Sighing, Twilight flushed the toilet. She had prepared diligently for the upcoming conversation, going over everything she wanted to say multiple times as practice for the real deal. Unfortunately, that time seems to have gone to waste. Twilight was definitely not prepared for the actual talk. On some level, she figured she was never going to be 100% ready to have this conversation, no matter how many index cards she filled out, or how much time spent pacing and mumbling in her office.
She slowly walked over to the sink, lighting her horn to get the water flowing as she went. She held her hooves underneath the warm water, her eyes kept firmly down on her hoof washing. She reached over and grabbed the bar of soap with her hoof. Though slippery, the practice she had accrued using her hoofs to hold the bar won out, and she did not drop the soap. Setting the soap back in its tray, she rubbed her hooves together. After counting to 30 seconds of scrubbing, she turned the water back on with her horn and rinsed off her hooves.
Even with the amount of focus she was putting on proper hygiene, it did not distract her from the elephant in the room.
The mirror.
Ever since she had the slightest inkling of her current conundrum, she had become terrified of mirrors, and refused to look into them. While this greatly confused ponies at first, after a couple hundred years, it had become just another one of her many quirks that ponies grew to accept as normal.
Wiping her hooves off with the small towelette suspended from a bar attached to the wall next to the sink, she kept her eyes rooted to her hooves. It was a matter of habit by now.
She looked to the door, was she really ready to go out there and finally have the talk with her wife? The one she had been dreading for the better part of a century at this point?
No, absolutely not.
There was only one thing in the bathroom that could reasonably keep holding up her talk with her wife.
The mirror.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, and turned to face the mirror. She knew that had her eyes been open, she would see her reflection. But her eyes remained shut. She tried and failed to find the will to open them, but after several seconds she just gave up. Pointing her head to the side, she opened her eyes, and slowly began to turn her head towards the mirror.
A tall purple Alicorn looked back at her. Her horn ever so slightly rounded off at the top. Her eyes had the normal white sclera, her usual amethyst irises wrapped around her round black pupils. Her teeth were perfectly maintained, completely level and straight the whole way down her mouth. Her coat was her usual shade of lavender, though maybe a little longer than usual. She would probably have to schedule an appointment for that at some point soon. Her mane still flowed in waves just like it always had for the past 6000 years. She turned a bit to the side to see her cutie mark. The same 6 pointed star of Magic looked right back at her on her rump.
She started hyperventilating. This was all wrong. Where was the sharp tip of her horn? Where were the slitted eyes? Where were the fangs? The darker coat? The cloudy mane? The corrupted cutie mark?
Why did she look so normal on the outside, when clearly she was anything but on the inside?
Her hind legs gave out, and her rump slammed into the tiles of the bathroom with a loud bang. She stared at the crying lavender alicorn in the mirror. Clearly the... thing on the wall was no mirror, since it didn't reflect the monster looking into it properly.
A trio of knocks on the bathroom door startled her. "Twilight, honey? Is everything alright in there? It sounded like you fell over," Her wife's voice called out to her through the door.
Twilight tried to call out and say that she was fine, and that she was ready to have the talk she had told Celestia about, but couldn't get enough control over her breathing to actually say anything. From the outside it probably sounded like she was sobbing, which in all fairness wasn't incorrect.
A golden glow surrounded the doorknob as her wife let herself into the bathroom.
The first thing Celestia noticed was her wife sitting on the tile floor of her bathroom. The next thing she noticed was that her wife was weeping, though strangely she managed to remain upright whilst doing so. She followed Twilight's line of sight to see what could cause her wife such torment.
The mirror.
Celestia's eyes widened. When she had first noticed that Twilight had stopped looking at mirrors, she had asked her if she wanted the one in their bathroom moved. Twilight had said that she was fine with it being there, and that it caused her no discomfort. When Celestia had asked her why she was so averse to looking at her reflection, Twilight had dismissed it as something she couldn't really explain, but that it was probably due to her age. While Celestia hadn't bought that obvious lie for even a microsecond, she figured that Twilight would tell her when she was ready to, and let the subject be dropped. Clearly, this was the wrong course of action, and whatever inner demon caused her phobia of mirrors had only gotten more powerful over time.
Without a second thought, she lit up her horn, and an instant later the mirror shattered into thousands of tiny pieces which she collected with her magic, and deposited into the nearby waste basket.
