I've been told that most ponies don't remember much of their foalhood when they get older, only a select few bright sparkling images stay burned into their minds to represent the whole and I have my share of those. It seemed to me, though, that the vast swaths of missing time constituted a pattern of cruelly excised moments, the absence of which made my whole experiential edifice teeter precariously.
There were glimpses, though.
Gnashing of teeth, screamed invectives, magical discharges that made the very air itchy and even brief flashes of bright arterial blood.
Things had happened, very bad things. I knew that much, but had long accepted that I didn't really want to know about them anyway. Now I did want that knowledge and all that remained was an unfocused slideshow of ill defined traumas and feelings of fear and sorrow.
The rest is poorly stitched together moments with my father in the brief periods he was ashore and my vaguely remembered school days. Wave Crest was in there somewhere, my oldest friend, as was Mom bringing home a black puppy only weeks before she dove out of my life.
Maybe that's why he acted so detached from me, he was never really my dog at all, I was just looking after him until he could return to her.
From the moment Mom arrived on the scene there was an overwhelming sense of familiarity to the whole situation. If not the actions themselves, the feelings were certainly an echo of the past. I couldn't say for certain if dragging bodies around had been a foalhood pastime of mine, but it certainly seemed like second nature and I didn't stop to question whether or not I should be doing it.
These are things that worried me later, however, when I had time to ponder.
We galloped through the Ponyville night unnoticed with our gruesome cargo swaying between us. I don't know what we would have done had we been discovered, I do wonder if she had some contingency plan for that that didn't involve violence. We didn't slow down until we were well into the Everfree forest in a large clearing.
My mother ignited a floating orb of magic which dimly lit the immediate area, bobbing just above our heads.
"Won't that attract animals?" I asked nervously. I'd heard the Everfree was home to all manner of ravenous carnivore and malicious magical beast.
"Yes, but it's alright, they won't hurt you, trust me!" She said reassuringly and for a moment I did, but then I thought about it more and realized where we were and why.
"Trust you? You just killed somepony and dragged me off into the woods, why should I trust you?" I demanded.
She grunted, heaving the body up onto a stump, "He wasn't a pony at all, he's a changeling and he was going to replace you to get to me. By replace I mean kill and eat, by the way. For somepony who meant to be sneaking around you sure haven't kept a low profile."
What she was saying in her oblique way is that I endangered myself as well as her with my sloppily executed skulking and I couldn't disagree, really, but a changeling? That's pretty far fetched. "If he's a changeling why didn't he turn back once you killed him?"
She gave me a perplexed look and shook her head, "You have a number of mistaken ideas that I'm going to have to correct. First, changelings only revert to their natural state when they're killed in novels, bad ones at that. See, you're assuming they use an illusion spell when in fact they actually transform themselves. It's fascinating, really, and given enough time I think a unicorn could do it too."
"Now that's an honest mistake to make, I doubt you've ever knowingly seen a real changeling before today. Sneaky is their stock and trade, after all."
"The second fallacy under which you're suffering is that I, in fact, killed him, but no indeed I did not. You did."
I ran carefully through the events that led here in my mind. No version nor interpretation fit with me being a killer and I didn't see how it would fit metaphorically either.
Mom was working busily at the stump, going through motions that I chose not to perceive. They resulted in fresh meat being flung towards the periphery of the circle of light to be snatched away by half seen horrors with glowing eyes. The fact that we arrived with a stallion, somepony's son, and now the flesh craving monsters were having a buffet were facts that my mind vehemently refused to connect. So far as I was concerned the two things were wholly unrelated, we were feeding pigeons.
Eventually mom gave me a sidelong glance, "You really don't remember what happened way back then, do you? I always thought you knew, deep down, but I guess you don't."
The hazy memories replayed, ephemeral, nearly out of reach, "I remember some things, but I can't be too sure. You killed a lot of ponies, didn't you?"
"Wow, oh wow, is that what you've thought all this time?" She shook her head savagely from side to side and flung another neatly trimmed hock to the shadowed horde, "I was just cleaning up the mess, I'm sorry but you're the one who killed all those ponies."
