Chapter Three: Bring Your Colt To Work Day
~BlackRoseRaven
Thorn panted hard as he stumbled his way through the obstacle course for the fifth time in a row, Hecate standing with her mechanical arms crossed and watching moodily. His first two times had shown improvements, but he had started to flag on the third run. And by now, his stumbles and falls were starting to take their toll on him.
But every day, Hecate had made Thorn run this course, and often more than once. She timed him, pushed him, and every time he started to get comfortable with the obstacles, she adjusted them just enough to confuse his hooves and make him learn it all over again.
Thorn still hadn't beaten the par time... but over the last month, he'd gotten close. And Hecate smiled slightly as she watched the colt struggle to cross the slanted rope hoof-over-hoof. He learned very fast: just like his parents, he adapted and evolved. Maybe his parents had just been lazy, or had spent too much time spoiling their precious little colt instead of actually trying to train him.
Then the colt slipped and fell, and Hecate twitched slightly, her horn sparking... but then her teeth only gritting as she forced herself not to react, not even as Thorn banged heavily to the steel floor with a cry of agony on his shoulder. He bounced limply to the side, trembling as he gasped quietly for breath, one foreleg twitching weakly.
Hecate turned her eyes towards him, scanning him even as she ordered: “On your hooves, Thorn Blackfeather! Finish the course!”
Thorn trembled... and then he gritted his teeth and rolled onto his stomach before slowly forcing himself up. His shoulder wasn't broken, but Hecate did detect deep-tissue bruising and muscular damage... and yes, there it was. He did his best not to, but his leg buckled as he walked, sending him falling-
Thorn caught himself with a gasp before he could hit the ground, then shoved himself back up to all fours, teeth grit as he limped towards the ladder, then hauled himself slowly up it. Hecate watched him, a small smile lingering on her muzzle even as she shouted: “Stop wasting time!”
The colt gasped as he hauled himself up to the top of the ladder, and Hecate watched with interest as he stumbled across the platform towards a slowly-spinning cylinder that acted as a bridge to another revolving platform. This would be interesting to see Thorn somehow do with a limp...
Hecate leaned back, crossing her mechanical arms as she continued to smile in amusement. Sure, she could be using her time in other, more important ways than watching a colt fail again and again at an obstacle course far beyond his level... but she had to admit, there was something pleasant and relaxing about watching Thorn fall on his head.
Maybe it was because this colt had caused far too many problems for her already: he was a distraction, and he made some of her idiot soldiers think she had gone soft. This assumption she quickly and brutally corrected every time it was brought up, but it annoyed her that her leadership skills had been called into question at all.
It further annoyed her that whenever Thorn wasn't sleeping, it usually meant he was with her: while he wasn't entirely useless, she was also well aware that she could easily build a small drone that could just as effectively fetch her food and sort files for her. The drone could also be easily programmed to run a simple obstacle course, which was something else that Thorn obviously couldn't do... but she supposed the drone failing at said course wouldn't be quite as entertaining as when the little colt did.
Hecate watched as Thorn made it to a revolving platform... and then stumbled on this before he slipped and fell off, bouncing off the edge of it with a cry of pain. The readout on Hecate's lens flashed red, and the mechanical mare reacted immediately, her horn sparking and a mechanical hand flexing: even before she made the focal gesture, however, a bubble had already appeared around Thorn, catching him before he could land on his head with enough force to compress his spinal column and kill or paralyze him.
She could admit that she didn't want the colt dead, after all. Even if he wasn't particularly valuable... he was still an asset to the organization, she supposed.
Hecate calmly floated the bubble over to her, then reached into the magical sphere and seized Thorn by the scruff of the neck before her magic vanished. Thorn smiled faintly at her, a bit of blood dribbling from his nose and a split lip before he said weakly: “Sorry.”
“As always.” Hecate said dryly, and then she shook her head before turning, carrying the colt in one hand like a toy: Thorn only wiggled a little bit, wincing somewhat but by now used to this. “I expect you to learn healing magic by next month at the latest. Then we won't have to waste our time or Peridot's with your minor injuries. Understood?”
“Yes, Miss Hecate.” Thorn said quickly, saluting her awkwardly before he smiled lamely up at her. “I uh... can walk.”
Hecate only grunted in response, and Thorn dropped his head in embarrassment as the mechanical mare strode quickly down the hall.
