Everyone slowly recovers from a horribly dehumanizing discovery.
Family goes beyond flesh and blood. It goes beyond what is written on a piece of paper or who you share your home with. It isn't always easy to be a part of, but when the worst of life comes, sometimes it's just what you need.
Contains censored profanity and sexual references (no actual sex).
Five days had passed since Flash Sentry’s fateful ride-along with Officer Shining Armor that led to the discovery of a far-reaching criminal organization right in Canterlot of all places. That discovery led to Flash’s family temporarily taking in two of the organization’s victims, or at least, that was the original plan.
After Flash and his younger brother First Base finished setting the table with their guests, 13-year-old Honey Bee and 16-year-old Ocellus, Flash’s aunt Flare Burst and his grandmother Free Bird entered from the kitchen with the food. Dinner that night consisted of spiral pasta with chicken and vegetables and cheesy garlic bread. The sight and smell of the gooey, melty cheese made the boys’ mouths water.
After the family and their guests sat down, said grace together, and began eating, Aunt Flare gave everyone at the table a troubled look and sighed audibly.
“Something wrong, Aunt Flare?” Flash asked taking notice of his aunt’s facial expression and body language.
“Oh no, nothing’s wrong,” Aunt Flare replied, listlessly pushing her food around her plate with her fork. “At least, I don’t think it’s a bad thing.”
“Oh, come on, hun, just tell them,” Grandma Birdie stated.
“Does it have anything to do with us?” Ocellus asked, indicating herself and Bee.
“Yes, actually it does,” Aunt Flare replied.
“Let me guess,” Bee sneered. “The social worker called and told you that there’s nowhere for us to go, so now, you’re stuck with us.”
“You act as if you can’t wait to be out of here,” First Base retorted back as he thought to himself, “Even though we’ve been nothing but nice to you the whole time you were here back-sassing everybody.”
Bee kicked his leg from under the table, causing him to cry out. Base considered kicking her back, but Flash gave him the look that older brothers used to keep their younger brothers out of trouble. Instead, Base glared at the yellow-and-black-haired girl and resumed eating.
“Actually,” Aunt Flare clarified, “Thorax asked me, Grandma, and the Chips to meet with him today, and he told us that Ms. Chrysalis had been recently arrested.”
“So, she WAS involved,” Flash gasped, dropping his fork.
“It certainly looks that way. Anyway, because of that, Thorax is taking over the group home. However, since he’s running it alone now, the home won’t be able to take in as many foster kids as it used to.”
“So, what does that mean for us?” Base asked before nervously taking a bite of garlic bread.
“Thorax was asking us and the Chips if maybe we can foster Honey Bee, Gypsy Scarf, Nightingale, and Robin when they find him on a more long-term basis,” Grandma finished.
“And?”
“And after discussing it, your grandmother and I agreed,” Aunt Flare answered.
“Oh, great,” Base muttered with the enthusiasm of a stale cracker.
“Of course, the two of us are going to need training, but once that’s taken care of, we’ll officially be Bee’s foster family.”
“That’s great, Aunt Flare,” Flash replied sincerely. “What did the Chips say?”
“Well,” Grandma smirked, “why don’t you ask Micro Chips? It’s really more his news to tell than ours.”
“Oh, by the way, Ocellus,” Aunt Flare continued, addressing the older girl, “the social worker called this morning, and she wants to meet with the two of us. She said she’s going to need you to tell her where your family is and if possible, how to contact them as well as how you got here.”
Ocellus visibly stiffened, and her hands began to shake.
“Oh, I see,” she replied.
“By the way, where are you even from?” Base asked curiously. “You haven’t really told us much about yourself since you got here.”
“Not that I care, but do you even have a family?” Bee retorted, which put her on the receiving end of Flash’s older brother look. “What?”
“Oh, I, I have a family,” Ocellus stuttered, sounding like she was about to cry. “I-it’s just, it’s just really hard for me to talk about them.”
“Oh, it’s alright, dear,” Grandma Birdie assured her. “You don’t have to talk about them if you don’t want to.”
Ocellus nervously fidgeted with her fingers as she replied, “Oh, it’s not that. I want to. You all have been so kind to me, and I feel as if I can trust you with what I’m about to say. It’s just…” She trailed off before continuing, “It’s just not easy.”
“Why don’t you start with the easiest part?” Flare suggested. “Like, where are you from?”
“Pittsburgh.”
Base nearly choked on the water he was drinking when she answered that.
“Pittsburgh?!” he exclaimed. “How did you end up all the way here from Pittsburgh?!” His brother elbowed him for his outburst. “Ow!”
“It’s a bit of a long story,” Ocellus continued. “My parents aren’t bad people. They didn’t mean to hurt anyone, especially not me. All they wanted was for me to have a better life than the one they had, so they told me to work hard, do well in school, and get a scholarship, so I can go to college.”
“Wait, your parents did this to you?” Base asked, looking at Ocellus in confusion.
“No! Of course not! Well, not directly or intentionally anyway,” Ocellus clarified, horrified by Base’s suggestion. “See, I liked school and did extremely well at it too, so everyone thought that after I graduated, my future was going to be set. The plan was to go to college, get a good job, and make enough money to get me and my parents out from our current life, but then my mom got pregnant, and we found out she was having twins. My parents both asked their bosses for raises, but none of the well-off people that my mom cleaned houses for would give her one. We didn’t think that was going to be a problem because my dad’s boss had agreed to give him one, but then he got hurt at a work accident.”
“I’m guessing that your dad’s boss wasn’t going to be able to hold his job for him in the time it was going to take for him to recover,” Aunt Flare inferred.
Ocellus nodded and continued, “With my dad out of work, my mom got really desperate, so she stole some of her employers’ jewelry and had planned to pawn them off for money. She got caught, her employers pressed charges, and now, she’s in jail for a few months. I had offered to get a job to help my parents out, but they insisted that I stay focused on school, so my dad had me sent to live with my mom’s brother and his wife until my dad got better and found a job or until my mom got out of jail and found a job, which ever came first. My dad put a lot of trust in them when he asked them to take care of me.”
Flash felt a pit form in his stomach. He was reminded of a cryptically worded sentence Ocellus had said on the first night she was here, and he did not like where this story was going.
“A couple of nights after I started staying over with them, my, my uncle,” she continued, shaking like a leaf and her voice breaking, “came into my room and…”
“He ‘played with you,’ didn’t he?” Bee finished for Ocellus when the latter trailed off. Ocellus nodded as she burst into tears. Aunt Flare got up to grab a box of tissues while Grandma put an arm around Ocellus and began rubbing circles on her back. Flash’s jaw dropped while Base looked at everyone in confusion.
“Wait, what do you mean her uncle ‘played with her’?” Base asked Bee, who could only look at him incredulously.
“I’ll tell you later,” Flash said to him.
“Bro, I’m almost fifteen. I think I’m old enough to know what this conversation is about.” First Base glared at Flash. Flash glared back but eventually relented. He leaned over and whispered the answer his younger brother wanted into his ear. Base’s facial expression slowly morphed from that of curiosity to straight-up disgust.
“Well, there’s a chunk of my innocence I’m never getting back,” he quipped when Flash had finished.
Aunt Flare returned with the tissues and gave some to Ocellus. Ocellus wiped her eyes as she continued to cry.
“Sweetie, we can stop there if you don’t want to talk anymore,” Grandma said to her. “It’s okay.”
“No, I can keep going, really,” Ocellus managed to say through her tears. “I don’t know how long he did that to me for, but one night, he told me that I could help my parents out of their problems if I went somewhere with him no questions asked, so I went with him. When I got to where he was taking me, a man took me from my uncle and gave him some money. I got dragged to this back room where another man, well, forced himself on me.” Ocellus stopped to cry some more. “This went on a few more nights when my uncle gives me over to someone that he only referred to as Mr. King. Mr. King hands my uncle this briefcase, shoves me into the passenger seat of a car, and handcuffs me to the driver. He told the driver to bring me to someone named Verko. The driver just nods and drives off. I couldn’t see any other way out, so I started begging her to let me go. She said if she did, she wouldn’t get paid, so I asked her why she was helping that horrible man. She said that she used to be where I was and that she got out of it by getting good at what Mr. King wanted her to do and getting Mr. King to like her. Then, she said, ‘I’m still his [censored], but at least now, I’m the alpha.’ She told me if I wanted to get out of where I was, I had to do what she did. I told her that I would never want to become like her, and she says, ‘Then, you’re going to die right where you’re at.’ Next thing I knew, she had passed me off to these guys in black jackets, and I was being forced to do the same thing my uncle was making me do. Then, I got put in the back of a truck of with a bunch of other girls.”
If one was to look at Flash’s face after Ocellus finished her story, one would not see much emotion on it. However, judging by how red his ears had become, he was absolutely livid.
“What kind of a person does that to a kid, especially their own flesh and blood?” he asked, forcing himself to keep his voice steady.
After that, no one said anything for a while. Aunt Flare finally broke the silence.
“Ocellus, I know this isn’t going to be easy for you, but can you tell the social worker everything that you just told us?” she asked. “She’s probably going to want to get into touch with your parents and maybe work something out with them so that you can be kept safe from your uncle and other people like him.”
Ocellus nodded. “I can do that.”
Aunt Flare then looked at Bee who had been oddly quiet the whole time. She had also been avoiding looking at Ocellus during the whole story.
“Bee” Flare called, getting the girl’s attention, “how did you know Ocellus had gotten, as you put it, ‘played with’?”
Bee averted her gaze. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Flash’s eyes widened as he realized, “It’s happened to you, hasn’t it?”
Bee angrily threw her fork at Flash and missed him, hitting the wall instead.
“Oh, shut up! You don’t know anything!” she screamed, getting up and storming upstairs.
The rest of dinner passed in awkward silence. Aunt Flare kept sharing looks with Grandma as if she was asking permission to share a dark secret. Grandma looked back at her and nodded.
Aunt Flare nodded back and said to everyone at the table, “Family meeting in the living room after dishes are done.”
The boys nodded in understanding, and everyone resumed eating quietly.
“Bee, come on,” Flash pleaded as he knocked on the locked door. “Aunt Flare wants all of us in the living room.”
“You said it was a family meeting, and last time I checked, I’m not family,” Bee retorted through the door.
“Well, either way, both she and Grandma think that you and Ocellus might need to hear what Aunt Flare has to say, and Ocellus is already in the living room.”
“Whatever she has to say, she can say without me there.”
Flash sighed as he threw up his arms and went down the stairs. Unbeknownst to him, Bee had unlocked the door and stealthily crept towards the stairs so that she was within earshot of the living room, her curiosity piqued.
“Well, she’s not coming,” Flash said to everyone else in the living room.
“Oh, it’s alright. I can tell her later,” Aunt Flare relented as everyone else in the house gathered around her. “I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to tell you boys about this, but with present circumstances, I think it’d be good for you to know.”
Flash and First Base shared a look before turning their attention back to their aunt.
“When I was in high school, I HATED being your mom’s twin sister, absolutely hated it,” Aunt Flare recounted to the boys’ surprise. “Bullies at school kept treating us as if we were the same person just to make fun of us. The other kids went along with it because they thought it was funny and because they didn’t know how much it drove us crazy. Your mom shrugged it off and put up with it, but I desperately wanted to break out of that. It started with little things like dressing differently, changing my hair every week or so, acting out, but it eventually led to hanging out with the wrong people, going to the wrong places, doing all the wrong things.”
“I don’t think I like where this is going,” Base whispered to no one in particular.
“Oh, hush up and let your aunt finish,” Grandma scolded.
“One night,” Aunt Flare continued, taking a breath every so often. Even after all this time, the memory was still hard to revisit. “One night, I had gone somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be and had a few too many drinks. An older boy that I knew approached me and led me off somewhere. Before I even knew what was happening, he was kissing me and touching me in places I didn’t want touched. I tried to pull away, but he was stronger and less impaired.”
