The soft noises all around the room were the only thing keeping the silence at bay, allowing Twilight sparkle to pace back and forth from one corner of the room to the other, in a series of fast, but constant steps, her hooves making soft noises due to the way she walked, pretty much doing the hoofed equivalent of tiptoing, her breathing becoming slowly but surely mroe and more irregular, not in a harmful way, but an stressed one.
The princess didn't even seem to mind the worried glances from the other ponies, mostly the nurses all around the place, they were busy carrying medical materials from one place to the other, doctors all around the white halls, pretty much running despite the dangerous tools they were carrying.
Twilight was in the hallway, in front of a closed door, there was a constant noise of hooves inside, but also, the feeling in the air was quite dense and heavy, overwhelming the poor Princess, who seemed to grow more and more desperate with each second, not too far behind her, there was an older looking stallion, with somewhat grayish azure coat, and dark blue mane, he was sitting in a chair not too far, looking with concern at the alicorn.
"Twilight... please, sit down for a while, walking all over the hall won't make this faster" He spoke, in a soft voice, as he stood up walking to the side of the alicorn and gently placing a hoof on her shoulder, Twilight looked at him and opened her mouth to speak but chose to remain silent at the end, looking down as the stallion gently nuzzled her "Please dear, come, lets sit down for a bit, you haven't even touched the hayburger I made for you"
"Dad... its just that... Well... That poor stallion saved so many lives... and yet he seems to be struggling to keep his own... It isn't fair... All the things he had been trought... The worse is, that at some point... I was pretty much willing to aid his captors..."
"You didn't do anything wrong Twilight... You were scared, trying to protect others, you didn't knew he was some poor stallion forced to fight for his life, you only knew he was dangerous... once you got to know the truth, you did what was right, you protected everypony that needed protection, you are a heroine Twilight, even if you don't feel like one"
"But dad, that poor colt almost died, what if the doctors can't save him?, would it be fair to be calm and collected when somepony is on the verge of dying after fighting for so long?"
"It wouldn't be fair, you are plenty of right Twilight, however, you need to understand something dear, you did your best, you did what it was needed to do, protected the innocent colts, saved everypony, even this... creature, everypony has another chance because of you, however..."
The stallion suddenly lifted his hoof and slapped Twilight in the face, making everypony nearby shudder after they saw that.
"DONT YOU EVER DARE TO DO SOMETHING THAT STUPID AGAIN YOUNG LADY!" The stallion shouted as he began to softly cry "You could have died!, That's what you should be wary of!, What kind of logic you used? Offering yourself in bargain to pirates, you could have been murdered in cold blood, or worse!"
Twilight backed down a bit as her father stopped to breath for a while, before lunging at her and hugging her, so strongly that Twilight felt herself choking a bit.
"Please... don't you ever dare to do something that stupid again... I'm already worried that Shining is a royal guard, don't you dare worry me too!, One thing is fighting against some magical villain you can outmatch, one thing is fighting against an enemy that wouldn't kill you..."
The stallion sobbed a bit as he embranced Twillight even more tightly, nuzzling her as much as he could, while petting her mane with his hoof.
"Another... is fighting bloodthirsty enemies... We both have read plenty of books about the horrors of pre-Pax Celestia Equestria... we both know the kind of horrible things somepony would do just for fun... if what you faced is true, then you better be careful from now onward, buck it, you are a princess! You should have at least two or three guardsmares with you from now onwards!"
Twilight felt horrible, now that she was safe, several ideas and plans began to pour inside her mind, like a flood of countermeasures, the way she acted was far...TOO FAR, from the most optimal way to have dealt with the situation, however, despite her sudden influx of ideas, something else sprout from her mind.
Her bad choices led her to save plenty of lifes, and thanks to this she could save the creature, her heart felt heavy, but the weight of guilt was drifting off, allowing her to breathe, she thanked her mother in silence for teaching her an small trick to calm down.
Picturing an small feather in front of her, Twilight breathed slowly, in a soft but steady rythm, trying to make the feather keep as stable as possible, inhaling and exhaling to control the feather, after a few seconds, she was feeling a bit calmer, allowing her to look to her father who was gently hugging her by now.
"Dad... I'm sorry" The princess said while hugging back her parent, who gently held her before kissing her cheek "Just be careful dear, I know that you are a grown mare, a princess on top of that... but... please, excuse your old man for getting emotional, in my eyes you are still that tiny filly you were mere weeks after you were born... no matter how hard I try, I still have it pretty hard to picture you as a grown mare"
"Come on dad, I will always be your little filly" Twilight smiled nuzzling him a bit more before they broke the embrance, the Princess looking towards the door with a worried face "However, i'm starting to feel that Equestria won't be the same, I overheard some things while I was captured, and, well, I don't think I should say them out loud..."
