“Shove off, you gobshite!” I screamed, staggering back to my hooves. I charged the pony that had pushed me only to get shoved back. I growled and flung my forehoof out, cracking the older pony in the eye. I felt a bit of satisfaction as he crumpled, a cry of pain issuing forth.
“Take that, ya Celestia-forsaken back birth!” I shouted. I panted and turned to leave.
And saw five other ponies circling me.
“Get her!” I heard just before they started charging.
“Ah, roadapples,” was all I had the time to spit out before they fell over me.
I don’t really remember much from the beating after the first few punches. The next clear thing I remember was standing by the river that ran near town trying to wash the blood out of my blue coat. But every time I thought it was rinsed out another open cut had just spread more blood, making me have to start over.
“Ah,” I heard a voice say behind me. “Get in another fight, then, sprout?”
I looked up to see Golden Ring standing nearby, her silver mane giving her a matronly look despite her youth. The deep brown coat was dotted with a few patches of white, something rare in most ponies I knew. A blaze of white was also on her forehead, where a horn would have been had she been born a Unicorn instead of a Pegasus. She had on a long coat that obscured her cutie mark, but I didn’t need to see it to visualize the three interlocked rings of yellow.
Her cerise eyes bored into me and I had to look away. We both knew the truth. She sighed and I heard feathers ruffle.
“Why do you keep letting them get to you, Azure?” she asked as a wing slid out to tilt my face up, then from side to side to examine the latest series of cuts and reopened scabs I seemed to collect on an almost daily rate. “You know you can’t beat them. And what if you break your horn one time, hm?”
“I don’t care,” I rasped out. My horn was somewhat stubby for my age and I hadn’t been able to get it to work even though all the other Unicorn ponies were floating things around and learning to write with their horns. “It’s pretty useless anyway.”
A hoof landed on my head and mussed up my mane. “Now, now,” Golden said, her lilt giving a musical quality to her unusually deep voice. “Don’t be like that. You’re still quite young, you might yet get a growth spurt in the next season or two.”
I crossed my forelimbs and turned away in a huff, much to my seeming only friend’s amusement. She forced me back around, a damp bandage held in her primaries. “Ah, sprout,” she chuckled. “You’re suren a challenge. Good thing you’re so loveable.” She pressed the bandage against one of the cuts and I felt the sting of the antiseptic.
“Iffen I’m so loveable,” I grumbled. “Then why hasn’t anypony adopted me? Or tell me what happened to my parents?”
Golden’s ministrations slowed and she glanced down. “I wish I had an answer, Azure,” she said, a wingtip caressing the unbroken skin on my cheek. “But trust that if Serendipity saw fit to place such hardships on you, it was to prepare you for some purpose.”
“That’s what you always say,” I cried. I could feel the tears building up again. “If you care about me, why don’t you take me home?”
She pulled me into a hug, a sigh rumbling in her chest.
“If only I could, sprout,” she whispered. “If only I could.”
And I had to take the solace of the wings that wrapped me in some warmth that the hug didn’t. I knew why she couldn’t, but it didn’t take the sting out of the fact that I was a scrawny little Unicorn in a run-down orphanage that could barely afford blankets for all the fillies and colts that found themselves there.
“How long will you be here this time?” I asked softly, knowing that if I spoke any louder a sob might slip free.
“Just a couple of days,” she whispered, a hoof stroking my mane. “Then I’m back off to the Wilds to try and keep the Ungols at bay.”
“Could I go with you this time?”
Golden sat back a little, her hooves cupping my face. “Azure, you know I can’t take you with me to an active front line.” She leaned forward and brought her nose to mine. “I should be done with this one last tour, though. After this trip, I’ll be coming home for good. And I have a spare room that could use some laugher. There isn’t enough of that in my life right now.”
I brushed a few tears away. “How long will you be gone?”
She stood and helped me to my hooves. “A couple weeks, maybe a month or two. Not too long.” Her wing came out and draped over me. “Now come on, lets get you cleaned up and some food in you. You’re so skinny you could be mistaken for Deerkin!”
“Am not!” I protested.
“I’ve got feathers bigger around than you,” she chuckled.
“You’re bigger and older than I am!”
“What’s your point, sprout?”
“What happened to her?” River asked suddenly, breaking me out of my reverie.
“Why do you think something happened?” I asked.
“Well, because you’ve never mentioned her before, and I’ve never met her.” She tilted her head, her face a mixture of fear and curiosity. “So what happened to her?”
I reached out and tucked her in a little tighter, planted a kiss on her forehead. “If you stay still and quiet,” I teased. “You might actually find out.”
“She was gone for about six weeks,” I continued. “And when she got back, she found me at the river again, cleaning up cuts from yet another scrap. Seems I never could keep out of trouble.”
“Ma,” River protested. “What happened?”
Laughing, I booped my daughter on the nose. “That, my darling,” I grinned roguishly. “Is a tale for tomorrow night.”
“Awwwww,” she pouted.