The Fountain of Youth

"Twilight!? This is... surprising," Shining Armor said.

"We were expecting Headmare Starlight for our parent teacher conference," Cadance added.

"Yes, well, the short version is, Flurry is doing fine, academically," Twilight Sparkle said.

"And socially?" Shining asked, leaning forward in his seat.

"She has several friends," Twilight said.

"But..?" Cadance asked.

"No buts."

"She has several friends, and..?" Shining asked.

"And... it would be a breach of trust if I told you that she had become romantically involved with anypony," she said.

"It would be, if that were the case," Cadance agreed.

"If she was," Shining pressed, "I would hope that she would be smart about it."

"I think we all know that she would be smart about it, if she was," Twilight hypothetically assured him. "The last thing anypony wants, her least of all, is for her to get pregnant. And were I to speculate, I could confidently say, that if she were to be romantically involved with anypony, which I can not confirm or deny, then I would assuredly think that she would hypothetically never go past third base."

"Is that something that her... partner would write with their hoof, or say with their mouth?"

"It would hypothetically be told to me by them, orally. But if she were to convey the message, it would be a hoof-written letter, or she'd use her magic to hold the quill."

Shining Armor bristled. Her coded message was plenty clear.

"Dear, she's an adult," Cadance assured him. "We were worse at her age."

"That's what I'm afraid of," he said. "With her mother being the Princess of Love, I'm worried that Flurry will be the Princess of... the other L-word."

Lust. They all thought the word. But none of them dared say it out loud.

Twilight looked back and forth between them. "I don't know." It wasn't very reassuring. "On a very related note..." Twilight started to say. "I need to ask you... the two of you, something. It's a three-part question. And I want to apologize in advance for how, eh, forward it may seem."

"Okay..." Shining and Cadance answered together.

Twilight took a deep breath. "Shining, do you perform oral sex on Cadance?"

Shining blanched. "What!?"

"Again, I'm very sorry that I even have to ask this," Twilight apologized. "But I promise that I would not be asking if it wasn't very important."

"He does," Cadance answered simply.

"Do you squirt?" Twilight asked with all seriousness.

At that, even Cadance blushed, but she nodded. "Yes. Usually."

"Does Shining swallow it?" Shining and Cadance looked at each other and then back at Twilight. "Again, I'm sorry to even ask, but it's actually very import-"

"Yes," Shining answered simply.

Twilight looked at the grey in Shining's mane and sighed. "Okay. Well, I guess it's not hereditary then."

"What's going on?" Cadance asked. "I realize that Flurry entrusting you with confidential information about her personal life is important, and that we're on a need-to-know basis, but I really feel like we need to know!"

Twilight placed her hooves together in front of her muzzle, carefully selecting her words. She would keep it as clinical as she could. "Flurry Heart's... well, former stallion friend, was transformed three times into a colt, each time after performing oral sex on Flurry. Her... marejaculation is literally the fountain of youth."

"Oh." Shining tried to look anywhere else but at anypony in the room.

"That's quite a talent," Cadance said.

"It's quite a responsibility," Twilight added.

The gravity of the implications set in for Flurry's parents.

"It is," Cadance agreed. "Who else knows about this?"

Twilight looked at them nervously. "I... had to fiddle with his... her now ex-coltfriend's memory, to remove him from that equation. Aside from that, Starlight and Trixie. But as lesbian as they are, they'd extort me for an anti-aging spell before they try to suck immortality out of-"

"Anypony else!?" Cadance asked impatiently.

"No," Twilight answered simply.

"Okay. That's how it stays." Shining said. "We don't need the elderly of Equestria begging my daughter for... youth."

"I think we're all in agreement on that," Cadance said.

"Just the thought of it is giving me grey hair..." Shining grumbled.

Flurry Heart stood up in the front of the classroom for her presentation.

"The philosophical conundrum of moral choice," Flurry Heart began. "Were it within a pony's power to save a life, are they not morally obligated to do so? Are they forgivable for inaction? For a doctor to deny injecting the cure for a sick pony? Is the refusal of the act of easily untying a pony from the train track, not complicit to the premeditated murder, itself? If one could grant an elixir of immortality; Are we not morally obliged to do so?"

"Flurry," Councilor Trixie interrupted, waving her away from the front of the classroom. She quickly read over Flurry's presentation and slapped an A- on it. "That'll be quite enough."

~

Flurry found herself sitting before Princess Twilight again, along with her parents. Twilight looked over Flurry's presentation and passed it to Cadance to read.

"Flurry, I understand," Twilight said. "It's one of the great conundrums that most everypony must grapple with at some point. Especially for you and I, and your mother. The feeling of guilt that comes with being immortal. It makes you question the natural laws of the world. When my grandmare died..." Twilight trailed off. "I was... tempted by the dark arts. But necromancy is forbidden for a reason. I knew it."

Twilight's magic locked the door and placed a sound ward on the room. "What I am about to tell you, I have never told anypony else. Not even Spike. I will tell you this now, in confidence, because I need you to understand. I didn't want to use necromancy on her... Not without... practicing first."

That got Flurry's full attention.

"There was another elderly stallion that died earlier that same day," Twilight said. "I found him... his body in the morgue, and... Flurry, there are some things in this world that you can not un-see. And believe me when I tell you, I wish I could un-see what that creature became. But that memory is a burden that I must bear to warn you against... unnatural magic."

"You're calling me unnatural!?" Flurry cried.

"I mean trying to control power over life and death," Twilight said. "Choosing who gets to live, or die. Nopony should have that power. Ponies won't stand for the idea of you saving the ones you care about, and abandoning the rest to their fate. It would be unfair."

"What if I did, like, a lottery or something. Make it random, but fair."

"Flurry! Would you really let random ponies..?" Shining winced. "You would whore yourself out like that to strangers!?" he asked with angry disappointment.

Flurry looked at the lines at the corners of his eyes, and the growing streaks of grey in his mane. "If it means saving the ones I care about."

The implication made him avert his eyes.

"No pony should have that power, Flurry," Twilight repeated her central point to steer the conversation away from personal conflicts of interest.

"But Celestia made you immortal," Flurry said. "And you, Mom," she added, looking at Cadance. And then at Shining. "So why not Dad?"

"Celestia didn't make me an alicorn," Twilight said. "She simply guided me to my own ascendancy. My destiny was tied to the Elements of Harmony, which was beyond her power."

"But the Elements came from the Tree of Harmony, and that came from the Pillars!" Flurry said. Did they get to decide who became immortal?"

The secret efforts of Starswirl's quest for immortality flittered through Twilight's memory.

"No," Twilight answered simply.

"Then who?" Flurry asked.

"I honestly don't know," Twilight said. "I like to think that I'm pretty smart. I've studied a lot of magic and history. But I don't know. Celestia has been around for a long time and she doesn't know either."

"But you know for sure that it's definitely not me!?" Flurry shouted.

Twilight leaned back in her chair and sighed. "No. But I wouldn't wish that on anypony. The burden of that responsibility."

"Well, lucky for you, that isn't for you to decide either!" Flurry said before storming out.