For Nothing More Precious

by Shinzakura

We All Must Learn from Small Misfortune...

“I know a thing about lovers:
Lovers lie down in trust”

Rarity noted the heavy snowfall as she looked out the window. It was the end of the first full week of December, and snow wasn’t exactly unexpected. Still, she could feel a chill in the air that somehow seemed colder than previous years; the snow seeming imperceptibly heavier, the world looking that much more colorless.

Seated at the dinner table with a spread of documents before her as well as her trusty laptop, Rarity found herself humming a song from a few decades ago, one that she’d first heard the other day. She wasn’t sure why, but somehow the song was that worst kind of earworm, the one that felt familiarly comfortable despite being completely new. That feeling became even more awkward after she’d looked up the lyrics later that day and found that the song had references to infidelity, adultery and obsession, things that typically bothered the romantic in her. Ultimately, she figured that it was probably the haunting Spanish guitar line in the song that caught her attention. That, or the Australian lilt of the lead singer.

Although, admittedly, right now it was more likely because Chrysalis, who was spending the night over, had found the song so incredibly infectious, that by the time it had made a third run around on Rarity’s Spotify playlist, she’d memorized the lyrics and was singing along, and even (disturbingly, Rarity told her) sang along in a pitch-perfect imitation of the lead singer. Fortunately for her, Rarity, who was used to her own younger sister’s habit of round-robin-ing songs to death, put up with it.

“Chrysalis, dear, I want to thank you again for your assistance,” the older girl said – well, theoretically older in Chrysalis’ case, as she insisted that she’d recently turned fourteen and didn’t want to hear otherwise, or to quote her, “my mind’s made up, don’t confuse me with facts” – to the younger.

Currently over in the kitchen, baking cookies, Chrysalis smiled. “Well, I wanted to try this recipe that Cady said came from our grandmother. And to be honest, I’ve never tried making cantucci before, so I thought it’d be a nice thing to do.”

“Cantucci?”

“It’s a type of biscotti that’s a specialty of the area my family’s from. Smothered in chocolate chips and pistachios and then dipped in chocolate glaze.” She looked over at the double boiler, which had just started to steam. “Plus, I was hoping….”

Rarity saw the look on the teen’s face. “You were hoping that you could give the biscotti to my sister and her friends, didn’t you?”

The mention of sister and her friends made Chrysalis wilt slightly. “You know that Crackle won that trip for all her friends to go down to the Medieval Times down in Colton this weekend, right? She won the weekend of my birthday and she was going to tell everyone. Except I wasn’t told, because of that spell that Sunny cast.”

“We couldn’t risk it. You know that.”

Chrysalis wiped her eyes, not wanting to cry right now. “I know. I just….” She leaned against the counter. “I know that she did her best to erase the whole changeling incident and them seeing my, ahem, ‘condition’, but I don’t know if what happened was the best way to do it.”

“For what it’s worth, she doesn’t think so either,” Rarity agreed. “But we did have the issue to solve and not much time to do it in. And as much as Sweetie is my sister and you are my friend, it pains me to say that I would rather have her and the others at odds with you right now than to have you – and possibly all of us – in some Federal research facility in Nevada, if not worse.”

“Is there anything actually in Nevada? Besides Vegas, I mean.”

“Well, some military facilities and a lot of desert. There’s also Reno and Cloudsdale, but one’s pretty much mini-Vegas, and the other’s on the opposite end of the state, by the Utah border. But I suspect you’re dodging the issue.”

“Dodging like I’m playing Dance Dance Revolution,” Chrysalis responded. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, Rarity: You all are my friends, but you’re not the same age group as me. And I know people at school are saying behind my back that you’re all taking pity on me because I can’t find anyone my age to be friends with.” For a second, it seemed as if the teen wanted to say more, but she instead just clammed up.

“It was that or completely remove their memories and Sunset didn’t want to go that far. Furthermore, she is doing her best to try to sort things out,” Rarity assured her.

"I know, and I don’t blame her at all. But is it wrong to say I miss my friends?”

Rarity chose not to answer that one; she was concerned that anything else might open further emotional wounds. As it was, she had to bite her tongue to keep herself from pointing out that Chrysalis herself was the one pushing them away. “In any case, I don’t know if I said this before, but I truly do appreciate you making the extra effort to help me with my report.”

