It wasn't his first time in the police station: he had once heard Diamond bullying Scootaloo, and the pink filly had turned his generating just enough wind to knock her tiara into the road as the baseline for a story in which not even she might have been sure just how she'd survived. But she'd told variations on that story a few too many times with different ponies having attacked the supposedly-innocent, and so he'd just been asked to wait in the main part of the building. Questioned, questioned again, he'd spoken to her weary father, and then he'd been released because nopony had believed anything after the tiara part. Besides, it wasn't as if they had a freezer large enough for him...
Miranda pulled him through the familiar part of the structure, past desks and startled officers who had yet to be briefed. There had been gasps, somepony had run ahead to open the other door, and now...
Two prisons. In one day.
Snowflake's life seemed to be establishing a new trend.
Ponyville had nothing more than holding cells for the detainment of those who'd broken the law: he'd known that from the start. But he'd never seen them. He didn't know how solid they were, and this part of the station (one level underground, past the thick door, down the ramp and pulled through a narrowing corridor with rock on either side) was solid indeed. Every wall was stone, and the cells were hollows carved into a single huge grey mass. The air was cooler than it had been outside. Dimly-lit devices overhead, a narrow corridor, and iron bars. Twelve sets of them, each of which had a portion united by the frame that was hinged into a rough door.
Two of those doors were open, both on the left side of the corridor. Snowflake's field bubble was pushed through it, and he saw the four officers waiting for them. Ponies standing around a complicated system of steel, heavy springs, and elastic: something which, when fully assembled, would have a hollow at the center. A hollow in the shape of a very large pegasus body.
They were called freezers, because pegasus magic required movement and if that magic was going to be stopped, then nearly all movement had to cease. A pegasus within a properly-sized freezer would be able to move their head somewhat: talking was permitted, ear movement was fine, and you could blink as much as you liked. But the wings weren't going anywhere, the legs were locked into a standing position, and even the base of the tail would have been immobilized. The shell offered just enough room for ribs to expand, and so life continued. Nothing else was possible.
On the night of his detainment, the station hadn't had a freezer which was large enough for him. The intervening moons had clearly seen the commissioning of custom work. Just in case.
A warning washed over his ears, and he obeyed. Allowed himself to be placed within the confinement, each limb bound in turn as the field receded from that portion of his body. The process was surprisingly noisy, especially as clamps locked together and new springs protested against their first true stretching: it meant he missed some of what was happening in the neighboring cell, something he could only hear.
But he didn't miss all of it. He heard the chains being attached. The heavy cuffs. Things meant to defeat earth pony strength.
His neck was locked into position: it left him facing Miranda, who was still in the corridor. She had to be: continuing use of her field meant needing a line of sight for both cells. The dark eyes were moving between the neighboring confinement and his own, constantly roving in search of any fresh attempt at creating trouble. And her horn... the double corona was still there, she'd been keeping it up the whole way through town (and so many ponies had seen her pulling the stallions through the street), but the spikes had faded. There was a heavy sheen of sweat in her coat, and the only reason all four knees weren't trembling was because he could see her, second by second, telling them not to do so. Not just yet.
Her expression was a blended one. Utmost concentration, added to a deepening sadness.
"Done?" she asked the four in his cell.
"Yes," the youngest said.
"Double-check everything."
They did, then nodded to their chief. "He's secure."
"Good," Miranda said, and her horn's corona slowly began to drop. "And him?" This with a turn towards the other cell.
"Yes, Chief," an unseen mare replied. "Secured."
"Good." The light of her field continued to fade. "I'm going to send somepony for a doctor to check on both of them: I didn't see anything worth diverting to the hospital for after the fight, but we're going to need an expert." Refocused on Snowflake for a moment, then glanced at the other cell again. "You two will get the chance to tell your stories later. I had enough witnesses following us in: I'm going to go use them. Somepony will be by to feed you and provide help with toiletries in a few hours, assuming nothing happens to transfer or release you before then. Do you understand?"
Snowflake tried to nod and found that only the upward range of the movement was possible. The other cell's occupant presumably did something.
"Any injuries which you feel need medical attention right now?"
Shaking his head was slightly easier.
"Saliva samples. Both of you. Unless you want to say no."
