Twintwined in Twincest and Twinbreeding Part Two

Flurry Heart sat alone at a table deep in the Crystal Castle Library. She flipped frantically through an ancient black grimoire with her magic. This one didn't seem to offer any clues either. The field of magic went both deep and wide; there had to be something that would accomplish what she wanted. Flurry had looked through two dozen books on arcane magic thus far and had found a little within any of them. She snapped the book shut and tossed it on the reject pile.

She turned to see Sunburst emerging from the stacks with a new batch of research candidates.

“What did you find, Sunburst? Pass it here.”

Sunburst sighed and floated the new stack of books in the air which she quickly intercepted and began to rifle through.

“Please reconsider your position,” he begged. This idea is highly unorthodox and unbecoming of a young princess.”

Flurry heart glared back at him over the top of her book. “I am going to find a way to undo this stupid breeder bond if it's the last thing I do so if you're not going to help me do it then get out of the way.”

Starlight Glimmer appeared over her right shoulder emptyhoofed. “He is right though, Princess,” she began. “Trust me, I know a lot about literally erasing ponies’ cutie marks. It doesn't go in reverse, not like the way you want it to. It's not going to help anyone; it's just going to drive a wedge between you two. Maybe you can't see it but it's an act of spite. Pound will hate you for it. Do you want to be the bad guy here?”

“The bad guy?” she scoffed. “Nobody even wanted this. I'd be doing everyone a favor. This is wrong. Destiny was wrong.”

“It might not be what you thought you wanted but there's never any arguing with cutie marks,” continued Starlight. “They’re a force of nature and they are what they are.”

Flurry slammed her hooves obstinately on the table. “Not today they aren't!”

Her brain roiled with anger at the situation. It was doubly upsetting that there was no one to be held accountable, no face that she could hate. Pumpkin was the closest thing there was to filling that role and she began to resent her deeply. She didn't care if it didn't make sense; it still felt like a betrayal. She shouldn't have even been there. Why did they let her play the game? So many little things could have gone differently and this never would have happened. It was infuriating.

Flurry became lost in her own thoughts, seething over an open book. Then she looked up to see her mother standing sullenly across the table from her.

“Flurry, we need to talk again.”

Without allowing her to respond she teleported the both of them back to Flurry's room.

“Mom, I'm trying to fix the problem here,” she moaned in annoyance. “Just let me figure this out.”

“I know you are,” sighed Cadance, sitting down on her bed. “I know you're hurting right now but you need to understand that sometimes things don't go your way and there's nothing you can do to fix it and you just need to learn to accept it, move on and heal.”

Flurry threw up her hooves and disbelief. “But, I can't just lose my coltfriend.”

“You can actually,” Cadence insisted sternly. “This sort of thing happens to ponies all the time. It's a common milestone in life. Finding the one you're meant to be with on the first try is very rare. Ponies find each other. They might love each other for a time and then they break up. Some of them never see each other again.”

“That's horrible and I feel horrible,” her voice cracked. She put a hoof over her eyes and began to sob.

“Come here, sweetie.” Her mother patted the spot on the comforter next to her.

Flurry's breath spasmed as she climbed onto the bed. Molten tears poured down her cheeks.

Cadance put a comforting foreleg around her daughter and pulled her close. “I know. That's the cruel duality of Love unfortunately. When you make yourself vulnerable to others, you risk getting hurt by them. You're young and sheltered; this feels extra shocking because it's the first truly awful thing that's happened to you. You've never lost anyone before and you've never experienced what it's like after a life-changing tragedy.”

“Bad things have happened to me,” argued Flurry, wiping her eyes.

She brushed a lock of hair out of flurry's face. “None of them were comparable to this moment just like this moment won't be comparable to future losses. That may not sound very encouraging but what I'm saying is, that's life and we learn to live with it. That's what growing up is. Do you remember when you were in kindergarten and you accidentally called your teacher ‘daddy?’”

Flurry screwed up her face at the out of nowhere question and shook her head. “No.”

“You sure thought it was a big deal then. You told me all about it and how all your classmates laughed and teased you and I bet all of them forgot before the end of the week. And now I'm apparently the only one who remembers and I wasn't even there. Life is strange. What about the field trip to the cave you missed because you were sick?”

“I remember that one,” she replied.

“You cried when we made you stay home from school. It was very disappointing. We were disappointed for you. Surely you couldn't have forgotten the time you wet yourself from laughing so hard at school. You were around ten years old.”

“Thanks, I didn't…” she grumbled.

“The bout of poison joke from a few years ago and of course last year's prom,” her mother rattled off.

Flurry sighed with unappreciated reminiscence. The prom… She went alone because Pumpkin had put her brother in the hospital by accidentally apparating a bookcase on top of him. That was another act of sabotage on her part now that she thought about it. Was this a pattern?

It was bad enough that she went alone but then her dress got ruined at the dance when someone dumped punch on her. She decided that that would be the end of her night.

“Are you trying to make me feel worse?” she blurted. “Because it's working.”

“No Flurry. All of those things were mortifying or disappointing and at the time you thought your life was over but you're still here and you'll still be here after this one and the next.”

“It still sucks.”

“It does,” nodded Cadance. “But let's try to limit the damage and make the best of it. Your cutie Mark is about bringing ponies together. You've been friends with Pumpkin and Pound for practically your entire life. Are you going to risk throwing that all away because you refuse to let go? Your paths just don't intersect in that way but just because you can't have Pound doesn't mean there isn't someone else out there for you.”

“I don't want someone else," she sniffed.

“You just need time to view your situation in a new perspective. Believe me, I’ve felt that dark cloudiness before after past relationships before I met your father.”

Flurry blinked. “Like what? With who?”

“Well, a long time ago I dated Prince Blueblood for a little bit, if you can believe that.”

“Seriously? That guy?”

“Yep I thought he was hot but I quickly learned how conceited and self-absorbed he is and I broke up with him, on a date in fact. I just walked right out. It probably took him a while to even notice I was gone.”

“Sounds like you weren't too hurt over it though,” argued Flurry.

“That's true. I was more frustrated and embarrassed that I had wasted my time on him than anything. But that's not all. I used to date a guy named Fancy Pants. Now with him I'd say I was actually in love. Our relationship lasted longer than a year and I thought we'd be together forever.” She looked at Flurry with a foreboding gloom. “Then you know what happened?”

“What?”

“He fell in love with another filly named Fleur-de-Lis. That was devastating to me. I was crushed for weeks after we broke up. I hated her. I couldn't think about anything except the two of them having fun together and how inadequate I must have been for this to have happened to me. But eventually things turned around. I took a summer job babysitting your Aunt Twilight and that's how I met your dad. And now I have you.”

“Yeah, I've heard that story before,” she groaned.

“I know but my point is this feeling isn't forever. Tomorrow is another day and someone is out there waiting for you, maybe even feeling the same way you feel right now. But you have to let go. It's okay to feel sad about it but you should still have hope for the future. And don't take it personally. Family friends like the Cakes are rare. We still want to keep them.”

Her mother's anecdotes did give her some comfort. She was able to envision herself coming out the other side eventually even though the despair was crushing now.

“You know there are five stages of grieving?” continued her mother. “Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.”

“Isn't that just for when someone dies?”

“No. It's for losing anything from ponies to playoff games.”

“What's bargaining?” the filly murmured absently.

“It's one of the things you're doing now. It's where you struggle to find something you can say or do that will fix something that's unfixable.”

“Am I almost done then?”

“There's no real way of knowing until you're there. Everyone's journey is different.”