"So, you're the latest crazy to take a crack at the capital, huh?"
Tempest warily eyed the earth pony who seemed to run this particular refreshment stand. It had the look of a small bar, and there was a smaller unicorn with a distinct family resemblance to the earth pony flitting about collecting empty glasses and delivering full ones to a couple of tables surrounding the stand. Magic made the task easier, of course.
The Friendship Festival was in full swing, and although Princess Twilight and her friends seemed to be a forgiving lot, Tempest herself hadn't built up any endurance for sustained socialization between equals.
She sighed. "That's me." She watched the earth pony, who in turn eyed Tempest and her broken horn with a thoughtful sort of impression. "Recommend something for me?"
The earth pony snapped out of whatever brief deliberation she'd been in. "Sure. Let's make it a grape juice, eh? Trust me, drinkin' 'cause you're a loser goes nowhere."
"Fair enough." Tempest licked her lips. "You're taking this pretty well."
"I'm just jaded." The other pony slid a glass towards her across the bar before leaning over herself. "'course, if one of your goons had so much as spat on the kid, I'd be jamming a corkscrew into your eye to see if they plop on the way out." The mare smirked, appearing to derive satisfaction from the idea.
Tempest recoiled. Even at her worst, she hadn't imagined her revenge plans in such gruesome detail, and that sort of talk wasn't to be expected from ponies in the heart of Equestria.
"Mom!" The smaller unicorn was suddenly at her side and glaring at the mare behind the counter.
"What? Can't blame a mare for improvising on the fly. Hard to get any proper leverage on a horn stub like that, and digging out the root is probably really tedious."
"Gross. You're on the job, mom!"
"Yeah, yeah, and a fine welcome to Berry's Berry Beverages." She glowered. "I did not come up with the name."
"Berry, huh?" Her racing mind latched onto the thought as a sliver of normalcy amidst the mare's deliberations how best to maim another pony.
"Yeah, Vanhoover Berries are part of the catering here, but I get to ride herd on the hirelings during prep and clean-up on account of being the only one living close to Canterlot." She sighed. "I'm Berry Punch, that's Ruby Pinch."
"They ought to know better than to make you sling booze all day," the other unicorn groused. "It's thoughtless, they coulda hired another pony or two."
"They asked," the earth pony stressed. "I like money, so here we are. Whatcha gonna do, write a strongly worded letter?"
"Yeah, actually I will. If they're gonna treat you like a stooge just because they hate your mother for being a cu-"
"Ruby Pinch! Watch your language and get back to work."
"Ugh." The unicorn put on a surly expression and turned away.
"Remember, Ditzy'll hook you up with free stamps."
That did seem to help her daughter put on a smile for the next customer.
"Sorry about that. Family's a sore subject for her."
"Uh, nice to meet you both," Tempest offered lamely. "I'm Fizzlepop Berrytwist. Or used to be, before this whole thing."
"Huh. Wonder if there's some relation. Wouldn't know any Berries who track family trees as well as Apples do." Berry shrugged, then changed the topic. "A'ight, Fiz." The earth pony's smile turned cruel. "So what's your problem? Mother hugged you too much? Not enough? Pushed around in school, laughed out of a job? Lay it on me. What's got you so angry at the world?"
Tempest narrowed her eyes at the disrespectful query. "Isn't it obvious?"
Berry stared at Tempest without comprehension before calling out to her daughter again. "Pinchy, how obviously does this lady look like a villain?"
"Uh ..." The other unicorn eyed Tempest curiously and took her time in answering. "I like what she's done with her mane, but she probably never even killed a guy just to watch him die." The attempt at a joke probably explained the slight delay in her response.
"Oy, you been reading my true crime novels again?" She shot Tempest an apologetic look. "It's pretty comforting to know there's ponies crazier than you, but I guess that wouldn't work for someone as ambitiously evil as you, would it?"
"It's my horn, you fools. Losing it set me on my path!"
Well, the unicorn looked sympathetic at least, but her mother just shook her head. "I dunno, I snapped off some horns in my youth and those guys didn't turn any more criminal than we already were." She snorted. "Hell, I'm pretty sure Pinchy's sire came out of prison shorter than he went in, and I think he's a baker now or something." The mare pulled a face, apparently annoyed, perhaps about the stallion in question. "Well, good on him for finding legit work, I guess."
Tempest took a carefully measured sip of the beverage she'd been offered. It did little to steady her. "How could ... why would you do that to a pony?"
Berry Punch turned an empty mug over in her hooves. Her gaze was empty. "Well, that's a big question, innit? They wasn't me or anypony I care about, so it was easy to leave them with a little reminder not to pick fights with me. Would still be easy, honestly. But how's a pony grow an attitude like that? I suppose we could be sitting here comparing notes all day, eh?"
She found herself nodding. She had been anything but pleasant to be around herself, after all. Besides, helping the Storm King conquer the world would have ruined many more lives than this mare had, even though it would have been less hooves-on. "Suppose we could."