Peridot seemed to already be waiting for them, the door open and the mare smiling amusedly as she strode forwards to take Thorn without question from the mechanical mare, quickly and smoothly healing the young colt before she gently set him to the ground. Thorn blushed and thanked her, while Hecate ignored them both, bringing up a holographic screen and paging through it before she said suddenly: “Peridot. You have been requested as emergency support to Team A3. Why aren't you prepared to leave?”
“What?” Peridot frowned in surprise, tilting her head as she glanced up from Thorn. “I never received a mission request. Sagefeather said she got one, though...”
“Wonderful.” Hecate muttered, rolling her eyes in disgust. Peridot and Sagefeather were the same species of pony and had the same classifications for abilities and skills, so their serial number was almost identical... except for the fact that Sagefeather was only cleared for missions in Class B worlds, while Peridot was cleared for up to Class D.
“Did you want me to go and switch with her?” asked Peridot, tilting her head, then she frowned a little when Hecate simply grunted and shook her own. “Are you sure, Lady Hecate? Not to question you, but Sagefeather is a little...”
“If she panics and gets herself killed, then we've removed a weak component from the system. If she panics and gets someone else killed, then she will be punished for her error. But none of these Enlisted Outworlders or Dogmatists are irreplaceable.” replied Hecate coldly.
Peridot scowled, studying Hecate intently as Thorn shifted nervously, before the mechanical mare suddenly looked down at him and said shortly: “Our current filing system relies on mortals instead of machinery. Figure out a way to stop them from making matching errors until the AI is operational and can take over compiling, authorizing and delivering mission requests.”
“Yes Miss Hecate. Are we going there now?” Thorn asked inquisitively, giving her his little salute, and Hecate rolled her eyes in distaste.
“I am less than pleased with your need to escort you everywhere, Thorn. But I suppose that I have business to attend to there myself.” Hecate said meditatively, shaking her head briefly before her eyes flicked towards Peridot. “I expect you to cover Sagefeather's medical duties.”
“Yes, ma'am.” Peridot mimicked Thorn's salute, and Hecate gave her a disgusted, cranky scowl that only made Peridot smile wider at her as Thorn giggled a little... then immediately covered his muzzle and blushed deeply when Hecate turned her glare on him instead.
The mechanical mare grunted and jerked her head towards the exit, and Thorn skittered quickly between her legs and out into the hall, Hecate sighing tiredly and shaking her head slowly before she turned and followed the mare out, rolling her eyes in disgust. One small positive was that Thorn was already leading the way towards the filing room... and Hecate followed moodily along in his wake, keeping pace behind the colt as she shook her head briefly.
Thorn was a little slow memorizing the layout of this facility, and so far he barely knew any of Decretum's geography... not that there was a whole lot to the machine world quite yet. Just endless stretches of wastes, a few outposts, and pipelines that were slowly but steadily being reconstructed so that they could bring power between colonies, once the colonies were reestablished.
Still, it annoyed her. The colt had almost no sense of direction, which was not good in a place that was as much a labyrinth as this facility. And to think: this place was only a temporary base while they got the far larger and more advanced facilities of Genesis and the Enlisted Outworlder Central Base up to acceptable operating status.
She ended up escorting him everywhere, or just bringing her along with him. She couldn't even trust the idiot colt to get back to his own room by himself: she had to pick him up there every morning – not that there was much of a morning in Decretum, with its eternally-roiling crimson skies – and then drop him off every night so he could sleep for six hours.
And of course, there were all the annoying little trips they had to make during the day, too: she had to walk him to the bathroom, she had to make sure he ate his two meals a day, she had to take him to the infirmary or a medical station for all his boo-boos.
The mare glanced moodily down at Thorn, and after a moment, he glanced back over his shoulder at her and offered an awkward smile, apparently feeling his eyes on her. They looked at each other for a few moments, and then he blushed deeply before looking hurriedly back ahead, blurting: “Colors!”
Hecate frowned at him, then she said moodily: “You know I don't like baiting, Thorn.”
“Sorry.” Thorn said quickly, and then he smiled awkwardly over his shoulder at her, saying quickly: “If we add a color or shape code to the serial numbers, then they won't get mixed up as often! We can use their world clearance for the color code, since there's only four-”
“There's five.” Hecate said shortly, and Thorn winced and ducked his head as Hecate glanced up down the hall... then, deciding on the spur of the moment, she said finally: “But the fifth level of clearance is classified. World E clearance is only granted temporarily, in most cases, and only in the event of a serious issue in a non-material world where our assistance has been requested by... a specific council member. Do you understand?”
