Letters to the Princess

“I’m so…I’m so worried, Auntie Tia.” Flurry’s voice cracked on the final word. “But I don’t know how to keep chasing somepony who doesn’t want to be chased.”

Princess Celestia smiled gently, the perfect archetype of a mother. What Cadence could be in her softer moments, when she stopped trying to fix Flurry up with anyone, anyone but the one mare she wanted.

“Sometimes, little one,” she said softly, “You have to learn to put yourself first. You can’t set yourself on fire to keep everypony else warm.”

Flurry Heart’s gut twisted. If she were a better pony, that is exactly what she would have done. If she were a better princess, she would have known that the Heart was about to glitch. She would have used her magic to prepare fires across the city, and she would have made sure everyone was gathered. Everyone. The hours she had spent searching had all been for nothing, because she’d made a mistake, and old Malachite Mandrake was dead. He would never attend his grandson’s cuteceneara, and even the presence of the Princess could not make up for his absence.

“I don’t think it’s even about putting her first,” she whispered, head hanging. “I…it’s me, Auntie Tia. I need her. Since she left, I’ve just felt…”

There were so many words, but none that quite encompassed it. Lost. Empty. Purposeless. Alone.

“I’ve felt wrong,” she finished.

Auntie Tia’s pink eyes widened and she wrapped a wing around Flurry’s shoulders. “Sometimes, Flurry, ponies make mistakes. They think somepony is something they’re not, or that they’re ready for something they aren’t ready for.”

Flurry blinked. “I don’t…”

“I’m talking about me,” Auntie Tia said quickly, her eyes tight. “I wasn’t sure about Cozy Glow when I took her on as a client, and with hindsight I can see I let Rarity sway my judgement. They both led me to believe that she was…healed…from her youth. That she was a different pony. The events of the last few years — your relationship with her — has shown me that I was wrong to believe them. Cozy Glow adjusted to society, to an extent. But Rarity was compensating for her. Helping her to mask.”

“That’s normal,” Flurry protested weakly, driven to defend the mare she still thought of, in her heart, as her marefriend. “They were a family.”

Auntie Tia shook her head, a calm rejection. “Cozy Glow is still deeply damaged, and since Rarity’s departure it’s become too obvious to ignore.”

Carefully, Flurry backed out of the embrace. “We’re all damaged.”

“Cozy Glow is a manipulator, Flurry. She’s always been a manipulator. If you’re feeling this way, like you need her, then there’s a chance that she’s done something deliberate to build these feelings in you.”

No. Flurry felt anger rising inside her chest, hot and steely. “No. That isn’t true."

There was a delicate cough, and Flurry turned to see Raven Inkwell, Celestia’s ancient seneschal-turned-secretary, trundling in with a tea-trolley.

“Don’t start, Raven,” Auntie Tia said grumpily. “I won’t have this argument again. I was wrong to take her on as a client, not wrong in my handling of her. Maybe I am being unfair — slightly — but that doesn’t change the fundamental truth that she wasn’t ready. For marriage or anything else.”

“She’s not a manipulator,” Flurry said, her voice shaking. At least, not to me. She never did that to me.

“Actually, Princess,” Raven Inkwell said, earning herself a glare for the usage of the old title. “I was going to tell you that Princess Twilight sent a scroll. Cozy Glow’s in the catacombs, and Princess Twilight isn’t happy.”

Flurry Heart shot to her hooves, overturning the teacup Raven was offering to her. “In the catacombs?” That was where she’d been kept as a child. That was where she’d been frozen. That was where, Flurry was certain, the nightmares used to take her, back when she’d wake trembling and Flurry would soothe her back to sleep.

“Yes,” Raven Inkwell said placidly. “And it seems she's trying to rob them.”