//------------------------------// // When you're tossing, when you turn in your sleep // Story: Ghosting // by KorenCZ11 //------------------------------//     At Ponyville Castle Academy, as this was one of the very first modern buildings built in Ponyville and a stone’s throw away from the castle, there are eight forty-five minute periods a day. For Dash and I, six are for training the pegasi, one for our other class, and one for lunch. We get to play the ‘married’ card to spend lunches together, but other than that, we don’t see each other much all day.  Of course, that may be a blessing in disguise. Dash is eccentric, but it may not be so clear to others as it is to me just how eccentric she is.     A normal day for me consists of getting up in the morning at 6AM. Shower, work on breakfast, gather Dash and the kids if she doesn’t have a meeting that day, then drive to the school. After 7AM and setting up whatever routine I’ll have the students work on for my classes, I see to my lesson plan for history class.     Today was going to be uncomfortable.     The ancient lineage of pegasi before the first Hearth’s Warming is, quite frankly, not a super fun topic for pegasi. While this is also true for unicorns, the pegasi of old had an awful habit of keeping royal families royal by only breeding with other royalty. Needless to say, there were only about three royal families back then, and sometimes, they didn’t even venture outside their own immediate family when seeking a mate.     In particular, we were going over Emperor Auto Aerial’s fraught family, in which, after he was killed, his wife married her son to keep in power. And then had more descendants. While this was never a fun subject to go over, the terrible inbreeding and discovery of new birth defects aside, what that made me most uncomfortable about this topic was the description of Empress Low Castle. A yellow pegasus of small stature with, of course, a rainbow mane, one of the few physical traits in the world that are uniquely found in the pegasus descendants of Lady Low Castle.     The personality traits of lady Low Castle are boiled down to her hungry ambition and avarice, but it doesn’t help that she was also noted to be a very competitive, protective, driven, and loyal pony too. This subject comes and goes every year, and every year, comparisons are made. She brings it on herself, of course, since it feels like she can’t stand five minutes away from her precious Haze, but I’m the one who has to suffer for it.     I have to answer questions, and as time goes by, with my wife’s madness on full display every day of my life, the more I feel like I uniquely understand what Lady Low Castle was like.     Today’s class had left me thinking about the circumstances of war that left her in that position, and how drastically she was changed after the death of Emperor Auto. It was like the very traits that made her worthy of her title as empress then drove her to a sick pitch, which eventually shattered that whole royal house. The empire falls, Pegasopolis is reorganized around another of the royal families, and save for the rainbow manes that would appear every now and again, the empire’s lineage is left to the ashes of history.     As I was leaving my class and heading to the faculty room to meet Dash for lunch, I had to wonder. It would be insane to think of an unholy union like that these days, but if we’d been in that position, would Dash…? No, no, no. Haze wouldn’t have been possible in those days. But something still going wrong could've led to a similar event. A broken wing, a birth defect that leaves a child flightless, etc. Not everypony is fast enough to catch children when they fall.     Bah. It’s all nonsense.     Of course, the moment this thought runs through my head, I pass by the cafeteria. What else could I have possibly spotted there other than a mother bringing her son his lunch. And then sitting down next to him.     At his table with his friends.     “Oh, Dash.”     Praying with all my might that she wouldn’t make a scene, I cautiously approached the group, opting for stealth and trying to appear confused, as if I’d been looking for her. Everypony could see it was a lie; who can’t spot Dash and Prism from miles and miles away? But still, I tried to play ignorant.     “Uh… so, are ya gonna be stayin’ long, Mrs. Dash?” Golden Peel, Applebloom’s oldest, was the first to question the hovering mother. Save Cotton Pie, most of Haze’s close friends were earth ponies. Because I only have one mixed-race class, I didn’t really know them all that well unless they’d been to the house or belonged to one of Dash’s close friends. Several of them do, but not all of them.     “No,” Haze answered immediately. “Thanks, Mom. You can go now.”     