//------------------------------// // An unexpected summons // Story: The Broken Mare // by Brumby_Run //------------------------------// Walking through Canterlot made Derpy nervous. It didn’t matter that she knew why, or that the related circumstances were very unlikely to arise again, the feeling continued to gnaw at her. She resisted the urge to quicken her pace, as her destination lay no more than a block ahead. Focusing on the sturdy gates in front of her, she trotted forth. She was, however, still confused about why she was summoned. “Reservist Derpy Hooves reporting,” she informed the guards. “Orders?” The white unicorn’s asked in a bored tone. Derpy twisted her head back, plucking the envelope from where it was tucked underneath her wing. The grey pegasus felt the tug of magic, and the letter slipped from her teeth. The guard opened the parchment, and compared its contents to a ledger set before him. With a grunt of assent, his aura was concentrated on the iron gates. They opened, just wide enough to admit the mare. “Your appointment is with the Master-at-Arms, do you know where his office is?” “Would it be in the Armoury?” Derpy asked. “Do I just follow the signs?” The stallion nodded his confirmation to her queries, and returned his attention back to the street. Taking this as a dismissal, she walked forward, still none the wiser. The signs clearly pointed out the direction to the Armoury, it was a short walk through the parade grounds. The young stallion behind the desk directed her to an office down the hall. It was a nice office, all things considered. The walls were painted a quiet beige. Despite its small size, the desk dominated the room. The varnish of the work surface had suffered coffee stains, and was worn thin in places, but the paperwork was stacked in neat piles. There was no clutter, the only personal touch was a foals’ artwork, pinned to a corkboard on the side wall. It was a cosy space. It would be hard to imagine that it lay at the heart of Equestria’s military stronghold. “Miss Hooves, sorry to keep you waiting. I’ll do my best to answer any questions you may have.” The stallion that entered the room was large and muscular. His coat was a cream colour, with a pale blue mane and tail. The mark on his flank was of two crossed swords. “Why was my reserve status activated? It was a special arrangement, because of an irregularity with my discharge...” “Yes, I have read your file.” Derpy blushed. “You can relax, you’re not going into active duty. You are here at the personal request of Princess Celestia. I have been instructed to fit you with the ceremonial armour, and deliver you to her private chambers.” “I was a bareback, I’ve never worn the iron...” Derpy covered her mouth at the faux pas, using the nicknames the troops had for each other in front of an officer. “Yes, I am aware you were an invisible guard,” he replied with a sly smile on his face, stressing the correct terminology. “But today you get to join the ranks of the ceremonial guard.” He gave a quick wink. “You may even enjoy your time as an ironback.” “What will my duties be?” She queried. “How long will this take? I’ll have to make arrangements for my daughter if I’m going to be here more than the one day.” “The princess will give you your exact instructions, but you should be able to catch this afternoon’s return train to Ponyville. You should be home by evening. Shall we get you fitted out now?” Derpy felt reassured, but not exactly enlightened. ----- “It’s good to see you again, Derpy. The armour suits you.” Princess Celestia had dismissed the Master-at-Arms, and was addressing Derpy in her private chambers. It was a rather modest room. Large cushions were scattered about the floor for comfort. There were several bookcases, their shelves weighed down with several centuries worth of nick-nacks and mementos. A small writing desk, scattered with parchment, sat tucked in a corner. The left side of its top was a mess of wax drippings, white droplets from candles and red from the residue of the Royal Seal. The royal Alicorn herself stood by the window. Her pure white coat was radiant in the early morning sun. The jewels in her tiara and yoke glinted in the light, drawing Derpy’s eye away from the mystery of the goddesses wafting mane and tail. Celestia’s serene smile did its best to calm Derpy’s nerves, and her eyes were bright with joy. “Princess, why have you summoned me?” Celestia’s mood darkened. It was as if the question had caused a cloud to cross in front of the sun. While nothing about the Alicorn appeared different, her whole visage seemed to dim. “The three ponies that were responsible for your injuries during the Canterlot riots have applied for parole. They are having their hearing this morning. I would like for you to give a victim’s statement to the parole board. I hope it will help them to make the best possible decision.” “I still don’t remember