“Uh, Aunt Flare,” Flash interrupted, his face turning pale and his ears turning red. “I know you mean well by telling us this, but can we skip over the next part if what I think happened actually happened? I’d really rather not have that image in my head.”
“Wait,” First Base realized. “You mean, he…?” Base couldn’t even finish that sentence because he couldn’t stop shuddering at the thought.
Despite the sordid nature of the memories she was revisiting, Flare couldn’t help but smile at her nephews. There was something oddly comforting about knowing that her sister had raised those two boys so well that just the idea of violating a girl disgusted them.
“Well, anyway,” Flare continued. “Once he had done the deed, I pulled myself up and stumbled towards the nearest phone and called our house. Your grandfather picked up, and all I could say was ‘Daddy, please help me.’ He asked me where I was, but I couldn’t talk well enough to tell your grandfather where to find me. Thankfully, everyone at school had been talking about that party, so your mom knew where I was. I was so relieved that I didn’t care how embarrassing it was to have your dad pick you up from a party. The moment I got in the car, I just collapsed on the seat and started crying.”
“This story gets worse, doesn’t it?” Base squeaked before nervously biting his knuckle.
“After I that, I wouldn’t talk to anybody about what had happened,” said Aunt Flare. “I wouldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I thought I was losing my mind.” Aunt Flare took another breath and continued, “I’m not proud of this next part, but I started sneaking your grandfather’s PTSD medication and taking it without anybody knowing. Back then, I didn’t know what it was for or what it actually did, but I had hoped that it’d help me forget that night. The other thing I didn’t know was that your grandparents kept very careful track of Grandpa’s medication, and since the only other people who could have touched it were me and your mom, they figured out pretty quickly that one of us had been sneaking it and possibly using it.”
“What happened next?” asked Ocellus. Unbeknownst to everyone in the living room, Bee had been scooting further down the stairs to get a better listen to Flare’s story.
“Well, my parents confronted me and my sister about it over breakfast one morning. Lighty had no idea what was going on. I was trying to act AS IF I had no idea what was going on, but the fact that I wouldn’t look anyone in the eye was giving me away, so I shoved the table away and ran out into the street,” Flare continued. “I felt so hopeless that I was going to throw myself in front of the first moving car that came my way, but before I could my sister, my soft-spoken, goody-two-shoes, physical activity-adverse sister, tackles me out of the way and pins me to the street by my shoulders. I was surprised that she had been fast enough to keep up with me, let alone strong enough to knock me to the ground.”
Flash and Base’s eyes widened as they both shared an impressed look with each other and then smiled.
“Anyway, I was still stronger than she was, so I was able to push her off, but by that time, my dad had caught up with us. He picks me up, carries me kicking and screaming to the car, and tells my sister to get in with me. Dad says to Mom, ‘Call the school. The girls aren’t going today.’ Then, he gets into the car and drives me to the psychiatrist’s office. Okay, back then, going to a shrink’s office had way more unfortunate implications than it does now, so much so that back then, the bullies also made fun of the fact that our dad saw one regularly. I begged my dad to not make me go, but then Dad looks at me with this angry look in his eye and says, ‘Young lady, I don’t know what’s wrong, but daggum it, if this is what I’ve got to do to get you out of whatever hole you’ve dug yourself into, then I’m doing it. Now, get out of the car.’”
As Flash was listening to the story, his mind went back to the time he had called himself a no-good kid. He remembered the look in Grandpa’s eyes when those self-loathing words left his mouth. Even as a kid, Flash could see his grandfather’s love and desire to protect him from the worst of himself underneath the anger. Maybe Grandpa had looked at Aunt Flare the same way when her life spiraled out of control.
“It took a few sessions,” Aunt Flare admitted, “but eventually, I finally told my family and the psychiatrist what had happened, and boy, was my dad mad! When I told him who had done the deed, he went straight to the boy’s father and demanded that the boy turn himself in.”
“It turned out the boy was our pastor’s kid,” Grandma interrupted. “When Lionheart and I told the pastor what had happened, he didn’t believe us. He didn’t want to believe us. He wouldn’t believe us. He told us there’s no way his son could have done the deed because his son was a model citizen. He even accused Flare of being a liar and a problem child and said that getting raped was her own fault.”
“That pastor’s obviously never seen how his son acted at school when the teachers weren’t looking,” Aunt Flare commented.
“Anyway, Lion and I were so outraged that a man of God would put himself and his own above doing the right thing that we had to change churches,” Grandma continued. “We tried to get the police involved to press charges, but they were no help at all. They said that if she didn’t say no, then it technically wasn’t a rape. I said, ‘How the blazes was she supposed to say no?! She couldn’t even talk!’ Then, they said that she shouldn’t have been drinking in the first place.”
“Well, in their defense, I really shouldn’t have,” Aunt Flare added flimsily.
“Oh, hush, you,” Grandma admonished. “That’s like saying people who don’t lock their houses deserve to get stolen from.”
“Wait,” Flash cut in, his face no longer pale but his ears still flaming red, “so, not only did you get raped but the guy who did it got away with it?”
“Yeah,” Aunt Flare replied with a sigh, “that’s pretty much what happened. The worst part was that he shamelessly bragged about it to the whole school. If your mom hadn’t been on my side through the whole thing, the shame and harassment that followed would have been enough to kill me.” She sighed again. “And to think, before that happened, I had resented her just for existing.”
Aunt Flare looked to the ground sadly, no doubt wishing that her sister was still living. The logical part of Flare’s mind knew that Lighty’s death had nothing to do with how she treated her sister as a teenager. However, a nagging, accusing voice in the back of her mind couldn’t help but tell her otherwise. Thankfully, her mother knew her well enough to know how to make that voice shut up.
“Lighty was just happy to have her sister and her best friend back,” said Grandma Birdie, jolting her daughter from her troubled thoughts. “If she could see what you’re doing now, raising her kids for her and doing what you can to help these girls you don’t even know, she’d be proud of you.”
“For what it’s worth, Aunt Flare,” Flash added with a small, reassuring smile, “as bad as all that was, we’re glad that you survived it and that you’re here now.”
“We’d be glad even if you never learned how to cook,” First Base half-joked, getting a laugh out of his aunt and the rest of his family.
“What happened to the guy?” Bee asked, revealing her presence from the bottom of the stairs. “Well?”
Aunt Flare and Grandma shared a look and smiled not because of her question but because of what her asking it implied.
Flare recounted, “It was the last year of my first tour of duty, and I had somehow run into him where I was stationed at. I was getting ready to take the next step in order to move up the ranks, and he was fresh out of boot camp. Apparently, he had gotten in trouble back at home, and his family made him join the army to straighten him out. Of course, I was a little nervous given our history, but a part of me hoped that boot camp had made him a better man.” She sighed and shook her head as if she was dealing with a stubbornly disobedient child. “It hadn’t. He cornered me when I was alone and tried to outmuscle me like he did the first time. Too bad for him, not only was I not drunk, but I had also been learning how to defend myself. Before he knew what had happened, I had him pinned to the floor, and I said to him, ‘Listen, your daddy and your so-called friends from high school aren’t here to get you out of trouble anymore, so I suggest you get your act together. If you cause me or anyone under my watch any trouble, you can bet I’ll make sure the CO sends you packing. Now, get out of here before I call the MPs.’”
“DID you send him packing?” asked First Base.
“No, but he eventually did get dishonorably discharged. I wasn’t there when it happened, so I don’t know what it was for.”
“You just gave him a warning and let him go his own way? That’s it?” Bee scoffed incredulously. “You had an opportunity to put your foot up where it hurts the most and make him pay for what he did to you. Why didn’t you?”
Flare gave a sad smile and continued, “Because while I was recovering from the deed, I realized that if I wanted to really get over what happened, I was going to have to forgive him, so I did.”
“After what he did? Just like that?”
Flash looked from Bee to his aunt and noted, “It wasn’t ‘just like that,’ wasn’t it, Aunt Flare? Forgiving hurt like getting a bad tooth pulled out, didn’t it?”
Aunt Flare blinked twice in surprise but ultimately agreed, “Yeah, that’s pretty much what it was like.”
“I know what it’s like to need to forgive people,” Flash added with a smile. “It took me a while to be able to forgive Sunset. I thought I had, but then I realized, if I really had forgiven her, then why did I want to pretend that the relationship never happened? Why did I want to pretend the breakup didn’t hurt instead of facing the memories as they really were? Why did just talking about it make me feel so dark inside? After all that, I realized that I had to show her to her face that I had forgiven her, so I did.”
“Wait,” Bee exclaimed, her confusion growing, “you used to date Ms. Sunset, and she actually hurt you so badly that you didn’t even want to remember that she did it?”
“Yeah, she did,” First Base recalled. “He was so hurt that he shut himself in his room and started playing ‘Open Wounds’ on repeat on full blast.”
“I have no idea what that is,” Bee replied, staring at Base in confusion before turning to Flash. “Just how can you go through that and find it in yourself to forgive the person who put you through it?”
“Still think no one here knows anything?” Aunt Flare slyly asked Bee.
Bee’s eyes widened as she caught the tone Flare was using on her. “You’re baiting me, aren’t you?”
“Is it working?” She smirked and folded her arms.
Bee tried to glare back at Flare, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to admit it, but her future foster mom had somehow earned her respect and trust. She opened her mouth to say something, but then, she closed it again, looking around at the other people in the room.
Flare followed her gaze and nodded to herself. She knew what she had to do.
“Man, what time is it?” she exclaimed, looking around the room for a clock before looking at Birdie, Flash, Ocellus, and First Base, “Shouldn’t the four of you be in bed already?”
“But Aunt Flare, it’s only 8:30, and it’s summer, so we don’t even have school tomorrow,” Base replied, confused.
Fortunately, Grandma Birdie had picked up on what Aunt Flare had been putting down.
She let out a fake yawn and said, “Goodness, I’m bushed. I think I’ll turn in early tonight. Good night.”
Birdie kissed each of her grandsons on the top of their heads before going to the room that she was sharing with her daughter.
First Base stared at the direction Grandma had left in utter bewilderment. “Since when does Grandma run out of energy like a normal old person?”
Like his grandmother and unlike his brother, Flash was also capable of taking a hint.
Flash got up from his chair, saying, “I just remembered that I wanted to call and talk to Twilight tonight. I’ll see you guys in the morning.”
He rushed upstairs to his room and shut the door behind him.
Ocellus and First Base shared a look.
“I think she wanted us out of the room,” Ocellus noted.
Based made his mouth into an o shape in realization. “Well, why didn’t she just say so? Sheesh!”
Once the two of them were out of the living room, Bee quipped, “Is dropping hints a completely foreign concept to him?”
“No idea,” Flare replied with a chuckle, getting up and taking a seat next to Bee on the bottom steps. Her face became serious again as she turned and looked her in the eye. “So, now that we’re alone, why don’t you tell me what you wanted to tell me?”
Bee sighed and began her tale, “I was eight when I got placed with Ms. Chrysalis. Before that, it was me, my mom, and whoever Mom’s boy toy of the week or month was. I didn’t know who my dad is, and neither did she, and every guy she brought home with her pretty much ignored me.” She paused. “Except one.”
“The guy who ‘played with you’?” Aunt Flare guessed.
Bee nodded. “When I told my mom about it, she, uh, struck me and accused me of trying to take her ‘man’ from her. I was seven. I told her that I didn’t even do anything, and she struck me again and called me a liar.”
Flare nodded but didn’t say anything.
Then, she sighed and asked, “It’s horrible when the people you trust to protect you and be on your side let you down in a big way, isn’t it?”
“Is it ever,” Bee scoffed. “When I went into the home, I had a pretty low opinion about parents and adults in general. I kinda resented the fact that I was still dependent on them.”
“I imagine you would.”
Bee sighed again and subconsciously scooted closer to Flare. “Back in the home, I used to complain to the other kids about how no one wanted to adopt me, but the truth is that I’m not sure I even want to get adopted. If the mother who brought me into the world couldn’t be bothered to care about me, why would anyone else? What if getting adopted just leads to me getting hurt or let down again?”
