The evening since leaving work had been an emotional rollercoaster for Filthy Rich. Over several hours, he’d gone from terror to growing anxiety of one flavor or another to dread, with a brief plateau of relief before finally climaxing in utter shock. He tried his best to soothe his weary soul by reminding himself that his daughter was alive and alright, but that was little comfort as he looked upon the mare before him. Spoiled Rich, his beloved wife, the mother of his child…
“How can any of you waste your time with such pointless things when that insane stallion is just going on his merry way?!”
…and the monster who had struck his greatest treasure without a hint of remorse.
“I demand restitution! I want him in stocks! I can only think of one reason for you to not be after him, and that’s sheer favoritism! Once more, our government –!”
“How dare you!” Fluttershy, amazingly enough, had risen to the challenge, her eyes locked upon the mare before her in a Stare that could bleach Queen Chrysalis. “You rant and rave and boast about being able to get whatever you want with your money, and now you accuse us of doing the same?! You hypocrite!”
Spoiled Rich, however, was not Queen Chrysalis, and she snapped back full of color and defiance. “Get away from me, you! I’m the victim here!”
“Says the mare that was slappin’ her own daughter an’ insultin’ all’a us!” Applejack looked ready to pick up where Quiver Quill had left off. “Yer damn lucky we don’t leave the pitchforks lyin’ round!”
“More like he was lucky, you filthy hick!”
“That’s enough.”
Spoiled Rich’s tirade halted as Granny Smith slowly approached, her eyes narrowed. With a smug look on her face, the wealthy mare stood up and noted, “Well, now that’s settled, I’ll require medical…”
“Git off mah land.”
The wealthy mare turned to the aged one, the latter’s expression cold and her eyes glaring hot daggers. “Excuse me?”
“You deaf? Ah said to git off mah land.” Granny Smith’s eyes narrowed as she amended. “In one piece ‘er several. Take yer pick.”
Spoiled Rich paused at that threat, as if seriously considering its validity, before she scoffed. “Very well, but you can consider your family’s business with the Rich family concluded. Filthy, Diamond, we’re leaving!”
“No.” As his wife turned back to face him, Filthy Rich pulled his daughter close and firmly repeated, “Last I checked, I was still welcome on this property. And my daughter is going nowhere with somepony who would hurt her.” Spoiled Rich considered him, then threw up her head and marched off as Filthy took a deep breath and looked down at his daughter. “Diamond, it’s alright.”
The filly looked up at him, tears still in her eyes, and then rushed to embrace him, sobbing broken apologies as she rubbed her muzzle into his chest. He gently stroked her mane as she bawled, tears streaming out until she finally sniffled and gasped, “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”
“No, it’s my fault. That comes with being a father.” Diamond looked up at him as he asked, “But why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was scared.” The filly sniffled as she admitted, “I was scared you wouldn’t love me anymore.”
He hugged her tight and promised, “I’ll always love you, Diamond. Nothing will change that.” He loosened his grip and amended, “But not about what you’d been doing, or your bullying Apple Bloom and her friends. I meant about your mother, and how she’s treated you.”
Diamond rubbed away what she could of her tears. “Because I thought you knew. And I… I…”
Apple Bloom stepped forward and reasoned, “She didn’t think ya’d do anythin’ about it.”
Those words hit Filthy Rich like the Friendship Express at full tilt, and he felt like the world had gone out from under him. And the worst part of it was that he couldn’t come up with a good response. He’d trusted Spoiled to look after their… after his daughter, and operated with the belief that she had Diamond’s best interests at heart. He’d often come home so exhausted from work that he’d barely had time to ask about how things had gone, how their days had been spent, and hardly found the time to look at what was going on around him.
Or perhaps he’d simply not wanted to look, the metaphorical imp hovering over one shoulder told him. He gently cupped his daughter’s muzzle with his hoof and raised her head up to look at him, and smiled. “I will now. I promise. And I know how to start.” He turned to the unicorn Guardspony and asked, “You’re Mister Quiver Quill’s cousin, yes? You know where he lives?” At Sour’s nod, he noted, “Then I start there.”
“Well don’t start without us.” Twilight finished repairing what she could of Silver Spoon’s glasses and then gently lifted them back onto the filly’s head. “Quiver’s a friend. And whatever he’s going through right now, I won’t let him go through it alone.” She glanced around at the gathered ponies and asked, “Anyone opting out?”
“Only because somepony’s gotta keep watch here on the farm.” Granny looked to her grandchildren and said, “But y’all let him know how grateful we all are, hear?”
The three siblings looked between one another, grinned, and nodded. “Eeyup.”
-
It had been some time since Quiver had felt this low. The last time was…well, it was the day that he’d walked in on Luster Drain assembling his desk and claiming it for herself. That time he’d nearly gone off to the Everfree, ready to end it all. This time, he made his way back to his home, ready to wait for what he thought was the inevitable.
He opened the door and within seconds, he had Edgar’s attention. The raven swiftly fluttered onto his head and gently ran his beak along one ear in greeting. “Hello!”
“Hey Edgar.” Quiver closed the door behind him and made his way to his pet’s normal perch. “Kinda obvious this was a bad night, huh?”
The raven hopped off his head and turned to face him from his customary place. “Okay?”
The stallion shook his head. “I think I’ve messed up. So bad that I might not be able to recover from it.” He sighed and sat down. “Not the first time, and probably not the last either.” He looked up, and tried his best to put on a brave face. “Do me a favor? Don’t give Sour too much trouble, huh? Believe it or not, I think she likes you.”
“Like her too.”
Quiver let out a dry chuckle before his attention turned to his door, a knock having sounded from outside. He stood up and made his way towards it. “It’s alright, I’m cooperating! Don’t knock down the door!” He opened it, only to be surprised by what awaited him outside. “I… Princess Luna?”
“Good evening, Mister Quiver Quill.” Standing at his doorstep, flanked by two thestrals of the Night Guard, was indeed Princess Luna. Her mane swayed and flowed and twinkled like the stars at night, and her cyan eyes were shining contentedly as she softly smiled upon him. “May I enter?”
The stallion momentarily found himself at a loss for words, but quickly recovered. “Yes, of course, please!” He gestured for her to come inside, and as she did so, he asked, “Can I get you something to drink? Milk? Tea? Juice?”
“No, thank you, but I hope that you will allow me to rest in comfort.”
Quiver nodded, and Luna settled herself upon his sofa as he closed the door. Her attention soon moved to the raven upon his desk as Edgar bowed in greeting. “Hail!”
The alicorn laughed and extended a hoof. “Hail and well met, friend raven! How fare thee?”
Edgar accepted his new perch with relish. “Well! How fare thee?”
“Most well!” Clearly pleased, Luna turned to Quiver as he approached. “Thou hast chosen thine companions well. ‘Tis rare to see such a gregarious raven.”
“Well, it’s more like he chose me.” The mirth faded from his face as the stallion asked, “Why are you here, ma’am?”
She raised a hoof. “Please, do not be so formal. Luna will suffice for addressing me.” Luna gently smiled and added, “And as for my presence here this evening, ‘tis something I’ve sought for quite some time. Though given your ill humor, I think my presence here was well timed.”
“I thought that you reached out to help ponies in their dreams.”
“Only when needed. I am well aware that the use of my skills in that regard could be considered a breach of privacy, and only enter the dreams of others if the situation is dire, or if a child needs me. All too often, it ends up being both.” Edgar hopped from her limb back to his normal perch as Luna continued, “Aside from the fact that I lack such probable cause here, I thought it would matter more if this meeting happened in the waking world, rather than the realm of dreams.” She laid her hoof upon his shoulder and smiled. “Thank you.”
Quiver’s expression turned to surprise. “For what? I’ve never…” The realization dawned on him. “Oh. That story I wrote.” He bowed his head. “Forgive me Luna, but I don’t think that’s worth thanking me over. For all the work I put into it, I got a lot of things wrong.”
“Only because you didn’t have the complete facts available to you, sir. It’s hardly your fault for lacking information that nopony in the public would know about until I’d regained my freedom, and regardless, you still have my gratitude.”
He raised an eyebrow. “For being a naïve fool who thought that a child’s tears could halt a monster?”
“For looking at a monster and seeing the tragedy, where so many saw naught but a frightful and fanciful tale. You have a rare gift, young stallion. That of vision.”
Quiver bowed his head. “For all the good it’s done me. Having vision is only nice so long as others accept it. That story might’ve brought me a lot of good, but…” He glanced to his left flank and the cutie mark upon it. “But it caused me a lot of pain, too.”
Luna’s hoof went from his shoulder to his muzzle as she turned his attention back towards her. “Then listen to this tale, storyteller, and let it be a balm to your wounds.” She withdrew the hoof and sat at attention. “After my return from the prison of Nightmare Moon, I was… broken. Where once I was consumed with rage and envy, I now had to contend with guilt and self-loathing. But in those early days, my sister showed me something that helped, even if only by a small amount.”
“The story I wrote.”
The princess nodded. “I still had a long road ahead, which curved one way and another, and faced setbacks along the way. But your tale helped, because it showed that one pony, despite years of distance between himself and the truth, could understand what happened. It helped me to move on, and to let go.”
“Just that story?”
“No. I had friends, too.” A knock sounded from the door, and Luna’s horn glowed with magic as the doorknob turned. “As do you.”
The door opened, and a large gathering of ponies stood at the door, one dragon among them. Right at the front were a unicorn and an alicorn, the latter with a hoof raised in greeting and a reassuring smile. “Hi Quiver.”
The stallion smiled. “Hey everyone. Come on in. Sorry about the lack of space.”
“Like you’d turn down standing room only.” Sour Sweet came forward and gave her cousin a warm hug, then turned to address her superior. “Your Highness.”
“Lieutenant. You are clearly settling into your new home.” Luna grinned. “My sister chose well when she selected you to protect Twilight Sparkle.”
“Something that I’ll never stop being grateful for.” The crowd of ponies had been reduced to its last members as Filthy Rich entered with his daughter beside him. “Courage must run in her family, given what the two of them have done tonight.”
