//------------------------------//
// The Binds that Tie 
// Story: Cryo-7 
// by Metal Pony Fan 
//------------------------------//

	"Ribbon, are you paying attention?"  Growl waited a few seconds, tapping on the counter all the while.  The young nurse she was speaking to had been spacing out more than usual for the last few days, and had yet to give a reason for it.  With a sigh, she realized she was going to have to forcibly pull Ribbon's attention back to the task at hand.  Luckily, James taught her an effective trick to do just that.  "Peeling purloined peppers proffers paltry peppers peeled!"

"Wait," Ribbon blinked a few times and looked over at Growl, "what?"

"I should be the one saying that."  The head nurse shook her head.  She only thought the tongue twister, but she still felt ridiculous.  There wouldn't be enough of Ribbon left to feel sorry for if she had to say that out loud.

Ribbon took a quick step back.  "S-sorry, ma'am, it won't happen again."

"Yes it will, Ribbon."  Growl leaned against the counter.  "You aren't a very good liar, and I know you too well.  What happened?  What is it that keeps pulling you away?"

Ribbon shrugged.  "It's kind of hard to explain."

Growl rolled her eyes.  "Does it have anything to do with the fight in the commissary three days ago?"

Ribbon winced.  "You know about that?"

Was she serious?  Growl raised an eyebrow.  She was only attacked by a large colt in front of a hundred station residents, a colt that left the scene bloody and limping a few moments later.

"It wasn't like that!"  Ribbon shook her head frantically.  "No, Mezzo was only-"

The older mare held up a hoof, stopping the rush of explanations and excuses that was about to follow.  "I know what happened.  Mezzo's Aunt and Mother are friends of mine, and I paid them a visit after sorting through the first few dozen reports and inspecting the crime scene."

Ribbon's eyes went wide.  "It wasn't a crime!  Mezzo was just-"

"Shut.  Up."  Growl cleared her throat and continued.  "The first words out of the colt's mouth were, 'It wasn't Ribbon's fault.'  It took a while to get the whole story out of him, and even then, I'm sure he left a lot out.  About the only thing he was clear about was that he should bear the brunt of the punishment, and not you."

The young nurse looked down.  "That's not true," she said quietly, fully expecting Growl to silence her again.  "He only wanted to protect me."

"Well, let him, but make sure you protect him back."  Growl gave her young assistant a rare, warm smile.  "You've both had hard lives, but you need to realize you aren't alone.  You both have friends on this station, even if you don't realize it yet."

Ribbon smiled back.  "I think I'm starting to."

"Good."  Growl leaned forward and rested her hoof on Ribbon's shoulder.  "Now, try to focus on your job for five minutes, would you?"

Ribbon nodded.  "Yes, ma'am.  I'll try."

"That's all I ask."  Growl spun around on her stool and hopped down.  She made her way out of the little booth and headed around to the front.  Ribbon was staring off into space again, so the head nurse decided to snap her out of it one last time.  "I'm pregnant."

Ribbon slammed her hooves down on the counter, body tensed like she was about to leap over it.  "You're what?!"

Growl laughed.  "Just making sure you were still listening."  She pulled down the tarp that hung above the counter and walked away with a smile.  "You're a good girl, Ribbon.  All three of you are."

Growl kept to her course for a bit, then looked back.  The stand she left looked just the way she wanted it to.  Despite being hastily welded from scrapped shipping containers, or perhaps because of it, it wasn't out of place at the comissary's edge, marking the boundary of the maintenance section.  It welcomed ponies in and away from the trudge and tedium that came with keeping Delta in orbit.

The lavender purple color, stolen from a certain visitor, stood out just enough to catch the eye without being gaudy.  And where she had pulled the canvas tarp away, a large picture of Astral's face sat next to a hoof-painted sign, promising with a grin, "Fresh Apples, Two for One Bit."

Already, curiosity was taking hold.  Shopkeepers were peeking out of the windows of their shops, and passers by were turning their heads to look.  It wouldn't be long before somepony worked up the nerve to head over.

It was up to Ribbon what happened next.

A gentle buzz tugged her away from waiting for the first customer.  She turned away and brought a hoof to her ear.  To anyone walking by, it would seem like she just scratched her ear, rather than activate the small communications chip hidden there.  "Growl here."

"Ma'am," answered a voice only she could hear, "Cocoa, from security, Data and Records Division."

Growl didn't recognize the name, this girl must be one of the new hires.  The meet and greet for the new security and maintenance personnel was still a few days away, but at least a dozen of them had already been pressed into service.  "Go ahead, Cocoa."

"It's about that report you gave us yesterday, we cleaned up the item in question and cross-referenced with police planet-side."

Growl nodded.  That was what she asked them to do.  "And?  I hope you didn't contact me just for that.  Do you have results to report?"

"Oh, um, yes, ma'am.  The results came back just a minute ago, I called you immediately after reading them."

Growl waited for a moment, but Cocoa didn't continue.  "Cocoa, let me give you some advice, not as a friend, but as your boss.  I don't like suspense, and I don't like surprises, and I don't like it when ponies dilly dally and state the obvious.  You aren't going to last long if you don't learn to get the point.  This isn't a planet-side desk job, forget the procedural crap and tell me what you learned."

"S-sorry, ma'am, um, the limiter was one of a set of three stolen from the museum of alternative magic roughly one month ago.  The suspect was known to fence things off-planet, but it was never determined exactly where."

"Good.  Did you send my prepared message?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And the response?"

"They sent only sent back a short message.  It said, 'within the hour.'  Also, about the colt's statement..."

"What about it."

"We confirmed it."

"As did I," Growl rolled her eyes, "when he told us."

"The limiter is made of Iron-bonded Telluride, and not structured Arcanum.  This makes it illegal to use as a limiter, or to sell as one due to the possibility of injury, as well as the long term side effects.  A quick way to tell the two apart is to push it against something on it's edge.  Arcanum is soft enough to deform under slight pressure, but Telluride is extremely hard and expels stored energy when struck."

"I already knew that."  Growl changed direction and headed off into the crowded sections of the commissary.  This girl needed some training if she wanted to keep her job.  "Keep this channel open, and be ready to start recording.  We're gonna have some fun with this."





"Hello~oo?"

The sparrow-pitched sing-song lifted the jeweler's eyes from the piece he was polishing.  The blonde earth pony poking her head in the doorway was a welcome sight.  Apparently there was some sort of scuffle nearby, over some ring or something, but since then, business has been slow.  Were the ponies and bipeds of the station wary of being mugged for their valuables?

He puffed his chest out.  A gryphon would never bow to such fear.  If anything, a gryphon would take it as a challenge and wear their ornaments proudly.  Standing proud, he turned to his customer and greeted her with a strong, confident voice.  "Good afternoon, fine mare.  What brings you to my establishment."

"Fine mare?" She giggled.  "You sure know how to flatter a girl."  Growl ran a hoof through her hastily dyed mane.  Was this guy serious?  Her smile never wavered, and she walked into the store like a gawking tourist.  Her flowing, layered summer shirt, made from layers of thin blue fabric and based on the latest planet-side fashion, reinforced her traveling appearance.  "I heard this was the only place to find good jewelry on this station."

He nodded once, a smooth, slow motion.  "It is indeed, miss...?"

"Emerald," Growl answered happily.  The shop was small, but so were most of the others.  Space was a precious commodity on the station, and most of the available space was taken up by the courtyard that made up the central mass of the commissary.  Even the department store that boasted the largest layout among the stores relied on bright lights and design tricks to seem larger than they really were.  "It sure is impressive that you can keep this place running on such a small station."

