He didn’t know but after Clematis had gotten lost during their race, her behaviour had become a little unusual. Lightning’s too, as a matter of fact.
Well, not too weird per se, other than the fact that they were now actually getting along with each other. Maybe even becoming friends. Embarrassingly, Hurricane just a twinge of jealousy at that.
Don’t get him wrong, he was glad that Lightning would probably not be rude to Clematis anymore, now that they were friends and that whenever Clematis, Lightning and he were in a room together, Lightning spent more time looking and talking to Clematis than sending hateful, disgusted looks at Hurricane.
However, Clematis was the first friend he’d had who wasn’t friends with him simply because of his popularity and Lightning always paid attention to him, even though said attention usually compromised of glaring and arguing.
But now, Clematis seemed to shoot these little looks at Lightning when Lightning was there, even when she was talking to me and Lightning preferred talking to Clematis over bickering with him. Also it stung that his best friend could get along with his sister while he couldn’t.
Was there something wrong with him, he, for once, couldn’t help but contemplate. Then he shook his head, banishing that awful and utterly strange thought. There wasn’t anything wrong with him, he was amazing.
No, there had to be something wrong with Lightning instead, he decided. After all, she was the one his parents didn’t like.
That was when he came across Clematis and Lightning talking. He dismissed it at first. They were probably talking about some filly stuff that no colt would have interest in knowing, when he heard Clematis say his name.
That certainly captured his attention. Quickly hiding behind a wall, he decided to eavesdrop. After all, if he was involved in this then he had a right to know.
“Yes, he couldn’t have controlled it, but he doesn’t have to keep flaunting it in my face. How well beloved he is, how our parents love him more than me. He’s utterly pathetic”, Lightning said coolly, composed and calm yet still being able to project her anger. On the other hoof, Clematis looked like she was going to spit fire with how angry she looked.
Hurricane couldn’t help but scowl. Pathetic, him? It was time to make his presence known.
“You know sister, if you want to insult me, then do it to my face”, he snapped.
Clematis' ears pricked and she turned around, her eyes narrowing, but she didn't greet him, simply watching their every move in an animalistic, hawk-like manner.
“Well, why not? How about I tell you exactly how I feel about you”, Lightning wasn’t yelling at all, but she didn’t seem to need to, to convey her fury.
Clematis made a move, most likely to get between them, but Lightning held her hoof up and commanded, “Stop. He asked for this himself”
Clematis nodded and flew further away from them, though her were trained on them like a hawk.
“You are lazy and spoiled, never having worked for anything in your life. Of course not, mother and father would never let their precious heir suffer by making him do any work.
You are one of the most arrogant, selfish, inconsiderate and self-centre’s ponies I have ever met, always flaunting everything you have, never once realising how it makes others feel, always taking and taking and never once trying to understand those around you.
And most of all, you are a colt, not a filly. The colt mother and father always wanted. If only you hadn’t been born, I would’ve been the heir. And even they’d had a child again, who might’ve been a colt, they would’ve had enough time to grow to love me too.
I would’ve been father’s pride, not his punching bag. I would’ve been my mother’s darling, instead of the embarrassment she can’t even bear to look at, at times.”
Hurricane finished listening to his sister’s rant. Well, if you could call words said coldly and so matter-of-factly a rant. Was that really why his parents favoured him over his sister, not because he was better, he was special, but because he was a boy?
No wonder Lightning always seemed to be so annoyed with him. Her gender wasn’t something she could control yet she had to endure criticism about it from the very ponies who were supposed to love her.
Bile rose up in his throat as he recalled how much he used to tease her about being the favourite when they were younger, before she started spending the holidays at the academy.
Wait, he recalled a part of her tirade. Father’s punchbag? What did she mean by that?
“Hold on a second, what exactly do you mean by father’s punching bag?”, Hurricane asked, dread pooling up in his stomach. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to know the answer or not.
To his surprise, Lightning started laughing, throwing her head back. There was a mad gleam in her eyes and a dark edge to laughter that, to be honest, freaked him out.
“Sister”, he hesitantly said.