Quiver frowned. “I thought I’d be the last stallion you’d want to see, given what just happened with your wife.”
“That business is yet to come, and only thanks to you having helped to open my eyes.” The middle-aged stallion bowed his head as he closed the door behind him. “Thank you, for that, and for saving my daughter’s life.”
“And for keeping my niece and her friends safe.” Gilded Lily approached her tenant with genuine gratitude.
“I’m sorry for interrupting everypony’s shares of gratitude, but there’s something else we need to deal with.” Twilight turned to her friend. “Quiver, what happened there, you need to talk about it. With all of us.”
“Yeah, you can’t exactly drop a bombshell like that and expect all of us to just let it go.” Rainbow Dash gestured towards his collection of Daring Do books. “I think it’s time.”
Quiver sighed and nodded. “I guess you’re right, given what’s probably to come.” Quiver gestured for Sour to take a seat upon his sofa, then moved to a nearby bookshelf. “Some of you know at least a few details to this story, a few more than most. Though I don’t think anypony here knows all of it, at least, not for certain.” He pulled one volume from the shelf, and then climbed onto the sofa between his cousin and Princess Luna and opened the book. “I got this in the mail not long after I arrived here in Ponyville.”
Pinkie gasped in recognition. “Your family record! I remember that!”
Sour rolled her eyes as ponies came forward to examine it, the youngest of the group in the front. “And the questions come in three, two…”
“Bitter Sweet? Surely Sweet? Sickly Sweet?” Apple Bloom looked up at the two cousins. “That’s a lotta sweets.”
“It’s a family tradition, at least for our grandmother’s family.” Quiver looked to his cousin and explained, “The first born daughter of each generation would get the word ‘Sweet’ somewhere in their name. The colts though are entirely up to whimsy.”
Rarity smiled. “I don’t know, ‘Quiver Quill’ has a certain lyrical quality to it.”
Sour laughed. “Quiver got lucky. If it had been up to our grandfather, he’d’ve been named ‘Fussy Britches’.”
Quiver frowned and grumbled, “Not that my proper name stopped him from calling me that anyway.” He sighed. “Anyway, take a look at the name that’s parallel with ours.”
Spike leaned in and read it aloud. “Regal Grace.” He looked up. “You have a brother?”
“Check it again, Spike. He’s got something Sour and I don’t.” As the young drake did so, and turned sorrowful, Quiver continued on. “I didn’t grow up wealthy. My mother and father scraped by as best they could, with my dad working all number of jobs before he stayed at home to raise me, and my mother taking up a position with the Indianapoloosa Historical Society. They didn’t have much, save for each other and a mortgage on a house that felt like it could fall apart around them at any minute, but they did what they could with what they had. And after being married five years, they had me.” He smirked at his cousin. “And Sour followed me into the world a month later.”
She smirked right back and gave him a playful nudge in return. “Rub it in, why don’t you?”
Quiver chuckled, and then turned somber as he continued. “About a year and a half after I was born came my brother. And we were very different ponies.”
Rainbow Dash scoffed, “Quiver, I doubt any pair of siblings is going to be identical. Just ask Fluttershy about her brother sometime.”
“Don’t joke just yet.” Quiver turned dead serious as he continued, “I won’t pretend to be the brightest of bulbs, but I’m not stupid either. I can look after myself, for the most part, hold a conversation, a job, most of the things one expects a grown stallion my age to do. But Regal?” He sighed regretfully. “Regal was another matter.”
-
Quiver smiled as the soothing sounds of a classical score drifted through the air around his ears. He liked listening to music of all kinds, but while something over the radio was nice, he never knew what was coming next. His daddy’s records, however, had lots of good music to them. They ranged from rock and roll to film scores and so much inbetween, and they were peaceful and predictable. They were the sort of thing that he could listen to for hours, even in the background as he read.
A scratching needle shook him out of his enjoyment as the last few seconds of the song started up again, soon drowned out by an all-to-familiar wail of enjoyment. “EIEIEIEIEIH!” He looked up from where he sat to see his younger sibling at the record player as he pushed the tonearm back to repeat the last few seconds once more. “EIEIEIEIEIH!”
Quiver groaned and did the only thing that a four-year-old colt could think of as he hopped off the old couch. “DADDY! Regal’s messing with the record player!”
His father appeared within seconds, a foul expression on his face and wet, sudsy rubbers over his hooves. “Quiver, we’ve tried, but we can’t stop Regal from doing things like this.”
“But he’s gonna ruin the record! Again!”
“I know, but life’s filled with…” The stallion turned silent as he realized something was off with his youngest son. “Where’s his diaper?”He strode past his son as his gaze moved about. “Oh, I do not want to have to deal with this retarded…” One of his hooves made contact with something soft and disgusting just as the discarded diaper came into view, and he knew exactly what it was that he’d stepped in. “SHIT! QUIVER, TRASH BAGS! PAPER TOWELS! SCRUB BRUSH! CARPET CLEANER! FRESH DIAPER! NOW!”
-
“Not long after he was born, Regal was diagnosed with autism. It’s a developmental disorder that, among other things, affects a pony’s ability to interact with others. Communicate, socialize, learn and respond to another pony, all of that. Nopony really knows what causes it, but common consensus is that it’s due to neurological development, particularly in the brain.” Quiver gestured to his skull and explained, “A very complex organ, this. One little thing goes wrong, and it can cause a world of trouble. And given that those diagnosed with it vary in the severity of their symptoms, a pony with autism isn’t just different from a pony without autism, but also most other ponies with autism. It’s not just one thing that can cause them to be different, but tons of other things.”
“I’ve heard of this condition. Fleur Dis Lee donates to a charity dedicated to researching it.” Rarity looked curious as she admitted, “Though I thought there was some evidence that vaccinations were to blame.”
The stallion took on a sharp tone as he next spoke. “Evidence that’s been thoroughly debunked and discredited. If vaccinations were the cause, then anypony inoculated with them would have symptoms instead of the few that do.” He sighed. “Sorry, but you grow up with this stuff, and you do your best to get the facts. There’s no evidence that vaccinations are a factor, just plenty for other things. Older age in the parents, a family history of autism, exposure to substances and situations known to cause other developmental disorders, being male…” His head slumped. “A part of me hopes that some doctors are just making stuff up, but unfortunately, the statistics are in their favor.”
As several of his friends frowned in sympathy, Rarity offered, “Well, that aside, there are therapies to help those diagnosed with autism to function in everyday society. That part of what I’ve heard is correct at least, yes?”
“Yes, but most of them have only been developed in recent years, long since they could’ve done Regal any good. And even if they were available then, a therapy is only effective if there’s consistent participation in it on both sides. Regal tended to be very stubborn and aggressive, and while my parents did try their best to curb his behaviors, my grandparents were another matter. They tended to let him do as he pleased.”
“Grandmare especially tended to dote on him.” Sour frowned and rolled her eyes. “Even now, she can’t get into one conversation with somepony new without bringing him up.” She then put on a big, fake-looking smile and sing-songed, “He was such a blessing!” The smile turned into a bitter frown as she admitted, “I didn’t even live with him and it felt like he was part of my life twenty-four seven.”
“Well, it’s not wrong for a grandparent to dote on their grandchildren.” Fluttershy tried her best to be soothing as she amended, “Or to give them extra attention if they have special needs.”
“Doting on him is one thing Fluttershy, but the way our Grandmare acts sometimes, you’d think that Sour and I simply didn’t exist. And she never quite seemed to grasp the idea that I might want to spend some quiet time with myself rather than be around somepony who was constantly wailing like a banshee.” Quiver sighed. “If I went anywhere, and my grandparents were involved, Regal had to be there too. Stores, movie theaters, restaurants, you name it. And given his behavior, Regal ended up getting banned from the local movie theater. And if he couldn’t go to see the movie, then I couldn’t either.” Quiver shook his head to get off that bit of unpleasantness, and then moved on. “Anyway, due to his condition, my parents ended up dedicating so much of their time to look after Regal that they ended up having very little for me. What time they did find for me they made the most of. They were avid readers, and between my dad frequenting libraries and my mother working in them, I grew up surrounded by books. When I was by myself, I tended to have my muzzle buried in one.” He smiled and admitted, “If not for that, then I probably wouldn’t have gotten into the Daring Do series, or took my first steps to become a writer.”
Apple Bloom gave him a curious look. “Well, did’ya have any friends growin’ up? Neighborhood kids or whatever?”
Quiver shook his head at the filly’s question. “The neighborhood I grew up in wasn’t like Ponyville. There weren’t lots of young foals around for me to play with, and the few that were there I didn’t really socialize with because my dad didn’t like their families. That was one reason I was actually looking forward to going to school, so I could meet other kids and actually make friends.” Quiver frowned. “But it didn’t work out anywhere near as well as I’d hoped.”
-
The aged unicorn mare checked over her list, her lips pursed on her pale yellow muzzle as she crossed off a name and a student took their seat. “The next letter of the alphabet is ‘Q’.” Her expression turned even more sour as she realized, “And it would seem that we have one student whose name begins with that letter.” Her gaze turned towards said lone student, and she cleared her throat.
As the previous student had done, Quiver stepped forward and took his place beside his teacher, then turned to look out onto the class. There were many earth ponies like him, as well as a few pegasi and unicorns, and even two or three who looked like ponies, but weren’t – their ears were too long and their muzzles were colored funny. What did the teacher call them, donkeys? They were different, but if they were in school with him, then they couldn’t be bad. He tried his best to stand up straight, and put on his best smile. “Hello. My name is Quiver Quill. I like books, and reading, and I’m looking forward to making friends.”
“Move along.”
Quiver did as he was told and made his way to the next empty seat, but as he went, one of his hooves got caught on a loose bit of carpet on the floor, and he tripped and fell to the ground. He wasn’t certain which hurt more, the impact with the floor, or the riotous laughter from the other foals.
The last student to take a seat beside him looked down at him and sneered. She was a unicorn like the teacher, with a pale yellow coat, green eyes, and a mane and tail that started out deep red at the tips and turned bright pink at the ends. “Nice moves, Blunder Bill!”
