Father's Day

    Rainbow Dash groaned and banged her head onto the desk before her in frustration, making the writing supplies around her jump and shudder at the sound. She sighed into her desk, picking up her pencil once more and scrawling down whatever could come into her head at the moment.

“Dear Mum and Dad”, “Hey guys, it’s me, Rainbow”, “Mum, Dad, it’s your daughter. I’m here in Ponyville. I’m friends with the Princesses now, I’m on my way to making the Wonderbolts. I thought maybe I’d drop by sometime and catch up with you.”

“Ugh.” Rainbow bit her pencil, frowning in distaste at the shavings that frayed off and collected around the edges of her teeth and lips. Well what am I supposed to say, ‘I’m sorry for leaving but here I am and everything’s all better now’? She sighed.

    Maybe Fluttershy would know what to do. Parent troubles had been part of why she’d even noticed the filly to begin with. She remembered the first time she’d met the yellow filly, snivelling over a juice box.

     Gilda had only laughed it off as “another hopeful who didn’t have the guts to make it all the way to the top”, but Dash pulled up a seat and asked her what was wrong.

Fluttershy is in Canterlot with Twilight, remember. Besides, she has that seminar with her dad this afternoon. You aren’t really going to put her on the spot like that, are ya Dash? She’s fragile as is . Applejack it was then.

   Dash left her unfinished letter on her desk and paced her way through the hallways of her household. Photos ran down the corridors, blossoming into long-lost memories as she wandered. A filly was playing with Wonderbolt action figures, her parents looking on happily.

    The filly danced through another photograph as her parents beamed at an acceptance letter to flight school. She was showing off a cutie mark to a griffon trying her best not to look jealous; flying over Ghastly Gorge with her parents on a vacation.

    There was a gulf between the photographs themselves, and suddenly they were filled with Elements of Harmony. Reading Daring Do in a treetop with a nervous looking Twilight, watching the butterfly migration with Fluttershy, exchanging party favours with Pinkie Pie at the “Sorry we dressed up like superheroes to make you look like a silly filly even though it was making you really sad and we only laughed at you” party.

    Applebucking, her holding an embarrassed Applejack’s hoof in a victory pose to display the “Best apple pie eater” ribbon she got at a fair, her wearing Applejack’s trademark Stetson, a faux-cowgirl look on her face as the country pony blushed in the background.

    Applejack it was then. Rainbow Dash sighed at the gap between photos and ran from them, jumping from her home in Cloudsdale as she had done all those years ago.

“Fluttershy,” the yellow stallion at the centre of the dinner table chuckled, “what would I do without you?”

The acrophobic Pegasus only blushed and gave a happy squeak at the praise. “I-I’m glad you like it. I worked ever so hard to make it. You should also thank my friend Rarity for lending me the tools.”

    The stallion proudly knotted his new tie, smiling down at the doves embroidered upon it. Twilight Sparkle poured some maple syrup upon her father’s pancakes from across the table, the molten sugar sinking in around the food. Fluttershy cut into her crinkly lettuce delicately, still smiling nervously at her father.

    Twilight Twinkle sat at his side, waiting as patiently as she could for her food to finally arrive. When she had agreed to foot the family’s entire bill, against Twilight’s protest, she’d at least expected that her food would arrive somewhere within the same time as that of her daughter and husband. A superstitious need for Celestia to impose some sort of karmic order upon the restaurant, where crabby and stingy mothers got late orders and sweet ones who paid for their families got a choice on the finest the eatery had to offer.

“Everything alright mom?” Don’t go thinking about her right now .

“Fine, dear.” She nuzzled Twilight, leaning slightly to her left to do so, and let the sounds of other families dining happily fill the room.

“Flutter, I-I was just wondering….” Family resemblances were never so unexpected as when the burly mailstallion found himself stumbling with his words.

“Yes, Dad. I do still want to go. You said you’d feel better if you talked about it, and I always say if you can’t talk with somepony about it it just builds and builds inside until you just burst with it. So yes, I want to come to the pony market with you and talk.” She smiled at him and put a reassuring hoof on his shoulder.

Twilight cocked an eyebrow, but decided not to press it. Fluttershy being this talkative meant something important to her, and if it was a family issue, she’d leave her well enough alone unless she looked like she needed help. What about Applebuck season last year? Twilight chided the guilty thought. Fluttershy’s on top of it. Celestia said to get some rest after…everything, and that’s what we’re doing.

Fluttershy blushed and gave her a nervous smile, and Twilight returned it with a warm, comforting one. The timid element of kindness looked back at her father, trying to read his expression, and, seeing he was lost in what seemed to be happy thoughts, went back to her food.

“I hate him.” The castle grounds bellowed with the hollow laughter of the wind. As Winter Wrap Up wound itself down, the fresh bliss of spring rolled across the land, tangling with the last frosty winds of the icy season near its end.

Luna looked to her sister with remorse. She had suspected she would find her sister here. A thousand years of solitude had made the sun goddess an introspective creature when not in others’ company, and today more than any other. Luna trotted to rest between the statue on the pedestal and the embittered mare at its feet.

“I suppose you must hate me too then. What has he done that I hadn’t? Tried to kill you? Your student? Take over our country?”

“His country.”

“Celestia—“

“I know!” She snapped. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“And?”

“You were in anguish. You were sad and alone and afraid. You could be helped. You were helped, and not happier day in my life there was than the day my little sister came back to me. That was when I realized I—I realized a good deal that day.” She glared at the statue above, its face frozen in horror as it stood above the pair of ponies. “And one thing I realized was that he will never hurt my family. Not my niece and her husband, not my—“ Celestia cut herself short. Recent developments were too much for her to add to her gripes. “—sister. Certainly not my sister.”

Luna bit back the tease she wished so much to put forth. Something about the implications of the adjective faithful. Time and a place. “He changed before. When he met our mother, he was a hard and cold stallion. He was a good father, Celestia, and a kind ruler.”

“Things change.”

Luna pawed the ground in frustration and cast a glance at the statue.

“Why can I never win an argument with you? Things change Tia, but so do ponies.”

She turned to leave, hoping that would be the last word on the matter. Of course, her sister never was one to have the last word stolen from her.

“Luna—“

The princess of the moon sighed. “Celestia, listen—“

“Thank you.”

Luna smiled ever so slightly as she left Celestia to lie in her father’s shadow.

Father's Day