//------------------------------//
// Getting Emotional 
// Story: Drastic Measures 
// by Nimnul 
//------------------------------//

Locating the new address of Berry's stepfather had fortunately been as simple as Ditzy had predicted. Apparently, the stallion had moved into a tiny village called Haybarrow. Berry had ventured, without real certainty, that she seemed to recall him mentioning growing up there before moving to Las Pegasus, where he failed to make his fortune. 

The region around Las Pegasus was not particularly fertile, and it wasn't immediately obvious what had once prompted the founding of Haybarrow. If it hadn't been within reasonable proximity of a water and coal supply stop for the railroad, its isolation would be nearly total. 

Nopony had said anything of substance during the trip, nothing beyond sluggish small talk in attempts to pass the time. Berry's foolishness seemed to weight heavily on her, in Luna's estimation. 

It seemed to Princess Luna that the community had been larger, once. Quite a few empty buildings could be seen. Perhaps over the years, young ponies had moved away to bigger cities instead of taking the place of their parents in making whatever living could be had out here. Naturally, their little group drew attention, although it seemed that the Princess of the Night and her two guards caused a degree of trepidation in these ponies, so far, none had stepped forward to interact with them. 

She didn't expect the stallion Berry wanted to see to be prepared to play host to a group of ponies. It would be a better idea to give her guards some time to themselves, hopefully to find some manner of tavern or similar establishment. Their entire group appearing outside his home in full would probably be overwhelming. That reasoning also appealed to Bon Bon and Lyra. 

"We're gonna stick with the guards," Lyra declared. "Gotta be a greasy spoon around here somewhere, right?" 

Bon Bon merely grunted an affirmation. She hadn't been any more talkative than Berry had been on the way here. Luna found it impossible to tell whether the mare had grown uncomfortable in her presence, or whether she felt guilty for not having advocated for a sensible approach to Berry's problems more strongly. 

Turning back to face Berry, Bon Bon spoke up after all. "Take all the time you need. Don't let us rush you." 

"Sure, Bon. Don't worry," Berry agreed. 

"Tell me of this stallion, if you would?" There were some questions she might have asked about Berry's family life, but some of them would have been less than diplomatic to bring up, Luna assumed, even now that their group was smaller. 

The earth pony turned her head to give Luna an oddly calculating look before speaking up. "Decent enough guy, I guess." 

"You guess?" 

Berry slowed to a stop and stood there for a time, chewing her lip. Eventually, she shook her head. "I don't wanna discuss his merits as a pony, alright? Or his faults, or what he saw in my mother. I don't wanna think about that right now. He treated me like I was somepony even when he wasn't real happy how I spent my time. He patched me up or got me to a doctor when I got busted open in a fight. Y'know, like a normal adult pony would with a younger relative." She spat. "I got questions,  too, sometimes, but that's not why I wanted to drop on by." 

Ditzy merely gave Berry a reassuring pat with her wing as they walked. "He'll be happy to see you.  I bet." 

"Very well." Luna knew there were too many broken, chaotic families where Berry had grown up, so she supposed it was reasonable for the mare to cling to a sliver of normalcy, even as she implied that she thought this stallion could have done better in some way. 

They arrived at a small, dusty store front with dirty windows. The off-center signage over the door read Chip's Carpentry, although the discoloration of the wood still easily revealed that it had previously been 'Western Red & Pine Chip's' before somepony had removed most of the letters. 

Still, Berry knocked at the door to the little shop almost eagerly, while the rest of the group kept a bit of distance. 

"Coming!" The voice was rough, teetering somewhere between a debilitating throat injury or a truly upsetting smoking habit. The unicorn stallion who opened the door wasn't tall, but seemed to have spent his life doing hard labor, with a coat the color of sun bleached lumber. A bushy, unkempt beard hung off his jaw, and his face seemed deeply lined, either by age or hard living. In other circumstances, he might have seemed menacing despite not being particularly tall. The smell of stale tobacco smoke escaped the building along with the stallion. Saw dust dirtied his mane, and upon a second glance, much of his coat as well. 

On seeing Berry, his expression spread into a smile. That didn't make him look any better, Luna suspected that nothing could, but one could perhaps see a certain gnarled attraction, as that of a weathered tree. "Little Bee! Been a long time." He seemed about to pull the younger mare into a hug when the rest of present company registered.   