“Sort of... not really.” Thorn admitted after a moment, and Hecate sighed... but at least the colt was honest. And well... he wasn't much help or all that useful, but... all the same...
“Class E worlds are Asgard, Helheim, other planes outside of the physical layers. My organization protects the Core World and its many parallel variants. The physical worlds, for lack of a better term.” Hecate gestured absently off to the side as she spoke, then motioned easily with one hand towards a hall, Thorn tripping a little on his own hooves as he hurried towards this. “In rare cases, Hel or Terra may make a request for us to... assist them.”
Thorn smiled brightly at this, looking over his shoulder with surprise before he said warmly: “That would be so exciting! Imagine if Queen Terra asked-”
“It is no more 'exciting' than any other mission.” Hecate said shortly, and Thorn winced a bit as he dropped his head a little. “We are a business. We provide a service. That is all Decretum is: clockwork and machinery, a security corporation I have built to protect soft little ponies who are unable to protect themselves, with one ultimate goal in mind.”
“And... what is your goal, Miss Hecate?” asked Thorn timidly.
Hecate looked down at the colt, and then she gave a thin smile before she simply gestured for him to face forwards. Thorn did so... but he glanced back at her curiously, as sneakily as he could, and Hecate had to stop her smile from growing any wider even as she snapped: “Eyes front.”
Thorn winced and looked hurriedly ahead: the rest of the walk to the filing rooms was in quiet, and once there, Hecate simply let Thorn work. The colt knew by now that if he wanted her to pay any attention to his ideas, he first had to prove to her that it worked. He also knew by now not to ask for her help unless it was absolutely necessary: she didn't like it when her employees wasted her time, after all, and Thorn was already responsible for wasting plenty of it.
Hecate watched the way Thorn flitted between desks, putting together a rough little plan for his little filing system and gathering up profiles of various Enlisted Outworlders and Dogmatists that had yet to be assigned missions. He doodled different shapes and symbols over each folder before sorting them back into their shelves, while drones and curious ponies worked around Thorn... but kept themselves from asking too many questions with Hecate looming at one side of the cramped, shelf-and-cubicle-filled office space.
Hecate's expression remained hard, but her eyes were almost gentle as they watched Thorn scurrying around. And then he darted around a corner before he came bolting back with a file folder... only to trip and land with a thud on his stomach, wincing as papers flew everywhere.
The mechanical mare remained impassive, but she had to close her eyes for a moment to resist the urge to grin, to make herself look exasperated instead of entertained...
Princess Celestia's eyes opened, and the mare smiled softly as she watched Thesis pick himself awkwardly up from the remains of breakfast, the colt blurting: “Sorry Mom! Oh, sorry sorry sorry!”
“It's alright, Thesis. You don't have to apologize: I know you were just trying to give me a nice surprise.” Celestia smiled in amusement as she strode down the hall as the colt scrambled to try and clean up the squashed pancakes and spilled juice and squashed oranges. Then he blushed and looked up at her in embarrassment, more of the breakfast covering him than was on the tray... before Celesita leaned down and kissed a bit of syrup off his nose, then winked at him. “I could just eat you up instead, anyway!”
She playfully grabbed the colt, tickling all over him, and Thesis giggled and laughed as he fell on his back, kicking his rear legs and flailing at her as he yelled: “Mom!”
Celestia ended up almost as messy as him, but she laughed, how she laughed... and Horses of Heaven, that was precious. Especially right now, with Equestria under attack by the griffins, and the promise of so many long, dark days ahead...
But there were still reasons to be happy. There was so much to protect, and while Celestia wished for peace... she was ready to prepare for a long, hard war, if it was necessary to defend her people from the aggression and the hatred of the griffins. She still had no idea why they had turned so suddenly and so viciously on them: so far, any attempts at diplomacy had only resulted in the meaningless murder of Equestrian ambassadors and peacekeepers, and the griffins continuing to swear that they would kill any pony that came within their borders.
Their borders had been fortified, and so far, Celestia was concentrating on defending her nation from griffin incursion, while trying to find an intermediary who could help sort all this out. It frightened her more than she wanted to admit, that Equestria might end up at war with one of its closest neighbors and allies... but she knew she had to be brave. She had to be strong. She had to keep up the same smile, act as compassionate and wise as she always had, and remain in control...
