Flim squirmed, trying to avoid Apple Bloom’s piercing gaze. Intimidated into speechlessness by a little filly. Some stallion you are! “I… Apple Bloom, er…”

He coughed, then swallowed, and then carefully met her eyes. “I’m not a mean pony, Apple Bloom. I may be a bad pony, and even a dishonest one, but I’m not mean. I don’t intend to make Applejack sad, but you have to know that, er, sometimes when a mare is heavily pregnant, her hormones get out of control. She can just get sad or angry or giddy for no apparent reason.”

“Sounds t’me like yer dodgin’ the question.”

Why do you have to be so smart, dammit? “No, I’m not,” he said firmly, and then pulled her into a hug. Her body felt stiff at first, but she slowly eased into it, his breath ruffling against her mane. “I don’t want to see her sad, eith---“

“Isn’t she a little young to be your new marefriend?”

Flim’s head shot up, and he scowled when he saw who was at the door. “That’s not even remotely funny, Connie.”

Apple Bloom put her hooves over her mouth and giggled. “Pppft! I’m not his marefriend! My sister is!”

“Apple Bl---“

But she was already off the bed and bounding towards the door. “Hiya! Are you Flim’s sister? He showed me a picture of you!”

She flinched back when the filly got within grabbing distance, but when she realized she wasn’t going to be hugged, she straightened her back and offered a hoof to shake. “Yes. And who might you be?”

“I’m Apple Bloom! I’m Applejack’s sister.”

“Your parents sure weren’t creative when it comes to names, were they?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” She put on a smile that only Flim could tell was insincere, and ran her frog over the filly’s mane. “I’m Contrarian. The boys call me Connie.”

“All of her friend call her that, too.”

The smile hadn’t let up, but her eyes tightened a bit. “Don’t be a bitch, Flim.”

“I won’t. Celestia forbid I take your job away from you.”

Apple Bloom carefully withdrew her hoof and glanced between them. “Uh… did y’all get in a fight or somethin’?”

“No. She’s always like this.”

She flicked her mane back. “And he’s just mad because he’s having a bad hair life.”

“O…. kay,” Apple Bloom said hesitantly. It wasn’t that she was unused to squabbling families, but the acidity in their words was starting to make her feel uneasy. Her siblings would never dream of using the B-word on each other! Turning back to Connie, she grinned and said “So, uh, we’re gonna be sister-in-laws?”

“It’s ‘sisters-in-law’, sweetness, and…” She shot her brother a look over Apple Bloom’s head. “…we just may be. We’ll have to see what the future holds.”

“Say, I jes’ thought a’somethin’!” She glanced over her shoulder just in time to catch Flim change his frown into a forced smile. Yup, somethins’ definitely goin’ on between these two. “Is the baby gonna take yer last name, or AJ’s?”

His eyes drifted to the bedside table, but he didn't touch the sonogram; instead, he picked up his card and the photo-sleeve and stacked them on top of it. “I hadn’t thought of that, actually.”

A hoof came to rest on her shoulder, making her turn back to the older mare who was smiling down at her with a strange glint in her eyes. “Let the kid have your family name. Mine’s a little silly.”

“Silly? How silly could it be?”

“It’s---“

Immediately Flim sat up straight, as if ready to pounce. “No. No, Connie, don’t you dare say it!”

After beckoning her to lean in, Apple Bloom inched her muzzle closer to Connie’s folded ear and lowered her voice in the hopes that Flim couldn’t hear: “Is he…y’know… embarrassed by it or somethin’?”

“Yes,” she said sweetly. “The other foals made fun of him something terrible.”

“Well you can tell me,” she whispered with a hoof on her heart. “I promise I won’t tease him.”

Flim’s jaw was set on edge. “Connie---“

Again, she petted over the knot of her bow. “My last name’s Lingus.”

Apple Bloom frowned in confusion. “’Connie Lingus?’”

He put both hooves to his face and screamed. “For Celestia’s sake, the filly is eight years old!!”

“Exactly. She doesn’t get it.” She gestured at the blank look on Apple Bloom’s face. “See? Doesn’t get it.”

She was glancing back and forth between the two adults, trying to figure out what she’d missed. “Was that a joke? What’s it mean?”

