Four sets of eyes, all holding a complex mix of emotions, zeroed in on the vibrating cell phone. Velvet calmly picked it up, and smiled as she read the message. "Twily says they are just leaving the observatory now and it was amazing," she informed the other adults as she typed out a short reply.

Shining cleared his throat, the sound awkward, particularly when he hesitated before speaking. "....anyone want to hazard if she's speaking of the meteors or the company?"

“Given that they are just now heading home at one in the morning and the meteor shower ended almost two hours ago,” his father observed, “my estimation is ‘both.’”

Cadence glanced at Velvet. “I wonder if they used those blankets for more than just keeping out the cold,” she pondered with a sly grin.

Velvet laughed and shook her head, mostly at the suddenly uncomfortable expressions on the men’s faces. “Cady, dear, I’m not sure that’s an appropriate discussion to have right now.”

Clearing his throat, Night responded, “Or ever, in my hearing, if you please, Cadence. That’s not a subject I ever want to contemplate when it involves any of my children. A father has his limits.”

Shining flinched at Night's last words, then seemed to try and force a smile. In the end, the expression was more of a grimace. "I... have to say I'm with Dad on this one, Cadence. I’m sorry…but please, can we not talk about this? It's just... just TMI and kind of gross when it involves my baby sister.”

The pink-skinned woman rolled her eyes, then mouthed ‘Wimp’ at him with a bit of a smirk. Her fiancé flinched again--a common response in the few weeks, despite the fact that she’d forgiven him, and so had his parents. Cadence sighed. "Come on Shiny, it's not that bad..." An impish smile started to make its way onto her face, and she opened her mouth to fluster him again with another ribald attempt at humor.

Before she could though, Velvet cleared her throat. “I believe that’s something better saved for girl-talk later, Cady,” she chastised gently. Then she studied the depth of her hot cocoa. “All the same, I am extremely happy that their ‘not-a-date date-night’ seems to have gone well. Maybe this will turn out to be one of those things that makes Twilight more comfortable with the idea of telling us.”

Cadence tapped her own cup with a finger. “I think part of it is Sunset’s ‘do instead of debate’ approach. By showing her first and then explaining it, she’s eliminated a lot of Twilight’s worries with hard proof.”

Her fiancé snorted, the sound laced with frustration. "Then maybe we should do the same, he bit out, anger from more than just the situation at hand leaking into his voice. “Just tell Twily that we know she's gay, we know she's head over heels for her best friend... and that…We. Don't. Care." Cadence reached over and touched his hand briefly, trying to soothe him without words. She knew that it was more than the secrecy of this whole ‘not-a-date-date-night’ that was eating at him, but this wasn’t the time for that to be addressed.

“I’m not sure that’s the best course of action. Keep in mind,” Velvet reminded her son, her words soft edged and calming, “that out of all of us, Gently and Cadence are the only people besides Sunset that Twilight has spoken to at length on the subject, and Gently has repeatedly advised that Twilight has to come to terms with how she expresses that part of her identity to others on her own, and that we need to leave that choice in her hands if we can. I don't think it's reached any kind of point yet where her health or well-being is at risk—Sunset is not the kind of girlfriend that is bringing Twily into dangerous situations or pressuring her into unhealthy behavior—quite the opposite, actually. In the months since they met, she’s proved a remarkably stabilizing influence on your sister.”

Taking a sip of her drink, Cadence added her thoughts on the matter, drawing one what she knew from experience. “Twilight needs that control, I think. She wants to tell you all, but she’s trying to work up the courage to do it and just is not there yet. She’s got a lot of those fears like any queer kid trying to ‘come out’ about themselves, but her anxiety problems makes the fear worse. Still, she’s got a lot of the signs of psyching herself up for it, and I think Sunset is a big part of that.”

Shining shook his head. “And how is that fair to Sunset? I’ve said it before--she’s just as much a child as Twily is, and deserves the same amount of consideration and care, but no one has asked how she feels about this! She’s about as ‘out’ as they get without wearing a rainbow patch on her jacket. Do you honestly think she’s happy sneaking around about it—we all know that Sunset doesn't exactly do subtle.” He stood up abruptly to begin pacing, the things on his mind meaning he could not sit still any longer, and the pink skinned woman knew she had to do something to stop him from winding himself up further.

