I didn’t walk out of the hospital. I bounced. Sunlight warmed my coat. Wind caressed my mane. I was outside. When was the last time that happened? Yes, the sun was muted by my sunglasses, and there wasn’t much mane uncovered by my hat, and the dress Rarity had me wearing made me a bit too warm – but still, I was outside. In the sun. “Isn’t this just the best thing ever?” I asked, spinning around to look at my sister and bumping into a pony walking by us on the sidewalk. “Sorry.”
He glared at me, but didn’t recognize me as he walked past while Rarity ‘tsked.’ “You really must control yourself, Sw–” She caught herself. We weren’t using my real name while we were outside. “S– Si–”
“You know you can just call me sister, right sister?” I asked, turning to walk the right way, this time careful not to bump into somepony and laughing.
“Yes… Yes, I suppose I could,” Rarity said. From behind me, I heard the sound of her dainty steps stop and I looked back to see her frozen in place. “A simple enough word, to be sure, but… You know, I’m slightly recognizable, perhaps if somepony recognized me and heard me call you… that, they might put two and two together, and then we’d have tomorrow’s headlines.”
I rolled my eyes. What was so hard about saying sister? Maybe it was more of that weirdness she’d had the other day? “She’s so ashamed of you, she doesn’t want to acknowledge you as her blood. Ha, see, despite all her claims of forgiveness, she still doesn’t want to be associated with your wickedness,” Bright Lights said from beside me.
“Shut up,” I whispered, closing my eyes and vanishing her, trying not to consider the idea that she was right. Rarity kind of had a point, even if she was being overdramatic about it. Still, what with her wasn’t overdramatic? That made sense. It had to. It was the only other explanation.
“Sweetie?” Rarity asked, trotting up to stand next to me, dodging the ponies coming at her. “Drat, I mean… Sugar? Sugar Belle. Yes, that’s a pony name. By all accounts, a lovely baker.” Really? Weird that someone could have a name so close to mine but a completely different talent. My baking was… wasn’t awful anymore.
“Nothing,” I said, smiling up at her. “Everything’s fine, Rare Heart.” If she wasn’t going to call me by my real name, then I was going to call her by a made up name. Even if it was a name she made up for herself. “Just… you know.”
She nodded as we trotted. “Well, if you want, we can take a hansom cab over to our building. Really, I call it an apartment, but it’s more the Royal Suite at a hotel.” Her eyes glimmered. “There are some perks to being royalty, Sugar.”
“Dating,” I said, my skipping stopping as something nasty bubbled up in me and burst. She got to date a princess and everything was great for her, and I was just… “You’re dating royalty. Or did you get made a princess when I wasn’t looking?” I narrowed my eyes. “Are you hiding wings from me too?”
Rarity took a step back and frowned at me. “Sweetie, where is this hostility coming from? Did I do something to offend?”
I shook my head. “No… I just… I don’t know what happened, I just… everything you do goes so well, and everything for me goes so… not. While I ruined my entire life, you got to date a princess and be basically royalty.”
She moved up and stood close to me, giving me the option to lean against her while we walked. I didn’t take it. “Sugar, there’s… there’s a lot you don’t understand yet. I’ll tell you when you’re feeling better, but trust me when I say the last few years weren’t easy for me.”
“Yeah,” I said, pulling away from her and trotting faster before reaching an intersection.
“Left,” Rarity said, sighing.
“Because of me. If I’d been fine and good, everything would’ve been fine, but I didn’t. I had to go off and be stupid with Bright Lights,” I said, making my turn and stomping. Somepony looked at me. Had I messed up? Again?
“Yes, and if I’d–” She ground her teeth. Oh good, you upset another pony who cares about you. We haven’t seen Scootaloo yet today, have we?. “Sugar, we all make bad decisions from time to time, and believe me when I say it gains us nothing to dwell on them. We just move on and try to make the best of it. You made a mistake. We all do. Now, yes, if you’d stayed in Ponyville, the last few years would have been easier for me, but I still managed to make do, didn’t I? You’re fine. I’m reunited with you. That’s what matters.”
I frowned and mumbled to myself, just loud enough for Rarity to hear. “You really think I’m fine?”
She nodded and lifted my chin up with a hoof. “I do, and so does the doctor. Look at yourself; only a few weeks ago, you were on death’s door after that terrible penthouse, and now you’re being released from the hospital. You’re out on the streets of Manehattan, and instead of running away to crawl back into that pit you made for yourself, you’re staying with me and heading to our suite. That speaks volumes of how far you’ve come.”
I smiled, the happy warmth from the dream bubbling up in me. “Thanks,” I said, letting her take the lead as we walked down the streets. I looked up at the city I’d spent the last three years living in. Looked at the unfamiliar buildings towering over me. “I’m sorry for–”
“Don’t,” Rarity said, raising a hoof. “You’ve apologized multiple times, I’ve forgiven what needed to be forgiven, and as far as I’m concerned, you’ve suffered your penance and then some. All I care about right now is healing you.”
“I don’t deserve a sister as great as you,” I said. Rarity stumbled before catching herself.
“No, Sweetie, you deserved so much more, but I couldn’t give it at the time,” she said, her posture going stiff.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, following after her. “I mean… maybe when I was really young, we weren’t as close, but you were still there. You – okay, you got mad and yelled at me sometimes, but still, you were as good as a sister could be, I think.”
“Could we just stop talking about that now?” Rarity asked, tilting her head. “If you really must apologize and atone, you can do it by dropping this subject. I swear, we’ll talk about it more later.”
“How much later?” I asked as we reached an intersection and waited for the light to change. She hates herself for what happened to you. What? Why would she do that? Nothing was her fault. Maybe part of it was our parents’ fault (but really, I shouldn’t blame them, they’re very busy ponies who just had a hard time making time for us. We had everything we could want), but it wasn’t my sister’s. Your selfishness left a scar on her soul.
“When I trust you can handle the news. Your recovery is so perilous, I don’t wish for anything to jeopardize it. You understand, I hope,” she said, the light switching so we could walk forward.
“No, I don’t,” I said, feeling my hooves ache. How out of shape was I? Okay, I hadn’t really walked for almost a season if you counted the time in the penthouse, but before that, I got a lot of exercise. Still not a lot of walking, though. I took a deep breath. Maybe I’d see if I could go to the gym with my sister to hit the treadmill. “I understand that the doctor said I had a lot of paranoid thoughts that messed up my head, and I’m pretty sure keeping secrets from a paranoid pony is a bad idea. You know what I did when I thought my friends might leave me. Imagine what I’ll do if I know you’re keeping something from me.”
“Sweetie, do you trust me?” My sister said, forgetting my code name as her voice cracked like a whip. “Answer me right now, do you trust me?”
I slunk back from her. “Yeah… you know I do. At least, I hope you do.”
She muttered something. I couldn’t hear all of it, but I was pretty sure I heard the word ‘shouldn’t’ somewhere in there. “Then, if you trust me, you will cease this foalishness. Yes, I’m keeping things for you, but it’s all for your own good, and when you’re ready, when I’m sure you can handle it, I’ll tell you. Until then, just trust me. Alright?”
“Fiiiiinnneeee,” I groaned. “You’ll tell me, though, right?” She would have never kept anything from you before, now she has to hide things for ‘your own good.’
“Eventually,” Rarity said. What if she was keeping something really bad from me? She hadn’t looked as good lately; what if she was sick and didn’t want to tell me? What if she was dying and she didn’t want to tell me? I took a deep breath. I trusted my sister. She wouldn’t… if it was that important, she’d tell me. Probably nothing super major important, but still important enough that it could mess up my recovery. My head hurt as everything twisted to make sense.
“So… what are we going to do first when we get to your suite? Can we invite Scootaloo over? I really need to apologize to her for yesterday. I… uhmm… kind of lost my temper, and now I feel bad,” I said, stepping close behind her as somepony else bumped into me. This time, it completely wasn’t my fault. At least I apologized.
“We certainly can,” Rarity said, picking her pace up. Ahead of us, the Plaza Hotel loomed. The Royal Suite at the Plaza? That… that might be better than my penthouse, and my penthouse was really nice. “Would it be uncouth of me to inquire just what your spat was about? It seems you two are butting heads far more often now than you did…” Before.