He bowed low. "Princess Luna?" His vocal timbre wasn't much suited to trepidation, but gave it a solid try. 

Luna got the distinct feeling he was expecting trouble. "Please rise. There is nothing to fear. We shall explain our presence soon enough. But first -" She extended a wing to point towards Berry. 

To his credit, he barely hesitated in nodding and turning his attention back to Berry. "Tell ol' Chip what's wrong, Bee." 

Berry suddenly seemed quiet and vulnerable, as frightened as a foal left alone in the dark. She didn't look up. "Dad ... Chip. You know how I always saw you as my father, ever since I was little?" 

"U-huh. You didn't take long to start calling me dad when I moved in." The stallion seemed fond of the memory, but evidently somewhat caught off guard by the situation. "Not long at all." 

"Well, I gotta ask." Berry paused to draw a shuddering breath. Her voice wavered and crumbled as she continued. "Have I ... I've been your daughter, right?" 

"'Course, lil' Bee." There hadn't been any hesitation that Luna could detect. Perhaps a hint of bemusement about the odd question. He reached out a hoof to brush through Berry's mane with a tenderness most ponies probably wouldn't have expected from a stallion with an appearance so rough before pulling Berry into the hug which had been his initial reaction.   

"Good." Berry Punch exhaled, then started sobbing gently. "'m sorry ... for cutting you out. I missed you." 

Chip shook his head. He didn't seem like the sort of stallion who would have a lot of experience in emotional matters. "No worries, I'm still here." He seemed suddenly sheepish. "I woulda sent you a letter soon, I swear. Had to hustle pretty bad 'round here to get some work, on account it's been so long since my folks ran this business and I'm practically a stranger to the ponies 'round here." 

Luna didn't think the stallion quite appreciated how much Berry's question, and the swift answer, had meant to the mare. She hadn't needed a reminder that she had a father figure. She suspected that Berry had needed to be told that she'd been a daughter worth having, to hear at least some affirmation from an adult pony who'd known her in her youth and childhood.   

"So, anypony want to let me in on why my filly's showin' up here all broke up?" 

Before Luna could respond, Berry groaned. "Stupid story." 





After the four ponies had situated themselves on the building's back porch for a bit of privacy, the story thus far had been shared with the stallion.   

"I remember that colt," Chip commented. "Face begging to be hit, that one." Turning serious, he continued. "Berry, you gotta be honest with me here for a second. I'm not gonna give you a hard time, but I gotta ask." 

He paused, evidently grasping for words. He absentmindedly ran a hoof through his messy beard. "I'm proper terrible at this. Do you appreciate other ponies? Are you okay if they look to be doin' better, even when you're down on yourself?" 

"Uh ..." Berry didn't seem entirely sure what to do with that question. "I feel like I do pretty good, all things considered? I went off the rails about Pan, ... " She shrugged. "Hm ... I got to know some ponies who're loaded, but y'know, I don't begrudge 'em that. I try to act on what ponies put in front of me. What's this about, then?" 

"I don't know, Bee," Chip shrugged in turn. "S'just, I think your mother's thinking was always so poisonous. She couldn't look at anything even kinda nice without wanting to ... make it less, somehow. Envy is easy in Las Pegasus. You look at the clouds and wish you had a slice of something better. Most of us get over it and muddle along. But your mother, she never looked away, not for long. Always wanting something better, never getting it the way she liked." 

"She coulda just gone home," Berry mumbled. "Nopony was forcing her to live in the city. Life on the vineyard had to have been nicer." 

Chip sighed. "Maybe that sort of thing hollows a pony out, until they gotta look to the bad in everything. If you can't have nice things, they can't be all that nice anyway. Always belittling or scolding. Eventually, you run into a pony having a good time an' you just hate them, for being happy or just content, not for really doing anything to you." 

"Uh-huh." Berry didn't comment further. Her patience for discussing her mother was limited. 

"Berry's not like that," Ditzy spoke up with a small smile. "She doesn't think enough of herself, but ... but she doesn't tear others down." 

Luna had to restrain herself from asking what had initially attracted Chip to Berry's mother, and what had made him stay around if he thought like that, but if neither him nor Berry were about to discuss it, it clearly wasn't her place.   

