.

    Haze continued, “I can go out with my friends if one of her friends is there to spy on me for her, but Prism can do whatever he wants whenever he wants and her biggest concern from him is to keep from hurting his wings! I’d say it’s because I don’t have my cutie mark, and I’m already kinda past due for that, but Prism didn’t get his but a couple years ago, and she’d let him do whatever back then, too!”

    He turned his mother’s eyes on me. “Like, I’m not crazy here. She is, right? Mister Discord isn’t even this weird with Fallacy! Fallacy! The chaos-incarnate kid! How is it that I’m under more supervision than a hybrid with world-ending magic?”

    Because I’m sure neither he nor his father had it in them to restrain appearing at the call of their names, Fallacy did pop into existence to explain to Haze why he was given the freedom he enjoys, but I caught him and shooed him away before he could interrupt. Fallacy and Prism are inseparable, and with his magic, that is often literal. He’s more mischief than malice, and if he had an atom in him to be honest, he takes after his mother more than he would ever admit. No, the malice award goes to Cotton Pie, who happens to be one of Haze’s confidants, in spite of their four-year age difference.

    With as often as Fallacy and Prism have to be separated, I’m pretty comfortable around Discord. He’d even confided in me once about Dark Canter. That was a weird conversation, but it put him in perspective for me, and I’d say I even get the guy. For the most part, anyways.

With that in mind, I said, “In all fairness, he watches over Fallacy for similar reasons Dash watches over you. She’s seen some stuff, Haze. If she’s less crazy with Prism, it’s not because she’s any less crazy, but she knows Prism could get to safety if something went wrong. You know how she feels about cars and the like.”

    But the little blue colt frowned at me. “Okay, but that doesn’t explain why she has to bother me when I’m talking to my friends at school or playing my games online. She butts in on conversations! You know how ponies talk trash in competitive video games? I had to pull the plug on my own game just to get her to stop defending me! She stole the mic and everything! Like, what the hell was that? Normal ponies don’t do that.”

    I had no defense for that one. Though, absurd as she is about Haze, she would’ve done that for Prism too. Or me, even. Neither of them played it, but she absolutely would be the insane soccer mom, given the chance.

    I shrugged. “Look, I’m not about to pretend she isn’t a white knight, but she just cares that much, alright? She’s a defender; it’s what she does. Just… lock the door when you play games like that. And the window, too. I can try to talk to her, but I won’t make any promises.”

    Haze only groaned. “Dad, I was trying to get here in a roundabout way, but you’re just not getting it.”

    I get it, alright. I’m just playing dumb. But you, just like your mother, won’t let it go. “Are ya sure? I feel like I’d be the most familiar with Dash’s eccentricities by now.”

    “Why does she treat me so different from Prism? Is it because I’m not like the rest of you, or is there more to it than that? Because it feels like there’s something wrong with her. Maybe if I’d been born right like all of you, she wouldn’t act this way, but… I don’t know. Even then, that feels wrong.”

    “Haze, buddy.” 

I put a hoof on his shoulder, sat down to get eye to eye with him. 

“There is nothing wrong in how you were born. We love you because you’re you. So, maybe your mom thinks about what makes you different more than she should. But if she treated you just like Prism, she’d be ignoring what makes you special, and that wouldn’t be right.”

    Unsatisfied, Haze huffed. “Uh-huh. I’m special, alright. The only earth pony in a family of pegasi where not even my grandparents are like me. That’s a genetic outlier if I’ve ever seen one.” 

He shook his head and darted away from me. “Whatever, Dad.”

    Well, if that didn’t work, I doubt anything but the truth will. 

I didn’t bother stopping Haze and just let him go back to his game. Too damn intuitive. He’s been hanging around the Apples too much, I swear.

    “That’s pretty rough, Mr. Soarin,” Fallacy commented. 

The hybrid—who was the most uniform of all his siblings, mainly pony parts with a dragon and webbed-dino hind leg, an antler instead of a horn, and of course the magic of chaos incarnate—was actually one of my best fliers. Unfortunately, he’s not allowed in contests because trust and Discord go out the window unless some guarantee of fair play can be assured by the presence of a princess. I can tell when he is and isn’t being lazy, and usually, in spite of his nature, he’s pretty earnest.

    “You know, I could give him wings.”

    Of course, he is his father’s son.

    “Oh, shut up, Fal.” Prism beat me to it, just finishing his personal drills moments ago. “Haze having wings isn’t about to make Mom not crazy.”

    As if he’d never considered that, Fallacy brought a hoof to his lips. “Oh. Is he wrong-headed in thinking that the whole ‘not a pegasus’ thing is the real problem here?” Being spawn of Discord and the only one with his magic, the words and air quotes for ‘not a pegasus’ appeared above his head in white serif font as they were said.

    I scattered the letters away. “You really don’t need to be saying things like that about your mother.” I coughed into my hoof. “True as they may be.”

    “Ah.” Fallacy made and then snapped fingers. “So this is one of those ‘friendship problems’ I’ve heard so much about.”

    “Well, maybe,” Prism added. “But, all in all, I think this is more of a them thing than an outside thing. And ya know, it’s Mom. Have you ever tried to convince my mom of anything? It’s basically impossible. And she says Mrs. Applejack is stubborn.”

    Fallacy, who openly had a secret crush on Gin, Applejack’s eldest daughter, nervously tapped his hooves together. “Oh, but Mrs. Applejack is delightful. Why would she say that?”

    Here, I’ll say that I’m pretty easy to talk to. My wife has her friends, and because I’m the more mellow of the two of us, I get along with all their husbands. I’ve heard a lot of stories, and I’ve got tight lips too.

    So I sighed. “Because it’s true, really. That said, they’d both curbed that bad influence at one point in their lives, except she simply became more subtle about it while mine took an extreme to new heights. In Rainbow Dash fashion, as it must be. She’s awe-inspiring, in all things.”

    Fallacy laughed heartily, and Prism laughed sadly. “Yeah… that’s my mom.”

    “Should I—” Fallacy gave himself a beard to stroke “—perhaps consult mine about this? Nopony strikes fear in the heart quite like she does, after all. And they’re old friends, too. Would that help, or would it make things worse?”

    “That would depend entirely on whether or not you could get your father to stay out of it. She tolerates him, and I’m pretty sure that’s as far as it goes.”

    The hybrid then dispelled his beard. “Best not then. You know how Father is. If a pot needs stirring on the other hoof…”

    Prism shook his head. “Nah. Haze is too much like her. He’d be compelled to do something stupid, and then Mom would follow suit. It’s, uh… you know, the thing with the dogs.”

    I frowned at my poor rainbow-headed boy. “Let sleeping dogs lie?”

    He clapped his hooves and pointed at me. “Yeah, that one.”

    “You think maybe you should skip practice and go read or something?”

    Fallacy literally fell to pieces laughing, and again, Prism fell dejected. 

“Na coo, Dad, na coo.”