> That's So Flurry > by False Door > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > That's So Flurry > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi, my name is Flurry Heart. I'm an alicorn. I'm a princess of the Crystal Empire. A princess, not the princess… yet. That’s still mom's job. I'm twelve years old. I got my cutie mark just last year. It's a golden heart with an empty hourglass in it. It means unconditional love or eternal love or love for useless timepieces. We're still figuring it out. I'm good at sports like my dad and my grades are amazing in all my classes except for potions but that's only because I accidentally made a highly corrosive expanding foam that destroyed my lab space when I was supposed to just make soda water. I like puppies and bunnies and the smell of granulated dishwasher soap. (Sorry. I didn't know when to bring those up but I thought they were important.) Every morning, I wake up with a smile on my muzzle and a song in my heart. I do my stretches and I brush my big bouncy mane. I wink at the me in the mirror and the me in the mirror winks back. Then I teleport down to my chair at the breakfast table. Yay, chocolate chip pancakes! My favorite! The table’s about as long as a hoofball field. I sit at midfield while mom and dad sit at the end zones. “Good morning family,” I shout. I heard one of them grunt in reply. I think it was my dad but it's hard to tell from this distance. The doctor says I need glasses because I’m nearsighted but I think I'm fine. I inhaled my pancakes and licked my plate clean. (I would have a glass of syrup every morning if mom and dad would let me.) I set my plate down and held my breath, eyes pingponging between my parents as they left the table without a word and departed through different doors that seemed miles apart. We're on day fifty-three of no kissing goodbye after breakfast but that's okay, right? Kissing is gross anyway, at least when my parents do it. All I'm saying is that I used to see them kiss more… or at all. But it's fine if they don't kiss, because love and affection can take many forms. Mom taught me that. I levitated my empty glass and well-licked dish to the busboy. We have one of those. Life in a castle is pretty great. Yeah, I live in a big castle made of crystal. Did I mention that? Keeping a smile on my face, I put on my saddle bags and flew to school. If I'm not late, I always fly at low altitude so I can say hi to everyone along the way. The first half of the school day was pretty normal. Topaz got in trouble for passing notes in class and I melted a glass beaker in potions. Maybe the problem is that I'm actually too advanced for that class because I keep doing things the teacher says aren't possible. The real trouble started at lunchtime. I sat by my friends, Bluebell and Topaz in the cafeteria like always, excitedly opened my lunch tin and beheld the nutritious bounty that was food lovingly prepared by some cook I didn't even know. “The prince and princess don't even love each other anymore,” scoffed a filly behind me. “I went to the fundraiser. They didn't even make eye contact the whole night, much less talk to each other.” My mouth dropped open, allowing a wad of wet sandwich to fall out and splat on the table with the consistency of mashed potatoes. I spun in my seat to see who would dare say such an awful thing. She was waiting for this moment, staring me dead in the eye with an obnoxious smirk. Of course. Who else would it be? Ugh, Glitter Bomb. I can't stand her. She’s mean and her body wash smells like rotting fruit and she has the stupidest little laugh. “That's not true,” I interrupted, angrily. “My mom is the Princess of Love. My parents’ relationship is perfect and everlasting.” “Really? I didn't see anything like that. But I did overhear two servants making a bet on how much longer they'd stay married.” I gasped at the unthinkable tale. “You liar,” I blurted. That was all I had. I didn't get my cutie mark in trash talking. “Fine, don't believe me,” she smugged. (That’s when you shrug smugly. It's a word I made up for Glitter Bomb because she does it so much.) “But don't be surprised when you come home one day and your dad is packing his stuff.” She let out a cackle that sounded like a shrieking balloon but still cut painfully through my soul. I turned my back to her with a humph and tried to get back to finishing my lunch. “Just ignore her,” scoffed Bluebelle “Yeah,” agreed Topaz. “She'll say anything to get a reaction.” I tried to ignore it, but instead I thought about it for the rest of the school day. Of course she just says stuff to make me upset but this time the things she said weren't so easy to dismiss. That evening at the dinner table, (which is also the breakfast table,) I tried to find things to put my