"Quite right."  He shined his claws on his chest.  "It isn't easy, I can tell you.  A good number of shops have withered because their hapless managers were unable to adjust to the scale and climate of station life."  His grin grew into a smirk.  "I assure you, I will not fall the same way."

"Oh, I should hope not."  The mare buried her face in a nearby display case, hiding the look of disgust on her face.  He was going to fall in a much grander fashion, she would make sure of that.

The shopkeeper made his way over.  "Have you graced my shop before, miss Emerald?  I must say, you seem familiar."

"Really?"  Growl looked up with a smile.  "I should hope I seem familiar.  I'm a singer down on the surface.  The Verdant Gemstones?  Perhaps you've heard of us?"

"That must be it," the shopkeeper conceded, smirk growing larger as he noticed the incomplete mane coloring for the first time.  He had never heard of the, 'Verdant Gemstones,' before.  An old mare, desperately trying to stay young, while singing in some no-name band?  This was going to be his easiest sale this month.  "I would have guessed you were a model."

"Oh my, you flatterer."  Growl giggled.  This disgusting son of a bitch sold a potentially harmful magic artifact to her youngest nurse?  "I used to do some modelling.  Mostly for the album covers."  She wandered over to another display case.  Hopefully, her anger wouldn't break through the thin, smiling mask she wore, because right now, she wanted nothing more than to reach up, tear that smiling beak off his face, and gut him with it.  She would have to settle for knocking his ego down a peg.  "Anyway, I'm looking for something for my boyfriend.  He's a gryphon, like you, but taller and whole lot better looking."  She glanced up in time to see the shopkeeper's mouth twitch.  "Any suggestions?"

"That would depend on his interests," he grumbled.  "Though, necklaces and claw rings are generally preferred over fur clips, bracelets, or earrings.  Bracelets, especially, can be uncomfortable around a gryphon's front legs."

"Good to know."  Growl brought a hoof to her chin.  "His interests, huh?  He's kind of into magic.  I mean, weirdly into magic.  Even had me pretend to be a unicorn last time we-"

"Well!"  The shopkeeper quickly cleared his throat and walked to another display case.  A gryphon and this sort of lowly prey animal?  He knew it was common, but that didn't mean he wanted to hear about it.  "If it's magic he likes, I may have just the ticket."  

"Oh, cool."  Growl followed him over.  Looks like she struck a nerve.  "By the way, would you know where I could get a fake unicorn horn?  We kind of broke the last one.  It had this headband to hold it on, so you could hide it under your mane, and it felt really realistic, not like plastic or anything."

The jeweler clenched his mouth shut, nostril's flaring as he took a deep breath.  "I doubt you could find something that specific on this station.  However," he reached into the display and pulled out an oversized ring, "this is a vintage piece, an antique limiter, roughly four hundred years old.  It has borne witness to generations of magic, and served as a training tool for an untold number of unicorns during that time."

"Oh, that is so gonna turn him on."  Growl inspected the ring closely.  Its patterning and color were different from the one taken into evidence.  And, it was bent.  Just a little, like it had been damaged and straightened back out by an amateur.  "Ooh, any chance you have another?  We could put them on chains and wear them as matching necklaces.  That would be so romantic."

The shopkeeper's face clearly showed his disgust now, but he wasn't about to miss out on this sale.  "You are in luck then."  He put the limiter away.  "In addition to a wide variety of necklace chain that I can cut to size, I also have two more limiters."  He pulled out a pair of velvet boxes, both identical in size and color to the one recovered from the abandoned storefront.

Growl moved close as he opened the boxes.  Minus the blood, these were exact matches for the limiter in evidence, right down to the engraving.  The only difference being that one of them was so small, it would barely fit on a child's horn.  And she knew exactly which child.  "Looks pricey."

"They are."  He took one out of the box and set it on the glass of his display a little closer for her to inspect.  "Pure Arcanum, and easily twice as old as the other one I showed you.  Normally, I would charge fifteen thousand bits for each piece like this, but I could be persuaded to let both go for, hmm, twenty-eight?"

Growl ran a hoof over the ring.  She had seen too many of these, many of them on ponies who now lived on this station.  She fought with those same ponies to free them from what these infernal rings enforced.  While she was looking the other way, they were creeping back.  "Thief."

The jeweler chuckled and picked up the other limiter.  "Now, now," he chided, swirling it about a talon, "there's no need to insult me for asking a fair price, is there?"

"There is, if you ask a fair price for stolen goods."  Growl looked up, eyes burning with tears and rage.  "You are under arrest, you shit eating sack of down.  For trading in stolen goods, for knowingly trading in harmful artifacts, and for bringing these damn things on this station."

The jeweler set his limiter down in the box.  "Now I know why you looked familiar."  Damn it!  Why didn't he notice it when he saw the dyed mane?  She's the grass-eater that's always hanging around that doctor.  She looks in the window every time they walk by.  "I thought you were a nurse."

She let out a loud snort.  "I am."

"And you came to arrest me, alone?"  He flexed his claw.  "I'll be off this station long before they find your body."

Cocoa's voice rang in Growl's ear.  "Get out of there!  I'll send backup, and-"

"Don't," Growl commanded.  "This is my fight, and I will not lose."

"Who are you talking to?"  He stood up and started to climb over the display case.  "Station security?"

Growl looked up at him with a smirk.  "Bitch, I am station security."

She lifted her hoof and slammed it down on the larger limiter.  Blue light rang forth, a glowing shockwave that shattered every display and window in the small shop.  Pure, concentrated magic washed over every surface, fusing metal, burning unnatural materials, and causing wood to sprout limbs and leaves.  Growl let the magic flow over her, through her, the last fleeting touch of a long dead friend.  The jeweler tumbled from the collapsing display, and Growl helped him along by swinging her hoof at his head.  It didn't connect as well as she wanted, but it still shook him as he scrambled to stand.

Cut and bleeding, he backed away, flaring his wings.

Growl merely stood up.  Her shirt was gone, synthetic fibers reduced to cinders around her.  Her mane and tail were not only back to their normal colors, but growing longer at a visible pace.  Such pure, natural energy.  As an earth pony, Growl could feel herself being strengthened by it as it flowed through her.  "Those limiters are not centuries old."  Growl looked over where the ring had fallen.  It rested on a small wooden plaque that was slowly unfurling leaves.  She could sense that the magic was fading, and she was powerless to save the last of its light.  "Twenty-seven years ago, that limiter was cast and placed on an old stallion's horn while it still glowed red.  It burned to his flesh, becoming impossible to remove.  Twenty-two years ago, another limiter was placed on his daughter's horn in the same manner.  Both had just waken up from an endless sleep, dreaming of a new world where they could live in peace."  She looked back at the jeweler.  "Instead, I pulled that ring off his dead body nearly decade ago.  And his daughter and grandson wouldn't know the freedom he longed for until years after that.  This small limiter was placed on her son's horn on the day he was born, welcoming him to a world that saw him as property, and making his first waking moment one of pain and cruelty."

He paced back and forth, waiting for Growl to make a move, to leave an opening.  "What?"  He taunted.  "You want me to feel sorry for a bunch of dead grass-eaters?  Oh, boo-hoo, maybe I should turn myself in?"

"No, I'm not stupid enough to expect that.  And, I'm not kind enough to want it."  She took one step towards him.  "I just want you to know that I'm beating you half to death for something a little more important than some stolen trinkets."

The jeweler caught himself wanting to take a step back.  "And you think you stand a chance against a gryphon?  If it wasn't for that explosion, you'd already be dead."

"Blood matters not."  Growl took one more step.

He shook his head.  "You've got to be joking."

"Fur matters not."  Another step.

