Flicker of Twilight

Shining POV

I couldn’t believe it when I heard the news. My little sister tried to kill herself. Even now it sounds so wrong to me. It had to be a mistake. It couldn’t be possible. But the letter was clear, she barely survived. At first, I was mad at her. Sure we didn’t have the easiest childhood but by any means, it was not a reason for all of this. It was like a punch in the gut, and then the anger took over.

Why would she ever get such a stupid idea?! I love her, doesn’t she know that! No of course she knew, she just didn’t care!

I was furious beyond belief, she almost killed the second most important pony to me in Equestria. But then I felt a hoof on my back rubbing sensually, trying to calm me down. My wife Cadance took the news harder than me, she always was so much more emotional than me. I didn’t think I ever saw her cry so much. She was a wreck the last two days, she wanted to drop everything and rush to Ponyville, on hooves if she thought there was no other way. I managed to talk sense into her before doing anything rash, my stone-like emotions allow me to keep my head cool which really suits me.

As much as I would have loved just to drop everything, we need to plan our leave first and coordinate all replacements when we are gone. Ruling the empire doesn’t leave much time these days, and any sudden change can cause someponies to be deeply hurt by the system. It's not easy ruling the whole empire when even a slightest mistake can cause somepony to be hurt or die. So I did the one thing that I did best… I turned my inner sergeant back on and started giving and sometimes shouting the orders, we were gonna leave in two days if it kills me.

“Honey, please calm down, working ourselves up will not accomplish anything.” She tried her best to reason with me. It didn’t work.

“I can’t just drop it like some old news. She tried to commit suicide, for pony sake!” I almost shouted from the nerves that were wrecking my head right now. I can’t just stay put like this.

“There is nothing we can do now. We need to be smart about this, Shiny. She doesn’t need her brother blowing up on her right now, it can break her even more and we can’t let that happen. We need to be there for her, console and tell her how much she means to us. I’ve been reading what I can in the past few days and got some psychology books from the library on the subject. She’s very vulnerable right now.” She reasoned with me. She was right, as usual when it comes to this emotional stuff. I just couldn’t bring myself, I don’t want to hurt her more, but I don’t know if I will be able to control myself when I see the state she put herself in. It hurt to even think about it.

I sighed, there was no point in being angry right now, we were just waiting until the evening train arrived. “I’m sorry. … I just care about her so much! And to think that I could have done something to prevent this…”

“You couldn’t have known. There was nothi…” She started.

Her voice tried to soothe the anger in me, but it failed.

“Couldn’t we?! Cadance. When was the last time we took time to visit her on our own?” I almost seethed from the self-disgust I just felt at the revelation.

“I… I mean… we had to… … I don’t know…” She sobbed and buried herself in my neck muting the sound of her crying.

Great work, idiot. Shut up. I put my snout on her head and tried to soothe her.

“Shh. I know. We messed up, but now we can do better.” My voice whispered near her ear, and for once I knew that was the right approach.

I really hope we can see her soon. The train sharp whistle interrupted my thoughts. There was no room for doubt now.

Our train arrived a few hours later in Ponyville and we both were eager to see Twilight as soon as possible. So eager that the train ride was getting insufferable and we spent it mostly in silence contemplating what was to come. But even now we were still an hour before we could see her. It was like my brain couldn’t believe that she was safe until I could be around to see for myself.

My horn lit up and I levitated our luggage towards us. Two plain black bags lifted from the train storage and took their position behind us.

“Let’s go, I don’t think I can waste another minute.” I told with haste. She nodded but didn’t say anything.

We set off towards the town and soon found the hotel we sent reservations to. It was called Mosier Hotel with almost pure white painted walls and dark windows that made the entire building look modern. The building was almost out of place with the more rustic design of the houses and stores around. Nicely the owners, generously offered the penthouse on the top free of charge, for as long as we need.

