To protect the society

by TwiwnB

The shadow of justice

“I’m glad you accepted to speak with me before seeing your father.” said No Nothing.

She was the prison’s psychologist and the only one who had dared to stop Rainbow Dash and, let’s be honest, mostly Twilight in their path to the cell of the future former prisoner. It is true that, as soon as they had seen the princess, every guard or employee of the prison had made sure to obey every will of her majesty, which had made everything very easy.

But No Nothing was a professional, convinced that procedures are to be followed for a reason. In that particular case, she had taken the time to analyze the file of the prisoner and had understood she had to intervene to soften the future meeting between the father and the daughter.

“You have to understand that more than a decade in an environment such as this institution leave some deep traces and can change somepony.”

“Yeah, sure, I understand that.” replied Rainbow Dash, who was both trying to hide the fact she was afraid from what had just been said, and was feeling more thrilled at the idea of seeing her father once again as she was coming nearer and nearer from him.

“Please.” said doctor Nothing. “I’ve been following your father for years now, and I need to warn you that he might be very different from what you remember. It can be very difficult for you to accept.”

“Excuse me, but what do you mean by different?” Twilight asked.

“Physically, the changes aren’t that important. He looks older, of course, and less energetic, but it’s on the psychological aspect that the changes appear the most.”

“My father is my father. I don’t care how much he could have changed!” stated Rainbow Dash, following her feelings and not appreciating a lot all those talks about how her father could be less than before.

After all she still had, in her head, the picture of that big strong pegasus and those two wonderful eyes looking at her with gentleness and care. In the picture, he was smiling at her and that was feeling great. She wanted to see him smiling at her once again.

“You must believe me when I say that years spent in a cell change your personality deep within. The healing process can take years. Some never heal, depending on how deep the suffering has been.”

“Wait just a second.” asked Twilight. “He was just imprisoned. He wasn’t tortured or anything, right?”

She had said that just after having looked around and seen the giant places for the prisoners to walk around in plain air, in the grass and in some beautiful parks.

“There is no torture in the sense you understand the concept. This institution has a pool, a cinema, and several clubs to allow the prisoners to exercise many activities. Each prisoner has his own room and there is at least one trip outside the walls, in group of course, to a museum for example, to allow them to go away from this place for a moment.”

“Sounds like vacations to me.” said Rainbow Dash who wasn’t really paying attention and, honestly, didn’t care about it and was quite satisfied to believe her father hadn’t suffered too much during his incarceration.

“It isn’t miss.” replied the psychologist. “Taking away a pony’s freedom has many side effects, some of which are still studied to this day. I said there is no torture taking place here, and we would never allow it, but being incarcerated is torture in itself.”

“What are you trying to say?” asked, almost aggressively, Rainbow Dash who didn’t want to think about such things and just wanted to see her father and get his forgiveness and begin to build a world where they would be together.

“I’m trying to tell you that some ponies die in prison and the one who come out are just shadows from those they once were.” No Nothing said.

Rainbow Dash looked down for a moment, to absorb those words, but then looked up again and just said:

“Are you finished? Can I go be a family again now?”

Doctor Nothing didn’t reply with words, but made a sign that they were free to go.

Once outside the psychologist’s room, guided by the jail’s director himself, Dash told Twilight:

“Can you believe that mare? Who does she think she is? She doesn’t know my father as I know him.”

Twilight didn’t reply. She knew that Dash was asking her to comfort her and assure her everything would be okay, but the alicorn wasn’t certain everything would be okay. She was just hoping it would.

“Here we are.” said the director.

They had arrived in an external part of the jail, before a door.

“Your father is currently inside here.” the director told Dash.

His good reflexes helped him to prevent her from going inside.

“He is being given his old belongings back. He will come out in a matter of minutes. I’ll tell him that you are waiting for him. Just wait here.”

The director went through the door and shut it behind him. Dash hesitated, but the fear of the meeting that was to come stopped her and she just stood there, looking at the door, waiting for it to open and deliver to her the one she hadn’t seen since so long.

Twilight took a few steps back, not knowing how she would handle the whole thing. She knew she was there because her friend was afraid and need some support, but now she was feeling like the fifth wheel, even more than a fifth wheel. She was feeling like she shouldn’t be there, that she should go somewhere to hide and let the father and his daughter reunite together without her to disturb them.

She was about to ask Rainbow Dash about that, but the door suddenly opened and both her and Dash jumped back, startled by that event they had been waiting for.