mind at ease. My parents weren't talking and when I thought about it, I wasn't even sure If they could see eachother from that distance. “Maybe we should sit at a smaller table,” I suggested, loudly, while anxiously twirling my utensils in the air. “Remember? Didn't we used to sit at a smaller table?” I was pretty sure this table was left over from a banquet and we just never downsized it back. “Isn't the quiet nice though?” shouted my mom. My already weak smile crumbled as I tried to get the rebound. “So, uh… Hearts and Hooves day is coming up. You haven't gone out in a while.” “We know,” grumbled my dad dismissively. I don't think my mom even said anything at all. This was doing the opposite of reassuring me. I began to panic. I couldn't believe this. Hearts and Hooves Day was coming and it didn't even sound like they remembered it existed let alone planned anything for it. They left dinner, not together. I stayed behind, sitting there alone for minutes while my dinner lost its warmth and staff bussed my parents’ dishes away. Having lost my appetite, I decided to tail my parents to see what they were doing in their end of the day free time. I found my mom just sitting in the garden alone, looking weary and forlorn but also at peace. My dad was in his den, reading comics. My parents were basically already separated. - - - “Holy shit, Cay,” grunted Shining as he crumpled gracelessly on the bed. “This last couple of months have been murder. I need a vacation bad and it has to be at least two weeks.” “I know,” sighed Cadance into her pillow, eyes already shut, mouth already drooling. “If the talks and the stupid crystal embargo and the municipal strikes and the various infrastructure crises ever settle enough, let's try to go somewhere next month, just the two of us.” “Already way ahead of you,” she groaned. Didn't you see all the travel brochures I stacked on the bureau?” “Nope. I don't notice anything that's not a bulleted action item on castle letterhead. I've been on zombie autopilot for weeks. I don't even know if Flurry's doing her homework or if I'm still eating or using the bathroom.” “Uh huh,” she grunted apathetically in semi consciousness. She rolled over slowly to face him. Shining draped his foreleg over her midsection, curled up against her body and passed out in just moments. - - - I woke up with a frown on my muzzle and a whatever the opposite of a song in my heart is. Silence? Burning flowers? That sound an empty ketchup bottle makes when you squeeze it? Yeah… that's it. I did my stretches. I brushed my big droopy mane. I winked at the me in the mirror but the me in the mirror didn't wink back. I scowled back at her with sudden disgust at her hopelessness. “You know what?” I began defiantly. “If anyone can fix this problem, you can.” I pointed at her with fire in my eyes. “You’re an alicorn princess. You're the daughter of the Princess of Love. You have a cutie mark that probably means something about love. Who better to fix this than you? Now let's try that wink again!” Down at the half, but hyped by my own locker room speech, I went to breakfast ready to rally a clutch win or at least an injury delay but my parents weren't even there. Their plates were already gone too as if they hadn't even come to the table at all. That happens sometimes when they have to be somewhere else early in the morning. At school, I barely heard a thing, too distracted by my own meandering plotting. My mission was clear: I needed to rekindle my parents' love for eachother and keep them from getting a divorce but how? I needed a way to help, preferably without them knowing I was helping. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to be the Princess of Love, have your marriage fail and need someone else to fix it for you? I’d die. Everyone always says I’m impulsive and have an overactive imagination which leads to worrying about nothing but even a broken clock is right twice a day and this was one of those two times. I was going to be my parents’ hero, I just didn't know how yet. My desperate scheming melted away with the voice of the teacher. “Princess Flurry Heart, where is your book?” I blinked, looking around the room for clues to help me figure out what we were doing. Apparently we were in potions class because everyone had their potions books open. “Oh,” I laughed nervously. The teacher tapped the chalkboard where it said ‘p. 181’ in a circle. I brought out my book and she continued the lecture. Then I sloppy flipped open the tome, accidentally turned past the right page and landed on one of the blacked out recipes we're not supposed to know how to do. The illustration caught my eyes immediately, a flask with little hearts coming out of the open neck. I squinted at the title which was blacked out with streaks of permanent