No Sun-Queen Shall Rend Asunder

A Sharp, Steel, Flash Fragment

Steel Wind choked and breathed in deep. He stared at Flash.

“You were in love?” he cried incredulously, eyes wide.

Flash bowed his head, not out of shame, but out of dread for the next question, and the three terrible words it would haul up in to the glare of Celestia’s sun.

“We were worried about you, Flash,” Sharp Spear put in. “All those months looking miserable and aloof, refusing our help every time we tried to help you.”

He touched Flash on the shoulder.  “We thought you were ill, or worse. And now you tell us you were in love?”

Flash, gaze still smelted to the flags, replied: “It’s somepony I shouldn’t, but I cannot help but love her.”

Here it comes, he thought, Solaris and Galaxia help me.

“Who is it, Flash?” the duo asked tentatively, breaking a bond as hard and thick as stone.

Flash lifted his eyes to them, four eyes waiting wide and two maws tensely half-opened. Once he spoke the three words, Ironhoof’s realm of iron and stone would rust, crumble and sink beneath spreading flowers of future joys.

“Princess Twilight Sparkle.” The second he said it, he was sure somewhere hour-glasses tilted over and time for the Order pattered out, sprinkle by sprinkle.

The weight of the words almost toppled Sharp and Steel on to the floor, armour clattering an awful cacophony. No crash and cracked armour, but the delicate silence of Sharp and Steel’s drawn out gawping. Flash waited, wondering which one would crack first; with sympathy or gobsmacked trepidation.

There were no stereotypical gasps, only squeaks.

“Pr-pr-Princess Twilight Sparkle,” Steel said.

He turned his head to stare at Sharp Spear, hoofs pushing him on to haunches so he could raise both to his mouth.

“Oooooh,” Steel breathed. A pause, and he set his hoofs to the floor. “I - I … I see. Oh, Flash,” he sighed.