I can’t even fault him for putting it so harshly. Sweet Wing would know better, and if it were my mother…     “Well, I mean, I’ve got some time. Come on, you don’t have to stop for me. I just, uh…”     Dash, for the love of the Goddess, please get up and walk away.     “You know, I put some different stuff in your lunch this time. Go on, open it.”     She didn’t. I’m the one who made it. And it contains the exact same things it always contains, because that’s what Haze asked for.     But, buying the lie, Haze eyed her suspiciously. “You… made my lunch today? Not Dad?”     Cotton snickered. “From what my mom’s said, Mrs. Dash burns more than she cooks.”     Dash glared at the pink-headed white pegasus with the very malice he delights in. “Pinkie was just exaggerating; I’m not that bad.” She then coughed into her wing. “Anymore.”     While we were dating, she nearly killed me with her very first home-made cake. Before meeting Pinkie, Dash did not know what a measuring cup was. Home-Ec was a skill that came late in life for her.     “I’d believe that.” Haze said, flatly. And then, the very worst thing my son has ever picked up from Cotton appeared on his face: an evil smile.     Oh no.     His mother was embarrassing him in front of his friends, and he was about to do it right back.     “You know, one time, Mom decided she was going to try and make this pie—”     “Hey!” I called, interrupting the speech. “There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.” Doubtless, the story will be told later, but taking her away will at least prevent a public scene.     Dash froze in place, and Haze breathed a sigh of relief.     “Hi, Mister Soarin,” a few of the other boys answered. As if the whole cafeteria realized the story wasn’t going to be told, the volume level rose in the room.     “Hey, guys.” I tapped Dash on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go get lunch.”     She was incredibly reluctant to get off the lunch table chair. “Yeah, okay. I’ll see ya later, Buddy.”     Haze coughed, “Thanks, Dad,” as quick as he could, then waved. “Bye, Mom.”     Disaster averted. But the moment I breathe easy, Dash remembers something. “Oh, and Bell Fade?”     The lone unicorn’s ears perked up. “Uh… yes, Mrs. Dash?”     “Still waiting on that assignment from last week. I really don’t wanna call Mrs. Belle, but if I don’t see it soon…”     We were this close. We’d almost gotten away. Why, Dash?     The poor kid stammered. “I-I’ll, um… I’ll get it done today, Mrs. Dash.”     She gave him a winged thumbs up. “That’s what I thought. Bye, kiddos.”     And only after embarrassing one last pony did Dash finally come away quietly. Clear of traffic and alone in the hall, I took her aside.     “Dude.”     She threw her wings up in defense. “What!? He left his lunch in the car! I didn’t know if he had any money on him, so—”     “Dash.”     Ears falling flat, haunches to the floor, she tapped her forehooves together. “I-I mean, if I didn’t bring it… what if he didn’t eat anything today? He might’ve been hungry and thinking about food instead of paying attention in class. Ya know, Trebuchet said he barely pays attention at all in class and nothing she does ever seems to stick. I thought, maybe…”     I put a hoof on her shoulder. “Dash, sweetie, love, darling, my dearest.” Then, I pulled her close. “Giving him his lunch because you care is fine. Sitting down with him and his friends at their lunch table is not.”     She pulled back. “B-but!” She stammered for the words, then she leaned in to whisper, “T-they were talking about mares, Soarin!”     Oh, for the love of the Goddess.     “And not, like, the other students, but the other teachers! Haze is only twelve, I don’t want Cotton—”     “Dash.”     She fell silent and still, her head bowed in shame.     “He’s twelve. Next year, he’ll be a teenager. I would be more concerned if he wasn’t talking about mares.”     “B-but… teachers?”     Slowly, I shook my head. “It’s like… a male pastime. If you aren’t looking at your instructors and discussing them with the boys, something isn’t right. I mean, come on, when you were in the academy, didn’t you have ponies you talked about the instructors with?”     In my case, we were mostly concerned with how absurdly attractive Spitfire’s mother was. There were a few instructors that would catch the eye—you kinda have to be in great shape to be a Wonderbolt instructor—but Spitfire’s mom had it going on. Come to think of it, Dash is awfully similar in shape to her.     “I mean, I didn’t really have friends at the academy. Backstabbers, maybe, but nopony to talk about stallions with.” She shook the memory away. “But, I mean, twelve? Really? Are they… this is kinda early, isn’t it?”     I massaged my eyes. It would be one thing if Haze was our only son, but he’s not even our oldest son. “You are aware that Prism has a marefriend, right?”     