“It was about dumb sex stuff,” I said. Yeah, maybe somepony would overhear me, but it’s not like they didn’t know more than enough about my sex life already. “She wants to date me, but she’s kind of straight, so she doesn’t want to sleep with me.” I rolled my eyes. “Have you even heard something so dumb.”
Rarity clicked her tongue. “Yes, I can see why that might cause tension between the two of you. Well, just be patient with her, Sweetie, this is as difficult for her… this is very difficult for her, too. Also, perhaps this is just me talking, but you don’t need to jump back into a relationship, even if it’s with Scootaloo, I don’t want you to–”
“Jeopardize your recovery,” I said, finishing for her. Rarity nodded at the doorpony and floated a few bits out of her saddlebags while he opened the door for us. “I know, you won’t stop talking about how everything will ‘jeopardize my recovery.’ Do you want me to be sealed up in a room for the rest of my life?”
She shook her head. “Of course not. I only want what’s best for you, Sweetie, and I don’t think rushing things is the best way to go. Yes, Scootaloo might urge recklessness, but I believe caution should be our watchword. One relapse, and… You know, I can’t bear losing you again.”
“I know,” I said, looking down shamefaced. Of course, she just wanted what was best for me. “You know, I wish Mom and Dad cared as much about me as you did. Have they even tried to see how I’m doing?”
“Yes, I’m sure your mother is very concerned with your well being. I’m just… My mother and I are having a bit of a disagreement at the moment, and I’m afraid you’re caught in the crossfire. When the time is right, your mother will be with you,” Rarity said, her voice calm, like she’d rehearsed that little speech in her head a hundred times.
I snorted. “If she really cared, she’d be with me now.” Where did that come from? Your parents love you. They have to love you. Even if they’re not around. If they didn’t love you, they wouldn’t have gotten you all those Hearth’s Warming gifts. Substituting things for love again, are we, Sweetie Belle? Doctor Hooves asked in my head. Great, a new voice. That’s just what I needed.
“Shush,” I said, before looking up to Rarity, standing still. Something was in her eyes. Something was boiling up inside me, threatening to spill over at any second. But he’s right, isn’t he? my sister’s voice asked. Why should you owe them a single kind word?
Why should I? A back leg stomped. “That…” Rarity cleared her throat, swallowing her look down. “Perhaps you’re being a little harsh on your mother?” Well, no mention of Dad. Why was one better than the other?
“No!” yelled. “No! It’s all their fault, isn’t it? That’s what… That’s what Doctor Hooves was saying. They weren’t there. Mom was never there for me when I needed her. When things started going bad, did she even know? She definitely didn’t care. And before that… all those years, how many birthdays and Hearth’s Warmings did she miss? Why are you even defending her? You know how awful she was, how she was never there. I might as well not even have had a mom, for all the good she did me.” Rarity’s back legs were shaking. Why did she care so much?
I shook my head. And there I went. I guess three years of saying whatever you want is a kind of tough habit to break. “You did the best you could, I guess. You tried. You did more than most big sisters… well, eventually. You shouldn’t be mad at yourself. It’s not your fault. You aren’t my mom; you didn’t abandon me.” I tried to smile to make her feel better. “It’s not like you’re the Worst Mom in the World.”
Rarity gritted her teeth and levitated a key over to me. “Go upstairs. Room 5001.” She pressed the elevator button and waited for the door to open. She turned to the elevator operator. “You. Ensure my– Sweetie gets to her room safely. Do not let her run off or I shall be very upset with you.”
Her head snapped away from him to stare at me, ice-blue eyes like two glaciers crushing everything that got in their way. “Tell Twilight what transpired, she’ll understand my absence then.” She kissed the top of my head like she always used to when I was upset, which was a lot harder now that I was as tall as her. She still managed. “I love you, Sweetie. Please don’t think for a second you did anything wrong, but I simply must…” Her jaw clenched. “I shall be back after I’ve had time to think. Now be a good girl, please.” She pointed a hoof at the elevator and its walls of mirrors and I trudged towards it, not looking at the reflections coming to me from all angles.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, looking back at her.
She smiled grim, the doors starting to close. “No, Sweetie, you didn’t. That fault is all mine, but I will make amends.” The doors shut and she vanished behind them as the elevator lurched up.
“Uhh… so, you’re with Princess Twilight, then?” the elevator operator said
I glared away, not talking to him. “Well, well,” Bright Lights said, suddenly appearing to my side. “First Scootaloo, and now Rarity. You’re just pushing away everypony who ever cared, aren’t you?” She smirked. “The only two ponies in the world who could love you after what you’ve done, and they’re gone now. I’m impressed; I thought they’d last at least a few more weeks.”
“Shut up!” I snarled, a line of telekinetic energy shooting out from my horn, pushing past her, and into the elevator’s mirrored wall, cracking it. Right. Hallucinations. “Sorry,” I said to the operator.
“It’s… Well, we can just charge the Princess’s room,” he said. “Assuming she agrees to pay for it.” And I messed up another pony’s life. Way to go. How long had I been out of the hospital? An hour? Less than that? I groaned and dropped my head. “Sorry for breaking your mirror. I wasn’t telling you to shut up.”
He just nodded, not sure how to look at me. I looked to the side to see my shattered self in the mirror. Ha, a broken mare seen through a broken mirror. That was almost funny. The rest of the elevator ride passed with the both of us not looking at each other. We reached the top and room 5001 was directly in front of me, the only door in a small lobby. “Nice place,” I said.
The operator locked the elevator in place and trotted out with me to knock on Twilight’s door. “Rarity!” Twilight said, flinging the door open in an instant and looking at the two of us. “Sweetie, what happened to her? Did she not pick you up from the hospital? No, how else would you have found your way here? Is she alright? Hurt? Do I need to go to the hospital?”
“Sorry,” I said, head almost hanging low enough to touch the ground. “I think I did something bad. I… got upset at my parents and started yelling about how Mom and Dad abandoned me, and… I don’t know why, but it really messed with her. She said she had to go take a walk.”
Twilight’s face fell almost as low as mine. “Oh, no, that…” She growled. “I keep telling her to tell you the truth, but she just has to do it her way.”
“And what could be so important that she doesn’t want to tell me, anyways?” I narrowed my eyes at Twilight. It had to be something big. So earth-shatteringly big that I couldn’t even begin to handle it. Of all the possible things it could be, what would be the worst?
I bit my lip. What if she was dying? It fit. She seemed sadder than usual, and what if she wanted me to get along with my mom because she wouldn’t be here for much longer? Tears stung up my eyes. The best sister in the world could be dying right in front of me, and I spent the last three years ignoring her.
“Excuse me,” the operator said. bowing to Twilight, “I hate to interrupt, your Highness, but she broke one of the mirrors in the elevator.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow at me.
“I was really upset about her leaving,” I said, swallowing down guilty tears. “I just… Everything’s ruined and it’s all my fault.” I collapsed on the floor, sobbing while Twilight grabbed me with her magic and floated me into her suite.
“I’ll pay for any damages she caused,” Twilight said. I heard the sound of hooves on the carpet as the operator trotted away, while Twilight lowered me onto the ground and clicked the door shut, several bolts thudding closed.
“Breathe, Sweetie,” she said, the weight of my hat leaving my head while my dress disappeared in a flash of magic. “It’s alright. Nothing’s ruined. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“No it’s not,” I said, rolling onto my back and getting a view of the room. There was a big couch in the center of the room, and several bookcases lining the wall. Something told me those weren’t there originally. “First Scootaloo left, and then Rarity, and it’s all my fault. I just… Why did I have to go and be bad and ruin everything?” I curled up into a sobbing ball, while Twilight grabbed me with her magic again and brought me towards the couch.
“I’m sure if your– If Rarity was here, she’d tell you that it’s fine. You’ve probably heard that speech a few times, right?” Twilight asked.
I raised my head up from the ball and nodded. “Every day, it feels like, and I hate it. I did awful things that are still hurting ponies, and I’m trying not to hate myself for them, I really am, because I know that just hurts ponies worse, but when I see that look in their eyes and see how they’re hurting because of me, I can’t help it.”
She sat next to me on the couch and stroked me with her wings. “Let it out, Sweetie. It’s alright, you can cry as much as you want around me, I don’t mind. Just let it all out. Let everything out, alright, Sweetie.” I nodded, still sobbing, the tears scouring my soul. I sobbed until I couldn’t anymore, and then I slept.