“I said to move along! We’ve no time to waste!” Now feeling lower than he’d ever felt before, Quiver stood back up and went to his desk. “The next letter of the alphabet is ‘R’. We have no students whose names start with that letter. The next after that is ‘S’. Again, we have no students whose names start with that letter. And the next after that is ‘T’.” Her gaze turned to that next group of students, some of whom were still laughing at their classmate’s misfortune.
-
“As much as I wish that I could say otherwise, I’m afraid that every school has at least one spoiled, self-entitled little queen bee in attendance. If you’re lucky, most of them grow out of it, or at least show some redeeming characteristics, but sometimes, you get stuck with an absolute monster.” Quiver scowled. “In my case, I had a monster. Her name was Primrose Thorn, and from day one, she singled me out as her personal chew toy.” He noticed a pensive look on Rarity’s face. “Something wrong?”
The unicorn waved a hoof. “Oh, it’s probably nothing important. If it is, it will come to me. Still, are you certain that you’re not exaggerating?”
“Rarity, that…” Quiver scowled again as he censored himself. “That mare took what Diamond Tiara’s done to your little sister and her friends and kicked it up to eleven. She used her magic to trip me up, shove me into doorframes, and lob things into my head.” He rubbed a point on his side, which Diamond realized was the same place where she’d bucked him a few hours earlier, and remarked. “My sides still hurt sometimes, thanks to all the times I got shoved around. And that’s ignoring the constant name-calling. Thanks to her, I was a pariah, persona non grata and a target for everyone in her little posse. When she decided that you were lower than dirt, then that’s where you were going to be.”
“Well if she was as bad as you say, then why didn’t anypony do anything about it?”
Quiver snorted at the fashionista’s question. “Because nopony wanted to do anything about it. The other students outside of her little clique were too afraid of her wrath to stand up to her, and as for anyone in authority…” He sighed, then turned to the resident schoolteacher and explained, “Ponyville’s lucky to have you, Cheerilee, despite what some might say.”
Cheerilee made a sad smile as she admitted, “Well, I don’t feel like I deserve that sort of praise.”
“That ain’t true!” The five fillies turned to face her as Apple Bloom stated, “Miss Cheerilee, yer the best teacher we could ask for!”
“Despite the fact that I’ve done so little to keep you from being bullied under my watch?” She turned to Filthy Rich and explained, “I’m afraid that it might have been thanks to me that Diamond Tiara picked up the term ‘blank flank’, and started using it against Apple Bloom.”
“But you also replaced me as editor on the Foal Free Press after you found out that I was blackmailing the Crusaders into continuing the Gabby Gums column!” Diamond briefly turned to her father, some lingering shock still on his face, and asked, “Mother never told you?”
“No, she didn’t. And that’s something you and I will need to discuss later.” He turned his attention to Cheerilee and added, “Regardless, that term didn’t begin with my daughter, and it won’t end with her either. If she hadn’t picked it up from you, I’ve no doubt she would have picked it up elsewhere.”
“And from what I’ve seen, you still actively enjoy teaching. The kids love you, and you love them.” Quiver frowned as he admitted, “I can’t say that about the teacher I had. Miss Persimmon was about as jaded, bitter and apathetic as you could get. There’s times where I think a student could die under her care, and she wouldn’t lift a hoof over it.” At the incredulous looks from his friends, he elaborated, “On one occasion, Primrose decided to target one of the other fillies in my class. She and her little posse cornered her in a restroom and sheared off her mane.”
Rarity gasped in outrage. “That little…!” She then gasped again, this time in shock. “Oh sweet Maker, now I remember where I’d heard the name before! She’s a customer!” Heads turned towards her as she explained, “Shortly after Manehattan Fashion Week, I was contacted by her and commissioned to make her a dress for an upcoming event! She’s even scheduled to come into town tomorrow for a fitting! I’m absolutely sorry, Quiver, but had I known…!”
The stallion raised a hoof. “Easy Rarity, I’m not mad at you. You had no idea who she was, and besides, it’s not good business to turn away customers out of hoof.”
“Well regardless, had I known she was the sort to engage in that sort of behavior…” The fashionista gave a very unladylike snort, and then calmed down. “Forgive me, but I’ve rather strong feelings regarding such acts.”
“As well you should, but that’s something for another time.” Quiver turned back to his story and continued, “In any case, there was another factor in her favor. While our teacher didn’t care, said teacher’s supervisor, Principal Fairweather, had no desire to tarnish the word of the school’s star student, especially given her political connections. That’s part of the reason I went postal on Spoiled Rich, because she used her wealth and connections and power to march over everypony else, and got away with it because she had wealth and connections and power.”He frowned and explained, “Primrose was little different. Her father, Crimson Thorn, was and still is the mayor of Indianapoloosa, a position that he practically inherited from his grandmother, Amaranth Thorn, after she was elected to national office. I think the only reason either of them keep on getting reelected is because they buy the vote, not because they’re actually doing a good job in office.”
“I wondered if there was a connection.” At Quiver’s curious expression, Luna elaborated, “My sister once told me that some years ago, Congressmare Amaranth Thorn provided a letter of recommendation for her great-granddaughter to attend the School for Gifted Unicorns in Canterlot. Said foal was rejected, as she refused to partake in the practical portion of the entrance examination. Assuming that they are indeed one and the same…”
Quiver raised an eyebrow. “Well, I guess even her wealth and connections and power had their limits.”
“Still, that does raise some questions.” Twilight turned to Spike as she considered somepony else who might have known the mare in question, before she turned back to her friend and his cousin. “Sour, did you…?”
The freckled unicorn shook her head. “I eventually heard about her from Quiver, but I’ve never met her. He and I didn’t go to the same schools.” She shrugged. “Mom married into wealth. I got to go to a fancy private school while Quiver was stuck in public.”
“Well why didn’t…” The realization hit Diamond Tiara almost instantly. “Ooh. If Primrose got rejected from a school associated with Princess Celestia, then most other schools would think twice about enrolling her on that alone, wouldn’t they?”
“Got it in one.” Quiver gave her a half-smile. “I’ll say this, you didn’t inherit your mother’s brains.” At the filly’s half-smile in return, he continued, “And the sad thing is, she wasn’t the only luminary to graduate from the same school as me. Primrose managed to latch on to a thug of a young stallion named Brick Wall, an earth pony like me, only much bulkier. He tended to join in on the abuse she heaped on me whenever he could.” He gave a sarcastic smile as another memory from his school days drifted into the forefront of his mind. “And of course, there was High Note.”
Rarity’s ears perked up at the mention of that name. “High Note? As in, the Bridleway singer?” At Quiver’s nod, the mare squealed in delight, seemingly ignorant of the resigned expression on Spike’s face. “Oh good gracious! Why didn’t you mention that earlier! He’s one of Bridleway’s rising stars! Handsome, charming, a gorgeous singing voice…!”
“He’s gay, Rarity.” The foul expression on Quiver’s face could’ve curdled milk. “And thanks to desperate naïveté, Primrose had managed to convince him that I was gay too. I managed to convince him otherwise without resorting to violence, but between him trying to come onto me and all of his obnoxious behavior towards me over the years, I never really took much of a shine to him.” He raised a hoof and amended, “And don’t bother telling me that not everypony who isn’t heterosexual is like that. I’m well aware, and I don’t need to be reminded. My issues are strictly with one gay pony, not all of them.”
Everypony accepted that, and discussion continued on as Twilight cleared her throat. “And nopony ever did anything about her or anypony who associated with her?”
“Of course not. Aside from being in charge of a public school, Fairweather was enough of a bootlicker that he’d have turned a blind eye to any of Primrose’s misdeeds, and she had plenty. Most of them aimed at me, and some worse than others. The less I’m reminded of that particular Tartarus-pit, the better.” He gestured towards the nearby wastebasket and explained, “Unfortunately, sometimes things happen and you can’t do much about it. Earlier this week, I got a letter inviting me to an upcoming school reunion. Odds are that’s the event she wants you to make a dress for, Rarity. In any case, I pitched it without a second thought.”
“Can’t blame you.” Rainbow Dash nodded her head towards Fluttershy and admitted, “We didn’t exactly have fond memories of flight camp, and flight school was just as bad, if not worse. Me and Fluttershy didn’t get it as bad as you, but still…”
Scootaloo turned to her hero in shock. “You were bullied, Rainbow Dash? Really?”
The prismatic pegasus gave a reluctant nod. “Yeah. And the best I could do was tough it out, but…”
Fluttershy laid a comforting hoof upon her friend’s shoulder and explained, “But even that wasn’t enough after a while.”
Quiver’s eyes widened in shock. “That’s why…?”
Dash nodded. “Among other reasons. Classwork was never my thing.” She scowled as she admitted, “And getting ‘Rainbow Crash’ chanted in my ear every two seconds didn’t help either, especially when they called me a liar to boot over my first Sonic Rainboom.” The scowl faded as she realized, “But the way you talk about your bully, she was a lot worse than what Fluttershy and I had to put up with. No wonder you lashed out at Spoiled Rich that bad.”
“Well, Primrose was part of the reason, but not all of it.” He frowned as he admitted, “Still, she didn’t help matters, and things only seemed to get worse from there.” The frown grew deeper as he recounted, “Every weekend, and most breaks from school, Regal and I would end up in the care of our grandparents. One time, when I was a little younger than the Crusaders are now and still in my first year of school, we had an extended stay over the summer break.” He bowed his head as he looked at his brother’s name on his family tree. “It didn’t end all that well.”
-
“Why can’t the two of us go and see the movie? It’ll be over long before Mommy and Daddy get here!”
Quiver’s grandfather shook his head. While he’d long since fallen out of his prime and into poorer health, Mighty Hoof still had final say over what went on in his household. “Why would you want to see a movie like that anyway? It sounds stupid to me.”
Quiver’s grandmother, Surely Sweet, was all too content to follow her husband’s lead. “And besides, they aren’t going to let your brother see the movie. Wouldn’t you want to see it with him?”