“I’m not sure that Sunset is as ‘out and proud’ as you seem to think, Shining,” Cadence pointed out doubtfully, remembering the storm of confusion in blue-green eyes over the holidays and the way the teenager had admitted to ignorance of modern views of sexuality and identity--or at least, some kind of disconnect from them.

All three of them looked at her curiously. “What do you mean, she’s not?” Shining asked. “She couldn't be more obvious about being in love with Twilight if she actively had it written on her forehead in permanent marker!”

Laughing, Mi Amore Cadenza shook her head. “No, I get that her feelings for Twilight are extremely transparent. That’s not what I mean. It's more that…she is far too in-the-dark about sexuality and romance as a whole compared to most people who are public about their identities. She openly admitted to me that everything she knows about ‘dating and courtship,’' Cadence said with her fingers making air quotes, “came from a handful of teen movies, and observation of her peers at school.” She paused, thinking back on something Luna had said. “The same movies that depict a high school ‘mean girl’ that Lu has implied was her previous persona before this year.”

Night arched his eyebrow. “You're suggesting she learned how to be a teenager from movies rather than just being a teenager,” he commented, seeking clarification.

“Not quite. I’m suggesting she learned how to be our kind of teenager from movies.”

Velvet frowned. “From what she let slip, it sounds like the person who adopted her was a very busy person and sent her to boarding school almost immediately, with a focus on academics…but didn’t bother to pick one where Sunset’s intellectual abilities would be challenged. Given her similarities to Twilight, and her lack of positive social exposure until recently, I’d wager she spent a lot of time alone, reading and working…and otherwise avoiding human contact when she could.”

“And if you couple that with a completely different cultural environment—because let's face it, Europe has dozens of tiny countries, fiefdoms, and glorified dukedoms, all with their own histories and cultures—it is like Sunset is operating from a completely different playbook than the rest of us,” Night noted. “One that has overlap in some areas, but not in others.”

Shining added his own two cents to the conversation, his pacing slowing as he'd absorbed their words, "...and there could be more cultural disconnect if you consider she spent the first handful or so of her years in this country, before being uprooted..."

The four adult members of the family were silent and thoughtful for a time, before Cadence continued, “It makes sense, and it would explain why Sunset sometimes…” she hesitated, looking for the right way to phrase what she wanted to say. “…Why she sometimes seems like she’s operating from a completely unrelated point of view that has very little in common with what we would expect from your average teenage girl wearing leather and driving a motorcycle. Which was my original point. I don't think she’s ‘out’ so much as it is that she doesn't really grasp the entire concept of ‘the closet’ at all, much less being ‘in’ or ‘out’ of it.. At least not on any kind of personal, emotional level that we would relate to.”

Twilight Velvet stirred a few more marshmallows into her cocoa. “From her words to you, sweetheart, the entire concept of romance may have been a non-issue before Twily as well, so I’d be hesitant to ascribe any feelings or opinions to Sunset she hasn’t explicitly expressed to us.” She glanced at her son. “She may very well be chafing under the secrecy, or she may not even notice it. We have no way to guess for certain if her behavior does not always conform to our societal interpretations.”

Night nodded along with his wife, adding, “As much as it frustrates me, and as much as Twilight’s fear of our reaction hurts…your mother’s right, son. It's not as simple as telling Twilight we know about her preferences.” He adjusted his reading glasses. “Though it might interest you to know that we were considering going out to the beach house for Spring Break and inviting Sunset along for the trip.”

A grin split Cadence’s face. “They’ll spend the whole week staring at each other like lovesick puppies,” she chortled.

Shining’s brows furrowed. “Do you think that’ll work? Like do you think letting them play house for a week at the beach will get Twily to just tell us?”

“Not necessarily,” the older man answered slyly, “but we suspect talking to Sunset privately a week or so before break will help on that front. That gives your sister a few months to gather her courage on her own, but in the end, if she can't, maybe Sunset will have some ideas on what we can do to settle her fears.”

Cadence looked between Night and Velvet. “So you intend to tell Sunset that you know they’re dating? Or just that you know about Twily being gay? Or…”

“Both, really,” Velvet answered. “That we are aware and have been for some time, but that we want Twilight to be able to tell us so she has one less thing that she is constantly stressing over….because, at the end of the day, we love Twilight and we won't react badly.” She smiled. “Twilight wants to tell us, but she loses her nerve at the last second—it's happened two or three times now since Christmas—and I suspect all she needs is something—or someone—to give her that last bit of courage.”