She scoffed, like that was the most obvious thing in the world. “Course he does. Little stud. She’s lucky to have him!”     Goddess among us.     “So, if Prism can be dating Cheesette no problem, why is Haze merely talking about mares with his friends a problem?”     Her brows furrowed. “Well, Haze is just a baby. He’s not even a teenager! He doesn’t need to be talking about mares like that!”     Love is often very painful.     “Dash, he’s not a teenager… for four months. You turned thirty-nine a week ago.”     She practically jumped to the ceiling. “Gah! Don’t say that! Oh Goddess, ponies don’t need to know that!” Wrapping a wing around my mouth, she checked the hall; it remained empty. “Look, let’s just go eat, alright? Nopony in this building needs to know how old I or anypony else is.”     Oh, how the disparity continues.         “Soarin!”     I sighed. I love how persistent she is, but Goddess, do I hate how persistent she is. I left Prism in charge of practice to prepare to go lie to my wife. “Yeah? What’s up?” As if I didn’t know. Though, she is a little more worked up than I expected.     “I can’t find Haze. Have you seen him? He didn’t tell me he was going anywhere… do you think he has his phone on him? If I call—”     I threw my hooves on her shoulders and got her to focus on me. “Dash?”     “Yeah?”     “Breathe for me, alright?”     Somewhere between hyperventilating and holding her breath, finally, she starts to calm down. A deep breath later, “Okay. Do you know where he is?”     I do, actually. “I think he’s with Cotton. He said he was going to hang out at the bakery today.”     Anger flooded her face, and wings flared open. “The bakery! Why didn’t he tell me!? I am gonna call Pinkie right now and—”     “Dash, honey.” According to the plan, now the goal was to get her to see how absurd she’s being. “Do you think maybe you’re being a little too—”     “No!” she shouts, defiant to my face. I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to talk to her at all right now. Her ‘baby’ is missing.     Well, plan B it is. “Oh-kay. Well, I’m gonna pick him up on the way home, so—”     “Nope. Going to the bakery now. See ya at the house. Love ya, bye.” The ground shakes, Dash soars into the air, then blasts off in a rainbow trail northwest, to the bakery.  It’s less that I’m not allowed to be alone with Haze, but she has to have a visual on him every chance she can. Thinking about it, I hope the students saw that. Her form is just so perfect that, if she weren’t doing it out of insane motherly desperation, you could hardly believe she was in her late-thirties. But does she think she has the strength to carry Haze home? He weighs almost as much as she does, and he’s already getting close to her height.     Seeing she was far enough away, I signaled to the bush beside the red brick wall of the gym. “She’s gone.”     The rain had stopped midway through the day. She’d called it earlier since we still didn’t have an approval to do rain drills, so I’m glad I listened. If only the reverse were true.     Downtrodden, my little guy’s head pops out of the bushes. “Are you sure?”     Taking to the air myself, Dash’s rainbow trail slowly diminishes until finally, it’s far out of view. She has to cross three districts before she actually makes it to Pinkie’s bakery, so even with her crazy speed, she’s not getting there for a while. “Oh yeah. She sure is.”     Haze emerges from the bushes, filled with relief. “Oh, thank the Goddess.”     At some point, I have to wonder if Fallacy wasn’t on the mark about this being like a friendship problem of old. It’s not just that Dash is traumatized and deeply scarred; Haze is doing his best to just run away from her instead of actually getting the truth out of her. I know he has the words to explain himself well enough, but does he have the temper to endure his mother at the same time?     “You know, you can’t hide from her forever.”     Haze threw a hoof up in irritation. “Of course, I can’t! If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she has a tracker in my ear or something. I just hope Cotton did his part…”     “Yeah, me too. She trusts Pinkie like a sister, so I’m hoping she can talk some sense into her. But, uh…” I rubbed at my chin. “What are you gonna do if she can’t?”     As if I popped his balloon, he deflated. “Oh Goddess…”     Deciding to broach the subject, I asked, “Haze, buddy, have you tried discussing this with her? And, I mean, in earnest, not just blowing up on each other.”     His little magenta eyes glared at me. “It’s not like I’ve never tried, but… but! You know how she is; she just ignores me!” His despair took over, covering his mane with his hooves. “It’s too much, Dad! I can’t take it! She’s driving me crazy!”     “Haze, I know how she is, really. But you’ve got to try and talk this out with her. It can’t go on forever, but she’s going to try and keep it that way if she can help it.”     