anything of that day,” Derpy replied in a small voice. “The doctors tell me that I will probably never remember. I don’t know what I should say.” “You can say whatever you would like. There are no rules you have to follow. Talk about what your life is like now, how your injuries have affected you. Nopony will be permitted to interrupt you, or ask you questions. You can speak for as long as you like. Just try to make them understand how you have been affected, as best as you can.” “Why do you want me wearing the ceremonial armour?” “You and Valiant Charge were on duty as guards, my guard. I want these ponies to know that they attacked two of my royal guards. I want them to see you standing before them in the uniform. I want everypony in that room to remember that those three killed one of my royal guards. I am not permitted to interfere with the courts, or parole hearings, but I can do this small thing to ‘stack the deck’ as it were. In fact...” The princesses horn glowed, and an eyepatch coalesced between the two. “...it might be better if you wore this as well.” “But I like my glass eye. You made it for me. It is one of the few things I can remember from that time.” “I do not wish to upset you,” the princess was touched by Derpy’s outburst. “but I do think it would have more impact.” Derpy stood there for a moment, looking at the hovering eyepatch. With a tiny sigh, she ducked her head and pulled off the helmet with a foreleg. “If you think it’s best, princess.” The eyepatch was floated over, and cinched tight over the pegasus’s head. The princess stood back to admire her work, but was interrupted by a hesitant voice. “It’s the left eye that is the false one...” “Oops, silly me.” ----- The parole board had convened in one of the underused criminal courtrooms. Built of marble and granite, with furniture of aged and polished hardwood, it conveyed the weight of centuries of justice. The air was unpleasantly cool and sterile. Both Celestia and Luna took seats where the judge would normally be. An ancient formality, unusual in that the sisters almost never observed such hearings. The parole board, four distinguished ponies from a legal background, sat beneath the royal sisters, files and paperwork scattered on the bench in front of them. On the left side of the court were the two advocate tables, one side arguing for release, the other for the continuation of the sentence. On the right was the docks, where the prisoners sat with their guards. The open space between the docks and advocate tables is where ponies made their speeches and arguments. Derpy paid no attention to the proceedings before her. She let her attention drift between the three stallions in the docks, and the Princess of the Sun. She hoped, desperately, for a spark of memory, some way to recover what she had lost. It had been nearly ten years, however, and was highly unlikely that anything of that day would return. “The state of Equestria calls on Derpy Hooves to make a victim’s statement. Derpy Hooves, step forward and be recognised.” The formal call shocked Derpy out of her reverie. She stood and walked to the center of the courtroom. The click of her shod hooves, and clink of the unfamiliar armour were the only sounds in the room. She gave a curt nod of respect to the princesses, and scanned the parole board, her gaze not actually registering any details. She turned to face the prisoners in the dock, giving them a blank stare. “I don’t care what you do with these ponies,” her voice was flat. ”The dead don’t get to care about what happens to the living.” There was a confused silence. Derpy could feel the questioning looks, the raised eyebrows. She waited a moment before continuing, to give her statement time to sink in. “‘Derpy Hooves’ died that day. Much the same way that Valiant Charge did. She was beaten to death, trying to prevent the Princess of the Sun from being ambushed by a political protest turned violent. I may have inherited her body and name, but I am not that mare.” She turned to face the advocates tables before continuing. “I’ve been told what happened. What ‘I’ did. How I had seen that the princess was cut off from the rest of her ceremonial guard by the protesters. How I had spotted the way she was being herded towards those three, and their weapons. How I had sent the unicorn Valiant Charge to collect reinforcements. How I landed between the princess and the rioters.” She hung her head, “They told me of the beating I took, to spare the princess, and how it bought time for the reinforcements to arrive.” “I remember none of it. I can’t even imagine doing something like that.” She advanced on the parole board, her steps nervous. “When you beat any living creature about the head, there is always the risk of brain damage. There is always a chance that the injuries inflicted will be permanent. I lost my left eye, almost all of my memories, and suffered a pretty severe personality