Flare nodded again and put her arm around Bee. The gesture surprised Bee; even more surprisingly, she wasn’t resisting.
“Kid, I’m about to tell you something that sucks worse than a broken vacuum cleaner,” Flare said to her. Bee frowned in confusion. “The truth is that no matter what you do, you’re not going to be able to protect yourself from getting hurt or let down. Even the people who love you the most end up doing it without meaning to.”
“So, why do people bother loving at all?” Bee bitterly replied.
“Because it gives us something to live for,” Flare answered with a small smile. “I’m guessing that even after all these years, you still hate your mom and her boyfriend for what they did to you, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do, which is why I don’t understand how you can forgive the dirtbag who raped you. I know you said it wasn’t easy and that it hurt, but you still did it. Why?”
Flare undid her arm from around Bee and placed her hands on her lap. She looked straight ahead with a thoughtful expression and sighed.
“You remember what Flash said about forgiving other people hurting like getting a bad tooth pulled out?” said Flare. “Well, people get bad teeth pulled out because leaving them in makes everything worse in the long run. Forgiveness is a lot like that. Holding on to hate and grudges steals your joy and love, and you become a horrible, mean person from the inside out. That’s no way to live, especially for someone with her whole life ahead of her.”
Bee bit her lip, trying to raise up the protective wall of sarcasm and bitterness that she had built up over the years. However, as much as she loathed to admit it, Flare and her family’s kindness and care were slowly chipping away at that wall brick by brick.
“Besides,” Flare continued, “God, my family, and other people have forgiven me for the worst in myself, it’d be pretty hypocritical of me to refuse to forgive the worst in others, now wouldn’t it?”
“But,” Bee tried to reason, “there’s no way you’ve ever done anything as bad as raping someone or letting someone get away with raping someone.”
“No, but I have hurt and disappointed other people before, even the people I love. I have no way of knowing how badly I’ve hurt them or how deeply what I did affected them. For all I know, I could have put them through the worst pain they’ll ever feel in this life. Besides, forgiving someone isn’t the same as just letting them get away with doing something terrible.”
Bee looked at Flare, her eyes wide with surprise and her face twisted in confusion. “How did you know I was thinking that?”
“It’s what most people think of when they think about forgiveness,” Flare replied. “Anyway, forgiving the people who wronged you doesn’t mean that you just let them off to hook. It just means that you’re not holding what they did to you against them and that you’re leaving the consequences of their actions up to the rightful authorities instead of demanding that they get the retribution that you feel they deserve.”
“That’s why you let that guy off with a warning instead of just beating the life out of him,” Bee realized.
“Exactly.”
Bee looked away and sighed, “Can you keep a secret?”
“You mean a bigger one than the one about your mom and her boyfriend?” Flare quipped. Bee only replied with a stern glare. “Okay, okay, joking aside, I won’t tell anyone about anything we just talked about. I promise.”
“You better not,” Bee retorted. “Anyway, my secret is that I actually hate being mean. I hate the fact that whenever I’m around other people my default reaction is to assume the worst and never let anyone get close to me. It’d be oh so nice to be able to stop, but I’m not even sure I know how anymore.” She sighed again. “Also, I’ve been thinking about what you and Flash said about forgiveness, and what you said made a lot of sense, and I think I’d like to be able to forgive my mom and her boyfriend for what they did. I’m just not sure if I can yet.”
“I understand,” Flare replied, placing her hand on top of Bee’s. “You need time to really process and get over what happened, but when you’re finally ready to forgive, you can bet I’ll be right here for you.”
“At least until I age out of the foster system,” Bee scoffed. As soon as the words left her lips, she grimaced and turned to Flare apologetically. “Uh, sorry about that.”
“No, you’re right. That whole aging out thing is something that you, my mom, and I are going to have to think about,” Flare replied as she frowned thoughtfully. “We can do that tomorrow. Right now, I think we both could use some rest.”
“Sounds good to me,” Bee agreed. She got up and began heading towards the room she shared with Ocellus. However, to both her and Flare’s surprise, she stopped, turned around, and gave Flare a hug before going back up the stairs.
The next morning, Flash woke up to a group text from Micro Chips.
“Hey, guys,” the text read, “let’s meet at the park in 30 minutes. I’m bringing condensed milk.”
Flash read over the text a few more times, going back and forth between smiling nostalgically and frowning quizzically.
Sharing a can of condensed milk was a deeply personal bonding ritual that he, Micro Chips, Derpy Muffins, Lyra Heartsrtings, and Sweetie Drops started back in fifth grade. Micro Chips used to sneak the sweet, sticky stuff and a can opener from his house to either the school cafeteria or the playground, and all five of them would go at it with either spoons or bare fingers. As the five of them got older and more germaphobic, they eventually switched from spoons and fingers to dippable snacks and stopped double dipping. Micro Chips was always the one who arranged these meetings since he was the one in charge of the condensed milk, and he had not arranged one in a long while.
Flash got himself ready for the day and went down into the kitchen. He took a box of graham crackers from the pantry and walked to the front door. On the way to the door, he grabbed two slices of toast from the dining room table. His family, Honey Bee, and Ocellus were there having a breakfast of either cereal and milk or oatmeal.
“Micro wants to meet up with me and our friends at the park,” Flash said to everyone as he continued his way to the door. “I’ll be back for lunch.”
“Okay,” Aunt Flare called back. “Drive safely.”
When Flash got out the door, Micro Chips was already waiting over by his car with a plastic bag in his hand. Flash assumed that Micro was carrying the condensed milk and a can opener inside of it. Judging by the sharp corners he could see under the plastic, Micro also seemed to be bringing what Flash assumed to be a box of saltines.
“’Sup?” Flash greeted.
Micro didn’t smile back and just shrugged. Flash replied with a frown and unlocked the car, and the two of them got in.
“So,” Flash continued as he pulled the car out of the driveway and began driving towards the park, “Aunt Flare and Grandma said that they and your parents met with Thorax to talk about fostering the kids for longer.”
“That they did,” Micro muttered.
Flash’s frown grew deeper at Micro’s answer. “Is everything okay?”
“I suppose so.” Micro’s unmoving, stone-faced expression was very reassuring, not.
“You don’t sound okay.”
Micro growled under his breath and replied, “It’s pretty complicated. I’ll tell you when we get together with D and the girls.”
The two of them were the first ones to arrive at the park. They found a picnic table to wait at, and a few minutes later, they saw Derpy approaching from the bus stop and waved her over. Lyra and Sweetie Drops were the last two to arrive.
“Alright! Let’s do this,” Lyra cheered as the five childhood friends unpacked their snacks. As Flash predicted, Micro had brought a box of saltines along with the condensed milk. Derpy had brought a package of animal crackers. Lyra brought pretzel rods, and Sweetie brought vanilla sandwich cookies. How Sweetie can eat something so full of sugar dipped into even more sugar without getting diabetes or becoming Pinkie Pie Flash will never know.
“Mmmmmm-mmmmmmm-mmmm,” Derpy moaned with a happy, little seat wiggle as she popped a freshly dipped animal cracker into her mouth. “So good! We haven’t done this in forever. What’s the occasion?”
“Oh, no occasion,” Micro replied, nibbling on his cracker. “Just wanted to talk.”
“About?” asked Sweetie Drops.
Micro paused, taking a deep breath to collect his thoughts. “You guys remember how my mom is super protective of those rose bushes in our backyard?”
Flash pursed his lips as he tried to remember. “Vaguely.”
“I used to keep asking my parents why they were such a big deal, and they used to say that they’d tell me when I’m older. Well, I’m older now.”
“They finally told you, huh?” Lyra noted.
“Yup.”
“Okay, well, what’s the story?” Flash asked.
Micro Chips took a deep breath and replied, “So, it turns out that back when my parents first got married, they had both wanted a big family with at least five kids.” He gestured to himself. “As you can see, that didn’t happen.”
Micro looked down at the table as he listlessly swirled a saltine cracker into the milky white syrup.
“Let’s just say there’s a reason why Mom’s rosebushes have tags with names on them,” Micro explained, “and why two of them are red and four of them are pink.”
The implications were not lost on everyone else at the table.
“Okay, not trying to be rude, but you being a miracle baby doesn’t sound like something you would normally make a big deal of,” Lyra pointed out before biting into another pretzel rod.
“It’s not,” Micro agreed. “I only brought it up because the thing I want to talk about is sort of related to that.”
Flash shared a look with everyone else at the table before all eyes returned to Micro Chips.
“My parents believe that, thanks to current circumstances, they may have been given a second chance at get that big family that they always wanted,” Micro bluntly stated.
Flash’s eyes widened and his mouth broke into a smile as he realized, “Dude, are your parents thinking about adopting Gypsy and Gale?”
“And Robby when the police find him,” Micro muttered in affirmation.
“Gosh! That’s great. God knows those kids need a family,” Flash cheered before noticing the troubled look on Micro Chips’s face. Derpy noticed it too and shared a look with him.
“You don’t seem very happy about that,” she said to Micro.
“Why wouldn’t I be happy about that?!” Micro suddenly shouted. “A very good thing is happening in my family. My parents are getting the family they always wanted but thought they’d never be able to have, and three good kids are going to end up getting some great parents. I SHOULD be happy about that! It would make absolutely no sense for me NOT to be happy about it!”
“So, why aren’t you?” Lyra blurted out as she and Sweetie Drops started at Micro in surprise.
“That’s what I’ve been asking myself!” Micro cried, covering his face with his hands.
Sweetie frowned thoughtfully as she split apart a sandwich cookie and dipped the cream-less half into the condensed milk.
“I think I know why,” she said to Micro as she finished eating her cookie. Micro looked up at her with an eyebrow raised in confusion. “For your whole life, your family has just been you and your parents, but now, three other people are suddenly going to be a part of it, and everything is going to change. Sure, you know it’s supposed to be a good change, but it’s still totally unfamiliar to you, and the part of you that likes your family as it is now is completely freaking out about that.”
Micro growled under his breath and face-tabled, hating the fact that Sweetie was totally right.
Flash put a hand on Micro’s shoulder and reassured him, “Hey, I know the day I became an older brother was a LONG time ago, so I don’t remember a lot of details clearly, but I do remember that I had the hardest time adjusting to having to share my parents’, well, mostly my mom’s, attention. I know Base and I get along great now, but having him around took some getting used to back then.”
Micro didn’t pick his face up from the table.
“Look, man, I can’t promise you that nothing is going to change between you and your parents, but I do know that having three other kids to raise isn’t going to make them love you any less.”
“Oh, I know that,” Micro retorted, finally picking himself off the table. “I mean, I’m going to be nineteen soon, so of course, I know that. It’s just…” Micro sighed. “What if I just can’t handle the change? What if I never get used to having them around? I mean, logically speaking, I should be able to since I’ve adjusted to lots of other changes already, going to college out of state being one of them, so why am I so terrified? If am honest with myself, I’m feeling a lot of things that make zero sense to me right now.”
For a few seconds, no one said anything but continued munching on the snacks. Finally, Derpy spoke.
“You know, Micro,” said Derpy, “getting adopted is a pretty huge change for the kids too. Maybe they’re just as terrified as you are.”
“Maybe but I don’t see how that’s going to help me,” Micro replied.
“Maybe you can work together with them to help each other adjust.”
Micro sighed again and shook his head. “That’s the other thing I’m worried about. I don’t think the girls like me very much, especially Gale.”
Flash made a confused grimace. “What makes you say that? You spent a whole week with them last year, and they seemed to like you just fine.”
“Well, yeah, but last year, I was just a temporary assistant babysitter,” Micro replied. “Now, I’m their future older brother. On top of that, in the time they’ve been staying at my house, the three of us haven’t really clicked. We’ve just been peacefully coexisting.”
“They just got rescued from being trafficked for sex, and one of them is missing her brother and is probably going out of her mind over him,” Flash pointed out. “That’s a lot to recover from.”