And, really, she would try. It took him turning ten before she would actually let him go be with his friends without her. I fought tooth and nail for that, and even still, if she doesn’t know their parents as well as her old friends, she won’t let him go. Prism, on the other hoof, can be with Cheesette unsupervised as often as he wants. Thankfully, Prism is too docile to try anything, but I’ve always got that voice in the back of my head telling me how suspect the arrangement is. If it were me, I don’t think I should’ve been trusted with that freedom.     “Well, yeah, I can see that!” he groaned. “Oh Goddess, Mom, consider what you’re about! I’m twelve, unmarked, and kept in a cage so tight, I feel like freedom wouldn’t suit me if I ever attained it! It’s just out of reach and even a little bit keeps me begging for more like some kind of addict! Dad!” He stood up and put his hooves on my shoulders. “Can’t you say something? Like, anything? If you hadn’t saved me at lunch today, she never would’ve left!”     I nodded. “I know, buddy, I know.” Then, I thought better of it. “But do other ponies really need to be told the Pie incident? Your mom has low points, but… that one should stay between family.”     Re: the Pie incident—     Dash hates pie. No real reason why other than she says it feels gross in her mouth. All the same, Haze loves it, so she set aside her discomfort to try and make it for his birthday a few years back. After months of practice with Pinkie and at home, she’d finally made a few that were edible, and then went on to try and make Haze’s birthday pie. She’d made a mistake with the recipe and not cooked it properly, leaving raw egg in the mixture. It was a little loose and didn’t taste bad, but you could tell something was wrong.     We all got sick.     We were collectively ill for a week. Couldn’t keep food down; everything would blow out both ends; the plumbing was clogged more than once. It was a bad time. Of course, nobody had it worse than Haze did because it was so very close to his favorite pie, and again, it did taste alright. She spent every possible moment tending to him as best she could while sick herself, which probably prolonged the illness in the end.     To this day, nothing makes Dash more embarrassed than bringing up the time she poisoned her whole family, trying to please her son.     Haze sighed. “I didn’t tell anypony. I was hoping that the word alone would make her go away, but… I don’t know that giving Cotton that information would be a good thing for anypony.”     “No, probably not.” The chronic liar was capable of more discord than Discord himself these days. Smart, devious, mischievous and malicious. If the kid weren’t so utterly devoted to his mother, almost like a reverse Haze and Dash, he could really end up a terrible pony. He curbs his worst impulses on her behalf, but that isn’t always enough to keep him from taking his own designs too far. Naturally, Haze and Cotton understand each other like brothers would, perhaps on a level more so than either of their actual brothers. With Prism dating the youngest Pie daughter, we have quite a lot of contact with that family. It helps that Pinkie is one of the few ponies in the world who can make Dash see reason. Which is funny, considering Dash didn’t even like her when they first met.     “Yeah, I’ll keep that one to myself.” And he shook his head. “But still, you’ve gotta do something about her. Did you know that she checks up on me before every class? Everypony in my classes knows her because she always accosts me in the hall before classes start.”     “Uh…” But the truth is, I didn’t know that. I don’t ever have time to leave the gym between classes. Where does she find it? And, accosts? Where are you picking up these words? Do I even know what that means?     “And that’s not all, either. You saved me this time, but that’s not the first time she’s bothered me at lunch.”     Oof. “Really?” Oh, Dash…     “Really! She knows the name, birthday, parents, blood type, and grades of all my friends! She keeps up with it, too, just to have something to talk about when she does barge in on my circle. Sure, maybe you’d expect that for Cotton, Ace and Kick Flip since our moms are so close, but she went out of her way to hang out with Mrs. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle just to get more details about Peel and Fade! It’s weird that she shows up in the first place, but it’s creepy when she can talk about things that they aren’t supposed to know!”     Oh. Oh, Dash, why? Even at the Hearth’s Warming parties, she doesn’t talk to her friend’s younger sisters that much. Maybe… this is worse than I thought.     “Look, Dad, I can try to talk to Mom, but I can’t promise anything. I’d love to be able to like, I don’t know, have a coherent conversation with her, but she just… it’s like I’m not a pony to her. I get that she cares and all, but it’s… way, way too much.”     Nope, you aren’t a pony to her. She said it today: you’re her baby, which is the farthest thing from a functioning, independent, self-fulfilled pony there could be.  Goddess preserve me. What in the world am I going to say to her? I don’t want to get into a fight in front of the kids. This can’t turn into what it was just before Haze was born. It’ll be… just like when my parents…     “Hey, y’all, sorry Ah’m late.”     Speaking of, Golden Peel finally made his way out of the school building. True to his name, the young stallion was gold-coated with amber eyes and a red-violet mane. He and Haze were born a month apart from each other and grew up side by side. Of course, we don’t often have cause to visit his family, so only in gatherings like church, school, and parties do we cross paths. Kid’s got a winning smile, a bright personality, and enough sarcasm and wit for several classrooms over, much to the dismay of PCA’s faculty.     It’s not exactly a confirmed fact, but the rumor goes that, before immigrating to Equestria, his father, Cuore d’Oro—or Oro as we call him—was a famous thief overseas. Nopony really knows the where or why, though, but he is quite stuck to Applebloom. Dude is the envy of stallions everywhere, and his kids definitely got the best of him.     “Trebuchet’s got a mouth on her, ya know that? Ain’t happy with me fer goin’ on about gravity constants when we haven’t gotten there in lessons yet. Less happy bout how Ah corrected her in that air resistance has a greater effect on projectiles than most ponies realize in the middle of class. Hell of an earful for showin’ her up.”     Haze rolled his eyes. “You’d think that after doing the same thing to Mrs. Abacus two weeks ago, you might learn.”     Peel scoffed. “Bah, them ol’biddies got their panties in a twist. They’re just mad Ah’m better at it. Ah am mister top score, after all.”     “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud. My dearest Peel, thou art a prig,” quoth Haze. That’s right. He took theater this semester. Good Goddess, he’s good at that. Silently, I chuckled to myself. None other than the greatest drama queen herself to produce an heir suitable for the stage. You don’t have a cutiemark yet, but I get the feeling that it won’t be long.     Switching modes, Peel responded in kind. “Thy words fall upon the deaf. For what is a stallion if not one who strides with confidence in all acts he endeavors? But cast the devil upon this nonsense. Dearest Haze, let us alight. To delay mine honored mother is to throw stones at a bear.”     Huh. He’s really good at this, too. You’d never believe he had an accent if he spoke like that all the time. Also, alight? The hell does that mean?     “Well—” Haze turned back to me “—I’d better go. If Mrs. Pie can’t detain Mom, she’s going to come back looking for me, and I don’t wanna be here when she finds you. Thanks for helping me out, Dad.”     I patted his mane. “Don’t worry about it, buddy, but try to think about what you’re going to say next time you see her. She’s not going to be happy about this.”     “Yeah…”     “See y’all later, Mr. Soarin.” Peel waved.     “Bye, Dad.”     And so the young stallions take their exit.     Now… what, exactly? She’s going to be pissed off at all of us for colluding in this little scheme of his. Not that he doesn’t deserve some freedom, but I don’t know what I could do to get her to grant that freely.     How can I get Dash to let her baby go?     Probably by reading a book or something. I made fun of Prism this morning because he deserves it, but now Haze is using words I don’t know, and I’m the teacher. Like father, like son.     I feel for you, Mrs. Trebuchet. The kids of this generation are a different breed.         There are times when I hate being right.  It’s not super often that I can just predict the future like that, but when I get that anticipation in my feathers, it’s like I could script out the scene myself, though I’m not a very good writer either. I suppose that’s why this anticipation never leads to anything good. It happened before Dash fell—though that had a better ending than it warranted—before the miscarriage, before Haze’s fall, and it’d been fairly quiet since then.     Only now, sitting in front of the TV watching the Amateur Flier League with Prism, do I get that feeling again.     I shivered. “Oh no…”     Prism’s ear twitched. “Huh? What’s wrong Dad?”     Of course, explaining that to Prism would be near impossible and certainly not allowed where the fall is concerned. Instead, I directed it to the race. “Uh, Checkered Flag. He’s booking it like Dash used to, taking this way too far. He’s gonna hurt himself here in a minute, just watch.”     