Quiver pouted. “But Regal’s so loud! I can’t enjoy the movie if he’s screeching over it!”
Mighty Hoof cracked a joking smile at his grandson’s protest. “Well that’s your problem, isn’t it?”
Quiver slumped in defeat. “Okay, I guess. I’ve got a book I can…”
A familiar wailing cry reached the young colt’s ears as he laid eyes on his sibling. Regal’s head was rocking back and forth gleefully as the very book that Quiver intended to read was spread out in front of him. As Quiver tried to process what he was seeing, his grandmother came up to him and cooed, “Ooh! Regal’s trying to read too!”
“But he can’t read! All he does is wave the pages…” The sounds of paper being torn caught the young colt’s attention, and he turned to see his younger sibling gleefully ripping pages free of their bindings. “No! Stop him, he can’t…!”
“What’s wrong, Fussy Britches? Regal’s just having fun!”
“He’s wrecking the book!”
“Well that’s okay! We can replace it!”
“But it’s a library book!”
“Well, must not be a good one!”
Quiver fumed as his grandfather laughed at his own joke, only to be interrupted as his brother approached him and shoved his hoof hard into one shoulder. He turned to face him as Regal again wailed.
“Ohh, now he wants to play with his brother!” Surely Sweet was all smiled as she gestured outside. “Go on now you two, let’s go out in the yard and play on the swings…”
“No.”
She paused and looked at her grandson in surprise. “Quiver?”
“I said no, Grandmare. I don’t…”
Another shove, and further wailing.
“Regal wants to! Come on, Fussy Britches!”
“Well I don’t!” Finally at his wit’s end, Quiver shouted out in frustration, “I don’t want to play with Regal! He always plays too rough, and he never plays the way I wanna play! I can’t have fun with him, I can’t do anything with him, and he ruins everything!”
His grandmother turned cross as she warned, “Quiver, Regal’s your brother, and he’s a blessing, and…”
“And I didn’t want him! I never wanted him, and I never asked for him!” He dashed off instead to a nearby bedroom and shouted right before he closed and locked the door behind him, “I wish he was gone!”
-
“There’s an old saying, ‘Be careful what you wish for.’ I didn’t know it then, but I learned it pretty quick after all that, and I doubt I’ll ever forget it.” Quiver frowned as he continued, “Later that day, my parents came by to pick me and Regal up and bring us home. It was the same as normal; they’d ride a streetcar out to get us from near our house to near our grandparents’ house, then we’d ride it back. This time, though, things were different. As soon as we got back, Regal noticed something new. The family that lived in the house directly across the street from us had gotten a trampoline for their foals, and set it up in their front yard.” A rueful smile crossed Quiver’s face as he recounted, “And Regal liked trampolines.”
Pinkie rolled her eyes playfully at that. “Well duh! Trampolines are fun! They’re bouncy and springy and you can jump super-duper high with them!”
“Except Regal never jumped on them. As far as he was concerned, they were just big springy chairs for him to sit on. Takes the fun out of jumping on a trampoline if there’s one big mass pushing it down.” He shook his head and continued. “Anyway, Regal threw a fit over it, made a mess out of dinner and tried his best to get back onto the trampoline. It was beyond his understanding that the trampoline wasn’t his to sit on, and that our neighbors didn’t approve. But one thing that wasn’t beyond his grasp? How to use a lock and key to unlock a door.” He caught the growing horror in his friends’ eyes as he continued, “Regal ran right out the door and right across the street, into the path of an oncoming streetcar.”
Fluttershy gasped in horror, and Pinkie’s mane deflated as Sour put a hoof to her cousin’s shoulder. “Regal died as a result of his injuries, just barely five years old. Grandmare was distraught, and Quiver blamed himself, but outside of our family, the world went on as if nothing had happened.”
Applejack moved forward and extended a hoof to her friend. “Quiver, what happened to your brother? Ain’t no fault’a yours.”
He looked up and gestured to his head. “I know that in here, AJ.” He then gestured to his heart and finished, “But in here? That’s another story. Couple that with Dad long having harped at me about making certain the doors were locked, and then his getting cold and distant after Regal’s death, and it felt like I was to blame.”
“Well couldn’t you have spoken to someone about it?” Rarity queried. “Your mother, or someone at school?”
“From the frightened perspective of a little kid, what good would telling your mother that you thought you were responsible for your brother’s death would do? And as for everypony at school, well, no one in the administration would’ve cared, and between being ostracized and having enough sense not to talk about it, none of my classmates knew about Regal. If Primrose had ever found out about him, well, that would’ve been the end of it for me. I was already a weirdo, I didn’t want her calling me a… a retard on top of that.” The word felt bitter on his tongue, and Quiver frowned as he admitted, “I’m not ashamed of my brother. He couldn’t help the way he was, and my parents did the best that they could to raise him and help him. But I couldn’t really form a connection with him. That’s hard to do when the other individual’s means of communication are limited to wailing and screeching and physical violence. And I didn’t see the good sense in gabbing about him with others outside the family. Regal wasn’t any business of my classmates or teachers. All that said, he was still my brother, and that meant something to me. Still does.” He looked to his friends and said, “I’m just sorry that I didn’t open up about him sooner.”
Twilight flashed an apologetic smile. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, the girls didn’t find out I had an older brother until right after I got the invitation to his wedding. And I think we can understand you not bringing him up much, between what happened to him and what I’m guessing came after.”
Quiver nodded as he closed his family record. “Losing Regal didn’t do us any favors, but we tried our best to carry on. I did the only thing that I thought I could, and focused on my schoolwork. And not long afterwards, I got an assignment, to write a story and recite it to my classmates.” He shrugged and admitted, “Nightmare Night was coming up, and that ended up encouraging me to write a story based on the Nightmare Moon myths. But when I started on it, I had my dad’s voice in my head. He always complained about how stories weren’t original enough, and how they all ended up being the same to him after a while. So I got ambitious, and decided to dig in and do my research. It took me out of the children’s section of the library and into the wider world of literature, and a lot of digging, but I found the truth.” He turned to Luna and added, “At least, close enough to it. Instead of some wicked monster that gobbled up little foals one night a year and could be tricked with costumes or sated with candy, I found the historical roots of the story. The younger of two royal pony sisters, left scorned and unappreciated after a century of rule beside her sibling, who gave in to depression and anger and lashed out, only to receive a greater and more terrible punishment than anypony could imagine.” He turned back to his guests and explained, “There was a lot that I didn’t find in those books, of course. The Nightmare and its role in events wasn’t known until a few months ago, thanks to all of you. And while I didn’t take everything seriously that I found, like the prophecy of her return, I still acknowledged it.”
Twilight’s eyes lit up as she realized, “You did the math. You figured out that if the stories were true, and Nightmare Moon was to return, then she’d do it within a few years of you writing that story.”
“And I thought it would be a pretty compelling hook if a foal found himself confronted by the real Nightmare Moon, rather than the one of myth and legend.” A sad smile crossed his face as he gestured towards his desk. “I still have a copy, the very one that I read from when I presented it to the class. I was so excited, so eager…”
-
“Miss Persimmon?” The elderly unicorn looked at him with a raised eyebrow as Quiver raised a hoof. “Please, may I recite my story first?”
His classmates glanced among themselves in surprise. Quiver had always been the sort to keep to the background, and after that first day, had never spoken out in class over anything. Seated ahead of him as always, Primrose turned back and asked, “Do you really think that whatever you wrote is worth anything, Lumber Mill?”
The few snickers that sounded were silenced as the teacher gestured him forward. “Come on then, Quiver Quill. Nopony else is wanting to volunteer, so we may as well start with you.”
Quiver climbed off his seat and made his way to the front of the class with his copy of his story, another one having earlier been given to his teacher. He stood in front of his fellow students at a lectern and put on his best smile. “My story is called ‘Nightmare’s End’.” He looked down at the sheets of paper before him and began to recite his tale. “It was a cool morning, right on the cusp of dawn…”
The class was silent as Quiver recited his tale. He occasionally darted up from his story to look at the class, and surprisingly enough, most eyes were on him, particularly those of the new student who’d just started that day. As he continued, he felt a warmth form inside of him, and a growing certainty. He was enjoying himself, in a way that he’d never done before, and that felt good.
-
“I didn’t even notice it when it happened. I was so engrossed in telling my story, so caught up in the moment, that I hardly felt anything. All I really remember was a warm, proud feeling that went through me as it happened, and a sense deep down that I was meant to do what I was doing.” Quiver gave a half-smile and remarked, “Without even trying, I was the first pony in my class to earn my cutie mark.”
The Crusaders eyes lit up with amazement as Sweetie Belle breathed, “Wow. That must’ve been the best day of your life.”
What little smile there was faded. “Actually, it ended up being one of my worst.”
-
“What a stupid story!” The blissful feeling that had overtaken Quiver as he read out his story faded as soon as he heard his tormentor’s voice. “Seriously? Nightmare Moon’s just a story for stupid little foals, Blunder Bill. Everypony knows that.”
Assorted snickers sounded amongst the other students as Quiver tried to defend himself. “But I did research…”
“It’s ridiculous, a pony treating something like that like it’s real!”
“I found the oldest versions of the story in the senior edition of History of Equestria…”
“It’s just some scheme to steal candy from foals one night a year!”
“I cross-checked that with entries in The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide and Predictions and Prophecies, I even did the math, it was…”
“What kind of stupid retard would even…?”
“Hey!” The snickering and giggling halted as Quiver banged a hoof against the lectern. “You shut up and listen to me! I put a lot of work into this, and…!”
“Quiver Quill!” He instantly went silent as Miss Persimmon approached. “It is against school rules to use such language.” He looked up at her in fear as she ordered, “With me. To the principal’s office. Now.”
She led the young stallion out, and Quiver could hear the snickering and laughter start up again just as the classroom door closed behind them.
-
“Aside from being a horrible toady, Principal Fairweather considered himself something of a visionary. He started something that he thought would revolutionize school discipline, and cut down on misbehavior.”
Cheerilee frowned as she realized what Quiver was talking about. “The zero tolerance policy.”