“Well, what if the police find Robby and bring him back, they get over it, and we still don’t connect? Let’s not forget that I’m going to be away from home for most of the year and that I’m not all that good with people, especially children. All that’s going to make connecting hard.”
“Lucky for you, hard doesn’t mean impossible,” Lyra quipped.
“Besides,” Sweetie added, “you LOVE those kids, don’t you?”
Micro paused to think but answered emphatically, “Of course I do. It’s just buried under a lot of worry and uncertainty.”
“Then, find a way to unbury it. When you really love someone, you’re willing to do the hard stuff in order to show it,” Sweetie replied.
“In your case, that means getting over yourself and finding a way to connect with those kids,” Lyra added bluntly. Micro replied with a scowl.
Flash gave Micro’s shoulder a squeeze and said, “It’s going to be okay, Micro. Just take it one day at a time.”
Micro gave Flash a small smile, which disappeared when his phone rang.
“You make me un poco loco, un poquititito loco,” Micro’s phone rang. “The way you keep me guessing, I'm nodding and I'm—”
“Yes, Mamá?” Micro answered.
“Mijito, Papá and I are about to head out with the truck,” Micro’s mother reminded. “Don’t forget that you need to come home and watch your sisters.”
Micro tried very hard not to cringe. “Don’t worry, Mamá. I was just about to leave.”
“Oh, gracias, corazón. I’ll see you when you get home.”
Micro said his goodbyes and hung up the phone.
“She just called them my sisters,” he pointed out to everyone at the table. “They haven’t even been officially adopted yet, and she’s already treating them like family.”
Meanwhile at Micro Chips’s house, Nightingale was in the room she was currently sharing with Gypsy Scarf, lying in bed staring up at the ceiling. She had been there since after breakfast.
“Hey, Gale, you okay?” Gypsy asked, walking into the room with a ball of yarn, a pair of crochet needles, and a sheet of instructions She planted herself at the foot of the bed and begun to crochet.
“Fine, I guess,” Gale replied uncertainly.
“Still not over the news that Mrs. Canela and Mr. Skeeter told us last night? Or maybe we should start calling them Mom and Dad now.”
Gale groaned, burying her face in her pillow.
“What’s wrong? I thought you’d be more excited about getting adopted.”
“I am,” Gale insisted, sitting up abruptly. “I mean, having a real mom and dad and a place to call home is great and all. It’s just…I don’t know. I’ve only had one mommy and one daddy my whole life, and both of them are dead, and I don’t even remember my mommy all that much. Now, I’m getting a new mom and dad, and,” she paused, “and I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“What if having a new mom and dad makes me forget the mommy and daddy I had? What if I stop loving them?”
Gypsy stopped crocheting as Gale’s words sunk in.
“You don’t think they’d make us forget about our old families, do you?” Gypsy asked worriedly. “I mean, Mrs. Canela and Mr. Skeeter seem really nice. Sure, Mrs. Canela is really loud and wordy and busy, and Mr. Skeeter seems to only have three different faces, and two of them sorta look the same, but they don’t look like the ‘stop loving your old family’ type of people.”
“I mean, what if I stop loving them on my own?” Gale clarified in annoyance.
“Oh,” Gypsy realized. Then, she huffed, “That’s not going to happen. I mean, look at Mr. Flash. He still loves his grandpa, and his grandpa’s been dead for longer than your dad has been.”
“Yeah, well, Mr. Flash doesn’t have people going to him wanting to be his new grandpa,” Gale pointed out.
Gypsy pursed her lips as she tried to think of a better example. “Well, if having new parents means that we stop loving our old ones, then won’t that mean that Mrs. Canela and Mr. Skeeter will stop loving Mr. Micro because they’re getting new kids? Besides, your dad obviously didn’t stop loving you just because Robby was born.”
“That’s different! Mr. Micro isn’t dead, and I wasn’t dead when Robby was born!” Gale snapped.
Before Gypsy could get another word in, a deep, steady male voice with a Texas accent called up the stairs, “Girls, Mom and I are heading out, and your big brother just got home.”
“Okay, Mr. Skeeter, we’ll be down in a second,” Gypsy called back.
Gale cried out in frustration as she face-pillowed once again. “They’re already treating us like we’re their actual kids. Now, I feel bad for feeling scared.”
Five minutes later, Micro and the girls were sitting at the dining room table sharing lunch, having just seen his, soon to be their, parents off. Lunch consisted of last night’s leftovers, and last night’s dinner was brisket enchiladas with charro beans and vinegar coleslaw. Micro Chips got two helpings of everything just as he usually did. How he could eat so much and still stay his normal, lanky self is a mystery that not even science had an answer for.
The three of them wordlessly ate their lunch and shared uncertain looks with each other. No doubt, they all had last night’s announcement on their minds. Every one of them wanted to say something but kept their mouths shut either out of fear, difficulty finding the right words, or both. Finally, Micro decided that as the adult in the room, he had to be the one to break the silence.
“So, what did you guys think about my parents’ announcement last night?” Micro asked hesitantly. “You, uh, excited about getting to be part of a family again?”
Gale and Gypsy shared a look with each other.
“It’s fine, I guess,” Gale answered unconvincingly.
“Gale’s scared that she’s going to forget her birth parents though,” Gypsy blurted. Gale glared at her incredulously and kicked her from under the table. “Ow!”
Micro’s eyes widened as he frowned in confusion.
“Why would you forget your birth parents?” Micro Chips asked Gale.
“Well,” Gale began haltingly, “it’s just that they’ve both been dead for a while, especially my mommy since I don’t even remember her all that much, and what if having a new mom and dad makes me forget about them?”
Micro paused trying to come up with the best way to answer Gale’s question. “Are you worried that my parents are somehow going to end up replacing your birth parents?”
Gale looked away from him before nodding slowly.
“Oh, Gale,” Micro sighed, “my parents aren’t trying to replace your birth parents. It’s just that, well…” Micro bit his lip before continuing, “Having you two around made my parents realize that they had a lot of love to give away, and, well, you two needed it, so they decided that you should have some of it and that bringing you into our family was the best way to give you the love you guys needed. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” Gale replied, pushing her beans around with her fork, “but I’m still pretty scared.”
“That everything is going to change and that you’re not going to like it even if it’s supposed to be a good change?” Micro noted.
“How did you know?” Gale gasped in surprise. “Not even I knew I was scared of that.”
Micro sighed again, put his forked down, and looked the little girl in the eye.
“Because,” he replied, “that’s how I felt about you, Gypsy, and Robby getting adopted.”
Gale and Gypsy shared an offended look with each other at his reply.
“You don’t want us to be part of your family?” Gypsy asked.
“No!” Micro cried before backpedaling, “I mean, yes. I mean, look, I know that having a family would be good for you guys, and I’m okay with you becoming part of mine. It’s just that I’m not used to having other people in my family, and having you be part of it is going to take time to get used to, and I’m worried about all the ways that this adoption can go wrong. I mean, what if the four of us end up not liking each other?”
“Well, Gale, Robby and I already like each other just fine, so are you scared that you’re not going to like us or that we’re not going to like you?”
“Well, it’s a little of both but mostly the second one,” Micro admitted. “I mean, one, I don’t know a thing about you except for what I was able to find out in the last five days and at camp last year. Two, I don’t know anything about being an older brother except for what I’ve seen with Flash and First Base, but I’m not Flash, and you two and Robby aren’t Base. I can’t just copy what Flash does with his brother and expect the three of you to like me. That’d be unreasonable.”
The girls shared another look with each other.
“Well, for what it’s worth, we don’t know much about you either, Mr. Micro,” Gale replied, “and I don’t know about Gypsy, but I’m scared that you’re not going to like us too.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I want to like you guys,” Micro admitted. “Maybe we’ll all be a little less scared about this whole adoption thing if we got to know each other better.”
“Okay,” Gale agreed. “So, what do you want to do?”
“Firstly, I think the two of you should try to stop calling me ‘Mister.’ I know it’s going to take some getting used to, but try to start calling me ‘Micro’ or ‘Micro Chips,’ whichever one you’re more comfortable with.”
“Okay, Micro Chips,” Gypsy agreed with a giggle. “Wow, that does take getting used to.”
Micro Chips and Gale each suppressed a snicker of their own.
“So,” Gale asked, “what are we going to do today?”
Micro Chips paused to think. Then, he smiled.
“Why don’t we start with something simple?” Micro suggested. “How does watching a movie together sound?”
Gale gasped in excitement, “Do you have Tangled?”
Micro stifled a laugh, replying, “Somehow, I just knew you were going to ask that.” Then, his smile faded a little. “But unfortunately, the answer is no.”
“The Princess and the Frog?”
“Gale, does Mr., err, I mean, Micro Chips look like the kind of guy who would own ANY princess movies?” Gypsy asked exasperatedly.
“Do the Star Wars movies count?” Micro tentatively asked. Judging by the blank stare Gale was giving him, the answer seemed to be no. “Okay, let’s try this. Let’s look through the movies we’ve got in the living room and pick one that looks like one we’d all enjoy.”
To Micro’s disappointment, the girls decided to pass on not only the Star Wars movies but also the MCU movies. The three of them managed to narrow their choices to the Chips’ collection of PicsArt movies and both PlayPiece movies. Since none of them felt like crying after the deeply emotional conversation they had over lunch, they wisely decided to pass on the PicsArt movies.
The three of them not only watched the first PlayPiece movie, but they enjoyed it so much that they also watched the second one. Who knew that a movie franchise about a world made from plastic, interlocking bricks could end up connecting three people as different as Micro, Gypsy, and Gale?
At the end of the second movie, Micro decided to break out his collection of PlayPiece bricks and build something with the girls. Micro felt mildly embarrassed by the fact that he needed both the girls’ help to move the tub of bricks from his room to the living room, but in his defense, it was a HUGE tub. However, all negative feelings were quickly forgotten the moment the plastic bricks cascaded onto the living room floor with a loud, satisfying CRASH! After a short debate over what the they should make with the bricks, the three of them spent the rest of the afternoon building a bright purple castle with sky blue towers protected by gold and silver robots and spaceships of all shapes and colors, an odd combination of aesthetics for sure, but hey, so were they.
Two weeks passed, and life returned to normal for the most part. The local police managed to track Robby down to a greenhouse in the middle of nowhere specializing in agricultural products of questionable legality and to everyone’s relief, brought him over to the Chips where his sister and their new family were waiting for him. He took the news of getting adopted much better than Gale did. Furthermore, he was quite overjoyed at the fact that the Chips didn’t own a single princess movie.
The only other major event everyone was anticipating was a trip to Pittsburgh that Flare Burst was getting ready to take with Ocellus. The two of them were going to meet with Ocellus’s parents and a social worker to discuss her long-term living situation. Of course, her parents were shocked and furious when they found out what had happened to their daughter. However, some of life’s most major events end up being the ones everyone is least expecting.
Thorax was at the Canterlot City Jail on one side of a booth with a glass divider. On the other side sat his former employer Chrysalis, dressed in prison orange. The only thing connecting the two of them were the pair of phone handsets, one on each side of the divider, hanging on side. The two of them unhooked the handsets and began to speak to one another.
“Well, well, well,” Chrysalis sneered, “I didn’t think I’d be getting any visitors, especially you. What’s the matter? Here to apologize for ratting me out to the police?”
“The police were in the process of finding out even without my involvement,” Thorax replied firmly yet calmly, “so technically, I DIDN’T rat you out. Besides, that’s not what I’m here to see you about.”
Chrysalis raised an eyebrow at Thorax’s last statement.
Thorax unfolded the paper he had in his hand and held it up against the glass.
“Recognize this?” he asked.
Chrysalis quickly skimmed through the contents of the document and coolly replied, “And the contents of this concern you how?”
“The police found it in your safe with your other documents, and the paper trail ended up leading to me,” Thorax explained, glaring at Chrysalis sternly. “Did you know?”