Laughing, Cadence set her empty mug on the coffee table. “That someone being Sunset.”

“That’s the hope,” Night said. “I’m half hoping that after Sunset learns it's a secret that isn't actually a secret to anyone, she’ll work her ‘Twily Whisperer’ magic and get her to just talk to us. She’s blowing this whole subject out of proportion, and it's just going to get worse the longer she and Sunset are together—at this point it's only a matter of time before someone slips up, and my money is on Sunset. Like you said, son, the fact that she loves your sister is completely unsubtle and might as well be a tattoo on her forehead.”

Crossing his arms, Shining’s face twitched as he fought off a scowl again. “That’s why I think that it's unfair to Sunset for Twily to insist on it being a secret. They should be enjoying their relationship, not skulking around like they're doing something illegal.”

A pink skinned hand rested on his arm, trying and failing to get him to sit back down. “Shiny, to a lot of people, they might as well be. As loving and tolerant as you and your parents are, you are in the minority. Look at the fight going on right now just to try and legalize the right for people like your sister to marry, and how aggressively nasty the opponents of the idea are. Twilight and Sunset face extremely different challenges to you and I at that age and stage of a relationship, and being cautious is one of the ways they protect themselves from people who would hurt them just for how they feel about each other.”

The blue haired young man gave an explosive sigh. “I know that…but that's out there, not in here. Not with us. We love Twilight—she’s family—and we aren't going to just stop because she likes girls. She’s supposed to feel safe at home, and she clearly doesn't…” He rubbed his face. “I feel like I’ve failed her twice now.”

“I understand how you feel, son,” Night said. “I hate that Twilight is afraid of repercussions from her own family, and in some ways, I wonder if that is our fault for not speaking out louder at the big gatherings against some of the beliefs perpetuated by people like Jade and her husband, or the way Alabaster is always looking to correct behavior she sees as ‘socially unacceptable.’”

Velvet interrupted them both sternly. “We could talk about reasons and blame all day long, but in the end, that’s not fair to Twilight, Sunset, or us…and it's explicitly what Gently told us we should avoid when Twilight does have these kinds of behaviors. The things that motivate Twilight to decisions like these rarely have any connection to our emotions, or to what we want to assume they do, and if she ever got an inkling that we were blaming ourselves or assuming things that she hadn’t considered, or thought about, all it would do is make her anxiety and mental state worse. It will feed right into one of her spirals, and turn into a meltdown that could have been avoided.”

“Not only that, but you’re both wrong,” Cadence said in a very pointed tone.

Shining blinked at her. “What do you mean?”

His fiancée frowned and poked him with a forceful finger, making the pale skinned man move back from her with an uneasy expression. “Trying to take on any measure of blame for what happened to Twilight in the park is a load of bull. This house is in a suburban neighborhood, in an area with an extremely low crime rate, and she was in a park that is only a mile away. A park, mind you, that she has been to a hundred times before at all hours with no trouble. You had no reason to suspect that anything would happen, that there would be any danger, and it's not your doing that there was. Taking that blame on yourself, seeing it as your fault is no better than saying ‘Twilight should have known better.’ Its bull, and just like victim blaming, it takes the responsibility away from the people who are really at fault: the attackers.”

Twilight Velvet made a noise of agreement. “Cadence is right, Shining. No one here did anything to put Twilight in danger, nor did Twilight openly seek to do things to put herself in a bad situation, and the blame should go completely to people who believed it was their right to do whatever they want to whoever they want with no consequences.”

Frowning, Shining Armor returned to his pacing. “I still feel like I should have done something, told her to stay home, not suggested the park instead of the backyard, or checked in on her, or even made sure she knew how to defend herself better.”

“And none of that would have guaranteed any different outcome,” Cadence countered. “Or done much to change the minds of her attackers. You can’t change what has already happened, not without a time machine, and I don’t think Twilight has built one of those yet.”