We finally stood on our new apartment floor and placed our bags quickly near the entrance. We prepared a care package with food and sweets as well as some toiletries and a get-well-soon card. The card was Cadance idea, she thought that even at night Twilight could just look at the card and know that we are there for her. But I suspect she just needed something to occupy her mind for the time being.

Finally, with everything ready we could move towards our final destination.
I'm sorry, how the heck do they know what modern designs look like?

The psychiatric hospital was relatively easy to locate in comparison. The building was easily the tallest in Ponyville and what we took for a separate building turned out to be just a plain hospital with some floors for psychiatric patients. It made sense knowing the size of Ponyville population, we could imagine that the hospital probably never housed more than fifty pony patients. And just by looking at the building, you could clearly see which section housed psychiatric patients. The windows of the top floor had crates in the windows and compared to the rest of the hospital only the small windows on the top were actually opened.

We hurriedly moved towards the entrance. The nurse at the desk in front greeted us with a friendly smile and bowed hurriedly when realized she was in the presence of royalty. We respectfully reassured her and asked for directions towards where Twilight room was.

The entrance to the psychiatric ward was sealed off with a green frame glass door, which I assumed had to be reinforced glass for protection. On the left side, a security guard sat with a bored expression, clearly on the brink of questioning his own life choices. Despite how empathetic I felt towards anypony on guard shifts from my own experience of them I had to get inside as soon as possible before I get a heart attack from the anxiety I feel at this moment. I cleared my throat to get his attention.

The guard looked up at us, blinking owlishly and his mind seemed to have frozen for a good few seconds when he saw us. But the moment the gears in his mind started to turn again he bolted straight down in a low bow.

“Your highness! My apologies, I didn’t see you approach.” He started frantically to explain himself.

I heard my wife quietly sigh beside me. I never understood how exasperating it truly was until I started dating her back in high school. The ponies usually want to show respect for the princesses through the bowing act, but when it happens a dozen times a day it truly begins to get on our nerves.

“It’s no problem. Could you please let us inside for a visit?” Cadance decided to take the lead here and solve this obstacle as soon as possible.

The guard blinked slowly and franticly started to look for the right key on the keychain. When he finally got it he began to apologize again but right now neither of us was listening. Finally, he opened the door and we quickly rushed through it, our eyes already scanning for Twilight’s room.

The door number "3" plate greeted us not far from the entrance with an “Observation” written below. The door it belonged to had a window installed half through the door looking at all the pony patients inside. I scanned the interior for my sister and found her in the corner by one of the large windows in the room.

She was perched on top of a mattress and not so surprisingly reading a book. I looked at Cadance and she too met my eyes, both of us anxious but eager to get inside. Finally, after a few seconds of indecision, she pushed the door open and walked inside.

Twilight POV

The door to my room squeaked open and my eyes snapped to my right to see who was encroaching on our room. I was severely anxious since the day I got here, the first night being a nightmare for me when I couldn’t even get a touch of sleep cause of the presence of so many stranger ponies in one room. But to my horror, something far worse greeted me than some other patient coming to talk with somepony. In the doorway, I saw Shiny, my brother and BBBFF. Shortly to his left, I saw Cadance with him as well, my former foalsitter and a sister-in-law. I froze on the spot, my eyes drifting anywhere but them. This must be what the tartarus feels like.

But the spite of my own frozen state, they had no qualms with alarmingly quickly crossing the room towards me. The pink forelegs wrapped tightly around me, triggering my flight instinct to a really uncomfortable degree. My muscles tensed up and I forced myself to stay still. Cadance was now openly sobbing into my chest. As if this situation wasn’t awkward enough. I sighed.

Feeling the non-existent peer pressure, like a social contract to a pony sobbing into your fur, I caved and awkwardly raised my foreleg to quickly give a pat a few times on her withers. But despite my mind reeling at the moment I still couldn’t come up with anything to say, so I stayed still praying for this punishment to end soon.