The oxygen mask on my snout felt like a gryphon was holding a cold, clammy paw over my face. “Get this sum-bitchin’ thing off my face,” I growled at a nurse as they pushed the gurney into the Vanhoover University Hospital. Behind myself and the group of doctors and nurses that surrounded me, I could hear Fang being held back by staff as he called after me. The staff wheeled me into an operating room and began to cut off my uniform.
“Now, Mister Rhythm, can you understand me?” a doctor asked as he stepped around into my vision.
“Nah, doc. I don’t speak any Equestrian,” I replied with a smirk. He chuckled as he looked at me.
“We’re going to begin administering the anesthetic in a few moments. Do you have any concerns or allergies to anything that we should be aware of?” the doctor questioned.
“I have just one question. Do you accept Blue Cross?” This made the doctor laugh again before looking around at the other staff and nodding to the nurse by my head.
“Mister Rhythm, please breathe deeply and count backwards from ten.”
~~~~~
I opened my eyes and looked around the white room. The thing I always hate about hospitals is the smell. It smells too clean. But it also reeks of death. You can’t really smell it through all the sanitizer, but it’s there. And after you smell it once, you’ll always notice it. The door to the room creaked and I looked over to see Fang slowly poke his head in. “Get in here you sexy bastard,” I said with a grin, making the grey bat pony gallop into the room and slide to a stop by the bed.
“Swing, I tried to follow you. I tried to make sure you were okay. I… They wouldn’t let me see you.” Fang’s eyes watered, making me lift a hoof and gently raise his face up by his chin.
“Fang; my sweet, darling Fang. It’s alright. You’re here now and that is all that matters.” I attempted to sit up in bed but stopped when I felt a pain in my side. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
~~~~~
A group of protesters shouted amongst the cheering crowds as Luna’s train slowed to a stop. Mixed in with the protesters was one that the police force, nor the other protesters, had expected for in his hoodie pocket was a six shooter revolver. He slowly worked his way towards the front of the crowd, his heart pounding as he slowly got closer to where he wanted to be. As he felt the weight of the gun in his pocket, he briefly considered stopping and just going home. But no, he had backed out on his last attempt in Canterlot and he vowed to himself that he would get the job done this time. He finally reached the front of the crowd as Luna and her procession trotted down the red carpet. Those not protesting grew silent and bowed to the Princess of the Night before she commanded them to rise. As the mayor extended his hoof, the yellow stallion reached into his pocket and drew the pistol, pointing it in the direction of Luna and firing blindly until the gun clicked, all six rounds spent. Chaos began to unfold as royal guards tackled Luna to the ground, the mayor lay bleeding, a police stallion lay dead on the platform with blood slowly oozing from his temple, and myself laying there blacked out and bleeding. Ponies in the crowd quickly tackled the stallion to the floor and held him down as police and royal guards began taking full control of the situation.
~~~~~
“So they arrested him?” I asked, making Fang nod his head in response. “Good. And hun, I’d like to say I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Fang asked as he raised an eyebrow at me.
“Forgetting to duck.” I replied which got me a gentle smack to the shoulder as Fang rolled his eyes. “Alright. Now, where’s moonbutt? I still need to get some work done.”
“Work? You’re in a hospital bed and all you can think about is work?” Fang questioned, sounding very annoyed with me.
“Hun, I’m basically what keeps Luna’s day on track. If it wasn’t for me keeping her in line and arranging her schedule, I know for a fact that she’d be passed out drunk from a party or in one of the many underground opium dens in Canterlot. We’re talking about the mare the press dubbed the ‘Party Princess’, remember?” I raised an eyebrow to which Fang shrugged slightly.
“Yeah, I guess that’s true. Either that or her and Drum would be doing Celestia knows what with Celestia knows what. I don’t even want to think about what all was happening when they woke us up the other day.” Fang shuddered slightly at the memory, making me smirk.
“Probably nothing we haven’t done before,” I chuckled out, making Fang blush a bit. “Hey, how about when I’m out of here, we go out dancing. Just you and me and a night on the town.”
“But they said your recovery might still take at least three months. You’re lucky it was just a punctured lung and not a collapsed lung. I think we’d better hold off on the dancing until you’re well again.” Fang replied as he patted my hoof with his. “It does sound like a nice night though.” He sat back with a small smile but I felt my face twist into a slight frown and my brows furrow in worry.