Mutual silence gave dual consent, and the other unicorns among the officers departed with a thin glass tube. The rest of the group simply departed.
"We're done for now," she told them both as her corona finally winked out. (He saw her foreknees bend, the tremble in her tail.) "But not for long."
She walked away, slowly, somewhat unsteadily: too great an effort held for far too long. Hers were the last hoofsteps he heard depart, just before the heaviest door slammed.
Snowflake closed weary red eyes, took the deepest breath the freezer would allow.
I could get out of this...
Perhaps he could. But there was still nowhere to go.
Genova.
She would be fine. Fluttershy had seen what he had done, had seen the pain he could inflict, might never speak with him again -- but none of that would ever prevent her from thinking about a helpless animal. She had been trusted with a key to his house, the same way she'd given him one for the cottage. No matter what happened, his hare would be all right. Even if he wound up spending years in prison, Genova's care was --
-- that won't happen.
(It felt as if it could.)
Will it?
He didn't seem to have an answer and so he looked around, as much as he could. He couldn't quite turn his head enough for a better look at the toilet trench, but he'd gotten enough of a glimpse on the way in to know both that there was one and somepony occasionally cleaned it: the problem was that he would currently need to be carried to it, as he was motionless in the center of the cell.
There was a thin mattress on the floor, presumably for those who were allowed to move before they slept. A drinking fountain. Iron bars in front of him. Dull colors, brown and grey providing very little to look at. A cell on the opposite side of the corridor. And stone. Old stone, cold stone, dead stone --
-- he stopped. Looked at the thought more closely, because he didn't understand where it had come from or why it insisted on remaining within his awareness. But something about it felt like a true thought.
Stone can't --
It was dead. He was sure of that, and that certainty came without knowing why, or what it could mean. He simply knew the stone was dead.
Motionless. Frozen. Trapped with nothing he could listen to except his thoughts and --
-- soft weeping, an oddly small sound coming from such a big stallion, even when it was just about the only thing to hear. Something which had never entirely stopped during the trip to the cells, something which had continued even as a growing audience had left their homes to watch the procession pass by.
He didn't know why he spoke. Perhaps it was because he understood the sound of pain.
"She's going to be all right."
No response -- at least, not a vocal one. But he heard the stallion's breath catch.
There had been time to think, trapped in the field bubble. Time for anger to fade, long minutes in which to replay split-seconds over and over until he saw...
"Mac --" and with that, he unknowingly set a personal record: the most words spoken as an adult in a single day "-- she came up in your blind spot. My parents warned me about that, when I was just barely a colt: that if I startled somepony from their blind spot -- the instinct is to kick. The instinct, Mac. You were acting on instinct --"
"-- sure," the deep voice slowly said, and Snowflake paused to let it continue. "Instinct."
And for a long moment, it seemed that was all there would ever be --
"-- years of fighting mah instincts and that's where it breaks. Just in time to kick a kid." Another sob. "Nopony's gonna look at me for the rest of mah life without seeing a hind hoof going into a kid. Nopony here." And a deep, shuddering breath. "Makes jail sound pretty good, doesn't it? They don't have to tell everypony there what I did. I could make something up. Robbery, arson, anything that ain't kicking a kid --"
He knew what pain sounded like, and so he could hear it increasing. The burden gaining mass, getting close to the point where nopony could carry it. Where it felt as if the easiest thing in the world would be to simply break.
But he couldn't move. All he could do was talk, and he'd never been good with words.
And yet he tried anyway, because it was pain, and listening to the stallion's meant he didn't have to think about his own.
"Instinct," he repeated. "Mac, you were drunk..."
With an odd wryness, "Seemed like a bad idea at the time."
The word choice took a moment to register. "A bad idea?"
"You drink?"
"Not alcohol," Snowflake replied. "I..." He wasn't sure how to put it. "...have a pretty regulated diet. Only so many treats per week, minimum and maximum calorie intake, I need to buy certain grasses --"
"-- an' you're scared," Mac quietly said.
The freezer meant the only part of his body which could express the shock was his ears, and the bandages meant only one could go straight back. How do you --
"Strength like yours don't come natural," the farmer softly continued, and the words bounced off the dead stone. "You had to work for it. Every day, right? Every day for years. Me... I'm big to start with, and I was a farmer."
