He took his eyes off me for a second, but never moved the gun. He wiped at his eyes and shook his head as he hovered in the air. “Misguided ideals… you… You can’t be my Firefly. She would never… She would never have done somethin’ so cruel to children!” He yelled. I stood still as I stared the barrel of that gun in his hooves, my dad’s hooves, as he was crying and pointing it at me. Is this… really happening? Nopony had moved yet and dad was getting anxious.
“What are you waitin’ for!? That was an order, all of you!” He commanded. I knew this could happen. I knew this might happen, but why… does it hurt so bad? I could feel that warm sting start to roll down my cheeks.
“Honey, is this really necessary? We haven’t even heard her side of the story.” Mom argued.
“Her side of the story!? Who gives a damn! Whole families, cut into pieces! Ponies on the streets, innocents that just happen to walk by at the wrong time and place, and you want me to hear what she has to say about it!? There’s no justification in the world for that, there ain’t a damn thing that anypony could say to excuse that!” He yelled back at her.
“Dad… I-” I took a step forward and put my blood away, but then he fired just in front of my hoof.
“Don’t you call me that! I ain’t your dad, and you sure as hell ain’t my Firefly! She was perfect… she wanted to be a hero! My little girl was… she was eleven, and she had her life taken away from her because of somethin’ stupid! They found her blood on everythin’ within miles, that was more blood than she shoulda had in her whole body, so don’t you come in here tellin’ me that you’re her! She’s dead, damn it! She’s… dead…” Dad bit into his lip trying to justify his tears, biting so hard that he made himself bleed. I wanted to scream. I was already crying, but more than that I wanted to wail, I wanted my parents to hold me again, but the one with a gun pointed at my head was my own father. I felt my legs slide out from under me and my butt sank to the floor as I started up at him.
“Hey, gimmie that thin’. This has gone far enough.” Applejack said to Goose as she stood up.
“Hey, hey, hey, don’t you move! What do you got in that pocket?” He yelled at them. Applejack stared him right back, unflinching and took a step forward. Dad shot in front of her back hooves. “I said don’t move!” He ordered.
“Or what, ya gonna shoot me? Let me give ya some advice Mister Flare, y’all should put that thin’ away. The only pony who’s gonna get hurt by that thin’ is y’all and yer wife.” Goose started to reach in his pocket and dad shot at his hoof. Before the bullet could make it’s way to him though, Applejack caught it out of the air and crushed it between her hooves. She dropped the flattened slug on the floor, then put her hooves on her hips.
“Are ya deaf? Put that damn thin’ away, yer’ just wastin’ bullets and destroyin’ yer house.” Goose took the little brown thing she’d asked for out of his pocket and gave it to her. Then, for all to see, she held out her badge. “Ya see this? Ah know that ya know what it is, mister veteran. Put yer gun away, now it’s an order, not a suggestion.” She commanded. Dad just about froze where he hovered. Very slowly, he lowered the gun and eventually put it back in his leg.
“Is this some kinda joke?” He asked, still tense and ready to fight.
“One hell of a joke if it is. Here, see fer yerself.” She said as she tossed him the badge. Dad caught it, checked the seal on the back, and read the name engraved on it.
“Son of a bitch.” He let out with a breath as he sank back into his chair.
“Nah, pretty sure Ah’m a mare. Scootaloo, fix the holes please. Ah’ll take that back, thank ya.” Dad gave Applejack her badge back, and Scootaloo went to each of the holes in the floor and repaired them. After she and Applejack had been seated, dad finally spoke up.
“Alright, fine. What is a special ranked Major doing at my house with a wanted criminal?” He asked. He wouldn’t even look at me anymore.
“That ‘wanted criminal’ was conscripted by the crown herself ta help me deal with the threat in Manehattan. You’re right. There ain’t no justification in the world fer the thin’s the Crow did. But she is already servin’ her time as a part of my unit. She came clean ta me and the princess herself in trade fer her service and sensitive information about the current issue, and she’s vowed ta make up fer the thin’s she did even after this event gets resolved.
Ah’m here because yer daughter is my friend and she wanted ta come clean with her parents. She beats herself up fer never lettin’ y’all know she’s been alive this whole time and she’s been through plenty ta realize how wrong her actions in the past have been. The pony y’all think the Crow is ain’t the same one in yer livin’ room right now. This mare is somepony that Ah would trust with my life and the lives of my friends and loved ones with, and she’s proved time and time again that she deserves my trust.
