The Family Cygnet

“So get this, she told me that I need to cool off! Me! Like I’m the one who burned down the comic book rack.” Shining drunkenly slammed his mug into the table with a loud thunk.

Twilight nodded sagaciously as she quietly took a sip of her wine. “What a bitch.”

Shining glared at her, his blue eyes narrowing furiously. “Don’t talk that way about my wife! She’s…” His eyes drifted as he thought of the word. “Magnificent.”

Twilight just giggled in response, shaking her purple head a little too slow from her own inebriation and spilling a little from her wobbling wine chalice. “A magnificent bitch, then.”

He frowned as the anger melted off his face, then let out a slipping chuckle as he leaned back into his seat. “Damn, she is a magnificent bitch.”

Slowing her motions, Twilight put her golden chalice down to watch the rippling wine settle. “Gorgeous too. You are one lucky stallion.”

Shining put his heavy iron mug back down as well, letting out a soft whistle before saying, “You know what they say about being hot and being crazy. She’s certified off both charts.”

Twilight groaned, putting her head down next to her gem encrusted royal chalice as she bemoaned her lot in life. “Why can’t I have a magnificently hot and crazy wife to fuck?”

“Don’t you have Rarity? Aren’t you two still together?” Shining tapped his plain metal mug in curious contemplation, making a series of quiet little metallic clangs.

Twilight’s mane had fallen down around her head, covering all sides of it and scrambling her usually neat lines. Some of it even draped into the splash of wine, soaking it up from the table. She kept her head down, and her voice just as quiet. “Why do you think I’m drinking until I’m purple?”

Shining sighed, reaching out to put a comforting hoof on her shoulder. Or at least somewhere in the nest of messy, wine soaked mane. “You’re always purple. I figured it was because you’re a great and loving sister who knew I was in the dog house with my magnificently crazy hot bitch of a wife; and you’re caring enough to comfort me by joining in a time honored shared ritual of woe.”

She groaned as he failed to find her shoulder and put his hoof on her neck. “No. I’d just be getting regular drunk for that. Not Trixie drunk…” Twilight’s horn lit up, but she didn’t move. “Speaking of which…”

The glass wine bottle floated meticulously to both vessels, her ornate relic of a chalice and his 2 bit metal mug. Shining watched, impressed by her blind control over the bottle as she poured exactly enough wine to top both cups to the brim and no more. He picked his up, and took a slow sip, his tongue long numb to whatever taste the wine might have had.

She didn’t move, but the bottle floated itself back to the shelf where it belonged. She let out a sad whine.

He finally found her shoulder. Or her ear. He might have been a little drunk himself, and her head really was a tangled wet mess. “That’s miserable.” He decided to add something helpful, even if he knew it wasn’t really. It was the sort of drunk condolence one offers without any real plan to follow through. “Anything I can do?”

She kept lying still, but answered surprisingly coherently, “The only thing you can do is not ask me how it happened.”

He took another long sip. Her instructions had been explicit, but he’d already forgotten them. “Okay, but how’d it happen?”

Twilight groaned again, this time lifting her wineglass to right above her head and tipping it.

Shining watched in fascination as she carefully and meticulously poured it over her own head, soaking her mane and coat with the wine. A little splashed on his hoof, staining his own white coat a soft, clear purple. Frowning, he chastised her, “Don’t waste the wine, Twilight.”

“It’s not wasted if I light it on fire.”

He sighed, looking around the room and failing to see a lighter. Eh, she was probably fireproof anyways. Proof. The thought reminded him of something. “The wine’s not high enough proof. It’s not flammable.”

Twilight groaned again. “Are you sure? This is Mom’s wine we’re drinking. Oh! I just remembered that I’m a unicorn.”

A spark ignited from her horn, and he ripped his hoof off her back as she demonstrated, in order:

1. She was a very capable unicorn.
   
2. The wine was in fact flammable.
   
3. She was quite fireproof.
   
4. The table was not in any way fireproof—especially when soaked with spilled wine that was more flammable than kerosene.