The jeweler stepped back.  "Shut up!  The oath of honor is-"

Growl took one more step forward, shouting him down.  "My heart that beats, my soul that burns, with all that matters, I choose!"  She raised her head, and shouted for all to hear.  "I am Gr of the Ohlen Highlands, and I Am Gryphon!"

"You are nothing!"  He charged forward, slashing for her head.

She dipped under the attack, stepping outside his movement, and wishing she had a beak or fangs as she bit down hard on the back of his neck.  She turned, pivoting to follow his momentum, adding her own force and control to throw him into the base of a tall display like a battering ram.

Gold and glass and precious gems showered down around him.  He shook the shards away before opening his eyes, and Growl was before him, hind legs raised for a vicious attack uniquely suited to her race.  The jeweler threw himself to the side, leaving the display to splinter under the force of a double hoofed kick.  A buck, they called it?  One of a pony's few natural weapons, and a devestating one at that.  He ran around in front her.  Given the damage to the display, this pony might be able to put that buck to fatal use.  But, she lacked any other true means of attack.  As long as he didn't overextend like that first attack, he only had to avoid being kicked.

Growl turned again, bringing her hooves to bear, and he dodged back the way he came.  She didn't kick, merely continuing her spin.  As her head swept around, he barely saw the blur as the steel rod she tore from the display's carcass snapped across his cheek.

He crashed to the ground, shoulder skidding across shattered glass while his body expended its momentum.

He fought the pain to get his claws beneath him, right eye already swelling shut from the impact.  Before he had a chance to stand, much less defend himself, the rod cracked across his back, right behind his shoulder blades.  He felt one shoulder tear out of its socket as he crashed back to the floor.

Growl didn't give him a chance to cry out in pain before swing the rod again, connecting with his ribs, knocking him on his side with a loud crack.

As she stood over him, he reached out with his working claw, weakly wrapping his talons around her hoof.  "Being strong does not make you a gryphon."  His voice was raspy, pained, as he drew shaky, uneven breaths.  He was on the edge of blacking out, and desperately trying to keep his left eye focused on Growl.  The other was swollen tightly shut.

One last swing of the rod broke his leg and his grasp on consciousness.

Growl pulled her hoof free of his limp talons and walked away, spitting out her weapon.  "I never said it did."  She let out an angry snort.  Any new shopkeepers would have to undergo a much more thourough vetting process from now on.  

When she reached the shop's busted glass door, she stopped short.  There was a crowd gathering, gawking at the shards of glass and twisted window frames left in the wake of the magical explosion.  She lifted a hoof to her ear, and was pleasantly surpised that the comm-chip was intact, probably because it was a semi-organic ceramic instead of metal.

"Cocoa, this is growl.  Send security personnel and a thaumaturgic clean up crew to my location."

"What happened?!"  The screaming new hire made Growl wince.  "He threatened to kill you, and then your comm line went dead.  We sent an assault team immediately, but station sensors registered an explosion, and a massive amount of magic has flooded the station.   We're already getting complaints from sensitive individuals and reports of unusual phenomena."

Growl sighed as the assault team arrived.  Running silently and clad in flat black combat armor, they were a group she took great pride in having trained personally.  Two humans armed with pulse rifles, three gryphons and an earth pony wielding kinetic field generators, one unicorn specializing in sheilding and restraint, and a pair of pegasi armed with sound-shock suppression modules.

They placed themselves between the crowd and the shop, set up a barrier behind them, and took up positions to storm the jewelry shop.  One of the humans took up position next to the door,looking in and past growl down the barrel of his weapon.  Seeing only one unconscious gryphon, several broken display cases, and his boss staring at him, he lowered his pulse rifle and signaled the all clear to his team mates.  "No hostiles."

Half the team moved in to the shop, two gryphons taking up guard positions on either side of the door while the earth pony and one of the pegasi swept the shop for weapons or hazardous materials.

The human walked in slowly, taking in the destruction around him.  The floor was littered with glass and blobs of gold.  Loose gems, and twisted jewelry on charred velvet, were all that remained in the displays.  Wooden cabinets had sprouted branches and leaves.  One such cabinet, in the center of the room, looked like it was run over by a hover truck.  The front face was completely smashed in, leaving splinters supported by a carcass of steel rods.  There was also a small, but not negligible by any means, amount of blood splatter present.  "What happed?"

Growl shrugged.  "He resisted arrest."






Halfway across the Commissary, Ribbon was vaguely aware that there was some sort of commotion going on elsewhere.  But it was relatively minor, a temporary burst of panic, dimming quickly to mild confusion, followed by a tangible wave of serene calm.

The calm feeling felt like it came from a single pony, which means she shouldn't have been able to sense it from far away.  Unless, of course, it came from Mezzo or Astral.  Astral had a very distinct mental voice, one that was clearly audible from a distance, and something about Mezzo seemed to change the way her abilities worked.  Whoever it was that felt so calm right now definitely felt like Mezzo.

She just wished she could work up the nerve to go talk to the colt.  She knew where he lived, but couldn't bring herself to face him after waking up alone in his bed.  And she couldn't figure out how he had gotten past her.  No matter how high his pain tolerance is, or how soundly she was asleep, she should have been able to feel it the moment he put any weight on his bad hoof.

Instead, he managed to sneak out, and she was woken up by his aunt sometime around noon.  Lunch with her and Mezzo's little sister was awkward, but quiet, and she left quickly afterwards.

Ever since, she had been distracted, thinking about him, wondering how his hoof was doing, and remembering the story he told her.  It almost seemed wrong to call it a story.  There needed to be a stronger word.  It was more than a story, and it was mixed in her mind with images and feelings that almost made it seem like her own memory, instead of his.

She was pretty sure that was caused by the pendant she was wearing.  It was made from the limiter he wore, and so inseparably charged with his magic that being in contact with it amplified her connection to him.  She needed to tell him that he shouldn't let her touch it anymore.  She wasn't sure how strong the connection could become, and if it was affecting her this strongly, it may start to affect him.

An annoyed rapping of knuckles on the counter in front of her brought her back to the task at hand.  Hand?  Human!  Ribbon looked up in a panic.  This human had been waiting for his apples for over a minute while she was spaced out.

She accidentally made eye contact with him.  He wanted a dozen apples, and was about to pay with a twenty bit coin.  She was working as hard as she could to speed up the process, but she couldn't sell the apples fast enough.  The line was backing up, and there were at least a dozen ponies waiting for a chance at the fruit she somehow ended up in charge of selling.

No!  She shook her head as her hoof reached for the change.  Some of these ponies, people, no-  customers, didn't know who she was.  It was easier to deal with it if they didn't know.  The ones who did know couldn't think about anything else.

She waited for the human to place his order and offer his coin, then bagged the produce and started counting out the one bit coins she had for change.

Around nine bits, a flash of blue and white in her peripheral vision distracted her.  She turned to look, but the pony was already lost in the crowd.  She looked for him until her customer's impatience pulled her back again.

"Sorry," she said quickly.  Looking down, she forgot if she was at nine or ten coins and hastily started over.  Once she had it right, she shoved them into his outstretched hand, "here, thank you."  She grabbed the little sign she was supposed to put up at closing from under the counter and set it up before hopping over the short wall boxing her into the booth.

She ignored the complaints of other prospective buyers as she navigated the busy commissary, searching for the specific combination of colors she just couldn't get out of her mind.  She really needed to talk to him, sort out what happened, but she hadn't even seen him in days.

She found what she was looking for in a small outdoor cafe.  Well, it was as outdoor as anything could be in the confines of a space station.  And she was pretty sure it wasn't here a few days ago.  Things happen quickly on this station.  There were even brightly colored umbrellas at each table to provide shade from the artificial sunlight.