marker. In the right glint of light I could just barely make out the difference between the ink of the text and the big fat censor bar. “Love… poe… potion.” My eyes widened. This was exactly what I needed, exactly what they needed. Ugh, but the ingredients and instructions were all blacked out too. But if I could read the title, I could probably figure out all that stuff too if I just looked at it hard enough. Nothing else was on my mind for the rest of the day. When I got home after school, I went straight back to the heavily censored recipe in my potions textbook. I floated it in the air, slowly tilting it back and forth under the bright light of my horn. Without looking, I scribbled on a blank sheet as the letters slowly revealed themselves to me. It was tricky and my eyes hurt afterwards but by the end I had an entire recipe for saving a marriage. Reading down the list, I knew we had all of these ingredients in the castle lab. Making this potion didn't seem too difficult. My only real question was how would I get my parents to drink it? It didn't take me that long to piece it together. I went to dinner with an amazing plan in my head. “Mom, dad, next week I'm going to make you a delicious Hearts and Hooves Day dinner for two on the balcony,” I yelled. “You have to come, okay?” My dad was the first to protest. “Ugh, I dunno if we-” “YOU. HAVE. TO. COME. OKAY?” I growled in annoyance. “Okay? It's for a holiday. It'll take like two minutes.” My dad put his comic down and looked down the table at me.” “Fine…” “Mom?” I shouted, looking back the other direction for some kind of confirmation. “Yeah, sure,” she sighed at her bowl of soup. I did a triumphant hoofpump. Oh yeah! Romance was in the air! - - - When the big day came, I had a spiked bottle of wine perfectly engineered to keep my parents from wanting to escape the bonds of holy matrimony. Full disclosure, I burned and spilled a lot of ingredients and solutions before getting a bubbly flask with little hearts coming out of the top like in the picture. I also accidentally made something that smelled purple but I call that another win. Luckily my advanced potion skills translate to cooking pretty well. “It's not ready yet,” I admitted to my mom, red faced and desperately swirling a wok over a sweltering stovetop. My parents exchanged concerned glances as the gas flames jumped to a pool of oil on the counter. “Are you sure you don't want one of us to help or if you want to keep it a secret till presentation you can just ask one of-” “No, mom. It's fine. It's fine.” I tossed a dishrag over the unappreciated fire. “I said I was going to make you dinner and I'm going to make you dinner. So just give me another… like twenty minutes. You can't rush perfection and I’m well acquainted with the fire triangle so don't worry.” I finally got them to leave but not before they posted the sous chef in the corner to watch me. Once I finished, I was sprinkling parmesan cheese on two plates of steaming black pasta primavera. “And a little sprig of parsley for color. Perfect,” I chimed. This dish was going to blow their minds. I teleported to the balcony where I'd already set the table and mood lighting with strings of lanterns. I placed the covered dishes on the little round cafe table and then poured two glasses of my special wine. “Now to find my parents,” I gasped to no one in particular. I teleported to the garden but no one was there. Then I checked the foyer. Then I went back to the kitchen. “Oh, there you are,” came an out of breath voice. I spun around to face my mom. “Sweetie, I'm so sorry. Something's come up and I have to make an emergency trip. It's nothing you need to worry about but I'll be gone for at least a couple of days. Can we do the dinner after I get back?” My expression wilted. “Oh… okay…” At first I was devastated. I’d put in so much work and burnt off so much hair but then I remembered what it was all really about, keeping my parents together. I still had the potion, or at least the ability to make another one if it spoiled. Their relationship could wait a couple of days. What a lame Hearts and Hooves Day though. “We really appreciate how much effort you're putting into this.” Mom kissed me on the forehead and vanished. - - - Twilight pranced excitedly up to the crystal castle gatehouse where a pair of armed sentinels stood watch. “Hey, soldiers. Mind if I drop in on the family while I'm in town?” “Oh, Princess. What an unexpected pleasure. Go right on in.” She could have just infiltrated the castle to make her appearance an even bigger surprise but she’d been in the game long enough to know that castle guards weren't big fans of surprises. She teleported to the main foyer first, rubbing her hooves and practically drooling in anticipation of finding her quarry. Then