“You are NOT going to explain---“

But she’d already crouched down to Apple Bloom’s eye level and put a foreleg around her shoulders. “It’s a play on words, sweetness.”

He threw his pillow as hard as he could, but his sister caught it in her aura as it sailed easily a foot over her head. “EIGHT! YEARS! OLD!”

She used her magic to fluff it up, still rubbing the filly’s back. “You see, ‘cunning’ means ‘clever’, and a ‘linguist’ is someone who studies languages, so a ‘cunning linguist’ is someone who is very clever with words. And by making a joke about that with my name, I proved that I am a cunning linguist. Do you get it now?”

Flim just groaned like he’d been socked in the stomach.

“Oh, yeah!” Apple Bloom was nodding in excitement, even though she’d felt a pang of sadness that her potential brother-in-law thought she was still too young to understand a sophisticated, grown-up joke. “That’s real neat! Say, is bein’ a cunni…. clever with words somethin’ yer born with, or is it somethin’ you can learn?”

“Anypony can learn it.”

She lept in the air, dislodging the arm around her shoulders. “All right! Maybe I can get my cutie mark in linguisting!”

“That’s right.” She gave her a little pat on the head, simultaneously turning her toward the door. “Why don’t you go run on home and tell your family all about it, hm?”

“I sure will!” Apple Bloom could sense that she was being asked to leave, but she didn’t make for the door just yet---she leaned in and wrapped her forelegs around one of Connie’s, and tilted her head up to give her a smile. “Thanks! It was nice t’meetcha, Mrs. Lingus!”

She waved after her, but as soon as the door closed her smile melted back into her well-worn frown. As she returned his pillow, she said “Flim, you’d better learn how to pray, because without divine intervention your kid just might inherit the gullibility gene that so obviously runs on the Apple side.”

He snatched it away from her. “You’re despicable.”

“Nice to see you, too.”

“I can’t believe you told her that stupid joke,” he muttered. “She’s going to get her mouth washed out with soap because of you, you know! She’s---“

“Eight. I know. I heard you the first two times.” Leaning against the side of the bed, she folded one foreleg underneath her and brought the opposite hoof up to his chin. “Well, shit. Flam wasn’t kidding when he said you were in a bad way.”

He’d opened his mouth to respond, but yelped instead when she ripped the sheet off his body. “Connie!”

“What’s this?” she demanded as she yanked his ankle up and down. “You look like you’ve been mummified.”

“It’s a compression bandage. I had bruises on my leg, and they started swelling, and in case you can’t tell, it really hurts when you do that!”

She let it drop back to the mattress; ignoring his shout of pain, she slid her hooves under his gown and started running them across his chest. “Where are the stitches?”

“Hey! Personal space!”

Despite his protests, he knew by now she wasn’t going to listen, so he just lay back and sulked as she fumbled around, searching for the wound. It didn’t take her long to find the dressings, and she held his arm and the gown out of the way to get a better look, using her magic to peel the gauze off just enough to take a peek underneath. “…Wow.”

“Yes, it’s gross. Now are you done rubbernecking?”

She took a seat beside him and rested a hoof on the mattress. “Well excuse me for caring. Somepony has to be a mother hen to you two.”

“You’re not a mother hen,” he grumbled as he pressed the medical tape back in place. “You’re more of a mother cockatrice.”

“You watch your mouth, boy, or I’ll turn you into stone.” Pulling her purse onto her lap, she unclasped it and started rooting around inside it. “So, pray tell, what did you do this time? Insult someone’s mother?”

“No.” He pointed to his leg, then at the crook of his elbow. “Those bruises are from being kicked, and this one’s from the I.V. The stitches were from an accide--- oh, Connie, you can’t smoke in here!”

“Who’s the mother cockatrice, me or you?” She shook another cigarette loose and turned the pack towards him, but he irritably waved her off.

“Don’t make me sick. A cigarette is the most disgusting thing you could put in your mouth.”

The crow’s-feet around her eyes curled upwards as she sniggered. “Pffthahaha! That’s quite something coming from you.”

“Okay, you know what? I’m going to let that one go. You’re obviously cranky from the trip.” With a strained sigh, he slid down against the pillow and pulled the covers back up. “And I’m in no mood to fight.”