She looked down at Thesis, then hugged the colt impulsively, not caring about the food she smeared and stained herself with as Thesis blushed, then hugged her tightly back, burying his face against her with a smile before he said: “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, son.” Celestia said softly, holding him as tightly as she dared for a few moments... and then she smiled as they pulled apart, gazing down into her son's eyes as she said gently: “Alright. Let's get you cleaned up.”
Thesis nodded with a smile... and ten minutes later, Celestia was relaxing in the tub with her son paddling happily around the other side of the pool of water. She watched him with soft eyes as she rested in comfort, just letting the hot water soothe and massage her body as Thesis giggled quietly, clearly enjoying himself. For him, after all, the pool was like a lake, after all.
Alright, maybe that was a bit of a stretch, but... she guessed that being here, like this... it made her think some silly thoughts sometimes. Celestia smiled briefly as she silently studied her young colt, and then she shook her head slowly before reminding him gently: “Don't just swim around, Thesis. You have to actually wash yourself off, too. It looks like there's still syrup in your hair.”
Thesis giggled a little, nodding quickly to his mother before he ducked suddenly under the water, and Celestia watched with amusement as he scrubbed at himself beneath the rippling liquid before he surfaced suddenly, gasping for air as he splashed water everywhere.
Celestia only continued to smile in entertainment, then she reached up a front hoof, beckoning to him. Thesis happily swam over to her, and then giggled quietly as she gently sat the young colt against her, so he could rest comfortably back. She gazed down at him tenderly, and the mare chuckled softly before she gently brushed a hoof through his wet mane. “That's a little better. Now, Thesis, we have a big day today, don't we?”
Thesis smiled up at her, then he hugged her tightly... and Celestia looked down at him with surprise before she softened and closed her eyes, smiling faintly as she hugged him back. She felt the water, the wetness, the heat all around her, as Thesis shifted and she almost cradled him into her body...
Her eyes opened, and she stared silently at her adult son as he trembled in her forelegs, rasping weakly for breath and staring blankly upwards. Celestia shook her head slowly, then she looked silently up at the figure, standing in sharp profile against the cold light that shone through the doorway before her, leaving his features hidden in shadow. “Why?”
“It was his failure, not mine.” the dragon said coldly, but he shifted almost anxiously; his hands betrayed him, reaching up, silently sliding a set of playing cards free from the inner pocket of his jacket, beginning to shuffle and riffle them through his fingers. “Fix him, Celestia.”
Celestia looked down at Thesis, and for a moment... she considered leaving him to die. For a moment, as she held her son close in her mechanical hooves, she considered simply breaking her own son's neck: not out of mercy, no. It would be a mercy, but it wasn't because of mercy she considered it. She considered killing her own child simply to spite this monster standing in front of her, who had given her this child... and who had taken him away.
But then her eyes slid closed, and she simply nodded once before she lifted Thesis gently with telekinesis, turning and calmly striding through the sterile halls of this massive, mechanical facility towards the Tower of Etemenanki, the nerve center of this entire world. The one place where Thesis could be healed...
Celestia smiled grimly. What irony: as she had learned, the dragon behind her was no dragon: he was Jötnar, or in cruder terms, a Frost Giant. He was a being of immeasurable power, able to shape the world as he willed with nothing more than a thought or a gesture... and yet because Thesis was his bastard child, because Thesis was born half of her, and half of... the dragon... he was immune to the Jötnar's powers.
The mechanical mare smiled grimly as her cybernetic body strode slowly through the hall, carrying Thesis like a limp sack. She could hear the dragon walking behind her, feel his amber eyes watching her closely as he riffled his playing cards uneasily back and forth. They danced between his fingers, spilled in waves from palm-to-palm, flash and twirled with the ease of long practice; but the dragon always had loved his stupid little toys.
Celestia carelessly dropped Thesis in front of a pair of locked double doors, and he hit the ground with the banging of metal and thud of heavy flesh. She felt the dragon flinch behind her, before he snapped sharply: “That is... a valuable piece of equipment!”
“He's broken. A few more dents and dings don't matter.” Celestia retorted as she stepped to the side of the door, scowling as she leaned in front of the retinal scanner. It buzzed quietly as the mare held still, then dinged, the doors opening as the mare added moodily: “Don't even think about touching me, or you can figure out how to fix him yourself.”