she aparated inside the study, hoping to find her brother but instead found Sunburst alone and shuffling through a stack of papers at the desk. He looked up at her in surprise and adjusted his glasses. “Princess Twilight Sparkle. I didn't know you were coming today.” “Well… I didn't either,” she laughed. “I was just in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by.” “Flash is on assignment,” he began bluntly. “Security detail for Cadance who’s out of the castle. You just missed them.” “Aw, jeez,” she grumbled dejectedly. “Well, is Shining here?” “Yes, he is… You know, they shouldn't be gone for more than a couple of days; you might just stay and wait for them if you want.” “Hmm… I don't really have the time,” she muttered to herself. “Well, your brother is likely reading in the den at this hour.” “Thanks, Sunburst.” Twilight teleported once more to the den to find her brother indeed reading there on a floor pillow. His den looked like a glorified version of his colthood room with posters, figures and signed memorabilia both from sports and comics. It was all the stuff he liked but in a place that was… out of the way. Shining looked up from his graphic novel with a start. “Twili,” he smiled. “What are you doing here? As if I didn't know.” “Oh, you know, I was just-” “He's not here,” he smirked, snapping the book shut. “I know already,” she moaned. “I told him I wasn't free today and then I found a way to sneak away to surprise him and it turns out that he's the one who’s not free today.” Shining stood up and stretched his legs. “Well, I lost my date too so I guess neither of us will be getting any for Hearts and Hooves Day. When are you going to just ask him to marry you and move in together? That would make things a lot easier.” “I'm not going to ask him,” she retorted haughtily. “I'm waiting for him to ask me.” “Well, when's he going to ask you?” he shrugged. “I don't know,” she scoffed. “You're not supposed to know. You can ask him if you want but just don't tell me about it.” “Okay… Well, now that you're here, you hungry?” “Actually, yeah, kind of. If I got food, it wouldn't be a total loss.” “There’s food waiting on the balcony… maybe.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe?” “Yeah, C’mon.” They blinked up to the big balcony where a little table and two chairs glowed under soft pink lights. There was a pair of wine glasses and covered plates. A smattering of rose petals graced the floor beneath their hooves. “Oh, no. Was this supposed to be your date?” she laughed. “Yeah, Flurry threw this together for us before Cadance had to bail.” She pushed aside a veil of white tulle hanging from the ceiling. “She went all out. That's really cute… and sad. Should I really be cutting in like this?” “Might as well eat the food,” argued her brother. “It's not going to keep and I see the wine’s already open. It'd be sadder if no one ate it and it just went in the trash.” “I guess you're right,” she muttered. Twilight took a seat and curiously lifted her plate cover to reveal a dish of pasta shaped charcoal with parmesan and a sprig of parsley. She gave a pained smile. “Oh… well… isn't that… interesting.” Shining screwed up his face. “Well, we can still drink the wine anyway,” he chuckled, turning the opened bottle to see the label. “She didn't make that; it's from our cellar.” Then he whispered. “But if she asks, we'll tell her it was delicious but it would be even more delicious if it wasn't set on fire.” “Of course,” she laughed. Twilight raised her glass. “To being abandoned on Hearts and Hooves day.” Shining floated his glass in for the clink. - - - For a little bit, I was planning on just leaving the whole venue up for when my parents came back but then I remembered the food. It probably wouldn't taste as good if I left it out for a couple of days. I should probably put it in the fridge to save it for them. I teleported back to the balcony expecting to find a sad, empty table for two but what I found was my dad passionately kissing my Aunt Twilight on the lips. My mouth dropped open as my brain shortcircuited with horror. I could not even process what I was seeing. How could this- Wait, the wine. The love potion. Oh no. But also yay, my potion worked! But also, oh no. “Dad, no,” I shouted. “You can't do that!” The two of them paid no attention to me, lost in the embrace of each other's lips. I grabbed my dad with my magic and pulled him away from her, breaking their kiss. “Sweet Cheeks,” he cried out, reaching a desperate hoof toward her. “Boo Boo Butt,” she responded in kind like she was watching him roll away on a departing train. I stuck my tongue out in disgust. This was not exactly what I was expecting. Their eyes were shaped like hearts and the only thing going on in their brains was an intense need to be together… and kissing. I figured that out when my aunt teleported straight to him and they picked up right where they left off but with tongues. “Auntie Twilight,” I begged. “Please stop! This is wrong!” Once again they completely ignored me as they began to moan into each other’s mouths. How was I going to stop them? They could both teleport and Auntie Twilight was a lot more powerful and smarter than me. At least that's what I thought before she called my dad ‘Boo Boo Butt.’ I had to find a way to deactivate the potion. The recipe. I should check it again. Maybe there was an important clue somewhere in all the stuff that I didn't read. I teleported my dad with me to my room and scrambled to open my textbook. “Squishy Bear?” he called. “Squishy Bear, where are you?” He sounded so sad and scared. I squinted at the page again. “Love… poison? Love poison? What the heck is that?” Turns out the title I'd only bothered reading at school didn't actually say ‘love potion’ at all. I tried to read the supplemental text but it was just as slow going as the rest of the text. Should I just look it up in some other book in the library? Ugh. I didn't have time to do research, not when I needed to stop them from being gross. When I looked up from the book, my dad was gone. I dropped the recipe to the floor and galloped to the door. Outside was an empty hall. I quickly teleported back to the balcony. When I appeared in the room, they were kissing up against the wall and my aunt's hoof was- HER HOOF WAS PETTING MY DAD’S COMPLETELY OUT PENIS LIKE IT WAS A CAT! I covered my eyes and screamed like someone had dumped a sack of spiders and snakes and oatmeal raisin cookies on my head. (You know, those horrible cookies that look like chocolate chip cookies but aren't?) Eew! Eew! Eew Eeeeeeeeew! Everything about this was eew! If eew was water, this was the bottom of Eew Ocean! I teleported my dad away from her once more. This time I took him to the library where he suddenly became very distressed at his separation from his sister but apparently not smart enough to just immediately teleport back to the balcony again. “Where are you, Wuvy Bug?” He began pacing in circles in a panic. I went straight to the glass case containing those ugly masks King Sombra made us wear when he took over the empire and I smashed it open. “Okay, dad, I'm putting this on you for your own-” Just then, I heard a crash of splintering wood. I whirled around to see Aunt Twilight’s head poking through a jagged hole in the wall. “Bumblebee,” she cried. “Auntie, you know how to teleport, remember?” She grabbed my dad with her magic and pulled him to her but instead of bringing him into another kiss, she stood him on his hind legs and shoved his entire penis straight down her throat. My dad groaned. “That feels so good, Sunbeam!” “Dad, that's your name for me,” I shrieked. “Auntie Twilight! You can't just put your mouth there. It's weird!” Before I could try to wrestle him away from her, they disappeared in a flash. My mouth dropped open. “Oh no,” I breathed. They were gone and they could be anywhere… doing ANYTHING. How was I supposed to fix this? I needed help from another alicorn but… but then I'd have to tell someone what I did. - - - Shining and Twilight appeared outside, deep in the garden, entangled just as they were. Without a wall to lean on, Shining dropped back down, bracing his forehooves on his sister's back where he instinctively began to rock his hips. Twilight hummed as her brother pumped his cock in and out of her mouth, his swaying balls bumping her chin. She ran her tongue along the underside of his length as the sound of rhythmic squelching increased with his speed. Shining screwed his eyes shut as he fucked her mouth with wild abandon and his pleasure took off like a rocket. “Your mouth is amazing, Twili,” he grunted in delirium. Sensing that her brother wouldn't last much longer at his pace, she abruptly froze him in place with her magic. She sat on her haunches and pulled agonizingly slowly off of his cock, savoring every inch of his girth. She paused at the tip, suckling on his flare and caressing it lovingly with pursed lips. Then she popped him out and licked him slowly from base to tip and back again while massaging his balls in one hoof. Her other hoof traveled down between her legs where it began to rub her slick nub, setting off fireworks in her nethers. Saying goodbye was hard but as much as she wanted to devour his virile load right there, she knew a place she wanted it even more. Twilight stood up and released him from her spell. Face flush, she urgently presented her backside to him and wrapped her forelegs around the base of a nearby tree in preparation of a rough reception. Then she flagged her tail and looked back at him lustfully. “Put it inside