Today was just a huge mess. Between trying to control my company in the royal guard while they fought over who had to work what shift on New Year’s, and Princess Celestia deciding that it was a good day for a random inspection, on top of my regular shifts actually guarding her and Luna, I spent most of the day exhausted.
Still, at least I have the joy of knowing that I have Cadence waiting for me back at our house. Three years and I still get a little thrill every time I think of it, our house. So I came home and took a load off. I showered, talked to Cadence for a little bit, then I went to go watch some T.V. Cadence was going to join me after she set the kettle boiling, but then the doorbell rang.
I went to go check who it was, and there she was. Twily. I hadn’t seen her in so long, not since our housewarming party, that I almost couldn’t believe it was her. I hugged her, brought her in, she and Cadence did their silly little greeting dance, and then we all went into the kitchen to catch up. She told us about some funny things that happened during her lessons, Cadence and I told her some of our stories, we were on our third or four cups of tea, it was all going great. Then our doorbell rang again.
Cadence went to go answer it. A few seconds later, I heard her shriek. I rushed to the door, ready to attack, Twily right behind me. But as we got closer, I could hear some other pony talking.
“...o tight, let me go. Let me go!”
When I reached the entryway, I saw Cadence hugging somepony I had never seen before. She was hugging him so tightly, that he was actively struggling against it, his forehooves flailing about. He was the one who I heard speaking. I asked Cadence who he was.
“This is my cousin, Wild,” she said. “I asking him why I haven’t seen him in the last seven months.”
“Look, I’m sorry, I’ve been busy,” he said, still pushing against her, “Now would you please let me go?!”
Cadence released him from her hug, and he collapsed on the floor to glare at her as he gasped for breath.
“Here, peace offering.” He reached into the plastic bag he was carrying around his neck and pulled out a cylinder. I recognized it as a can of candied rose petals, they’re Cadence’s favorite snack and so I always make sure to pick one up whenever I get groceries.
“Thank you!” Cadence said as she tried to hug him again. He yelped and dodged backwards, holding the can out in front of him like a shield. Cadence frowned, but levitated the can out of his hoof and put it on a table somewhere. Suddenly she seemed to realize that Twily and I were there. She blushed, which always make my stomach do funny things, and started to introduce us.
“This is my cousin, Wild,” she said to us. “Wild, this is my coltfriend, Shining Armor.”
The stallion, Wild, looked at me with a shocked and confused expression, his mouth gaping as he looked between me and Cadence. “Wha- Bu-” He gestured at me and looked at Cadence and made a little weird confused noise. Then he shrugged and went, “Okay.”
Despite how rude this was, I still tried to be polite. After all, I had gotten much, MUCH, worse from Cadence’s dad when I first met him, and I’m sure that if some colt ever tried to date Twily I’d be rude to him too.
I shook Wild’s hoof. “It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “Cadence has told me a lot about you.” She really had, one of Cadence’s favorite things to talk about is her family.
“Funny,” Wild said, “She’s never mentioned you.”
“What!” Cadence said. “That’s not true, I’ve told you about him loads of times!”
“Really? You sure?”
“Yes!”
“Huh.”
Cadence groaned. She gestured to Twily, making me take notice of her for the first time since I got up from the table. She was standing there with a really weird look on her face, somewhere between confusion and anger.
Cadence tried to introduce the two of them, “Wild this is-”
Wild grinned and he walked over to Twily, interrupting Cadence when he said, “Twinkly!” He ruffled Twily’s hair, “What are you doing here?”
“Do you two already know each other?” Cadence asked, sounding as confused as I felt.
“No, you see I’ve gotten into the habit of rubbing the heads of total strangers,” Wild said with a deadpan expression on his face. “What do you think, Enza?” he scoffed.
“Well with your track record, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“You’re not one to-”
“Card?” Twily said, interrupting them. “You’re Cadence’s cousin?”
I briefly wondered who Card was, but then Wild spoke.
“Yeah,” he said with a groan. “Please don’t hold it against me.”
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean!” Cousin or not, I wasn’t about to let some stranger with a tacky name come into my house and start insulting my mare! I started walking over to him to grab him and possibly throw him out, but then the tea kettle whistled.
“I think we should all go to the kitchen, it’s far nicer there,” Cadence said. “And I think my tea’s getting cold.”
We all walked into the kitchen and sat around the table.