The AFL consisted of high school to college-age fliers all vying for a spot in the pro leagues and the various Wonderbolt branches across Equestria. Cloudsdale’s branch was the most famous of these, usually getting the cream of the crop, but any Wonderbolt position pretty much set a young, hot-blooded pegasus up for life, so they push themselves like Dash did to make up for her lost time, and that leads to injuries. When you’re Dash, everything has to be taken to an extreme, such as tearing a muscle so bad, the wing is practically hanging off the bone like some kind of sword wound.     And sometimes, you’re just poor Checkered Flag here. The dappled pegasus’s right wing turned at a bad angle, and Flag went down hard.      “Ouch!” Prism yelped.     Lead gone, career suspended until he can recover (if he can recover), and all because he just wanted it too bad. I’m sure his coach is cursing him right now, telling him as he goes to recover the young stallion how he’s said again and again that one race isn’t worth your career. It happens time and time again.     Prism covered his mouth. “Goddess! They aren’t supposed to bend like that!”     I shrugged, taking another sip of my beer. “No, they aren’t. By the way, if I haven’t said it enough yet, don’t get over-ambitious. This is what that gets you.”     Which I’ve known all my life. Most of the time, I deserved the second-place trophy because I’m fast enough, or at least I used to be when I was in my prime, but not reckless enough to blow my wings out in a race. To say the least, I won several races.     The boy shook his rainbow mane. “Uh, yeah, no thanks. Don’t want that.”     “Good.” Not that you’ll ever have to push during an amateur race, if you don’t just get picked up right out of school. Me at my prime versus Prism now, I might lose, especially if he pushed himself. He’s so disgustingly perfect for racing that I wonder why his special talent is related to architecture. I can only imagine how I’d feel if he had a similar sibling.     But he doesn’t.     “Is she back yet?” Haze asked as he carefully walked in the door.     “You’re in the clear for now.”     Breathing a sigh of relief, Haze trotted on into the living room and plopped down at my other side on the couch. “Good. I’m too tired to deal with her right now.”     Which he was, sweating like crazy, putting off heat like a generator. Whiskey or whoever was running things today must’ve worked him hard. Considering Peel was there, it may very well have been the head Apple herself. I took a swing at playing in the Apple orchard once. Definitely not an earth pony. Nearly broke my hooves trying to kick all those trees.     “Buddy, scoot over or go take a shower. You’re gross.”     Dash’s tired eyes looked up at me irritated but too exhausted to argue, so Haze complied. “I’m kinda surprised she hasn’t gotten away yet.”     “Mrs. Pie can make a good argument when she’s not being weird,” Prism commented. “And ya know, Mom can’t when she’s being crazy.”     I rubbed at my chin. “Have you seen Pinkie being weird? It’s been years since I last saw something really out there for her.”     Prism shook his head. “You’ve been spending too much time around Fallacy and Discord. You’re used to it. I was over there with Cheesette before her dad’s birthday a few months ago. Mrs. Pie insisted that everypony help her carve a rubber chicken statue out of a giant sugar block.”     I frowned. “You worked on the Boneless statue?”     Both of my sons tilted their heads at me. “It has a name?”     I shooed the question away. “Oh, don’t worry about it. That statue is the least strange thing Pinkie has made out of candy. I’m not desensitized, you just haven’t seen the kind of stuff ponies can get up to, Discord and Fallacy excluded.”     At that moment, both my and Prism’s phones buzzed. A text in our group chat with them: “Come now, we love to be included!” Discord, Fallacy.     Prism held his phone up for Haze. “See? This isn’t even the first time they’ve done that. Honestly, they need new material. I expect this kind of thing now.”     I shrugged. “It’s the mention of their names, you know. Like the words themselves are a signal for them to respond. It’s fine, really.”     “You guys have weird friends,” Haze added.     Putting my reading from before the race started to work, “So sayeth mine own son. He, whom breaks into sonnet at the slightest nudge and the quickest whip. For what child could be produced by the lone queen of drama herself but a prince of the stage? Methinks thy looking glass must be tarnished.”     He raised a hoof defiantly… until he put it right back down. “Well, okay.”     “That’s what I thought.”     Prism, however, had been lost completely. “I have no idea what that exchange of words meant.”     