“Speaking of which---what sort of ‘accident’ left you with a slash like that?”

“I, er, dropped a sickle on myself.”

“You always were a klutz.” She paused to puff out a few smoke rings. “And the shiner?”

“…I got sucker-punched by---er, by somepony I insulted.”

His blush caught her attention, but she decided not to push it. “Those Apples sure know how to treat a guest, don’t they?”

Flim pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “How much did Flam tell you?”

Switching the smoke from one side of her mouth to the other, Connie put her open purse on the bed and levitated something out of it. “Here, I’ll show you.”

She floated the telegram in front of his face. It read:

FLIM’S REALLY DONE IT THIS TIME STOP IN HOSPITAL STOP KNOCKED UP AN EOH 4 – 5 MOS STOP SHOTGUN WEDDING POSSIB STOP GET TO PONYVILLE ASAP STOP

His ears flattened against his ruffling mane. “Jeez, he sure can be succinct when he wants to be.”

“Well, it was twenty bits a word.” She folded the telegram in half and slipped it back beside her wallet. “He gave me an earful more when I went to visit him.”

“So that’s where you were.” When he saw her gesturing with her cigarette, he pushed a cup over to her for an ashtray. “Where’s he been staying? I doubt any Ponyville hotel worth its reputation would let one of us---“

“He’s been staying with Little Miss Spreads-A-Lot.”

That caught his attention. “Who, Trixie?”

“Who else?”

“Wait.” He shuffled forward on the mattress. “Is he… just ‘staying’ with her, or---“

She tapped the ash off her smoke, and brought the butt end up to her face to check how much lipstick she’d smeared. “He’s with her in every sense of the word.”

After a touch of hesitation, he let his eyes drift off to the side. “…He didn’t tell me that.”

“He was probably worried about how you’d react.”

“How I’d react? How I’d react?!” He could hear the escalation in his voice, but he couldn’t keep it from raising into a near-shout: “It shouldn’t matter how I’d react! Flam’s my brother---my twin, for Celestia’s sake! He should know me well enough to know I’d---”

And there he had to cut the sentence short, because the last word cracked. “That I’d be happy for him.”

“Mm-hm.” She kept her eyes fixed on him, even as he looked away. “Maybe he was worried history would repeat itself.”

Flim’s head shot back around with a blaze of anger in his eyes. “That was an honest mistake, and you know it! Even you couldn’t always tell us apart!”

“Oh, Flim. Relax ! It was just a joke,” she said airily. “I don’t know why you’re always so uptight.”

“Well it wasn’t very funny,” he spat. “Besides, you know I can’t stand Trixie, whether her hooves are on the ground or in the air.”

“At least one of you has some taste.” Her eyebrows arched as something occurred to her: “Speaking of which, does Flam have a thing for blonde tomcolts?”

“Connie---“

“That could solve your problem,” she went on, deliberately ignoring the warning in his voice. “Get him to seduce your little overstuffed apple tart, and the wedding’s off.”

“That won’t solve anything!”

She snuffed her cigarette out, despite it being far from finished. “Don’t raise your voice to me.”

He could feel the muscles in his shoulders knotting up. “There are plenty of ways of getting out of it than---than that. Flam’s not going to lay a hoof on her.”

“Oh, really?”

When he looked up from his lap, the tension in his back began to turn into a headache; he could see that malicious little smirk on her face. “If I didn’t know better, Flim… I’d say you were actually getting attached to her. Maybe you don’t want the wedding called off at all, hm?”

He pressed his hooves as hard as he could against his sides. It’s wrong to hit a mare. It’s wrong to hit a mare. “Connie, why are you here? Be honest.”

“I told you. Flam sent for me.”

“Why? What good would it do? Why would you even care?”

That’s when he saw her mask crack, if only slightly; her hooded eyes had flashed open for a second, and then her lashes fluttered back into place. “Flim… do you remember when I was the one lying on a hospital bed, tubes coming out from everywhere?”

He winced a little. “Yes, but---“

“We’re family,” she said with a kind of finality. “It’s a family duty to come visit a sick relative.”

“I hate that word,” he snapped.