change. I am not the ‘Derpy Hooves’ of that day, and I never will be again.” “I was very lucky not to lose my daughter. I didn’t know I was pregnant when I reported for duty that morning.” Her cheeks blushed with shame as she continued. “Valiant Charge was not just my partner, he was also my lover. I had to learn that by reading my diary. We broke the rules so we could be together. Frat...Fraternisation, it’s called,” she stammered. “We must have been in love. Why else would we risk our careers?” “I can’t remember him!” she cried out, shouting to the ceiling. "We were in love, hiding our relationship from our superiors and friends. Sneaking about in order to steal time together. I fell pregnant to him, and now I can’t even picture his face!” Her voice cracked. “A mare should remember the act of love that gave her a child. At the very least she should remember the face of the stallion she was with. It’s gone, all gone.” Derpy turned, and faced the three ponies in the docks. She couldn’t look them in the eye, so she just hung her head and addressed the floor. “You beat it all out of me. I remember almost nothing of my life before waking in the hospital. My parents are strangers to me. I have managed to build a relationship with them, but the emotional connection is not there. It’s weird, I can recite my times tables, but I can’t recall the face of the teacher that taught them to me. I know I went to flight school, but I can’t recognize any of my classmates. The diaries I wrote read like fiction to me. It's as if it was all about somepony else. All that is left of my life before the beating are fragments of memory, with no context to help my understand.” “You killed me. I am a ghost, a shell of the mare I was.” Derpy threw her head back, and shouted at the ponies in the docks, "What was it all for? What did you hope to achieve by taking up arms against Princess Celestia?” “Does your little political movement even exist any more?!” she bellowed. The grey pegasus fixed her gaze on each of the prisoners in turn. She tried to read their expressions. She searched their faces for answers. She kept at it, until she realized that they were embarrassed. All three of them wore expressions that were positively sheepish. She couldn’t help herself, Derpy broke into a fit of laughter. It was a terrible sound. There was no humor behind it, save that of the gallows. It was the laughter of the dead. The laughter of pain, suffering and frustration. She felt no relief from it, and managed to choke it off with a sob. She fought the tears that were welling behind her eye. “It was all for nothing, wasn’t it?” She stood before everypony present, her head hung so low that her helmet threatened to scrape the floor. Her body looked like it was weighed down by the armour she wore. Defeat radiated from her. She looked like a broken mare in a cheap tin suit. “No,” she berated herself silently, the words bouncing around her head like the one drill-sergeant she could remember, “You’re wearing the armour of the Royal Guard. Act like you deserve it!” Shame pulled her back from the brink. Derpy started to pull herself together. She adjusted her posture, straightening her legs and arching her back. She gave her tail a flick, holding it high. She drew her neck back, and pulled her head up, holding it proud. Snapping her wings open and forward, she became the image of a Royal Guard. The picture was only spoiled by the eyepatch over her left eye, and the rage that boiled behind the right one. “Stay away from Ponyville.” She took a pace toward the docks. The crack of her shoes against the tile floor sounded like a rifle shot. Even the two princesses flinched. “There is nothing you can do for me. No possible way for you to make amends.” Another pace forward, and everypony in the room twitched at the sound. “I have no forgiveness for you. Forgiveness is a luxury the dead are not permitted.” She grinned at that, it was a threatening gesture. “I will not permit my friends, myself, or my daughter, to be hurt by you. Don’t you dare set hoof within fifty miles of my home. There is really very little for a brain-damaged mare like me to lose.” The three ponies in the docks cowered before her. The scourge of the Canterlot riots, frightened of her, the broken mare. The mare they had broken, no less. Derpy almost broke into another fit of laughter. Instead, she gave one derisive snort. “Stay away from Ponyville,” she growled, threateningly. Derpy turned her back to the three prisoners. She let her gaze wander around the room, never quite settling anywhere. The public gallery was filled with ponies she didn’t recognise. The two advocates and the parole board didn’t mean anything to her. Only Princess Celestia, who had been with her every step of her recovery, and Princess Luna, who she had met last Nightmare Night, held any place in her heart. “I don’t care what you do with them. Just keep them away from