♪♪♪
“You need to talk to Sweetie!” A voice – Twilight’s? – said, pulling me from the darkness. No dreams, must’ve been too exhausted. Luna told me about that, having dreams where she dreamed of sleeping. She smiled when she recalled them. “You need to tell her–”
“I know what I need to tell Sweetie,” Rarity tsked. She was staring at Twilight with those glacial eyes bearing down on her, daring her to stand in her way. “And I will, but right now, I need to fix this mess I created.”
“By telling her the truth!” Twilight said, getting on her hooves and stepping towards my sister. She was braver than I was to stand against that look. “The whole truth, not whatever you’ve been telling her.” I blinked. Scootaloo stood behind my sister, glancing at me. Scootaloo!
I bounced off the couch and wrapped my forelegs around her neck. “I’m so sorry, Scootaloo, I didn’t mean anything I said yesterday, I’m sorry for losing my temper. I promise, if you want a slow relationship without doing any fun stuff, I can do that, just please don’t leave me, I’m so sorry for sending you away.”
She frowned at me, but a second later, I felt lips press against my cheek, a jolt of fire running from her lips down my spine, lower and lower. She pulled away, leaving bits of spit on my coat. “It’s fine, Sweetie, and… we can talk about that later, but right now, I’ve got to help Rarity with something. We’ll be back in a few days.”
“What?” I shrieked, stumbling back, fire freezing. “You! You’re leaving again? But I thought… What’s so important you have to leave me?”
“I was about to ask the same question,” Twilight said, locked in a stare down with my sister. “Why in Equestria would you leave Sweetie the same day she got out of the hospital. The day she was released into your custody.”
“To prove her mom loves her!” Rarity yelled, stomping a hoof. It probably would have been more intimidating if she wasn’t standing in carpet. “I cannot bear her going a single second thinking she lacks maternal love. If I have to journey to the ends of Equestria to retrieve my mother so she can tell Sweetie the truth, I will.”
“The truth!” Twilight stomped closer to Rarity. “And just what truth is that? The truth that–”
“That Sweetie’s mother loves her. Loves her more than life itself. Would do anything to make her feel better.” A strand of loose hair popped from Rarity’s perfectly coiffed mane. “Sweetie must understand that.”
“But she doesn’t!” I yelled, jumping in between the two of them. “If she loved me, if she’d do all that stuff you said she’d do, she’d be in this room, but instead, she’s off on vacation to wherever. If my mom loved me, she’d be here with me right now. It…It hurts that she doesn’t love me, that she abandoned me, but I don’t need–”
“Say no more, Sweetie. I will fetch her, and she will tell you the truth. In fact, Twilight, can you cast a truth spell on her, correct?”
“Rarity, this is… you really don’t need to do any of this,” Twilight said, the two still glaring at each other through me. “Just tell her. I know her recovery is important to you, but I think–”
“Could somepony please tell me what’s going on?” I yelled, butting my head against my sister’s, our horns locking. “Is that too much to ask for? Not to be lied to?” My anger flamed out, and I slumped against my sister. “Please don’t leave me, I just… if you’re dying, I don’t want you gone for a single second. I don’t care about anything else. I want to spend as much time with you as possible, before...”
The room was so silent, I could hear my own heart beating. For a second, nopony was even breathing. “Dying?” Rarity asked. “Sweetie, whatever gave you that idea?”
“You just… you look so sad all the time, and you’re keeping secrets from me, and you want me to love my mom, because you know you won’t be here much longer.” I wailed, my well of tears deeper than I thought. “I’m sorry for being so bad and not spending the last few years with you, I just… I just don’t want my sister to leave me.”
Rarity sighed, letting me sink deeper into her chest while I wrapped my forehooves around her neck. “You still think this is better than not telling her the truth?” Twilight asked.
“No… I suppose not. Sweetie, please sit down and try to calm yourself. I assure you, I’m not dying anytime soon,” Rarity said as my grip failed and I slumped onto the floor.
“You might not be dying at all, depending on how the Elements affect pony physiology,” Twilight said.
“Not now, Twilight, dear,” Rarity said, before taking a breath. “No, now it’s time for me to… Oh, dear, Sweetie, I really imagined telling you this later, once you had time to properly recover and settle down. How do I even start telling you the truth? Do you remember, years ago, when I spoke about my youthful promiscuity?” While she talked, Twilight trotted to Scootaloo and ushered her out to one of the suite’s bedrooms.
I nodded, flashing back to her talk about relationship stuff, a little aside echoing in my ears. At least now I don’t have to worry about you getting pregnant at fourteen. Wait. Was she–
“Yes, well, I… Oh dear, Sweetie, I…” Tears welled up in her eyes, now. Great, I’d made my… I’d made her cry. “Sweetie, one night, something… the most incredibly wonderful thing happened. One night, I… I love you, Sweetie Belle, I just… Sweetie Belle, you know I love you, right?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, numb and cold with nothing to breathe.
“Then you know your mother loves you.”
Oh. A hundred conversations replayed in my head. Your mother loves you, Sweetie Belle, never doubt that.
If my mom loved me, she wouldn’t have abandoned me.
She stared at me, eyes searching for any reaction as tears spilled out. “I understand if you hate me now, I… it’s all my fault this happened to you. If I had actually been a proper mother to you, if I hadn’t… Sweetie, I’m so sorry for everything bad that happened to you. If I had just… If I had been the mother you needed… But I was so scared, and I didn’t even know how to be a mother back then. I was so selfish and awful, and I should’ve been better for you. I regret those first years so much, Sweetie Belle.”
I frowned, struggling to get words out as the world shattered and reformed like a kaleidoscope, new patterns obliterating old, my sister dissolving in front of me, spiraling into something else. “You… regret me?”
Rarity wailed and shook her head. “No, Sweetie, you must believe that. Never you. I regret… I regret giving you to my parents, taking their offer, I regret my failure to be there in the way you needed me, I regret so much, but not you. Never you. You are the great light in my life that pulled me up from the dregs of equinity, and seeing how much my failings harmed you…” She burst out into another round of sobs. “I understand if you don’t wish to see me, of course, I’ve…” She sniffled. “I’ve saved up enough money you can buy a small house somewhere out of the way and not have to worry about work or the prying eyes of the media. Let it be my last gift to you.”
The new image clicked into place. I saw a mare hating herself because of something she did, something she’d do anything to make up for. I saw– “Mom!” I shouted, throwing my hooves around the best mom in the world, hoping to give her the best hug in the world. Our cheeks nuzzled and tears of joy and sadness mingled. ”I love you, Mom. Sorry about all that stuff I said.”
Mom looked at me, looking for some sign I was lying. “You…” She sniffed. “You really mean that? Even after I was so terribly distant to you those first few years, after I–”
“Stop it,” I said, acting way more confident than I felt. “You… you did something when you were younger than you regret, but… that’s fine? You keep telling me I shouldn’t beat myself up over what I did in the penthouse and how mean I was to you, and… I don’t think I got it. I still don’t think I get it, but seeing you hate yourself like this, I don’t like it. So…” I rubbed the back of my head. “I know what it’s like to mess up as a teenager, too, right? So, if you do your best not to beat yourself up over giving me to Mom... Old Mom... Grandma? I’ll do my best not to beat myself up over the whole being the worst pon– I’ll do my best not to beat myself up over what I did. Deal?”
She stared at me, eyes drying, and nodded. “It’s a deal, Sweetie. And thank you.”
“Don’t think me,” I said, getting up to my hooves and trying not to jump around Twilight’s nice hotel suite. “I just did what my Mom raised me to do. Thank her.”
My mom floated tissue over for the both of us to use. “Well, who would have suspected your first day out of the hospital would be so… eventful?”
“Yep,” I said, taking the tissue and drying my eyes before pulling the hoofmirror out of Rari– Mom’s saddlebags. “And you know what?”
“What?” she asked, dabbing away at the black mascara stains on her cheek.
“I don’t feel like my recovery was jeopardized at all!” I said, laughing at the wave of enthusiasm that’d swept through me. How long had it been since I felt this good? At least three years. Shush, not listening to those voices today. Or… ever, hopefully, but definitely not today.