At the table farthest from anypony else, back to her and watching the crowds go by, was a white unicorn with a familiar blue mane.  Ribbon ran over, reaching out.  "Mezzo, I need to-"

The moment her hoof touched white fur, the unicorn reacted.  Even with her artificially enhanced reaction times, she was pulled halfway over the back of the bench before she could stop it.  Her hoof was twisted and pressed to the table by one white hoof, and another was raised over her outstretched leg, poised to strike and break it.

For a moment, she was sure that it had already happened.  She had clearly seen the chop, the damage it would cause, and the hidden cattle prod that would then be jabbed into her chest.  Were those merely thoughts?  Instinct and fighting will so strong it projected that clearly?

This wasn't Mezzo.  Ribbon looked up.  It wasn't even a colt.  A middle-aged mare, not yet as old as Growl, glared down at her like a hawk about to kill a snake under its talons.  Her mane was slightly darker than Mezzo's but had a similar streak of a lighter color, easily mistaken if you didn't know to look for it.

Her flaming ruby eyes softened a little, and she loosened her grip on the young nurse.  "Sorry, kiddo."  She put on a pair of heavily tinted sunglasses that were sitting in front of her before smiling.  The dark shades almost hid the scar over her right eye, but not quite.  She was wearing some sort of leather chest plate with fancy gryphon-style tooling and matching bands on her legs.  A matching spaulder lay on the table.  To the average pony, it would look like gryphon formalwear, but Ribbon could recognize the energy dissipating mesh the leather was bonded to.  Furian combat armor was made of similar materials.   "You shouldn't sneak up on ponies like that."

"I didn't sneak up on you," Ribbon mumbled as she lowered herself back to the ground, rubbing her wrenched joints.  Who was this mare?  Ribbon saw at least 4 hidden weapons, none of which were the cattle prod.

The mare watched and turned her head.  "Huh?"  The way the mare tilted her right ear towards her, she must have been deaf on the left side. Looking closer, Ribbon could see the scar on the inside of her ear.  Straight, and evenly healed, it wasn't the sort of scar you would see after an accident.  "I wasn't paying attention," the mare lied, "did you say something?"

"Oh, sorry."  Ribbon rubbed her shoulder a little more.  The mare's thoughts betrayed how self-conscious she was about her ear, and the scar on her face.  "Um, I thought you were someone else."  The young unicorn gestured to the chair.  "Mind if I sit down?"

"Go ahead."  The mare felt slightly relieved when Ribbon walked around and sat on her right, but also worried that she knew about her ear.  "You must be a friend of Mezzo's.  I’ve been told we look alike from a distance.  Want anything?"

Ribbon shook her head sadly.  "Not really."  With a sigh, the nurse stared at the Spaulder.  There were several large metal accents in orderly rows that she was ninety percent sure were really throwing daggers.  "I wish though."

The mare shrugged.  "I don't mind buyin' ya something if you're a bit short on bits."

The nurse fought the urge to slam her head into the table.  "I'm sorry, I meant I'm not really Mezzo's friend."

"Marefriend then?"  She smirked.  That son of hers always had a thing for bright colors.  Guess growing up surrounded by dirt and pain does that to you.  And, with this filly's sky blue and rainbow, it must have been love at first sight.

A little extra pink added itself to Ribbon's palette, and she shook her head furiously.  "It's not like that," she hurriedly explained.  "I'm not even sure what your son really thinks of me.  We haven't even spoken to each other in days."

"Why not?"  The mare leaned back in the booth.  "The name's Vinyl, by the way.  So, what's your connection to my son, if you aren't his friend or mare friend?  He hasn't been making enemies while I was off hunting down his lowlife pegasus of a father, has he?"

"No, of course not," Ribbon answered quickly.  "It's kind of complicated, but-"

A buzzing sound drowned out whatever else she might have said, a small entertainment pad on the table giving a notification buzz.  It was an expensive model, well known luxury brand, and as clear as crystal.  Save for the words, "Incoming communication," displayed along each edge, in each direction, in tall glowing letters.

"Mind if I get that?" Vinyl asked before sliding the glass device over.  "It might be about me getting paid this month."

"Go ahead."  Ribbon looked away, already hearing what the mare really expected from the call.  A confirmation of the bounty she delivered.  A payment of more bits than she spent on her limiter to be delivered within the week.  A criminal back in his cell, but with tighter security this time.  She was a bounty hunter.

"Heh," Vinyl picked the crystalline sheet up and tapped it with a hoof.  "It's just a friend sending me a video.  I know the mare who runs the coffee shop, and she's the type that likes to share holopics and videos of cute animals and such."  With a smile, she read the subject line of the message.  "'Have you seen this?'  Well, no, but I guess I'm about to."  She looked over at Ribbon as she tapped play.  "Five bits says it's a baby prill being silly."

Ribbon glanced over, the mention of a prill stirring a foggy memory.  Any hope of grasping that memory faded as she realized that the video playing was of a crowded section of the commissary.  She buried her face in her hooves as she came running on screen.

Vinyl leaned forward.  "That's... you?"

On-screen Ribbon stopped and turned around, only be bowled over by a much larger colt.  The two skidded into the crowd, shrieks and shouts and shaky camera work giving the impression of a violent assault.  The camera recovered and moved closer to the action, looking over the shoulders of the crowd as the two ponies fought, colt holding down the struggling filly.

They made it to the point where Ribbon shouted, "Stop!  Don't!" before Vinyl slammed her pad down.  She let herself out of the booth, leaving the shattered screen where it lay.  Ribbon could feel the anger, seething, boiling beneath the surface, even as the white mare calmy walked to the counter and paid for her coffee.

Ribbon could only stare in wonder as the mare displayed self control that would make the most secluded of mountain monks envious.  Inside, feelings of failure, grief, and depression vied for control of her.  Her son had attacked a mare while she was away?  He was getting into fights in public?  How could she have failed so badly as a mother?  Would this even have happened if his father were around?   She stood in the middle of the coffee shop, standing amidst the tables and customers, hiding everything from the world around her.  She took a deep breath, then let everything into the open at once.  She screamed,"Where is he?!"

Cups spilled, chairs and occupants tumbled, and one very angry mare stood in the center of it all, nearly foaming at the mouth.

She ran off, and Ribbon scrambled out of the booth to chase after her.  She was head for the exit, out of the commissary and towards the residential area.  She was headed straight for home, where Mezzo was supposed to be holed up in bed.  Well, he wasn't when she left, but maybe he returned since then?  This angry mare didn’t watch the whole video, so she didn’t know that her son was seriously injured.  If she so much as knocked him out of bed without realizing it, it could cause the colt serious pain, and possibly set back his recovery.

Once in the residential hallways, Ribbon realized that the quarters were too close.  Prime real estate within easy walking distance of the commissary.  Even at a dead run, Ribbon wouldn’t have time to overtake Vinyl.  The mare was in excellent physical condition, and much faster than she looked.  The telepath settled for  keeping pace until they reached the door, and the older mare stopped to punch in the entry code.  Then, dashing in front of her when the door opened, she stood protectively in front of Mezzo in the middle of the main room.

The mare stopped to glare for a moment, wondering why the one attacked would defend her attacker.  “Please , listen to me!”  Ribbon moved when Vinyl let herself in, keeping herself squarely between mother and son.  “You don’t know the whole story!  Your son is seriously hurt, and if he’s… he’s…”  Ribbon looked back.  Mezzo looked down at her, eyebrows pulling together.  For the first time, the nurse noticed that he was more than a little on the tall side.  “He’s standing.”