Shining doused the flame with a spell on drunken reflex. It was far, far from the first time one of his drinking buddies had lit themselves on fire. Usually it was with cologne, and Thursdays were especially risky, but dousing was the same spell regardless of the day or fuel source.

Twilight finally moved her head, lifting it up and squinting at him, suddenly struggling to form a sentence. “Why’d you, uh, um, the… put it… out?”

He rolled his eyes, feeling a surge of sobriety from the adrenaline of nearly catching on fire. “I don’t want to owe Mom and Dad a new table and a whole new kitchen, thank you. Also, you’re being a drama queen.”

She squinted harder at him. “It’s drama Princess, thank you.”

He sighed. “Okay, Drama Princess. Tell me what happened. And drink the wine, don’t use it for a shoddy ritual sacrifice.”

She muttered, “It doesn’t have to be shoddy.”

“Just tell me.”

Twilight groaned, then sat upright. Her dazzling chalice somehow was full again, and she took a nervous sip as she looked at his chin. Not his face.

“She, uh, wasn’t into me.”

He snorted. “Deets. With a reaction like that, there’s more to the story.”

Her eyes darkened as she continued to stare at his chin. She took a deep breath, and her eyes focused clearly and intently. “Fine. It turns out Rarity was just playing along to make me happy. She didn’t want to let me down and she enjoyed spending time with me, but it was never romantic for her. She claimed that she was ‘giving me experience’, and that it was for my benefit.”

Shining winced. “Ouch. How’d you find out?”

Twilight’s face turned a shade of pink underneath her matted purple coat. “I tried to seduce her. Followed all the steps in the book exactly. I’m not romantic, but I know she is. So I used a checklist. Flowers. She loved them. Dinner. She ate it. Music. She danced with me. A book together. She cuddled me. Check, check, check. And then I leaned in for a kiss. And she leaned back. And I saw the panic in her eyes. Un-check.”

He grimaced. “Oh… shit.”

Twilight deflated. “Yup. I asked her what the problem was, if she was okay. If I’d done something wrong, or missed a step, or maybe… well, it didn’t matter. She came clean. It was all a lie. Two months of carefully planned out dates and social outings. I was bored, but they were meticulously crafted for her enjoyment based on a matrix of romantic options and Rarity’s interests. I thought it was worth it to see her happy. But nope. It was all just… just to ‘give me experience’. She’s straight as they come, apparently. I should have been suspicious since she never kissed me and all the modern dating guides I found said ponies kiss, or even have sex, on the first date lately. I wish I could say I’m angry, but I’m not. I’m just…” Her eyes closed.

He finished for her, “Hurt.”

She sucked in a breath. “Yeah. That. That’s what I am. I know I’m the weird one. I know dating and romance and stuff comes naturally to everypony else. They don’t have to study a book before they go out. They don’t need to read ‘How to woo a heart, mare to mare’ three times and memorize each chapter. But that’s just… who I am. And the thought that no one out there will see me for me, will want to touch me, for me and not my title…” She didn’t finish, instead staring lazily forward and taking another sip.

He sighed. “You’re amazing, Twilight. I’ll be angry at her for you. She is a bitch.”

Twilight glared at him. “That’s my…” She paused, then frowned. “Ex? You’re talking about?”

He reassured her, “Yeah, your ex is a bitch.”

Twilight took a much too large gulp of wine, spilling some more down her chin. “A hot bitch.”

He held out his cup, nodding. “Here’s to hot, crazy bitches.”

She slammed her cup into his, somehow defying physics and denting the iron cup with the soft gold chalice. “To hot, crazy bitches.”

They both took another swig.

Twilight sighed, leaning back in her chair. “I just wish I got to… something. Not even a kiss. I’m in my thirties, Shining. I can’t just fuck ponies. I’m a princess. Everyone wants to marry me for power, or thinks I’m some magical mystery mare. Nopony wants to know the actual me. Even if I didn’t care, I’m too awkward to just hook up with somepony. I’m not sure how much I even care anymore. I’m virgin. I’ve killed eldritch horrors from beyond, and yet somehow I can’t slay pussy. Or dick. I’m bisexual. That should make it easier, right? I have twice the options as anypony else, and I still can’t get laid!”