The earth pony watched her daughter at work for a few moments. Minutes passed as she served a few customers who came up to the bar directly instead of waiting for the young unicorn to take their requests.
"Still hurts, huh?"
"The horn? Not really."
"Not the horn, Fiz. I mean whatever set you off in the first place."
She thought back to her old friends, all those years ago, and frowned. "It shouldn't. That was a long time ago."
"Fuck that," the earth pony sneered. "The old hurts are the worst of the lot, cause that's a filly's pain, at that age you suspect that whatever's going on is somehow your fault. And no matter how much Twilight and her gang want it to be alright with a party and a song, that stuff'll stay with you, I'll tell ya that much for free. Even when you don't think about it, it changes how you act."
"Why do you even care? You don't know me, except that I helped the Storm King try to take control of sun and moon."
Berry smiled grimly, her eyes cold. "I wouldn't care if you tossed yourself off the Canterhorn. But somehow I raised a kid with a conscience, so I oughta make the effort, too." She shook her head and continued more quietly. "Kids are easy to put together wrong, y'know? Easier than parents want to admit. I'm damn proud of her for turning into a decent sort. I see a bit of myself in her, but not enough to make me scared."
"What if she lost her horn?" She'd blurted out the question without much thought, but it had been one she had often asked herself, at first. How would her life have gone if she hadn't lost her horn?
"I expect she wouldn't turn into a conquering villain." Berry chuckled. "She'd adjust, eventually."
"Unicorn magic is dangerous and unpredictable with a broken horn. Ponies would be afraid."
"We live in Ponyville, folks are either completely jaded, or afraid of their own shadow." Berry frowned. "Her friends, and mine, would be worried for her, not about her, or something like that. Back when I was doing time in juvie, they had a counselor for that sort of thing." She chewed her lip for a moment. "It's like, you got the instructions for the tool wired into your brain meat, but if the tool's busted it doesn't fit the instructions anymore, so you gotta work around that? Sound about right? Oop, excuse me."
More customers to serve. Tempest took the time to consider that she knew very little about Equestrian prisons, juvenile or otherwise, but the earth pony had no reason to lie. Charitably, she'd call the mare's description of the broken horn problem passingly similar to her own experience.
"You've been in prison?" The mare didn't really look like Tempest's notion of a former convict, although she hadn't given the mental image much thought.
"Hey, that's juvenile detention, a'ight? I went legit once I had the foal."
Tempest drained her grape juice. "Fair enough. Uh, by the way, about this drink ..."
"Left your wallet in your other set of evil black plate, did ya? Don't worry about it, I'll pick up your tab today."
She smiled at the earth pony. "Thanks. I suppose you'll tell me it's what friends do?"
Berry scoffed. "We ain't friends, Fiz. If circumstances was different I'd try to sand down your stub 'til it's level with your forehead."
"Oh."
"Still, I'm feelin' obligated, all of a sudden." Berry shrugged. "Back to what I was sayin' before. You got hurt, right? Just nod along, ponies ain't born as super villains. I'm not gonna ask for details. Maybe Twilight is gonna expect you to get over it and just forgive whoever wronged ya, or whoever didn't help you deal with it. Kids are huge jerks to each other all the time, so there ought to be a grown-up in the picture for a kid to lean on while they deal with all their baggage. I'm hoping Pinchy trusts me enough for that. Still, forgiveness is a real rookie mistake and really separates the scrubs from the pros. Never forgive, and never forget."
"Mom!"
Berry threw up her hooves. "Alright, alright, maybe a little bit of forgiving. But only if you want to." She slammed both forehooves onto the counter. "That's the important part. You're a grown mare, your feelin's are real now, they was real then, an' they're yours alone. If ya can't find it in yourself to make peace with someone, that's got to be acceptable, and you part ways."
The earth pony suddenly heaved a sigh. "Still, if you got a chip on your shoulder? It's not gonna wash off with booze, trust me, one Berry to another."
"No, I never got into drinking a lot."
"Hrm." The mare gave her a calculating look. "Actually in your case it would have caused the rest of us a lot less trouble if you'd just disappeared into a bottle somewhere."
"Wow, thanks." The idea had an odd logic to it, of course. If she'd ended up a drunken wreck in Kludgetown or somewhere similar, she would at least not have done any evil.
Berry filled another mug with grape juice and slid it over to Tempest. "Fair warning, every so often you'll have moments, or days, where you just want to kick yourself for all that time you wasted." The mare worked her jaw, as though having to loosen up a muscle. "I coulda been so much better if I hadn't been such a drunk while the kid was growin' up. You'll think of better uses for the last couple of years, too, I'll bet."
Pretty much anything else would have been smarter than working for the Storm King, in hindsight. But it wasn't just her actions. "All that bitterness and anger. I hardly know what to do without that."
"Heh, don't I know it. There's still some ponies I'd love to run into in the woods or something. Preferably with a shovel and a hacksaw, know what I mean?"
"I don't know how to respond to that." Tempest frowned. "I'll try to take comfort in knowing that somepony like you can live a normal enough life, though."