“Yes, I suppose I deserved that,” Mom said, floating out the comb as we both looked into the mirror. We looked like… well, like we both spent an hour sobbing hysterically, but there was a smile on both our lips, and a warmth in Mom’s eyes I hadn’t seen in… maybe ever. A warmth in both our eyes. “Now, we must make ourselves presentable before we face Twilight and Scootaloo. Well, I suppose ‘must’ is a bit of a strong word, but still… I’d prefer it, if that’s okay with you, Sweetie.”
“So,” I said, looking at the door Twilight and Scootaloo had disappeared through. “Twilight knows, but does…”
“No,” Mom said, shaking her head. “She could have found out, but she let me keep my secret. Do you wish to break the news to her?”
I nodded. “Yes please.”
“Very well,” she said, giving her mane one last bounce and laughing. “Lead on, daughter.”
I sprinted over and threw the door to Twilight’s room open (it was definitely her room, one half of it looked like a book factory exploded and the other half was meticulously neat) with a bang of magic. I opened my mouth to make my grand announcement.
“Hey,” Scootaloo said, stealing my thunder. “You feeling better?”
“Yes!” I said, trotting in place, waiting for my Mom to catch up to me. “And I have great news! The best news! Rarity isn’t actually the best sister in the world, she’s–” I bounced into the air, leaping over my sister. For a second, I hung at the top of my jump. “The best Mom in the world.”
My hooves hit the ground, Scootaloo blinked, and Twilight wore her best ‘I told you so’ smile. Mom grinned sheepishly at Twilight. (Would I have to call her mom now, too? Or dad? Actually, what about Dad?) Twilight nodded, smile growing. Apology accepted.
“So…” Scootaloo’s back end plomped down on the ground. “That actually makes sense. Like, a scary amount of sense. You two are okay now?”
Mom nodded while I danced circles around her. “We’re great,” I singsonged.
Twilight whispered something to Scootaloo, and a big dumb grin launched on Scootaloo’s face. “I know, isn’t it awesome?”
“Isn’t what awesome?” I asked, trotting up to Scootaloo. “That my sister’s actually my mom? That my mom loves me? That my mom is Rarity? What could be greater?”
“Twilight was saying how you were acting just like a filly again,” Scootaloo said, the soft sound of hooves on deep carpet approaching behind me.
“I wasn’t saying it was a good thing,” Twilight mumbled at the edge of hearing.
“What’s bad about me being happy and fillyish?” I asked, looking back to my sister who was giving Twilight a look that would be very unhappy if Twilight didn’t choose her next words carefully.
“Nothing, I was just observing how extreme the change in behavior was,” Twilight said.
“It’s like we’ve got the old Sweetie back,” Scootaloo said, still grinning. I winced. There went that good mood.
“Yep, it sure is,” I said, struggling to keep up a flagging smile. “Really great.” I took a deep breath. Be honest with them. We know how well hiding things goes. “Could we not talk about the old ‘me’s’, though? I don’t really like any of them, and… I’d just appreciate it.”
“What are you talking about?” Scootaloo asked, scrunching up her forehead. “The old you was awesome. You know, before Bright Lights started messing with your head.”
“She really wasn’t,” I grumbled.
Mom smiled and stepped between us. “Now, Scootaloo, isn’t it enough that our Sweetie’s feeling happy and well again? Must we make things more difficult by bringing up unpleasant memories?”
Scootaloo shrugged. “I guess. I didn’t think that stuff was so bad, but if she wants to sulk about it.”
I glared and took a step forward. Mom moved to block my view of Scootaloo. “Scootaloo, dear, we really should be supportive of our Sweetie in this time of need. If that means not drawing comparisons to her past self, then that’s exactly what we’ll–”
“Hey, you know what I’d kill for right now? A bath. Does the royal suite have a tub?” I said, cutting off my mom before she could give the ‘poor Sweetie’ speech. At least she hadn’t mentioned jeopardizing my recovery since she made the switch from sister to mom.
“Actually, we have a jacuzzi in the recreation room,” Twilight said. “That would just be through that door.” She pointed a hoof in the right direction. She stretched her wings. “If you want to go ahead, I’ll probably be there in a few minutes. You wouldn’t believe how stiff your wings get if you don’t use them.”
“There’s a hot tub?” I asked, ears perking up as I trotted towards the door and away from Scootaloo and Mom. “I have to see that. Is it alright if I use the hot tub, Mom?”
“Of course, Sweetie,” she said, looking from Scootaloo to me and flashing a smile. “Think of this hotel room as your home as long as you’re here.”
I gave the three a little smile as I trotted from Twilight’s bedroom and into the recreation room and immediately tripped over my jaw.
The recreation room had everything you could use to recreate. Well, not everything, I didn’t see any big piles of drugs and alcohol, but it had everything else. It had a fountain, some massage tables (but no masseuse ponies – available on request, I guess), a door to what looked like a sauna, workout equipment, and… why was there fencing equipment? I shook my head. Rarit– Mom had all this here, but instead she spent her days and nights in the hospital with me. She could have been enjoying herself, but instead– I promised I wasn’t going to do that stuff anymore. Besides, if I hadn’t had my breakdown, she wouldn’t have been here at all, so really, it kind of… worked out?
There, I wasn’t beating myself up. Progress. I’d probably try to beat myself up over lots of other stuff, but right now, I was good. I let myself smile at that for a second as I trotted over to the hot tub and lowered myself in, warm bubbles tickling my coat. Water flowed around me as I closed my eyes and leaned back against my seat, back legs floating in the water. I sank deeper into the water and let time flow around me, enjoying the quiet. No voices, no talking; just me, bubbly hot water, and a ton of silence filling empty time.
“Hey, Sweetie.” I opened my eyes to see the purple princess of friendship trotting towards me. “Do you mind if I join you?” She flexed her wings. “These wings get kind of stiff if you don’t work them out enough.”
“Go ahead,” I said, a purr in my voice as the jets pummeled into me. “It’s your room, right? Or… I guess the Princess Suite is more of a floor than a room, considering how many regular rooms it has.”
She smiled as she joined me in sinking down to a warm bubbly oblivion. “You’re telling me. You haven’t even seen the guest rooms, have you? You’ll have your very own bed and bath, that I want you to think of as your space. Feel free to do whatever you want with it as long as you’re here. We also have a room at the castle set aside just for you.”
“Thanks,” I said, mouth just barely above the waterline. “Uhmm… sorry for causing you and Mom to get into a fight.”
She shrugged. “It happens. I’m just glad she finally told you the truth so I can stop nagging her about it. She was terrified she’d never see you again when you finally learned the truth.”
I saw her in my mind, sobbing, not even begging for forgiveness, just apologizing for her mistake. I shuddered. How did she not know how much I loved her? Because you stormed off and didn’t talk to her for three years. “Yeah, I noticed,” I finally said.
Twilight peeked one eye open and waved a hoof through the water, watching the ripples it made on the surface. “So…” Twilight said, “I’m not sure what to talk about. There aren’t many books on what to say when your marefriend’s sister finds out she’s actually her daughter. I don’t even know how I should talk to you... should I be more parental, or friendly? You’re already basically an adult, but–”
“You’re doing fine,” I said, waving a hoof at her. “You’re more involved than Dad… or Grandpa. And actual Dad, I guess. Hey, did Mom ever tell you what happened to him?”
“She told me what should happen to him. In detail, actually, but… No, all I ever got from her was that the day after she told him the news, he’d packed his bags for Hoofington,” Twilight said before dunking her head under the water for a second.
“Well then, you’re definitely doing better than him,” I said, giving her a smile and letting my hoof drop back into the waiting water.
“Oh,” Twilight said, fidgeting in her seat. “Then… Can I ask you about what happened back there?”
“If I knew all the way, I’d tell you, but I don’t. It’s just…” I joined her in swishing a hoof and watched the whirls of water spinning around. “I don’t feel like I can be myself with them. Like, they’ve done so much, and they just want the old Sweetie back. That’s not too much to give them, right? I spent years as her, so going back shouldn’t be too bad, but I just… can’t.”
“Hmm…” Twilight said, narrowing her eyes at me. “Were you pretending when you told us Rarity was your mom?”
I shook my head, long strands of mane flicking water bits of water into the air. “No! I haven’t been so happy in years. It’s just… the minute Scootaloo reminded me I was acting like her, it all vanished.”