Still, she well knew how resentment could twist a pony, however fumblingly this stallion had talked about it. A petty criminal went out and satisfied their desires – they stole, or took revenge on their enemies, and that was that. It was not in any way agreeable, but it brought some measure of emotional resolution to the pony in question. Festering resentment about things that seemed forever out of reach could destroy ponies, and all they saw and did would be colored by it. Most ponies, of course, did not have particularly much power or influence, and only hurt those immediately around them. 

"Well, anyhow," the stallion changed the topic. "Must have been one crazy favor that Bon mare called in to get a princess movin' to help out the likes of us!" He grinned. "Y'sure it weren't blackmail?" 

"Nah. C'mon dad, you know some ponies are above bein' annoyed. This is about my daughter, she wouldn't take a risk like that." Berry rubbed one of her ears. "Guess it would be one of those things you don't tell your pals so they don't get caught up in it, though. Not my place to talk about Bon Bon, anyway." 

"I assure you, there is no blackmail taking place." It didn't sit quite right with Luna that ponies assumed that extraordinary measures were necessary to gain her support, although realistically, her time was as limited as anypony's, and there were a great many ponies in Equestria. Her trip would already seem like a personal indulgence to the ponies of Canterlot. 

"Alright, I'll drop it, your Highness." He chuckled roughly. "Well, who said the crown don't look after us, eh?" 

"That was you, dad." 

The old stallion gave Berry a playful shove. "C'mon, that's one of them theoretical questions. I also told you to snatch up whatever freebies you can get, so long as the hidden hook don't seem too bad." 

"Or seems like I could squirm out of it, yeah." 

"Well, look, I don't want you getting in your own way for pride but you also ought to be careful accepting charity from folks who'll tell you that one day they might call on you for some vague favor. Down that road you just get regret and hard time, eh?" He grunted. "Ah, but listen to me ramble. Berry, you know I just want you to be happy."   

"I know, dad. Lyra's folks aren't gonna lean on us for the money."   

The earth pony did seem more at ease now, although the reunion seemed almost like a let-down to Luna, outside of Berry's initial tears.   

"So, how'd that fight with Pan go?" 

"He folded right away." Berry at least sounded contrite about it in hindsight.

"Glass jaw, huh?" 

"I was expecting to take some licks of my own, now it just feels like bullyin' instead of winnin'." 

Chip gave his daughter an encouraging pat on the withers. "Hey, at least you went out and did somethin' about it if you're upset. Better than stewin' in it 'til it warps you." 

Luna could see Ditzy trying to hide a disapproving frown. She obviously didn't share the stance that anything was better than inaction. 

The stallion was scruffy, unkempt, smelled like a long-standing smoking habit and his moral center didn't seem particularly impressive, and yet getting to visit here had evidently been something of a victory for Berry. A trifling victory, but a victory nonetheless. 

"Can I say something, dad?" 

"Sure?" Chip cocked his head. 

"Stop smoking in that workshop! I saw the ashtrays, I can smell it, and I don't wanna hear about how you burned this place down around you!" 

"Pff." The stallion rolled his eyes, but before he could say anything more, he caught a withering glare from Ditzy, its effect somehow undiminished by the condition of her eye. 

Luna cleared her throat and frowned. There had been quite a bit of sawdust in evidence as they passed through the building. Berry's concern was valid enough.

"...Alright, lil' Bee," Chip conceded. "If it's peace of mind for ya, I promise I'll keep it outside."





The trouble with being sober was that it wasn't easy to stop thinking about stuff you didn't feel like thinking about. It had been good for her to meet her dad, but it didn't change the fact that she'd gone completely off the rails.  And she did feel a little silly about crying like a filly. She was going to have a long talk with Ruby Pinch about this. A pony ought to have some warning about what a mess her family was. 

"You're doing it again, Berry. Beating yours-self up," Ditzy scolded as they were heading to meet back up with the rest of their group. 

"Well, yeah. We're gonna need to assess the damage to Pinchy at some point. Sure, I wasn't as bad as my mother, but ... ponies need strong parents, not depressed drunks." 

"True," Ditzy allowed. "But I was there. She trusts me." The pegasus shrugged. "We'll talk to her, together. St-stop worrying." 