“It’s nothing, really,” Chrysalis replied, taking the non-response as a hint. “It sounds interesting doing a historical report while wearing a period outfit, but you hardly needed me for this, right? I mean, you can probably Google up everything you need in five minutes, or in a pinch just head down to the library.”

“I felt it would be best to have someone with an accurate eye towards what it really looked like rather than just pictures and historical documents. I don’t mean to be indelicate about it, Chrysalis, dear, but you did live through that time period, after all.”

“No offense, but I try not to think about that part of my life anymore. It’s been so long since I was Crisalide della Lucca that she almost feels like a separate person – I barely remember anything from that time as is and when Sunny and Tavi took me to the exhibit to see stuff I previously owned, the items there didn’t feel like things that used to be mine, but instead things that used to belong to some woman who lived centuries ago – like the artifacts everyone else thought they were. The fact that the historical figure in question was me feels coincidental.”

“That bad?”

“Let’s put it this way: because of everything that’s happened to me, I really don’t look like the historical portrait that was painted of me back then anymore. While my face is still the same, my eyes are different now because of magic and trauma, and I keep my hair coloration and style different as well, not to mention that I’m also slightly physically older now and have a more modern bodyframe.”

“I don’t get what you mean.”

“The me back then would be wildly jealous of my cleavage now,” was all Chrysalis said about that. “In any case, yes, while I still legally go by that name, no one calls me that anymore. Plus, Crisalide lived in a period of wimples, camoras and all those fun torture devices women called fashion back in those days, and frankly, I like my hoodies and jeans.”

“Wimples?” Rarity asked, surprised.

“Yes, the life of a Tuscan noble was not one of high fashion by our standards, I’m afraid,” Chrysalis laughed. “Trust me, better the wimple than the cornette. The latter was so ornately folded, it made your head look like one giant fucking polygon.”

“I…see.”

“Yeah. Perfect for a night out with the doge, but laughable by modern standards. Also, you can’t get them at Hot Topic, thank God.” Her phone chirped and she reached into her hoodie pocket for it. “And that was Dagi,” Chrysalis said after idly glancing at her phone. “She says she’s stuck in traffic but should be here soon.”

“I’m still glad she was able to make it; she needs the time off, given everything the SIRENs have been doing as of late,” Rarity replied.

The teen shook her head in dismay. “No argument; between having to deal with the ATG, her own day job, her duties as a SIREN and her normal school life, she makes me look like a slacker when I was queen of the changelings.”

“I think that older sister vibe that both Sunset and Cadance have has been rubbing off on her, or so Twilight tells me,” Rarity replied.

“Wish I could really remember what that was like,” Chrysalis said sadly.

Rarity caught that note; it seemed to be a different shade of guilt than the feelings the younger teen was having regarding her estranged circle of friends. “I hope I didn’t say anything amiss.”

“No, you just reminded me of my older brother Giovanni, is all,” Chrysalis replied. “I loved him dearly, but because he was both the heir to the house and working towards his own knighthood, he really didn’t have much time for me. But whatever little time he could spare, he always did, and so when I had a problem at home, I always turned to Gio for help.” The look on the younger teen’s face grew dark. “Who else could I turn to, after all? My mother was little more than the typical Tuscan noblewoman, barely educated and without much control in her life. And Father was too busy looking for an advantageous marriage for me to improve his prospects – hence why I ended up getting hitched to a freakstick bishop a decade older than me just barely after I’d had my first period. I sure as hell couldn’t turn to my governess; she was probably having an affair with my father, given the time period.” She checked the oven once more, looking at the cantucci. “The only one that ever really cared about me as me was Gio.”

“Did…did you ever find out what happened to him?” Rarity asked her.

“More like did he ever find out what happened to me,” Chrysalis said, sotto voce, wrapping her arms around her, clearly uncomfortable.

“You don’t have to—”

“I do. I talked to my parents about it and Mom said I should confide in my friends and you’re obviously one of those. Ari had one of her friends dig up the information for me and…Gio spent the rest of his life regretting not opposing my marriage. It became especially egregious after the murder rumors came out and Bruyere took my place practically out of nowhere. My brother pretty much hounded Baldassare, but that asshole’s connections in the Cavalcanti household combined with his bishopric pretty much made the bastard untouchable, and almost cost Gio his noble title when my father passed on.” Chrysalis was silent for a few seconds before continuing. “Afterwards, Gio even went so far as to name his first daughter after me, but she died of the pox in her childhood, which I guess was the start of the old Italian myth that the name Crisalide is cursed. In any case, he and his wives – he remarried after the first one died in childbirth with their fourth child – had seven children, four of which made it to adulthood.”

