//------------------------------// // Chapter 11 // Story: Broken // by Bicyclette //------------------------------// MI AMOR FAMILY ALBUM Shining’s mind only had time to register its own confusion before he heard a voice from behind him. “Dad?” He turned around to see Cadance trotting into the library behind him, a worried look on her face that was all too familiar. But just what had she called him? “Cady?” Shining puzzled. “Why did you call me—” No. The alicorn that was looking down at him wasn’t Cadance. Her coat was too light of a shade of pink. And her mane was all the wrong colors. Violet and blue, just like— A sick feeling of dread welled up inside him as he felt his heartbeat quicken, his stomach knot. His knees felt weak.  “Dad!” The alicorn embraced him, pressing her cheek to his, holding up his body with her frame. Shining could feel the heat coming off of her cheek as she gently caressed the back of his head and neck with a hoof.  “It’s okay, Dad! I’m here now. I’m here. I won’t let you go. Everything is going to be okay.”   A memory flashed through his mind. Hugging a pony. A teenaged filly, from how much shorter she was than him. Familiar words from his mouth.  “It’s okay, Dad.” A soft voice, almost a coo. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Shining squeaked. “Flurry?” “Yes, it’s me, Dad!” A bright laugh, the most beautiful thing Shining had ever heard. “It’s me. I’m here. Here.”  Shining felt a warm buzz brush against his fetlocks and he looked down at his hooves, seeing but trying not to register just how thin his legs looked. A large cushion, held in a yellow aura, was being placed gently beside him. “Just lay yourself down, Dad. Slowly. I can help.” His first instinct was to protest that he could certainly lay himself down, but he thought better of it. He felt the warmth of that yellow aura on his barrel and legs now, as he could no longer feel his own weight. Slowly, gently, his own legs folded underneath him as he was floated onto the cushion, then let go. The cushion was soft. It felt nice. “Is that okay, Dad?” “It’s perfect.” Shining smiled, looking up at Flurry Heart, who was looking down on him with a smile of her own.  “You look just like your mother now. So beautiful.” Shining frowned. “I must have said that before, haven’t I? I’m so sorry.” “No, don’t apologize, Dad. I—” She paused. “It’s nice to hear that every time.” “Every time?” Shining frowned. He looked back down at his legs, all shriveled up and wrinkly. That pit began to form in his stomach again. “Why can’t I remember?” Was his voice always so hoarse? So creaky? He felt the caress of a hoof on his cheek: both soft fetlock and the hard edge of keratin. Flurry was sitting down too, now, a foreleg outstretched to touch him, and her other legs folded underneath her. “You’re sick, Dad. Sometimes you just... forget things. A lot of things, all at once. Then what’s left of your memories gets jumbled up, and you start acting, well, strange. Talking to ponies who aren’t there. Who haven’t been”—her voice quavered—”for a long time.”    Those words lingered in the silent air between them, settling into the cracks and crevices that Shining could suddenly see in his daughter’s perfect face. The lines underneath her eyes; how the blues of her irises were not as bright as they should have been. Not the signs of aging, but the signs of age. A “long time”? Just how long? How long had he been like this? How many times had she told him these words? And just who— He felt dread begin to course through him again, as he saw the worry in his daughter’s eyes. A subtle sparkle that could not help but show itself in the corners.  “I’m so sorry, Honey,” he squeezed out in a sob.  “I’m so, so sorry.” The pounding in his head returned as he cursed himself for being unable to remember. “I’m so sorry! I’m supposed to protect you but I can’t even protect you from myself!” “No, Dad, it’s okay. Really.” Flurry was speaking in that calming voice again. “It’s okay.”  Shining closed his eyes, feeling his tears squeeze their way out of them. “Dad,” Flurry cooed. “It’s okay. I’m used to this now. I don’t need any protecting.” Shining felt a warm fetlock press against the skin of his eyelids, wiping away his tears. He felt a sympathetic tug at his own fetlock, as he remembered how a young filly’s tears once felt on them. He chuckled. “I guess the roles have switched now.” “They’ve been like this for a long time,” Flurry said gently, still wiping away some tears. Some part of Shining lashed out at himself for that, for his failure. For how long he had let this go on. As if reading his mind, Flurry spoke. “It’s okay, Dad. You’ve spent my whole life taking care of me. Always being there as a shoulder to cry on. Showing me what a good pony was:a loving husband to Mom, a caring leader to your soldiers. Keeping me safe from myself. Always being proud of me, always trusting me, no matter what I did. You were always there for me. You were always Shining Armor, the best dad in the world. And now, it’s my turn to take care of you. ” Shining frowned at how much this felt like she was talking about someone else.. “But I’m not that Shining Armor, Flurry. I don’t remember being him. I… I don’t remember anything.” He looked around the room and for the first time realized just how spartan this so-called library room was. A single set of bookshelves. Plain walls. No windows.  “I don’t even know where I am. Much less who I am, or what I am. Just a minute ago, you were--” he chuckled. “You were just a baby. And Mom was there next to you, worried about me. Because of my horn—”  He rolled his eyes up, straining them until he could see the tip of his horn at the edge of his vision. Instead of a crusty bandage or a jagged edge, the sides were polished up to a blunt and useless tip. He gingerly probed the part of his mind that activated unicorn magic, and felt the disquieting numbness of nothing in return. “My horn.” He looked at Flurry. “That part was real? When did that happen?” Flurry gave him a concerned smile. “Long enough ago that I’ve always known you like this, Dad.  It never healed right. It never would have. They saved as much as they could, made it look nice ”  “I…” He frowned, as a slight headache began to return to him. “That’s why I was down here.”  “For this, right?” Flurry floated the family album in her aura to rest itself down on the floor between them as Shining watched. “It’s funny, Dad. You had it on the floor when I came in. You were looking for this, weren’t you?” “I was.”  Shining’s mind strained as he stared at the words on the plain cover. Something was tugging at the corners of his mind. The Key? “I thought it was something to help me… Help me find my identity. After I broke my horn.” “Were you scared, Dad? About your future?” Shining’s lip quivered. “I was. I just didn’t know how I could be what you and Mom needed. How I could be needed. I— I just didn’t know who I could be. What kind of pony I would become.”  Flurry smiled at him. “Well, Dad.” Shining could see that Flurry was holding the album’s cover in her aura. Just one flick, and it would open. Just one flick. “Some part of you must remember this somehow, Dad. It really is fascinating. Because this is how we get your memories back, by looking through old pictures. Because they’re not exactly gone. You just lose your connections to them.” She smiled at him. “Do you want to see, Dad? Do you want to see what kind of pony you became?” For a second, Shining wanted to say “no”. As if opening up that cover would end this dream. End the old dream. Why did he want to hold on to it so badly? He couldn’t think of the reason. He nodded. Flurry Heart opened it to the first page, showing a photograph of a classic family portrait: He and Cadance sitting upright, side by side, giving a look of adoration to the infant daughter they were holding in their forelegs, who herself was giving the camera the most innocent of smiles. Nothing out of the ordinary, were it not for the shattered, jagged edge of his cut-off horn. That smile was as real and as bright as any other. Flurry turned the page, to another familiar setting: Shining in his uniform as the Commander of the Crystal Guard, which he could tell even from the picture was fitting loose on him. Loss of muscle during his recovery? But there were his soldiers, saluting him with all the respect and pride that they had ever shown him. Flash Sentry, who always took care to make sure the blue plumes of his helmet crest matched the color of his mane, smiling extra brightly.  Flurry kept slowly turning those pages, leaving him just enough time to take in the details of each photograph. Birthday parties, family vacations. Official ceremonies, too, often with a stern-faced, purple-coated unicorn who had a broken horn of her own. Yes, Tempest Shadow, that was her name! With each photograph, he felt his memories filling themselves into the skeleton they provided, whispering to him names and details. Dominique, Flurry’s little griffon friend, on that day they all went to the lake. Emerald Greave, being sworn into her new position as his second-in-command. Starlight Glimmer, the Headmare of the School of Friendship, awarding a diploma to a much older—no, younger, he reminded himself—Flurry Heart. Names and details. But not all of them, and many photographs passed by without much of an impression besides a vague dread. Why did he remember Plaid Stripes, the overexcited tourist he met just one time, but not that sullen-looking filly with a light-blue mane that Flurry was always with? But there was that reassuring beat of the pictures of their yearly skyboat trip to the Neighagra Falls, with Mom and Dad and Twily. That invented family tradition marked the progress of time, as he watched as Flurry grew into a lanky and pouty adolescent, covering up her cutie mark with a thick black jacket; her horn with an oversized cap; the bright smile of her innocence replaced with one of politeness. He noticed Twilight grow and grow until she reached Cadance’s height and beyond, before skipping one picture, then two, then disappearing altogether. He saw the wrinkles on Mom and Dad’s faces set in deeper and deeper, somehow spreading to the rest of their bodies until they were stooping while standing, thin and frail. This would have distressed him more, if he had not also seen that the warmth of their smiles and the happiness in their eyes never faded an iota. “And here’s the last one, Dad,” said Flurry, to Shining’s heartbreak. And surprise, since they were about a third of the way from the back cover.  