“Fixed punishments were issued to particular students for misbehavior, usually involving suspensions from classes or even expulsion. And my actions after Primrose mocked my story, the one I’d put so much work and effort into, led to me getting a suspension from class for the remainder of that week.” He scowled. “And Primrose, of course, didn’t get so much as a slap on the fetlocks, despite instigating it right in front of Miss Persimmon.”
Apple Bloom turned to Cheerilee with a worried look on her face. “That didn’t catch on, did it? Ah mean, you punishin’ Diamond Tiara fer attackin’ Quiver made sense, but…”
“It varies from district to district, but the EEA hasn’t made it universal, so it isn’t policy here in Ponyville. Still, I had to punish Diamond somehow, and I couldn’t condone her attacking a grown stallion. Not if she wasn’t defending herself from another physical attack, and she clearly wasn’t.” The schoolteacher turned to her student and said, “Insulting your father wasn’t right, but how you reacted was still wrong.”
“Miss Cheerilee’s right, Diamond.” Filthy Rich pulled his daughter close and said, “As touched as I am that you saw fit to defend my honor, that doesn’t mean you were in the right. Especially considering how tonight’s gone.” He turned to Quiver and said, “I don’t know exactly what you said, or what language you used, but you still raised a fair point. I’m not a perfect parent.”
“No, but you’re better than most.” Quiver sighed. “Anyway, a messenger was sent to my home, and my father came to pick me up from school. I knew I was in trouble, but I didn’t know how bad things would get.”
-
The ride home was spent in silence. Quiver barely looked up towards his father throughout, but had no trouble imagining the furious expression upon his face. He could practically feel the rage radiating off his father like heat from a flame, and it did nothing to abate as they reached their home.
The other shoe finally dropped as Bitterhoof locked the door behind him, then turned to face his son. “What the rut were you thinking?!”
“Daddy, I…”
“Whatever the rut you did that counted as ‘disrupting class’, it got you suspended, Quiver! Suspended! You’re damn lucky they didn’t expel you for whatever shitheaded stunt you pulled!”
“We had an assignment, I told a story…”
“What story?” Quiver fished out his copy of his story from his saddlebags and passed it to his father. It only took him a few seconds to glance through it before the anger and fury returned. “Of all the…!” He crumpled the papers underhoof and shoved them aside. “Nightmare Moon?! Seriously?!”
“It’s just a story!”
“It’s horseshit! Nightmare Moon is horseshit! Same with Sonic Rainbooms and windigoes and every other shit story like it! Only retards take it seriously! Now go to your room!” Quiver did his best not to whimper as he turned around to head up the stairs and do as he was told, only for his father to stop him. “Wait! What is that?!”
Quiver checked himself over, only to notice the strange symbol on his flank that looked like a quill over a blank scroll. “I don’t know!”
That answer didn’t satisfy Bitterhoof. “Scrub! It! Off!” Before his son could protest, he barked, “NOW, YOU RETARDED LITTLE SHIT!”
Terrified and on the verge of tears, Quiver rushed up the stairs to do as he’d been told.
-
The gathered ponies looked at Quiver in shock, barely processing what they’d heard. Apple Bloom managed a stunned, “He told ya to scrub off yer cutie mark?! But why?!”
“Because he thought I’d faked it.” Quiver’s expression turned bitter as he continued, “He made an assumption, one given weight by my being so young and by Regal’s condition, and he’s never once wavered from it. Thanks to that, I never even got a proper cutie mitzvah.”
Pinkie let out a pained gasp, and her partly-recovered mane deflated once more. “That’s the meanest thing ever! The only pony I know who didn’t get a cutie mitzvah or a cute-ceañeara is… well, me!” At the surprised looks from the fillies, she explained, “What? My family isn’t big on parties, and besides, I got my cutie mark by throwing a party, so it doesn’t really count!”
Their attention turned back to Quiver as Scootaloo asked, “But what’s your brother got to do with you being able to get a cutie mark? Everypony gets cutie marks!” An uncomfortable silence fell on the room as she looked about. “Everypony does get a cutie mark, right?”
Quiver eyed his friends. “You never told them.”
Applejack took on a firm face. “We knew it weren’t an issue.”
“But nonetheless, it is an inconvenient truth that many ponies would prefer to overlook.” Luna turned to the Crusaders and said, “Every true biological pony, given the chance and ability and time, earns a cutie mark, and there is nothing preventing the three of you from doing so. It doesn’t define you, more the other way around. But even if Quiver Quill’s brother had not died so young, given the severity of his condition, I doubt very much that he would have received his.”
“The sad truth of the matter is that ponies who suffer from severe mental handicaps, either from birth or thanks to some traumatic brain injury suffered early in life, are often unable to earn cutie marks. With ponies who are low functioning autistics, many think that it’s due to their inability to relate and interact with others in the world around them. Thanks to that, those ponies are rarely able to discover what allows them to find their own unique place in the world at large. Regal, unfortunately, was one of far too many ponies who counted towards that number.” Quiver held up a hoof. “I’m not saying that all autistics don’t get cutie marks. There are plenty of high-functioning autistics who gain them as they grow up. I’m also not saying that the mentally handicapped are any less sapient beings than we are, only that through circumstances beyond their control, they won’t have the same opportunities as the rest of us. Regal and other ponies like him aren’t to be ignored or tossed aside, but helped to live as best they can with what abilities they have available to them. But that hasn’t always been the attitude ponies have taken.”
“At one point, the term ‘blank flank’ was practically synonymous with the word ‘retard’.”
Diamond Tiara’s eyes went wide with shock as the processed Sour’s explanation. “You mean, when I…?” She turned to the Crusaders, then bowed her head in shame. “I’m…!”
“Less ignorant than you were before today.” She looked up at Quiver as he gave a reassuring smile. “And hopefully much wiser.”
Twilight cleared her throat. “As much as I don’t want to get back to one uncomfortable topic, I don’t think we need to continue with that one. Not right now, at least.” She sadly turned back to Quiver and asked, “What happened next?”
Quiver shrugged. “I did what I was told. Dad yelled at me to scrub it off, and I didn’t know that it was supposed to be there, so I climbed into the tub, put on some hot water, and started trying to scrub it off my coat.” He sighed. “And I scrubbed so long and so hard that on one flank I was back to being blank, but only because most of the fur was gone. And the skin underneath was sore, red and raw from what I’d done. It’s a miracle I didn’t start bleeding.”
“You didn’t try to get rid of the other too, did you?”
Quiver shook his head at Twilight’s question. “I knew enough to know that what I was doing hurt, and I’d rather have a strange mark on my flank than a patch of hurting bare skin, so I stopped. But the instant my father heard the water go off, he shouted at me from downstairs.” He scowled as he recalled his father’s words. “‘Is it gone?’, he asked me. ‘Is? It? Gone?’.”
Twilight turned worried as she asked, “And then?”
“And then I ran into my room, closed the door behind me and cried myself to sleep, terrified of my father’s wrath.” The young stallion sat up and said, “He never laid a hoof on me, but I was afraid from that point on that if he ever got mad enough, that he’d start. And nopony would do a damn thing about it, because as far as I knew, nopony in the wider world cared. ‘Nopony’s going to do anything to save your life’, my father would tell me, and he was right. My grandparents favored Regal, Mom was the one who worked to keep a roof over our heads, and any other authority figure I knew was apathetic to what was going on at best.” His gaze turned to Diamond, and he noticed a sympathetic look in her eye. “Less than twenty ponies in this room, and the fact that one other pony in here understands that feeling does me no comfort. It’s two ponies too many.”
“Three.”
Stunned expressions went Flash Sentry’s way as Twilight urged him, “Flash, you…”
“No, I need to say this, and Quiver needs to hear this.” The pegasus stallion turned to his host and explained, “My mom has had two husbands. The first one was a stallion named Smooth Rock. He beat her, while she was pregnant with me and after I was born. Thanks to him, I was a month premature.”
Sour turned horrified. “And that’s…?”
“Why I can’t fly as well as other pegasi. It’s only thanks to therapy and hard work that I can fly as well as I can.”
The freckled unicorn sighed sadly. “Geez. If I’d known…”
Flash smiled. “Hey, don’t worry. I got that same reaction out of Boo once Warbler told her.” He shrugged. “As far as silly nicknames go, I could do with worse.”
Rainbow Dash arched an eyebrow. “What kind of pony names are ‘Boo’ and ‘Warbler’?”
The pegasus stallion chuckled. “They’re nicknames, Dash. That happens in the military. You get a nickname over something silly and embarrassing, and it sticks with you. You probably haven’t met Warblet, but you know Boo better as Pixie Dust.”
“Oooh!” Pinkie’s mane inflated as she giggled. “That so makes sense for her!” She turned back to Quiver and asked, “But what happened after that?”
“Eventually, my mom came come. And she did what all good parents are supposed to do.” A sad smile crossed his face as Quiver explained, “She did her best to make a bad day better.”
-
The bedroom door slowly slid open, and Constant Heart peeked inside. She let out a soft sigh as she saw her son sprawled out on his bed, seemingly deep asleep. His face buried in his forelegs, and his fur matted with dried tears. She softly closed the door behind her and sat down beside his bed, then gently nudged him with one shoulder. “Quiver? Honey?”
The colt was quickly roused, then wiped away the last remnants of tears and sleep as he turned to face her. “Mommy?”
She smiled at him. “You look like you had a bad day.”
The memory of the day’s events came back to him, and Quiver did his best to fight back fresh tears. “What did Daddy tell you?”
“Just that something happened, and you were up here.” She gently urged him to turn around to face her, and turned shocked as she caught sight of the bare, raw skin on his left flank. “Quiver, what happened? What’s all this about?”
He glanced back at his flank and sobbed, “It’s…” What little resistance he had left crumbled as he cried out, “It’s because I’m a stupid retard! Like Regal! But I’m not!”
“No!” Constant Heart took her son into a warm hug and gently ran a hoof down his back. “Of course not! Don’t you talk like that! How could you even think something like that?”