Was.
"Lots of work in that. Every day for years. But you -- you had to push. Takes discipline, doesn't it? To do the same thing every day for years. I saw that in you, first time I passed by. I -- respected that. And now... I know that's why you don't drink. Because you're afraid of what could happen when all that discipline just flows away."
"Mac." It was the only word he had. How can he --
A dark chuckle, broken by another soft sob. "Ah," the stallion declared, accent deliberately exaggerated to the point where Snowflake could barely understand him, "ain't the dumbest hick. Takes brains t' kick trees. Jus' for starters, Ah gotta know what trees are, an' that rocks an' walls ain't it. Then Ah've gotta pick out where mah legs are, an' what they're s'pposed t' do. So Ah ain't the dumbest hick. Ah was --"
Stopped.
"-- college," Mac quietly finished, accent dropping away. "I was going to college."
"I didn't know you went." It was something to talk about. It was anything. "Which school --"
"Going," the stallion softly said. "Not 'went'. Never made to the gate. I didn't even get on the carriage. It's enough years for that to sound unusual, now. Carriage. Everypony's used to the trains, but for me -- it's long enough that it would have been a carriage. Funny thing is, I never kicked away the ticket, any more than I got rid of my textbooks. It's an open ticket. Present to the carriage master and you can get on any time, as long as there's room. Not that there's many carriages left, but... it's still good."
Snowflake didn't understand. He'd spent so much of the day wondering if he'd ever truly understood anything.
"Why didn't you go?" Because he wasn't good at talking, and so realized just a little too late that it might not have been the right question.
Silence for a while.
"How many siblings y'got?"
Snowflake blinked. "...none."
"You're a lone foal?" He could hear the shock. "How come?"
The next deep breath ran into the limits of the freezer, and he felt his sternum ache: the farmer had delivered a fairly significant impact. "It's..."
The next word would have been personal, because he hardly ever told anypony. Scootaloo and Fluttershy knew. His doctor had to know, and now the Princess had been added to the short list. Ponies already saw him as a freak, and to add another layer to that status...
But he'd already said so much on that day, more than he'd ever said before. And he was speaking to somepony whose life had recently been shattered.
It created a certain empathy, and he spent a few seconds almost basking in the sheer oddness of it before continuing. Empathy for somepony he'd recently flung into the soil.
"...medical."
"Medical," the other stallion repeated. "Can't quite work with that."
"Do you know what caps are?"
Brief silence. "Something to do with births, right?"
"Yeah."
Dryly, "Oh, we're back to that..."
"Eeyup," Snowflake stated.
This silence was longer.
"Well, ain't you a funny pony."
"Nope."
The chains in the neighboring cell rattled a little.
"...all right," Mac finally said. "I get the bucking point. So what are caps?"
And Snowflake explained or at least, he explained what he could. There were new factors, and... it...
"Hurts t' say all that, don't it?" the other stallion quietly asked.
"I've got a response for that," Snowflake replied. "But it starts with 'y'."
He hadn't expected the sigh.
"Lone foal," Mac repeated. "And your parents? They still around?"
"They're in Las Pegasus," Snowflake said. "My mother's a concierge --“
"New word there. What's it mean?"
"She arranges things for hotel guests. Tours, special dinners. My father oversees one of the arenas."
"But they're alive," Mac said.
And his aren't.
Was it remembering something he'd heard? Something in the farmer's tone which had made him recognize that? The fact that the words had emerged at all?
"Going to college," Macintosh softly said. "They were so proud. I was heading off in the fall. Philosophy major -- funny, that's usually where I hear somepony smirk. But they had a vacation that summer, the first one in years, going off without us. You need some time for yourself now and again, when you're bringing up three kids. Our Granny came to watch us, and... they never came back."
It was another kind of instinct. "I'm --"
"Don't."
"...what?"
"Don't say you're sorry," was the suddenly-fierce reply. "You weren't there. You didn't know them. You didn't earn 'sorry'."
I'm sorry I didn't --
He wasn't good with words, and it suddenly seemed as if the language needed more of them.