Mezzo raised an eyebrow.  Not only was he standing, he was carrying a tray of drinks, drinks that were either very hot, or extremely cold.  What was she doing running in here like that?

“What am I doing?  What are you doing?” Ribbon demanded.  “How are you not in terrible pain right now?”

Growl cleared her throat from her seat on the couch, waving the colt over to finish his delivery.  Did she really forget?

“Oh,” Ribbon winced, “right, Dad’s new auto-surgeon.  It would be able to repair the damage beneath the hoof before sealing it with keratin paste.”  It wouldn’t be an immediate recovery, but he would be able to walk while the rest healed up over a week or so.  “Mezzo, I’m so sorry I didn’t think of that sooner.”

Looking around, Ribbon noticed that she had been so focused on Vinyl, that she barged right into a meeting of sorts.  Mezzo, freshly healed, and only slightly favoring his injured hoof, was carrying drinks to ponies seated on the room's two couches.  Growl sat on one, and Octavia and Minuette shared the other.

“Don't worry about it.”  With a sigh, Mezzo brought the last two drinks over to the grey earth pony pair after Growl took hers.  Ribbon felt no anger, even though that had been a constant in the colt's feelings, and his emotional state when he regarded her was greatly changed from before.  Not pity, but close to it.  The pain she had felt before was an echo, dulled by quiet contemplation.  But, of what?  "It's ok, you weren't thinking straight, and neither was I.  Too much happened at once to get caught up in regrets.  I'll be right back.”  He then headed back to the kitchen with his empty tray.

"And what, exactly, happened?"  Vinyl growled at Ribbon.  Confusion was evident, but thankfully, the anger was beginning to ebb.  Still, the mare was not about to let things go without an explanation.  “Now, one of you has some explaining to do before I start turning this station upside down looking for answers!”

Minuette sipped her hot chocolate and looked up at her mother.  "Is Aunt Scratch upset that Ribbon and Mezzo sleep together?"  The filly looked over at Ribbon.    She very much liked the nurse, and wanted everypony else to like her too.  Then, she looked over at her Aunt.  "You should like her, she's nice."

"Huh?"  Vinyl asked softly, hoping she misheard the little filly.  Sleeping together?  The mare's anger dropped like a rock, the rest of her emotions sinking with it.  Her son was growing up fast, and she wasn't here for it.  How could she not have realized he had a marefriend of all things?  How could it not come up in conversation?  They still talked, right?  She wasn't that absent, not like his father, was she?

Growl raised an eyebrow.  "Mezzo, I think you left out part of the story in that report you gave me."  She took a sip of her cold ale before musing, "but, it does explain why she's been distracted lately."

"What did I leave out?" Mezzo asked from the kitchen, not hearing the instigating comment.

"Nothing," Growl answered before taking a sip of her drink.

Minuette watched Growl take another drink and tried to mimic the way she held her mug in one hoof.  When she couldn't, she found something more interesting to watch.  "Mommy, why is Ribbon changing colors?  Is she a lizard?"

Octavia couldn't help but snicker a little.  "Minuette, dear, now isn’t the best time.  Do you think you could let the grownups have a moment to talk, hmm?"  She took the filly's drink in one hoof, using the other to balance her own.  "Go tell Mezzo I said you could have one of the cookies I made.  Ok?"

"OK!" She nodded happily.  "Mitso!" She yelled, hopping off the couch, "Mommy's letting me have a cookie!"

"Huh?" He called back.  "It's still before dinner though."

"It's ok," Octavia answered, "but she has to eat it at the table."  She cleared her throat and looked over at Vinyl.  "You can calm down, Vi, I'm pretty sure it isn't like that."

"No," Ribbon clarified, forcing her mind back from the emergency stop position, "there's no, 'pretty sure,' about it."  What Minuette said was true, they had slept together, but it was just that, sleep.  Terrible, nightmarish sleep, fueled by painful memories from the darkest places of their pasts.  Unfortunately, most adults see a specific meaning in that phrase.  She didn't want her boss, and Mezzo's family thinking they were in an intimate relationship when they weren't, especially since... they... were all... ok with it?  What?   "Um," the nurse looked around, but not a single thought of objection surfaced, from any of the three older mares, "but, it's not like that."

Grinning, Octavia calmly continued, "A lot's happened while you've been gone, Vi, but suffice it to say, she's a friend, and one I think we should get used to seeing around here."

"Really?" Vinyl and Ribbon asked simultaneously.

The armored mare looked over at the young nurse with an appraising eye.  "If Tavi vouches for you, I'll give you a chance.  But, what are you exactly?  You knew about my ear, and I'm pretty sure I caught you counting my hidden weapons.  You missed a few, but still, a filly your age shouldn't even know to check."

"She's one of my nurses," Growl explained.  Her glass was already long empty, but she would have to hold off on a refill.  She wanted something stronger than cold fruit juice, but that absolutely had to wait until she got her reports filed and the jewelry store mess cleaned up.  "She's also a political refugee, like the rest of us.  Only, instead of a mercenary or slave, she was a genetically-engineered child soldier on the planet Furia."

"I wasn't really a soldier," Ribbon said, defending her home planet.  "And my dad was genetically engineered, and some of it got passed down.  I didn't actually go through that much gene therapy."

"Not that much," the head nurse muttered sarcastically.  With a sigh, Growl pointed her empty glass at the mare.  "How many pushups a day did you do during basic training?"

"Um, only about three hundred," Ribbon answered, "as long as I didn't mess anything else up.  Why?"

The head nurse ignored her and launched into the next question.  "And what was your least favorite part of advanced combat training, the live fire exercises, or tear gas?"

"What?"  Ribbon shook her head.  "You know it was that survival test where they dumped me on Tarlam II.  I told you about that."

"Oh, right."  Growl nodded slowly.  "You did.  As I recall, Tarlam II is classified as a barely habitable.  Lower than normal oxygen content, extreme seismic activity, and clouds of toxic, volcanic gas floating across the surface.  To say nothing of the fact that there is almost no vegetation, and ninety-five percent of the animal life is large, carnivorous, and highly territorial.  You also mentioned that the drop ship they made you pilot to the surface had a malfunction, and crashed.  This left you stranded twice as far from the signal beacon as you were supposed to be, and with three cracked ribs."

Ribbon shut her mouth very tightly.  Growl had just played her straight into making her point.  It was something that only the older nurse had ever been able to do, and it caught the telepath off guard every time.  "But, they never made me fight, so you can't call me a soldier."

Growl set her empty glass down on the couch.  "What sort of weapon did you have on Tarlam II."

Ribbon winced.  "A, um, an AGR-44 plasma projection rifle."

Growl crossed her hooves.  "Shots fired during the mission?"

"Um, seventy-four?"

The green mare raised an eyebrow.  "Number of hits?"

"Seventy-two."  Ribbon looked down.  Growl was in interrogation mode now, and the young nurse knew better than to talk back or try to hide information when she was like this.

"Total kills?" Growl asked quietly.

"Eighty-seven."  Ribbon pointed at Growl.  "But that's only because the Drollskag fell on that pack of Stone Stalkers."

"Last question," Growl said with a smirk.  "How old were you?"

"Twelve," Ribbon admitted in defeat.  She may not have had a normal childhood, but it was still better than her dad had described his.  She wasn't around for the war.  Besides, Tarlam was nice and quiet compared to populated planets.