“What, family?”

“No! ‘Duty’!” When he saw her lighting another cigarette, he magicked the window open. Part of him wanted a nurse to come in and admonish her, but another, stronger part didn’t wish to see the ensuing screaming match. “That was what you always called it—duty.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” His lips pulled back in a sneer, and he waved a limp-wristed hoof around as he imitated her voice: “’Taking care of you is my duty. I got you into that school because it was my duty. I work three jobs to feed you because it’s my duty. I---‘”

“I get the point, Flim,” she said, her jaw clenched.

“Good,” he said. “You’ve come to see me. You’ve scolded me, and berated me, and made fun of a little filly.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’d say you’ve done your duty, Connie. You can leave now.”

She looked at him with the same weary expression she always feigned when he was a throwing a temper tantrum as a foal. “Not a chance. I spent ten hours on a crowded train just getting here, and I plan on getting my money’s worth.”

“So… what? You’re going to spend the equivalent of ten hours here?” He rubbed his bruised elbow. “Because, if you are, I’ll ask the staff to up my painkillers.”

She sucked on her cig, and hissed the smoke out through the little gap between her front teeth. “This isn’t just an ordinary hospital visit, Flim. You have a foal on the way.”

“Fucking Celestia, why do you care?!”

They both jumped, and Flim put a hoof to his throat; he hadn’t meant to scream like that. His sister’s presence always made him tense, but he didn’t know why his chest felt so clenched.

Oddly enough, when she answered him, her voice had become softer: “Why wouldn’t I care?”

“Because you never have!” He threw his hooves in the air, barely noticing the pain it caused. “You know what, Connie? You don’t care. I know that for a fact. And you never have!”

“If I didn’t care, why would I have raised you all those years?”

“Because it was your fucking duty! And that’s all that it ever was! Don’t pretend it was anything else! You want to hear something funny, Connie?” With a grunt of exertion, he twisted to the side so he could lean in close to her face, so close he could feel the wisps of burnt air coming from her cig. “I didn’t know what a ‘birthday party’ was until I was six years old. That’s when somepony invited me and Flam to theirs! Up until then, I had no idea that other little colts and fillies got to have cake and presents every year!”

That’s when her lips smashed together so hard they snuffed out her smoke. “And what reason would I have to celebrate that day?!” she barked, swatting his jabbing hoof away from her chest.

“Oh, is it my birthday already? Because that’s what I had to hear every year!” His breathing was coming out in short gasps, and he had to hold a hoof against his stitches to keep them from busting. “The only thing you ever gave us on our birthday was a huge heaping of guilt! No, wait.” The foreleg he had clamped against his side had started to shake. “No, I take that back. You did give us a gift… once.”

Connie turned away, a hooftip pressing against the furrow in her brow. “Flim, don’t do this to me.”

“A suitcase!” By now he was screaming. “Remember that, Connie? Remember our eighteenth birthday? Remember when you gave us a suitcase and said ‘Now you’re old enough to take care of yourselves, so get out of my home’? Do you remember that?!”

For a few long, aching moments, neither of them spoke, the only sound coming from the curtains loosely flapping against the windowsill. Finally, as she pushed her dead cig into her makeshift ashtray, Connie began her reply: “Flim… sweetness… do you know the story of Achilles’ Hock?”

Before he could answer, she went on: “His mother wanted him to be invulnerable to attack, so she plunged him into a holy fire. She knew it would hurt him terribly, but it would burn off his mortal nature. The only part of him that didn’t get burnt was his hock joint, because that’s where she was clutching him.”

“What does that---“

Again, she cut him off. “That’s what I did with you two,” she said quietly. “I held you to the fire, because I knew it would force you to be strong. You’d either die, or gain strength from the experience. And, now… look at you. You’re stronger than ever.”

His mouth opened, but it closed again when she gingerly placed a hoof over his bandaged leg. “You’re still vulnerable,” she murmured, so low he could barely hear it. “Still… fragile. You can still be broken apart. But I raised you to be strong.”

“How? By abusing us?”

“I never abused you!” She rose out of her chair, nostrils flaring and one hind hoof scraping at the ground. “No, I never abused you. You have no idea what abuse is like!”

“Don’t I?!”