“Fang, can I ask you something?” Fang nodded his head as he looked at me, slightly worried. “Are you absolutely certain that you want to be with me?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because it seems like I’m just bad luck. And it seems like almost everypony I get close to I eventually push away. I hardly spoke to my grandparents the year before my grandma passed away. I spoke to her the most in that time during her last two days. And even then she was so sick that she could barely respond. I hardly spoke to my grandpa after that too. We seemed to push each other away even more after she passed. I didn’t speak to him for three months until the day he died. We sat and talked for hours and it felt almost like when I was a colt again where he’d just sit for hours on end telling me stories. Then he told me he was tired and was going to take a nap. And then he just never woke up. Seems like he was finally at peace. I became so wrapped up in my job that I pushed Test away and into the arms of another stallion. I hardly talk to any of my friends in Ponyville. I’m just a bad pony to be around, Fang. If you want to leave me, I understand.” I sniffled as my eyes started to water. A hoof landed gently on mine and I looked over at Fang who was on the verge of crying.
“I’m never leaving you, Swing. Not in a million years.” There was a scuffle outside the door that made us both look over just before the door was suddenly ripped from its hinges. Where the door once stood now stood a blue alicorn who immediately looked over at me.
“Swing!” Luna smiled as she galloped over and slid to a stop next to the bed. “We were so worried about you!”
“Yeah, you gave us quite the scare, dickhead,” Drum said with a smile as she sauntered into the room, a bandage around her leg.
“Good to see you’re doing well, jerkoff,” I replied with a grin as Drum sat down next to Luna. “Thanks for coming to see me though.” Looking out the window at the daylight, I yawned. “It’s weird, I’m not used to being up during the day now.”
“Us either.” Luna said as her and Drum yawned simultaneously. “We just came to check on you. We’d heard you were awake and thought we’d come check on my favorite children of the night.” Her and Drum stood up and waved goodbye to us as they left for the afternoon.
“Why didn’t you make me a child of the night?” Drum asked as they headed out of the room.
“Because a mother can’t have intercourse with her daughter,” Luna stated plainly.
“Who in Equestria said that?” Drum replied as she smacked Luna’s flank with her tail as Luna’s magic shut the door. Fang and I continued to talk for another half hour, telling jokes and trying to keep our spirits high. Though we both began to feel drowsy and soon after both drifted off into sleep.
~~~~~
I slowly walked through the silent halls of the royal palace, my hoofsteps echoing eerily off the stone walls. The palace was dark, illuminated only by the moonlight that shone through the large stained glass windows, casting dim colors onto the floor. Though there was something that seemed off about it all. The palace was never this quiet, even at night. Typically there’s always some noise somewhere. A janitor cleaning the floors; a guard snoring while on duty; the nightlife of Canterlot just outside the walls. But the palace was silent, the only noise being my hoofsteps. And the windows, they were not the same. They all seemed to have faded, like the color was slowly being sucked out of them. Then as I continued to walk, the eerie sound of a piano echoed off the walls at a near deafening level.
The notes all sounded strange and the tune was a familiar one, a song my grandmother would sing to me as a colt at night before I went to bed. As I continued to trot through the halls, my body not seeming to be able to do anything else, the song continued to get louder until I turned into a room that was pitch black except for a moonbeam through a window that illuminated a shadowy figure sitting at the piano I’d been hearing. I suddenly stopped walking as they ceased playing mid-song, the figure lifting their head up.
“Hello Swing. I’ve been expecting you,” the figure said in a very familiar voice, that of a stallion.
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice coming out almost croaky, like my throat was dry as the desert.
“I believe we know each other quite well actually. One might even say I know your innermost thoughts. Every want, every desire, everything you’ve regretted, every stupid decision—I know them all.”
The figure spun around and it was then that I realized who it was. It was myself. But he looked different. He was exactly as I was before the timberwolves incident. I tried desperately to turn and run away but every muscle in my body seemed frozen, as though I’d been turned to stone. “Tell me, what does it feel like to be a pathetic, helpless little stallion? That’s all you are and you know it.” He cocked his head to the side and smirked. “That’s why you love having influence with Luna, isn’t it? It finally gives you some power. Power that you can use to your advantage. And what of your little demons in the closet? I’m certain that your little boy toy isn’t aware of you driving red hot nails into another stallion’s hooves. Or just how much ‘fun’ you and your old stallion used to get into. Or how about how shitty your foalhood really was? How pawpaw made us practice for fourteen hours straight until we got it right. Remember that? Or how about that time he and memaw caught you putting on makeup? Remember how that lash felt on our flanks? How much it stung when it would cut our hide? How we could feel the blood running down our leg?” He got off the piano bench and trotted over to me, placing his hoof under my chin and looking into my eyes. “Remember that Swing? Remember all those nasty names they called us? Remember the hatred they had in their eyes for us? Remember what they said ponies like us deserve? Remember all those times we would sneak out just to go make out with some colt from class in the park? Remember that dress we used to have to hide under the floorboard in our room so they wouldn’t find it? Remember how nice it felt to be able to put on a dress and not have to meet pawpaw’s expectations of what a stallion should be? You remember that, Swing? Because I certainly do.”
