//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Heart of Stone and Heart of Glass // Story: Pandemic: Starting Over // by Halira //------------------------------// Being left alone with the foals to get to know them started quietly. By quietly, I mean that we all sat around staring at each other without saying a word.  Shǔguāng and Hé Líng took up some interest in their surroundings and began to wander around the room, but thankfully touching nothing. Lántiān stared at me without showing any emotion. Qīng Yǔ stayed snuggled up close to her mother. Hǎo Mèng just slept and was welcome to stay that way until we took him to a proper bed.  It was Lántiān that finally broke the silence. "Do you have any questions or instructions for us, ma'am?"  Try as I might, I didn't have a good response to that question. "Have you all been fed?" "Yes, ma'am. Aside from Qīng Yǔ, who I have yet to feed." I looked down at the smaller blue pegasus filly. "Do you still nurse her on your teats? She seems old enough to eat solid food." "Yes, ma'am, I do. I also feed her solid food. She needs all the nutrition she can get at her age. I want her to be a strong flyer." Qīng Yǔ's parentage presented a question I hadn't thought of. "How much authority do I have over your daughter?" Lántiān snorted and gave a small whinny, the first open sign of displeasure I had seen from her. "We are all under your guardianship, ma'am. My daughter's life is in your hooves, and what authority I have over her is at your behest." I pursed my lips as I considered that. "How much care over your daughter did you have under your mother?" "I attended to the care of all my siblings, except Hǎo Mèng, as well as my daughter, ma'am," she said stiffly. "Our mother is of the night; we are of the day." "She was of the night," I corrected. I didn't want to rub in the fact Yinyu was dead, but it was best they accepted that fact. Lántiān leveled her icy glare on me. "Our mother is still of the night. She still visits us in our dreams, even if her body is gone, ma'am." That was another unique problem in this arrangement. Typically when dealing with orphans, you didn't have their dead parent able to sit down and have a chat with the deceased parent or have said parent be around to give input on how you were doing. I was positive Yinyu would have words with me regularly about how her foals were being treated and brought up. I was not looking forward to what would happen if a disagreement came up.  "What has she said about me?" It was a question worth asking. Best to figure out what preconceived notions she had filled their heads with. My understanding was Yinyu was never particularly fond of me, based on my deeds as a Shimmerist. That made her choice of me as a guardian ten times more befuddling.  Lántiān sat down and lost a little of her tension. "She has said that you are a great and powerful mage, ma'am. She has said that you will protect us. She has said that we are to listen to you and respect you as we would her. That is all she has said." Yinyu didn't give them many notions to go on. That was perhaps a good thing. It was odd that Yinyu had talked up my abilities, but this whole situation was bizarre. "I know of you from school, ma'am." I jerked my head up to look at the teenager.  Lántiān was gazing at me once again with her poker face, saying nothing. I narrowed my eyes at her. "They teach about me in Chinese schools? Me? What do they teach you about me?" Lántiān looked me in the eyes, and once again, I wondered how such a serious filly was the daughter of the Dreamwarden of sex. "Your Shimmerist teachings helped shape China's Shimmerist teachings, in contrast to the radicals who would destroy it with their recklessness. They are not exactly the same, but they are as much a foundation to Chinese Shimmerism as Karl Marx's work. You are like the Karl Marx of Shimmerism, ma'am." Great, add shaping Chinese policy to my list of sins. "And what have they taught you about me as of late?" It must have come as a shock to them when I publicly denounced Shimmerism.  She turned her head slightly. "Nothing has changed in our education. Is there a reason you asked me that question, ma'am?" China had apparently completely censored all my final speech or just suppressed knowledge it had even happened. It shouldn't surprise me. It was typical Chinese propaganda and control of the press. They wouldn't want word that a pony they put on a pedestal in their classrooms had renounced their ideals (even if they were possibly trying to kill me before I ever rejected those ideals. Nor had I been shy in condemning Chinese communists, even back then). She didn't know I renounced Shimmerism. Surely Yinyu had to have known. Why didn't Yinyu tell them? Did they even know about the Cataclysm of Riverview? It was best not to get too deep into that discussion without learning more about her, especially since her cutie mark screamed she was a Shimmerist. I didn't want to have her at odds with me, especially since I needed her help with her siblings. "We'll discuss it later, and I will appreciate all the help you can give with your siblings. Your daughter you may have full control over how she is raised, provided you stick to teaching her English, as I instructed. If you choose to teach her Chinese, it should be as a secondary language." She frowned at me. "What you ask of me will stunt her language development, ma'am. She may not yet speak, but she understands many things that are said to her. Starting over the process of having her learning words will set her back." "Having her unable to speak to others outside her family will set her back even further. Use Chinese where you need to, but focus on teaching her English. It should become her natural language." That didn't seem to sit well with her. "You seem determined to wash away our heritage, ma'am. My siblings and foal should not be made ashamed of where they come from. Our mother and I have our disagreements, and she stood in opposition to our leaders, but our mother loved and respected our heritage. She will not be pleased if you do all you can to suppress it." I sighed. "She and I will have that conversation soon enough. She is the one that put you in my care, and she will have to accept that I may not always do things she agrees with. You are welcome to teach them about Chinese history and culture, but that is to be secondary. They are here, and they will become part of this culture. Understood?" She gave another angry snort. "Understood, ma'am." I was at least getting a rise out of her, and the things that angered her told me much of what mattered to her.  