"Dead," Macintosh softly continued. "Dead. And there I was, with two little sisters. One just starting puberty and all the hot-headedness that came with it, along with being angry at the world because her parents were dead and... she got the worst of it, for how it felt. College age, I was starting to realize that my parents weren't going to live forever. She wasn't there yet, not at all, and even I thought -- years and years. And Apple Bloom... just barely old enough to understand what death meant. Two little sisters, and they had to stay together. We've got a big family, spread all over the continent, and there were offers, so many offers to take them in. Good ponies everywhere who would have given them a home. But they'd just lost their mom and dad. I didn't want them to lose Ponyville too. To lose the Acres and the memories which grew along with the trees. Nopony was coming here. They would have had to leave, start all over, and -- Applejack was in Manehattan for a while, did you know that?"
"No." Which at least proved he could get one syllable past the stun.
"Before they died," that older brother added. "She got her mark when she came home, because that was how important home was for her." And now the pain was spiking again, adding its undercurrent of dark song to every word. "When a pony's mark comes from stepping back onto home soil, how can you make them leave? Tear away the last thing she had left? Granny... she had to get the rest of her things so she could move in. But me... how was I supposed t' go? Two little sisters without a Mommy or Daddy, and now their brother is gonna leave, he'll only be there for holidays and it'll be this big old house that just keeps getting colder and colder, Applejack was just about losing it with grief, she nearly did lose it and I thought..."
He stopped.
And Snowflake, who knew about pain and the carrying of burdens, quietly asked "How long did you tell yourself it was for?"
"Until AJ grew up," the unseen stallion replied. "And she tried to do that too fast. All of us lost something when they died, and she lost the rest of what should have been her golden time. The years for just being a kid, because part of her thought that she had to take over for our Mommy. With Apple Bloom, Ah mean." A soft snort. "There's days when she still tries it with me. But with AB, she's a cross between sister and mother. It's hard, being trapped between them. Going back and forth, when you can't ever completely leave one behind. There's some stupid ponies who moved here in the time since, ones who think she is AB's mother, but -- think about the ages. Too young to have a foal and live. They don't think about that. I've heard them talking. Hard not to say anything back."
"I know about that kind of talk," Snowflake's own pain offered.
"Ah bet you do."
The temperature in the cell dropped a little more.
"But she's an adult now."
"Must be." Darkly, "Since she's taking charge of her love life an' all."
Oh no. "Mac, I swear, I've never said anything to her -- well, one word, but --"
"-- Ah know where you were gonna go with it," the earth pony cut him off. "She grew up. Problem is, Apple Bloom didn't. One trying to be a mother and a sister at the same time, and the other didn't know how to manage with somepony who wasn't completely one or the other. So I told myself, y'know, when y'get past the fact that she's the ugliest pony in the world because that's what I've got to tell her --"
He didn't see the briefest hint of a smile. But he almost felt he could hear it.
"-- big brother stuff, you wouldn't understand -- she's turned into a pretty mare. Objectively speaking." A pause. "Way objectively. Still hotheaded, but I figured she had enough going on for somepony to get past that. So... I'd wait a little longer. Until she had somepony, and then it would be two adults raising Apple Bloom. I wouldn't have to worry about Granny. But she's a slow starter, Applejack. She's fussy. None of the dates ever worked out, and then..."
The laugh was surprisingly bitter.
"...then Sun didn't come up. Remember that?"
"We had riots," Snowflake softly said. "In Las Pegasus. Ponies thought the world was ending..."
"Yeah," Mac replied. "To borrow a word, yeah. But the Princess got her own sister back, and my older one went part-time. All the missions? They're not on the farm. All the strange stuff calling her away, everything happening, and not only was it sort of taking out her chances to find somepony unless she picked out Pinkie -- and they love each other, they're about as close as sisters already, but that's why it would never happen." Another snort. "That and AJ's never been into mares, not really." Which was when his volume went off a cliff. "It would have..."
Snowflake waited.
"...Mac?"
"Easier," the big stallion said. "It would have made things easier."