Vinyl's eyebrows raised out of the scowl they had been locked in for last few minutes.  "Awesome."  She looked back at Ribbon with a smirk.  Her whole demeanor was back to the way it was at the cafe, smooth, relaxed, willing to sit back and take things as they come.  It was a fast change, and and would've been a frightening one if not for an odd emotional undertone.  It was the same thing she felt from Mezzo earlier.  It wasn't pity.  It was some sort of sorrowful understanding.  "You know, kid, if you've got Growl backing you, that's  a pedigree in and of itself.  She brags about her nurses all the time at the bar."  Vinyl's smirk grew a little larger, and she tilted her head towards Ribbon.  "So, are you the bookworm, the energetic one, or the telepath?"

"Um, the last one," Ribbon answered.  She was about to find out sooner or later, it was better if she was the one who said it.  The nurse braced herself for the reaction.  Would her smile disapear?  Would she step back?  Or, like her son, would she remember some terrible, painful thing that happened to her?

Vinyl burst out laughing.  "Well, at least you answered honestly."  She climbed onto the couch next to Growl.  "She really has no control over it, does she?"

"None," Growl shook her head.  "Oh!"  She straightened up and put her hoof on the other mare's shoulder.  "You lost the shoulder-piece?  Did it get damaged?  I'm sorry, I knew I should have recommend an armourer with more experience, but Hess is the son of one of the best craftsmen in James' Aery."

"What?  Naw.  I just left it in commisary."  Vinyl waved off the nurses concerns.  "The armor's great, does its job better than surplus military gear for sure.  You can't even feel stunner blasts."  With a contented sigh she eased back into the cushions, removing her sunglasses, but taking a moment to scratch the scar across her eye with the corner of the frame.  "Fits a lot better, too."  She leaned her head back to look past Growl and called out to the kitchen, "hey, Mezzo!"

"Already on it, Mom," came the immediate reply.  Whatever he was working on, he was concentrating deeply on getting the temperature just right.

"You're a good kid," Vinyl muttered with a smile, "real good.  Even if ya did get in a fight with a  filly half your size."  She caught sight of Ribbon out of the corner of her eye, and Ribbon felt that odd emotion again.  She couldn't quite understand, but it tugged at her, compelling, tangible in a way that few other emotions were.  "Oh, yeah, you got any plans for this girl?  I wouldn't mind taking my new Telepathic Super-Soldier, Patent-Pending, Daughter-in-Law on a mission every so often."

"Mom," Mezzo came out of the kitchen with another tray, and three more drinks in coffee mugs, "can we not do this now?"  As he walked towards the couch, white wisps of steam became visible above two of the the cups.  He offered one to his mother, giving her a stern look.  "She does this to every female my age that happens to be within ten meters, even if it's just the checkout girl when we go shopping."

Vinyl took the cup with a shrug.  "Hey, I don't want my boy to be lonely.  You can't fault a mother for that."

"You leaned up on the counter, pointed at me, and said, 'hey, he's single,' while waggling your eyebrows."  Mezzo looked over at Ribbon.  "That wasn't even the worst part."  He gave an exaggerated wink that made it look like there was dust in his eye, and clicked his tongue.  He sighed and slowly nodded before speaking again.  "That.  She did that, and that was the worst part.  I thought the girl was going to call security on us, it was that bad."

Ribbon giggled, trying to picture this armored mare, scars and all, playing matchmaker.  Mezzo and his mother joined in her laughter, and Ribbon suddenly understood.  What she felt from the two of them was something so simple that she almost overlooked it.  They understood.  They knew what she had gone through, and they could identify with it.  They accepted her as she was.  Different, but still like them.

"So, some folks find me scary," Vinyl shrugged again, oblivious to Ribbon's runaway bout of introspection, "big deal.  I'll find you a nice mare yet, and you can bet she'll be tough enough to put up with me."  She took a big whiff of the steam rising from her mug, eyes nearly rolling back into her head.  "Oh, that's good.  Sure ya don't want him, Colors?  He cooks, he cleans, he does arts and crafts, and he can care for foals.  He's basically the perfect housewife, just a bit more badass."

Mezzo shook his head.  "You know she's not serious, right?"

"Um," Ribbon was slowly turning pink again, "she kind of is."  Their mere acceptance of her as a pony was overwhelming for her, the idea that such acceptance might run deeper made her want to smile and cry at the same time.  And, it was taking a good deal of effort to refrain from either action.  "And, um, that's a long list of reasons why you're the best colt on the station."

Mezzo leveled his gaze on Vinyl.  "Mom, stop it."

"Stop what?" she asked innocently.

He glanced over as Ribbon's cheeks went from cyan, jumped past watermelon, and headed straight to maraschino cherry.  "That!  Whatever you're doing to her, just stop.  Ok?  We aren't like that.  We're..." the colt went silent.  He looked to Ribbon for the missing words, but found nothing.  "I don't know what we are."

The young nurse shook her head.  "I don't know either, so don't ask me."  Her face was back down to a much tamer hue, somewhere between peach and bubblegum.  Even in the unspoken layers beneath his denial, there was no rejection of her, or the idea his mother had firmly entrenched in her mind.  To the telepath, the colt as good as added the word, 'yet.'

"Mom!"  Mezzo dropped his tray, using magic to keep the drinks upright.  He grabbed Ribbon by the shoulders as she started to cry.  "What did you just do?"

"What?"  Vinyl lifted her hooves in surrender as her son pulled the nurse to him, letting her cry into her chest.  "I didn't do that!  I don't think."

Mezzo pressed his face into his hoof.  It would probably leave a mark, but he didn't care.  "Growl said she had something important to tell us, so quit harassing Ribbon, and finish your drink."

"Sheesh, I leave for a few days, and all of a sudden you're head of the household.  Mezzo, Ceramzalachian layered chocolate is best enjoyed slowly, I'm not going to just chug it down, and especially not yours.  I know restaurants that can't make it to four layers."  She glanced over at Growl.  "Besides, I can already tell that she let her hair grow longer.  So, did you use nutrient gel or something, 'cause it's kind of a lot longer.  I may lose track of time now and then, but I wasn't gone that long."

"It wasn't nutrient gel."  Growl twisted the end of her mane around a hoof, staring at the shiny hairs.  Longer, smoother, and brighter in color than it had been in years, it was a mane fit for a younger mare than her.  "It was earth magic, pure, concentrated, unicorn earth magic.  I absorbed a good deal of it during an arrest."

"Enough raw magic to change your appearance?  When?  How did they get a concentration of magic aboard?  That shit has to be logged with security.  And are you ok?  Where there any side effects?"

Growl waved off the concern.  "It was a couple minutes ago.  And I feel fine.  I feel great actually, and I doubt there will be any side effects.  It was a limiter release, and I was friends with the unicorn it belonged to.  That's why I stopped here before heading back to the security office."

Ribbon snapped out it at the mention of the limiter.  Beneath the white fur her face was buried in, she felt Mezzo tense up.  He came to a terrible realization, and it was pulling up memories that he was still trying to keep hidden.  "Ribbon's limiter..." he muttered.

"Once belonged to your mother," Growl finished.  "It was stolen from Ten Penny's museum along with two others, and sold to an offworld fence.  That fence sold one to Ribbon, and while I was undercover, he tried to sell me  the other two."

"I hope you put him in the hospital," Vinyl snarled.  "What kind of trash steals from a sentient's rights museum?"

"Don't ask."  Ribbon drew eyes towards her, but she didn't care.  She grabbed a hoof full of Mezzo's fur and squeezed.  What he was about to do would cause him so much pain, and he already knew it.  "I know what you want to ask, but please, don't."

"I have to," he told her, "I have to know."  He placed a hoof on her head, and looked over at Growl.  "The other limiters, whose were they?"