“Oh, people can put anything in documents these days. It doesn’t prove anything.”
Thorax’s almost uncharacteristic scowl deepened as he answered, “I knew you would say that, and I’m not going to lie; I wanted to believe that too, which is why I spent a good chunk of my savings on a DNA test.”
“My,” Chrysalis chuckled maliciously, “was the answer you were looking for worth the cost?”
Thorax’s glare intensified. “I’m only going to ask one more time. Did. You. Know?”
Chrysalis just stared back nonchalantly.
“Of course not,” she coolly replied. “For me to know, I’d have to care enough to keep track of you, which I didn’t.”
Thorax’s glare changed into an incredulous grimace.
“So, when I first came in for that job interview three years ago, you never once suspected or even wondered if I could have been your own son?” Thorax tried not to yell.
“No.” She let out another sickening laugh. “It’s funny. I actually considered just getting rid of you when I found out, but the procedure was just so expensive. Maybe if I had made the investment, well, I wouldn’t be here now, would I?”
“What kind of a mother is she?!” Thorax thought furiously to himself as he tried not to scream.
“You really hated me that much?” Thorax asked, forcing himself to stay calm. “You hated me just for existing.”
“Oh, don’t flatter yourself,” Chrysalis sarcastically replied. “I hate everyone equally, except for myself, of course.”
Thorax slowly exhaled through his teeth.
“There’s one other thing,” he continued. “The police found a document like this one dated about a year earlier for another boy. They had a harder time tracking him down, and the only thing anyone knows for certain is that he would have aged out of the foster system by now. Is there even a sliver of a chance that you might have seen or met him at all since then?”
“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “If I were to have seen him, he would have to had to come to me, and I can assure you that if he did, I’d remember it. Why don’t you go to your old foster home and ask? I did have you both sent to the same home. I’m surprised that you haven’t met him already.”
Thorax’s eyes widened at the last two statements. Chrysalis laughed in maleficent pleasure at Thorax’s dumbfounded expression.
“Or maybe you had,” she continued, “and the woman running the home just never told the two of you that you were related. But why would she do a thing like that?”
A long, pregnant silence hung heavily in the air for what felt like an eternity.
Finally, Thorax slowly let out a breath and said, “Thanks for your help. I think the two of us are done here.”
With that, he hung up the handset and left the room.
Two days later, Derpy, Flash, and Twilight rang the doorbell of the place formerly known as Chrysalis’s Home for Children. Yeah, the home needed a new name, but Thorax was having trouble finding one. Anyway, Thorax answered the door and warmly ushered the three of them in.
“I can’t thank you enough for agreeing to look after the kids for me on such short-notice,” Thorax gushed appreciatively. “I’ll try not to be gone for too long. This is just something that I really have to do.”
“Hey, no problem, Thorax,” Flash answered, speaking for everyone else. Thorax hadn’t told him or anyone else where he was going or why, but Flash trusted that Thorax had a good reason for needing to take off so suddenly. “Just do what you need to do.”
“I’ll be back in four hours, six at the latest. I’ll even pay you guys when this is all over.”
“Oh, Thorax, you don’t have to do that,” Derpy protested. “We’ve helped look after the kids before.”
“I know, but this is the first time that you three are actually babysitting for me without my supervision. It wouldn’t be right if I didn’t pay you. Is $20 an hour about standard?”
“For you, we’ll do $12,” Twilight replied, noting how unusually frazzled Thorax was. Well, okay, Thorax was pretty much always frazzled. Being almost singly responsible for the care of anywhere between five to sixteen children while having an iron-fisted tyrant breathing down your neck for the last three years can do that to a man, and his employer’s arrest and his new position as the primary caretaker of the home only intensified Thorax’s frazzled-ness. However, Twilight and her compatriots could see that Thorax’s current state of frazzled was somewhat different from his usual state of frazzled.
“Thanks, you three. You guys are lifesavers,” Thorax exhaled as he rushed out the door. He quickly got inside his car, pulled out of the driveway, and sped down the road.
Two hours later, Thorax parked in front of a cozy-looking, two-story house painted white with mint green shutters. A small wooden sign hung in front of it reading “The Nest Children’s Home.” Thorax parked his car, went up to the front door, and rang the bell.
“I’ll get it,” he heard a young feminine voice call. The door was opened by a woman in her thirties with bright yellow skin, dark gray eyes, and shoulder-length, straight, black hair.
“May I help you?” she asked Thorax.
“Yes, I’m here to see Ms. Argiope,” he replied courteously. “Is she here?”
“Yes, why don’t I just take you to her office. I’m Spinneret by the way.” The woman offered her hand to shake.
“Thorax. Nice to meet you,” Thorax replied, accepting her handshake.
She led Thorax up to the second floor to an office where a woman with tan skin and silver hair in her early sixties was packing office decorations into a box.
“Ms. Argiope,” Spinneret called, “someone’s here to see you.”
The older woman looked up at them, her eyes widening in recognition when she saw Thorax.
“Thorax, hello,” Ms. Argiope greeted, gesturing for Thorax to sit in one of the chairs. “Please have a seat.”
Thorax sat down in one of the guest chairs while Ms. Argiope took her place behind the desk.
“I’ll just head downstairs and see if anything needs to be done,” Spinneret said as she left the room. “It was nice meeting you, Thorax.”
“So,” Thorax began, “is she your assistant?”
“Replacement, actually,” Ms. Argiope replied. “I’m retiring, and this place and the kids needed someone else to take over.”
“Oh, I see.”
A long pause passed between them before Thorax finally decided to break it.
“As much as I wish this was just a friendly visit, it actually isn’t,” Thorax began sternly. “You see, I’ve also been working at a foster home, and about two weeks ago, my boss got arrested.”
“Oh my, that sounds difficult. Are you and your charges alright?” Ms. Argiope gasped.
“Yes, for the most part we are,” Thorax answered curtly, “but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Ms. Argiope raised an eyebrow at Thorax’s statement.
“The police went through her paperwork and found out that she’s actually my birth mother,” Thorax explained.
The corner of Ms. Argiope’s lip twitched as the first prick of nervousness began to grow inside of her.
“Additionally, her papers also showed that I have an older brother, and when I confronted her about it, she told me that she had him sent here too and was surprised that I had never met him.”
Ms. Argiope wrung her hands together as nervousness grew into guilt.
“Which brings me to why I’m here,” Thorax continued, his eyes narrowing. “There’s only one person that I remember from growing up here that checks off all the boxes, and because of that, I just have one question for you.” He paused and pressed his lips into a hard line. “Did you lie to me about Pharynx not being my brother?”
“Thorax, you work at a foster home,” Ms. Argiope retorted defensively. “You know firsthand how hard it is to adopt out siblings. If you and Pharynx and everyone else had known that the two of you were brothers, you might have never gotten adopted. On top of that, with all the behavioral problems he was giving everybody both here and at school, Pharynx was next to impossible to adopt out. If you had known he was your actual brother, you would have wanted to stay with him, and where would you be now? Having Pharynx for a brother would have just dragged you down. You know it, I know it, and good gracious, even he knew it.”
Thorax suppressed the urge to yell back at her. He wanted to tell her that she was wrong and that he and Pharynx could have worked things out and figured out a way to have a good life together, but as much as he hated to admit it, she was right. In his three years of working at Chrysalis’s group home, Thorax had somehow been fortunate enough to avoid having to separate a group of siblings, but wisdom told him that he would have to prepare for the day he would need to make some hard choices. Maybe his and Pharynx’s case was just one of those choices.
His mind went back to the last time that he saw Pharynx.
Seventeen years earlier
“Kid, just stop telling everyone that we’re brothers,” an 11-year-old boy with dark green skin and a dark red crew cut snapped at a 10-year-old Thorax.
“But why?” Thorax whined.
“Because we’re not!” Pharynx yelled. “We’re just two foster kids with the same legal guardian. That’s it. Besides, even if by some slim chance we actually are brothers, we’d be better off pretending that we’re not.”
“But if we get adopted together, we could have a chance at a better life,” Thorax protested.
“We’re not going to get adopted together, kid,” Pharynx retorted. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but most potential parents don’t exactly come looking for ‘buy one, get one free’ specials on kids. Even if we do get that lucky, they’ll change their minds once they figure out how much trouble I get myself into at school. If you keep making a scene about not wanting to go without me every time someone gets interested in taking you in, you’re never going to get out of here.”
“But—”
“No buts,” Pharynx interrupted. “All I’m going to do is just drag you down, which is why I want you to promise me that the next time someone comes in wanting to adopt you, you go with them WITHOUT ME. Got it?”
“But—”
“Promise me!” Pharynx narrowed his eyes at the younger boy, the purple flames in his eyes burning right into Thorax’s red-violet ones.
Thorax sighed and relented, “Okay, I promise.”
As the memory faded from his mind, he looked back as Ms. Argiope and clenched his teeth.
“Maybe Pharynx and I did need to be separated,” Thorax admitted, “but you didn’t have to lie to us. Now that I think about it, I’m starting to wonder what else you lied about and who else you lied to.”
“Oh, don’t you dare give me any of that,” Ms. Argiope scoffed. “Everything I did was to try to help you kids get a better life.”
“Still, it doesn’t make lying right,” Thorax bluntly stated. “Anyway, now that you know why I came to see you, you mind telling me where I can find my brother?”
“He aged out years ago,” Ms. Argiope retorted dismissively. “Wherever he is, it’s not my problem anymore.”
Thorax just stared at her incredulously and replied, “You know, for someone who wants to help kids in need get a better life, you don’t seem to care much about how Pharynx’s turned out.”
“You’ll understand once you’ve been in the business long enough. Sometimes you just can’t help them all. There’s no point losing sleep over it.”
Thorax suddenly got up and glared at Ms. Argiope.
“Once I’ve been in the business long enough, I’m going take the time to learn from my mistakes instead of pretending that they never happened,” he said sternly. “It was nice to see you again. Thank you for your time.”
With that, Thorax simply left the office and stormed out the front door. Soon, he was driving back towards Canterlot and towards the children’s home, HIS children’s home.
At Button Mash’s house, Button and his family had just finished having dinner and were cleaning up. His mother Love Tap had sand-colored skin, light brown hair, and bright blue eyes. His father Cinnamon Swirl looked almost exactly like Button but older and without the patch of light brown hair.
“Button,” Love Tap called out, getting the teen boy’s attention, “your father and I have been talking about something, and we think it’s time we included you in the discussion.”
“Okay,” Button replied hesitantly. “What have you guys been talking about?”
“Well, you know how our neighbors have been fostering those kids from the children’s home, right?”
“Yeah, of course.” Considering that said kids have been in the neighborhood for two weeks now, how could Button not know?
“Well, last Mom’s Night Out, Flare and Canela were asking me and Velvet if we’d consider fostering ourselves. I told them that I’d think about it,” Love Tap continued.
“And?”
“And your mother wants to know how you would feel about having at least one foster sibling,” Cinnamon added. “I told her that I’d be open to the idea but that we’d have to discuss things with you first. I mean, this isn’t the kind of thing you just jump into on a whim. If we’re going to do this, we need to agree as a family.”
Button just stood there and stared back at his parents, a thoughtful look crossing his face. Then, he rushed out of the dining room and down the hallway to his bedroom. His parents shared a confused look with one another.
“Umm, was that a yes?” Love Tap asked.
“It wasn’t a no,” Cinnamon noted.
Fifteen minutes later, Button returned with a sheet of paper that he proudly handed over to his mother.
“What’s this?” Love Tap asked as she and Cinnamon read over the paper’s contents.
“It’s my terms and conditions for a sibling,” said Button. “As long as these are followed, feel free to take in whoever you want.”
“Must be male. Must not be older than me. Must not be bigger or taller than me. Must enjoy and know how to play video games. Must enjoy milkshakes and apple juice. Must not receive a bigger allowance than me. Must cheer me on at my baseball games. Must not touch my things without permission. Must not fight with me over the game controller, computer, or TV remote,” Love Tap read out loud. She stopped reading and facepalmed. “Button, I think you’re missing the entire point of fostering a child.”