“No! You don’t!”

It was hard to rear up on a rickety mattress, but he managed to get to his knees; it took all the strength he had inside not to lunge at her right then and there. “Really? Because I distinctly remember you throwing my brother against a wall! I remember having to lie to the E.R. staff because I was afraid you’d beat me if I didn’t! I remember---“

“Oh, you remember a whole shit-ton of things, don’t you?” Connie shouted back at him. “But you don’t remember a damn thing about your own mother!”

“That’s because we killed her, Connie! Or don’t you remember that? Don’t you remember telling us over and over and over again that she died giving us life?!”

“Dammit, Flim, it’s not always about you!”

There was a retort on his lips, but it vanished, and he pulled back suddenly when her face crumpled, all her bravado sagging out of her like a punctured balloon.

“What?” he said with a slight waver. “What is it?”

It took her a long time just to draw her breath in and out, and then she turned towards him. “Flim… there’s something I need to tell you…”

When Trixie opened the caravan door again, it was with a flourish, and Applejack noticed with a sinking feeling that she’d put on not only her stage costume, but her airs as well. “Welcome, welcome all! Are you prepared to be astounded? Amazed? Flabbergasted?”

Applejack couldn’t hold back her groan. “Look, Trixie, I really ain’t in the mood fer any bullshit---“

Too bad that’s what she was best at. “The Great and Powerful Trixie will require a volunteer from the audience!”

She sighed and looked away, but in her peripheral vision she could see something blue swishing back and forth; when she realized Trixie wasn’t about to let up, she reluctantly turned back to face her. The ridiculous star-spangled hat was floating upside-down in her aura, and the magician herself was smirking down at her with a look that Applejack truly wanted to smack off her face.

“Well? Any volunteers?”

Okay, okay, I’ll bite. She raised a hoof.

“Ah, yes! You! The squatty little freckle-monster in the back. Please make your way to the stage.”

“Trixie, you really are a piece a’work.” She took a tiny step forward. “What’m I s’posed t---“

“Please select a card from the hat.”

She peeked inside the brim, and was surprised to see it was, in fact, filled with what looked like cards. They were a little larger and less rectangular than playing cards, but her curiosity was piqued. Gingerly picking one up with her teeth, she spat it onto her outstretched hoof, face-down. “Okay. Now what?”

Trixie pulled her hat back and placed it at her hooves, just out of Applejack’s reach. “Without turning the card over, please tell the audience what you think it might be.”

“Trixie… unless you can see somethin’ I can’t, there’s ain’t no audience here. We’re alone.”

“Humour me.”

She sat down heavily, trying as hard as she could not to curse. Is she makin’ fun a’ me, or herself? Or both? Making a mental note to only put up with this bizarre charade for another thirty seconds, she put a hoof over the face-down card and said “Uh… the Queen a’ Spades.” She’d played her share of Hearts, so it seemed appropriate enough.

“Oh dear, Trixie is afraid you’re mistaken!” She pulled her lower lip between her teeth and began to nibble in excitement. “Turn it over and see the truth, Applejack!”

She used her nose to nudge it over---and nearly fell on her face when it fluttered back to the ground.

“Now, isn’t that just the cat’s pyjamas?” she giggled as she watched Applejack’s pupils shrink to little dots. “If I’m not mistaken, that position is called ‘Taint Misbehavin’.”

“B-b-b-ut…” She could feel her throat open up and close as she stared at what was in front of her. Oh, boy. Oh, Celestia. Oh, holy, sweet Celestia! Now she knew why Trixie had that triumphal look about her! “But… this can’t…”

“But wait! There’s more!” She tipped her hat end-over-end, spilling the rest of the photos out; after catching them with her magic, she arranged them in a circle and began whirling them around Applejack’s head, occasionally pausing so she could get a good, long look. A little giggle of glee bubbled up when she saw Applejack’s legs begin to shake. “Trixie was honestly surprised at the variety of positions two stallions could wrangle themselves into. The Wonderbolt’s athleticism wasn’t surprising, but did you have any idea Flim was so flexible?” She winked. “I did.”

“I… d-don’t believe it,” she whispered. She tried to take a step back, but Trixie kept the whirligig of photos flying around her head.