"What? That's not true! That's impossible"
"Possible or not, that's what happened."
"There were shipwrecks even when I was a tiny filly, though, I'm sure of it, how could I be responsible?" I asked incredulously.
"It did start when you were just a little filly, in fact. Your magic was uncontrollable and at first I didn't know it was you doing it, but you were forming whirlpools in the ocean that would suck boats and ships down and grind them to bits against the shore. Foals often have inexplicably powerful and mischievous magic right from infancy, but you were something else."
"I wanted to keep it a secret because ponies died and I didn't want my little filly saddled with such a stigma before she was even aware, so I called in a doctor to help, confidentially. He said your magic was too wild to be contained and we were best off giving you a hornectomy and raising you as an earth pony."
"I disagreed, obviously, but he said that if I didn't let him do it right then and there he'd have the guard down on us like a tidal wave. I couldn't let them take you away so I told him to do it and he tried. Celestia dammit, he did try, but you had a second uncommon talent, when you're scared you twist spells right back on their casters."
"So he cut off his own horn?" I gasped.
"Yes, yes he did. That and the backlash was enough to send him into shock and he died right there." She said with a mix of shame and pride.
"Is that what happened to him?" I pointed to the formless lump that used to be a pony beside her.
"Sure enough. His fault for trying to kill you with some dark magic spell though, don't be ashamed about that, heck, don't be ashamed about the doctor either, he was a bad pony to try and do what he did." She said firmly.
"That doesn't make sense, though. If I'm such a powerful unicorn how come I never knew it?"
"Baby, you've never been all that self aware have you?" She chuckled as she continued to work, "That thing I told you about being a descendant of Star Swirl the Bearded really is true, even if you don't believe it."
This made no sense, I thought and quickly found a flaw in her logic, "What about the cargo? Why did you have all those stolen goods?"
"Well it would have been a shame to let the sea take all those valuable things, regardless of the circumstances, I mean double's the tragedy if we waste the opportunity to profit from it, right?" She said with a sad smile.
"No, that's terrible!" I replied, but she shrugged it off, "Couldn't you have come up with some way to get me help rather than let all those ponies die? At least we could have left the seaside."
"Well...Honestly I thought the solitude might keep you safer. I was scared they'd lock you away and mutilate you if I let anypony know what was going on and it wasn't that many ponies in the grand scheme of things, going to sea is always risky. Thank the goddesses that your father's always made it back in one piece."
"Besides, you're my daughter and I love you no matter what, I'd destroy the world with my own two hooves to keep you safe, and that's just the way it is. That's not hyperbole, either." She smiled warmly at me, the effect being somewhat ruined as she mindlessly flung another cut of meat to the shadows, but I believed her and I maybe understood a bit.
"In your teenage years you outgrew your lack of control and everything calmed down. I thought everything was going to finally be okay until they found that leftover cargo, but even then that was for you. See, once I was gone they just branded me a pirate and pinned all those shipwrecks on me so the cases were closed. I was always afraid they'd figure it out some day. I didn't care about my own reputation because they thought I was dead."
"I missed you, of course, but in the end it was for the best and the best solution I could have come up with besides."
On the one hoof I feel like I should have reacted rather strongly to this revelation, but it was new and didn't feel real yet. My whole identity had been irrevocably altered in the space of a few minutes and from this day on I was a killer and I'd have to live with that on my conscience.
On the other I now knew my mom hadn't abandon me, at least not in spirit, and that made a world of difference.
"So have you been in hiding this whole time?" I asked, guiltily. She'd sacrificed her whole life just for me, it seems, and I've done nothing but squander her gift. I at least hoped she'd found something to keep her happy in the interim.
"I was for a while but actually I got caught up in some stuff many years ago that landed me in front of Celestia herself to be judged." She chuckled, "Let me tell you, you just never know how you're going to react until you're pulled up in front of an immortal alicorn goddess yourself. She hardly even said anything and I admitted to everything I'd ever done wrong. I even wished I'd done more just so I could atone for it that too, she has that effect on ponies. I managed to leave you out of it, so far as was practical, it's hard to think on your hooves with Her staring you down."