The dragon froze, his hand half-reaching for her before he gritted his teeth and snarled at her, but Celestia ignored him as she scooped the weakly breathing, emptily-staring Thesis up in her telekinetic hold, yanking him through the doors before Celestia said coldly, without looking over her shoulder: “System lock.”
Before the dragon could follow her, the doors slammed shut on his face, and she smiled thinly as she heard him snarl in frustration through the foot-thick steel before it banged loudly as he kicked it childishly. But then again, she had long ago concluded that for all his age and ego, that was all the dragon really was: a child.
Celestia carried Thesis to the spiraling steps that led up the interior of the tower, keeping her eyes ahead and not sparing her son a single look as they walked quickly up the stairs. She carried him into a medical bay, then dropped him belly-down on a table, Thesis gasping in pain as she roughly pulled his legs into faint grooves... but otherwise, not responding. Not even looking at her, and not processing her even when she leaned down into his eyes, studying him silently.
But that was no surprise. Thesis had been mind-wiped and brainwashed so many times by now, it was amazing there was anything of him left in his hollow skull. That, and all the chemicals that had been mixed into his blood, the constant experimentation, the introduction of enzymes and this ridiculous, stupid exoskeleton...
Celestia straightened as she quickly examined the machine on Thesis' back. It was implanted directly into his body, with six enormous pistons that pumped chemicals and corruption through his bloodstream. The steel, flat shell protected his back, and had machinery that enhanced his physical strength, giving him tremendous speed and power. But it was also a prototype, made of lightweight materials, and it was clear that something had been smart enough to attack the machinery and disable it.
Celestia scowled, then she looked moodily up at the mechanical arms hanging from the ceiling before she said shortly: “Subject: Thesis. Remove exoskeleton.”
Restraints slid out of the bed, clamping around Thesis' limbs and pulling them deeper into the grooves in the bed before the mechanical arms descended, clicking and whirring. And Celestia only watched, coldly and callously, as the arms went to work and Thesis began to scream, the mare not flinching even when black, oily blood splattered over her features as she kept a close eye on the process.
Once the exoskeleton was removed, the arms retreated, and Thesis was left laying on the bed with his back quite literally bare: his spinal cord was visible, along with implanted tubes, slots and corroded plugs, and pieces of titanium frame...
Celestia shook her head slowly before her horn glowed, lifting several tools from the countertop on the other side of the room. She looked moodily over these before selecting one: a long, dangerous-looking metal hook, the mare saying distastefully: “Let's see what the problem is.”
Thesis groaned and shivered as Celestia used the hook to probe and gently pull out damaged cables and tubes from sponge-like flesh: several of these had broken or corroded, and Celestia wondered silently just where the dragon had dragged Thesis off to on their latest little adventure into the other worlds...
Wasn't it enough that the dragon had corrupted this Equestria? And with all his infinite power, why was it that he couldn't just go off and create worlds of his own? Why did he waste all those years, those decades, pretending to be their friend, pretending to help Equestria, pretending that he loved...
Celestia shook her thoughts off, and concentrated on her work. It took her several hours, but she managed to dig out all the damaged and broken tubes and cables, and clean out and patch closed the data receivers and the other locks on Thesis' back. Then it was just a matter of carefully carrying Thesis over to his recovery chamber, slipping him into the ultra-concentrated bath of the Clay of Prometheus, the corrupting chemicals that now ran through Thesis' veins.
The mare locked two thick tubes into the largest nodes on Thesis' back, twisting them to secure them into place before she gently guided him back into a sitting position... and then she scowled when Thesis caught one of her steel wrists, the mare looking at him sharply as he gazed back at her silently.
For a few moments, they only surveyed each other... and then Thesis nodded briefly to her before he sat back, breathing quietly in and out before he whispered: “Mother... Father said... Father said they would be weak. They were... inferior specimens. Why... how was I hurt so badly?”
“Because of your own weakness, Thesis. Because of your own inferiority, no doubt.” Celestia said coldly, and Thesis dropped his head in silence before the mare sighed tiredly, sitting back and feeling a strange stirring inside her before she asked quietly: “Do you remember when you were a colt, and I explained to you what strength is?”
“Yes... but it was childish. Strength is strength. Power is power: these are determined by what experiences our mind maintains and how fast we can process and analyze a situation. Total strength is nothing more than how well physiological and psychological ability work in conjunction; how fast synapses fire, how fast change can be processed, how fast muscles can move and how much kinetic force they can output.” Thesis murmured, looking down at the roiling black chemicals before he silently, slowly stirred a front hoof through this: with his exoskeleton removed, however, his movements were feeble and slow.