"I don't --"
"-- just me and Granny, a lot of the time," Macintosh cut him off. "Because of the missions, and the weirdness, and everything else. And the Crusade had started, and Apple Bloom was running wild with it, and... you don't have siblings. Your parents are alive. But I think you know about this part. That when you do something one day, and the next day, and every day -- you just keep doing it. So I said... a little longer. Because Granny was getting old, old enough that I worry every day, and Applejack wasn't finding anypony, wasn't even looking much, and Apple Bloom? Who knew if she was going to ever look for anything which wasn't a mark? What if she wound up looking for her somepony the exact same way?"
No answer.
"What are you picturing right now?" Mac asked.
"You don't want to know."
"Gimme a tenth-bit."
"The cinema's on fire."
Another dark chuckle. "Sounds about right. So... waiting. For Applejack to pick a stallion already. For Apple Bloom to grow some sense. And --"
Snowflake heard the effort behind the next breath. The strength which went into it. The kind of exertion which only came when a pony gave everything they had, and part of him waited for chains to break.
But all Mac did was say "-- a little more."
"What?"
The breath repeated.
"It's family," the earth pony said. "Family and blood. I couldn't make them leave the Acres. I had to know there would be somepony taking care of the Acres, all the way until the Princesses switch shifts. It's Apples all over the continent, tending their groves. Apples stay, until a new grove needs tending. And we don't abandon our soil. But you can't own land, not really. You just -- pass it off. I was waiting for a marriage. But I would have settled for a pregnancy. For foals. Just -- waiting for a foal. The next generation. That was everything. To know that my Mommy and Daddy's legacy was safe, that there would be Apples on that soil..."
Perhaps the words emerged because he believed himself to be so poor with using them. The wrong thing at the right time.
"You've been talking about Applejack," Snowflake said.
"Yeah," came the bitter response. "Figured Ah'd stick to the topic we have in common --"
"-- what about you?"
With every syllable bitten, "What about me?"
He pressed on. "You could have found somepony. Even if you left after Apple Bloom grew up, when the time came, you could have left with your own fami --"
The screech of tortured metal cut him off. Multiple chains going tight at once, pushed to the breaking point --
"No. Ah. Couldn't!"
-- and then there was the rattle of links crashing to the floor, almost lost in the deep sobs.
I know that sound.
I cried like that. On nights after I'd seen somepony else find the sky.
Something everypony else had. Something which I could never have...
And then he knew.
Knew just as surely as he'd known the stone was dead. Because he knew pain, so many kinds of pain. The pain of being alone. The agony which came from knowing you would always be alone.
Family and blood. Oh, Sun and Moon...
The next words were a whisper, and yet they felt like the loudest statement of his life.
"They don't know."
Slowly, the crying stopped.
"No."
"Does anypony --"
"-- you." And that triggered the darkest laugh of all. "But don't worry. Turns out that wanting t' go for you don't run in the blood, so trust me when Ah say y'ain't mah type?"
"Mac --" Sun and Moon, he's been -- years, he's spent all those years --
"You," Macintosh repeated. "And a few ponies around town. Old friends, ones who don't talk. Plus one zebra, which should pretty much give you the name. And that's it."
"Cheerilee." The name was spoken in something very close to desperation. "There was that whole incident with Cheerilee --"
"-- you mean with the love poison?" More bitter than ever. "I'll save you some time. It twists you. It makes you want what you'd never want without it. Ah figure it got used the first time on somepony who wasn't going to go for the one who gave it to them, ever. So how about I go drinking it every day? A dose every morning, just so I never have to think again? Because there's other options. One was finding a mare and spending my life lying to her, because I couldn't do it to myself. And the other was... just not thinking about it. Because you don't know what it's like, when you've got sisters. You put up with anything, anything because you love them. You can't stop loving them, even if you wish you could, just long enough to get on a carriage. But it don't work that way. It's always what she needs, because I'm her big brother, and I had to be her father, and it has to be what she needs. Every day, day after day, always what she needs and never me, never me because..."
"Because it can't be," Snowflake whispered.
"Ah wake up every morning in the same bed," the stallion continued as if the other words had gone unheard. "In the same house, on the same soil, and first thing I see is my books. The ones for college. And sometimes I think, just before I get out of bed... when is it about what I want? But y'can't have that thought, when you're a parent and a brother at the same time. Not for long. It... it breaks you."