"Well it was the damnedest thing, she dismissed the charges and let me off the hook on the condition that I'd agree to work for her. I told her I would, gladly, and I have been ever since."
"Doing what?"
She looked down at what was left of the butchered stallion at her hooves.
One lump remained. She looked to the treeline, one set of eyes towered above the rest and she flung the lump in her magic in a high arc. I looked up just in time to see a manticore snatch a severed head from mid air and devour it in three big chomps. I shivered at the sight.
"Right now I'm dealing with the changeling problem." She said, I wasn't sure if it was meant to be a joke, but she continued, "I suppose you've heard everypony in the know is worried about some theft?"
I nodded, "I've heard, but no one would tell me what was stolen."
"The Elements of Harmony, supposedly, but they weren't." She smirked, "It's all a pretense to give us a chance to investigate the Bearers of the Elements themselves. We think at least one of them has been replaced, and since the changeling detection spells don't seem to work we figure their queen is involved directly."
"So, who has the Elements?" I asked.
She giggled, this was her kind of revelation, "I've had them the whole time! Celestia told me to keep them safe and nopony even suspects me! It makes me feel like a ninja when I get to be all sneaky!"
"Cappy! C'mon!"
I'd forgotten he was even there. He came out from the brush with a shin bone in his mouth, it was too obviously equine for him to keep so I walked over and tried to take it. He growled at me.
"Oh, let him keep it, we just need to pare it down a bit." She said and knocked the ends off with a gory blade, bringing it down to a manageable nine inches long, "There, now it looks like a pig bone or something."
"That's hardly any better."
"Dogs will be dogs, there's little enough point in trying to change their nature and carnivorousness is a big part of that nature. I'm guessing you don't feed him many bones or give him rawhide to play with, so this is like Hearthswarming Eve for him." She trotted back towards town, me and Cappy in tow, when we reached the edge of town she broke off, "Things are hectic right now. In a couple days I'll come find you and explain everything, until then just lay low and try not to let what I told you drive you crazy."
I nodded and she hugged me for the first time in twenty years, give or take. I'll admit I was moved to tears and sniffled a bit, "Love you, Mom."
"Aw, I love you too, baby." She broke off the hug, "Stay safe, keep out of trouble and I'll see you in a few days."
With that she was gone. Cappy looked up at me, white bone in his jaws, then looked to where Mom had just disappeared and took off after her, leaving me alone in the dark.
Fickle damn dog.
Over the next few days the revelations of that night hit me hard. I couldn't really think of myself as a good pony anymore and morally it placed me on a slippery slope, but I also had to question the morals of my mother. It came out in a conversation with Peachy Sweet over a lunch of cucumber sandwiches and ginger peach tea served in her warm and comforting dining room. She'd noticed I seemed rather pensive and questioned me on the subject until I was more or less forced to respond.
"Okay, fine." I conceded to her badgering, "You're a mother so answer me this, let's say that one of your foals was an arsonist."
"Hypothetically?" She asked, a bit startled.
"Yes, hypothetically, so one of them..."
"Which one?" She interrupted.
"None of them, it's hypothetical, let's say a fictional fourth colt, the youngest of the bunch." I fleshed out the story to give it some depth.
"What's his name?"
"Um...Firebug? I think that'll do." I laughed, it would be a mare's own fault for producing an arsonist if she named him that, "Anyway, he started doing it when he was just a toddler and didn't know what he was doing, and let's say, for whatever reason you couldn't stop him, would you turn him in?"
"Did...did he hurt anypony?" She stuttered.
"Let's say he did. Let's say massive casualties every time, then would you turn him in?" I asked.
"I'd have to, there's really no other choice. He needs help and you say I can't give it, so I'd have to." Peachy Sweet said sadly.
"Okay, good. Now let's say you didn't agree with their method of helping." I prodded, "For example they were going to lobotomize him, or geld him, something of that sort, as a method of controlling him."