I looked at her brothers, who had drifted off to the edge of the room, and we're looking at a painting of Washington crossing the Delaware. "How much do they know?" I whispered to their older sister. I didn't know why I was whispering. They didn't understand English. "Do they know what has happened to your mother? Do any of you know who your fathers are?" Her eyes followed mine, and her ears fell low. "They have been told, without detail about how, that our mother is dead, ma'am. They don't understand. She still visits us every time we sleep, as she always has. I am sure she is tending to little Mèng now. How can they understand she is dead under such circumstances? They expect her to come back, and that she is only on some trip." I noted that she referred to her youngest brother by only half his name and wondered if the same convention could be applied to the rest. It would save time saying their names and perhaps be more personable. It wasn't what was necessary at the moment. I saw what she was saying and wasn't sure if it was my place to break them of the illusion that Yinyu would return. That was probably best left to their undead mother to explain. "You didn't answer my second question." She bowed her head. "My apologies, ma'am, the first question took my full attention. I will try not to be distracted in the future. No, we do not know our fathers. Our mother was a courtesan; she slept with many ponies.  I know who my daughter's father is, a former classmate of mine, but her father does not." Courtesan? That was the word they wanted to apply to Yinyu's waking world profession? "No need to sugar coat what your mother did. My understanding was that she never did." Lántiān looked at me with one ear cocked. "Sugarcoat? Ma'am, I do not know what you mean by this expression." "Make it seem nicer than it really is," I explained. "I don't mean to disrespect your mother, but Yinyu was a whore and prostitute, and I heard she was never ashamed to admit it." The filly's gaze hardened again. "She disrespected herself by calling herself those things. I will preserve my mother's honor, even if she did not, ma'am." I should have been better, but I was not the best at controlling my temper, and her glares were starting to get on my nerves. "You got pregnant as a teen, and that foal won't even know who her other parent is. It seems that you follow the same paths as her." That was enough to get the filly to grit her teeth. "I am increasing the pony population, as our leaders have encouraged. Young mares should start producing foals as young as fourteen to help with our greater cause. This is not shameful in China; it is something to be honored, ma'am. We are making a better future for all by doing so."  Being treated as a breeding horse was something to be honored? What the hell were their leaders thinking? Why would the population even accept being treated that way? Did their mares have no self-respect? They were not stock to be bred; they were people. Damn communists, damn shimmerists, damn heathens! At least here, they'd be broken of such backward thinking. She looked away. "Mother objected as well. She had no objections to me having sex, for that is her nature, but she objected to my reasons. She, too, disagrees with me contributing to the greater cause. It is as if she doesn't want a better world." Her eyes started to water. "Now she has sent us far from home, into the care of foreigners. She chose to die rather than to let us live our lives in our home. I do not understand why she did such things. I will follow her wishes because I honor my mother, but I do not understand." "" I turned and saw Shǔguāng and Hé Líng had come, drawn by their sister's distress. She looked down at them and spread her wings wide. The two colts hurried into her embrace as she wrapped a wing around each of them. She then started openly sobbing. I thought Hǎo Mèng to be deep in sleep, but the sound of his sister sobbing must have triggered him awake. The sleepy colt had his ears erect as he turned to look at her, and he then flattened them as trailed his vision across the room. He gave me a long look, as if trying to determine if I was the one that hurt his sibling, then continued looking for a moment more. Unable to find the perpetrator, he stood up and walked over to his siblings before promptly falling right back to sleep at his sister's hooves. Qīng Yǔ took this opportunity to climb atop her youngest uncle and settled herself in on her new perch. Hǎo Mèng didn't stir a fraction of an inch, and I could hear him start to snore. As I watched this moment between the siblings, I too asked the same question. Why had Yinyu done this? What would drive her to such lengths? Again I questioned why she entrusted me to take care of her foals and lamented that I was helpless to give them any comfort in their time of need. All I could do is feel sorry for them and try not to feel sorry for myself. It was a more challenging task than it should have been not to feel sorry for myself, but recognizing that fact gave me even more sympathy for the foals that didn't deserve to be going through this.