“Descendants?”

“From what I read, their line still continues to this day: in fact, the current mayor of Rome is descended from Gio’s second son and thus my great-great-times-whatever-nephew.”

“Well, that’s something, isn’t it? Your biological family still exists, if you ever wish to make contact again.”

“Why would I? How could I? ‘Ciao, I’m your great-great-times-whatever-aunt, having survived for centuries as a monster in another dimension!’ That doesn’t usually go well at family reunions.” A wistful look came over the girl’s face. “I just wish my brother could know that I’m in a better place now. He was against the marriage our father shackled me to with Baldassare, but even he couldn’t say anything against it and the aftermath cost him so much. I’m just glad he never knew the hell I went through because that probably would have shattered him.”

Rarity had known enough drama in her life to know where this was going. Reaching over to give the younger girl a hug, she said, “But you are in a better place now, right?”

“Yeah, definitely.” Chrysalis looked at Rarity and smiled. “Just…take it from me…as a kid sister, we love being adored by our older siblings, especially when we know that we’re loved by them and they’d do anything for us. And even though I’m just an only child of my current parents, I still remember times when I was just my older brother’s cherished little sister.”

The doorbell rang, breaking the moment. “Good, she’s here,” Rarity said with a smile, crossing the house before arriving at the door and addressing the newcomer. “Well, glad you could make it.”

“Glad I could be here,” Adagio said, carrying a bag in one hand and dragging behind some luggage in the other. “It’s not often I get a day off my busy schedule, and I figured if I’ve got a free weekend, I may as well milk it for all it’s worth. Plus, thankfully, I’m not alone.” The girl gestured to the teen behind her.

Rarity smiled. “Blossomforth! So glad you could make it!”

“Believe me, so am I.” Blossomforth looked completely haggard for her age, but given everything that had happened to her, it was more than understandable. “Thankfully my parents thought I needed a break to hang with people my age instead of taking care of my daughter or dealing with the CHS Teen Mom Group and this report gives me a chance.”

“I’ve…heard some of the drama that’s popped up there as of late,” Rarity noted. “You have my sympathies.”

“Well, Vice Principal Neighsay is heavily in favor of disbanding the group, because he thinks it’s detrimental to the school’s image. It doesn’t help that while most of the girls in there were ones like me that got into bad situations, there are a few overly proud ‘babymamas’ like Honey Pot that don’t care they have three kids and pretty much no chance of graduating or providing a future for their kids.”

“I’ll ask Sunset to speak to Principal Luna about it,” Rarity offered.

“I can talk to my aunt about it as well,” Chrysalis spoke up. “My mom set that program up and even though she’s not there anymore, it’s still important to her.”

“Thanks, girls, but I can’t rely on you both or Sunny all the time,” Blossomforth said. “I have to stand up for myself, if only because I need to learn to do that as an adult. I just wish I could get some support in that group to help. I mean, Sweet Notions wants the same thing I do, but given her situation she’s afraid as hell to speak up about anything.”

“Well, if I can suggest,” Adagio said as she moved over to the kitchen, “maybe put it out of your mind and relax this weekend. It’s a girls’ weekend out, right, Rares?”

“Oh, certainly it’s a shame that I’ve got the house to myself this weekend,” Rarity said in a way that indicated that no, it wasn’t a shame. “Plus, with my sister in Colton this weekend and my parents off on a romantic getaway for themselves, I think I can deal with spending time alone with some friends.”

“Oh, so your parents finally decided to get out of town?” Adagio asked. “I know last time I was here your mom joked that they never go anywhere.”

“They’re in Horseshoe Bay this weekend. And from what I gathered, Dad’s got quite the adventure planned for them. It’ll probably be a weekend they’ll never forget!”

The punch was enough to send Hondo slamming backwards onto the table behind him, ruining another couple’s lunch as well. Even though he hadn’t been a football player for years, his regular exposure to them as part of his job as a sportswriter pretty much required that he still kept himself in tip-top shape, so he still kept much of his big and bulky frame from that time period and as a result, it took a lot to drop him.

So as he tried to scrape what was left of his dignity up as he got off the broken glass-and-wood remains of the table he’d collided against, as well as trying to casually ignore the bowl of tortilla soup dripping its contents onto his head, he was struck with two feelings at once: the awe of having been waylaid in a single punch, and the fact that he knew he was in deep, deep shit.