me, Honkydoodle.” Shining quickly pounced upon her and lined up with her awaiting marehood. She gasped as she felt her lower lips cradle his flare. He found his target by the newfound heat in his tip. Then he thrusted forward. Her wet folds parted eagerly as he squeezed inside her and they let out a mutual groan of pleasure. Shining drew back and then hilted deep inside her, eliciting an even louder duet of satisfaction. Soon he'd found his rhythm. Their inner thighs slapped roughly. The leaves rustled above them as the tree absorbed Shining’s spirited thrusts. Twilight’s tongue lolled out of her mouth. She choked the tree tighter as she cried out in ecstasy, Shining slamming her pussy with all he had in him. He desperately gripped her midsection as he continued his ascension of pleasure. Suddenly Twilight's spine bucked and her back half quivered as a violent climax surged through her. Her mouth dropped open even wider and her shaking hooves nearly slipped from the tree base. Her brother’s speed only seemed to intensify as he was cresting upon his own orgasm. With a shaky final grunt, he pushed deep inside her and held tightly as his cock throbbed, delivering its hefty load of hot seed. - - - My horn glowed as I followed the sounds of rustling and tortured pain further into the garden of all places. When I squeezed between a pair of bushes, I was met with the visual atrocity of my raggedly panting dad mounted atop my blissed out Aunt Twilight. I recoiled and bit my tongue so hard. Don't scream. Don't scream. Don't scream. Not outside. The guards will be on us so fast. Dad- he- he put his thing in auntie’s… place. It was still in there and it was so gross but they sure seemed to enjoy it… I think? I teleported all three of us to my parents’ bedroom. “Was it good for you, Meat Chunklet?” asked my aunt, dreamily from beneath him. “It sure was, Sugar Snap Pea Pie,” he sighed back. Vomit gurgled in the bottom of my throat. I couldn't bring myself to directly separate them at that moment, them still being… together. It would probably only upset them again anyway. “This is the worst Hearts and Hooves Day ever,” I sobbed, throwing a sheet over their awful display. My dad dismounted her, dripping stallion juice on the floor, or maybe auntie was, or maybe they both were. They collapsed to the floor in the tangled sheet, made heart eyes at each other and started making out again, slower this time as if they were worn out. Yep, it was still gross but it was still an improvement. Welp, I was officially done with this. I wanted to remove my eyes with an ice cream scoop. The things I’d seen. I couldn't let them just continue on like this. I had to call for help. I momentarily left the room to send a distress signal to Canterlot that sounded urgent but left out many details. By the time Luna and Celestia showed up, I had my dad and aunt chained up and muzzled Sombra style. “What on earth is going on here?” gasped Celestia. I took a deep breath. “My parents don't talk or kiss anymore so I wanted to fix their marriage by making them a romantic Hearts and Hooves Day dinner and feeding them a love potion so they'd fall back in love and not get a divorce but the recipe I used was actually for something called a love poison and then instead of my mom and dad drinking it, my aunt and dad drank it and now I can't stop them from trying to do it. Please help!” “A divorce? I didn't realize their marriage was so bad.” “Yes, that was the problem then, this is the problem now.” I gestured to the two ponies rattling their chains as they tried in vain to reach one another, crying out muffled but undoubtedly nauseating pet names into their muzzles. Luna looked over the chained and gagged lovers and made some quiet, smirking comment to her sister. “Oh, hush,” she scolded. Then she turned back to me. “Your very plan was flawed from the outset. You can not force ponies to love each other, even if they are your parents. If your mother can not help things work between them, it was simply not meant to be.” The words were difficult to stomach but touched on many second thoughts I’d had along the way and just ignored to push forward. “But, I don’t want them to divorce,” I whimpered. “What do I do?” “There will be time later,” Sighed Celestia. “Show me the recipe you used for this poison.” I floated both the open book and my notes in front of her. She blinked in surprise. “You used a redacted recipe from your school textbook?” “Yeah,” I admitted slowly. “It was blacked out for a reason, Flurry Heart. Did you not stop and think about that?” “No,” I groaned. She grumbled to herself as she looked over my transcription. “This will require another potion to counteract the effects of the poison.” “Oh, I can make it,” I chimed. “I’m actually kind of an expert with