“And of course, we can’t forget about me,” another voice said as another version of myself stepped out of the shadows, his back left leg a mangled, shredded mess and his intestines hanging out of holes in his side. “Remember this, Swing? Remember the timberwolves? Remember how their teeth felt in our flesh? How we could feel them shredding our leg? Remember how wonderfully painful that was Swing? Remember how warm and happy we felt when we were almost dead? Of course you remember. It was such a wonderful feeling, wasn’t it? And of course we can’t forget about all the stuff that Test stallion did to us. Remember the riding crop? We begged for that one. Remember that time we came home late and he was drunk?”
“Of course we do!” The other version of me shouted with a demented smile. “Remember how he forced himself on us? Remember how he made sure we didn’t have a choice? Remember how scared we were? How we cried ourselves to sleep that night? How terrified we were of him but even more terrified of being without him? But look at you now. The same, pathetic stallion that he fell out of love with. The stallion that not even our own family could love. Doesn’t it just make you feel all warm and bubbly inside?” he asked as tears streamed down my face.
“Swing! Swing, wake up!” Fang’s voice called out as the dream began to fade away around me.
“You can’t get rid of us forever, Swing. We’re as much a part of you as you are us,” the two other versions of me said in sync before the dream faded away completely.
~~~~~
My eyes opened and I saw Fang standing over me. “Are you okay?” he asked as he looked at me with concern.
“Of course. Why do you ask?” I questioned as I looked up at the handsome bat stallion. He reached a hoof over and pulled my hoof up to my face, placing it on my cheek. I could feel that my cheeks were wet and quickly pulled my hoof away.
“You were sobbing in your sleep, Swing. Are you sure you’re alright?”
I nodded in response. “I’m positive sweetheart. It was just a bad dream. Nothing to worry about.” I admit, that was a lie but it was one I felt I had to tell. I didn’t ever want Fang to find out about that kind of stuff. They were secrets for a reason. The only problem is that secrets never stay secrets forever.
~~~~~
“Are you feeling alright? Are you comfortable? Do you need another cushion?” Fang asked me as I sat down on the train. I shook my head as I pulled out a bottle of painkillers from my vest pocket.
“I’m alright. Just need a glass of water or something. I would ask for some scotch on the rocks but I know I can’t have that with these painkillers.” I chuckled as I popped the lid of the bottle off and shook it until a little pill fell into my other hoof. Fang trotted over to the small table in the corner and returned with a small glass of water for me. I thanked him before popping the pill into my mouth and washing it down with a quick sip of the water. “Thank you, sweetie.” I set the glass aside as the train began to slowly move forward. It had been a rough few months with me recovering, though Fang certainly made it more bearable. “Now, when we get to Ponyville, we have some official business to attend to before we head to my old apartment. Maybe I’ll open up the shop for a few days too just to pull in some extra money.”
“Is everything alright in here?” Luna asked as the summer sun set over the horizon, her moon rising just on the other side of the sky.
“It is. Though we need to go over our agenda.” I pulled out a small agenda book I’d been given when we boarded the train. “First is the business from after our Ponyville visit. So we’re going to have to travel to Manehattan for a visit to Lady Rarity’s boutique to generate some sort of publicity. Then after that is the Knighthood Ball for all the knightings this year. That’s going to require full dress so make sure you have all your sashes and what not ready to go. Then after that is the diplomatic trip to the Gryphon Kingdom because they’re starting shit again. Fucking featherheads. And finally is-“ I was about to continue before Luna’s voice stopped me.
“Let’s just take this one day at a time, alright?” Luna looked over at me with a questioning look. “Though, have you looked over the list?”
“Not yet. I was doing that as I went. The last thing is for in two weeks and it’s for…” I trailed off and I looked over the writing. “Fang and I are being promoted to the rank of Brigadier General?” Fang quickly snatched the book out of my hooves and looked at it for himself before it slowly slipped from his hooves and landed on the floor with a small thud.