He sniffled and answered her in a broken voice. “Because Daddy does.”
The mare let out a slow, pained exhale. The next words out of her mouth were firm and direct, and carefully neutral. “Tell me what happened. All of it.”
And again, Quiver did as he was told. He meandered at points, and explained about Primrose and the bullying that he’d endured, as well as his guilt over what had happened to his brother, but he told her everything that had led up to the day’s events, ending with his father yelling at him without even giving him the chance to defend himself. At the end of it, he felt exhausted and weak, but a tiny part of him actually felt better, like a weight had been lifted off his back.
At the end of it, Constant Heart sighed and ran a hoof through her son’s mane. “Quiver, why didn’t you say anything about all of this?”
“I didn’t think you or Daddy would do anything, or could do anything. You were always so busy with work or Regal, and after he died…” He whimpered and admitted, “I thought Daddy and Grandmare and Grandpa blamed me for it.”
His mother held him close and spoke in reassuring tones. “Quiver, your father and I are never too busy for you. Regal had a lot of needs that you didn’t, and looking after him was a lot more work than either of us was ever prepared for, but that doesn’t mean that we loved him any more than we did you, or you any less than him.” She drew him in tighter and added, “And nopony blames you for what happened to him. If your father blames anypony, he blames himself. Or the Maker, but mostly himself. But that’s no reason for him to lash out like that.” She loosened her hold, then gently cupped her hoof beneath his muzzle and assured him, “He’s angry, yes, and he shouldn’t be taking that anger out on you.” She frowned. “But something tells me he won’t be stopping anytime soon.”
“Why not?”
“Because he doesn’t know how.” She sighed sadly and admitted, “Your father’s not a bad pony, he’s just angry over so much bad in his life, and not having any control over it. And it’s easier for him to yell at others and blame them than it is for him to fix his own problems, especially when things happen that he wasn’t prepared for. And when that happens, well, you’ve seen it today. And it isn’t pretty.” She stroked him and added, “But that doesn’t mean that he hates you, or that he doesn’t love you.” She smiled and said, “Anyway, I’ll don’t know what I can do about that bully at school, but I promise you, I’ll do everything that I can. But when you go back, you’ve gotta be brave, and do what you can to avoid this happening again, huh?”
Quiver nodded. “But what about this thing on my flanks?”
Constant Heart smiled. “Quiver, that ‘thing’ is supposed to be there. It’s the biggest proof of all that you aren’t like your brother, because he’d probably never get one for himself. It’s a cutie mark.” She turned slightly to reveal her own, a book with a heart on the cover. “I got one when I was a little older than you are now, and so did your daddy. Most ponies do.”
“But Regal wouldn’t?”
She shook her head sadly. “No. I wish that he could have, but no. But that doesn’t mean that we didn’t love him, or that we wouldn’t do everything that we could for him. Because he’s family, and you do what you need to for family.”
Quiver bowed his head sadly. “Daddy’s always saying that. I don’t know if he means it.”
“Well I do. And I mean this too.” She gently kissed him upon his forehead and promised, “I’ll always love you, and I’ll always be proud of you.”
-
Sour smiled. “There’s a reason I call her my favorite aunt.”
Quiver smirked at her. “She’s your only aunt.”
That got him a smirk right back. “That I know of.”
He accepted that, and continued on with his story. “In any case, Mom did all she could, but Primrose continued to get away with it all, to nopony’s surprise. The word of one parent speaking up for a supposed troublemaker doesn’t carry a lot of weight, especially against somepony like her.”
“But what about yer daddy?” Applejack looked hopeful as she encouraged him to continue. “Did he ever apologize fer what he said to ya? Ah mean, Ah can understand him sayin’ that in the heat’a the moment, given everythin’ goin’ on with yer brother an’ all, but that don’t make it right.”
“Applejack, my father inherited my grandfather’s stubborn streak, and gained his own conviction regarding his opinions and beliefs. Once he made up his mind about something, not even the Maker himself could dissuade him. He never apologized, and I doubt that he ever will.” Quiver sighed. “Most days I was lucky enough to avoid him yelling and screaming at me over one thing or another, but there were times where I’d step in it, and all Tartarus would break loose. Like when he found out about the wrecked library book. He yelled at me over it, blamed me over the fine we’d have to pay, and tore up my library card.” He paused as Twilight almost went into shock, and flashed her an apologetic glance as he continued. “And then there was the Hearth’s Warming dinner that followed Regal’s death.”
“I remember that.” Sour looked among the gathered ponies and explained, “Grandmare asked Quiver to give thanks before the meal, and made a point of making certain that he brought up Regal. Quiver did exactly as he was told, and his father called him away from the table and yelled at him so loud, you’d think he’d just blown up the house.”
Their audience winced in sympathy, and Fluttershy tried her best to be sympathetic. “That must have been terrible for the two of you.”
“As bad as it was for him, in other ways, it was worse for me.” Sour looked to her cousin with shame as she admitted, “Quiver and I didn’t get on too well back then. Aside from the fact that I barely interacted with him, most of those interactions involved both of us being forced together with Regal, which wasn’t a picnic. And just like everything else I did, I was always forced to make it look like I was enjoying it.” She scowled as she rubbed one cheek and explained, “My mother always had this fake smile on her face, especially when she was visiting with her parents, and tended to use her magic so that I’d have the same. So many times, I’d be forced into one of these.” She put on a fake smile and maintained it with a sing-song voice as she continued, “And all the while, Mommy would say, ‘Smile, dear! Smile!’” The fake smile broke as she frowned. “Every once in a while, though, I’d lash out with some bitter remark towards an easy target.”
Quiver waved a hoof. “Usually me. I was terrified of her.”
“Yeah.” Sour frowned with guilt. “Seeing and hearing all that really put things in perspective.”
Twilight gave a saddened sigh. “But you get on so much better now.”
Sour shrugged. “That Hearth’s Warming changed things. After he got yelled at, and after he had a little food and a lot more got shoved his way, Quiver excused himself. I followed, and I found him sitting on the swingset outside our grandparents’ home, out in the cold and the snow. I came up to one side, and he looked at me, right on the verge of tears, and asked…”
“You gonna yell at me too?”
Sour nodded at her cousin’s quotation. “I hugged him instead. He needed it.” She turned sad as she admitted, “I never knew my own father. He practically abandoned me and my mother before I was three years old. Don’t ask me why, my mother never explained it to me, just changed the subject each time I asked. I don’t even know what he looks like. The only thing I know about him is that he’s rich, and that he’s still sending us money each month. As bad as that was, I’m not sure Quiver had it any better.” A rueful smile formed on her face as she sarcastically asked, “Paints a pretty picture of our family, doesn’t it?”
“And it didn’t improve with time.” Quiver sighed. “With any talent, any skill, you need to practice in order to improve on it. Writing is no different. But the trouble there is that after I got my cutie mark, even once the fur regrew over my flank and it was clear as day that I hadn’t faked it, Dad never gave me any time to try and write. Once homework was done, I had chores to do, or he’d send me off with my mother on one of her business trips around the region.” He shook his head sadly. “What little I could get done for contests or story groups often ended up being tossed out for whatever reason, usually with heavy and cruel criticism attached. Complaints about a lack of research, poor editing and so forth. I didn’t have the time to edit, or the means to research, because any book I wanted from the library had to pass muster with him.” He gestured towards the shelves near his desk and explained, “That’s why I have that reference library now. I spent all the money I got for Hearth’s Warming or birthdays on books about everything I thought could come up, like magic or history or how things like lighthouses and steam engines work. I imagine that if he even came close to recognizing my passion for writing, that he’d still do the same things to discourage it.” He scowled and admitted, “Were it up to him, after I left primary education, I’d have gone to a trade school.”
Rainbow Dash briefly glanced to the framed diploma on the wall and remarked, “Obviously that didn’t happen.”
“Only because I got lucky, and even that was a near-thing.” Quiver turned to the Crusaders and explained, “Somehow, the same story I wrote that earned me my cutie mark had gotten submitted to Plowshares years earlier, and the money put into an account in my name. That and the interest let me pay for my time in higher education. I didn’t find out about it until I graduated from primary school, so it caught us all by surprise. I know that my parents didn’t submit it, and I doubt my teacher did, even if Principal Fairweather was happy to praise me about it at the ceremony. I’ll probably never…” He noticed something out of the corner of his eye, and turned to the alicorn beside him. “Princess Luna? Is there something you’d like to share with the rest of us?”
Luna smiled and began her explanation. “During the time that you were suspended from classes, your principal was attending a conference hosted by the Equestria Education Association. My sister was also in attendance, and it was through that meeting that she obtained a copy of your story. It was thanks to her that it was submitted to Plowshares, anonymously, and I suspect that she was the one who set up that account.” She smiled. “Your father may have considered your story to be ‘horseshit’, but my sister knew otherwise.”
The astonished look on Quiver’s face soon gave way to a smile. “How about that?” It faded as he continued, “If only my father would take something like that seriously. Knowing him, if he ever found out, he’d dismiss it out of hoof.”
Twilight frowned. “Don’t tell me, he never let up?”
Quiver shook his head. “As soon as I got out of school with my degree and the intent to sit down and write, he had me back at work doing every little bit of housework he could think of, and none of it of consequence. He’d sit around and read while I pulled weeds and picked up trash and mowed and vacuumed and dusted and did every other little thing, all while our house crumbled around us. The one time I tried to protest, he bitched me out over not having a real job, and expressed his belief about what I was qualified for.” He huffed as he recounted, “As far as he was concerned, all a degree in Modern Ponish could get you was a job involving the words ‘You want hayfries with that?’”