“Oh, but it’s true! Photos don’t lie!” she crowed. “And you can look through those until your eyes burn out, and you won’t find one hint of tampering. These pictures haven’t been altered in any way, so it’s the cold, hard”---here she had to pause to titter---“truth that Flim’s been able to take…” She held one of the pictures at a slight angle and squinted. “At least seventeen inches---“

“This is a trick!” she shouted. “You done some spell on these! That’s gotta be it!”

“Oh, are you deaf as well as bewilderingly naïve? I just said they haven’t been tampered with.” She plucked her favourite picture out of the swirl and gave it a jaunty wiggle right in Applejack’s face. “Flim is a regular hose-hound; his brother even told me so. Look at me, Oh Ye Great Element of Honesty---does it look like I’m lying?”

She knew that ponies who made a living on the stage were better liars than most, but she noticed with a creeping horror that there was no trace of dishonesty on Trixie’s face. There was nothing but smugness---because she knew she was right. She knew they both knew she was right.

“But… but…”

As wildly as her mind was racing, a memory hit Applejack, quick and unbidden: it was back when Flim was hauling her wares to the market, and he’d spoken to her of his first love. Her lips made a little ‘pop’ as her mouth opened. She just now realized he had gone well out of his way to avoid saying ‘she’… or ‘he’.

“Oh sweet Sisters,” she mouthed. It clicked. It finally clicked: When I turned the dildo on him, he’d taken it right down his throat, and he didn’t even struggle! And he loves playin’ with my ass, and he kissed me when I still had flecks of cum on my lips and he kissed my brother and oh no oh no oh HOLY CELESTIA why didn’t I see it sooner?!

With a sweep of her hoof she swatted the photos from the air, ignoring the yelp of surprise from Trixie, and blindly shoved a couple of them in her saddlebags. “DAMNATION, FLIM!” she screamed, already trotting as fast as she could back into town. “I’M GONNA KILL YA, YOU TWO-FACED LIAR!”

“Hey!” Trixie called after her as she scrambled to keep her evidence out of the mud. “You were going to eat your hat! We had a deal!”

Even though she could have easily caught up, Trixie decided to sit and think things over, watching Applejack’s belly lurch back and forth as she attempted to gallop. “Hm,” she said aloud, “Should I wait for her to come back and apologize… or should I go watch the fireworks?”

The receptionist was as perky as ever when she saw who was pushing his way through the double doors. “Hello again! Come to visit your brother?”

“Mm-hm.” Flam just gave her a noncommittal smile as he signed himself in. Having traveled for most of his adult life---and having been shuffled from town to town following his sister’s various jobs in his youth---he wasn’t used to being recognized, and it made him uncomfortable. Especially so in Ponyville; this may only be a hospital, but he didn’t want to become a ‘regular’ in any establishment here. The sooner we leave, the better, he thought, drawing the quill back to bar the ‘F’.

“He certainly is popular today! He’s had two visitors already.” They both glanced at the sign-in sheet, and his eyebrows raised a bit when he saw a chickenscratch ‘A. B.’. The receptionist cleared her throat and added “It seems your, uh, sister is still in there.”

It was subtle, but he’d caught the little trace of distaste in her hesitation, and Flam pressed his lips together in irritation. Great. He didn’t even want to know what unpleasantness Connie had caused on her way in.

Good old Hurricane Connie, he thought grimly as he walked the now-familiar route to his brother’s room. Leaving a trail of fucking destruction behind her.

He sighed, his eyes down at his hooves as they clacked against the glossy floor. Plan ‘A’---coming to Ponyville and sneaking off with his brother when the coltnapper’s back was turned---hadn’t gone so well. He was still banking on plan ‘B’ to work, because plan ‘C’ wasn’t too hot, either. Besides, if there was ever a pony who could chew Flim out and make him come to his senses, it would be their sister. As much bad blood as they had between them, Flim tended to heed her advice.

…Even more than mine, he thought with a kind of lurch in his heart. It’s probably because she never lets him win an argument, and I just fold like a house of cards when he starts sulking.