Ah won’t tell ya that ya have ta accept everythin’ she has ta say, hell, Ah won’t even tell ya she deserves yer forgiveness. But what she does deserve is fer y’all ta hear her out before ya go off and say she ain’t yours. Oh, and one more thin’. That guy who went out and made headlines, started this whole ‘hero’ thin’ with kids runnin’ around in spandex? That was my father. Any problems y’all have with what he did, y’all can take up with me.” She said, finishing her rant by crossing her back and forelegs, sitting with her hooves at in her elbows and staring dad down. Dad frowned.
“Oh. So he went on and left a daughter behind too, huh? Yeah, I’ll be sure to add that to his list of ‘accomplishments’ while we’re at it. How old are you anyways? You can’t be much older than the rest of these ponies, you certainly don’t look it. What kinda guy leaves his ten year old behind to go off and be a bounty hunter, eh?” Dad asked. Applejack uncrossed herself and leaned forward.
“The same kind that comes home ta show his daughter bullet wounds at four. The desperate kind with misguided ideals of justice and heroism. The kind of stallion with three kids who just lost his job, got kicked off his mother in law’s orchard by bitter rivals that call themselves family, and does whatever he can ta keep bein’ the best father he possibly could. The kind that makes sure his kids never have a care in the world as long as he possibly can. The kinda stallion that fights ta make the city he lives in a better place fer his kids, and the kinda stallion that tried his best at everythin’ he did. If y’all were half the stallion my dad was, ya wouldn’t even hesitate ta remember yer own daughter’s face, but that’s not even relevant because Ah know ya are.
The thin’ yer not willin’ ta accept right now is the fact that you gave up while she was still out there. My dad? The Red Hoof? He never woulda given up lookin’ fer his kids if one of ‘em got lost. Because even after he had ta watch his wife die in his hooves, even after he lost everythin’ he had, he still fought fer his family.” Applejack finished. Dad stared her down for a few moments, then crossed his back legs and put a hoof on his cheek, finally looking at me again.
“Well? I flew home from work early as fast as I possibly could for this, so this better be one hell of a story.” He said. I swallowed.
“Y-you’re really gonna listen?” I asked. He rolled his eyes and sighed.
“There are about ten ponies in the country that have the same mane and tail colorin’ that I do, and most of ‘em are part of my family, so unless there’s a kid I don’t know about somewhere, you can’t possibly be anypony else. I don’t know how you got powers, I don’t know how you went so far off the rails and became that monster, I don’t know how you managed to adopt some random orphan, and I don’t know how you ended up at my house after seven years with a special ranked Major with Princess Celestia’s royal seal on her badge. Which, by the way, gives her more authority than anypony that I’ve ever seen in person. Very clearly, I am lackin’ in information here. So if you want to make a case, then go ahead. It’s not like there’s much I can do since an officer of her rank is throwin’ her weight around.” He said.
“So… you were going to take me away… knowing who I was…” I muttered. Dad took a breath and looked to the ceiling.
“What would you have me do!? My long lost girl shows up out of the blue to tell me she’s one of the most wanted criminals in Equestria, and I’m just supposed to ignore that and act like I don’t have a duty to uphold!? Do you even know how angry I am right now? How conflicted this feels? How do I ever even come close to livin’ up to those ideals I tried to teach you if I can’t even do my job when it comes to somepony close to me? I don’t have powers, I could never do what that her dad did, I could never be a superhero for you, but I sure as hell kept tryin’ to even though the world told me I was outclassed.
And… and then you come in here and show me who you are, who you became. I can’t even understand it. You took children away from their parents, whole families left in bloody piles. You were a mercenary known for your brutality to anypony that got in your way. The Crow was so infamous that news of her made it all the way down here. When I saw you holding that sword in your wing I knew damn well that that was the exact same way I taught my little Firefly how to hold my baton. The way she flew, her voice… it was all the same, but I just refused to believe it.
But then this thing with that crazy in the mask started up and the Crow showed up to help the heroes take down the monster. Ya know, you really need to hide your tail better, because it was pokin’ out beneath those feathers of yours. I knew right then and there that I was right, but I wouldn’t believe it. The Crow was evil, a monster that murders children. She couldn’t be my daughter, and there was no way she would help out heroes to save a city. But then you showed up again in the next fight, and you helped defend, and you protected your friends whom I assume are the rest of these ponies you brought here.