potions.” The sisters side-eyed each other before raiding the castle library and ultimately benching me for the making of the antidote potion. They forced it down my dad’s throat first while restraining him. Then they did Aunt Twilight. The afflicted ponies laid on the floor groaning as the poison melted off. “What the hell just happened?” grunted my dad. I opened my mouth to speak but then Princess Luna cut in. “Your daughter accidentally fed you and your sister a love poison. Jeez, what a snitch, I thought. “Flurry. Why would you do that?” he growled, struggling to his hooves. “I’m sorry. I thought it was a love potion. It was meant for you and mom.” “Why would you think we needed something like that?” Tears began to gather in my eyes. “Because… because you’re growing apart. You never talk or kiss anymore and you don’t even seem to want to be in the same room together.” He gave an exhausted sigh. “Sunbeam, your mom and I still love each other very much. We’re just at a very stressful point in our rule. It's taking a huge mental toll on us and this is just how we’re coping with it. We're not talking or interacting as much right now because all we do all day is talk and it's nice to not talk for once and to be alone and in your own head instead of in a crowded room of upset ponies. It might look like we've lost interest in each other from the outside but we're just decompressing and pacing ourselves. When you're overloaded, you have to drop the ball in some areas. Sometimes it's our relationship. Sometimes it's parenting. This time it's both. Your mom deals with things by relaxing in nature. I prefer escapism with comic books. That's it. That's the deal.” “Oh,” I frowned. “Well… that's good, right? So there's no problem. Your heads might hurt for a little bit but at least nothing really bad hap-” “I remember everything,” he glared. “As do I,” added Aunt Twilight. “How am I supposed to explain this to Flash?” I covered my face in shame as my insides shriveled like a raisin. “Wait, so you two actually…” Luna clopped her hooves together a couple of times and the room fell into an awkward silence. “Well, on the plus side, you seemed to… really enjoy it?” I smiled cautiously around the room as the silence continued. Tough crowd. Bunch of negative nancies. “Let us never speak of this again,” said Celestia in a deathly serious tone. “Yes, especially not to mom,” I agreed. Luna and Celestia side-eyed each other again. - - - “It seems I still have a lot to teach you about love,” raved my mom as she paced through my room. “I know you were trying to help but do you realize that by meddling in our relationship, you've actually made things more complicated for us?” “Yes,” I moped. “Communication is central to all good relationships,” she continued. “It goes hoof and hoof with love. All of this could have been easily avoided if you had just asked us how we were feeling.” I messed up real bad but in spite of my amazing help, things did get better after that. I made my parents the same dinner, making sure it was exactly as tasty as the first one. They agreed it was delicious but it would be even more delicious if it wasn't set on fire. Maybe next time. They went on a fun vacation together in the tropics. We went back to eating at the smaller table and my parents even kiss after breakfast now. It seemed like things were back to normal until a few weeks later when they came into my room wearing their scary we need to talk faces. My mom sighed heavily. “We just got word that your Auntie Twilight is pregnant. My eyes bulged out of my head. “I'm getting a new cousin?” I shrieked in excitement. I waved my forelegs in the air like I'd just scored the winning penalty kick. I looked with open-mouthed glee back and forth between their glowering faces, eventually slowing to a stop. “Kind of seems like no one’s as jazzed about this as me.” “Flurry,” my dad began gruffly. “This is such a serious consequence, we have no idea how you can possibly make up for it.” “I can babysit,” I suggested excitedly. “How?” asked my mom. “How are you going to do that? By moving in with Auntie Twilight?” “Well, no. I didn’t mean like a nanny; I just meant sometimes when she comes over to visit. Is it a boy or girl?” I squeed. “We don’t know yet.” “Does she have any names picked out yet?” “Flurry.” “Maybe I can name the baby! Wait, Auntie and Flash aren’t even married yet, why are they having a baby?” My parent’s expressions soured even further at my question. “Flash is not the biological father of the baby,” my mom replied slowly. My face collapsed in a confused frown. “But, wait, then who… ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Oh…” Sometimes you win. Sometimes you accidentally make your dad impregnate your aunt with your three quarters sibling. I'm still learning.