Celestia only shook her head slowly, saying softly: “Really, Thesis? Then perhaps you can tell me how your strength so spectacularly failed you, and you have returned home like this? Beaten and bloody, so badly damaged that your mental inhibitors have crashed?”
“Don't tell Father. He'll hook me up to the machines again...” Thesis trembled, closing his eyes and looking down as he whispered: “I don't want... I don't want to go through processing again...”
The mare only smiled thinly at him, but her eyes flickered before she finally sighed and shook her head, muttering: “Life is rarely about what we want, Thesis. And the crux of the problem is that when we are given a choice between what we want, and something else... we tend to forget that the something else is often what we need.”
She looked down for a moment, then sighed and shook her head slowly before saying quietly: “Look at you, Thesis. Look at me. Look at what we've both become... and as much as I hate him, you know that... that some of the blame for this falls on our own heads.”
Thesis looked down silently, and then he shook his head quickly before he clenched his eyes shut, whispering: “I... I don't... it's all nothing but chemicals. We're nothing but chemical reactions and the predictable dance of particles and molecules-”
“You're a coward. I'm disappointed in you: I didn't raise a coward.” Celestia said coldly, and Thesis looked up at her with a faint flush, gritting his teeth a little... but only staring at her, with those hollow white eyes of his. He had such a glassy, empty gaze, even if the microchips in his mind that kept him an obedient little servant had shorted out...
But she knew Thesis was in there, too. The little colt who had known wrong from right was more than a matter of politics and law, who had believed in magic instead of chemical reactions and particle synthesis. She knew he had suffered, that he had been tormented, that his mind had been stretched and torn and tortured and reshaped, but... beneath it all, she also knew that Thesis was still in there, hidden away, crying and trapped in his own mind...
Celestia gritted her teeth, then she leaned forwards and asked sharply: “What is the most important thing in the world?”
Thesis looked up at her blankly, and then he winced when Celestia grabbed his shoulders and pinned him roughly back against the other side of the tub, repeating angrily: “What is the most important thing in the world, Thesis? Answer me!”
She slapped him hard enough to leave an imprint on his face from one steel hoof, and Thesis flinched before he looked up at her and whispered: “Family.”
Celestia studied the stallion silently for a few moments, and then she gave a short nod before she said quietly: “That's right. Family is.” She stopped and lowered her head before murmuring: “And because family is so important, Thesis, I'll... keep your secret. But I won't help you remove the nodes, either. You can deal with the stimulation controls yourself.”
“I... I will. They're circuitry, that's all. A powerful enough magnet, or an electrical charge channeled through my brain should short circuit the remaining behavioral modifiers.” murmured Thesis, and then he shook himself briefly before he looked up at Celestia, and he whispered: “Mom... I'm... there's this feeling of... of activity in my amygdala. I feel depolarization and the excitement of norepinephrine and dopamine...”
“Thesis, enough.” Celestia said quietly, shaking her head slowly before she reached up and silently stroked over his face, brushing his mane gently back out of his face before she allowed it to rest quietly on his shoulder. Her son's eyes fluttered as she did so, the mare leaning forwards and reassuring quietly: “There's more to what you're feeling than mere chemistry and psychology, Thesis.”
“These are the basis for all things, though, and... and yet...” Thesis was silent before he suddenly leaned to the side, rubbing his cheek against her hoof as the mare frowned in surprise even as her steel hoof automatically turned to cup his face.
He stared up at her, childlike and trembling in the tub of black poison before he reached one of his own front hooves up, grasping silently into her wrist as he whispered: “Memories. Family. I cannot explain this... this feeling goes behind genetic attachment. I don't understand the release of serotonin, or why my pain receptors have lost some of their function... I see you, and yet my mind processes something more than... than I see. I can't explain it...”
“It's because I am your mother, Thesis, and you are my son. And that is that.” Celestia replied softly, silently stroking her child's face before she sighed softly and slipped up to the side of the tub, reaching down and embracing him quietly, not caring about the black gunk that washed up over her and rubbed onto her frame from the stallion pressing against her.
Celestia closed her eyes, holding her son quietly against her body as Thesis shivered in the ooze, black tears rolling down his cheeks as his logical, brainwashed mind tried and failed to process what a mother's love was...
And then Hecate opened her cold blue eyes as she heard a voice hesitantly call her name, her mechanical arms crossed, her gaze roving down to Thorn as he asked quietly: “Are you okay?”