If I acknowledged that the Crow was you, and you were out there doing good, than that also meant I had to accept that you’d also committed all those atrocities, so I kept it to myself and never said a word to anypony. My daughter had been dead for seven years. But I’m not dumb enough to not recognize my own kid. There ain’t a good parent in the world that can’t tell who their kids are, even beneath all that shit you used to hide yourself. I denied and denied and denied it for all these years, and then you showed up at my house.
I tried so hard to forget. To ignore, and delude myself that all these things I knew weren’t true, and that my perfect little miracle had just come back from the dead and then… and then you came out and did what you did and now… I have to accept it all. Everythin’ I’ve tried to deny all these years to keep my image of you untainted by your own damn actions. So you better fuckin’ give me somethin’ convincin’ as to why you seemed to have lost your damn mind, or at least how you started to make up for it. Because right now… I’m not sure how to feel about you.” Dad explained. I wiped my own tears away and tried to steady my breath. I never realized… how much emotions could hurt.
“I… Dad, I’m sorry.” I started. Dad shook his head.
“I don’t want your apology. I’m not the one who deserves it. You wanna apologize to somepony? You go apologize to the families of your victims. What I want is what happened. You tell us the truth, and you tell us every single detail about how you came to be what you are. So make your case.” He said, gesturing his hoof forward at me. I nodded and took another moment to breathe. There’s so much I wish I could go back and change… but… this is who I am now, and I am responsible for everything I’ve done.
“Okay… you’re right, but… I can’t do that just yet. I have things I still need to do and ponies who still need me to be the monster that I became. I can never atone for my sins, so for now I’m doing what I can to try and fix our broken world. I don’t owe anypony an explanation for who I’ve become more than you two, so here it is. Starting back in 2023, on the fateful day of that race…”
I’d told the first part of my story, all the way up until I saved Brightness and I from the traffickers when Dad interjected.
“So your excuse for all of this, is that you just… forgot? You forgot common decency, and morals, and ethics, so you just went around killin’ ponies?” Dad asked, his eye almost twitching. I could hardly look him in the face.
“Well… that was just part of it. The attack on me and my partner and that idea were what really set it off. If I could stop the bad guys before they hurt somepony, then nopony would get hurt like we did, right? I mean, I know better now, but back then… that was everything to me. I got attacked by a trafficker and had to protect my blind partner and myself! Police aren’t ever in poor districts like that, and that was during the years when heroes were just starting to come back. I didn’t have anypony but me to rely on, so what else could I have done? It’s not like I had a phone, and the ponies in that district know better than to rat out the mob.” I explained. Dad leaned back in his chair and sighed.
“Alright fine, I can’t fault you for protectin’ yourself, but how did it get so twisted from there?” He asked, his voice set to some kinda permanent state of disappointment.
“Well… the thing is… I got hit with puberty. At around the same time. And it was bad. And being in fights like that made my blood pump and… well, it also uh…” I rambled dad tilted his head.
“You tellin’ me you got your rocks off by fightin’?” He said in plain language. I tried very hard not to just admit to that, but couldn’t and just dipped my head.
“… yeah…” he took a breath and just stared silently at the floor.
“Um, so that happened, and this was just a year after you fell, so what happened next?” Mom asked trying to break the silence. I went on with the story about how my justice was twisted by my desires, being careful to omit anything about the beast as I went. If dad flipped because I’m the crow, he might actually try to kill Fluttershy. I made it all the way until I started looking for them before anypony said anything else. This time, Mom stopped me.
“See! I knew it! We never should’ve moved. If we had been there, we could’ve stopped four years of this whole mess.” She complained. Dad rolled his eyes.
“Oh, yeah, sure, like you coulda kept livin’ in that house after we thought she was dead. I remember the phrases, ‘how could this happen? We’ll never get another miracle.’ and things like, ‘I can’t stand the sight of this city anymore!’ so don’t you tell me you were willin’ to live there for three whole years after the fact.” dad shot back. Mom huffed.
“Oh no, those words were yours first mister! You got sick of it and you gave up long before I did! A whole year passed my ass, that was a bald faced lie! You were ready to pack up and leave after three months! You never even left the house for half that time, and I still had to keep working to keep us fed.” Mom fired in full force. Dad growled and threw his hooves up in the air
“If she didn’t have powers, none of this shit would’ve ever happened in the first place! Everything that went wrong here can all be traced back to powers, it can all be traced back to when all that crazy shit started happenin’ thirty years ago! How did she even get powers in the first place? Cloudsdale had the lowest percentage of power ponies for years after the first wave! Wasn’t it supposed to be somethin’ ponies started catchin’ because the water supply on the ground got tainted? We weren’t there when she was born, so how did that happen? There shouldn’t have been a way for her to get the virus in the first place!” Dad ranted.