As he finally took the bowl off his head, still somewhat in a situational daze, he looked at his assailant and the rage brought before him. I deserve this, he said silently. I didn’t want this, but I—

Any further thought was suddenly cut off by the explosive sensation he felt between his legs, as he now had to deal with a sudden kick to that painful location. This time was enough to send him completely to the ground, crashing into what vaguely smelled like molé. He’d never been a particular fan of that Mexican sauce despite loving Mexican food and with what was going on now, he was going to like it even less.

“You bastard,” a voice hissed from above. A voice filled with fury – worse, justifiable fury.

Hondo forced himself back to his feet once more and looked at his assailant: his wife, Cookie Crumbles, star journalist and, like him, somewhat of a local celebrity in Canterlot. Typically, between the two of them, they reported on the news in the Canterlot metro area. Needless to say, it was a good thing they’d decided to spend the weekend over in Horseshoe Bay, or else they’d be the news right now – never a good thing in their occupation.

“How could you do this to me?” she said, her voice a leonine roar without so much as raising her voice. “To our daughters? To our marriage?”

Hondo sighed; what could he say?

“Answer me, damn you!”

“Cookie, I—”

“No. I’m not doing this here. Not here, not….” Ever the journalist, she made it clear that she wasn’t going to end up on the gossip rags of the social pages for whatever passed for the local newspaper here in Horseshoe Bay. She stomped out of the restaurant and didn’t bother to look to see if he’d bothered to follow her.

The man whose meal had just been ruined looked at him and said, “I guess you seriously fucked up, didn’t you?”

Hondo sighed and shook his head. “Like you wouldn’t believe,” he muttered. He looked at the waiter and said, “Put the table, our meal and their meal on my hotel tab. Room 608,” he said as he raced out of the restaurant, stained clothing and all, in the hopes of finding his wife. He had to straighten this out, for a million reasons, not the least of which was that he loved her.

But as he reached the lobby, he knew that she was gone, and where he didn’t know.

He could only hope that gone didn’t mean gone.

Because if that was the case…he sure as hell deserved that, too.

As the snow fell in drifts, Chrysalis fell back down on the couch after a long day of homework, baking and watching movies before it was Adagio’s turn to commandeer the kitchen. The triplet had done so with gusto, making a feast of Indian dishes that had the four girls in postprandial bliss by the end of it all.

“I think I could eat lamb korma all day,” Blossomforth said with a satisfied grin and patting her belly.

“I’ll give you the recipe if you want it,” Adagio said, also collapsed on the loveseat. “I’m just glad the garlic naan turned out better than expected.”

“I’d appreciate that. I’m always willing to experiment with it, and since I don’t get much time to speak to that one girl at work – Garden Variety – I can’t always get things from her.”

“I just think that I’m lucky you and Chrysalis are doing the cooking this weekend,” Rarity teased. “I’m probably going to get fat from all this. Happy as can be, but fat nonetheless.”

“Well, I can at least work it off,” Adagio said with a grin. “Thankfully my workouts should take care of that in short order.”

“Wish I could be so lucky,” Chrysalis lied, knowing very well she could just transmute it into nonexistence or that it would get consumed during one of her transformations.

“You’re a twig, Chrys – calories mean nothing to you.”

“Lucky her; some of us have baby fat that has to be worked off,” Blossomforth groaned. “Well, I suppose I should earn my pay,” she said, standing up. “I’m ready to be your model, Rares. But are you sure this is going to be okay?”

“I’ll make my outfit for the report later,” Rarity assured her; Chrysalis had agreed to turn herself briefly into a mirror image of Rarity so the latter could get accurate measurements. “But I must admit, I do appreciate that you’re willing to do this report with me, Blossomforth, dear.”

“I thought it would be fun to dress in costume for a historical report. I’m just surprised that you found someone to do a period-accurate outfit with.”

Chrysalis faked a blush. “I, uh, did some research on Crisalide della Lucca at ECMAH before the Cavalcanti exhibition left town. And since she’s from the same town I was born in, I guess it was just natural.”

“Oh, I remember going to that when the exhibition first arrived back in March,” Blossomforth said, pulling out her phone to look up some stuff about it while Rarity got up to take her measurements. “I wonder if it’s true that she was murdered by her husband. The part about her being sold to an evil black unicorn so her husband could get magic certainly can’t be.”