There seemed to be a perfectly natural question directly ahead of him. (He wished he could turn his head.)
"Why are you telling me all this?"
It got a snort. "'cause I'm still drunk?" And a sigh. "Told you: seemed like a bad idea at the time. But Ah was just coming off the anger, I'd done what I thought I had to do, but when the rage goes away... it didn't feel like there was anything left but feeling sorry for myself. And I was sick of feeling like that, so... I thought I'd try to stop feeling anything. It was a bad idea, but I'd already had the good one and... the bad idea was the only thing left. Or maybe..." The deep voice became softer. "...because I've already lost everything else. And it feels like it'll be easier to go into prison if there's nothing left."
"Mac --"
"-- I'm telling you things I barely tell Smarty."
"...who?"
"Remember the Smarty Pants Incident?"
"I only heard about it afterwards," Snowflake admitted. "I was in my basement." And had been glad for that, especially once he'd learned of the brawl.
"I won. I got Smarty Pants."
That seemed to be worth a blink.
"She's a good listener," Mac quietly said. "I think the spell maybe wore off on me a little slower than everypony else. Or... I just really needed somepony who would listen."
Almost automatically, "You've got a dog."
"Yeah. And Fluttershy's her groomer. The one who, y'know, chats with her clients to keep them calm?"
"...oh."
"Not that I'm sure how much Equestrian a border collie really understands," Mac dryly added. "Or could try to repeat. But just in case." And before Snowflake could even begin to recover from that, "You got a pet?" Followed by, rather quickly, "Cancel that. You go to the cottage. What kind of pet?"
"A hare. Just a few days ago." Had Fluttershy reached his house yet?
"A hare?" He could hear the surprise. "Didn't figure you for that."
"What did you figure me for?"
Immediately, "Bulldog."
"...why?"
A plain statement. "Because they're damn ugly and Tartarus-strong. Perfect match."
"Thanks."
"Ugly," Mac repeated. "But... it's the kind of ugly where you get used to having it around. You really didn't ask her out, did you?"
"I've asked out one mare in my life," Snowflake quietly said. "It... didn't go well."
"We're tied, then." Chains rattled with the shrug. "The date --"
"-- you're ahead --"
"-- didn't work out. I was hoping... spend some time with a mare I liked, and maybe... it would be more than liking her. But it didn't work that way. I even tried..." and another stop. But this one was brief. "Turns out Zecora doesn't have a potion for everything, and The Most Special Spell is still mares only, not 'two stallions and a mare who's willing to carry'." The big earth pony sighed. "That's so damn much of it, ain't it? When the Spell went public... way before our time, but I'm guessing there were mares all over the family tree who told their parents right then. Because it was safe. They could get married, they could be who they really were, and the blood would flow to the next generation. I know nopony in the family's had a problem with it since. But when it's stallions... the spell ain't that special."
Snowflake wished for words. That he would suddenly know what to say. He could even set it as a goal...
...but his talent was for the physical.
"One kick," Mac quietly said. "One kick breaks everything. Might as well let the cracks spread. Take it all out."
"It doesn't have to be that way."
Accent becoming heavy with pain, "Ah kicked a kid. Y'can talk 'bout blind spots an' instinct --"
And now Snowflake was pleading. "-- it's how the judge sees it, if things get that far. Or a jury. Even Scootaloo. And me, Mac, I can talk to the police. Or you can tell them what you told me. Please --"
"-- mah life is broken, it's been broken for years, tonight was jus' the last part an' Ah deserve --"
"-- you heal," Snowflake said. "And then you're stronger in the broken places."
Bitter again, "And you'd know."
Not without irony, "Yeah."
It was quiet for a while, down there in the chill of the cells.
"Snowflake?"
"What?"
"I did something else. Soon as I reached town."
"Before you started drinking?"
One last snort. "Way before. Because AJ and I had the biggest fight of our lives. Over you."
I'm not worth --
"But that was last night. I stormed off the Acres at night, and... she wouldn't listen to me. I had a good idea, and..."
The chains rattled again.
