Lemure of Love Lost slouched into her favorite chair at her mothers' bookstore. This was her usual way to spend the day; reading books and trying to avoid doing any actual work. Taquita was prowling around, trying to get her to vacuum the floors and tidy the shop up. This was for sure not something the filly was interested in doing.

As much as her mothers would love for her to stay at the bookstore and work at a slave labor wage forever, this just wasn't her thing. Sure, she loved books. Lemure was a Grade A bibliophile. What she loved was reading them; not selling them. She couldn't think of anything worse than doing the day to day operations of running a store.

What she really wanted out of life was *~*~*~LOVE~*~*~*

She wanted that squishy, goo-y, fluffy, sappy, never ending love that all the girls in her books found. There were a lot of attractive singles in Phonyland. Unfortunately, she had found out the hard way that she was related to most of them.

"There you are!" Taquita's voice cut through the silence. Great, more work. "Stop daydreaming and help me re-alphatize the children's section." Lemure shuddered. Foals were always taking out books, and then leaving them everywhere around the store.

"Not now, mom. I'm having an existential crisis." and she flopped over in the large chair and buried her face in the cushion.

Taquita stood in front of her, and gave one of those heart-wrenching concerned mother stares. "What's bothering you, sweetie?"

Lemure turned puffy eyes to her, "I just want to be happy! I don't want to work at your bookstore anymore. I want to do my own things and live my own life and find a wonderful stallion and run away and live happily ever after." She sniffled, "I want to find my purpose in life."

Taquita's eyes widened. Oh yeah, it was time for that talk. "Well, when I was a foal, it was your mommy-Ender's love that helped me find my purpose. We had loved and encouraged each other since we were foals, and it bloomed into what you see now. Love takes time. It doesn't happen instantly like in romance novels. You see love when someone looks at you just a little bit longer than they should, or when your hoof grazes theirs and it makes them blush. Love is made up of small and subtle things.

I can't help you to find your purpose, that's something you have to do on your own, but I will tell you that when you find it, you'll know. It fills every part of you that you didn't know was empty. For me, writing poetry and running this bookstore does that. My life is made better by it. You need to find something that does that for you, and it will all click together."

Lemure pondered her mom's words. What she was saying made a lot of sense. She wanted to share her love; she had a lot of it to give. What she needed though, was to start sharing it with herself instead of looking for someone else to give it to. The filly had to learn to love herself before she could truly love someone else. Then when she found them, they could grow together just like how her parents had. It wasn't a process. It wasn't something that happened overnight.

As much as she hatted to admit it, maybe her mom did know what was best for her. But before she could find out what the world had for her, there was something she needed to do first.

"Mom, I quit! I'm going to go out and make my own destiny in the world!" And then Lemure ran out of the store to see what love she could find.