Shining blinked, confused. “I didn’t know that about you.”

“Oh, yeah. Agchherklkl tried to replace the concept of ‘hope’ with ‘dshrt’, and I absolutely couldn’t let them do that. But they wouldn’t stop. And since they are formless, stone woul…”

Shining clicked, interrupting her. “No, not Agchherklkl. That’s the story with all the knives and the breezie dust and the dragon thing you had to do with the stuff. I mean the bisexual thing. I thought you were gay?”

Twilight snorted, clearly amused. “I’m literally a walking bisexual pride flag, BBBFF. How did you not notice that?”

He stuttered, “Well, uh, yeah, but Rainbow is, uh, rainbows, and she’s not gay?”

Twilight stared at him incredulously. “Rainbow Jack? Appledash? Have you been paying attention when we all visit? The only thing gayer than Rainbow is her wife, Applejack.”

Shining took another drink. “Huh. Well there goes that fantasy.”

“Oh, me too. I was happy for them when they got married, but also… jealous? Envious? I felt like they were taking something from me somehow, but I knew they weren’t. I hate feelings. I hate romance. Why is my biological drive to have sex such an over powering need, and why can’t I just sate it without all this romance crap? Can’t we live like ducks?”

Shining wasn’t keeping up. He was one too many drinks in. So he had another to help him keep up. “Ducks? What about ducks?”

She sighed. “Ducks don’t do this whole thing. Hens don’t do anything at all. They just get cornered by some aggressive drake who forcefully gets on their back and fucks them. No questions. No emotions. Just raw, straight fucking. The only conversation they have is with her vagina and his penis. If the hen likes him, she loosens it up and lets him all the way in. If she doesn’t, she squeezes it tight and it turns into a maze vagina. If she doesn’t squeeze hard enough, or he’s just more experienced, he has a corkscrew penis that winds through the maze and practically explodes into her when he ejaculates. No emotions. No weird social dance. Just raw fucking. If they’re both all the way into it, or if she’s unsure but he’s more determined, then “Boom”…”

She waved her hooves around like she was miming a firework explosion, then smiled contentedly as she looked back at Shining and raised an eyebrow. “Fucked like a duck.”

Shining stared at her in utter confusion.

“When it’s over, if he navigated her maze vagina, they hang out and raise the egg, then go their own ways. Maybe he moves on to another hen and leaves her alone. Maybe they just fuck again later. No weird emotions. No friends leading you on for months. No jealousy over your other friends getting married. No late night dreams about your brother’s cock. No completely sleepless nights wondering if anypony will ever love you, or if anypony will ever touch you below your tail. Just, wham, duck sex and you’re not a virgin anymore.” She stared at him, drunkenly deadpan as she did the fireworks thing again, but much slower and more confidently. “Boom. Just… like… a… duck…”

Twilight went silent, continuing to stare meaningfully at him.

The silence almost hurt. He looked to the left. He looked down at his drink. He took another drink. He looked back up at her. She was motionless, still staring intensely and stoically at him. “Uh, what?”

She blinked, tilted her head and whispered, “Duck sex.”

“Did you say corkscrew penises? And maze vaginas? And something explodes?”

“Boom,” she whispered. Then she took another drink of her wine.

The air felt strange, almost lit with a nervous energy. It wasn’t his. He was too drunk for this. “I’m still not following. I know dating isn’t great, but I don’t think duck sex is a better system.”

Twilight sighed, leaning back and taking another sip of her cup. The energy seemed gone. “You would say that. You’re married. Ducks don’t care if they’re married.”

He snorted. “I’m not sure Cadance does. Maybe she’s a duck?”

“Now that’s interesting. If Cadance is a duck, what’s she up to right now? Why are you here, at Mom and Dad’s house, getting smashed with your sister again? It’s not just some burnt comic books. I told you all my embarrassing details, now it’s your turn.”

Shining shifted. “My turn? I told you. I’m in Canterlot to sign some old guard paperwork they got wrong. You know that. You’re the one who found it. Cadance and I just had a fight before I left. That’s all.”