“Yeah, no way in hell is that factual,” Chrysalis deadpanned.

Blossomforth looked at the image on the screen, then to the teenager plopped on the couch. “Uh, did anyone ever tell you that you look like her?”

“Probably a doppelganger issue,” Adagio said quickly to spare Chrysalis any headaches. “After all, my cousin just had to meet her own long-lost twin sister this past summer, if you recall.”

“Yeah, there seems to be a lot of that going on lately, weirdly enough,” Blossomforth said. “Sunny and her same-named twin, Bon-Bon and that porn star in Hong Kong. I even know a girl at my church that swears there’s a girl that goes to Darkside High that has the same looks and name as her cousin in Victoria – that’s Canada, if I recall correctly. Plus, Embiggen isn’t apparently the most common name there is.”

Rarity, Chrysalis and Adagio quickly shared an uncomfortable look, but said nothing further.

Thinking an unspoken apology to Rarity, Adagio decided to change the subject slightly before it got uncomfortable. “She’s not the only one. My cousins back home in Canada swear they saw me in Seattle last month when I’ve never been there. Plus, there’s the girl that Shimmy told Sunny she ran into during a weekend in Belgium….”

Rarity’s eyes narrowed in sudden anger. “Adagio Dazzle, you did not just—”

Chrysalis, understanding what was going on, took that ball and ran with it. “Oh, that one! Yeah, I remember Tavi telling me about it. Teenage prostitute or something. Spitting image of Rarity and everything.”

“I cannot believe you’re bringing this up!” the fashionista said, drama mode kicking in.

“Good job, Chrys. You just set off Mt. Rarity,” Adagio cracked.

“Hey, you set off the volcano,” the physically younger girl said with a grin. “Not my fault I just added to the blast radius.”

Blossomforth was understandably confused. “Did I miss something?”

“Just the dying embers of my dignity,” Rarity sighed. “I just have to accept that my own doppelganger is a call girl in Belgium, just as Bon-Bon has an, er, adult film star that lives in Hong Kong as hers. We all cannot be as fortunate as Sunset where our earthly copies are as well-heeled as Shimmer is.”

“Well, I would hope that if by any chance you ever meet the girl that there’s a good explanation for why she does what she does,” Adagio said. “I mean, if I were in your shoes and I ended up finding out my doppelganger was a prosti, I would wonder why she would do that to herself.”

“Ladies, with all due respect, I hope to never find out,” Rarity said tartly. “And I’d rather never think about her at all. As it is, her existence vexes me worse than I’m sure Sunset’s did to Shimmer when the latter first found out.”

“And yet Shimmy now considers Sunny her sister,” Adagio pointed out. “So much so they talk all the time – you know that.”

“Well, I guarantee I will never be so ‘fortunate’, quote unquote, as to meet this girl,” Rarity said, crossing her arms in annoyance.

“And you just had to invoke the Law of Resistentialism,” Adagio said with a smirk. “You’d think that after everything we’ve been through at this point, we’d learn to stop doing that.”

“Yeah, but we wouldn’t be friends if we did, would we?” Chrysalis asked.

“Let’s just say that I’m glad my aunt is a child psychologist. Comes in handy more times than I’d like to admit.”

He leaned against the railing of the boardwalk, staring into the dark waters of Horseshoe Bay and mostly ignoring the snow falling around him. He had gone back to the room and found, to no surprise, that her luggage was already gone. He then tried to call her but her phone was off. Fortunately, he still had the keys to the car, but his wife wasn’t an idiot – it wouldn’t be hard for her to arrange transportation back to Canterlot.

And speaking of which, what then? He’d known enough divorcees to know that it was a messy and brutal process. And he was pretty sure that his two daughters with Cookie would probably be angry with him for quite a while. He’d have to deal with this mess, but it would cost him a lot – not just in money, but reputation and getting used to the single life again, something he wasn’t really looking forward to.

So now, he sat here in the snow, staring at the Pacific waters, wondering where he would go next and what was going to happen to him. But more than that, he wondered what would happen to those who he loved more than anything – his daughters and his wife…his family.

“Think standing here in the snow and freezing to death is going to get you any martyr points?” Cookie’s voice was sharp and cutting, but he’d known her long enough that he knew it didn’t hold an edge. She’d clearly calmed down…or at least had hidden her rage.