"Hey, after a decade of pickling my brain, nopony takes me seriously anymore anyway. It's cool, though, nopony from Ponyville is on my list of folks I'd rub out if I knew I'd get away with it." She'd grinned, but her expression turned to one of concern now. "Seriously though. I dunno what's in the cards for you, but last time I quit drinkin', actually talking about what's going on in my head is really helping me stay sober. I got a therapist and everything."
"I would have thought that kind of talk would just get you in trouble." Most ponies were liable to be pretty skittish about a fellow citizen so casually speaking of maiming other ponies. "I also don't think that I'm addicted to villainy."
Talking to Berry Punch was strange, in a way. The mare wasn't afraid, but also didn't seem particularly interested in making a friend, nor did she seem to hold a grudge. Yet she constantly threatened physical harm, which Tempest assumed wasn't how the other pony treated other customers.
"Hmm. Might be a little too open now, but I know who's not gonna throw a fit about it and who to shut up around. Still, when I first went to Ponyville to raise Pinchy, I kept worrying ponies would find out that I'm a bad seed with a juvenile record. Turns out, just assuming you're a horrible pony will ruin you in the long run, until you'll do anything to feel like somepony other than you for a while." Berry smirked again. "Drink a lot, put on wicked black armor, same difference, eh?"
"I can take this armor off any time I like!"
Berry just snickered.
"Alright," Tempest allowed. "That sounded pretty stupid."
"Hehe, sorry. Anyway, that's – that's what you oughta know. Your feelings are real and they matter and you should own 'em. Be honest with yourself and deal with yourself. Mostly because pretty much everypony else are gonna be indifferent or thoughtless cretins about it, they got their own crap to deal with, they just hide it better. On the upside, it means you just need to act respectable and that'll be good enough. I was told nopony is as normal as they pretend to be. That really helped!"
Tempest took note of the younger unicorn having approached the two of them.
"Two types of reactions you've got to look out for when you're telling anyone about your troubles. Sometimes a pony will be sad, but they'll also be kinda honored you'd trust them with the baggage. Hold onto those. That's always been Ditzy for my mom." The little unicorn floated empty mugs onto the bar.
"Took me a while to appreciate what I had," the earth pony stated regretfully.
Ruby Pinch ignored the remark and continued. "The other type usually wants to cheer you up real bad, but they won't care what's going on in your head so long as you can put on a smile. They'll just jolly you along, like they can't even tolerate the notion that you might have a problem that's got no easy solutions. Maybe they mean well, but don't let 'em tell you that being sad is a mistake you're making."
"Huh, where's that coming from, Pinchy?" The mare looked worried. "Am I talking too much about therapy at home?"
"Never. I want to hear about it, it helps me when I get mad about ... the past. You." Ruby Pinch sighed. "Still easier to talk to Ditzy than you, sometimes. But anyway, I was gonna go look for them. You going to be okay here?"
"I'll hold down the fort. Say Hi for me. And Pinchy?
"Yeah?"
"We're gonna root for this clown to sort her life out, right?"
"Well, alright. Nopony wants to be measured by the dumbest thing they did, I guess."
"Right on. Now go on and enjoy yourself."
They watched the unicorn run off, and it was Berry's turn to sigh. "She didn't learn right that she can talk to me about her problems, 'cause I was so pitiful, she didn't wanna burden me. That's hard to lose if you learn it as a little filly."
"You still raised a pretty thoughtful little pony." She could believe that the younger unicorn had supportive ponies in her life who'd prop her up even in the face of tragedy. It was nice to see. Berry Punch seemed rather coarse, but hopefully she was serving as an example to her daughter to not let negative feelings fester. At the same time, it was apparently a somewhat recent development, judging by what she took from the little family's conversation.
"Aw, I'll credit my friends for most of the smart stuff. They're better put together than me, mostly. Last thing I taught her was how to twist a pegasus wing out of the socket." Berry grinned. "Still, maybe you got a friend who'd feel honored you'd trust 'em with your troubles? 'Cause it's not gonna be me. I'd just get annoyed that I got locked up over that liquor store I helped rob and you're walking around here after what you did. Helps neither of us."
"Yes, maybe I do." She'd have to track down Grubber soonest. He'd been the only one who'd stuck by her side and tried to be nice to her without making her a tool, and he wasn't even a pony. "And, uh, fair enough."
"Hey Tempest!"
She turned to spot Twilight Sparkle approaching. "Hey."
Berry also gave a slight wave. "Hey Twilight."
"I thought you'd be enjoying the party, not just sitting there, staring into a mug. No offense, Berry."
"Didn't serve her any alcohol, Princess."
"I guess that'll never change around here. The parties." She was amazed how easily most ponies could shift gears from mortal terror to party mood. Tempest had needed some time to gather herself. Seeing the shattered bits of the Storm King after they'd freed her from stone had reminded her a little too much of her mortality.
"Well, I hope you'll stay. More friends are definitely merrier."
"Remember, we're rooting for ya," Berry called after her with a broad grin. But the mare couldn't resist waving after her while holding a corkscrew.