“Son,” Cinnamon began to explain, “the reason your mom and I are considering going into foster care is because there are kids out there who need a place to call home and a family to care for them, at least temporarily, not because we’re trying to get you a playmate.”
“Can’t you help a needy kid and get me a new gaming buddy at the same time?” Button asked.
“Of course, we can,” Love Tap conceded, “but we can’t promise you that the kid we help ends up being the ideal playmate for you. For one thing, what if we end up taking in a girl?”
“I don’t know, Mom,” Button replied, his face twisting in confusion. “Girls are kind of weird.”
Love Tap glared at her son sternly.
“But if you guys really want a girl that bad, maybe I can change that first one into ‘Must be male or a tomboy,’” Button suggested, causing his mother to facepalm again.
“What your mother is trying to say is that if we do decide to jump into this, we’re more than likely going to have to pick between taking in the kid who needs us the most and following your terms and conditions, and I think you know which of those two is going to take priority,” Cinnamon Swirl explained.
“Oh,” Button uttered finally understanding. “You mean if we decide to take in a kid, it’s possible that he or she might be someone I’m not even going to like?”
“Well, that might depend on how long he or she would be staying with us,” answered Cinnamon. “I mean, your mom and I still haven’t decided if we’re just going to foster for the short-term or if we’re going to foster to adopt.”
“If the former, then yes, but if the latter, then, well, you’re just going to have to learn to like him or her, aren’t you?” Love Tap added.
“Ugh,” Button groaned. “What’s the point of getting to pick out a sibling if you’re just going to run into the same problems you would from getting a sibling the normal way?”
“You think that’s bad?” Cinnamon scoffed. “You obviously haven’t considered the fact that a lot of the kids in the system are going to be coming in with a lot of baggage. After all, we have no idea what they went through before they entered the system.”
“So, if I agree to our family taking in a kid, I might end up with a sibling who I might not like, who might not like me, who might not get along with me, who might have personal issues, or all the above at least temporarily but possibly permanently?” Button asked, staring incredulously at his parents.
“Well, yes,” his father agreed, “but if it makes you feel any better, we definitely won’t give him, her, or them a bigger allowance than you. We’ll also take the time to teach them to respect your things and share the TV and computer, but it might take a while for the lessons to really stick.”
“Wait,” Button cried, catching the pronouns his father was using. “Just how many kids are you planning on taking in?”
“As your father mentioned earlier,” Love Tap replied, “at least one, but I don’t think we’ll be able to handle more than two.”
“So, it’s possible that we might be signing up for twice the problems?”
“Possibly,” answered Cinnamon.
Button groaned again, “If this fostering thing is really that hard, why the heck would anyone want to do it? Sure, we’re going to be helping someone who needs it, but if you ask me, it sounds like we’d be getting the short end of the deal.”
Love Tap and Cinnamon Swirl shared a look with each other. Then, Love Tap smiled knowingly and pulled Button Mash into a hug.
“You know, sweetie,” Love Tap began, “when Dad and I first had you, you sure didn’t make being parents easy.”
Button frowned in offense to that statement.
“Yeah,” Cinnamon agreed with a smile. “I know you were too young to remember, but man, was being your mom and dad a lot of work! We had to get up in the middle of the night to feed you and rock you to sleep. Whenever you cried, we had to drop whatever it was we were doing to see if you were okay. We had to clean your spit up and change your diapers. We had to be careful that the TV didn’t wake you, so we couldn’t just watch whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. I remember the first time you got sick, you cried so much that I thought I was going to go deaf, and I held you for so long both my arms went stiff.”
“Why are you guys telling me this?” Button asked, still frowning.
“Because,” Love Tap explained, “when we became parents, we couldn’t put ourselves first anymore, and we had to learn to be okay with getting the short end of the deal because that’s what you do when you love someone, and somewhere out there is a kid or two who needs to be loved like that, and our family might just be the people to give them what they need. You understand?”
Button’s frowned deepened as he allowed his parents’ words to sink in.
“I don’t know, Mom,” Button answered, shaking his head. “If you and Dad really think this is the right thing to do, then I don’t want to be the one to stop you. It’s just that Base and Flash make having a sibling look so much fun, except for whenever Flash starts bossing us around or gets mad at us for not listening to him. I guess I thought that if I can somehow help you pick out the perfect sibling for me, then maybe we can avoid having to deal with the problems that come with being in a family with more than one kid.”
“Aww, kid,” Cinnamon cried out sympathetically. “I think it’s time I told you something that your grandfather told me back when I was dating your mom.”
“What’s that?” Button asked, raising an eyebrow at his dad.
“‘Never go into a relationship looking for the perfect match, just look for someone you can grow old with.’ It took marriage and fatherhood for me to finally understand what he meant by that,” Cinnamon replied nostalgically.
Button just stared at his father and blinked twice.
“Son, no matter how subjective your definition of perfect is, you’re never going to find it. Everyone is messed up in some way, and everyone has something that makes them hard to love,” Cinnamon explained. “For example, did you know that when your mom and I had our first dance, she stepped on my feet several times, elbowed me in the chest, and tripped me?”
“Well, you like wearing fake mustaches because your actual facial hair makes you look like you got attacked by a rabid racoon,” Love Tap retorted.
“I love you, too, dear,” Cinnamon replied, tenderly kissing his wife’s cheek.
“Uh, guys, Dad” Button interrupted before Love Tap could kiss Cinnamon Swirl back, “can you just get to the point you’re trying to make?”
“Oh, right. Anyway, everybody has something that makes them hard to love, but everyone NEEDS to be loved, so what do we do?”
“Love anyway?” Button guessed.
“Exactly, and loving anyway doesn’t just apply to romantic relationships, you know.”
Button bit his lip as he allowed his father’s words to sink in. He looked from his mother’s face to his father’s face to the floor and back the other way before looking back at the floor again. On some level, he understood what his father was trying to tell him. However, he also really wanted that perfect sibling that his dad just told him that he was never going to find.
After spending what felt like forever but was actually only a few seconds wrestling with his selfishness, he finally said to his parents, “Okay, we can try taking in a foster kid or two, but I have one condition, only one condition.”
Love Tap and Cinnamon Swirl shared another look before Love Tap relented, “Okay, sweetie, what’s your condition?”
“I want to meet them before we bring them home, okay?”
Love Tap and Cinnamon Swirl smiled and agreed, “Okay.”
“Mom! Dad!” Ocellus cried as she ran into the visitation room of the jail in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with Flare Burst following from behind. With tears in her eyes, she ran right into her parents’ open arms.
Both Ocellus’s parents looked like they were in their early thirties, quite a young age for parents of a 16-year-old. Her mother had light aqua skin and jewel purple hair and eyes. Her doubly pregnant belly was visible through her standard orange prison jumpsuit. Her father had gray-blue skin with bright orange eyes and short, two-tone, green hair. He needed crutches to stand up and wore a cast on his left leg from his hip to his toes. The social worker remained sitting at their table, smiling at the touching scene even though her forehead was creased with worry.
Ocellus’s mother was the first to notice Flare approaching. She broke the family hug, went up to Flare, and tearfully shook her hand.
“Oh, I can’t thank you enough for looking after my daughter,” she blubbered, her gratitude overflowing with her tears. “When I found out what had happened, oh my gosh!” The thoroughly overwhelmed woman collapsed sobbing into her chair as she continued, “This is all my fault. You must think I’m a terrible mother.”
“Oh, oh, not at all,” Flare stuttered, trying to maintain composure even though she was about to be overwhelmed herself. “You were just desperate. People tend to make bad decisions in those kinds of situations.”
“If I ever get out of here and get a second chance at raising my children, I swear I am never stealing again.” Ocellus’s mom cried waterfalls. The social worker pulled out a packet of tissues from her purse and gave them to Ocellus’s mom.
“Oh, darling, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Ocellus’s father comforted as he rubbed circles into his wife’s back. “Your brother was the one who stabbed us in the back and sold our daughter to a pimp. Gosh, if I wasn’t in crutches right now!”
“Don’t worry,” the social worker assured them both. “Last I heard, Ms. Antenna, your brother is currently awaiting trial for what he did. I have no doubt he will be brought to justice. However, we do have more pressing concerns to address.”
“Of course, of course,” Ocellus’s mother agreed, composing herself and placing her hand on her stomach.
“So, how far along are you if you don’t mind me asking?” Flare asked with uncharacteristic timidity.
“5 months,” Antenna answered with a sad smile, “I’m not due for a while, but you have to be prepared for anything with twins. Either way, I’ll probably still be in here after they are born.”
“Which brings us to our primary concern,” the social worker added. “With Mr. Sternum recovering from injury and his current employment status, he may not be able to handle the responsibility of taking care of twins.”
“In other words, the twins are going to have to be placed into foster care as soon as they’re born,” Flare inferred.
“Correct, and both Ms. Antenna and Mr. Sternum have agreed that they would want the twins placed in the same home as Ocellus if possible.”
Flare nodded before frowning in confusion. “So, what does that mean for Ocellus?”
The social worker sighed and continued, “Ms. Antenna and Mr. Sternum were wondering if you could continue to foster Ocellus and then later her siblings.”
“They want ME to foster their kids? All the way in Canterlot?”
“They seem to be under the impression that your trustworthiness outweighs the distance,” the social worker stated.
“Oh,” Flare exclaimed before turning to Ocellus’s parents. “Sir, ma’am, I am deeply honored that you would trust me with taking care of your children, but I simply don’t have any more room in my house for two more people. Also, I don’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby, let alone two.”
Ocellus’s parents shared a look with each other and frowned.
“Oh, we understand,” Sternum replied with a disappointed sigh. “It’s just that after what happened to Ocellus, we don’t know who to trust anymore in this town, and we don’t feel very comfortable about bringing her back here.”
“Is there anyone in the same neighborhood as you who would be willing to take the twins? Or even in the same town?” asked Antenna.
Flare pressed her lips together as she contemplated a solution.
“I think I might know someone, but I can’t promise you anything,” Flare responded before pulling out her phone and dialing a number. She got up from the table and stepped out of the visitation room.
“Hello,” Twilight Velvet answered the phone.
“Hey, Velvet, it’s Flare,” Flare Burst replied. “Were you able to talk to Night Light about, well, what we talked about last Mom’s Night Out?”
“I have. He’s apprehensive about the whole idea though. He doesn’t think adoption is in our future, and I agreed with him, but then, I told him that we could always foster without adopting, but then he says, ‘Honey, I know you mean well, but what if we end up fostering a kid until he or she ages out of the system? Do we just leave him or her to fend for himself or herself?’ Then, he starts worrying about what’ll happen if we take in a kid expecting to be temporary fosters only for the parents to be unable to take the kid back. Long story short, he thinks the whole foster parenting thing has way too many risks.”
“So does letting your daughter get married in the middle of college, and he gave Flash his blessing to marry Twilight,” Flare pointed out.
“Gah! Why didn’t I think of that?” Velvet exclaimed. “I could have totally used that to make my case.”
“By the way, I know you said that Night said that it’s too risky, but did he flat-out tell you no?”
“He said he needed more time to think about it, and in all my years being married to the man, thinking about it usually means making a list of all the pros and cons and planning out for every eventuality with a massive chart,” Velvet retorted with a laugh. “Now I know where Twily gets it from.”
“Anyway, I’m calling because I’m meeting with Ocellus’s parents in Pittsburgh right now, and they want their twins to be fostered in the same town as Ocellus,” Flare explained. “I have neither the housing nor the experience to be taking care of newborns, so I was wondering if maybe you and Night would like to help. You’re going to have to decide quickly though. I don’t think Ocellus’s parents have time to wait for a chart.”
One week later…
“I cannot believe you talked me into this,” Night Light exclaimed to Velvet as the two of them and Twilight put the finishing touches on Shining Armor’s old room which had been converted into a nursery. “I mean, look at us. Our son already has a child of his own, and our daughter is about to get married. We are OLD! What made us think that taking in two newborns and a teenager would be a good idea?”