“I…thought you’d be gone,” he told her simply.

She walked forward and leaned against the railing as well. At least she’d been smarter; a coffee cup sat in her hands, steaming its contents out for him to smell. “No, I did what I’m trained to do – I’m a journalist and so I did some investigating…even if the topic of the story is my own husband.” She looked at him and the look in her blue eyes was both piercing and painful. “You didn’t hide it very well.”

“I wasn’t trying to hide it,” he said softly. “I just didn’t know how to—”

“Spare me the bullshit, okay? I’m not stupid – we’ve been together long enough that I know how jocks act. Even when I knew that you weren’t the kind of athlete that was the typical Grade-A asshole that so many of your fellow players were, I knew our life wasn’t going to be perfect. And when you went to Amsterdam to play in the NFL European League or whatever they called it, I was under no illusions that you wouldn’t get sweettalked into a trip or two to De Wallen. I hoped you wouldn’t, but you were chasing your ‘lost youth’ – and me and Rarity were thousands of miles away.”

“I never meant to hurt you, Cookie. You were thousands of miles away, and I was—”

“Don’t give me that ‘you were lonely’ shit. I was lonely as well, and I had to raise our daughter during that time. I wasn’t the one that was trying to chase years that I couldn’t get back, and I certainly didn’t have my eye on anyone else, because I thought our marriage meant something!” She angrily threw the coffee cup into the ocean, then glared at him in full. “And what you told me today, you had to be with this woman practically the entire time you were there – and then bailed on her without a second thought.” He opened his mouth to speak, but she shut it with, “So that makes two women you completely fucked over.”

She sighed. “There’s three reasons I’m here. The first is the obvious: if we didn’t have two daughters of our own, I swear I would just leave right now. I’m halfway tempted to take the car, go home, get the girls and tell them we’re going to be spending the holidays at my parents’ place while I figure out how to explain this to them.”

“I should be the one to explain, not you.”

“You’re damn right you have to be the one to explain. And you’d better tell them, just as you told me, why you had an affair.”

“Cookie, I…I’m not going to make this any worse than it is,” he said, his voice cracking. “I know I fucked things up. I could say that I was lonely and you couldn’t move because of your job and Rarity. I could say that I was chasing my youth in a last desperate attempt to prove that I wasn’t the guy who had been practically forced to retire by the Stallions. And the Admirals offered me a chance, and so I took it.” He sighed. “I still wanted to prove I was Hondo Flanks, the best damn guard in the NFL. And it was enough to catch the attention of a particular fan.”

Cookie crossed her arms. “Oh, I can imagine,” she said crossly. “But our daughters deserve to know the truth, every sordid detail – if for no other reason than I wouldn’t want them to end up with men who would cheat on them. Which, of course, leads to the second point: we have daughters – and you clearly had a daughter with this other woman. And now she’s dead and the French authorities are trying to get a hold of you, which means that she has no one to turn to. So explain that.”

“It’s going to be a long story, Cookie,” he told her. “But you deserve to hear it.”

“Every single Goddamn word,” she insisted.

The next few minutes went by as Hondo told his wife everything he’d been informed of by the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, specifically the BCA’s Office of Childrens’ Affairs. Of his girlfriend’s ultimate fate, and that she’d had a daughter she’d raised, of what had happened to her and how her daughter – his daughter – had been swept up in the sordid hell that her mother had been subjected to.

When he’d reached the part that the BCA had notably been reluctant to inform him of, Cookie had already put two and two together, horrifically so. More endless minutes went by as he detailed the whole of what they’d told him about what his child had been subjected to at an age when she should have had many other avenues for her to choose – options that were removed from her life because of bastards who wanted yet another supple piece of flesh to toss towards their diabolical trade.

Finally, as he finished, he brought up a picture on his phone, passing it to her. “The agent in charge of the case sent me this picture two days ago. She’s currently staying with a foster family in France, but French and European laws require them to formally inquire if I would be willing to take her in, because…because I’m her father.”

Cookie looked at the image onscreen and her heart leapt into her throat. “And you’re sure of this?”

“My DNA was on record for some obscure reason I can’t remember,” he said honestly. “They matched it to within a 99% chance of accuracy. And while normally things like this take a lot longer, there were extenuating circumstances related to her safety that required the BCA to move the case urgently.”

Cookie looked at the girl again, fighting the maternal instincts in her against the obvious fact that this was not her child. “She…she looks just like Rarity. If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost say they’re twins.”