“Proved him wrong though.” Rainbow Dash smirked as she noted, “And that wasn’t all he got proven wrong about. Seriously, windigoes might still be up in the air, but…”
“But he’d die before he acknowledged that he was wrong.” Quiver snorted and shook his head. “No apologies after Nightmare Moon actually came back, just complaining about how Equestria now had yet another princess to poke her nose where it didn’t belong and how we’d been lied to about her nonexistence. No acknowledgement of a real Sonic Rainboom, just the stubborn belief that it had been faked. And me getting a job outside of a fast food joint? He complained about it constantly, despite the fact that it was good, honest work for decent pay. And worse, every night after I came home, over dinner, he’d ask the same question. ‘Have you been fired yet?’” He sighed. “I wish that he was joking, but he constantly told me that one screw-up, one mistake, and they’d have an excuse to fire me. That did nothing to help my anxieties, especially with everything I had to put up with at the facility back in Indianapoloosa. Getting rushed all over the place, getting nagged to work faster, ponies confusing me with coworkers, having to put up with obnoxious coworkers and their shouting…” He took a breath and sighed as he turned to Twilight. “That day you visited was the best one I ever had on that job, and it wasn’t because I met a princess. It was because somepony actually treated me like I mattered.”
Twilight smiled back. “Well, you looked like you needed a little reassurance. And a friend. I’m just glad that you accepted that invitation I sent to the prose reading after that.”
“Me too, but I wish that my father hadn’t come with.”
Sour turned to her cousin in surprise. “Seriously? He hates traveling.”
“I know, but he wouldn’t let me come alone and he was convinced that the whole thing was some cruel joke, so he came along for the ride. And we were hardly out the door of Golden Oak Library before he starting bitching about everypony present.” He turned to Twilight and explained, “As far as he was concerned, all of that wasn’t you just being nice. You were using me to prop yourself up and feel better about yourself.”
The princess struggled to find words, stunned as she was at the accusation. “I’m not like that! How could he even think that?!”
“Because my father’s a bitter old cynic who makes other cynics look like optimists in comparison.” He scowled and continued, “Don’t take it too personally, Twilight. Like I’ve been saying, he doesn’t speak highly about me either. I could become Equestria’s first alicorn prince and…” He groaned sadly. “He’d think even less of me than he does already. Not once have I heard him say anything good about the nobility, or any of the ponies involved in running Equestria, and that includes Princess Celestia. And the last few years have only given him more fuel for the fire.” He rolled his eyes. “If it isn’t me he’s complaining about, it’s how the nobles are wasting everypony’s time and money, or how the Royal Guard is a disorganized mess and a joke.”
“But he’s got family in the Guard!” Rainbow Dash looked to Sour and noted, “And you were hardly a joke back there!”
“I was hardly a joke when the changelings invaded Canterlot either, but try telling him or my mother that.” Sour groaned. “My mother was never thrilled with how things turned out. Despite me earning my cutie mark after winning at a sharpshooting booth at a fair, she was dead set on me being a model.”
Rarity turned to her in surprise. “You’ve done modeling?”
“Junior beauty pageants. It was a nightmare.” She sighed and admitted, “Amazingly enough, I wasn’t bad at it either. Won regularly, got a lot of scholarships. They’re how I got through the Academy.” She put on a false smile as she admitted, “But as far as Mommy’s concerned, all I am is a secretary.” She frowned as she continued, “And dear Uncle Bits doesn’t care enough to question it.”
“And you don’t want to know what my father, armchair military stallion that he is, thinks we should’ve done with Discord or the changelings or the Crystal Empire.” He turned to Luna and noted, “Seriously, please don’t make me repeat them.”
“I am satisfied with the implications. Regardless, it’s clear that you have good reason to take issue with your father.”
Quiver nodded sadly as he turned back to his friends. “The really sad thing? I don’t hate him. I mean, he’s my father, how can I? Trouble is, there’s a part of me that’s afraid that he hates me, despite what my mother’s told me. I’ve gotten no proof otherwise. At best I’m a joke for him to laugh at, at worst I’m a screw-up and a failure and the first of two retards to ruin his life, but either way, I’m an inconvenience.”
Applejack bowed and shook her head. “Sweet Maker. Ya put up with that much crap, it’s small wonder ya almost did the unthinkable.”
Quiver winced as Sour suddenly took interest. “Excuse me?” She turned to her cousin. “Explain.”
He turned shameful. “After I moved to Ponyville, while I was rooming with Luster Drain, she took advantage of me and used me for her own selfish ends, paying for rent and groceries and stuff while hoarding all the money she got from welfare.” He pointed towards the nearby desk. “It culminated in her taking something that I’d ordered for myself, that desk over there, and claiming it as her own. And I let myself think that Twilight and her friends had set me up to fail, thanks mostly to my dad’s nagging in the back of my mind.”
Pinkie weakly raised a hoof. “And me setting them up together.”
“As far as I could think, my options were either to stay here and be miserable, or go home, lose my job, and have my father simultaneously crowing over how he was right and browbeating me over losing said job. Faced with two lousy options, I almost went with an even lousier third alternative.”
“Well what could…?” The realization dawned on Sour, and she angrily slapped her cousin in the back of the head. “Seriously?! You almost killed yourself because of him and that bitch?!”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly!” Quiver protested.
“Obviously!” Sour calmed down and took her cousin into a tight embrace. “Seriously though, what were you thinking? Was it some kind of spite thing?”
“No.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t about spiting others, or making them feel bad. It was me feeling like all I was doing was wasting their time, and that the world was better off without me. I had a pretty clear idea of how things would go at my funeral. You’d mourn. Mom would mourn. Dad would bitch about how much it all cost, and Grandmare? She’d sigh and say something like ‘At least he’s with his brother now’.”
She snorted. “Just like Grandpa’s funeral.”
“Exactly. But I had no assurance whatsoever that there’d be anything more than that.” The embrace ended as he admitted, “For all the problems you have, you don’t look at yourself in the mirror and wonder if you’re worth it or not. You never had to live with someone constantly berating and belittling you, and making you feel like crap over every little thing you did wrong. You deal with that long enough, and get plenty of evidence supporting it, and you start to believe it.” He sighed as he turned away and admitted, “Earlier tonight, with Spoiled Rich, it was like seeing my father and Primrose rolled into one horrible package. The flood barriers started leaking when she slapped and berated Diamond, but when she called me a retard…”
“All Tartarus broke loose.”
Quiver nodded at Applejack’s summation. “And the only reason I’m not facing a murder charge right now isn’t because Twilight tried to stop me.” He turned to the five fillies present and said, “It’s because I saw the look in your eyes, and how terrified you were of me.” He bowed his head and admitted, “I stopped being afraid of Nightmare Moon and most things that frightened foals when I wrote that story. It’s hard to be scared of something after you sympathize with it. But even being able to look at things objectively with my father? All that anger and rage still scares me. And only two things scare me more, and I’m not sure which is worse. Ending up exactly like him, or proving him right.” He shook his head sadly and admitted, “For years, I’ve looked in the mirror, and wondered if I was worth it. I still don’t know the answer.”
A small hoof reached up and touched his. “I do.” Quiver looked up as Diamond Tiara continued, “You are worth it. You saved me, and you saved my best friend, even after I hurt you.”
Sour smiled. “She’s right.” She hugged tighter and firmly assured him, “You’ve probably been hearing something like this from them for the last few weeks, but you’re going to hear this from me too. You’re much better, much stronger, than you think you are. And even if you weren’t, your mom doesn’t deserve to lose you, and I sure as rut don’t deserve to lose you either.”
“And neither do we, darling.” Rarity sat up and noted, “Quiver, since we’ve met you, you’ve done things that might not seem extraordinary to you, but were certainly impressive enough.”
“You stood up in front of a crowd of ponies that you didn’t know, after braving the risks of socializing with some of them, and told a story.” Fluttershy smiled and admitted, “Even with the steps I’ve taken, I don’t know if I could do something like that.”
“You also helped to expose a fraud and see that they were punished for their crimes.” Gilded Lily held her niece close and remarked, “That’s not something anypony can attest to.”
“And you’ve been a great friend to us when we needed it!” Pinkie’s hair was back to normal as she smiled.
“And it was your plan that got us through what happened in Maretonia, saved Twilight, and got your cousin her current post!” Rainbow Dash extended a wing with three feathers out and remarked, “That’s three bits of awesome all at once! You have to be me to pull that off.”
“An’ yah went into the Everfree with us to keep us safe!” Apple Bloom chipped in.
“And as it bears repeating, you helped to save my daughter’s life.” Filthy Rich held Diamond close as he remarked, “And helped me to see my own failings. Inconveniences aren’t the sorts of things that can do all of that.”
“And all of that ignores the insight you showed as a colt, when you sought out and reasoned out the truth regarding my fall.” Luna smiled as Quiver turned to face her. “Can a stallion who has accomplished that much, and made such a positive impact, be worthless? Even if we only touch one life for the better, that still marks us as someone special.”
What comfort that gave Quiver was brief. “Fat lot of good that’s going to do me from a prison cell.” Before any of his friends could argue otherwise, he quickly explained, “I attacked another pony. It doesn’t matter that I was provoked, Spoiled Rich has wealth and power and no way is she going to take this lying down. Heck, I’m surprised that I haven’t been arrested already.”
“I imagine that my wife is already on her way to harass the local authorities, assuming she hasn’t gone home to address her wounds.” Filthy Rich sat up and said, “Regardless, her voice and wealth and power won’t hold as much weight once my voice is heard, and a full account is made of tonight’s events.” At Quiver’s surprised expression, the older stallion explained, “You protected my daughter and her friends, first from timberwolves and then from my wife. That’s the story that I’ll tell them, once they ask. And that won’t be the only thing my soon to be ex-wife will be dealing with in the near-future.”
Quiver raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that? I know the statistics, and they aren’t in your favor.”
“It will be a dark day indeed when a judge awards custody of a child to their abusive parent.” Filthy turned to Twilight and added, “Particularly when there are notable witnesses to that abuse whom they’d loathe to dismiss. Assuming, of course, they’d be willing to give testimony.”
Twilight nodded. “I don’t think you’ll have any problem with that, Mister Rich.”
He smiled gratefully. “Thank you.” He then looked to his daughter and her friend. “Now then, I think this evening’s been eventful enough. Diamond, Silver, let’s get out of Mister Quiver’s mane, and give everypony else here a little more room.”