Twilight shook her head. “Nu-uh. You don’t need a week to sign some papers. I could have sent them to you. You ran away. Like a duck from a wolf. I told you the truth. It’s your turn. I showed you mine, now you show me yours.”

He deflated. “Can’t slip anything past you, can I?”

She muttered something unintelligible under her breath while she looked angrily at her obscenely opulent chalice, “in me.”

Shining continued, “She wanted to… open up our bedroom. To other mares.”

Twilight blinked, surprised. “What? That’s great news!”

He shook his head. “No. It’s not. I didn’t marry other mares. I married Cadance. I’m not interested in being with other mares, or knowing they are with her. The thought makes my skin crawl, and my stomach fall. I’m not a duck, or whatever. I’m a swan. I mate for life, and I mated with Cadance.”

Twilight stared at him, completely deadpan. “You are a complete fucking idiot. Here I can’t get any, and you have your wife literally offering you other mares on a platter. And you… don’t like this?”

Shining slammed his cup into the table. “Yes! I don’t like this! She broke my heart, Twilight. I’m not enough for her and I know that now. Worse, she wants to throw mares at me like some sort of… bribe or something. I don’t want that! I need an emotional connection. She’s the only mare I’m that emotionally close to. Well, maybe I’m closer to you, but you’re my sister. That doesn’t count.”

Twilight bit her lip. “Let’s pretend I wasn’t. Let’s pretend I was not your sister. And we were both here, quite alarmingly drunk as it were, and your crazy hot bitch of a wife wanted you to fuck other mares. But we still had our connection. We still were, you know, us. Just not brother and sister us. All the same us, just as much love and closeness, but not related. Would you let me… I mean, would you… do it?”

He shivered. “I don’t know. Maybe? I’m not… She’s the mare I married.”

Twilight shrugged. “Yeah, but she said to go for it. And you do love me, right?”

“I do…” He looked at his hooves.

“And am I hot? You know, on the crazy hot scale?” She looked nervously to the wall.

He sighed. “You are. You are also crazy, though.”

She smiled, seemingly comforted by his response. “That’s how I know I’m hot. It’s a known fact that craziness and hotness are correlated.”

Shining frowned. “It’s just a thing, Twilight. It’s not a ‘known fact’. It’s kind of a joke?”

She shook her head. “No, no. It’s real. I’ve read at least three papers on this. I should publish a meta study. They used unbiased voting to determine attractiveness, and a series of increasingly complex sanity tests. The hotter a mare was the sooner she’d fail, with an N of twelve hundred and four between the three papers. Which is plenty enough to establish a trend, and identify a direct correlation between the two values when controlling for…”

Shining glared at her while she ranted before interrupting her, “I’m not a duck! I’m a swan!”

Twilight stopped her lecture, forgetting it. “Okay, but in this hypothetical situation, to be a good swan you have to duck fuck somebody. And here you have a pony that you like, and wants to be duck fucked, and likes you back.”

He stared at her, licking his lips. “And is not my sister?”

She groaned. “Yes, this mystery pony is not your sister. They just have all of the same traits as her, the same relationship, the same looks, but not the relationship.”

“You said relationship twice in different contexts.”

“What I meant is obvious by the context!”

“I just said they were in different con…”

“That’s not the point! The point is, would you duck fuck them?”

Shining looked at her. She was gripping the table with her hooves, leaning forward. He swallowed, suddenly wondering if this was as hypothetical as she claimed. “I, uh, maybe?”

She rolled her eyes. “Maybe?”

“Maybe. I’d have to, uh, go on a date with them once? To see if we had any chemistry?”

“You already have chemistry! She’s angry, drunk, and practically swimming in her seat already because she’s always had a stupid crush on… uh…”

He blinked, confused. “Swimming?”

She drank some more from her divine chalice. “Like a duck? It’s a double entendre. Certainly not a maze you have to penetrate.”

“If one half is about ducks, what’s the…”

“My point is that you already have chemistry.”

“And you don’t penetrate mazes, you sol…”

“It’s me? Isn’t it? I’m doing something wrong. I’m the weird one…” Twilight sighed, setting down her royal chalice.

