So what should he call it? A crush? Crush seems like it was a good word. A good word for a very bad thing.

Shining sat in the cool nursery contemplating. Flurry Heart, nestled in her ornate crib, lay staring gently at him. Her chambers were large and extravagant, as most things in the Crystal Empire were, and sitting in the center of the tapestries and crystals, the ogee arches that left the room open to the wide night sky, and all the engraved pilasters lay the girl that Shining would sacrifice all of it for.

Her wide blue eyes watched him through the bars of the crib. He imagined that they had to be just like his eyes, that the magnetism he could feel from her must be something he could channel. She was calm right now, as the drapes were drawn through the room on the wind. His heart still, Shining watched the summer air flick away at a loch of her mane. There was weight in this moment to him.

He was still shocked that he had a daughter. Who wouldn’t be? However, painting over any of his doubts was a firm shade of confidence. Confidence, as Shining was coming to find, was fickle. For example: one may be confident that they would never feel inclined to cheat on their wife. That confidence, if one had it, may just be the bedrock that helped somepony manage to quell his fears and settle down to start a family. One may also be confident that they don’t like stallions, is another example.

Oh stars, that was another issue. How? Was it just with age? Hormones calming down? What in Shining’s life was changing to bring this to the forefront? While he had never found stallions repulsive, it simply hadn’t ever been a factor he had considered. He could feel his chest tightening up a bit. He didn’t want to think about stallions. He didn’t want to think about Sunburst. He didn’t want to think about Cadence even. It was all too complicated, too much at once for him to rationalize. Flurry Heart was simple.

Her eyes were starting to slip closed, her little twitches and movements beginning to settle. Instinctively he leaned his head forward, coming to rest gently against the side of the crib, his horn sticking through the bars and ending up right in her reach. She laconically moved up to grab the end of Shining’s horn with a small hoof. With only the sounds of the drapes fluttering through the room, Shining let out a deep and gentle hum, feeling the end of his horn begin to gently flicker. With his eyes closed and his head down, Shining continued to hum until he could feel the probing grasp begin to loosen.

Slowly he began to pull away, letting her limp hold slacken until her small foreleg lay gently to her side, his horn drawn back through the bars of the crib. His mind a bit calmer, more airy and focused, he drew a sharp breath through his nostrils and looked once again at his daughter. Everything in his life was different because of her. Absently, he brought a broad hoof up gently and went to touch her. There was a gentle clop as his hoof, seeming enormous by comparison, touched against the bars of the crib, coming just short of managing to make contact with his daughter.

Scraping his hoof down the bars of the crib, he sighed. The light and ephemeral acoustics of the room barely carried the sound of him trotting out of him trotting away.

Author's Note

The end of Part 1 for now. How will Shining come to terms with this new side of himself, and how will he let it affect those around him? There's plenty more story to tell, so stick around.