“Okay,” Twilight said, closing her eyes and letting the bubbling of the hot tub dominate the conversation for a minute. “So are you saying you don’t want to be like your old self?”
“Maybe?” I said, frowning. “Old me was happy, and better than Manehattan me, but… even if I could go back to being her, a bit of me thinks I shouldn’t. But then I think ‘what’s wrong with being happy?’ and… I don’t know, it’s confusing.”
“Well,” Twilight said, sitting up to spread her wings and let them soak unfurled. “Maybe… Doctor Hooves will be stopping by tomorrow, maybe you should spend some time thinking about the type of pony you want to be and talk with him about it. Ask yourself, what type of pony do you want to be?”
♪♪♪
I sat in the dream hub while Luna was away on business, focusing my attention on the collection of gems that loosely represented Hoofington, catching glimpses into the dreams of its stallions. Well, and mares, but I didn’t spend too much time on their dreams. They weren’t important.
One stallion dreamed of trotting down a road, carrying something on his back. Next. Another dreamed of eating something purple and glowing with his wife. The stallion I was looking for wouldn’t have a wife. Next. A mare. Next. What are you even looking for? My father. Next. And what makes you think he dreams of you and Mom every night? Do you imagine him to be so racked with guilt he hasn’t moved on in the intervening eighteen years? Next. He probably has a wife and daughter of his own, they adore him, knowing nothing of his shameful little secret. Next. Oh, you don’t like that idea, do you? The stallion who abandoned you being a loving– I pulled my eyes away from the gem and screwed the thought shut, keeping as much pressure on the lid as I could. Next. Next. Next.
I sighed and slumped onto the not-ground. The voice in my head was probably right. Why would he dream about me? He didn’t even know me. Nonsense, he knew your mother, he knows she’s the Element of Generosity, and he knows her suspiciously-younger ‘sister’ is headline news. He knows everything that happened to you and didn’t lift a hoof. And just whose side are you supposed to be on? Not yours.
Great. Now the bad voices in my head were starting to sound like my good voices. I imagined a hard wall so I could bang my head against it, feeling the dream pain’s dull imitation of real pain. I shook my head, dispelling the wall. If I wanted to find him, I’d have to be smarter. Maybe… I whirled around, looking through the cyclone of gems until I found the purple diamond I needed. Mom. She knew what he looked like. At least, she knew what he used to look like. Maybe I could use that? Just get into her dream and get her to dream of him.
Sap-green magic flicked to life around my horn before grabbing the gem and pulling it closer so I could get a good look into her dream. It was… dark. Like, actually dark. As in, so dark, I could barely make my mom out sitting in the corner sobbing. “It’s a terrible dream, and we hoped it would not visit her tonight,” Luna said, appearing from behind me.
“Oh, Luna,” I said, floating the gem back to its place, “I was just–”
“We know what you sought. You attempted to use your dream powers to gaze into the minds of my little ponies to answer questions of paternity. I have been watching you quite intently these last few minutes, seeing just what you’d do,” she said, glaring down at me and putting her full height on display – or maybe just making me shorter.
“So… you’re mad at me for looking in on ponies’ dreams?” I asked, stepping away from the princess.
She shook her head. “No, any dream warden must engage in some level of voyeurism, and to speak truth, gazing on my ponies’ happier dreams is something of a pleasure to me. The reward for constant vigilance. I intervened because of the terrible thing I know you were plotting.”
“And what’s that?” I asked while Luna grabbed the gem with her magic and floated it right in front of me, forcing me to see the way my mom sobbed in big shuddering breaths, clutching tight to nothing.
“Your mother is in a nightmare, and you sought to bring such an unpleasant memory to bear against her? We may tolerate and encourage a level of voyeurism, but to bring pain to a charge for your own benefit? Do not try that again. Do not even think it again.” I tried to look away from the gem but her magic wrenched my head tight, forcing me to keep my eyes on Mom, to soak up every detail of her suffering. “Look upon abject misery, Sweetie, and promise me you will do nothing to increase it in my realm.”
“I promise,” I said, feeling like the worst mare in Equestria for actually good reasons this time as Luna’s grip on my neck vanished. “So… you’re going to help her, right?”
Luna shook her head. “I have tried, and while her dreams are trending back towards light, she does not heed my words. Perhaps it’s callous, but I would rather spend my efforts on ponies who might respond to them. Besides, she is doing better. I see no monsters shaped like your parents tearing her from limb to limb.”
She tried to float the gem back to its place, but I grabbed it with my own magic and brought it back to her. She was my mom and maybe I’d gotten carried away in my plan to find him, but I wasn’t going to leave her like this. “No!” I said, stomping my hoof into the mist. “You can’t leave her like this, she’s hurting, and… you don’t leave hurting ponies behind. There has to be something you can do.”
“Oh, Sweetie, there’s nothing I can do,” Luna said, eyes glinting. “She won’t listen to me, but perhaps you…” Her horn lit up and a burst of energy struck the purple gem, causing it to twist and contort into a portal. “You could calm her nightmare. If you choose to, of course.”
How could I say no? She was my mom, and she needed me to tell her everything was going to be okay. In real life and her dreams, apparently. “Alright, what do I do?”
“The easiest thing is to walk into the dream. The harder part is keeping yourself consistent in the dream. Her mind will try to get you to act in her nightmares, and it’s imperative you don’t give in to those urges. Doing so would be disastrous,” Luna said, taking a step closer to the portal. I gulped.
“How disastrous?” I asked, suddenly not wanting to move my hooves.
“Losing all sense of self and existing as a fractured ghost in her mind, trying to get out,” Luna said. “Don’t worry, Sweetie, I’ll be staying here to supervise and ensure you can exit safely. Do you remember the warding spells I taught you?”
I nodded. “I do, but… I think they’re a bit too complicated for me to cast.”
Luna shook her head and sighed. “Sweetie, we are still in the Dreaming. If you can conceptualize it and believe it, you can do it.”
“Right,” I said, remembering my dreams of flight the night before and calling up the complicated magical diagram of Luna’s warding spell, lines of magic looping and wrapping around each other. I traced the flows of magic around each other, feeling the way they squirmed and bent and warped the dream magic around me to mimic their patterns. I finished the tracing and a sense of solidity settled in my stomach. It wasn’t like anything was different about me, I just felt more like… me. Everything I was, I was more. And just what are you? Not important right now.
“Good job,” Luna said, spreading a wing and pushing me towards the portal. “Your mother might be wrapped up in dream logic, so just… bear with her. A guilty mind can be impervious to reason.” Yeah, no kidding.
“So… remember who I am and keep her dream from getting worse while I talk to her,” I asked, bringing a hoof to the threshold and pausing. I’d cast my spell, Luna was coming with me, I’d be fine. Probably. Unless I had one of my attacks and went insane inside my mom’s dream. That could be… Well, that was what Luna was for. In case she had to stop me. I closed my eyes and took a breath. “I can do this.”
A wing tip brushed my mane, and I felt a momentary urge to run screaming from the touch. I don’t know why, but some touches still freaked me out. A lot of stupid little things still freaked me out. “I know you can, Sweetie, if I doubted you, I wouldn’t have you do this.”
“Hey,” I said, giving myself another second before I had to cross the threshold. “How did you know…?”
“That Rarity is your mother? Or how did I know you knew?” Luna asked. I looked behind me to see her smiling. “For the first, I’d remind you that I can see into her dreams, and for the second… I can think of very few other reasons why you’d be interested in the dreams of Hoofington’s stallions.”
“Fair enough,” I said, before feeling her wing pushing against my rump. Another breath and I passed through the threshold, feeling the tingle of magic running down my body as I entered a world with its own rules and quirks. As I entered the world my Mom had made. I smiled and took a step towards her. “Hey, Mom,” I said, scanning the world around me. It looked like I was in the Carousel Boutique, but it was completely empty, with just a few boxes in it, like she’d just moved in.
She looked up at me, frowning. “Sweetie…? Is that you? But how did you get so big? You were just a little foal a few minutes ago. Back when they…” She sniffled and burst into tears. “When they took you awaaaaayy.” I sighed. Of course there was going to be drama, it was my Mom’s dream. Not like you’re much better. Shut up. “Your whole fillyhood’s gone, and I was too busy sobbing to spend it with you.”
