a wonderful thing!”

Flash blinked rapidly, twitching his head back slightly. After what had seemed like an eternity, he was suddenly back in the cozy living room, which now seemed so much larger as it spun around him in a rush, echoing the blood in his ears. Twilight Velvet nodded eagerly, bouncing her purple and white bangs over her wide open eyes, managing only an “mmmhm” through her tightly pursed lips.

“A wonderful thing… a wonderful thing…” Night Light’s most recent words bounced around inside Flash Sentry’s head, mixing with the quiet jazz that always seemed to be playing on the phonograph in the corner. How many evenings did he spend sitting on that orange couch right there, talking across the coffee table with Night Light about nothings and everythings, sports and books and… philosophy and the meaning of life when they shared a few bottles of cider. Not until last week did he ever suspect that this red recliner could be a place of such abject terror. And joy.

Dear Celestia! He was just trying to keep from passing out! Or crying. Or peeing. That would be bad. Wait. Night was still talking. How long had he been talking? This was like trying to listen to a broken record while sitting in an empty steel drum at a rock concert. Just roaring and spinning and echoes and—

Night Light chuckled and looked over to his wife, who returned his smile and nodded, patting his knee with one hoof. She stood up, and stopped by the liquor cabinet before padding into the kitchen, pausing once to look back at her husband and wink. Flash was just now getting his breathing under control, but still had his eyebrows lifted as high as they would go.

That moment, that wink. It was something he wanted to memorize. It summed up decades of shared experiences, shared dreams, shared joy and pain. Years of past and future swirled all together, distilled into their essence, and pressed down into one tiny gesture, a symbol of what it meant to be together. A quarter of a second carried all the meaning of two lifetimes… No, more than that. Two more lives they had formed from nothing, and how many they had touched? At least Princess Cadance’s and now his own. That adds up to what, somewhere around three and a half lives?

The blue unicorn rose and shuffled around the coffee table, half-sitting awkwardly on the arm of the recliner in which Flash was most definitely not reclining. Night sighed, and Flash managed to turn his head and dully look up at the elder stallion who said, “You know, when my Twily was little, I desperately hoped that I would be scary enough to keep all the colts away from her. I didn’t think I would be able to accomplish that with all my telescopes and books!”

Flash’s eyes briefly chose to flee in different directions.

“Well, almost.” Night tilted his head and looked down at the sweating pegasus. “I know you’ve faced your share of monsters, I just didn’t think I’d be the toughest one.” Getting no response besides a pair of eyelids flapping over a vacant stare, he flexed his forelimb and made a face like a flabby astronomer would imagine a bodybuilder would make. Flash failed just as badly at making a smile.

Twilight Velvet froze, a tray with three steaming mugs of tea floating just above the coffee table in a cloud of cerulean magic. Her gaze shifted between the two stallions for a few moments before she crossed her eyes, slowly tilted her head ninety degrees, and stuck out her tongue. Both stallions haltingly turned to regard the mare with confusion. She blinked back in mock confusion. “What? I thought we were making silly faces?”

Night’s line of vision shifted down to his still-flexed foreleg and the distinct lack of a bulging bicep thereupon. Clearing his throat, he shifted over to the crimson ottoman and sat down while Velvet did a very good job of suppressing her chuckles. Night quickly picked up two mugs in his magic and floated one toward a suddenly-animated Flash, who eagerly grabbed the cup and gulped it without taking a single breath.

Velvet had added enough brandy to cool the boiling tea to a drinkable temperature. That seemed about right. Coughing from the strong brew, Flash looked over at Night, who was blinking his eyes rapidly to ward off the stinging vapor rising from his own mug. Raising his head to meet Flash’s gaze, Night glanced down at his drink and back again, then levitated his untouched drink over to trade for the now-empty mug. Flash took a long sip, watching as Night and Velvet exchanged significant looks. Finally, she hid a grin behind her cup, directing an almost imperceptible shake of her head toward her husband.

Licking his dry lips, Night rolled the empty mug around in his hooves while he watched the young suitor calm his nerves. Just as Flash was starting to worry about the other stallion’s hungry glances, Velvet spoke up.