me.” With that, she turned and walked to the back of the room. She folded and parked her wings at her side, before pushing the grand doors of the courtroom open. Somepony called her name, calling for her to wait, but it wasn’t either of the princesses, so she stepped across the threshold without even looking back. As such, she missed every single guard in the room snapping to attention, and offering her a salute. Instead, she let the doors drift shut silently behind her. ----- Derpy couldn't remember how she got back to the barracks. An automatic pilot she didn't know she had walked her to the Royal Guard's mess hall, and she was now seated alone at a table with a tray of food in front of her. She idly pushed the food around her plate, trying to calm her mind's turmoil. She wasn't hungry, and couldn't imagine why she took a tray. The force of a habit she could no longer remember. The mess hall was quiet. Unusually quiet. It had not been anywhere near as quiet when she came in. Derpy looked up, straight into the eyes of the princess. Panic gripped her. She snapped off a salute, and tried to stand at attention. The stool she was sitting on had other ideas, however, and tangled her hind legs, crashing her down on the floor. With a cry of frustration, she found her footing, and managed to get upright. When she was sure she was stable, she tried the salute again. The clang of hoof against helmet rung through the hall. "At ease," the princess called to the room. The stomp of hooves against the floor as the guards in the hall took up a relaxed stance was deafening. "As you were," Celestia's melodious voice filled the room. Stools were scraped across the floor, and the clink of cutlery against crockery resumed. The mess hall was as close to normal as it could be with the goddess of the sun present. "That means you too, Derpy." The startled pegasus blinked several times before she permitted herself to relax and lower he hoof from her forehead. Silently cursing the stool that had tripped her up, she looked back down to her plate. Still not inspired to eat, she resumed playing with her food. After a few quiet moments, she started speaking just for the sake of conversation, trying to ignore exactly who she was speaking to. "Most days are pretty good. My daughter is a wonderful filly that keeps me so busy. With my mail route to fill my time, and the friendly ponies of Ponyville, most days are pretty good. I really can't complain about my life. A lot of ponies are in much worse situations than I am." With a slow blink, her rambling thoughts continued to spill out. "Some days aren't so great." A scowl crossed her face. "There are times when some ponies use my name as another word for 'stupid.' Either they think I can't hear them, or they just don't care if what they say hurts. There are also times when I'm clumsy, and I break things. My balance isn't so great, thanks to the head injury. Something is messed up with my control of my weather magic too. I just can’t seem to get it right. I got zapped by lightning when I was trying to make a thunderhead rain. Do you know how difficult it can be for a pegasus that can’t be trusted to help out the weather teams?” She gave a heavy sigh before continuing. “Or when I’m in estrus, and I just want a stallion to rut my brains out..." Too late, Derpy remembered who she was talking to. Protocol stated that you didn't discuss sex with royalty. You weren't even supposed to think about sex in the presence of the princesses. Derpy took a mouthful of whatever her fork was dipped in, to cover her embarrassment. When the taste hit her, she couldn't help but pull a face. All the fresh produce around Ponyville had ruined guard rations for her. She pushed the plate aside, and lay her head on the table. "The kind of stallions that are interested in a brain-damaged mare aren't usually the nicest of ponies." She took a hesitant breath, remembering her last liaison. "I don't even have the memories of my time with Valiant to..." If you weren't supposed to think of sex in the presence of the Royal Alicorns, discussing masturbation must surely be a topic too far. She blushed so hard, she could hear the blood rushing to her face. "On the bad days, I just have to keep telling myself that most days are pretty good." She let out a long slow breath. Closing her eye, she whispered to herself, "Most days are pretty good." "I'm sorry I couldn't make today one of the good days," there was a tinge of regret in the Alicorn's voice. "But I hope you understand why it was so important that you came today. Ponies forget. Today, the Canterlot riots are remembered as an irritation, if they are thought of at all. So few even think of the sacrifice that you and Valiant Charge made for my safety. Even members of my guard don't even blink when they pass the memorial plaque on the parade ground." The princess bowed her head, as if carrying the weight of the world. "I