Growl took a breath.  This was the news she came to deliver.  She wanted them to hear it from her before seeing it in a news feed somewhere.  Why didn't she want to say it now?  "Ribbon, you better do your best for that colt.  He's going to need you."  Seeing the nodded response made Growl feel a little better, but this was still going to be hard on them.  "One of the limiters was yours, Mezzo, the first one, that you managed to remove.  The other one, belonged to your grandfather."

Ribbon's breath caught.  It felt like she had been stabbed... No, that was Mezzo.  Ribbon started shaking.  It hurt.  She brought her hoof to her chest.  It hurt so much.  She looked up at him.  "Mezzo?"  What was this?  She touched his chest, where hers hurt so much, and felt a scar beneath his fur.  A memory?  Of getting stabbed in the chest?  "Mezzo, this..."

"Ribbon," the colt pulled her hoof away, "you shouldn't be here."

"Yeah," the trembling filly agreed.

"Leave."

"No!"  Ribbon grabbed him by the fur of his chest.  She didn't care how much it hurt, she wasn't going to leave him to bear it alone.  "I'm staying!"

"I'm staying!" the colt screamed again.  This close to the crucibles, coal fume and heat seared his throat.  The very air was acid around them, but it was always like that.  He couldn't remember a day when his throat didn't hurt, that he wasn't sore to the bone after the day's labor, or that his hooves didn't burn and itch from the coal dust and iron dirt caking his fur.  The only new pain was the knife in his chest, and he could already tell that it wasn't a serious wound.  "Run, grandpa, I'll stay and fight."

"No, child."  The old stallion standing between the colt and two armed guards turned to face the colt.  "Not now," he whispered, "not yet.  You must survive, and you must save your strength."  He turned back to the guards and struggled to stand.  His hind legs were bruised, and the left one dangled, useless, most likely broken.  Compared to the guards, he was frail.  Whatever strength he may have gained from manual labor, it was tempered by age and exposure to the toxic environment.  They had youth and armament on their side.  In addition to their armor, and the clubs they openly flaunted, the old stallion knew they carried much more advanced weaponry with them.  "Please, allow me to take the colt's punishment as my own.  I will not resist, I will not fight back, and I will cry out as loud as you wish.  You could make a far better example out of me than out of him."

"An interesting proposal."

The guards exchanged glances as another pony joined them, a large unicorn, carrying a sword at his side.  "Sire."  They bowed low, and the first one to rise gestured to the two slaves.  "We found the colt in posession of a weapon.  The old one was in the way."

The unicorn craned his neck to look around the injured old stallion, and chuckled when he saw the colt snarling at him.  "I suppose having a blade stuck in his chest could be called posessing a weapon.  Was he found like that?"

"No," answered the guard who had previously remained silent.  "I caught him hiding behind one of the furnaces.  He had dug a hole through the furnace wall and was using the fire to forge knives."  He tapped his hoof to his armor, where the chest plate was dented.  "He attacked me  with it rather than trying to run."

"Troubling," the unicorn mumbled.  He turned to the colt and shouted, "you!  Boy!  Who taught you to make that?"

"You did," young mezzo spat.  "You make us forge our own chains!  Knives are the same thing!"

"A clever one, eh?"  The unicorn raised an eyebrow.  "Do you know what we do with the clever ones, Mezzo?"  His horn lit up, and the knife ripped itself from the colt's chest.  It shot over to the unicorn and he looked it over as the colt fell to the ground, clutching the hole left behind.  "Shallow wound.  Well, aren't you lucky."  He turned to the first guard.  "Pull up the records.  I want to know who this old stallion is."  When that guard pulled a small tablet from beneath his armor, he turned to the second guard, quietly contemplating the dent in his armor.  After a moment, he looked back at the blade.  Without warning, he swung the knife in a short arc, connecting with the other side of the guard's chest plate with a loud clang.  That guard staggered back, and the other stared in surprise.

The unicorn looked back at the blade, and at its now deformed tip.  "The steel is soft.  The temper is fitting for a chain, not a blade.  Your story holds up."

"Sir?"  The first guard offered the unicorn his tablet.  "This stallion is the colt's grandfather.  But," there was a pause as the guard scrolled through a data entry, "it seems he was given as part of a payment to a mercenary team almost seven months ago."

"Really?"  The unicorn's face slowly pulled into a twisted grin.  He glanced down at the information on the screen.  He was given to the newest of the mercenary teams, one composed entirely of gryphons, but led by an earth pony mare.  He looked back at the old stallion.  "Then what is he doing here?"

Mezzo's grandfather looked straight at him, something even the guards refused to do.  They stood almost eye to eye, both unicorns, both slightly taller than average, and both bearing coats of snowy white.  "They offered me my freedom, and I asked to be returned to my family.  Obviously, they granted my request."

"Obviously," the unicorn muttered.  He drew his sword.  "I hope it was worth it."

"No!"  Mezzo screamed.  The colt tried to stand, to get his hooves underneath him, but his injured side didn't want to work.  "Stay away from him!  I'm the one who made the knife!  Stay away from him or I'll...  I'll..."

"You'll what?" the unicorn demanded, pointing his sword at the colt.

"I'll kill you!"  The colt tried to stand, his shaking legs giving out underneath him.  His right front leg hurt the most, the pain from his open wound pouring through him like the molten metal and glass he was forced to shape, day in and day out.  Forced, like everypony else he knew, by this unicorn before him.

Mezzo's left hoof stretched out towards him, reaching for the evil king, and clenching around empty hot air.  The colt screamed, focusing his pain and anger.  The limiter on his head felt suddenly hot as it rattled his horn, sapping away what should have been an uncontrolled blast of magic.  He wanted to dump everything on the king and his guards.  He want to shower them with the coal sparks that burned him, to throw them in the liquid glass that splashed and scarred him, he wanted them to know what he felt.

But the limiter stopped him.  It held back the magic that he knew was there.  He had seen magic before.  He felt it before, controlled by the king and some of the guards.   He knew it belonged to unicorns, but he was a unicorn as well.  He hated it, that he might be like them, even in that small way.  But he still desired magic.  He wanted it back.  The birthright that was locked away from him by the ring on his horn.

He screamed again.  Instead of focusing on anything beyond his hoof, he focused on the hoof itself.  Clenching it tighter, he braced for what he was about to do.

He slammed his hoof into his chest, striking his wound.  Pain shot through him, burning, stabbing.  He kept screaming, and kept hitting, letting the pain overtake everything else.  He raised his hoof for one last hit, and slammed it down instead, punching the dry, soot stained ground.  He leaned on that hoof, and leaned himself over enough to raise his other hoof.

He punched that one down even harder.  An excruciating jolt shot through the leg, and he rode the pain up to force himself standing.  The pain was the only thing keeping him going.  The thought of paying it back on those who inflicted it on him gave him purpose.

"He's a strong one," the king told the guards through a feral smile.  They backed away from him.  He was wearing an expression they had never seen, and it scared them.  His eyes were wide, focused on the colt, and starting to glow.  His smile was predatory, and anger wrinkled the bridge of his nose in a wild sneer.   Worst of all, the smile was genuine.  Their king was truly happy in this moment, watching this slave child fighting back, defying him, only to get beaten back down.  And he wasn't merely enjoying it.  He almost seemed proud.

"Sir?" The guard to the king's left stepped forward.  "A crowd is gathering, we should finish them both off and be done with it."

With a snort, the king looked down then snapped his head to face the guard.  HIs horn lit, and following the path of his eyes, sand and gravel shot up like a geyser.  The abrasive blast caught the guard by surprise.  He barely had time to close his eyes before it hit him, sending his helmet flying and cutting his pelt with bits of stone and glass.

