Zephyr Breeze was dead in a coffin.
 
Turquoise Edge wouldn’t have believed it if she wasn’t seeing it with her own eye. Her father, her bedrock, was dead and never coming back. And with Ma gone too, she was officially an orphan. A divorced orphan.
 
The remaining family that filled the funeral hall only served as a harsh reminder of what she had lost. Holly and Fafa were there, and even Mel had showed up to offer her condolences, but Turquoise didn’t have the guts to even look at them, let alone talk to them. It seemed everypony knew what was going on in her life, as every aunt and cousin who came to offer their condolences seemed to be walking on eggshells to avoid setting her off.
 
What Turquoise really wanted was to scream and cry, to wallow in her own crushing despair and curse fate for leaving her with nopony. But she was a hardened warrior, and everypony knows warriors don’t cry. Besides, with so many ponies around her, she didn’t want them to feel more sorry for her than they already did. Now was not the time to get emotional.
 
Her ear pricked up at a familiar whimpering nearby. Across the coffin was her brother, sobbing his heart out over their father’s body. With a distraught look on his face and tears spilling down his cheeks, Hawk Eye looked as miserable as Turquoise felt.
 
Hawk looked up and sniffled as his sister approached him. “H-hey, sis.”
 
“Hey,” Turquoise remained stern and stoic.
 
“How are you?” Hawk winced out of fear that the question would set her off.
 
“I’m fine.”
 
He looked back down at his father’s body as a fresh wave of tears came to his eyes. “W…why aren’t you crying, sis?”
 
“I don’t need to.” She patted his back and let him cry into her tuxedo. She was lying.
 
“I really thought he had a bit longer. That’s what the doctors told us, right? I didn’t think he’d go now, just after…”
 
“I thought so too. But life doesn’t always work how we want it to, I guess,” Turquoise sighed. “It never does.”
 
Both siblings looked down on their father in silence, neither willing to say what they were both thinking. About the divorce.
 
“I can’t believe she did it…” Hawk broke the silence.
 
“Excuse me?”
 
“You didn’t hear?” Hawk wiped his eyes. “Gal kicked her kid out. Parasite came to invite her to her wedding, and she told her to get out and never come back.”
 
Turquoise didn’t hear anything about that. But nevertheless, she shook her head and grumbled, “Why am I not surprised…”
 
“She came to my place just after it happened. Said Firefly turned her out and she was looking for a place to stay. But when she told me what she did, I…I lost it. She seemed almost proud of herself. I just couldn’t take it. So I told her we couldn’t be friends if she was gonna be that way.” Hawk sighed sadly. “I just can’t believe she would go and do that.”
 
Turquoise furrowed her brow in disgust. So Galaxy had actually disowned her kid. After all that had happened, she cut ties with her own daughter. Hell, Turquoise hated Galaxy’s guts and would do anything in her power to keep Holly safe from that family, but she would never disown either of her children. She would give anything to get her own family back, and Galaxy was deliberately pushing hers away. She deserved whatever punishment that was coming to her.
 
“Y’know,” Hawk continued, “I always thought Gal was pretty nice. We’d been tight for years, and we had nothing but good times together. I thought all her issues were just with you, that she was cool with everypony else. She did watch you kill her dad.” Hawk cringed immediately after he said this. “I mean, it isn’t your fault, but that’s gotta mess up anypony, ya know?”
 
“Yeah, I get it.”
 
“But then I started hearing about how she’s been treating everypony else. Confetti said she used to spend most of their gal’s nights complaining about her ma and Dusk. We’re talking about the Princess and Head Diplomat of Friendship here. You gotta have a real problem to diss them like that. And now she’s kicked her own filly out…I just don’t know where things went wrong.”
 
“She’s always been that way,” Turquoise growled. “I’m pretty sure her dad was an asshole too. Hell, I never heard either of them talk about Princess Twilight OR Dusk. Shows how much they cared. Galaxy was always her daddy’s little princess, and he got her into all the ranks I actually had to work to get into. She’s always gotten everything she wanted handed to her on a marbled slate. It’s always been about her and nopony else.” She took a deep breath. “So yeah, I’m not surprised.”
 
Hawk paused for a long moment as he took everything in. “I…I never knew any of that. I guess I’ve been blind this whole time. I was the exception to her attitude, wasn’t I?”
 
“Yep.”
 
Hawk frowned defeatedly and looked down in silence.
 
Turquoise placed a hoof on his shoulder. “Hey, uh, I’m sorry. I knew her too. Looks like we both learned the hard way who she really is.”
 
“Yeah…well, at least I still got you, right sis?”
 
“Yep,” Turquoise smiled slightly and nodded. “We’ve got each other.”
 
Hawk glanced back down at Zephyr’s body. “Hey, if you ever need somepony to chill with or somewhere to crash, I’m around. You’ve got my number; hit me up sometime. I’ve missed seeing you.”
 
“I…I’ve missed you too,” Turquoise admitted. “I could actually use some company sometime, now that…”
 
“Say no more, sis. We got a deal.” Hawk pulled her into a hug. “Love ya, Ducky…” He glanced at his father and felt Turquoise tense up. “I mean, Turq.”
 
Turquoise leaned into his embrace, trying to keep herself from choking up.
 
“Love you too, Hawk. Thank you.”