Shining smiled. “Twilight, it’s not you. You’re not doing anything wrong. I’m just a little…” He looked at the iron mug on the table. It was empty. There were three empty wine bottles nearby. There were two ponies. “Very, very drunk right now.”

She put her face in her hooves. “I’ve tried everything! Every checklist. Every book. Nopony, nocreature, has ever picked up on it. I’ve hit on every one of my friends. Aggressively. And nothing. The only ponies to ever like me back were Rarity and Star Tracker. And Rarity was a lying bitch!”

Shining picked up the iron mug, taking a closer look at the dent from earlier. Gold shouldn’t dent iron. Was it actually made of lead? He’d had this mug since he was a foal. No wonder he was so strong! He’d always been lifting! “Whatever happened to Star Tracker?”

Twilight paled, not even breathing for a solid twenty seconds before responding. “Well that fucking dried me right up.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s like Saddle Arabia down there. Never talk about Star Tracker again.”

“I’m beginning to think you’re being a little inappropriate with me, Twilight.”

“Inappropriate? Me? The pony who’s so drunk that I see three of you and so desperate that I’d take them all at once?”

“Yes. Inappropriate. I don’t think it’s fair that you won’t tell me about Star Tracker. He seemed like a good stallion.”

Twilight began to hyperventilate. “I’m in my thirties and I’ve never had sex and I’m emotionally wrecked because my girlfriend and longtime friend betrayed me and broke my heart. I’m as drunk as I can possibly be and still be conscious and I’m hitting on you like you’re a drum… and you want to know about… Star Tracker?”

Shining nodded. “Yes, Star Tracker. He’s, uh, a blue guy. Has stars on his flank. I don’t really remember what he looks like beyond that, honestly.”

Twilight stared. “I killed him. He’s dead.”

Shining smiled. “Oh, good. I was worried you weren’t going to tell me and I’d always wonder.”

She smiled back. “We’re both too drunk to remember this tomorrow. I can say anything!”

Realization struck him like the back-hoof from his mother when he asked why he was only allowed to drink from the iron mug when he was a foal. “We can say anything! We’re three bottles down!”

Twilight threw another bottle to the ground, smashing it and sending broken shards of glass around the room. “Four!”

Shining watched the wet puddle of broken glass and wine seep into their parents’ floor. “That one had wine in it.”

She tried again, grabbing the other bottle and flinging it to the ground. This one practically exploded, sending broken shards of glass around the room. She shouted, “Now it’s four! Four on the floor!”

He stood up, feeling the room whirl around him like a tornado. “We’re limitless!”

Twilight stood up as well, wobbling as she climbed onto the table. “Get up here and kiss me. Let’s go on a date!”

Drunkenly, Shining climbed up with her, letting her pull him up on the burnt and dented table with her wings. “Yeah. Date. Fuck it. Let’s do it. I love you, LSBFF.”

Twilight leaned forward to kiss him, but instead ended up catching him in her wings as he collapsed.

She looked down at him, gauging his level of inebriation to be ‘completely trashed’. Twilight stilled, took a breath, and relaxed as she picked up all the shards of glass with her magic.

She climbed steadily off the table, carrying him easily. Then she neatly put all the glass in the recycle bin. She picked up the un-broken bottles and put them in as well. She neatly closed the wine cabinet, and tucked their respective goblets to the sink.

She looked down at Shining, smiling with a strangely sober look. “Only took about thirty years, but I’m holding you to that promise. See you tomorrow, BBBFF.”

And she lit the table on fire before she turned to leave. It spread quickly to the floor, then up the curtains as she left the room, crackling and burning behind her as the flames crawled up the walls of her parents’ kitchen.

Then she walked calmly back into the room, put the fire out with a spell, and said with surprise, “Whoops. I actually drunk am I drunk.”

Shaking her head, she carried Shining to his foalhood room, where she gently tucked him in. “Nighty Night, Shiny Shine. See you tomorrow. We date have!”

She was too drunk to notice him open his eyes, and briefly track her out of the room.