“If I didn’t have powers…? Have you even been listening? If I didn’t have powers, I never would’ve made it in the first place! My healing factor is what kept me alive through all the times I got sick! I survived a whole year with just three blood transfusions, there’s no way I would’ve made it if my powers didn’t keep me alive.” I argued. He turned on me.
“If you didn’t have powers, you wouldn’t have needed to have somepony teach you right and wrong again, you wouldn’t have taken the lives of so many ponies to get your rocks off, you would have made that stupid drop in the first place! So maybe it helped you survive when you were a baby, so what? I would have gone into debt and back again if I needed to to keep you around! If it weren’t for your fuckin’ powers-” Dad started on another tirade when mom cut him off.
“I would be dead!” She shouted and stood up. His whole face lost all of that anger and turned to confusion, as did mine.
“What…?” dad asked. Mom took a deep breath and looked down.
“Do you remember what I told you? About how I lost a lot of my intestines before we met?” she asked. Dad brought a hoof to his forehead and started shaking it.
“You… said that there was some kind of big accident with a car, right? You… got impaled by somethin’ and it cut you up inside.” he said, desperately trying to remember.
“That’s right. I was on a road trip with my friends just after we’d all graduated nursing school in 2000. We were going from sea to sea, trying to see the country before we all got sucked into the world of medical care. We were on our way to Canterlot when we got knocked off the road by an eighteen wheeler that had fallen asleep at the wheel. The car rolled down a cliff and fell into a lake nearby. It killed two of my friends on impact, and I was skewered by one of the windows. I told you that I ended up saving my other friend, and she’s the reason I survived because she managed to call an ambulance to come stitch me back together. But… that’s not entirely true.” Mom admitted. Dad narrowed his eyes at her.
“What are you tryin’ to tell me Windy?” He asked. Mom sat down, and in the weirdest possible way, she removed her right hoof. It just… came straight off. She set the apparently fake hoof down and held up what looked like a fresh wound at the end of her leg. The skin around the bone had been stripped down and there was barely any hair round it, leaving it looking like she’d just broken it.
“I lost my right hoof too. It got crushed between the door and the frame as we rolled down the hill. I thought I was going to die before we even landed in the lake. I was missing a piece, there was a giant shard of glass in my abdomen and two of my friends had their skulls bashed open by the rock face. Vial was still alive though, and once we landed in the water, I was the only one who didn’t pass out. I was in a lot of pain, but I was also feeling a lot of adrenalin, and the car was slowly filling up with water as we sank further in.
I tried to get out as fast as I could, but my leg was still stuck between the door, and I was bleeding badly out of two different places. We sank deeper and deeper in the water, Vial still hadn’t woken up, and I was struggling desperately to free my leg as I was bleeding out. Then I got this very strange feeling in my stomach. My whole body was suddenly tingling and I couldn’t quite describe the feeling I had. I started convulsing and the water was almost to the top of what remained of the roof.
In a single moment of clarity, I could suddenly feel the water as if it were a part of me. I used the new feeling in the sea of red to pry the door open. My hoof was in shambles and had basically fallen off at this point, but I was more concerned with getting Vial out. Using that feeling, I grabbed hold of Vial and swam to shore. The next day, after I’d woken up and my stomach had been sewn back together, I could still feel that water, but I didn’t understand why. They told me my hoof was too damaged to be saved, so I was left with a clean stump that should have healed over the next few weeks. I went to change the bandages after I was finally discharged from the hospital and I was horrified that it looked exactly the same as it had while I was there a week ago. It started to bleed profusely, and I thought I was going to bleed out right there. I begged for it to stop, and then suddenly, it just did.” out of her own stump, Mom’s blood started to fly out and gather in a pool, just floating in the air.
“But it didn’t just stop when I asked it to. I could do so much more than that with it. It obeyed my every command, formed any shape I desired, it even hardened all the way into something like salt crystals.” Mom’s blood gathered around her stump and slowly changed from a liquid crimson into a reddish-pink crystalline shape of a hoof. “I would later learn that it also sped up my healing process. I called the hospital about the wound not sealing up later, and they told me they were amazed I even survived the stomach wound. They removed nearly half my intestines and part of my ovaries, but that was only because they were damaged and possibly threatening to my longevity. The initial wound had already sealed itself when I reached the hospital. They’d never seen anything like it.
A normal patient with the wounds I had and that much blood lost would’ve died long before the ambulance arrived for me. Without her powers, without the powers I passed on to her, I would have died, and we would’ve never met.” Mom explained. Dad stood up.