I put my forelegs around both my boys and brought them in. “And you know what? That’s fine. You don’t have to be an actor, he doesn’t have to be a racer, and you can both just be my boys.”     Of the few things that competed for best feeling in the world, putting a smile on my sons’ faces like that was at least in the top three. The boys hugged me back, and we sat there just like that, letting the race finish and the clock tick away.     But then, all hell broke loose.     “Where were you!?”     Mom’s home.     Immediately jumping up from the couch, Haze stood defiantly against his mother, hilariously in the exact same position she was in right now. “Why do you have to know!? You keep tabs on me 24/7 as it is; why can’t I have an hour away from you!?”     Prism was about to get up to intervene, but I kept him with me on the couch. This was not only inevitable, it needed to happen. If they weren’t so damn similar, they wouldn’t be fighting like this in the first place.     Dash was struck. “What? Of course, I have to know! What if something happens!?”     “Then something happens! I’m not in idiot, and you’re not the Goddess!”     Someone has been thinking about what to say.     “That doesn’t matter, Haze! You can’t just go off on your own wherever! There are places, just in this city alone, that ponies like you shouldn’t be!”     Huh. So has someone else.     But Haze growled. “Can’t you listen for once!? I know that! I’m not about to run off to the cardinals; I was just with my friends!”     Dash growled right back. “Which friends? Is it so hard to send me a text so I know you’re okay!?”     He threw an accusing hoof at her. “Yes! Because, then, you come find me and bother me and embarrass me in front of my friends! What is wrong with you!? Sitting down with us at lunch when you weren’t invited!”     And so, Dash flinched. Her eyes found and pleaded with me, but I just finished off my beer. She glared at me, but went right back to Haze. “You forgot your lunch! I can’t let you go hungry!”     “I have money for that! It’s one thing if you just bring it to me and another thing for you to sit down with us!”     “Uh…” And she swallowed. “I-I was just waiting on your dad! And, uh, I needed that assignment from Bell Fade, yeah.”     “Yeah, maybe this time, but what about all the ones before that when Dad isn’t at school and you just stay!? Why can’t you leave me alone at school? You bother me when I’m playing games, you bother me when I’m with my friends, and you always make an ass of yourself!”     Now I was getting ready to intervene. If Haze starts throwing more curses around, this is going to get ugly.     “You can’t talk to me like that! I’m your mother!”     I sighed. Blow right past the valid complaints and focus on the insult like a laser. That’s my Dash.     Furious and on the point of tears, Haze had enough. “Goddess damn it, I wish you weren't!”     He turned tail and ran up the stairs, slamming the door and locking it behind.     And so, Dash collapsed.  I looked at Prism, silently sent him on damage control with his little brother, then moved to console my wife.  Tears ran down her cheeks, she’d buried her face under her forelegs, and was practically shaking on the carpet.     Picking her up, I moved us to the couch and sat with her. After a few minutes of silent sobbing, she finally asked, “Why does he hate me, Soarin?”     I stroked her mane. “He doesn’t hate you, Dash.”     “But… but he just said—”     “Honey.”     She paused, warding off the hysteria.  “If you were listening at the end, did you hear anything else he said? Before that?”     Sniffling, her wrath returned. “Of course I did! H-he doesn’t want me in his life anymore!”     “No. That is not what he said. At all.”     She waved me away but continued to cry, burying her face in my chest. “Not exactly, but that’s what he meant! He doesn’t want me around! B-but he’s my baby! I can’t just… what if something does happen? What if he gets bullied, or somepony makes fun of him, or there’s some kind of disaster and he can’t get away, or—”     “Dash, sweetie, love, darling, my dearest.”  My incantation always gets her attention. She hates that she loves it.  “You’ve got to realize he’s not a baby anymore. He’s a young stallion now. What will you do when he brings a mare home one day? Says he wants to go off to Canterlot to join a troupe, or take to a school in Applewood to further his studies? In six years, he’ll be out of school. He might be looking for a part-time job in four. He could be driving in four.”     “No!” She shook her head, burrowing further into me. “He can’t be! He’s just a baby, it’s supposed to stay that way! He can’t be, he can’t! I’m not ready for him to grow up!”     And there was the crux, wasn’t it?     “I hate to break it to you, but he’s not going to wait for you.”     “But what if he falls? What if he falls!? I… I can’t lose another one. I can’t, Soarin…”