Hecate frowned at this, then she straightened and reached up to moodily rub at her face before she grimaced and drew a hand back, studying one finger silently as a strange, glowing blue liquid ran along it. She watched droplet spill down the steel digit, and then she shook her head briefly before saying moodily: “Fine. Nothing but coolant.”
She rubbed at her face, then looked down at Thorn again: he was still gazing up at her nervously, a file folder floating beside him. After a moment, Hecate held out one steel hand, and Thorn blushed a bit before he quickly passed her the file, apologizing: “Sorry, Miss Hecate! But this is the mock-up I had in mind and um... so far it's working, I think.”
Hecate glanced over the sea of cubicles and shelves, watching moodily as employees passed restlessly between them, sorting through files and putting away reports... and then she scowled as she noted... “Why has that shelf been reorganized?”
“Oh, um. That's just the test shelf, Miss Hecate, since it's a small one.” Thorn explained, blushing a bit and pointing at it. “See, now Class A clearance is all on top, and Class D clearance is on the bottom. Each section is still in numerical order, so...”
Hecate looked moodily at Thorn for a few moments, and then she shook her head slowly before opening the file and paging through its contents calmly. Thorn's writing was barely legible, but the ideas he'd written out seemed decent enough. She just wished that he'd learn to put his reports together more coherently: she recognized his shorthoof as the same that was used by Hel's Archives, which she was only somewhat familiar with.
Still, she could understand more than enough of it to see that his idea was a good one... and well, she supposed she couldn't fault the colt for putting together a 'demonstration' shelf as well, even if he should have asked for authorization first.
Hecate returned her eyes to the file in front of her, flicking to the back of it... and she couldn't resist a slight smile at the awful doodles she found on the last page. They were different symbols that Thorn was apparently proposing for the updated classification system: it was such a funny mix of professionalism and just what she'd expect from a colt his age.
She studied them for a few moments, feeling a little... strange, in a word. And then her eyes flicked up to Thorn, and she forced herself to simply nod, not saying anything further before she closed the file and held it out to him.
“Can I implement it?” Thorn asked nervously, and Hecate sighed inwardly before giving another brief nod, the colt smiling up at her with warmth and relief at this. “Thank you, Miss Hecate! I promise that I won't let you down!”
“Don't make promises you can't keep.” Hecate said sourly, glowering down at the colt, and Thorn winced a bit before the mechanical mare sighed and rolled her eyes, saying moodily: “Come on. We'll update the file registry first. You can deal with relabeling all the folders yourself, though, and don't expect me to sit around and babysit you while you go through the master archives.”
Thorn blushed and nodded lamely, and Hecate looked at him for a moment longer before she turned. The colt hurried after her as they strode out into the sterile hall, the mare leading the way calmly towards master processing... and wishing moodily that the AI was online so she could skip all this time wasted walking around, and just send commands remotely.
She scowled... then frowned over her shoulder as Thorn asked meekly: “Miss Hecate, um... do you think that maybe... well...”
Hecate came to a halt, looking moodily down at Thorn as he looked nervously up at her, then he loudly swallowed before asking hesitantly: “Do you think that maybe um... I could have a shower?”
The mechanical mare blinked in surprise, and then Thorn blushed and dropped his head, and she realized that he did indeed seem... dirty. “Why haven't you showered yet?”
But of course Hecate knew the answer to that already: it wasn't like she ever gave him time to. She either left him alone in his empty room, or she was dragging him from place to place, always trying to hurry him out of the bathroom...
She stopped, frowned slightly, then held up a single metal finger as he started to open his mouth before the mare answered for him: “That's why you always take so long in the bathroom. You just wipe yourself down every time you're inside. Why haven't you showered?”
“My parents told me to be good, and... I know you don't like it when I waste time and... you know, I don't wear clothes or anything.” Thorn said awkwardly, gesturing lamely back over himself. “Mutt was never really big on washing, either...”
Hecate sighed tiredly, then she shook her head slowly and rubbed at her face moodily. But there was a little bit of self-loathing there, too, much as she didn't want to admit it... purely for not noticing how unhygienic this colt had become, of course. The fact she hadn't noticed him turning into a walking petri dish said more about her observation skills than it did about the idiot colt who was trying too hard to please her.