“Here you go mister Blaze: You’re free.” said the director, who had opened the door.

As he was saying those words, a pegasus appeared, slowly walking out of the building. He had a rainbow colored mane, and a light blue coat. He had a rainbow shooting star for cutie mark.

Rainbow Dash couldn’t believe her eyes. Of course he was looking different. Yes he wasn’t smiling like she remembered and he certainly looked a bit older, but altogether, it was her father. She first felt shocked, unable to move, then she felt happy, because she was finally given her family back, and finally she felt sad as she would when she was just a filly and instinctively decided to jump on her father and hug him.

He didn’t react. Well, he stopped walking, which is a reaction, but other than that, he didn’t react at all.

Rainbow Dash tried to hug him harder, to trigger some sort of magical reaction, some sort of miracle where her father would hug her too and cry like she was.

“Let me go.” he told her.

She didn’t let him go. She wouldn’t accept to let him go, now that they were allowed to be together. She would never let him go away ever again.

“Let me go.” he repeated with the same uncaring tone, without even looking at her.

She let go a little and went back just enough to look at him in his eyes, but he avoided her look and began to walk again, away from the jail and away from her.

“Dad!” Dash suddenly shouted, with the exact same voice she had used the day the guards had taken him away.

He stopped and just stood there. A very good witness would have been able to notice the shivers all over his body, the signs of anger, sadness and mostly violence restrained with more violence.

And then, the shivers stopped. He turned his head in his daughter’s direction, spit on the ground, turned away again and kept on walking.

“Dad?” implored, almost unconscious of the fact she was emitting any sound, the lost Rainbow Dash.

In a matter of second, a multitude of psychological reactions happened in the poor pegasus’s head. The first one was to feel she hadn’t tried hard enough and therefore she moved a few inches in the direction of the one she wanted to be loved by. But then was the guilt for everything she had done until that day which was telling her he was right to treat her that way and she had to disappear. Logically, her mind rebelled against that thought and decided her father was the one who was behaving in a bad way and she should go and demand for him to act in a better way. Simultaneously, the memories got blurred and her mind found an escape in the idea that her father was still guilty of the crime he had been accused of, in which case nothing had changed from before and she shouldn’t feel bad about it. Which obviously made her realize, as she wasn’t a filly anymore, that she didn’t care anymore if he was guilty or not and just wanted her father.

Dash felt a hoof on her shoulder and heard:

“Please don’t.”

It was doctor Nothing’s voice.

“It’s going to be okay, but it will take time. So for the moment, don’t do anything rash. Give him some time.”

As incredible as it may seem, Dash accepted the advice and just fell on the floor to try and gather her thoughts again, to understand what was happening, where she was, what she should believe and how she should act.

But as her friend was being taken care of by the jail’s psychologist, Twilight decided that she should act. She teleported and appeared before Rainbow Blaze, startling him.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked. “Do you have any idea how much you’re hurting your daughter right now? I admit I don’t know how much you’ve suffered, but nopony has the right to act like you do!”

Blaze looked at Twilight and realized he was facing an alicorn, a princess. He instinctively looked down and apologized.

“I’m sorry.” he said. “I don’t want to hurt her. I just think she would be better without me.”

“Well, she wouldn’t.” Twilight replied. “She needs you. And if you have any love left for her, you better turn back right now and go speak to her.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Blaze responded.

“Then go away, leave!” almost shouted Twilight with an imperial tone. “But know that you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. You have suffered a lot, and you’re confused, but you have a family, and you’ll find you’ve got a lot of friends out here. You are still a father and you still have a daughter. You’ve lost a lot in the past, do not allow yourself to lose her.”

Twilight thought of talking more, but didn’t find the words. In a way, she was regretting to have intervened already. She had no idea what she was doing, no idea if it was good, bad, useful or just careless.
So both the pegasus and the alicorn stood in front of each other in an awkward silence, until Twilight decided to leave as she had done enough damages already.

“The decision is yours.” she said.

And then, she teleported back to the jail, where she found Rainbow Dash and tried to comfort her as she could, making sure not to mention what she had just done.

But then, another pony slowly entered the room.

He had a rainbow colored mane, and a light blue coat. He had a rainbow shooting star for cutie mark.

A little silence ensued, and then the stallion said, with a shy smile and a tone that was betraying some old and dusty hope:

“Hello Dashy.”

In a dash, the daughter had jumped on her father and was hugging him, obtaining a hug in return, letting Twilight and the psychologist to look at each other with relief.

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