Peachy Sweet look positively stricken when faced with this choice and I felt so guilty I told her to forget I ever mentioned it and that she didn't need to answer. She did anyway, "No, if I knew all that ahead of time I wouldn't turn him in, even if I had to keep him trussed up and watch him every day to keep him out of trouble I wouldn't turn him in, what mother could?"
I took her hooves in mine and squeezed, "I kind of thought you'd say that, I just needed to hear it from your own lips to believe it."
She eyed me warily, "This really isn't about my colts is it? If it is just tell me, I can take it."
I stood up and kissed her on the forehead, like one might kiss their own mother, "No, no, don't you worry, it's just something that happened a long time ago to a pony I used to know that I've been thinking about the last couple days. I didn't mean to worry you, sorry. I think I better get out of the house for a bit. All this waiting is making me stir crazy."
I gulped down the remainder of my tea and bid her good day, finally resolving to chase down some manner of gainful employment.
"Poor little Firebug, he's always had it so hard." I heard her mutter as I was leaving. It's no secret, I suppose that mothers have a fierce sort of empathy for their foals and would go to some unlikely extremes for their sakes, even if they were meant for mayhem from their very inception as our little protagonist was.
Or yours truly. It was just kind of hard for me to accept as a reality what a mother would give up in service to her young.
In truth I found it vaguely disquieting.
If I were to give birth to a monster such as myself could I be that strong and was it, in truth, an act of nobility or of selfishness? It could be argued either way and thoughts of this nature invaded my mind for the rest of the afternoon.
All my thoughts on the hagiography of mothers were turned on their head when eight days had gone by and my mother still hadn't sought me out and the realization rose from deep inside that she wasn't going to.
The jobs in Ponyville mostly required a special skill to obtain, the manual labor jobs tending to go to stallions and earth ponies, so I had difficulty in obtaining a position and the best I could do was in a boutique pet food factory. The main thing recommending me for the work was my lack of squeamishness around dead fish that needed to be butchered for the various blends.
Ponies are notably touchy about eating meat, but it's a fact that cats, dogs and a variety of other household pets were not and needed such nourishment. At first it made me ponder that shinbone, Cappy and the fact that ponies were not even close to the top of the food chain, but I rapidly got used to the work.
It started early enough that I had some of the afternoon free and paid well enough for me to put some bits aside but it was certainly not a high status position and it left it's mark upon me in the form of a persistent fish stink.
It was, fortunately, a job that could be accomplished while high, or I wouldn't have lasted the day. Even that had become small consolation.
Musicians always have the best connections and Lyra had sent me to a zebra shamaness who lived in the Everfree, and I enjoyed her company as much or more than her product. When I had more time I'd wanted to get to know her a bit better. I get a vibe off her that she's a guru desperately in want of a disciple.
In short I was starting on a path that would build a life for myself and I even had moments when I could forget the things Mom had told me and when I wasn't living only in anticipation of some fictionalized tender reunion with her.
A small and seemingly unrelated occurrence derailed all my plans. I couldn't put a nail in the wall because of the room not being mine and I had my prized painting leaned against the wall on top of the dresser. It managed to fall from it's perch and get a jagged scratch across it's surface, right down to the white canvas.
I will admit, I said less than harmonious words, but it gave me an excuse to do something I wanted to anyway.
"So is the painter who did these," I indicated to Peachy Sweet my own damaged painting as well as the one on her dining room wall, "Still around town? Because I'd like to see if I can convince her to fix the damage for me."
"Oh, yeah. She's easy enough to find, too, but she might be pretty busy just now. She's captain of the reserve guard. I go out there every night to the barracks to see my husband anyway, so I can take you if you want." Peachy Sweet sighed,"I can't wait until his deployment is over and he can come back home. I think what it would be like if he had to go to some far flung country to fight and I can hardly stand it, but the guard's been good to us so far. This is actually the first time he's been away for longer than a week at a time."