Ditzy had once claimed that it was normal in pegasus communities for single mothers to help each other out. Took a village, maybe a cloud village, to raise a pony, anyway. Berry's mother probably wouldn't have had any part of something like that even if she had been a pegasus, or somepony would have noticed what a horrible mother she was. 

Still, with the benefit of clarity, Berry could see that Pinchy probably had been better off due to Berry's friendship with Ditzy. Maybe Dinky had been better off, too, and not just because Berry had been generous whenever Ditzy's funds had come up short. A statistically relevant number of fights Berry had gotten into over the years had started when somepony at a bar or party had started talking to the two of them, only to then roll their eyes at whatever friends they had along, with that stupid 'I'm talking to an idiot!' pause ponies sometimes had. Ditzy wasn't a fast talker, that didn't make her stupid, and there weren't a lot of faster ways to get Berry mad.   

That wasn't constructive, but it had earned Berry some credit with little Dinky. 

"I'll try, Ditzy." She shook her head and addressed the Princess. "I gotta apologize for the tone I took with you back in the city, uh, Highness." 

Luna smirked. "You do not sound exceedingly sorry." 

Berry slowed her pace momentarily. "Huh. Well, I'm not. Just bein' polite, I guess." 

Berry hadn't been happy to see Ditzy pulled into the mess, but it was pretty hard to be unhappy about her company. 

"Y'know, when I was swinging by their place, I wasn't expecting Bon and Lyra to get involved like this. Honest, I didn't." 

"It was for the best that you did," Luna assured her. 

"I guess." Obviously it would have been better to just talk to Ditzy, but Berry hadn't wanted to trouble a good pony with the problem, and Bon Bon had probably not wanted to pull in another 'civilian' or whatever. They had both been stupid, that way. 

They'd gotten some fairly good directions to the only real eatery in town, and that had obviously been where the others had gone, because they could hear Lyra yelling somewhere around the next corner. 

"What the hell is wrong with you, Bonny? What does any of this have to do with your old job? Don't turn this trip into a bucking travesty just as we're about to close the book on it!" 

Berry heaved a sigh. "Oof. This again." 

"Everything! It's got everything to do with it, you can't toss this out with 'oh, Bonny's being a crazy pony again'!" 

They came into view of the other ponies. The stallions were in full on stoic Canterlot guard mode while the mares were up in each other's faces. Berry hoped they'd started the argument outside the local diner and weren't just standing outside as a result of it. 

"I mean, has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one who gives a damn that we're tossing a bunch of civilians at problems, just because they bumbled into fucking destiny, while the royal toy soldiers practice the regulation spit-shine on their parade armor? Am I wrong?" 

"I hate this magic destiny crap," the earth pony groused. Her dog was pawing at her for attention to no real effect. Bon Bon seemed to to avoid looking at Lyra. 

"Look, Bonny -" 

"Am I wrong?" 

Luna didn't interrupt the two, instead lowering her head and speaking quietly. "Is this common?" 

Ditzy grimaced. "Not in public." 

"I guess that doesn't matter, this far from Ponyville," Berry shrugged. "Usually the dog keeps Bon from boiling over. And usually Lyra can keep her cool. I expect breakin' from routine like this is bad for Bon Bon." 

Of course, usually Bon Bon got riled up by something seemingly trivial. Maybe she took this one personally. 

Didn't seem like Lyra was keeping her cool today, either. "You're right! I wouldn't wanna get my life hijacked to be one of Twilight's troubleshooters, alright? You're right, but you're being a jerk about it! Get to the point, Bon! The connection! We are not just going to sit here to listen to you spew bile at the Guard!"   

Seemed like Ditzy wanted to say something, but Berry shook her head. "Lemme handle this." She approached Swampy to give the poor beast a comforting pat as he whined. 

Bon Bon reacted immediately with a curt demand. "Hooves off, that's a workin' dog." 

"Well then pay some bloody attention to 'im doing his job, Bons." Berry offered a grin. "Sorry for bouncing your head off the paving back there, by the way." 

The other earth pony scowled, but at least had the sense to toss her dog a treat. The critter had done his level best to do his job. "You got lucky, Berry." She glared like she was trying to hate Berry to death. Apparently it was just Lyra she hadn't wanted to look at directly. Berry supposed that part of her didn't want to direct her anger at her marefriend. 

"Maybe that's so," Berry conceded mildly. "I'll do it again if I catch you goin' off like this t'wards the kids."   

