Cadence took a shuddering breath as the rest of the group exited the room, shutting the door behind them. Her husband still held had his foreleg wrapped around her in a half-embrace, which, while usually comforting, did not help with the turmoil she felt within.
Celestia gave her an empathetic touch of the wing, though Cadence did not think she knew exactly what she had just been witness to. Even so, the Princess of Love took this as a cue to start explaining.
“You’re all familiar with the Magic of Love, a form of Emotion magic. Something tied deeply into every thinking creature. No matter how bad, no matter how good, they all have some level of this form of magic.”
They all nodded, following her. “Most of the time, this magic flows two ways - From and To, the creature loving and being loved. This child… he has no ‘To’ whatsoever. Not even residually. ”
“So he’s not loved?” Spike asked, confused. “What about his parents? His family? Friends?”
“As far as I can tell, there isn’t any love coming from them. Not in a very long time,” Cadence replied,eyes cast at the his door. “He’s practically starved of it.”
“That sounds… horrible.” Twilight said quietly. “If his story was anything to go off of, he’s been alone for long enough to be completely emptied. Even more so given what his Mom did.”
Cadence gave a short, hollow laugh.”And then, that stupid hug…”
“Yeah,” her husband asked. “What was that about?”
Cadence sighed dejectedly, and admitted, “It was a dumb idea. I was hoping he could quickly form a faux-’To’ bond through physical contact, but I didn’t think he’d react so… fearfully.”
“Why’s the ‘To’ bond so important?” the dragon asked. “I mean, it sounds like he hasn’t had one a while, and he’s still here.”
“That’s a miracle in itself,” Twilight explained. “Imagine every day was a bad day. Really bad. And then imagine nobody cared, or they tried to make it worse. How hard would it be to feel good? To love or care about anyone?”
Spike cringed. “Well, really hard. But still, he seems okay-”
“I don’t think that’s quite the case, Twilight.” Celestia interrupted. “If he did not care, he would not have defended himself. It appears to me that Isaac cares immensely. He made it rather obvious that he at least cares about how he made Cadence feel. And he seemed quite embarrassed when we left.”
The dragon perked up. “So he cares, but he isn’t loved? Aren’t those the same?”
“Not quite, Spike.” The love princess corrected. “To love is different than to care. Caring can be about anything, any event, anyone, and anything. Care can make you strive for something, but failure to achieve it can hurt in one of the worst ways. Love, though, is personal, specific, and gratifying. But loss or lack of it hurts worse than care.”
“Shame,” Luna said sullenly, looking down to the floor. “That is what we often call the hurt of care. But love, that goes by the name of ‘Heartbreak.’”
“So Isaac is heartbroken, then?” Twilight asked. “He didn’t seem so.”
“It’s such an old wound, it has mended with time, still leaving the damage.” Celestia replied. “But it is a poor seal on an empty vessel. He’s become adverse to acts of Love, which makes it that much harder to reform the tie.”
“I still don’t see why he needs it,” Spike reminded the group. “He seems to be doing fine without it.”
“Spike, he’s not loved. It makes him all the more likely to be hurt by his care. And it makes it harder for him to love.” Twilight explained. “He deserves to feel good, after all this time.”
Luna muttered something under her breath. Shining cleared his throat, drawing their attention. “So how are we going to go about this? We can’t exactly adopt him out, or put him with foster parents.”
“He can’t stay here,” Celestia said, rather unhappily. “I’m not sure this would be the best environment for him, with the nobles already upset over the cancelled ‘grievance court’ for him.”
“He could come to Ponyville?” Spike suggested, restraining the excitement in his voice. He raised a claw with an idea. “He could take my bed!”
“Ponyville already has a panic reflex, Spike.” Twilight reminded him, lowering his claw. “They reacted to Zecora, who still at least looked similar, by hiding whenever she came to town. Imagine what it’d be like for them to see him without warning.”
“We could send him to the Moon,” Luna half-joked, earning a short laugh from Spike and a glare from her sister.
“So I guess that leaves us,” Shining concluded. He looked to his wife, trying to discern her feelings on the matter. She seemed to have recovered, even reinvigorated by this decision.
“We can show him love. Reteach him. He doesn’t need to hurt anymore.” Cadence smiled, thinking of how Isaac could finally find a reason to do the same. “We can heal the hole in his heart.”
Isaac looked up from his drawing. Though he hadn’t been paying too much attention, he could still make out some of the conversation outside.He didn’t like how casually they were planning out his future without consulting him, but he probably wouldn’t have been able to contribute much, anyway. They kept talking about how he was missing something. Love. That wasn’t true.
He loved lots of things. He loved drawing, he loved his stuff... which his mother had taken away. He loved his mother… before she’d tried to kill him… infinitely…
He loved his… friends… that he never really had...
He… loved...
…
Isaac didn’t love much. But there wasn’t much he could do about that, anyway.
Regardless, he’d heard an some kind of agreement be reached, and the ponies moving back to the door. He looked down at his drawing of them laughing at the chest, him within. He stuffed it randomly into the pile just as they entered.
“Isaac?” He looked up, but not meeting the speaker’s eyes. The pink one was talking to him again. Cadence. He reddened with shame, but before he could blurt out further apologies she continued, “Isaac, we need to ask you something.”
He swallowed anxiously past the lump in his throat, and replied, “Ask me what?” They have the chest just outside, I know it-
“Would you be alright with living with Shining and I while we teach you about our world?”
Isaac was stunned. Floored. Utterly caught off guard. He must have heard her wrong, surely “W-what?”
She smiled knowingly at him. “We know you aren’t from here, and given the circumstance, Shining and I would be happy to teach you about things.”
“As would Spike and I, when the time comes.” the purple one added. ‘Spike’, the lizard, gave him a thumbs-up, which Isaac simply stared at.
The child still could hardly believe what he was hearing. They were going to allow him to stay after that display? After what had happened just yesterday? Not only that, but help him learn about the world he had been returned to? They owed him nothing, and he had next to nothing to offer in return… This was… beyond courtesy. Beyond kindness.
He still couldn’t meet her eyes, but with a sound that could only be called a whisper with some generous upward rounding, he replied, “Y-yeah.”