“No you didn’t,” I said, plopping down to sit next to her. “You were a great mom-slash-sister? Remember that time you spent the Sisterhooves Social with me? When you ran that whole relay race covered in mud just for me?”
Mom’s frown deepened as the memories translated over to dream-her. “I do, I also remember being completely awful to you before that. If I had been a better mother, I’d–”
I put my hoof up to cover her mouth and shushed my own mom. “But you were a better mother. You were better than your mom; she would’ve never tried to make up for her mistake, she probably wouldn’t even have admitted to making a mistake, and you weren’t that bad ever again. Yeah, you made some mistakes, but it’s not like you knew better, and once you did know better, you did better. I think that’s pretty good.” But seriously, wasn’t I supposed to be the one recovering from mental damage?
She spent a whole month helping nurse you back to health. You can spend a few hours helping her. Of course I could, it just felt... weird. Seeing her this vulnerable and open. Like, she’d always kept this shell around her that I couldn’t quite pierce. She would, wouldn’t she? She had to to keep herself from pouring out.
Mom looked up at me, cheeks soaked with tears but her mascara still flawless. Even in her nightmares, her makeup didn’t run. “But… But I gave you to them.” On cue, Mom and– Well, Grandma and Grandpa walked through the door.
“Yes, yes you did,” Grandma said, looming pink and large over Mom and me, threatening to squash us with her hoof. “And now look, she came crawling back to you. You know that’s not part of the deal. She’s our daughter now, not yours.”
“No!” I said, jumping between Mom and her nightmare. “She’s my mom and I’m not going to leave her. Definitely not for you. She loves me, she’s there whenever I need her, while you abandoned me for an entire year.” My horn ignited and a blast of magic hit my grandma, size burned off her and she shrank down. Down to our size. Down smaller. Down to where she could fit in my hoof.
“You want some too, grandpa?” I asked, horn still primed with green magic. The stallion I once called dad shook his head and sprinted away, straw hat blowing off in his retreat.”
“Hey, Mom,” I said, looking back at her. She’d dried her eyes and was now looking between me and her own mom, eyes narrowed. “Is there anything else you want to say?
“Just one more thing, Sweetie,” she said, getting to her hooves and grabbing her mother with her magic, floating her by the tail up to eye level. “I told you my peace the day I kicked you out of my life. Now, I think it’s time you leave my dreams. Goodbye, Mother.” She gave her mom a little telekinetic flick, and grandma went flying out the door and over several hills before vanishing into the horizon. She turned to me, all signs of crying vanished and that cunning intelligence in her mind.
“So…” she said, tapping a hoof. “I’m having a dream – not a nightmare, but a proper dream – with my daughter.” She shook her head. “Of course I am, I told you the truth today, it makes sense that I’d dream about it tonight. I’d ask you if you really forgave me, but… this is my dream, you’ll just tell me whatever I want to hear.”
“No, I won’t,” I said. “It’s me, the real Sweetie. My drug binge gave me some weird dream powers, and now I can be like a tinier, less-powerful Princess Luna.”
My mom just laughed. “Well, that’s not exactly what I expected to hear, but I suppose my subconscious is creative enough to hatch up an inventive story like that. Oh, maybe I should be a writer, with stories like that.”
I groaned and conjured up another brick wall I could thunk my head against. “I’m not a dream, I’m–” I growled and threw my forelegs around her in a hug. “Just sit down and let me tell you everything’s okay, alright?”
My mom sat. I nodded my head and hugged her tighter.
“Good.” Now what could I say to make her feel better? Before I could think about it further, the answer came to me fully formed. “Hush, Mom, and dream a dream of all the things tomorrow’ll bring. Dream of all the time we have and everything in front of us…” I trailed off, trying to figure out how the rest of the song went. Improvising song lyrics on the fly was hard.
“Dream of a tomorrow where we’re better than before.
Dream of the day when we’ve banished ghosts of yore,
when the day comes,
when we greet the sun.
Dream of all the things we’ll do.
Maybe an afternoon at the zoo,
or a day in a canoe.”
Okay, I really needed to get off that ‘oo’ sound.
“Dream of evenings as a family,
with you, Twilight, and me.
Silly nights of board games, and
building castles in the sand.”
Mom had gotten heavy in my grip. I conjured a chaise beneath us and lowered her down onto it. Huh, who knew you could fall asleep in a dream.
“But most importantly, please dream of me
and know I’ll always love you.”
I nodded. It wasn’t completely awful as first songs went. I smiled at Mom, who’d seemed to enjoy it enough. Either that, or it was so boring it’d sent her to sleep. I frowned at that. Hopefully not, but either way, she wasn’t having a nightmare anymore. I gave her one last smile and turned away, channeling dream magic out of my horn and creating my bridge back to the hub. Luna stood on her side of the divide, gesturing me to come over to her. I nodded and stepped across, feeling the familiar tingle of magic as I crossed the divide.
“So,” I said as Luna closed the rift. “Will she remember any of this in the morning?”
Luna nodded. “Some. The important parts.” She smiled at me. “Enough, I think, to make her nightmares of losing you a thing of the past.”
“Thanks,” I said, looking up at her. “So, how did I do? I gave being you my best shot.’
“And you performed admirably,” Luna said, turning her attention back to the sea of gems rotating around us. “And it’s good to see you put your anxiety of singing behind you.”
“What?” I asked, giving a squeak and jumping up into the air. I’d… I’d sung. I smiled and tried hum one of my favorite show tunes, but my throat clamped shut like a vice. Great, and I was right back to not being able to sing. “How come I could sing when I wasn’t thinking about it, but the moment I actually try to sing, I– Oh.”
Luna raised an eyebrow. “Did somepony answer her own question?”
“Maybe,” I said, pawing a hoof at the invisible ground in the starry void Luna called her hub. “So what am I supposed to do, though? Just not think of singing and hope I can occasionally burst out into a musical number? Because that doesn’t happen nearly often enough.” I sighed and summoned my favorite brick wall for head-thunking. Thunk.
“That is a possibility, but perhaps it would be more productive for us to examine why you could sing with your mother and why you can’t sing normally,” Luna said, a wave of magic rippling from her horn and bringing us into one of my classrooms from the Academy. I sat behind the only desk in the room while Luna stood in front of a chalkboard, piece of white chalk gripped firmly in her magic. In a flurry of magic, she wrote ‘DIFFERENCES’ at the top of the board and then drew a line down from the center of the word cutting the board in half. “So, what was different about this instance than the other hundred times you tried singing, Sweetie?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “I wasn’t thinking about it?”
“Really?” she asked, bringing the chalk an inch from the board. “It strikes me as implausible that you could improvise a whole song without thinking about it. If you can, then you must be a truly prodigious musical genius.”
“Maybe I thought about it a little,” I said, bringing my head down on the desk. An instant later, a piece of chalk bounced off my mane.
“You will sit up straight in my classroom, Sweetie,” Luna said, a pair of black-rimmed glasses resting on her muzzle. “Tell me, does this make me look more academic? Perhaps more intimidating, as a good teacher should be.”
“I don’t think teachers are supposed to be intimidating,” I said, making sure I was sitting up right. “Like, the only teacher I know who was intimidating was Mr. Marelon, and he got fired after a week at the Academy.”
“Indeed?” Luna asked, raising an eyebrow and magically tying her mane into a ponytail. Somehow, the half after the scrunchie still blew in the unfelt wind, while the part before it was static. How did the princesses’ magic manes work? “Then how do teachers command obedience?”
“They… uhmm… I think they inspire. You know, like encouraging their students to want to learn,” I said, looking up at her.
“We will have to speak with Miss Octavia about this later,” she said, shaking her head and turning back to the board. “Now tell me, what was different about tonight?”
“I don’t know,” I said, chewing on my inside cheek. “I… I was just trying to make my mom feel better and wasn’t worrying about everypony liking me.”
Luna spun away from the board to look at me. “Ah! A clue, are you saying you normally sing so ponies will like you?”
“Yeah…” I said, frowning. What was wrong with that? Everypony wanted to be liked. “I sang songs that made ponies happy, and they liked me because of that. I enjoy singing too, but…”
“The performance and validation aspects became your primary drives,” Luna said, ignoring the board. “It wasn’t enough to sing and entertain, you needed to feed on the approval that came with it.”