He fell silent, pensive and thoughtful, and Cadence turned her attention to Night Light. “…As for the way you and Mom stood up to the attitudes of the close-minded crowd…the fact is, Dad, that it wouldn’t have changed anything either. This is a really volatile time period for the Queer community, where we’re making actual headway in the area of equality and acceptance, and just like any fight for equal rights, it’s being met with strong opposition from those against it. Twilight would come face to face with those attitudes eventually, and have to learn that there are plenty of people who are offended by her existence and how she loves, and no amount of you shouting at Artful Jade or Ringing Endorsement or Shining Aurora would change their minds. He’d still be pushing his legislation to provide protections for conversion therapy as a 'legitimate practice’ to ‘cure’ certain ‘psychological maladies,’ and Jade would still be going at Dancer every year at the dinner table about his ‘eternal bachelorhood.’”

“It still might’ve made Twilight feel more like we were in her corner.”

“Would it? I’ve been vocal for years, to the point of earning more than my share of animosity from them for it, and it hasn’t made a difference in their opinions, or in Twilight feeling more open at home.” Cadence shrugged. “And it's pretty likely that any increased hostility towards all of us is something she would have internalized as her fault.”

Setting aside her empty mug, Velvet added, “Much as I know your inner cavemen would like to prevent all problems for the women in your lives, sometimes things just are what they are, and we must do the best with the hand we've been dealt."

Night cleared his throat. “You’re both right, I suppose. It's just hard sometimes when we try so hard to protect the people we love and it feels like we fail.”

Cadence sat forward, waiting a moment until she had Night's direct attention before she spoke. "Dad...don't ever think for a moment that you aren't doing an amazing job. You know the kind of things I see and hear about with my job, from the Dreamwalker kids, from other people in the Queer community, and that’s not even touching on the stuff Shining sees and hears about at work.... believe me when I say, you and mom are in the top one percent for parents of a kid like Twily. And she knows that too, even if she never says anything."

He gave her a small smile. “Thank you, Cady…It means a great deal to hear you say that.”

“Speaking of good parenting,” Velvet mused, looking at her phone, “perhaps you and I should discreetly take ourselves upstairs so that the girls don’t come home to the whole family waiting up in the living room like we intend to interrogate them. That would ruin any progress made tonight by triggering Twilight’s anxieties.”

“I’ll wait for them,” Cadence offered. “Maybe I can find out how it went if it's just me down here.” Her eyes danced with glee.

A shake of her head and Velvet began collecting empty mugs. “Try not to be too excited, dear. They may not want to share too much right yet.”

She grinned. “I’ll be careful, Mom…but I can usually get Twilight to spill with just a little coaxing. Big sister rights and all that.”

Shining hesitated. "I... don't think my presence will be productive for any kind of girl-talk, and…well...I’m not sure Sunset will feel comfortable with me around just yet anyway...She keeps giving me these…looks." He shrugged when Night frowned at him. "Dad, I know what I’m seeing, and I'm the only one she didn't come to when planning this not-a-date of theirs. It's better for everyone that I…respect her clear wish for space." He picked up his mug, and after another hesitation, leaned down to kiss the top of Cadence's head. "I should get some sleep anyway, I offered to take the crap shift for Oakstaff tomorrow so he could go to his son's Little League game."

Couple important points to make here:

1. This story does actually take place a number of years ago, about the time the big gay marriage fight was happening in the courts, and since I'm using that as a loose "baseline" of human world events, (though perhaps not as TOXIC as our actual world), that is what Cady is referencing.

2. Its been mentioned a couple of times now, I think, but to provide a little audience fill in until I can actually get around to writing the College Years story, "The Dreamwalker Foundation" is a social welfare organization founded by Luna and Cady to provide help to LGBTQ+ youth who either run away or are thrown out by their families. It has a couple of 'Centers' (halfway houses, shelters, etc), as well as outreach programs to help those same youth do things like get their GED and find employment, get legally emancipated from guardians who threaten their well being, and otherwise offer connections to physical and mental health care options for people who really need it. This is all part of that sphere of things that Cadence does as a minor celebrity and activist, right up there beside running her mouth on the internet and the radio. Her pony counterpart is the Princess of Love...so the human version is a Champion of Love and Compassion...

3. Oh look, more references to various members of Twilight's extended family!

4. Yup, everyone knows. Its not a secret, girls.

5. Hmm...Shining's still got some things to work through.