“You never did know, did you? Never noticed the bruises, the cuts? How I used to cower in fear whenever that stallion was around. You never noticed”, she gasped through her laughter. He could vaguely make out Clematis approaching them.
“You never noticed this”, she shoved her mane away, revealing a deep scar on the junction between her neck and shoulders, before bursting into another fit of laughter. By now, Hurricane was quite worried about his twin’s sanity and from the way Clematis seemed to frown and tense up, she could tell that she was too.
But, the fact that his father had raised his hand against his twin sister and had probably done so regularly, was even more disturbing than Lightning’s apparent insanity. His father wasn’t that kind of pony, was he?
His father had always been gentle and loving towards him, he was somepony Hurricane had always looked up to and idolised. To think that he was one of those ponies who were cruel and unloving…
“You have always been oblivious, haven’t you. But I can’t blame you, with how large your head is I doubt you can see anything beyond it”, Lightning panted, her cackling fading, as she gasped for breath.
Ok, this was taking things a little too far. Besides, while it may have been wrong for his parents to do what they, how was it his fault? He didn’t ask to be a boy. Lightning was simply taking out her frustration on him, which, in his opinion, was completely unfair.
“Ok, this is just not fair! Yes mother and father are wrong, yes they should love you too, but it isn’t my fault! You do realise that you’re blaming me for something that isn’t my fault, the same way mother and father blamed you.!”, he cried out.
He vaguely registered Clematis nodding her head in agreement and quietly stating that he was right, before sighing as she seemed to realise that nopony was paying attention to her and shrunk into the corner.
“I used to wonder what I did to deserve that kind of hatred from my own sister, my own twin sister. Now I know that I didn’t. Admit it, I didn’t deserve your loathing and cutting remarks.
But I was the easy target for your anger, wasn’t I? You couldn’t take your frustrations out on mother and father, so you went for the next best thing, me. For all you talk about being more composed and rational than me, about not losing yourself to your fury, deep down you are even more prone to anger than I am.
You’ve always let your grudges and anger rule your life. You are just good at hiding it with a façade, when you want to that is. I may be arrogant”, and oh that was hard to admit, but he continued on anyway, “but you are much more prideful than me. And there’s something you are that I’m not. A HYPOCRITE!”, he ended.
Both he and Lightning were breathless and puffing by now, exhausted from all the emotional outbursts and tirades, from all the revelations.
Clematis seemed to have picked up on the fact that they needed to be alone with each right now, for she had slipped off to who-knows-where.
“A hypocrite”, Lightning breathed out.
The silence that followed the whispered statement was discomforting. The tension in the air was thick enough to be cut with a knife.
Finally, Lightning broke the silence. “That’s what Clematis told me, but she didn’t call me a hypocrite outright.”, she tilted her head, her dark eyes seemed to be observing his every move.
“I’ve always blamed you for all my problems, haven’t I? I always felt that it was justified for me to do so. But I suppose you’re right. In the end, I picked the easy target for my frustrations. I never thought of how you couldn’t help being a colt the same way I couldn’t help being a filly.
I think I knew that on a subconscious level, which is why I was always so focused on finding faults within you and when I did, I latched onto them and used them as a way to defend my misplaced resentment”, she stated softly, her face expressionless and unreadable.
“You did, didn’t you? But I suppose I’m also to blame in a way. I’ve always vaunted how I was mother and father’s favourite child, never once thinking how hurt you might have felt because of it”, Hurricane admitted, sighing.
“It did. It did hurt, so very much”, Lightning looked into his eyes. Their eyes were so different, his a light cerulean while hers were purely black. But at the end of the day, despite all their differences, despite all the bitterness, they were twins. They had shared the same uterus for nine months.
“I’m sorry”, Hurricane stated. “For everything’s our parents did, our father did. For how I was indirectly responsible for your pain. For putting you down over something I had no real idea about.”
“I’m sorry too. For blaming you for something that wasn’t your fault, taking my anger out on you, I just… I’m sorry too”, she trailed off, letting out a breath.
“Truce”, Hurricane grinned his signature lopsided grin, which many fillies swooned at, and extended his wing.
“Truce”, Lightning agreed, shaking his wing firmly. Hurricane had a feeling that things were going to change and he didn’t mind it at all.