“Hun, why don’t you tell us about what happened when you asked my papa?” Her poker face hid a grin that must have been somewhere between sly and evil. “That’s a pretty good story.”

Clearing his throat and shifting a bit until he was sitting more confidently in the older stallion’s recliner, Flash trained his blue eyes on the only pony in Canterlot who was now more uncomfortable than he was. Despite the high rank he left behind in the Crystal Guard, and his not-quite-as-high rank in the Canterlot Guard, he had always felt outranked by the harmless and occasionally silly civilian. Maybe it was the ascot. Twilight Sparkle’s father certainly knew how to pull off some class. Not for long, of course, before he’d throw all the class right out the window, and drop a figurative piano on top of it. Flash raised an eyebrow and grinned. He’d just figured out who probably taught Twilight how to dance.

Still imagining what a disaster the dancing lessons must have been, Flash watched Night Light drag his lingering gaze away from the liquor cabinet before turning his head back to his audience. With a thousand-yard stare and a resigned whimper, he began. “There were... blades everywhere.”

Squinting and scrunching his nose, Flash opened and closed his mouth silently twice, before he managed to spit out his question. “I only met Velvet Sash once, and I didn’t think he was that scary? I mean, didn’t he make fancy dresses for a living?”

“Yes. There were blades… EVERYWHERE!”

“Scissors, honey. They were all scissors.”

“Giant, serrated scissors! Some of them had teeth!”

“They’re called pinking shears, sweetie.”

Flash leaned back and smiled, watching the back-and-forth that really couldn’t be called bickering, but wasn’t properly a story either. How many times had they told this tale over a drink with friends? Every brother and sister, friend and co-worker who... More of a dance. Yes, this family danced with words. Flash grinned, remembering a surprise visit to the library during which he peeked in the window to see Princess Twilight Sparkle, literally dancing with books. Spike was getting pretty good on that upright bass of his, probably all that practice with Sweetie Belle. That and his fingers. Twilight had been helping them practice… Hmmm, this brandy was certainly making his mind wander. Not that it needed much help wandering back to her.

“‘... just seems a little rushed is all. Are you sure there’s not a SPECIAL LITTLE REASON you two want to get married so soon?’ he bellowed, floating a ring of serrated blades around my head! I swear, he dimmed the lights and summoned some sort of otherworldly fire JUST to make his eyes pop out even more…”

It didn’t need any help from her meddling older brother either. When you worked for a princess whose special talent was romance, you’d best keep your crushes a secret. Not that he’d mentioned anything, but in an empire centered around a symbol of love, well, who-liked-who tended to get around.

A peach stallion gave him a goofy grin from the bottom of a mug that smelled of bergamot and… marigold petals? It was hard to smell much around the brandy. Flash said goodbye to the handsome devil and drained his mug. While it was still raised to his lips, he saw Velvet curled up on the couch, covering her muzzle with two hooves while giggling furiously at her wild-eyed husband pantomiming something like a swordfight.

Night Light had flopped onto his back, levitating a pair of fireplace pokers over his neck like a nightmarishly deformed pair of scissors, and continued, “...’Nightmare Moon take my soul, I swear!’ and then, he looked me in the eye, and said ‘yes.’ Right then, more than any other moment that night, I thought I was going to die.”

“My precious Nighty made the most adorable whimpering noise…”

“Velvet,” he whined in a theatrical growl through the side of his mouth, “don’t call me that in front of guests. It makes me sound like a mare’s pajamas.”

“But he’s not a guest any more.” Twilight Velvet rolled off of the couch and trotted around the coffee table to give the surprised pegasus a hug, announcing that, “Our Flashy-Washy is family now!”

The last embers of the fire added neither warmth nor light to the room, but they were visible through the last drops of wine in the glass, silhouetting the dust that should have been left in the bottle. Night Light snored quietly on Flash’s shoulder while Velvet lifted herself onto the couch to drape herself over her husband. She rested her chin on his ribs and looked up at the blue unicorn with a tender grin, then shifted her gaze over to the younger pegasus. “You’ve been unusually quiet tonight.”