"You better don't, at least for now, however, I expect you to take some lessons with your Mother, you will learn how to shoot a crossbow and fight with spears... after we spend some time together. When Rarity sent the letter, everypony was scared, praying that you were safe... And, I think we should do something as a family before returning to work, you need to rest a bit after all"
"Yes, I know dad, I already had an itinerary for a vacation in Puerto caballo, I made it for Rarity's parents but they decided to go to New mareland at the end." Twilight said and her Father nodded with a soft smile, softly stroking her mane, as the mare sat down next to him, softly breathing in and out. "Dad... what rank was mom before her Honorable Discharge?"
"First Lieutenant, she led an artillery platoon in Trottingham, she was so... marely in that beautiful Chainmail vest... I remember that she was called to duty against a Thestral coup in Manehattan, a group of twenty thestrals wanted to proclaim 'The lunar republic' as they called it and decided to seize manehattan, they spent a hundred years gaining enough support to attempt the coup, just for your mom and her friends to come into play and teach those rascals a lesson!, i was there as a part of a Nurse volunteer group, mostly to help the Thestrals understand that we meant them no harm, since back at the time there was quite the big language barrier, your mom saved me from one of those rascals and carried me under the Dusk back to safety, it was so beautiful, she was my knight in Shining armor carrying me to safety under the Sparkles of Twilight..."
"Thanks dad, I always loved that story" The princess nuzzled her father, as he let himself fall back into the memories of his story, focusing so much into those old, but strong memories that he softly began to cry a tiny bit, a collective 'awww' could be heard from certain stallions not too far, while some mares lifted their hooves in respect, saying something about Twilight's mom being a true 'Trixie'. "After that battle she got hurt quite badly in the hip, she got shot by a crossbow dart, she wanted to keep serving but I couldn't allow her to do that, back then I wasn't even a friend of her, I was just that weird colt who loved itineraries a bit too much..."
"But, I still don't understand something, how did you get mom to accept the honorable discharge?"
"He kept pestering me until I got angry enough to shout at him, then he silenced me with a kiss" A female voice could be heard as mare stepped in, with firm steps with her front hooves, while her back legs had an small, barely visible limp, mostly visible around her right leg, near her hip. "Then he threw me into my bed and forced me to stay there as he prepared the most delicious rice I ever had in my whole life, turns out that even the most stubborn mare can be convinced with some homemade stallion cooking"
"Oh, come on, you know my cooking isn't that good, you would praise anyone who boiled something barely organic in water..." He chuckled while a Gray coated mare came closer to him and gave him a little peck in the cheek "Those divine Neighponese styled rice rolls don't say the same dear"
"Hehe" Both, husband and wife shared a laugh while Twilight couldn't avoid chuckling herself, as she looked towards the door, feeling a bit better, not exactly good, but at least better enough to think more clearly. "Mom... I... have a question..."
"Go ahead Twilight, Go ahead, I will do my best to answer" The Older mare said as he took seat to the other side of Twilight, letting her stay bewteen she and her husband. "how... how does... it...it...it feels to kill..."
"That.... that's something I can't answer." Her mother seemed surprised, shocked even, but tried her best to keep her voice low enough to not be heard by anyone nearby, and loud enough for her family to listen. "It ain't a good feeling at all, it is a cold, eerie feeling of dread and voidness, hollowness if you must, it feels like it should be a crowning moment of awesomeness, the big heroine bringing down the bad gal and saving the cute colt in distress... but it ain't like that at all... it feels cold, weird, the second you do it, you feel your whole body go numb, your mind going blank, your very own soul shocking itself... only to have that feeling dissapear the next second, leaving you with nothing but the guilt of what you did...
The older mare tried to explain as her face slowly turned more and more into an akward poker face, but her lips defied her neutral looks, trembling ever so slightly to prove that she wasn't that ready to talk about it, her words coming out as soft spoken and yet, clearly with a hint of agression, as her closed eyes didn't do much to hide her conflicted ideas and mind, on top of that, there was the fact that her small limp became a bit more noticeable, mostly because of an small twitct in her leg.
Those quickly dissapeared once she took a deep breath, and with an small smile gave her daughter a sudden hoof to the face, making the Mare stumble on her chair and almost falling down, were it not for her father.
"That's for doing something as stupid as to give yourself to pirates! YOU COULD HAVE DIED, LIFE IS NOT ONE OF YOUR NEIGHPONESE COMICS, LIFE ISN'T ONE OF THOSE!