Now that the cause of her wife's anguish was safely removed, Celestia could proceed to comfort her, and talk her down from whatever it was that hurt her. This time, she wasn't going to let Twilight deflect from the issue. Clearly there was something deeper going on than just a little uncomfortability with how she looked in the mirror.
Carefully, she walked over to her sobbing wife and wrapped her forelegs and wings around her, as she snuggled her face into the crook of her wife's neck.
"Shhh... It's alright, Twilight. The mirror's gone. It's safe to look now," Celestia gently whispered into her wife's ear.
Twilight tried to respond, but all that came out was a few gasps and stutters as her mouth failed to expel words of any kind.
"Let's get you to someplace a little more comfortable, shall we?" Celestia cooed. "The bed is much softer and not too far away. Let's get your hooves underneath you, just like that."
Twilight's tears didn't slow down even a little bit as the two alicorns made their way over to their bed. They didn't slow down as they climbed up on the bed. They didn't slow down when Celestia wrapped all of her limbs around her wife's body and gently brought Twilight's face into her chest.
So the two alicorns laid together on the bed, one sobbing uncontrollably from feelings bottled up for far too long, and the other content to be her wife’s shoulder to cry on, gently rubbing her back with her foreleg in hopes of alleviating some of the pain her wife was feeling.
After what seemed like hours, Twilights sobs slowly died down, until all that was left was the occasional sniffle. This was when Celestia decided to make her move. "Twilight, do you want to talk about it?"
Twilight didn't speak, but Celestia felt her shake her head against her chest, smearing the tears and mucus that had gathered there.
"Twilight, it hurts me to see you like this, please will you talk?"
"I don't want to talk," Twilight mumbled into her wife's chest. "But I have to talk. I can't let myself not talk about this. And you deserve to know. You have to know."
Celestia withdrew a wing from around her wife's back and used it to slowly lift Twilight's chin until their noses were just barely touching.
With a gentle kiss to the lips, Celestia began to reassure her wife. "Twilight, I guarantee that no matter what it is you say, I will not hold it against you, nor will it make me love you any less. You're such a strong pony, stronger than I could ever hope to be. Take a deep breath, and let me help you lift this burden you're carrying."
Twilight closed her eyes, and for a terrifying, heartbreaking moment, Celestia thought that Twilight would continue to walk the path of misery on her own.
After a deep breath, Twilight opened her eyes once more, staring directly into her wife's eyes as she said, "I don't want to have any more children."
Whatever Celestia had been expecting, it wasn't that. As soon as Twilight saw her wife's eyes widen in surprise she burst into tears again.
"I'm a horrible pony!" She wailed.
Celestia silently cursed herself for her initial reaction. "No Twilight you aren't. You've helped so many people live better lives."
"I've hurt so many ponies!"
"You bring light and happiness to our little ponies."
"I got mucus all over your chest!"
"It's mostly just water anyways."
"I yelled at a maid!"
"We were busy and she didn't knock."
"I hit that guard with the bow staff during training!"
"It was an accident and he was fine. Plus it's good practice to get hit so that you don't freeze up in a real combat situation."
"I started that war with the diamond dogs."
"And you saved the lives of so many changelings from their genocide by doing it."
"I'm a monster!"
Celestia was taken aback at this remark. Clearly whatever this was really about cut deeper than a few missteps or tough decisions. "Twilight Sparkle! You are not a monster! Now you are going to look me in the eye and tell me what would cause you to say such an obviously untrue thing!"
After a tense couple seconds, Twilight managed to look her wife in the eyes. "What kind of mother doesn't care about her own daughter's passing? What kind of pony doesn't shed any tears at her daughter's funeral? What kind of pony goes through an event so horribly traumatic that it causes many to shut down completely, and yet she sees it as no worse than as if she accidentally dropped her quill?"
Celestia was stunned. She was way out of her depth here. She resolved to take Twilight to a therapist first thing in the morning. She still had to deal with her wife right now though, she just couldn't figure out how to start.
"A monster, that's what." Twilight said darkly. "That's what I am, Tia, a monster. You married a monster."
"Twilight..." Celestia began. "You're not a monster, not even close. Can you tell me a bit more about why you think you are?"