Hondo nodded, looking as though he’d been drained by the events of the night. “Yes. Apparently, that look runs in my family’s genes, given how much Rarity – and Seltenheit – look like my mother.”

“Seltenheit? That’s her name?”

“You probably won’t believe this, but her name is German for Rarity. It’s a complete coincidence, given that I didn’t know about her.”

“I should hope so.” Cookie looked at the girl’s picture once more, then at her husband. “And you said her mother’s dead?”

“Everything I told you is everything that they’ve told me.” He paused. “Including the part about how she was forced to become….” He buried his face in his hand, but she couldn’t tell if it was because he cared about his daughter, or because of the abuse of a young girl in general.

The two were quiet for the longest time, so much so that Hondo wasn’t sure what was going to happen next.

Finally, Cookie looked at him. “You know, it’s going to take me a long time to trust you again, Hondo.”

He nodded his head wearily. “I’m not worth it.”

Cookie’s mouth was an even line as she said, “That’s for me to decide – and for you to prove. But regardless, I have our daughters to think about. And….” She sighed. “This girl, if what they’re saying is true, needs a mother, too.”

“What?” He looked at her with shock. “How….”

“How could I, after all this?” She looked at him, her face filled with warring emotions. “That’s the third reason why I’m still here: Hondo, I love you…even if I am very hurt and feeling betrayed right now. But even if that wasn’t the case, we still have two daughters who won’t benefit from a broken home, and this Seltenheit girl has known nothing but that! I wouldn’t let Rarity live that kind of life and I wouldn’t let Sweetie Belle. Why should I let this poor girl, who has done nothing wrong, suffer the fate I wouldn’t wish on my own girls?”

That was enough for him. He let the tears fall. He didn’t deserve his wife, after all that he’d done to her and all she was about to do for him. He would make it up to her and regain her trust if it was the last thing he did in life.

Now, all he had to do was to tell his own daughters that they had another sister.

Author's Note:

Well, this has been a story that we've wanted to tell for a while now, but we wanted to make sure that we did it right. So we've been sitting on it and researching while working on other projects. Every bit of this is a labor of love and we hope it shows. We also held off on it until Christmas, because it ties into it and because we wanted to give the fans a gift for their patience.

And don't mind the temporary cover; I'm working on something that I hope will be suitably eye-catching. New cover is up! Hope you like!

Comments

[The Quiet Party]

Man, I don't know who to feel more sorry for: Chrisalis, who apparently pissed off her friends so much that she's probably set herself back in her redemption, or Hondo, who clearly had...well, let's just say he's the cause of all of this story's main focus.

I wonder how Rarity will react when she realizes the teenage prostitute she hates so much, the one that Sunset rescued in Germany, is nothing less than her own nearly identitical half-sister. While I would hope that she'll react well, who knows? Plus, if I remember from the older stories, Seltenhiet has some baggage of her own, the kind that typically takes "wings and horn business" to deal with. How's Rarity going to handle that? Or is that why Adagio's in the picture?

So many questions, and I want to see where the answers go.

[Astorius]

In which chapter was Seltenheits first appearance?
I remember it happening but it's been awhile.

[Shinzakura]

11459005
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/289909/6/meanwhile-tales-of-the-berylverse/tedere-bloemen

[Astorius]

11459106
Thanks

[Starcat5]

interquel

...yeah, that means this story is happening at the same time. And yet this story has spoilers for events that haven't happened yet (Read: after Chapter 12) in "Paint the Sky". A minor one, beyond the former Queen `Ling surviving of course, but still notable.

Edit: Just reread the definition of interquel. Apparently that means this happened before "Paint the Sky", but that would mean that the event the CMC "forgot" wasn't the one mentioned in the aforementioned fic. And now I am officially confused.

Edit 2: Nope. Reread the description. Chapter 12 of "Paint the Sky" is required reading. Meaning that this chapter still spoils the CMC fallout from that story, which makes this a chronological sequel, with at most an overlapping end/beginning point.

...forget confused. Now I just have a headache.

Edit 3: Also, I agree with Chrysalis. A memory charm like this is like a bandage over a spear wound that goes clear through. A very short term solution to a VERY long term problem. And it only covers one side of the hole/issue to boot. Very on-brand decision making for teenagers, but if this doesn't blow up in someone's face, I'm calling hax.