"While I agree on the scolding part... I take you didn't read the second letter, didn't you?" Asked her husband as Twilight softly massaged her cheek, attempting to ease the pain of the hit, cursing herself for what she did back at New Horseleans, but then again, thanking her luck for actually managing to survive that. "Well... when I read what Twilight did... I'll be honest I couldn't exactly focus on the rest, I felt... well, you know, exactly like you did.
"Well, you see..."
"Don't tell me, there's some stallion that the pirates have captured, minus the alien part, and that colt was in the same ship Twilight and the captured stallions were" She asked and her husband nodded "Plus, the alien part darling, the colt resembles a mythological being"
"Dad, I think that yetis do exist, They aren't some myth, at least from what little I could read about them in the crystal empire" Twilight said and her father nodded "Yes, but i'm talking about their fabled cousins, the Sasquatch, unlike the Yetis wich have plenty of history with the southern tribes around the Shores of Feuerland, back at the griffon continent".
"We still can't pronnunciate the name of that continent, don't judge us Twilight" Her mother joked while her Father giggled gently, Twilight smiled and opened her mouth to speak, pronnunciating the name of that place, however no one could hear her, because the doors were suddenly kicked open allowing a Mare to run towards the family, however, she slipped and fell face down to the floor, with a loud thud and a horrible noise as her teeth dragged on the floor, in a clearly painful manner. "Ugh... Princess... the thing... is... gone..."
She coughed before fainting after the hit, and Twilight didn't even heed the sudden call of her parents to stop, she threw herself with a jump at the door, landing just a tiny distance away from it, then she held the knob and opened it, before running as fast as she could again.
What she found out was quite... unexpected...
She could see an open door, where a rather big bed, clearly not meant for ponies but for bigger beings, she didn't even think twice about entering the room flapping he wings softly, in an attempt to present herself as least threathening as possible if by somehow the creature was still there, hoping to not scare him away.
"I... i know you may be scared, but, we mean you no harm, please, come out"
She drew herself closer to the floor wanting to land, but then she could see an small glimmer of light, looking down she noticed a few broken srynges, tiny puddles of red around the broken glass, however the small shimmer didn't came from the light... no...
It came from an small gray dot, hidden in the puddle of red, that gray dot suddenly moved, at an outrageous speed, Twilight could barely follow it with her eyes. It went out of the room and she followed suit, still flying, because only like that she could actually follow it.
Her parents called for her, but she couldn't avoid her need to know what that dot was, or why it was moving so fast on the floor, moving trought the halls so fast it forced Twilight to teleport a few times to avoid hitting some scared nurses and medics, most of them were already surprised before she even arrived, however they upon noticing her tried to tell her something.
But alas, her eyes, her everything was glued on following that small dot, not unlike opalescence whenever she was in the mood of playing, her focus forcing her to focus so much on that thing that her own mind was clouding a bit, and she couldn't help but wonder why.
Once again, logic was taking its sweet, sweet time to actually hit her, once again she was cursing herself for this strange attitude she had, acting before thinking, unlike what she usually was.
The dot finally slipped under a door, and she landed, noticing that the door had an small text on it, the warning "Staff only" being in thick red letters, that seemed to actually trigger her logical thinking once again.
She stood in silence, wondering, pondering what she should do next, trying to understand just how much she had done right now, and in what kind of problem she would be if she did so much as graze something delicate or with a biological risk, specially since she was deep inside the most restricted part of the hospital.
"C...come in..." That deep voice... masculine, clear, but weak and distant, it came from inside the room, just as she was deep inside her mind, the soft noises of chalk coming from inside too, barely audible, but present. "A...are you there?"
Who was there?, why did she even believe that whoever was inside would know her?, as far she concerned she could just be ruining the work of some doctor, but the answer, came pretty late after the noises of chalk were slowly dying.
"Y...yes... it is me... h... h..." He answered back before coughing again, with a somewhat wet noise too, as if droplets of something had just hit the floor. "J...just come inside... alicorn... this is... what... I wanted to tell you, but... I don't know if i will be able to say later..."
The voice made sense, it was the ape!, and by Celestia, he really, really sounded hurt... Twilight could notice that her parents alongside some of the hospital staff and a few guards were drawing near... on top of that, she swore she could see even just a glimmer of the mane of Celestia.
However, despite being aware that she deserved an scold for this, she also needed to make sure that whatever the creature wanted to say, could be heard by everypony, and maybe, only maybe that would ease her punishment a bit and make Celestia not send her back to magical kindergarden.
Softly pushing the door, she made way as everyone tried to call her...
What she saw was at the same time the most beautiful and worrisome sight ever... now she understood why the chalk noises... and... why the wet noises too...