“Wild, do you want any tea?” Cadence asked.
“Earl Grey,” Wild said.
Cadence poured him out a cup. The second it was placed in front of Wild, he took our sugar holder and started pouring the whole thing in.
“Enza, do you mind?” he asked with a gesture at his cup.
Cadence used her magic to open up our freezer and pulled out a few ice cubes. She levitated them over and dropped them into his cup.
“Thanks,” he said, focusing so hard on his tea as he stirred it that looking back, I’m almost positive it held the secrets of the universe. Of course, at the time it was a different story.
I asked him what he was doing here, and he ignored me. I asked what brought him into town, and he ignored me. I was beginning to get a little pissed off, I’m not used to ponies just flat out ignoring me like that. Apparently it showed because Twily, she was sitting right next to him, started to look a little worried.
“Card,” she hissed out, “Don’t be rude!”
Wild continued to ignore the world around him. I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done to him, if it hadn’t been for Cadence speaking up.
“Let’s play a game.” Just like that, Wild’s attention was off the tea, and fully focused on Cadence.
“What game?” he asked.
Cadence levitated sixteen shot glasses out of our cupboard, along with a bottle of gin. As she filled up the glasses, she explained the game.
“We all have a lot to ask each other, and this seems like a nice way to do it. We all take turns asking everyone at the table a question. If you don’t want to answer, you take a shot. Once all your shots are gone, you’re out of the game.” She placed four glasses in front of each of us.
I asked her if she was sure about this. You see, Cadence really cannot hold her liquor. Like, at all. Two drinks and she’s under the table. Yes, in addition to finding a mare who was kind, caring, enjoyed sex, and genuinely liked my family and most of my friends, I also found one who was a very cheap date. Karma must be kicking the ass of someone in my family. Actually… Spike’s a pet, I wonder if he counts.
Anyways, Cadence said she was sure.
“Uhh…” Twily said. “I don’t know…”
“Don’t worry,” I said, “If you don’t want to play you don’t have to.” I don’t think Twily noticed me, her attention was fixed entirely on Wild.
“Look,” he said with a sigh, “I’m taking you back to the hotel, nothing will happen to you. You’ll be fine.”
Now, I may be three years out of practice as a big brother, but there was nothing in that sentence that didn’t send massive red flags up, from what he said to the way Twily looked at him while he said it.
“Ugh, does it have to be gin?” he asked Cadence.
“Well how else am I supposed to give you any reason not to drink it,” Cadence replied.
By this point, I was convinced that he was a massive alcoholic out to take my sweet little sister to a hotel and date-rape her. I was so busy glaring at him that I didn’t notice Cadence starting the game.
She decided to ask me a question first, “Dear, do you remember that we’re supposed to go to the castle for dinner tomorrow night?”
Oh crap.
“Of course I do,” I said. I couldn’t even get all the way through making a mental note to pick up my suit from the cleaners tomorrow before Wild spoke up.
“You know, it’s not nice to lie to your marefriend.”
“You forgot?” Cadence said to me with huge puppy-dog eyes.
“What? No, no, I didn’t forget.” That orange motherfucker wasn’t even looking at me, how the hell could he tell I was lying?!
Cadence sighed sadly. Hoo boy, I’m going to need a few boxes of rose petals to make up that. Fortunately for me, Cadence shifted her attention to Twily.
“Twilight, what is your exact relationship with Wild? Is he your coltfriend?” she asked.
“What?!” Twily said, “No, no, he isn’t! He’s more like my-” Her eyes flicked to me a couple of times, “My- *Gulp*” She snatched a shot off the table and downed it.
After she finished coughing from shotgunning straight gin, she looked flustered, which is a good thing; I always enjoying seeing my sister tongue-tied. Cadence looked like she had just found out something worth remembering, and Wild… You know, for all of the time he spent staring into that thing, I don’t remember him ever actually taking so much as a sip.
So, know it was his turn to be asked a question. Cadence seemed to have a little trouble thinking of one, so eventually she just asked him, “Do you have a marefriend of your own?”
Wild tore his eyes away from his cup. “Excuse me?” he asked. Perfectly normal reaction right? Nothing to get excited over, especially since he very possibly didn’t hear her. Well Cadence didn’t seem to agree with my stance on that, as her jaw just about smashed into the table.
“You mean there really is one?!” she asked him.