“You never thought that I might want to know about this years ago!?” He yelled at her.
“Of course not! All you would ever go on about was how much you hated power ponies and ponies that had powers after we started dating! I was going to take this secret to my grave if I could!” She shot back.
“So you knew!? You knew the whole time that she had your powers, and you never said a damn thing!? You knew that she wasn’t dead all this time!?” He yelled back. Mom shook her head.
“Of course not! How could I have known she had my powers!? The study about parents passing on their powers didn’t even come out until the last five years, and very clearly, it takes an open wound for our powers to even work! Possibly even exposed marrow. I always thought it was strange that she was so deficient but never seemed to suffer from the weakness that children with her condition normally do, and I always thought that maybe my virus might’ve been the reason we had so much trouble conceiving, but I never knew she had them or that I’d passed them on. Based on that study, powers could come out as anything, and there was hardly any good information on second generation power ponies to begin with.” Mom explained. Dad let out an angry moan.
“So we’ve been together for nearly twenty two years, five if you count when we met, and not once did you think that I would need to know about this!? Did you ever trust me!? Was I never worthy of knowing that you had this disease and that you might have passed it on? Clearly you knew she wasn’t dead. You always said she would come back, and you believed it, but you had proof to back it up this whole time and you never shared it with me! You just let me wallow in my own grief because I wasn’t worth tellin’ that you had a reason to believe. I just can’t believe… you would keep this from me, all this time…” He yelled then just… lost volume as his voice started to wobble. Dad fell to sitting, the tears starting to roll again. Very quickly, mom ran up to him to hold him, but he pushed her away.
“Honey…” She started.
“Don’t you do this to me. I don’t even have the words to deal with you right now, I just… now I need you to tell me why. Why is it that all the mares in my family have to hide things from me, and lie to me, and disappoint me to the point of breakin’ down? Because I’m gettin’ real tired of cryin’ over you two.” Dad managed as he hid his eyes in his foreleg. Mom sighed.
“Fine. Do you really want to know?” She asked. Dad sniffed and nodded. “Okay, but you asked for it. You. Are. A big baby. You don’t like dealing with your emotions, you’re quicker to anger than anypony I’ve ever met, and you throw tantrums and get sulky when you don’t get your way.” Mom started.
“Hey, that’s-” dad tried to interject. Mom wrapped her blood around his face and pointed at him with her stump.
“Ah, ah, ah, it’s my turn. You wait until I finish. Speaking of, that’s another thing. You always interrupt me when you get mad. You don’t like to let me have a turn, and you hate it when I’m in control. You have an inferiority complex and can’t stand that I make more money than you do. You’re impulsive and spend our money behind my back even though you know you shouldn’t, you like to poke holes in my budget plans whenever I set vacation goals and you can never agree on where to go for dinner when you decide we need to go out.
You’re brash and put your hoof in your mouth when you try to talk to your superiors, all of my friends think you’re a moron because you can’t seem to form a coherent sentence when surrounded by ponies you don’t know, and you shout before you talk. I was honestly surprised earlier when you didn’t just try to shoot your own daughter and actually followed protocol for once because last I checked, that hasn’t happened in a while, officer ‘shoot first ask questions later.’ If I hadn’t seen her use her powers when I found her earlier today, I might’ve intervened earlier, but I still wanted to protect your fragile ego and keep this part of myself hidden.” Oh, right. I almost turned my blood on mom when she surprised me. Damn, I didn’t even think about that. No wonder she wasn’t surprised.
“Let’s see… you try to grow that silly beard of yours and always stop it short when your rainbow mane starts to show up in it, so you clog the drain when you shave, you can’t hold your liquor, and I always have to drag your drunken ass home anytime you go to the bar with your friends. You always get frisky whenever you want, and I never get to decide when I want to be intimate.” That one hurt me to hear. It’s really, really not something I expected or ever wanted to hear my mom to say. “You never want to watch movies I like with me, and I swear half the time you expect me to act like your mother instead of your wife.” She released dad from her blood, and I honestly felt sorry for the guy in a different way than I did earlier.
“…You really believe all that?” he asked. Oh goddess, he looks like a lost puppy.
“Every word of it. You’re a big man-child that I take care of.” Damn, kick a stallion while he’s down, mom.
“I see. Well, if that’s how you really feel, then maybe…” She took a step forward and formed her blood into a hoof again. With it she brought his chin up to look her in the eyes.