She grimaced at Thorn as he shrank slowly down under her gaze, before he blurted: “I can learn a cleansing spell and-”
“Enough.” Hecate said moodily, and the colt winced before she sighed and said moodily: “Give me the file back. I'll walk you down to the shower area closest to your room, and you can clean yourself up and then see yourself back to your room for the night. I don't need you there to start programming your filing system, anyway.”
Thorn blushed a little, smiling awkwardly over at Hecate, and then he simply nodded. Hecate studied the colt silently as they walked through the halls, changing their course only slightly: they walked right past an elevator that would have cut their walk in half, but... Hecate reasoned that the elevators hadn't been working properly lately anyway.
The colt seemed to finally realize he was being watched, blushing as he looked up at her awkwardly, but Hecate only glowered a little in return before she asked: “Why didn't you say anything?”
The colt looked at her dumbly, and Hecate rolled her eyes before clarifying in a tired voice: “About washing yourself, you idiot.”
Thorn lowered his head meekly at this, blushing deeply before he answered lamely: “Sorry, Miss Hecate. I just... don't want to be a bother.”
“You're bothering me now.” Hecate replied irritably, and Thorn tried to shrink even further as he opened his mouth, but the mare cut him off curtly: “No apologies.”
Thorn mumbled all the same, and Hecate sighed as she came to a halt in the middle of the hall, rubbing slowly at her face. Thorn looked up at her worriedly, and Hecate looked down at him grumpily before she turned towards him, crossing her mechanical arms as she asked finally: “What do you need?”
“Nothing, Miss Hecate. I'm okay, really.” Thorn said with a blush, nodding a few times hurriedly, and Hecate closed her eyes as if pained.
“Thorn...” Hecate began almost warningly, and the colt whimpered a little. The mechanical mare looked down at him with a frown, opening her mouth to say something... angry or annoyed or just to reprimand him again...
And then she stopped, looking down at this scared little colt. This frightened little boy, who was whimpering and cowering in front of her because... well, because he really was just a frightened little boy, trying to live up to her impossible expectations, desperate not to disappoint his parents. What did he think, that she was going to write a letter to them or send him away if he did badly?
She looked at him for a few moments, then smiled inwardly as the colt trembled and gazed up at her silently. Actually, that probably was precisely what he expected... that she'd throw him out, or tell his parents that he'd been a big disappointment. She knew him well enough by now to know that he adored his parents, after all...
She shook her head slowly, then carefully knelt in front of the colt, surprising him a little as she leaned forwards: her voice remained serious, but her eyes had become a little more gentle, and even with a frame of steel and gears, her body language was almost soft as she said: “Thorn, I want you to listen to me for a moment. Not just to my words, but what I am saying. Do you understand?”
Thorn nodded hesitantly, and Hecate nodded back before she said quietly: “I know what you need physically. I can provide those bare minimums for you easily. But I do not know what you need or want otherwise. I will admit I have not been very... inviting, in this regard, but you need to speak up as well, Thorn. What do you want?”
Thorn looked at her silently for a few moments, and then he scraped a hoof against the ground and looked down, whispering: “I want to go home.”
Hecate gave a quiet laugh, shaking her head slowly before she stood up and replied in a surprisingly gentle voice: “You are home, Thorn. Decretum is your home now, and so far you've proven... more useful than I expected you to. But useful or not, I was asked by your parents to take care of you. I am going to take care of you, Thorn.”
Thorn smiled hesitantly up at the mechanical mare, and the two looked at each other for a few moments before she said finally, her voice becoming brisker: “What did I promise you for your room?”
The colt looked at her with a lame shrug, and then he winced when Hecate scowled at him before he said hurriedly: “A bed and stuff like that!”
Hecate grunted at him, looking moodily down at the colt and crossing her arms: to his credit, he seemed to catch on after a moment... but it still took him a few seconds more to work up the courage to actually ask: “Miss Hecate, um... can... can I please have a shelf and some books?”
“We don't have many books in Decretum. You can have a table and I'll let you dig through whatever remains of the master library in Genesis.” Hecate replied calmly, and then she paused before correcting herself meditatively: “Which you will only be allowed after you complete the obstacle course I've assigned you.”
Thorn winced, but then he nodded hurriedly before Hecate said shortly: “Enough stalling, Thorn. Come. It's time for you to shower. You reek.”
The colt blushed deeply, mumbling an apology as he nodded hurriedly again... but even as Hecate rolled her eyes, she had to repress a small smile as she turned and strode down the sterile steel halls with the colt in tow.