“What?” Twily asked, just as confused as me, “What makes you think he has a marefriend. He just asked you what you said.”
“No, if he really didn’t know what I had said, he would have just grunted,” Cadence said. “He only ever says excuse me when he needs time to think about what he’s going to say!” I hadn’t seen Cadence this excited since I got us front-row tickets for some pop group she was a fan of. Between this and the way Twily seemed to regard him, she had chosen the seat right next to his even though she had been sitting at a completely different place before he came, I was starting to wonder if I should feel jealous.
“No,” Wild said. “I don’t have a marefriend.”
Cadence looked briefly upset, but Wild wasn’t done speaking.
“But, there is a mare I’m interested in.”
“Really!!!” Cadence said, “What’s her name, what’s she like, tell me, tell me!”
“Oh no, I answered your question, let the next pony go.”
“Awwww.” Cadence looked crestfallen, but I know her, and I could tell that she wasn’t going to drop it any time soon.
I was the one next to Cadence, and so I got to ask the questions now. I decided to start with Cadence.
I asked her why she had never introduced me to Wild before. After all, with how she talks about him, I had to wonder why we had never met before.
She said, “Well, I had always wanted you to meet him on your own.”
“What?” I asked.
“Meeting Wild for the first time is always an experience, but it has to be one-on-one,” she said. “I still remember when I first met him.” Cadence had that look in her eye, she was gearing up for a story. Before she could start, she was interrupted by Wild groaning.
“Please don’t,” he said, covering his face with his hooves. “Nopony wants to hear that.”
“I’m sure Twilight does, don’t you Twilight?”
Twily looked a bit flustered from suddenly having the attention be on her, or maybe it was from the gin she just shotgunned, but she did say yes.
“And you sweetheart?” Cadence looked at me with her enormous puppy dog eyes, which she very well knows that I can’t say no to. Even if she hadn’t used them on me, I was curious what could bring such a reaction from her and Wild.
In the face of our unanimous decision, Wild groaned again.
Cadence began her story.
“One day, my parents took me to the castle to visit Celestia. Apparently she had an announcement to make to the whole royal family. We got there a good hour early, and were told to wait in our room.
“Back then, I was a bit… impatient. I couldn’t stand just waiting for something to happen, and so I snuck past my parents and left the room. I was aimlessly walking through the halls when I came across a little orange colt, all on his own. I thought he was lost, and so I decided to try and help him.
“I introduced myself, and I was about to ask him where was trying to go, when he asked me, ‘What makes love worth it?’
“By this point, I had already started to get a little bit of a reputation as a love guide, and so ponies had often asked me questions like, ‘What is love?’, ‘How can you be sure love is true?’, ‘Is love real?’, but I had never before been asked a question like this. Oh, but he didn’t stop there.
He asked me, ‘Heartbreak is supposedly one of the worst pains somepony can go through, and for most ponies, they will go through it countless times before they met the pony who is perfect for them. Not to mention, that love is so easily abused, you can fall in love with someone who take advantage of that fact, who uses you like a sponge. Even if you do somehow manage to find the perfect mate, somepony who loves you as much as possible, and who you love in return, there is still the fact that one day they will die, leaving you alone and in some of the greatest pain you will ever feel. So, what about love makes it worth going through all that hardship?’”
I looked at Wild, with his head still buried in his forehooves. Twily looked at him too, and he looked up at her.
Cadence seized on the opportunity to rub his cheek.
“You were just the cutest little nihilist!” she said.
Wild glared at her out of the corner of his eye. “I hate you,” he said, then to Twily he said, “It was a phase. I try not to think about it.”
Twily looked disturbed, but seemed to accept it. “So what happened after that?” She asked.
“Well,” Cadence said, “I was shocked. I hadn’t heard anything like it before then, and I had certainly never heard it from a twelve year old.”
“I was ten,” Wild interrupted from within his forehooves.
“But you looked twelve. Anyway, by the time I snapped out of it, he was gone.”
That weird story out of the way, I decided to ask Twily the next question. Twily looked like she was trying to figure out how she felt about what she had just learned.
I wanted to try and help her get her mind off of it, so I asked her what she had been doing for the last few months, the months she was going to tell us about before Wild came. I knew all about her defeating NightMare Moon, every guard in Equestria knew that, but I wanted to hear about how she had been. So, I asked her what was her favorite moment since she had done it.