“But that’s dumb,” I said, waving a hoof. “I haven’t been trying to sing for approval since I got back, I just want to be able to sing.” I laughed unfunnily. “Do you know what it’s like, not being able to do your special talent? To have this mark on you saying you’re supposed to sing, but then having your throat close up tight every time you try?”
“It isn’t pleasant, I know. Probably worse for you, since you’re nominally free, but still bound by the past. At least I was properly imprisoned.” She turned back to her board and started marking one side. “So, we know that in your old performances you sang for yourself, ultimately. You fed off the adoration of your audience. In this instance, however, you sang for Rarity, to help her feel better and calm her fears. While it might not be the cause of the change, it’s still a difference worth noting, agreed?”
“Sure,” I said, my head drooping low for a second before I picked it back up. “So…” What were some other differences? “Oh! This wasn’t a completely happy song. Most of the songs I sang, they were really happy. You know, you can’t make ponies happy if you sing about bad things. Nopony wants to hear about them, but this one… maybe it wasn’t sad, but it knew sad stuff existed. Do you think that’s important?”
Luna nodded and made some more marks. “Indeed, would it be fair to say that this song was genuine, in contrast to your other songs?”
I tilted my head at her. “What do you mean? All my songs were real, somepony wrote them and I actually sang them. Oh! I made up this song myself – well, I used Mom’s lullaby as a basis, but the lyrics were mostly my own.”
“Another factor to consider,” Luna said, working to fill up both sides of the board with her notes. “And what I mean by genuine is this: the song you sang for your mother was unashamedly yours. It was your words, and it sprung from an emotional place inside you. It reflected what you felt. The other songs did not. They were sung to make ponies happy or because the production demanded it. Either way, they were not at all tied to your emotional state Perhaps try something different.”
“But nopony wants to hear those songs,” I said, groaning and rolling my eyes. “They want a bunch of silly fun songs. They don’t want sad song. They don’t want songs about what actually happened to me.”
“I’d be interested in hearing such songs – and considering there’s a whole genre of music called ‘blues’, I’d hazard a guess that there are other ponies who share my proclivities,” Luna said, her horn flashing and sending us back to the hub. “Try it. Maybe you won’t have the same audience you did before, but it might be just what you need.”
“I’ll try,” I said, looking away from her to the wall of gems behind her. I laughed. “Besides, it’s not like my career can get any worse right now. If I’m going to be shunned anyways, I might as well sing what I want, right?”
“Indeed,” Luna said. “So, it seems you had a rather busy day. You got out of the hospital, learned your true parentage, and we worked on your fear of singing. Did anything else interesting happen today?”
“Well,” I frowned. “It might not be as big as all that other stuff, but Twilight asked me a question I’ve kind of been thinking about ever since.”
♪♪♪
“Hey, Mom,” I said, cracking the door to her bedroom open. “Sauna?”
“You’re up,” Mom said, poking her head out of the bathroom, a foamy toothbrush floating next to her and froth coming out of her mouth.
“Right,” I said, nodding my head. “So, sauna? I have another hour before I have to worry about Doctor Hooves getting here. I thought we could do some mother-daughter bonding stuff. You know, only if you want to, though.”
“Of course I want to,” she said. “Just… let me finish brushing my teeth first?”
“I’ll get it set up.” I trotted through the room, looking around. No Twilight. I hadn’t seen her in the living room either. Was she in the rec room or… I heard another voice from the bathroom. Oh, that made sense. Who could pass up the chance to shower with their special somepony? Definitely not me. I tightened down on the itch that thought awoke. Nope, not important right now. Not that I had anypony to help scratch. Well, yourself.
I shook my head. Either way, I wasn’t going to do it now. I trotted across the recreation room and opened the door to the sauna. Still super warm, but dry. I grabbed the ladle hanging off the bucket of water and dipped it, filling it, and bringing it up to be poured on to the hot coal. Huh, why didn’t they ever have to change the coals? Magic, probably. The whole room’s probably fireproofed, too.
Steam rose up from the coals with a hiss, and I nodded, giving the coals another ladleful of water. That should do it. I gave it a smile and sat on one of the benches, waiting for my mom. Closing my eyes, I leaned my head back against the wood panelling and waited until I heard the door creak open.
“Hey,” I said. opening one eye to see Mom trotting in, mane not styled at all. I pointed a hoof at it. “You alright?”
“Hmm… Oh, yes,” she said, nodding and sitting next to me. “I just didn’t want to style my mane before letting the sauna undo all my hard work. It’s better to just deal with it later.”
“Alright,” I said, sitting up straighter. “So… I’d like to talk to you about something. Something you mentioned yesterday. It just… I thought of it last night or this morning,, and it’s been bugging me ever since.”
Mom nodded. “Yes, I suppose it was a bit much to hope the whole issue had been completely resolved and this was just an invitation to enjoy the sauna with my daughter.”
“Well, it’s also that,” I said, “but I’m just curious about something.”
“Of course,” Mom said. Next to her, I felt the heat of the sauna cling to my coat, feeling like a twenty pound weight had been tied to me. I exhaled as sweat was drawn out of my body. “I’m guessing it’s about why I gave you up?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “When you were sobbing about giving me up and being selfish and awful, I kind of figured that part out, and I get it. I… probably would’ve done the same thing if it’d been me. What I’m curious about is why did you change? Why did you go from being scared and selfish to awesome and good? I guess part of it could be the Sisterhooves Social, but you were already the Bearer of Generosity by then, so… what changed?”
“Ah,” Mom said, a smile flicking on her lips. “You caught that. Well, the answer is… it was you, Sweetie. Well, in a way. When my parents sent me to that retreat to have you, I spent a lot of time working on my dresses, but I still got to observe the mares who lived there, and they confused me. They were the exact opposite of me and my parents. They’d so gladly do anything to help me or anypony else who asked.They all seemed so happy even though they spent their days helping others, and I couldn’t figure out why.”
Next to me, I saw sweat or steam collecting on my mom’s coat, turning into little beads of dew. “Silly me, but of course, I couldn’t understand it. I grew up with my parents. Anyways, once I had you and gave you up, I had a few more weeks to spend at the retreat and decided to help the mares there with their work. Something about that clicked with me, there was this… completeness I got from helping other ponies that I’d never experienced before.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding my head. “So, that’s how you got to be Generosity, I guess, but how come you were still kind of a bad mom for a few years?”
“Lessons take some time to sink in, Sweetie,” she said, closing her eyes. “And despite how much I loathed her, Mother still shaped the way I raised you. I tried to be better, to be involved in your life to a degree she wasn’t, and up until the Social, I thought I was doing well. Perhaps I was doing better, but… I owe Applejack an immeasurable debt for teaching me how to be a good ‘big sister.’”
“Alright,” I said, giving her a hug and leaning in close. “That’s… thanks.”
“For what?” Rarity asked, eyes now open and tilting her head. “I was awful, Sweetie.”
“First, you promised,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her. “And second for showing that a pony as good as you could also have been as bad as me. Like, if you could put all that badness aside and learn to be good, maybe I’m not completely hopeless either.”
She leaned over and brushed a strand of mane away from my eyes. “Anytime, Sweetie.”
I smiled over at her, ignoring the strangeness of the both of us being at eye level. “It makes me feel like… like maybe I can be somepony better than I was. It’s a nice feeling.”
♪♪♪
“What do you want to be?” Doctor Hooves asked. We both sat in Twilight’s living room. I reclined on one of the chaises Mom brought, and he sat on an over-plush chair, the Manehattan skyline and a long drop behind him. A shiver went up me as I remembered those last minutes in the penthouse, how I threw myself against the glass. Twilight said the windows were enchanted to be unbreakable, but… Well, Mom promised we’d go out sooner or later, and I’d feel a lot better if my hooves were on solid ground.
“I don’t know… Happy?” I asked, rolling my head away from him and the fall and focusing on the less-threatening ceiling.
“Everypony wants to be happy, Sweetie. What do you want to be? You’ve been given the opportunity to reinvent yourself, to shape yourself however you choose. What do you want the new you to look like?”
The back of my head thunked against the soft padding of Rarity’s chaise. “I don’t know. I… I’d like to be good? You know, not like how I was. I want to help my friends and be nice to them. To not be selfish and awful.”