"You will be silent,"the king breathed.  He looked around, at the hollow, sunken faces appearing around them.  Broken, defeated ponies watched from a distance, hiding behind their dirty workstations, or slunk away to the shadows of support structures.  "If they want to watch," he shouted, "let them!  Let them watch as I crush this rebellious foal."

The guard's only answer was to stagger back, his right side cut and dusty.  The intense wind had lodged sand in his coat down to the skin, and he was covered in small stinging scratches.  His right ear was ringing from the sudden change in pressure, and he coughed on what remained of the dust cloud that had engulfed him.

The king turned back towards Mezzo, smile returning, though the fire and rage behind it had dimmed a little.  "I could do the same to you, boy."  His words were much more calm.  "Or I could bury you in burning coal.  How can you even hope to fight me without magic?"

"I can't," Mezzo admitted.  That was the problem all along.  He needed magic to fight, but that cursed metal band around his horn locked it away from him.

The unicorn walked towards the colt.  "Then give up."

"No!"  Mezzo backed away from him.  He only stopped when his backside hit a table.  A simple wooden workstation among the furnaces, scorched by use, and scarred by tools.  A bucket of water sat atop the table.  To his left was a small furnace, and to his right, a box of glassworking tools.  "I'll never stop fighting!"

"Then have some advice."  The king thrust his sword into the nearest furnace.  "Steel is the foundation that every great empire is built on.  Mastering fire leads to the rise of history, mastering agriculture leads to the rise of civilization.  But only mastering steel gives rise to kingdoms."  He pulled the sword from the flames, and showed the colt the dull red glow at the tip.  "The material used in weapons is important, and the process more so."

He thrust the sword back in the furnace and shot a powerful burst of magic wind behind it.  The coal and coke glowed bright, and flames licked out from the opening.  The king stared into the fire, eyes reflecting the blaze they watched.

"Carbon and Iron, mixed with trace elements.  More carbon means harder, sharper, but brittle.  A good edge on a sword, but temper carefully, lest it shatter.  Less carbon means stronger, tough steel that can endure anything, but holds no edge.  Low carbon steel is used in chains.  That is why your knife was useless."

Mezzo watched the blade.  It was glowing bright red all the way to the hilt.  Glue and decorations on the handles were starting to smoke and smolder, the wooden grip charring black from the inferno.  The blade stayed firmly gripped by the king's magic and was pulled from the flame one more time.

"Add Chromium, and you resist rust.  Add Phosphorus, and you increase strength.  Nickel can impart any number of properties depending on the alloy."  He lowered his head and looked the colt in the eyes.  "Add telluride, and you can disrupt the flow of magic."

Those words spurred the colt into action.   With another scream, he stuck his head in the furnace.  Horn first, he touched the coals and jerked back, screaming the whole time.  Always breath out, the glassblower's first lesson.  His mane had caught fire, and his skin was starting to blister around his horn.  He flailed about, striking his horn against the stone opening of the furnace.

He swiped his hoof at the table, throwing his weight at it.  The thin weathered legs snapped under the weight, and the water splashed him as the bucket fell.  Most of his flames were snuffed, but patches of mane and coat still burned.  He fell, writhing, clutching at his head.  The sudden cold hurt nearly as much as the burning, and the crackling from his horn echoed through his skull.  It was impossible to tell if he damaged the limter or just his horn.

The colt forced himself up and lunged for the bucket of tools.  Sharp poles, wooden scrapers, glass edged instruments, and all manner of tongs; he threw his horn against each of them in turn.  He pried, scratched, and pulled at his limiter.  Each time a tool slipped, it cut him, or scraped already burned flesh raw.  Water dripped from his mane into his eyes, and he had to stop and rub the red liquid away.  

All while the king watched and laughed.

Once the colt cleared his eyes, and saw the laughing unicorn, he launched himself back at the furnace.  A wall of light went up in the opening, blocking the colt from the flames.

"Trying to melt it off?"  The king started walking again.  "Too bad, I won't let you kill yourself before I'm through with you."

Mezzo threw himself against the forcefield.  He didn't hear what was said.  The pain was deafening.  His head and horn pressed against the forcefield, sparking as the magical energy sizzled and skipped across his skin.  If only the limiter could touch it!  He flattened himself against it, turning and twisting.  All he had to do was touch it, destabilize it.  That was what the limiter did, right?

"Pitiful.  You don't even realize that you succeeded."

Mezzo stopped.  The voice was directly above him.  The shadow engulfed him.  "Why do you do this to us?"

"I do this to them for my kingdom!"  He shoved the colt down, and leaned in close, whispering,  "but you..."  The sword drew close, point held just shy of Mezzo's fur.  He tried to squirm away from the awful heat, but there was no escaping the weight of the large unicorn's grip.  "You look too much like your mother."

The heat of still-glowing blade seared the back of his neck.

"GYAAHHH!!"  Mezzo screamed in pain.  He twisted on the ground, writhing in agony.  He was at his limit.  His body was shaky and moving on pure willpower before this, but the injuries and pain kept piling up.  He saw the blade above him, and past it, the evil smile of his tormentor, hidden in shadows as vision started fade.  The colt offered up one last act of resistance, spitting what little his dry mouth could before his body went limp.

The colt's head dropped to the dirt.  The sounds around him grew far away, replaced by a faint ringing.  Even his pain seemed to be moving away from him, his injuries pale echoes of what they were moments ago.  His senses were leaving him, slipping away slowly as the king brought his glowing blade closer.

Was this what dying felt like?  The colt smiled as his eyes went unfocused.  At least he could say he fought to the end.  He didn't let them control him.  All dying meant now was that he won his freedom.

He felt pain in his side, far and distant.  It dragged itself from his hip to his shoulder, leaving a faint heat in its wake.  The colt saw was his grandfather limping towards him, stopping only for a moment, to pick up the colt's discarded blade.

Ribbon started falling, pulling Mezzo back to the present.  His hoof, still resting on her head, moved to her shoulder, catching her so he could lower her gently.  The colt shut his eyes and whispered to her.  "That's why I told you to leave, idiot. I didn't want you to go through that."

Mezzo straightened up once she was safely on the floor and ran his hoof over her face, wiping the tears from her cheek.  His breathing grew harsh and ragged as the rest of his memory played through his mind.  Ribbon was lucky enough to pass out early.

She didn't see his grandfather continue walking towards him.  She didn't see him stab the king in the leg with the dull knife.  She wasn't forced to watch him die on the same knife.  She didn't pass out while holding his lifeless hoof and begging the guards not to drag his body away.

It was wrong.  Everything about Tankra was wrong.  That planet never should have existed.  And his grandfather shouldn't have died because his grandson couldn't get used to chains.

Mezzo tilted his head back, and screamed.  Pain, fear, anger, locked away for years were let loose.  The others in the room looked down but remained silent.  They knew what he was going through.  They had gone through the same thing.  Each of them had that moment when they finally came to terms with it.  Tankra had been horrible to each of them in different ways, but the colt had never opened up to any of them.  Ribbon was the only one to get through to him so far.

In the kitchen, a little filly held her hooves over her ears.  She knew her brother was hurt, that he had been for a long time.  Mommy tried to explain about the planet they lived on before, but it didn't make sense.  All she knew was that it was very bad.  The filly didn't understand, so she didn't have any way to help Mezzo.

When the screaming stopped, she quietly crawled over to the doorway, and peeked through.  Her brother was collapsed on the floor, crying into Ribbon's mane.  The nurse had listened to her when she couldn't speak, maybe she could hear the things Mezzo couldn't make himself say.

Maybe she could help him not hurt.

Maybe?

The little filly could only hope.