One last skyboat trip. Twilight was in this one, having to sit down in order to not appear so tall and imposing as she was in her regalia. There he was, his horn the polished, useless nub that had become so familiar, the lines of age starting to show underneath his eyes. Cadence next to him, showing no such lines. Then there was Flurry, the same size as that filly whose name he still could not remember, standing next to her. Of course, they were both fully grown mares at this point, in regalia of their own, having shed the signs of their teenage rebellion. Fully grown mares, but the same size that he remembered Twily being when she took the throne of Equestria. That is, about a head shorter than both he and Cadance were in the picture. But the flesh-and-blood alicorn next to him could not have been any shorter than the Cady he had remembered. And that was not all. He was clearly much older now than the Shining in the photograph, whose legs were still thick and strong. He stared at Flurry for a bit, the gears turning in his mind, trying to divine just what had happened in those missing years. Why the photographs stopped where they did. His mind struggled to knit together the clues. And at the same time, not knit them together… His mouth spoke before he realized the words. “Mom’s gone, isn’t she?” Shining looked desperately at Flurry’s face, hoping for anything but the reaction he got: A sad, slow nod. He expected it to destroy him. Instead, in the part of his heart where Cadance lived, he felt nothing but the same numbness that he felt where his horn was supposed to be.  He frowned, his gaze drifting off, not knowing which absence was worse. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We always talked about the future as if I would be gone, but she would just go on.“ He looked at Flurry. “What happened?” Flurry sighed. “A lot of things you would be better off not remembering, Dad. And I really hope you don’t.” She spoke carefully, hesitantly. “Do you?” Shining looked at the photograph. At Cadance’s face, her smile, identical to so many of the other times he had seen it. A smile he would never see again. He tried to remember anything, but again, that same numbness. “No,” he said, looking back up at Flurry. “I’m glad.” Flurry smiled at him. “All you need to know is that she loved us all so very much. That is what’s important.” That soft tone of voice. That reassuring smile. A memory, of all of that coming from his mouth, that smile on hers twisted into a snarl, back when she was a teenaged filly. He just nodded, and mirrored her smile. The roles have switched, indeed.  A realization hit him. A sour taste. “How long will it be, Flurry?” She didn’t need to ask what he meant.  “Less each time. Maybe a few weeks, if we’re lucky. Then you begin to fade away again. Back to your dreams.” “Then I forget again. And you have to tell me everything again.” Shining frowned. “How is that a life? Being such a burden. Making you go through that each time.” “It’s not a burden, Dad Really.” Flurry reached out to hold his hoof again, looking into his eyes. “You always forget that Mom’s gone, and you always dream of her. And when you tell me what she was like in your dreams, it’s like for a few moments, she’s still alive and with us.  It’s… it’s actually really nice. “ Tears welled up in Shining’s eyes. “I wish I could tell you what she was like. But I…” He sighed. “All I remember is what she was like in the last dream. I can’t even remember if I dreamed of her before that.” “It’s okay, Dad.” Flurry smiled serenely. “Anything is good.” “It really wasn’t much! She just wanted me to go upstairs, to rest. I ignored her.”  Shining winced. “I thought of her as an obstacle.“ “She cared about you. She loved you. That is what matters.”  Shining nodded, and echoed her earlier words. “She loved us all so very much, didn’t she?”  “Yes, Dad. She did.” Those words settled into the air. Shining just felt the warmth of Flurry’s hoof on his for a few moments, in silence. He broke it. “So, a few weeks, huh? Before all this starts again.” He let his gaze wander. “So what do the past me’s usually do with that time?”  Flurry pointed a hoof at the bookshelf, as if she had anticipated his question. “It’s not just the one album, Dad. There are a lot of others, and books about what you and your friends did in your lives, and all the issues of Power Ponies that were ever published… It’s actually more than you can get through before you go away again.” “Before I go away again,” Shining echoed. He looked back at Flurry. “And I just do that instead of spending time with my daughter?” “Dad!” Flurry scolded. “Going through these memories with you is how I spend my time with you! And I wouldn’t have it any other way. You’re just so happy when you do. And besides.” She floated over another book from the bookshelf, one with a side portrait of him and Cadance together on the cover. “Mom’s in here a lot, too. In her letters and pictures and everything she’s done. It’s always nice to remember her together.” She looked at him. “Do you want to start?” He looked at her soft, reassuring smile.  The warmth in her eyes. The promise in them, that everything was going to be alright. He chose to believe it. That for the next few weeks, he would gorge on the treasures of the past until he burst, before sinking back into the chaotic swirl of nothingness that awaited him. Mired in a haze of dreams until he would be fished out, again, by the alicorn who was now warmly holding his hoof. That he would have this conversation again, and that after all the pain and confusion he would find his way back here to this moment. Where he was here, with his loving daughter, and everything was going to be alright. “Yes,” he said. “Let’s.”