“Hey, those kids and their parents need the help, and they didn’t know who to trust to help them besides Flare Burst and Shining Armor,” Velvet pointed out. “Flare and Shiny weren’t in the right position to help them, but we were. It’s as simple as that. And quit your griping; we’re not THAT old.”
“Besides, Dad, this is just temporary” Twilight added. “Ms. Antenna and Mr. Sternum really want to go back to raising their kids themselves as soon as possible.”
“Which is why Cadance, you, and I are helping them move to Canterlot and find jobs as soon as Antenna is out of jail and Sternum’s leg is better,” Velvet continued.
“Finding jobs for them is going to be easier said than done, Velvet,” Night continued. “The fact that Antenna has jail time on record is going to limit the amount of jobs she can do. On top of that, it’s going to be hard to find employers willing to hire ex-convicts even if it is just a misdemeanor.”
“Isn’t the church looking for another cleaning lady?” Velvet remembered. “We could always check there if we have no other options.”
Night Light opened his mount to object, but then, he shut it again and thought for a bit.
“I suppose that’s true,” Night Light conceded.
Before Velvet and Night could discuss the matter further, the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Twilight volunteered. She rushed to the front door and opened it to Ocellus and Flare. Ocellus was carrying a small suitcase and a backpack.
“Hello, Ocellus,” Twilight greeted before taking Ocellus’s suitcase from her. “Come on in. Why don’t I help you take your things to your room?”
“Thanks so much for looking after me these past few weeks, and for taking me to see my parents,” Ocellus said to Flare as the two of them followed Twilight up the staircase. “I hope you’re not upset about me wanting to change foster homes.”
“Oh, you’re very welcome,” Flare replied, “and don’t worry about it. I understand wanting to stay in the same place as your brother and sister. Besides, you’ll have much more room to yourself this way. At the same time, if you ever need us for anything, you know where we live.”
On the way to the guest room, the three of them ran into Velvet and Night Light coming out of the nursery.
“Oh, hello, Ocellus,” Velvet greeted. “Night and I were just finishing up your brother and sister’s room. Want to take a look and tell us what you think?”
“Maybe later, Ms. Velvet,” Ocellus replied, “but thank you. Also, thanks for everything. My parents and I really appreciate this.”
“Oh, think nothing of it,” said Night Light.
Twilight continued to lead Flare and Ocellus to the guestroom, and when they were out of earshot, Night solemnly said to his wife, “You know what we signed up for isn’t going to be easy in the slightest, right?”
“Oh, it’ll be worth it,” Velvet reassured him, pulling her husband into an embrace, which he returned. “It will be worth it.”
Two months passed, and a lot happened in that time. Button Mash’s family had taken in Kit as a foster, and the two boys had hit it off quite well. However, to Honey Bee’s dismay Button and his family lived next door to Flash’s family which meant she was going to be seeing a lot of Kit who annoyed her the most out of all her former foster siblings.
On the bright side, Flare had decided to begin the process of formally adopting her. Flash’s family had finally managed to break through that icy shell Bee used to hide behind and gain both her trust and respect, especially Flare, and the two of them had grown quite close over the summer. Ocellus’s twin siblings were born premature but otherwise healthy, so she and Twilight’s parents were just waiting until they were ready to come home from the NICU.
Furthermore, now that summer was over, Flash, Twilight, Micro, and their friends had all returned to college. Micro’s soon-to-be adopted younger siblings were quite disappointed by this, having never experienced an older sibling leave for college before. Micro and his parents assured them that Micro would video call them at least once a week and that he’d be home for the fall and winter holidays. As for Thorax and the children still at the group home, they were all preparing for a new arrival.
Thorax’s car pulled up in front of the children’s home, which was now known as New Beginnings Home for Children. Thorax got out of the driver’s side and escorted a 16-year-old boy from the passenger side. The boy had light blue skin, and most of his hair was a darker blue except for the tips which were orange. His hair was cut short all the way around except for a long bang that almost covered his left eye. He was also completely dressed in black and carried a backpack.
He led the boy up to the front door, and they both entered the building.
“Kids, we’re home,” Thorax called. His announcement was followed by six children, four boys and two girls, excitedly rushing to the front foyer followed by Ocellus and a boy about her age with light green skin and shaggy, medium-length, two-tone green hair.
“Everybody,” Thorax continued, gesturing to the boy who was with him, “this is Gallus. He’ll be staying with us until he gets taken in by a forever family or is old enough to live on his own.”
All the children stared at Gallus, who aloofly tossed his head in their general direction. His hunched over posture, monochrome attire, and stone-faced expression was not at all helping him make the best first impression. The children smiled nervously at him before saying hi.
“Whatever,” Gallus muttered in reply.
“Boys, can you show Gallus where he’ll be staying while I pay the sitters?” Thorax requested.
“Sure thing,” answered the oldest boy, a 10-year-old with blue-gray skin and black hair. His name was Obsidian Chisel, but everyone just called him Sid.
“What about us?” asked a 7-year-old girl with mint skin and pink hair named Minty, gesturing to herself and the one other girl, an 8-year old named Ala.
“Why don’t you two start getting ready for bed?” Thorax suggested. “You’ll have all day tomorrow to get to know Gallus.”
The two girls nodded and followed the boys up the stairs. Soon, the only people in the foyer were Thorax, Ocellus, and the green-haired, teenaged boy. Thorax pulled out his wallet and began counting out the bills.
“Alright,” he muttered before addressing the boy, “here’s $15 for you, Sandbar, and $15 for Ocellus.”
The teens thanked Thorax and went out the door. Outside, Sandbar’s father and Night Light had just arrived to pick them up and bring them home.
Back inside the boys’ room of the home, Gallus had found his bed and the shelf for his things and was beginning to unpack his backpack. All the other boys were getting dressed for bed which he was probably also going to have to do soon.
The last thing that he took out was a black leather jacket. He turned it over and just stared at the emblem stitched into the back. The best way Gallus could describe the emblem was a pair of stylized bug jaws.
“I probably should get rid of it,” Gallus thought to himself, scowling at the jacket. “I promised him that I wouldn’t look back, and he’d probably want this thing burned to ash.”
“Hey, what you got there, Gallus?” asked a small voice from behind him. Gallus started and turned around to a 5- or 6-year-old boy standing behind him. The most notable thing Gallus noticed about him was his shaggy black hair which was tipped in electric blue. This was Sid’s younger brother Cerulean Brush also known as Lean by most people.
“Nothing,” Gallus replied. “It’s just junk.”
“If it’s just junk, then why do you have it?”
Gallus didn’t reply but instead turned back and continued to stare at the jacket, specifically the emblem stitched in the back.
“I thought that having this meant that I was important and that I had a place to belong,” Gallus answered without turning around, “but someone made me realize that it wasn’t the life that I wanted.”
“Were you part of a gang?” asked Lean.
No answer.
“Boys,” Thorax called as he entered the room, “are all of you ready for bed?”
“We’re just waiting on Gallus,” Sid replied, turning everyone’s attention on the teenager. Gallus looked up to see five pairs of eyes on him and groaned in annoyance.
“Hey, Gallus, what you got there?” Thorax asked, noticing the jacket in his hands.
“It’s just junk,” Gallus replied in an annoyed tone. “It’ll be gone as soon as I can find an incinerator to throw it into.”
Thorax blinked twice, taken aback by Gallus’s outburst while the kids uneasily shuffled away from Gallus.
“Mind if I take a look?” Thorax asked, taking a step closer to Gallus.
Gallus’s scowl deepened, and he angrily tossed the jacket at Thorax who surprisingly caught it.
“I’m heading to the bathroom,” Gallus huffed as he stormed out of the room with his PJs under his arm and his toothbrush in his hand.
Thorax shared a concerned look with the boys before turning his attention back on Gallus’s jacket. His eyes widened when he saw the emblem stitched on the back.
Gallus unceremoniously spat water into the sink as he rinsed out his mouth. He had used the bathroom, changed into his pajamas as well as brushed his teeth, and was now about to make his way back to the boys’ bedroom. On the way back, Thorax stopped him in the middle of the hallway.
“Hey, can we talk?” Thorax asked.
Gallus looked up and scrutinized Thorax from head to toe. The caretaker had Gallus’s jacket under his left arm. His shoulders were rolled back, and his right hand was on his hip. His face betrayed no emotion whatsoever, but Gallus had a guess as to what Thorax wanted to talk about.
Gallus sighed and exasperatedly replied, “Okay, fine. Yes, I used to be part of a gang, alright? You don’t have to worry about me going back to that life because someone made me promise that I wouldn’t. There. Happy now?”
“That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to talk to you about,” Thorax replied, much to Gallus’s surprise, “but since you brought it up, okay, thanks for telling me that.”
Thorax turned the jacket over in his hands so that the back was facing Gallus and pointed to the emblem.
“Do you have any idea who these people are or were?” Thorax asked.
“Just that they call themselves The Swarm and that they sell drugs and weapons and stuff,” Gallus replied. “Why?”
Thorax sighed and answered, “The lady who ran this place before I did was part of it, or at least, she used to work with them. I found a necklace with the same symbol on your jacket in her stuff.”
“Hold on. What would a criminal organization be doing working with a foster lady?” Gallus asked, frowning in confusion.
“Let’s just say those criminal friends of yours were selling more than just drugs and weapons, and my boss was making money off of them.”
The implications of that sentence were completely lost on Gallus, but he decided not to press the issue.
“How did you get involved with those guys anyway?” Thorax asked as he folded up the jacket.
Gallus bit his lip and sighed, answering, “I was living in a different foster home over in Griffonstone with a grumpy old coot and three other foster kids. I never really felt like family with them though. One day, a short, bug-eyed creep with a scarf comes up to me and tries to sell me, well, stuff. I tell him no, but he wouldn’t leave me alone, so I punched him. Then, the other guys he’s with grab me and pull their guns and knives out. I try to fight back, but Scarfy stops them from doing anything to me and says to me, ‘You know what, kid? I like you. My bros and I could use a tough, young guy like you.’ So, I say, ‘What’s in it for me?’”
“And?” Thorax asked.
“He asked me if I had a family. I didn’t say anything, but he must have seen the answer all over my face. Next thing I knew, the guy brings me in to their leader, and I was getting initiated.”
“How’d you get out of there?”
Gallus bit his lip, remembering what happened that fateful day.
Gallus woke up to his flip phone ringing and groaned in annoyance.
“Hello?” he groggily answered.
“Kid, pack your things and run,” the voice on the other end replied.
“Wait, what?” he cried, completely confused.
“Just do what I tell you to! Don’t show up to the meeting place, and don’t stay where you’re at. You show up to the meeting, and your life will be over. You stay where you are, and your life will be over LITERALLY!”
Gallus’s insides froze at those words.
“Listen, kid, just run as far from here as you can and don’t answer your phone. You know what? Just straight up destroy it, and whatever you do, don’t look back.”
Gallus didn’t answer.
“Swear to me you won’t look back,” the voice shouted. “Swear!”
“Okay,” Gallus answered, finally finding his voice. “I swear.”
“Good.” With that the connection went silent before being followed by the busy tone.
“A friend of mine from the gang called my cellphone telling me to run away, so I did,” Gallus answered Thorax. “The last thing I heard was that the gang had gotten arrested.”
Thorax nodded knowingly. “I see. Why do you think your friend told you to run?”
Gallus sighed, “We were supposed meet up for a drug deal. I’m not entirely sure, but I think my friend ratted the gang out to the cops.”
“And since you weren’t there, whoever escaped arrest would have assumed you had done it and gone after you,” Thorax pointed out.
Gallus nodded twice in agreement. “Aww, gee. He must have gotten put in the slammer too. I wonder how he’s doing.”
Thorax pressed his mouth into a line as he rubbed his forearms.