"You're welcome to try," Bon Bon snapped before turning her attention back to Lyra. "Fine, maybe there's not a literal connection. I'll paint you a picture. The bloody miracle gang has everything work out for them and they get away with everything, 'cause we're pretending that consequences don't happen to heroes. You think I'd get away with giving half the town food poisoning out of my kitchen?" She laughed bitterly. "But whatever. The poor girls are going to be stuck with the job 'til it kills them, may as well give 'em some perks. Besides, they're heroes! We aren't. None of us fit the picture of Equestria the princesses are painting these days. I'm a pain in the flank to be around, Berry's a thug, you're a mare-child and loafer." 

"Not a literal ... there's no connection, Bonny." Lyra rubbed her forehead with a hoof. She suddenly looked very tired. "Please calm down." 

Well, it was true that Lyra didn't really do much, which was unusual in an earth pony town. She'd play some music for the general public, occasionally had a gig somewhere, but not enough to live off. Bonny was a real workaholic and needed everything to be just so, as a result, the most help Lyra contributed to the candy store was sometimes managing the register whenever Bon Bon couldn't for some reason. 

Luna shifted her stance, and Berry assumed that the Princess wouldn't be best pleased with the topic at hoof, seeing as she owed Twilight and her friends. Everypony did, really. The Tirek thing had just been a reminder. 

Really, this was a pretty horrible time for Bon Bon to go off on some resentful tangent. Still, she did appear to try to take a couple deep breaths to calm down. 

"Point being, maybe we're a bunch of disposable ponies ... we're noponies, statistics. So if I point at one of my friends and say 'I want things to turn out alright for her. I want her to get away with acting like a nutjob this once,' I don't need to be told that I'm acting entitled. I know! Nopony owes us a damned thing! We're not the heroes!" She cleared her throat and spat. "Berry, you're my friend, but sometimes you're a grade A moron and I wasn't sure I could keep you out of trouble on this. So I sent a letter to try and get Princess Luna involved, make you into a pony instead of a statistic. And if these clowns here want to compare me to your common Canterlot parasite 'cause I went all out for a friend, they can just fuckin' get bent! I watched ponies die out there, you think those benchwarmers lookin' down their noses at me means fuckin' anything?" 

She'd gotten pretty steamed for supposedly not caring, but if she thought now that the problem could have been better resolved with considerably less escalation, that probably wasn't great for her mood. 

"Are you quite finished?" Credit to Princess Luna, at least she hadn't started yelling, too. It probably wasn't real impactful for somepony her age to watch some random pony lose her composure like this. 

Bon Bon didn't say anything at all. She opened her mouth like she'd meant to, but merely shook her head and turned her attention to her dog. 

Lyra sighed. "Just a misunderstanding, Princess. Won't happen again." 

Luna raised an eyebrow and regarded her guards. "Anything further to report?" 

"No, your Highness." 

The guards had seemed like pretty reasonable sorts, and Berry was willing to give ponies credit who got on well with Ditzy, so she was going to assume Bon Bon probably had blown some conversational comment out of proportion and then completely lost it when Lyra tried to reign her in. 

Bon Bon was a bitter sort, in some ways. Berry figured the other earth pony had started out as a perfectly ordinary citizen, and Bon Bon had never spoken in detail about her previous work. She hadn't been supposed to tell anypony about it, after all. But she had mentioned that Celestia had demanded complete deniability. It probably wasn't entirely easy to live in the same town as the bunch of ponies the Princess regularly showered in praise. 

Berry had been taught from the start that ponies with authority didn't normally care about her, so she didn't have that vulnerability, but for a normal pony, it probably wasn't healthy to feel like they hadn't been good enough in Celestia's eyes. 

So Bon Bon resented the secrecy and the fact that Twilight and her friends tended to be given quite a bit of leeway. The changeling invasion hadn't helped at all, since Lyra had been in considerable danger, which probably bottomed out whatever regard Bon Bon had had for the Guard. Unfairly so, perhaps, but there it was. Not that Berry had been raised with any great respect for authority, of course. 

Berry snorted. "Let's just get you home, Bons. Before you get yourself in more trouble than I'm in."

"Agreed," Luna declared. "It would be best for everypony to keep their peace while I discuss Berry Punch's immediate future with her."