I thought it would take a few minutes for her to think it over, but she knew right away. Apparently, she has this unicorn friend named Trixie. A couple months back, Twily had asked her if she wanted to study magic with her, and she had said yes.
It was so weird, seeing her eyes light up when she started talking about this mare. I hadn’t seen Twily that happy in a while. She clearly thought highly of the mare, and happy as I was that she had made such a good friend, it did kinda bother me. For so much of her life, I was Twily’s best friend, and having that title taken from me… I’m not gonna lie, it stung a little.
Still, eventually Twily’s story ended, and it was time for me to ask Wild something. I got his attention and, for the first time in the whole night, he looked me in the eyes. I instantly regretted it.
A few months ago, near the start of the spring, there was this stallion I brought in. He had been spotted cleaning a knife covered in blood by his neighbor. We went over to his place, and we found out that he had stabbed his wife and kids. I took him to the station and, without me leaning on him even a little, he confessed. Not only had he killed his wife and his kids, he had woken them up to do it.
He didn’t have a plan, he hadn’t even moved the bodies from where they had fallen. I asked him why he did it, and he said that he just wanted to know what it would feel like, to hear his kids and wife pleading with him not to do it. He was curious. He got sent packing to an asylum of course, but the whole time I was interrogating him, he never seemed crazy. Until I looked in his eyes.
There was no joy in them, or anger, or fear, or madness. Not even a bit of sadness at what he had done. His eyes weren’t empty either, at least not completely. It’s hard to describe, it wasn’t nothing, but it wasn’t exactly something either. It was like… like looking at a blank piece of paper that you knew could be filled up with anything depending on what the person holding it felt like doing, and you knew the person wasn’t going to bother thinking about why he was doing it, just that he wanted to.
It was that same thing that I saw when Wild looked straight at me. It shook me, rattled me so bad that I forgot what I was going to ask him. I just blurted out, “What’s your job?”
“I’m a psychiatrist,” he said, and I cannot describe my relief when he went back to looking at the teacup after he answered me.
As for the rest of the night, not much happened. Twily eventually got a bit tipsy, and so Wild said it was time for them to leave. I was going to offer to go along so I could make sure nothing bad happened to Twily, but given how Cadence seemed to regard Wild I wasn’t sure she would appreciate me acting suspicious of him. So, I was very surprised when, as they were getting ready to leave, Cadence insisted that we go along with them.
“Wha’?” Twily said, “Don’ be shilly. Card can take care of me! He isn’t afraid of anything!”
“I don’t care how fearless you think he is, I’m not letting you walk with Wild at night.” Cadence said, “I don’t want Wild walking alone at night with Wild!”
“Oh come on, you can’t still be worried about that?” Wild said. “Do you see a moon?” Because tomorrow is the solstice, the longest night of the year, Luna decided to bring about a new moon a bit early, in order to save up her strength for keeping the moon in the sky for a full 16 hours.
“Besides,” Wild said. “I’m not a seventeen year old anymore.”
“Yes, and I hesitate to imagine the damage you could do now!” Cadence said. I have no idea what she was talking about, and when I asked her about it later she asked that I don’t press the issue.
Anyways, Wild was still trying to convince her that it would be fine, “Look, if it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll summon up an escort.”
“No Wild, we’re not taking that risk! That is final!” Cadence said. “Or else I’ll tell Twilight the story about the hippo and the coconut!”
Wild’s eyes widened. “Ok, you win.”
“Hmmph!” Cadence turned to me and asked if I wouldn’t mind coming with them. Of course I didn’t, and so we all left.
I was keeping Twily steady while she insisted that she didn’t need help, and Cadence was watching Wild like a hawk. Every so often she would say “No.” and he would sigh. He kept on slowing down and trying to wander off so often, that I thought Cadence might just give up. But she kept at it, even grabbing and dragging him at some points.
Eventually we got to the hotel and dropped them off. As we walked back to our home, I noticed Cadence looking at me and giggling.
“What, do I have something on my face?” I asked.
Cadence just sighed and said, “It was nice seeing Twilight again.”
“Yeah. Yeah it was. She’s really grown.” I thought back to hearing her talk about her friend, and her stories. My little sister was a full grown mare now.
“Indeed,” Cadence said. Something told me that she wasn’t just talking about Twily.
I wonder what tomorrow’s dinner is going to be like?