remember. I remember everything." The mess grew cold, it looked darker too. It was only just past midday, but it felt like dusk. The princess looked so somber. "I remember every pony that has sacrificed themselves for me. No matter how small, I remember. I have accumulated debts that I can never hope to repay. At times, the weight on my soul is crushing." Derpy didn't know what to say. She desperately wanted to offer some form of comfort, but what could she offer a goddess? She stretched out her wing, and gently brushed Celestia's cheek. She felt, rather than saw, the tear that smeared against her feather tip. The silence stretched between them. After a time, the princess gestured towards the door. Without a word between them, the goddess and the pegasus left the mess. Outside, Derpy turned left, while the princess aimed right. "Where are you going Derpy?" "To the Armoury, to return..." She gestured to the brass she wore, "..this." "The armour is yours Derpy, to keep. Let me walk you to the station." "But, what am I supposed to do with it?" the surprised mare asked. "Whatever you want. I believe that some centuries ago it was quite the fashion for retired guards to display their armour in their homes. I do hope that you would wear it on Remembrance Day." They walked on, not one member of the public giving them a second glance. Seeing the princess walking around Canterlot with a guard was not unusual. None suspected that it was the princess escorting the guard. As they arrived at the station, a phalanx fell into step behind the princess. "There is one more thing, Derpy." Something started to coalesce between them. "You left this behind when you left the castle infirmary." With great care, the goddess of the sun attached the medal to the breastplate Derpy was wearing. In a scene that shocked all present into a stunned silence, the princess bowed low enough that her chin nearly scrapped the ground. "Derpy Hooves, for your services protecting the state of Equestria, and for the sacrifices made to protect the Goddess of the Sun, I present you with the Medal of Valour. May your example light the way for all who follow." "Tha-th-thanks?" the blushing mare stuttered. "And stop referring to yourself as 'brain-damaged.' You are suffering from a medical condition. Amnesia, it's called. You would do well to remember that. You might attract a better class of stallion. I know of a few that would consider the armour... Stimulating." The princess offered a sly wink, as she stood tall amongst the crowd. Behind her, the phalanx stood at attention, and held their salute until the train Derpy boarded pulled out of the station. ----- While the train ride home was embarrassing enough, the walk through Ponyville had Derpy believing that it might just be possible for a blush to prove terminal. Thankfully, the walk through town was short, and she was soon on the road to Sweet Apple Acres. The Apple family had been kind enough to offer to look after little Dinky, while she was in Canterlot. Applejack had mentioned that she might prove to be a calming influence on the wild antics of the "cutie-mark crusaders." A gentle rap against the homestead door was enough to stir the household. Derpy could hear the distinctive drawl of Applejack over the hubbub of dinner. "Come on in," she called out while pulling open the door, "Plenty of food for one... Whoa Nelly. Is that really you, Derpy?" With a protracted sigh, the mail-mare responded, "Yeah, it's me. It's a long story, that I'm not sure I want to go into now. If Dinky is ready, we'll just head off." "No can do, Sugarcube. You look like you need a big slice of pie, and a tankard of hard cider. Come on through to the kitchen," she offered. "But you might want to lose the eyepatch. It's kind of intimidating." She left the helmet hanging on the coatrack by the door, and with nowhere else to put it, tucked the eyepatch into her breastplate. She walked through, the rattle of the armour uncomfortably loud. Predictably, conversation at the dinner table was silenced. Applejack moved to the counter to fix Derpy's pie and cider, fussing over the food and biting back on her curiousity. Macintosh fumbled with his cutlery, dropping the food from his fork onto the plate in front of him. "Wow, Derpy stole a guard's uniform!" Scootaloo cried out. "Now, I'm sure it aint like that," Applejack countered. "Just hush up, and let her speak." There was only one pony in the room that Derpy had any interest in. And the pale lavender unicorn filly had a look of terror on her face. Her little Dinky looked scared out of her wits. Not surprisingly, as the ceremonial armour was designed to intimidate as much as protect. "It's all right Dinky. The Princess gave me the uniform. It's kind of a gift. You see, before you were born, I was a guard for the Princess. Your father was too..." And with that, she told the tale of the Derpy Hooves she could no longer remember.