It was risky, though, and he knew it; Connie was unpredictable, and every time the three of them were together chances were good it would end in a squabble. Still, family was family, and if it hadn’t been for her, they never would have reunited. The thought made his head lift a little higher. Yes, if it hadn’t been for her, the FlimFlam Brothers wouldn’t be where they were today---they might have even been sent to different foster homes, never even knowing of the other’s existence. So what if she was a little rough around the edges? At least they---

He froze when he heard the sick THUMP of a hoof on flesh. It was followed by a crash, and then a staccato bam-bam-bam of punches. He was galloping before he realized it, his heart pounding up into his throat. The gut-wrenching sounds of a beating were coming from Flim’s room; he just instinctively knew it.

Dammit, she’s lost it! She can’t hit him! he thought as he ran. She knows she can’t! Why would she come all this way just to beat on him?!

Little fragments of thoughts were rattling around in his skull as his hooves slammed on the floor. He’s already got stitches--- he’s going to lose so much blood--- gods, why did I think calling her was a good idea?

“Celestia, let him be okay,” he said breathlessly as he slid to a stop in front of Flim’s room. He threw the door open, panting, bracing himself for the worst. “Flim! Brother! Are you alr---“

But what he saw made his words wither away. He had to blink a few times before what he was seeing finally registered in his brain:

He was hitting her.

Flim was out of his bed, kneeling over the prone form of his sister who had slumped into the corner. One of her eyes was already swollen shut, and both lips were split down the middle, dark blood dribbling down her cheeks. Flam could feel his legs begin to tremble when he saw the look in his twin’s eyes---he knew what anger looked like, but this was far beyond that. This was pure rage. Through a horrible, snarling maw, Flim was screaming one word for each punch:

“YOU---FUCKING---BITCH! YOU---FUCKING---BITCH!”

Without thinking, Flam ran into the room, hooked his forelegs under Flim’s arms and yanked him back. “Are you insane?! Stop it!”

His arms were pinwheeling in front of him as he tried to squirm out of his brother’s grip; even though he couldn’t reach her, he was still screaming at Connie, frothy spittle flying from his mouth, pounding his hooves in the air. He and Flam were fairly evenly matched when it came to physical strength, but his injuries made him easier to overpower, and after a frantic tussle Flam managed to pin him against the wall.

“What the FUCK is the matter with you?!” he hollered. Flim’s eyes were shut, his head darting from side to side, so he grabbed his face in both hooves and forced him to hold still.

“Let me go!”

“You don’t hit a mare, Flim! You just don’t do that!”

He feebly tried to push him off. “Don’t touch me!”

A gurgle from behind him caught his attention, and Flam let the blood-stained hospital gown slip out of his grip. He hurried to his sister’s side and crouched down, unsure of what to do, where it was safe to touch her. “Oh sweet Celestia. Connie, are you okay? It’s me.”

Her head lolled towards him and came to rest on his shoulder. “Flim…?”

That cut him deeper than he’d care to admit. “No. No, it’s me.” As carefully as he could, he put a hoof behind her head and helped her sit up. He magicked a kerchief out of his pocket and started to dab at the blood on her face, as futile as it seemed. She hacked out a cough, flinging a spray of red across his chest.

“F-Flim,” she croaked over his shoulder. “Are you going to tell him…?”

He’d risen, but one hoof was clamped against his side; he’d popped a few stitches, and his blood was soaking through the gown. “No! I refuse! I’m not doing your dirty work for you!”

Flam looked at what was on the floor between them: it was the photo-sleeve Flim always carried, but he’d ripped a picture out---the photo of the three of them had been torn down the middle. “Brother…”

“SHUT UP! Leave me alone!” He moved the hoof he was pointing from Flam to Connie. “And don’t you dare tell him. I’ll piss on your grave if you do!”

Flam could only watch helplessly as his brother did his best to storm out of the room---not an easy feat with a limp. He slowly turned back to Connie, who was regaining some of her strength; she pulled herself out of his arms and shakily sat up, smearing her bruised face with her fetlocks.

“Well… thad went better thad I thoughd it would,” she slurred.

“Connie, talk to me! What happened?”

Her face twisted to the side as she moved her tongue around her mouth, and she spat something pink onto the floor by Flam’s haunches. He peered at it for a moment before he realized what it was, and when he did, he could feel bile rising from his gut. “Is---is that a tooth?!”