“A noble sentiment,” he said, nodding his head. “But defining yourself in relation to other ponies strikes me as a recipe for future trouble. You know how defining yourself to fit the needs of other ponies ends, you tried it in Ponyville.”
“Fine,” I said, giving him a quick glare before looking at the ceiling. “What do you think I should be, since you’re so good at telling me what I shouldn’t be?”
“You know I won’t answer that, Sweetie. You don’t have to give me the perfect answer today, but… just tell me one thing you’d like to be. One thing you want to clutch tight to you. One bit of yourself you’d like to develop further.”
There was a pause. I kept staring up at the ceiling, gears turning in the back of my head. “Maybe this is obvious or something, but I’d like to get back to singing. I talked about this last night, but… I’d really like it if I could sing again, and just– You know, maybe I could try writing my own songs and moving into other genres. I think I have at least a few blues songs in me.”
He laughed. I still didn’t look at him and the big fall. “You know, I think you might be–”
“What’s up with your name?” I asked, cutting him off before he could finish a sentence I could tell was going to be patronizing. “Most ponies have names that kind of relate to their talent or job or something about them, but unless ‘doctor’ is actually your first name, the only way I can think ‘hooves’ relates to you is you do a lot of writing with them.”
“Any particular reason you brought this up, Sweetie, or are you just trying to change the subject?” he asked. I almost wanted to look over and see what he was doing, but… no, would much rather stare at the ceiling or anything that wasn’t the long drop. Why did her hotel room have those big floor to ceiling windows like my penthouse did?
“I just… I don’t know, I didn’t want to talk about my singing anymore, and it’s been bugging me for a while,” I said. That was all true, just not the complete truth. Funny how you could still lie using just the truth.
“Very well, if you must know, my mother misinterpreted my name dream. She saw a vision of a stallion laying on a couch, and decided to go with the name ‘Idle Hooves,’ to try and keep me from falling to sloth,” he said. rustling something. “There, does that answer your question?”
“Yeah,” I said. “So… what else do you want to talk about? Is it almost time?” I rolled over to look at him in time to see him shake his head before screwing my eyes shut.
“We just started a few minutes ago, Sweetie, so no. Is there anything you’d like to discuss. Anything important in your life?” he asked. I peeked an eye open and he just sat there staring at me.
“Well, yesterday, I learned my sister was actually my mom, I guess that’s kind of important,” I said, keeping my eye on him, trying not to smile as his eyes bugged out in his head.
“Uhmm… yes, I suppose that would be important, I… tell me, how did that make you feel?”
“Actually... pretty good.”
♪♪♪
My appointment over, I sat in my room, waiting for her. She was going to be here, she had to come here today, she wasn’t going to abandon me just because I wasn’t in the hospital anymore. Scootaloo’d accepted my apology yesterday, so we were fine, and I – I just had to talk to her. To tell her how I felt, what I wanted.
Minutes ticked by. Mom knocked on my door to see how I was.
“Fine,” I said, “just waiting for Scootaloo. She’s coming today, right?”
Mom said she should be, so I went back to waiting, trying to figure out just what I was going to say. Hey, Scootaloo, sorry for getting mad at you again. Do you want to go out? Awful. Look, I’m really sorry about how I’ve been acting, and it’s okay that you don’t like mares, but maybe we could still try a relationship? Probably not a good idea to remind her of her straightness when asking her out. Scootaloo, I really like you, and I’d like to try dating you without messing it up like I do everything else. We’d promised Mom we’d try not to talk like that anymore.
“Hey, Sweetie, Rarity said you’d wanted to talk to me?” Scootaloo asked as my door clicked open.
“Scootaloo!” I said, launching from where I sat waiting to the mare who’d waited and throwing my forehooves around her neck. “You’re here, I was so worried you wouldn’t come today, that you’d finally gotten so fed up with me you just decided not to bother anymore. I’d understand if you did.”
“That’s not happening,” Scootaloo said, shaking her head as she pulled me off her. “No matter what, I’m still your friend. Got it?”
“But you want to be more, right?” I asked, looking up at her. She was just so strong, and why would she like me? I was a mess. Good ponies don’t like broken little mares. “Because if you do, I’m completely fine doing a relationship without all the touching stuff. Like… it’ll be hard, but for you, I’ll try it.”
“Really?” she asked. “And we can touch, I’m just not completely comfortable with sleeping with another mare, even if it’s you. You can wait a while, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, sighing before perking back up. “And I bet I can think of something you’ll like. There’s not much difference between a mare’s hoof and a–”
“You don’t need to finish that thought, Sweetie,” Scootaloo said, shoving a hoof in my mouth. I fought the urge to lick it. “Look… yeah, if you promise we can go at my speed, I’ll be okay trying relationship stuff, if you feel up for it. What changed your mind, though? I thought you just wanted sex.”
“I mean, I still do,” I said when she finally pulled her hoof free. “It’s super fun, and I’m sure when we finally do do it, it’ll be great, but I had a dream of how good a relationship can be when it’s working right, and thought maybe I could try it? I mean, they can’t all be as bad as my relationship with Bright Lights, right? And maybe it will be good focusing on the other non-sex stuff for a while.”
Scootaloo laughed. “Yeah, I think if all relationships were as bad as your last one, nopony would ever bother. My parents have been awesomely married for twenty years, and they barely fight. Plus, your mom and Twilight seem to have a good thing going.”
“That’s what I want,” I said, nodding my head. “When they’re together, you can just see how much they care for each other, the way Twilight leans close to my mom for support, the way Mom looks at Twilight when Twilight’s not looking. I don’t know, it seems nice. So…” I pawed a hoof at the floor. “I know we aren’t going to be doing sex stuff for a while, but would it be alright if I kissed you?”
She stared at me for a minute before nodding. “Alright, but could you not kiss like a mare?”
What the hay did that mean?
“What the hay does that mean? Last time I checked, I am a mare, so I’m pretty sure I do everything like a mare,” I said, looking at her and giving her a frown that threatened to turn into a glare. “I’m not going to turn into a stallion for you.”
“No, Sweetie, that’s not what I’m asking, just… you know, mares are like… soft and yielding, and I want somepony to kiss me. Like a force of nature. Like our first kiss, where you didn’t ask for permission, you just did it and overpowered me and it was so awesome.” She frowned, noticing my stare. “What?”
“Just… didn’t think you’d like doing that stuff. You’re so athletic and–”
“Yeah, I know, it’s weird, but I think I get my fill of being awesome the rest of the time, and I still kind of want to feel all mare-ey when it comes to relationships. You know, like a gruff take-charge stallion just…” She trailed off, giving a sigh. “Anyways, if you could be more like the you that spontaneously kissed me, that would help a lot. Just… do it without dating other ponies.”
I sighed and looked at the ground. She’d spent two years waiting for me, she’d basically saved my life, and I did love her. “I can do that,” I said, looking up at her. “I had enough acting mare-ey with Bright Lights, anyways.” My smirk was all the warning she got before I leapt forward, wrapping one foreleg around the crook of her neck and drawing her lips up against mine. A shudder ran down Scootaloo, and for a long second, her lips refused to part, her eyes were still wide. Had I crossed a line? She wanted somepony gruff and ‘stallion-ey’ (but really, that’s not fair, I bet most stallions are super sensitive) and take-charge, and I was giving her just that.
Finally, her lips parted and my tongue slid into her, meeting with its counterpart for a few seconds before I inhaled, creating a vacuum in our mouths and drawing her tongue forward to me. She knew the basics of kissing, but I was a master of it, and she was basically putty in my hooves… or mouth, in this case. The kiss stretched out to infinity, and with every second, more of her yielded. If it was this easy to get her to enjoy other things, we’d be doing whatever I wanted in a few days. Not that I’d take advantage of her, that’s something a bad Sweetie would do, but… I could. I knew all the buttons to press. But I wouldn’t. Keep telling yourself that.
The kiss broke, and I smiled at the completely flushed mare in front of me. Seeing the strongest pony I knew reduced to almost quivering by one of my kisses… It was kind of hot. My mouth twitched as I struggled to hide my satisfaction. This could work. “‘Stallion-ey’ enough for you?”
She nodded, breathless, and my smile transitioned into an easy smirk, full of confidence I hadn’t felt in forever. If this was what she wanted, maybe I could get used to it. “Good.”