“I’ve had a busy day.” He turned and regarded the distorted face of his future mother-in-law. Whether the distortion was from looking at her through the bowl of his wine glass, or through the wine it formerly held, he didn’t know. “I’ve had a lot to think about.”

“It’s a big decision. Are you sure you’re ready?”

“No.” It felt a little like admitting failure, but he didn’t hesitate to tell the truth.

Velvet closed her eyes and took a slow breath, exhaling with a few notes of some melody Flash almost recognized. “Good answer.” She opened her eyes, eyes that Flash definitely did not recognize. Hard eyes that seemed out of place on such a sweet, tender mare, mother of two and astronomer’s wife. “You’ll never be ready.”

He certainly wasn’t ready for that. “Wh... what?”

Velvet rolled her head to the side, looking directly up toward her slumbering pillow. “Sometimes,” she almost whispered, “sometimes I’m not sure that I’m ready.” Flash thought he might have heard a sniffle before she lifted her foreleg and started tracing Night’s chin. “No, that’s not it. There’s just no such thing as ready. Not for this. Not for what life throws at you.”

Without breaking his gaze away from the graying couple who were piled against him, Flash clumsily set his glass on the end table behind him. Without looking down, Twilight Velvet said, “It’ll be worse, you know. Everything life throws at you will hurt her, too. And that hurts more.” She closed her eyes again, but this time they seemed softer and wetter when they opened. “Every choice you make has the potential to hurt her. You’ll hurt her in ways you won’t even know.” Her hoof froze.

Snapping her head up and blinking rapidly, Velvet looked at the young face that was a few shades too pale. “Oh dear, I’m scaring you now.” She smiled and reached a forelimb around her husband, putting a comforting hoof on Flash’s shoulder and hugging Night at the same time. “Hurt is just a part of loving somepony. You can’t love if you’re not open to being hurt. Just keep talking to her, and let love work it out. Shame, silence, and secrets will only make things worse.”

The only light in the room was a splash of moonglow reflecting off the stone floor in the hallway. It was just enough light that Flash could make out one particular spot on the coffee table, a dark knot in the polished walnut, a black coal spouting smoky vapors that flowed both downstream and upstream in a river of rosy heartwood, all the way to the wood’s end in both directions. He’d hurt fillies before; nothing terrible, just stupid stuff that a colt does before he figures out how to deal with emotions and such. He was terrified that he might do something to hurt Twilight, and getting married would only make that pain so much worse than a shattered high school romance.

A poke in the ribs pulled him out of the river, and a warm look from motherly eyes dried him off. “It’s worth it, you know. All the pain. I’d rather share all the pain in the world with the stallion I love than never have to deal with pain at all.”

The empty wine bottle reflected a flash of light from a spark that briefly eluded gravity’s prison, catching the stallion’s eye. Flash intoned, “I know a pony who chose not to deal with pain.” Velvet looked down and nodded somberly, waiting for him to continue. “I’m not going to let the prospect of pain keep me from taking the risk, but I’ll take as much happiness as I can get for us.”

“No Flashy, you don’t take happiness. You make it, together.” She squeezed his hoof, and they shared a smile for what was entirely too little time.

“Now if you would be so kind as to stop cuddling with my husband,” she cooed as she used her magic to ever so slightly lift him off of the slightly squashed pegasus, “I think it’s time to go to sleep.” Flash grinned self-consciously and tried not to think about the drool on his shoulder while he slid out from under the pile of blue stallion. Velvet replaced the bleary-eyed feathery pillow with a few throw pillows before allowing Night Light to sink down into a comfortable sleeping position.

As she settled into a comfortable recline against her husband, she whispered, “You’re welcome to sleep on the recliner if you like. There’s blankets…”

Flash shook his head. “Thanks, but no. I think a walk in the cold air would do me good. I’ve got a proposal to plan, and a ring to pick out tomorrow.”

“I hope you enjoy the walk back to your apartment. Good night, Flashy.”

“Yeah, it certainly was.”