“There,” she said as she rose. “Now we’re even.”

He cringed away from it, but even though he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the spreading pool of blood, he noticed her hobbling away in his peripheral vision. “Wait! Where are you going?”

“I’m going to a fucking tea party,” she snapped. “What do you think, you half-wit?! I’m going to get cleaned up.”

Flam just silently stared at the door as it closed behind her, then let his gaze drift back to the red stain his siblings had left all over the tiles. It was already soaking into the photograph, darkening the rip through Connie’s face. “What the hell?” he said, his mind fuzzy with disbelief. “What the hell?!”

“You’re bleeding.”

Flim startled a bit, but when he saw his brother’s familiar face behind him, he just went back to staring at his cup of coffee.

“You shouldn’t have walked all the way to the cafeteria with a wound like that,” Flam said as he very carefully took the seat opposite his twin. “And you certainly shouldn’t have done your best Marehammad Ali impression, either.”

He looked down at his hooves; even though he’d stopped in the washroom to wash up---scaring a few other stallions in the process---his fetlocks were still faintly stained pink.

“You’re going to need to get yourself stitched back up. And soon.”

He put a hoof to his heart and looked down---there were hot trickles of blood prickling their way down his hide, stinking of copper. “I know.”

“Why did you flip out like that?”

Flim took a sip, but he didn’t respond at first. Flam recognized that look---he was considering his wording very carefully. “You know bad temper runs in this family… such as it is.”

“That’s not an answ---“

“Flam, you beat me half to death once. Don’t tell me you don’t understand.”

He didn’t look up from his drink, but he heard the scrape of the chair legs against the floor. Flam wasn’t getting up to leave, however; he’d just jostled backwards in surprise. When he began to speak again, it was slow and measured, but not nearly as angry as Flim would have expected: “You know damn well why I did that.” He paused. “And I highly doubt Connie slept with Applejack.”

Flim snorted. “Thanks. I really needed that visual.”

“Just tell me what happened.”

The frog he was pressing against his broken stitches was starting to get sticky, but the pressure seemed to be helping to staunch the flow. He slowly ran his free hoof through his mane, and mumbled “I… Con---she said… something.”

“Brother.” Flam reached across the table and took a hoof in his. He was sure Flim was going to recoil, or bristle at the very least, but he didn’t even move. “Connie has said every possible horrible thing there is to say. What else could she possibly say that would make a normally-sane stallion completely lose his shit?”

“I’m not telling you.” Flim didn’t withdraw from his brother’s grip, using his magic instead to lift the cup to his lips. “I’m never telling you.”

“You know, brother, I can think of two—no, three times in our lives that you’ve tried to keep a secret from me.” His voice faltered when Flim yanked his hoof away, but he decided to continue when he saw him lift it to his face to rub his black eye. “None of those instances worked out too well, did they?”

“…No.”

“So what makes you think this time will be any different?”

Flim sighed and turned away. He did have a point; while they were both adept liars, keeping secrets from each other had always been fraught with peril. “I can’t tell you,” he finally said in a strained voice.

He turned his tired eyes back to Flam… his brother, his technically-younger brother. Ever since they’d been old enough to understand what ‘foaling’ meant, and how dangerous it could be, Flam had decided that he was the one most at fault for their mother’s death, being the second one out and all. He didn’t talk about it much, but Flim knew he carried that burden around with him everywhere they went. He knew they both had a sickening sense of pride and guilt twisted up inside them---pride in having overcome life’s obstacles as orphans, and guilt over the part they played in it. It’s what they’d grown up with. In their unstable lives, it was one of the few things they knew for sure---their mother was gone, but she was watching over them, somewhere. They often reassured each other they could survive anything, but now, after what Connie had just told him… he wasn’t so sure. The bitch had dropped that bombshell in his lap, and now it felt like some fundamental part of him had dislodged, broken off. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

He looked across the table.

How could he do the same to Flam? How could he drop the same bombshell on his beloved brother?

How could he tell him that their mother was still alive?

Author's Notes:

Whew... sorry this took so long! I meant to get it out before I left on vacation, but it wasn't quite ready. Thanks for your patience!