“I never said it was your turn. There you go interrupting me again. I never even told you the thing I hate the most about you. Go on, you can speak now.” She said, her tone a syrupy sweet instead of the almost hateful one she’d had a minute ago.
“Y-yeah? And what’s that?” Dad asked, more than confused.
“There isn’t a thing in the world that I hate more about you… than the fact that… I saw you first.” She said as she kissed him. “Imagine me, twenty five years ago as I saw this broken young stallion that had been sent to my hospital because he saved the lives of his friends by shielding them from an explosion with his own body. He wakes up finally after being out cold and treated for three days, and you know what he says first?
‘Is my team okay?’
I’d never met somepony so noble and selfless. Even while he was there and recovering from having his leg blown off, he was still more concerned about going back to help his friends and wanting to get back out there as soon as he could. He wanted to make sure nopony thought any less of him for losing a leg so he took physical therapy as soon as he was able. He had these righteous ideas about how to be a good stallion, and what it might look like to be a good father. He was always kind and willing to play with the sick children while he couldn’t leave and was waiting for his stump to heal up so he could get right back to work. He was a hero in his own right but would never call himself that because he thought he couldn’t live up to the title.
When I was young I thought I never wanted kids because there was never a stallion that I thought I would fall for. But sure enough, the one I saw that would change this opinion was some crippled, bright eyed young stallion with a rainbow on his head that he hated. Even after I realized that he had prejudices against ponies like me, I was still so caught up in this idea he was dependable and somepony I could rely on and maybe even love that I was willing to hide away that part of myself just for him.
Why did I never tell you about my powers? Well, it’s because… I love you. I never wanted to hurt you, and I always feared that if I told you the truth, you might leave me.” Mom finished. Poor dad has just been on an emotional roller coaster today, and now wasn’t any better. He looked like he was about to break again when he wrapped himself around my mom in a tight embrace.
“Damn it Windy, you’re such a bitch. You always play so fuckin’ dirty, it makes me sick. I love you so much.” They hugged and cried for a few minutes together, and then dad eventually motioned me over. “Come here you… miraculous disappointment. Let me hold my family again for the first time in most of a decade.” Dad said. I couldn’t even begin to say no, and for the first time on seven years, my whole family was together for a hug. We stayed like this for a while until once again, I noticed another pair of legs around me. I let out deep, exasperated sigh.
“Fine! Fine. Fine. You can be a part of the moment.” I said, then brought Scoots into the family hug. My friends laughed, my parents welcomed her in with open hooves, and things were good. I went on to tell them the rest of the story, how I started putting my talents to use for good, how I met Scoots, scant details about meeting Applejack and joining harmony. At the end of the day, and I do mean the end of the day since we were there all the way till 8 pm, I had reconciled with my parents and brought Scootaloo into our family. All felt right with the world.
“So you’re gonna come back, right?” dad asked as we were about to leave. I sighed.
“Unfortunately, the princesses own us. All of us really, but… some of us more than others, for reasons you already know. We were only allowed to come here today because it’s our day off and uh… Lamni’s power lets us hop from place to place in an instant. So unless he’s willing to drop us off and pick us up, I doubt my boss would let me leave Manehattan, and I don’t mean Applejack.” I said as we exited the front door.
“Oh, I see…” dad mumbled. They both stood in the door frame together for a moment in thought, then mom wrapped her wing around him.
“You know… Ponyville General is actually owned by Heart and Shield. If I really wanted to, I could probably arrange a transfer to one of the big hospitals up north. Corporate is located in Manehattan, after all.” Mom said. My ears perked up, and for a minute there I felt really excited to hear that. But then I shook my head.
“Nah you guys should… stay away from Manehattan. One of… the reason that the few of us who haven’t seen our parents in more than a few years decided to go visit is because… we barely survived that fight, last Sunday. And the truth is, we’re scared that we won’t make it through these next three weeks. I wanted to come see you guys because I don’t know that I’ll get another chance…” I admitted. Dad shook his head and lifted my face up to meet him eye to eye.
“Yeah, that ain’t gonna fly. So here’s the deal, Bloody Crow. You haven’t atoned for the things that you’ve done. So you are not allowed to die until you’ve atoned properly. We’re gonna get it set up to come up there after all this blows over, and I will be there, watchin’ over your shoulder like a hawk to make sure, that you atone for your sins. Got it? I need you to swear to me that you are gonna make it through this, alright?” Dad said. I took a heavy sniff and straightened up. With my wing I saluted and stood at attention.
“Yes sir, officer Flare.”