“It’s common for ponies in your position to be promoted in such a way. Since I technically adopted you two, you’re now considered my heirs and as such are entitled to promotions and the titles of duke. My sister and I have been discussing it in private. I originally wanted to make it Major General but Tia wanted only Colonel so we agreed to meet halfway at Brigadier. And whenever Drum and I get married then she’ll be granted the rank of Field Marshal.” Luna slipped on her glasses as she sat down and began flipping through paperwork. This got Drum’s attention as she looked over at Luna.
“You…you plan on us getting married?” Drum asked as her eyes started to water.
“Of course I do. You’ve brought us so much joy since I returned from my banishment. I couldn’t imagine spending a day without you.” Luna suddenly seemed to realize what she was saying and removed her glasses. “Drum Cadence, I know that this isn’t exactly how either of us probably imagined it in our heads, but would you make me the happiest mare in all of Equestria and be my bride?” Drum quickly nodded and jumped at Luna, hugging her and causing Luna’s paperwork to fly around the train car. Fang and I clapped our hooves as Drum showered Luna with a barrage of kisses and shouts of “yes!”. My clapping slowed though as the thought creeped into my mind about how much work the wedding planning would be and only one phrase could sum up my feelings perfectly.
“Fuck me sideways with a telegraph pole…”
~~~~~
The sound of a knocking on the bedroom door made me stir from my slumber yet Fang slept through it, snoring next to me as I carefully sat up. A butler opened the door and poked his head in. “Your graces, it is time to get up. We’re nearing Ponyville.” He quietly retreated from the doorway and slid the door shut behind him. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I looked over to Fang and gently nudged him with my hoof.
“Rise and shine my little bat.” His snoring stopped and he groaned as his eyes opened. His eyes always fascinated me when I would look into them. They were a the most beautiful amber color I’d ever seen, with small flecks of brown around his slitted pupil. “We’re almost to Ponyville. Are you ready for our big day in a couple weeks?” He bolted straight up and looked at me in worry.
“I haven’t even wrote to my family! They don’t know I’m becoming a duke. What am I going to say? What are we going to wear?” I put a hoof up to his mouth to silence him, making the stallion scrunch up his snout in response.
“Oh come on now, you didn’t scrunch your face up like that last night when you were licking them,” I said with a smirk before sticking my tongue out at him. Fang’s face turned a bright pink as he glanced away from me. “I’m sure I could do something that’d get you to relax,” I told him with a devious smile as I pushed him back onto the bed and rolled over to straddle his belly. Fang’s leathery wings immediately sprung out at his sides as he looked up at me, one of his fangs sticking cutely out in front of his bottom lip. I leaned down to kiss him, shoving my tongue into his mouth, making him give out a small, content moan. I began to rub my hoof in a circle on his chest as we continued to sloppily make out. My hoof began to trail down his chest and towards his belly button, making him squirm under me. Just as I was about to grab my ultimate prize, there was another knock at the door. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” I grumbled under my breath.
“Swing? Fang? Are you two awake in there?” Luna’s voice said as she cracked the door open just enough to amplify her voice in the room. “We’re about to pull into Ponyville. I know you hate it but I need you in full dress uniform before we depart.” The door clicked shut and I grumbled under my breath again.
“Looks like we’ll have to continue that later.” I rolled off of Fang and off the bed, reaching back to grab my prosthetic and slip it on. “Does this leg make my ass look big?” I asked Fang as I looked back to him with a smirk.
“Oh it does… But I love me a nice, fat ass for a midday snack.” He practically purred as he climbed off the bed to stand next to me. “But for now, let’s get ready. After all, we have to make sure that everything goes perfectly at the ball tomorrow. And to do that, we need to make a good impression on Ponyville.” Fang went over to the closet and removed our dress uniforms. “And, I even have a cousin we can visit while we’re here too.”
“Who is it? I might know them,” I asked as he gave me my uniform to get into.
“Ditzy Hooves. Her dad was my uncle.”
“Oh yeah, I know her. She’s the local mailmare.” I replied as I buttoned up the front of my uniform jacket and hooked together the standing collar. “Nice mare. We should invite her over for tea or something.”
“We should. Now, are you ready?” Fang asked as he turned to face me.
“Absolutely,” I replied before we both headed out of our room, ready to meet up with Luna. Though me being ready to face Ponyville was another story.