"I already did. I stopped being able to care about our children dying. I first noticed it a few centuries ago. At Autumn Breeze's funeral. I wasn't sad. All I could think was 'Well that's inconvenient. Welp, onto the next one.' And then the same thing at Twisted Torus' funeral, and Morning Glory's, and Starry Skies. I just can't find it in myself to care about their passing anymore. And that makes me a monster, and no foal deserves to grow up with a monster for a mother."
Celestia thought about what her next words carefully. Clearly, they needed to be just right if she was to bring Twilight back from the edge. "Twily, honey. If you don't want to have any more kids, then we won't. That's how a family works. If one of the would-be parents doesn't want kids for any reason, then neither of them want kids."
Celestia cupped Twilight's chin in her hoof. "But Twilight, you aren't a monster for feeling that way. I doubt any other pony put in your position wouldn't have felt the same way you do now. If anything, I'm the monster here."
Celestia put her hoof over Twilight's mouth to stop the sputtering. "I was the one who kept insisting that we should have more children, not realizing how much it hurt you. I was the one causing you all this pain. Twilight, you're not the monster here, you're the victim of a monster who can't see past her own desires to see how much she's hurting the one she loves the most. Of the two ponies in this room, I'm far closer to a monster than you've ever been."
Twilight's eyes widened. "No Tia, you're not- no!" She sputtered. "You didn't know because I hid it so well! Nopony could have realized how little their deaths affected me!"
"I did," Celestia said. "I asked about why you hated mirrors, and didn't pursue when you dodged the question. I continued to let you stew in your misery because I was happy to keep things the way they are. I'm the monster here Twilight, and I'm so, so sorry for allowing you to hurt for so long."
"No Tia, you have nothing to be sorry for. You didn't know." Twilight said back.
"Twilight, can you take a step back from this situation and look at it from the outside?"
Twilight blinked. She wasn't expecting Celestia to go the logical route here, especially with something so emotionally charged. "I can try."
"What I see are two flawed ponies talking out their sorrows. Neither could have know how the choices they made would have affected them, but they're doing their best to be the best they can be."
Twilight frowned. "Sure... I guess that makes sense, but I don't know where you're going with this."
Celestia just smiled and gave a gentle kiss to her wife's nose. "Patience, my dear bookworm. You'll see soon enough."
Twilight smiled for the first time that night. Granted it was a small and very brief smile, but it was there.
"Tell me Twilight, what would would a real monster do in this situation we've found ourselves in? Would she try to work things out with her wife like we are right now? Or would she keep it all bottled up forever, hurting everypony around her for the sake of keeping up appearances?"
Twilight thought for a moment. "A real monster would probably gobble up the foals in one bite," She chuckled darkly. "But of the two options presented, the second one seems like a much more monstrous course of action to me. Raising children in an environment that isn't totally loving and nurturing is a horrible thing to do, and anypony knowingly doing that is certainly a bad pony."
"And is that what you've done?"
"Well... yes, a little. I haven't been sad at the passing of our last four children, but, I did put a stop to it, eventually."
"So do you still think you're a monster?" Celestia asked.
Twilight though on that question for a while, her eyes pointed at her wife, while seeing nothing. Eventually she blinked and her eyes came back into focus. "I mean... a little bit, but not as badly as I did before. Thank you Tia." She said as she snuggled into her wifes embrace once more.
"You're very welcome my dear. We're still going to contact a therapist in the morning though. I don't think I have the expertise to help you work through all this on your own." Celestia said as she gently placed her muzzle above her wife's.
"I think that's probably a good idea. It's been a while since I've last went to therapy. It'll be nice to start that up again." Twilight paused. "Speaking of the morning, how long until we have to get up?"
Celestia grabbed their clock with her magic and looked at it and swore in a language so ancient not even Twilight knew what it was she said. "I have to raise the sun in 5 minutes! We didn't even sleep at all tonight!"
"How about we just take the day off?" Twilight suggested after a moment of thought. "Sleep in for once in our lives, then we can go speak to a therapist in the afternoon?"
Celestia looked down to her wife, and snuggled back into their favorite sleeping position. "That sounds lovely my dear."
Author's Note
I'm not really sure how to end this one. It's a lot more serious than what I'm used to writing, and I feel a little out of my depth here. Tell me what you thought of it in the comments if you want.
Also, I couldn’t decide whether or not to add the “sad” tag to the story. Should I?
Anyway, thanks for reading!