The two fillies nodded, and room was made for them to get out the door. Diamond Tiara turned back briefly to her rescuers, and gave them a thankful smile before she followed her father and her best friend on their way.
Luna smiled. “I suspect that I’ll have a busy night. Even with the assurances of a parent, a nightmare can still raise its head.” She rose from her seat and made her own way to the door, but paused and turned back to her host. “Before I depart, however, I think there is yet one more pony whose life you’ve impacted for the better, Sir Quiver Quill.” At his curious expression, she explained, “Sometimes, at night, I will hear singing from a lone voice as I go about my rounds. Members of my guard have verified it to be another member of the Royal Guard, a pegasus mare serving in the regular forces. On some nights she sings one song, but on others, particularly nights of the full moon, she sings another.” She shrugged and admitted, “Perhaps I am simply biased, but I favor the second of the two.” She then smiled, and softly sang part of the song in question.
“Somewhere, out there
Beneath the pale moonlight…”
Quiver’s eyes grew wide with realization, and a smile broke out on his face as the alicorn completed the first verse to an all-too-familiar song.
“I fear I am ignorant of the whole of the song, however. I assume that it is a duet.” She winked at the young stallion and then departed into the night.
Luna was barely gone a second before Fluttershy noted, “It does sound like a very pretty song. I just wish I knew the rest of it.”
Quiver closed his eyes, and answered the yellow pegasus’ wish.
“Somewhere, out there
Someone’s saying a prayer…”
He completed another verse, and opened his eyes to amazed expressions upon his friends’ faces. He shrugged and explained, “It was our song.” He smiled happily as he remembered another life that he’d touched. “I didn’t have friends plural back in school, but I did have one singular friend. She started attending classes the day I read that story. Details for how aren’t important. But we didn’t really start to connect until after my suspension ended. And meeting her was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
-
Quiver’s footsteps going back into his classroom were slow, full of shame and dread at what awaited him. As he entered, a few snickers and laughs were heard as a few heads turned his way. He made his way to his seat and hoped that he wouldn’t…
“ACK!”
He felt his legs get pulled out from under him, and he fell hard to the floor. The pain only got worse as more laughter echoed in his ears and Primrose’s all too familiar voice cackled, “Have a nice trip, Spewey Spill? Look out, or Nightmare Moon’ll…!”
“Hey, you okay?”
Quiver looked up into the eyes of the new filly in class. He could barely remember her name, but she looked different – the long red and yellow mane that she once had was gone, and she now sported a buzzcut. She smiled, extended a hoof, and helped him to stand as he asked, “What happened to you?”
She nodded past him. “What do you think?”
“Well isn’t that sweet!” Primrose laughed as he bowed his head. “Helping the little baby up, so cute!”
“Who you calling a baby?” The young filly smirked and then turned to reveal her flank. “He and I are more grown-up than you are. And I got there thanks to him.” Quiver rose his head to see cutie mark upon the filly’s flank, much different from his, and then saw her smile. “You still looking for friends?”
He nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Good. Me too. And it looks like I found one.” She then took him into a warm hug and whispered, “Never forget this, because it’s good advice. Never let the bastards win.”
The young colt’s eyes widened as the bell rang, and class was back in session.
-
“Runnie was amazing.” Quiver noticed the curious look on Twilight’s face and explained, “That was the nickname she asked me to call her. I didn’t feel like refusing, especially considering she was the only friend I had. I didn’t have much quantity of friends, but I made up for it in quality.”He laughed as he looked among his friends. “Seriously, you’d all like her if you knew her. She was kind and sweet, and one of the bravest mares I ever knew. She stood up for me, protested my suspension, even traced my research to support my case. She ended up getting on Primrose’s radar for her trouble, but I never forgot it.”
“Was she the one who got her mane sheared off?”
The stallion nodded at Rarity’s question. “She refused to let it get to her though. She kept her mane short, stood tall and proud and tossed it around like a model every time she saw Primrose after that.” He grinned as he admitted, “And tell you the truth, I thought she looked better that way than she did with it long.”
The fashionista’s eyes lit up. “Ooooh! Do I sense a crush?”
“Can you blame me? Sweet, kind, brave, smart, and a fantastic singer. We saw each other in class every day, and I swear, she only got prettier as she grew up.”
Sour looked at him in surprise. “You never told me about this.”
Quiver gave her a raised eyebrow. “You’d have teased me about it.”
The freckled unicorn conceded with a nod as Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Yeah, leave it to the egghead to go gaga over good looks.”
Quiver grinned. “Don’t diss her too much, Dash. She could match pace with you in the air easy.” At her challenging look, he added, “I’m serious. I always figured she would fly with the Wonderbolts one day.”
That got the prismatic pegasus curious. “Does she?”
The grin grew. “Not yet.”
“Oh enough about that!” Rarity regained Quiver’s attention as she pressed, “Please dear, tell me that you didn’t simply keep your crush to yourself!”
“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle piped up and beckoned, “I mean, you’re a writer! You had to write her a love note or something!”
The smile turned sad as Quiver admitted, “Actually, I did. Near the end of our time in school together, we were talking about entering a talent show together. Singing and dancing and all that. She’d been teaching me to sing for years on the playground with that song, and we had the start of an entire routine planned out.” He frowned. “But thanks to High Note interrupting us every time, we could never get all the way through it.” The frown faded. “Anyway, after we decided to enter, I chose that time to confess my feelings, and I wrote her a poem. It was lousy, but it was the best I could do.” He shrugged. “I do stories, not limericks.”
The two unicorn sisters gazed at him with eager eyes. “And? What happened?”
He bowed his head. “The day after I hid it away in her locker, I came down with the flu. Missed school for days, and when I came back, she was gone. I still don’t know what happened to her, or where she went. I’d have asked somepony, but I had no faith that I’d get an answer, let alone the truth.” As Rarity and Sweetie Belle deflated, he admitted, “I’m not sure what would be worse, not knowing her answer, or her turning me down.”
Sour snorted and gave her cousin a playful nudge. “Her loss if she did.”
“Quiver, this pegasus mare…” Attention went to Twilight as she pressed, “Can you describe her a little more?”
“Of course, but…” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important. She had an amber coat, somewhere between Applejack and Fluttershy in color. Her mane had two colors to it, crimson and yellow, and her eyes…”
“Cyan?” Flash Sentry asked, his expression similar to that of his marefriend.
Sour’s expression was a match for theirs as she prompted, “With a discus shield for a cutie mark?”
At Quiver’s surprised nod, Twilight asked, “What was her name? Her full name?”
The stallion looked at her in shock. “Sunrunner. Her name was Sunrunner.”
The startled gasps from Twilight and her immediate friends were drowned out as Sour groaned. “Seriously?! Warbler was the mare you fell for?! Now I’m really wishing that you’d told me!”
“Warbler…?” Quiver’s eyes went wide as he realized, “You went to the Academy with her?!”
“She was the one who took charge of our group in Canterlot during the changeling invasion,” Flash reported. “We only lasted as long as we did because of her. She almost had my post in the Crystal Empire, but she turned it down because she was hoping for a slot on the Wonderbolts.”
“And I’ve been trying to get in touch with her for months!” At Quiver’s surprised expression, Twilight explained, “It’s a long story. She has a relative who’s trying to get back in touch with her, a friend I made a few months ago. I’d have talked to her by now if it wasn’t for all the red tape I’ve had to cut through.”
Quiver looked at them in surprise, and let out a small laugh. “Small world.” Quiver looked to his cousin and asked, “What are the chances you’ll run into her again?”
Sour smirked. “Probably not as good as the chances that you’ll run into her again.”
“I should say so!” Rarity stamped a hoof for emphasis. “Darling, your tale with her has all the makings of a fantastic love story! It would be a crime against romance itself for the two of you to never find one another again!” She smiled sweetly. “And I’ve no doubt that you will.”
The rest of his friends murmured in agreement as Rainbow Dash admitted, “And when you do, you point her at me.” She then grinned and added. “Just be ready to put your money where your mouth is.”
He grinned right back. “You’re on.” He took a breath, feeling better than he had for a long time, and climbed off his sofa. “And thanks, all of you. I’m glad you took the time to listen.”
“Of course we did. We’re your friends.” Twilight took him into a warm hug, with the rest of her immediate circle of friends following. “More than that, we’re family.” We’re just glad that you found the courage to share.” The embrace ended, and she exhaled in relief as she admitted, “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but this has been one crazy night, and I think we could all use a good night’s sleep.”
“I know three brave, foolish fillies that’ve probably had more than enough excitement for a while.” Gilded Lily flashed her niece a grin before smiling at her tenant. “And one brave stallion that’s earned some rest.”
The Crusaders groaned slightly, but brightened as they caught sight of Quiver smiling at them. “Let’s not keep each other waiting then.” He then escorted everypony out, quietly relieved that there was still a lack of officials coming to arrest him. Most went on their way fairly quick, though a few lingered behind. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, but…” Spike looked to Big McIntosh, whose nod prompted him to continue. “Big Mac and I get together sometimes and hang out. You know, guy’s night and stuff. Flash has an open invitation, and we’re okay with extending it to you too, if you’re interested.”
Quiver smiled. “Well, it can’t hurt to give it a try.”
The pegasus stallion rolled his eyes. “And here we go again.” He then turned to Quiver and said, “Seriously, you’re not alone in this. It sounds like your dad wasn’t nearly as bad as mine, but still, there’s no justifying how he made you feel. You shouldn’t have had to go through what you did.”
“Neither should you. But I’d say you had it worse.”
“Says the stallion that doesn’t have the satisfaction of knowing his abuser can’t hurt him anymore.” Flash gave an encouraging smile. “Still, all this just shows that you aren’t where you come from.” He then turned to Sour and remarked, “And as glad as I am that you’re watching Twilight’s flank, I think he needs it more. You keep an eye on this cousin of yours, Two-Face.”
The freckled unicorn smirked. “Two. As often as I can spare them.”
The two guardsponies shared a salute, and Flash went on his way with the last of the group of ponies into the night, as Quiver and Sour retreated back into their home, all too happy to rest and enjoy what peace they could find in the evening to come.