“You know,” Thorax said to the teen, “Griffonstone isn’t too far from here. I could take you to the city jail to pay your friend a visit.”
“You’d do that?” Gallus’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Sure, just try to make yourself at home here and get along with the other kids, okay?”
Gallus rolled his eyes. “No promises.”
The weekend arrived, and Thorax once again hired Sandbar and Ocellus to babysit while he drove Gallus to the Griffonstone City Jail. Gallus hadn’t quite made himself at home yet, but he did stop scaring the other kids, so that was progress. Thorax also took the liberty to destroy Gallus’s old gang jacket for him. Gallus didn’t say so or show it, but he was grateful that Thorax had done that.
The two of them silently went up to the jail’s receptionist’s desk.
“Hello, Officer,” Thorax greeted. “We’re here to visit a prisoner. I have a minor with me.”
The receptionist nodded and asked, “Your name and date of birth?”
Thorax told the policeman, who did a quick background check on him.
“Okay, looks like you’re cleared,” the officer replied. “Name of the prisoner you are visiting?”
Thorax paused and turned to Gallus. “I just realized that I never asked you what your friend’s name was.”
“It’s Pharynx,” Gallus replied.
Thorax froze at Gallus’s answer.
“What did you say?” Thorax asked the teen.
“I said his name is Pharynx,” Gallus retorted. “Did I mumble, or are you just going deaf?”
Thorax didn’t reply. He just stood there unmoving with his jaw slack. Could it be? He didn’t dare allow himself to hope. Besides, what are the odds that Gallus’s friend actually is his lost brother?
The officer ignored Thorax’s strange behavior and typed the name into the computer.
“Take a seat over in one of the booths,” he instructed the two visitors. “Another officer will bring the inmate over shortly.”
Thorax involuntarily complied with the officer’s instructions and sat in the booth with Gallus. It looked exactly like the visitation booths in the prison at Canterlot.
Thorax saw a torso-shaped blob of prison orange come into the booth from the corner of his left eye. Thorax turned to get a better look at the inmate and ended up meeting his unforgettable purple eyes. Thorax felt his insides twist into knots, and his knees shook.
“Oh my God,” he gasped before straight up screaming, “OH MY GOD!”
To Gallus’s shock, Thorax slid off his chair, his knees hitting the concrete floor, in a mess of tears and sobs. Gallus looked from Thorax to Pharynx and back again. Pharynx’s hands were balled into fists, and Gallus couldn’t recall the last time he had seen them shake so much. Pharynx’s lips remained unmoved from the hard, stoic line they had been pressed into since he entered the booth, but his eyes were wide with surprise.
Gallus nervously reached for the handset connecting his and Thorax’s side of the glass with Pharynx’s and took it off the hook. Pharynx did the same, and they both held the earpiece up to the ears.
“Uh, so,” Gallus began, “you know this guy, man?”
Before Pharynx could answer, Thorax yanked the handset out of Gallus’s hand and yelled, “Dude! I thought I was never going to see you again!”
To Gallus’s surprise, Pharynx smiled and replied, “Sorry to disappoint you, kid.”
After hellos and how-are-yous were exchanged, Thorax began explaining everything to Pharynx and Gallus from Chrysalis’s arrest and discovering that she was, in fact, his and Pharynx’s birth mother to his confrontation with their former foster mother.
“So, after I left Ms. Argiope’s place, I went back to the home,” said Thorax. “You have no idea how badly I wanted to try to find you, but I had no idea where to start. I mean, neither of our ‘mothers’ were any help. I thought about hiring a private investigator, but I just couldn’t afford it, especially since the DNA test and the babysitters set me back by a lot.”
Pharynx just sat there and stared at his recently found younger brother. His face had reverted to the stone-faced expression he had been wearing when he came into the booth. Gallus’s gaze shifted back and forth between the two men, his jaw completely slack.
“Man,” Gallus exclaimed, “what are the odds of the two of you being brothers?”
Pharynx turned to Gallus and motioned for Thorax to hand the handset over to him.
When Gallus placed the earpiece over his ear, Pharynx said to him, “Not that I’m not glad to see you, kid, but what the [censored] are you doing here?! You swore you wouldn’t look back!”
“I didn’t,” Gallus retorted defensively. “I even had my jacket destroyed and everything.”
“Then, what are you doing back in Griffonstone?”
“Legal Guardian over here offered to bring me to see you, and I agreed,” Gallus answered gesturing at Thorax.
“Someone who slipped past the cops’ radar could have seen you,” Pharynx continued to reprimand. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I know, but,” Gallus sighed and continued, “I just had to see if you were okay. Besides, I also wanted to thank you.”
“For what?”
“Oh, you know, for convincing me that a life of crime isn’t going to get me what I wanted and making sure I didn’t end up where you’re at right now.”
“And you’re going stay that way, or else, I’m going to [censored] kill ya.”
Even though Pharynx was threatening him, Gallus couldn’t help but smile a little.
“So, how are ya doing in there?” Gallus asked.
“The food absolutely sucks, the sleeping arrangements are so tight that even a rat would hate it, and it’s as dull as [censored], but other than that I’m having the time of my life,” Pharynx dryly replied.
“Yeah, speaking of rats, does anyone else know about, uh, you-know-what?”
“Just the defense attorney,” Pharynx replied, confirming Gallus’s suspicions, “he’s trying to see if I can get less time than everyone else because of that.”
“Oh, good,” Gallus replied with a relieved sigh. “I was worried that someone from the gang might have found out, and well, you know.”
“Ahh, don’t worry about that,” Pharynx scoffed. “Besides, even if someone else did find out, I wouldn’t take back what I did for anything. I only wish I had done it sooner.”
Pharynx looked from Gallus to Thorax and back again, his expression as unmoving as it had ever been.
“Kid,” he said to Gallus, pointing to somewhere on Gallus and Thorax’s side of the glass, “if it’s not too much to ask, can you wait over by where that cop is standing? I need to have a talk with my, uh, brother, alone.”
Gallus raised an eyebrow, shifting his gaze from Pharynx to Thorax and back before hesitantly answering, “Um, okay then. I’ll just go do that.”
He got up, gave Thorax the handset, and made his way to the part of the waiting area that Pharynx was pointing at, leaving the two brothers to themselves. For a while, neither said anything but just sat there staring at each other and awkwardly fidgeting with the handsets.
“So, uh, he seems like a good kid,” Thorax began.
“Yeah, he is,” Pharynx replied just as awkwardly.
“So, how did you guys meet? I mean, he told me how you met, but what made you decide to talk him out of a life of organized crime?”
Pharynx shrugged and replied, “No idea.”
Actually, Pharynx knew exactly why he did everything that led to Gallus ending up with Thorax and him ending up in jail. He could still remember the first time he saw Gallus the day Needy introduced him to their branch of The Swarm. Gallus had tried to hide his wide, trembling blue eyes under a tough, too cool attitude, but Pharynx could see and feel the fear and uncertainty radiating off the teen. He had seen other lost, lonely, and often angry kids initiated into the gang before, but something about Gallus and his eyes pierced through his hardened criminal shell.
The night Gallus got initiated, Pharynx couldn’t sleep. Every time he shut his eyes, his brain was assaulted with images of Gallus’s sorrowful, terrified eyes and his beaten and bruised face which were soon joined by a different pair of eyes. The other pair of eyes was red violet in color, glistening with tears, and part of a younger kid’s face. The memory of a pair of arms encircling his waist and tears soaking through the front of his shirt soon followed.
“I know you want me to forget about you, but I won’t,” the kid from his past had said to him. “Just try to live a good life and be happy, and I’ll do the same, okay?”
Pharynx remembered getting up to splash water on his face and looking up at his reflection. The moment his eyes met his reflection’s, he realized something. He hated himself. More importantly, he hated what he was doing with his life. If that kid from his past could see him now, what would he think?
Never in a million years did Pharynx think that he’d see that kid again, face-to-face and all grown up.
“So, how did he end up staying with you?” Pharynx asked his brother.
“Someone found him holing up at a gas station in Canterlot and called CPS,” Thorax explained. “All they told me about him was that he had run away from his old foster home and that they couldn’t put him back there because the guy who was fostering him had recently run into some health problems and his oldest foster sister was being evaluated as a guardian for the other foster kids. Maybe I should ask him if he’d like to visit them.”
“Yeah, don’t,” Pharynx bluntly advised. “If he wants to see them again, it’ll probably be safer if they came to see you in Canterlot. Also, don’t bring him here again. That’s not a suggestion.”
“Um, okay.”
An awkward but less tense silence passed between the two brothers before Pharynx spoke up again.
“So, you’re running a foster home now, huh?” Pharynx asked. “How’s that going for you?”
Thorax sighed, “The job’s pretty tough, but somebody’s got to do it. Besides, it’s gotten so much better since I stopped working for—” He stopped and, to Pharynx’s surprise, growled under his breath, “—that woman .”
“You have no idea what to call her now that you know she’s our birth mom, don’t you?” Pharynx snickered knowingly.
“Ugh, tell me about it,” Thorax replied with a groan. “I mean, first, she was my horrible boss. Then, she became my horrible former boss who is also a criminal. Then, I find out that she gave birth to me and gave me half my DNA, but she’s just so awful that it’s impossible to even think of her as a mother, specifically MY mother, let alone call her one.”
Pharynx chuckled dryly. “Huh, didn’t think you’d have it in ya to be angry at anyone, kid.”
“Yeah, well, having to be the only person standing between that madwoman and a bunch of innocent kids kinda forced me to grow a spine,” Thorax explained before breaking out into a small smile, “kinda like how you used to be the only person standing between me and my bullies back when we were kids.”
“You wouldn’t have needed me to protect you all the time if you had just grown that spine of yours sooner,” Pharynx gruffly retorted.
“Hey, you know, maybe when you get out I could have you move in with me,” Thorax offered, wistfully. “I mean, I’d have to check to see if that’d be okay with the social worker first because of your record, but—”
“Kid, you and I both know that it’s not going to be okay with the social worker,” Pharynx bluntly interrupted. “Look, just stop worrying about me, alright? I can take care of myself. Besides, you’ve already got plenty of other people depending on ya without adding me to the list.”
Thorax scowled, totally offended by what his brother had just said. At the same time, Pharynx was right about him already having a lot on his plate. However, Thorax can’t just turn his back on his brother. That would be wrong. He was going to give Pharynx whatever support he could, and not even Pharynx himself was going to stop him.
“Hey,” Thorax replied. “I know you don’t want me bringing Gallus over anymore, but what if I came and paid you a visit or two on my own?”
Pharynx shrugged and humphed, “Do whatever you want. Just make sure you take care of the kid and keep him out of trouble, a’right?”
Thorax smiled and nodded, “Don’t worry. I will. So, is there anything else you want to say to him before we take off?”
“Yeah, bring him over here, and give us a little privacy, ‘kay?”
Thorax hung up the handset and switched places with Gallus. Gallus sat down in the booth, took the handset off the hook, and put the earpiece up his ear.
“What’s up, man?” he said to Pharynx.
“Hey, I know you weren’t trying to do anything stupid by coming here, but this better be the last time I see you in here,” Pharynx admonished. “In fact, just stay out of the city until I get out of jail. I worked too hard and gave up too much for you to either end up dead or a criminal. Ya got that?”
Gallus just nodded in understanding.
“By the way,” Pharynx continued. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my brother’s kind of a marshmallow peep. He’s not as bad as back when we were kids, but just look out for him for me, ‘kay?”
“He’s my legal guardian right now, so technically he should be looking out for me,” Gallus sarcastically quipped, “but yeah, I can look out for him for ya.”
“Good, good,” Pharynx approved. “Look, kid, whatever you do, just try to live a better life than the one I had, okay? You do not want to end up looking into a mirror one day and hating what you see. Trust me.”
Gallus nodded again and said, “Look, man, thanks for everything. I’ll try and live a life we can both be proud of. You can be sure of that.”
With that, they both hung up their handsets, and Gallus got up and walked away from the booth.