"...why you? Why did it have to be you?" Mac softly asked. "I've been waiting years, and... it was you. She wouldn't have asked if she wasn't serious. I don't know why it's you. Maybe it's that last mission, that bucking mission, but... it's always what she wants, ain't it? Always her, never me. I... don't know if that's gonna change. Not tonight. I had a good idea, I thought it was a good idea. But angry's worse than drunk. And when you kick in betrayal, it just felt like betrayal..."
"I don't understand." Why was it him? It had to have been Fluttershy, setting up the confidence-building trial gallop. It couldn't have been Applejack's decision, not on her own, not after everything it had led to, because
I'm not worth --
"I did something," Mac quietly repeated. "And now it's coming."
Snowflake wasn't good with words. But now he only needed one.
"What?"
They were sitting on the too-rough benches in the police station's most quiet room, awaiting their turn to be interviewed in relative privacy. Waiting, and some had been there for longer than others.
Fluttershy had gotten back a few minutes ago: it took time to put the cottage to bed, and there was a hare who'd needed a home for the night -- plus she'd needed to divert to the Acres, and so she'd arrived with company.
Apple Bloom was curled up against the larger orange body. Every so often, a fresh trickle of tears ran into Applejack's fur.
And then there was the sound of hooves approaching, the thing they'd been waiting for, but it was too light...
The door opened. Feathers rustled, and then their owner winced.
"It's... just bruises," Scootaloo softly told them, standing still within the doorway. "That's all."
Apple Bloom's snout pressed against her sibling's flank.
"...the doctors let you out?" Fluttershy quietly asked. "Usually it's at least overnight observa --" and stopped. "...they don't know you're here."
"No," the filly half-whispered.
"...do your parents --"
It took a few seconds, and the purple eyes were half-closed when it emerged. "No. I -- know the hospital will look. I was thinking about that before I left. But I need to talk to Miss Rights. I need to be here." She took a hesitant step into the room, looked at nearly every set of eyes. "...please."
"Stay," Applejack said, forcing all of the words to stay even because somepony had to be strong. "If'fin y'want to. Ah think Miranda will be gettin' to us soon. But she'll probably send y'back right after."
"That's okay." The filly looked around the little room, surveyed the available benches, and made her decision. Little gasps of pain heralded the ascent, and a sudden jerk of head and hair bow recognized the contact.
"Ah --"
"Are you all right?" Scootaloo softly asked.
"-- no," Apple Bloom whispered. "Ah ain't."
The little pegasus snuggled closer, and Apple Bloom's body shuddered. Trembled. Relaxed, as far as it could, and a tearful face picked a fresh mane for crying into.
It stayed like that for a few minutes, as the cold dread crept through Applejack's heart. Waiting.
More hooves. Still too light for Miranda, and there was another sound to go with it, a familiar scratching which was almost always produced when the second party approaching moved across floors --
-- the door opened.
"I just heard," the little alicorn rushed her words as she came into the room, her features wracked with concern. "I'm sorry, Applejack, I am, I would have been here an hour ago but nopony told me..."
"...I came straight back," Fluttershy said, the one visible eye starting to close. "I should have stopped at the tree --"
"-- y'were thinkin' 'bout other things," Applejack quickly said. "We all were. Should've sent for you, Twilight, but... just didn't think of it quick enough. Ah was actually gonna go t' the tree before it --" and sighed. "Don't matter now."
"I brought bail money," the librarian said, with her field briefly raising the saddlebags. "I hope. What's the bail?"
"Don't know: ain't got as far as a judge. But thank y'kindly, Twi. That helps. Ah thought Ah had t' wait on the bank, since Ah can't go home yet."
"They were really in a fight?" The alicorn had found some way of looking even more anxious than before. "Really? I mean, I know we wouldn't be here if it hadn't happened, but -- the two of them? And with Big Mac... he was in such a hurry last night, I thought there had to be something going on, but he just said he needed a little help --"
Applejack's ears went straight back.
"He went t' the tree? Last night? He went t' see you?"
"No," said the small sapient who was still standing in the doorway, the one whose voice was perfectly normal and so it was sometimes possible to forget, just for a second, that he wasn't a pony at all.
He swallowed. Fingers clenched, and claws bit into the scales of his palm.
Spike took a deep breath, and forced the words into the world.
"He came to see me."