Shining Armor trotted to Princess Celestia's study with all due haste. His presence had been requested at an inconvenient time, so he had been dashing around all morning. It was now mid afternoon and he was hurrying, hoping that he'd make it on time. Rounding the final corner, he came to an abrupt stop, head sagging and breathing heavily. He nodded mutely, still breathing heavily, to the guards a moment later. They opened the door for him and motioned him. "The Princess is ready to see you, Captain." Shining walked obediently into the study, as the doors shut behind him.
"Ah, finally, so good to see you Captain!" The Princess seemed awfully tense behind her usual mask of patient benevolence. She motioned to him. "Do take a seat." Relaxing, Shining Armor sat, heavily, on the indicated cushion. I hear you caused your sister significant distress, Captain, you should be more careful." Shining shrank a little. Great, he should have known this would come back to bite him. Work and personal life were never truly separate when you were married to one Princess and brother to another Princess' personal student...
"I'm sure Cadence had a chat with you, Shining, but since I had to deal with a very distraught unicorn I thought we might talk." Shining Armor nodded hesitantly. "Between the two of us, Shining, your sister can get a little emotionally worked up, and finding out that you're adopted is very hard on a pony in our society, especially Canterlot." She looked at him rather pointedly.
"I know, Princess, and I ought to apologize, but I didn't want to bring it up again..."
Celestia seemed to think about this for a moment. "Sooner might be better than later,
it's not good to let this kind of thing go. Cadence will probably bug you until you deal with it anyway."
"Heh, yeah, probably.", Shining said, glancing around to see whether his wife might have somehow entered unheard. Comforted, strangely, by the absence of a certain pink Alicorn, he relaxed in his seat. Noticing how tense Celestia seemed, it only seemed fit to inquire. "Are you okay, Princess? You seem a little tense." Celestia jerked, startled out of her thoughts.
"I'm fine, just a little tired. Everypony seems to forget that alicorns aren't utterly perfect in every way." She shouldn't lie, she thought, but then that was only a half-truth. She was a bit tired, but it didn't have much to do with sleeping – unless, of course, you counted not sleeping very well these past several days.
As it was, her mind seemed determined to play out all possible scenarios where Twilight never found out who her real mother was. It shouldn't bother her so much, she tried to convince herself, but then how many of her children had been part of her regular life, much less been her personal student and that was long ago.
Sweeping away the thoughts, she returned her focus to the present. "Captain, you are dismissed. That is, unless you need something?" Celestia tried to give the vague impression that if he wanted to avoid Cadence, who often stopped in to see Celestia, when he didn't have anywhere else to be, that he might want to get going. It was disingenuous of her, but it served her purposes.
"Yes, your majesty. Or rather, no, nothing else I need." Shining Armor snapped a salute and with the gesture returned left in a dignified haste.
Earlier that day
Twilight eyed her room critically. What a mess. She really should clean up, she missed having Spike around to keep things tidy. I ought to put that on that on the checklist, she thought, grabbing a sheet and a quill from desk with a quick telekinesis spell. She jotted the thought down and then folded the sheet and tucked it into her packed bags, then settled them on her flank. Whistling softly, she climbed down the stairs. Another day of research, what fun! If only it were a less depressing and disheartening topic she thought to herself.
"See you later, Twilight" Night Lighted called from the kitchen. "Yep. See you later too,.. Dad." Still not over that, she thought sadly, detecting the slight drag in calling him Dad. It still didn't feel quite right, maybe okay, but not right.
A long walk later, Twilight arrived at the archives. This time, her destination certain, she didn't stop to talk to the receptionist, but headed straight to the third floor.
In the absence of a better place to start, she had decided to work on a bit of a family tree. She'd have to work on this blind, because she assumed her parents might not be forthcoming. Setting her saddlebags on the table, she walked over to the shelves.
Scanning the shelves, she selected six separate books based on what she could remember of her "parents" and "grandparents" birthdays.
Much later that afternoon, Twilight Sparkle sat in front of a drawn out tree connecting her known "family". The days effort only left her with her parents and their parents birthdays and relations. and her brother. On the left side a name was written, "Dusk Flame Sparkle", circled in red with a question mark beside it. The most interesting information she'd gained was that her mother might have had a sibling, or maybe the mark out was a spelling mistake. It wasn't really possible to tell and her mother likely wouldn't confirm or deny anything. Twilight and her mother could be notoriously stubborn at times.
She sighed. The day hadn't been entirely worthless, she had consulted the adoption records, in between fruitless work, and found that fifteen percent or more of foals in Canterlot were adopted, mostly from within the city proper though and only rarely by those of noble birth. She hadn't found any proof of her being adopted though, merely a statement of a transfer of legal guardianship. It wasn't particularly clear *from* whom said guardianship might have been transferred. It couldn't have been her father, since he had died before she was born. It could have been her mother, but if so, why didn't the records indicate who she was? The seal of the crown was irrelevant and useless, since the monarchy effectively confirmed all legal matters indirectly.
Dissatisfied with her results, and resolving to dig deeper, Twilight tidied up her paper and quills, placing them in her saddlebags. Satisfied that everything was in order, she lifted her saddlebags onto her flanks magically, securing them in the process. With some effort, she collected all the books from the table and systematically shelved them, before heading down the stairs.
She slipped out the front doors of the archives, into the rain. "Ugh.", she muttered to herself, magicking her saddlebags so they would stay dry. Then she hurried home through the rain.
She arrived at home, tired and wet. Twilight pushed open the door, waved hello to her parents and went upstairs, dripping water droplets all the way.
"Twilight! Could you please not drip all over the house?", said Twilight Velvet from the kitchen.
Twilight sighed. "Yes, -mom-". In her frustration, she put extra emphasis on the mom. There was silence from the kitchen. She sighed, then quietly headed upstairs to the bathroom after using her magic to dry up the wet spots.
Early Evening
*knock, knock*
Yes...?
Twilight walked over to the door, opening it halfway. When she saw who it was, her pupils shrank in size.
"What do you want now? Any new stunning revelations?"
She put her hoof up to her mouth with a slightly shocked look. Yeah, she was mad, but clearly she wasn't as over that as she thought. Twilight stood there half-way between apologizing for her words and just shutting the door and crying.
Shining Armor cringed at her words, and the tone of voice. He'd been afraid this might happen, it was why he'd been so reluctant to even go see her. If it hadn't been for Cadence, his discomfort might have gotten the better of him.
"I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, Twilight...", he said, stopping when he saw that she was a bit out of it. So he waited for her to recover.
"Where were we?", Twilight muttered, still looking very strained.
"I was saying that I was sorry for my words the other day."
"I see. Well it'd be really great if you could NEVER do that again! You have no idea what it's like to find out that your parents aren't your parents and you were told this, not politely, but by your drunken brother!"
"I'm really sorry, Twiley... I just don't want it to be like this between us forever."
Twilight sighed. " Fine. I forgive you. Is there anything else you'd like to share?"
Shining Armor relaxed a bit, and sat down in the doorway. "No, not really. Although while we're talking about family, did mom and dad ever tell you about my uncle?"
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Nope, never heard of him."
"Well, he was a unicorn too, duh right? He was in the royal guard and I really found him inspiring and that's the other reason I wanted to be in the guard. He died when I was five years old. Mom and Dad adopted you right around then, and well I was really happy to have a little sister."