"What are they actually doing?" I asked, it seemed like having a bunch of soldiers at the ready didn't especially help a search for the Elements and I'm not sure if the changeling threat was common knowledge.
"They're helping with the search, keeping a lookout and asking questions to make sure everypony is who they say they are." Peachy Sweet replied.
"How do you mean making sure they are who they say they are?"
"Ever since the Canterlot invasion everypony blames the least little occurrence on changelings, so it might be paranoia, but that's what they're on the lookout for. I'll say, though, that another one of the undercover guards from Canterlot went missing a week ago, just disappeared with no trace and when that happens everypony says it's a sign of changeling activity."
She considered it for a time, "Even if it's not it means something suspicious is going on."
I gulped reflexively. Either she didn't notice or just thought I was worried about the situation. She didn't and hopefully never would know about my rather direct involvement with both the killing and the disappearance of the stallion in question. I was left reeling, but she fortunately changed the subject to gentler issues.
At length she told me it was about the time she meant to go visit her husband so I tagged along, intent on getting my painting patched up and praising it's creator.
The reserves encampment was a small compound of temporary buildings that had been in use for periods of time that should have rendered them permanent. They were all worn, but well maintained, perhaps even overly well maintained. It's my guess that grounds maintenance was a standard punishment among the guard. There was a wire fence that wouldn't have kept a foal out, much less a changeling, but that alone implied that there was an unseen magical aspect to it's defense.
Passing through the gate with Peachy Sweet, she directed me to a dimly lit square structure that stood alone on one side of the camp. Nopony stood guard at the door, the whole compound being reliably secured the way it was and I just walked right up to knock. I could hear movement inside so I knew somepony was home.
Imagine my surprise when the placard by the door read, 'Captain Sea Breeze, Commander First Division, Ponyville Reserves' in faded lettering.
Let me emphasize that.
Faded lettering.
Implying duration of tenure.
It threw my whole perception of what Mom had been up to all these years for a loop. It also made me take a second look at the painting. It's no wonder I liked it, I'd seen her painting in an embryonic version of this style when I was a foal and now here was evidence of her mastery.
It throws one's solipsistic worldview into a tizzy when faced with such evidence of lives and progress being made wholly external to yourself. But it wasn't a time for existential navel gazing, so I knocked on the door.
The movement halted and after waiting a full minute I knocked again. I tried the knob, but it was locked. I got suspicious. Either Mom knew it was me and was trying to wait me out or somepony was prowling around her office so I did what anypony in my situation would do and magically picked the lock.
"Captain, It's me, Sea Swirl." I called out as I cautiously walked in.
The office was dimly lit but I could make out my mother's dark mane and glittering eyes, frozen in some task. There on the desk were a few tools, screwdriver, pliers and such along with a pile of glittering gold jewelry. For a moment I couldn't make out what she was doing, then I asked, "Are those the Elements of Harmony?"
"Maybe." She shrugged.
"Are you...prying the stones out of them?" I asked, incredulously, "Because that's what you seem to be doing."
"Well...Maybe that's what it looks like." She admitted, sheepishly, "Get in here, shut the door and lock it."
I did as I was told and was now faced with the other end of the mothers and foals dilemma. Here was the mare who'd done so much for me apparently doing something horrible, treasonous to the highest degree, and now I had to decide in a flash how far I was willing to go for her, how high a price I was willing to pay to protect my flesh and blood.
I took in the situation as Mom stared at me silently. There were four stones left, two had been separated from their mounts, dipped in wax and wrapped in cellophane. These were the pointier two, a lightning bolt and a star. Two were still intact, even though one had signs of it's setting having been brutalized with a screwdriver. Two stones were missing entirely and their mounts carelessly dumped on the floor.
Mom started to speak while I tried to connect the dots in my mind, "This whole Element fiasco has gotten out of hand, so I was just going to replace the stones with copies and 'find' them with a changeling spy. Then whichever bearer was the infiltrator would steal them and disappear, but of course the gold is meaningless, the gems are where the power resides, so I would have eliminated the threat, exposed the changeling and protected the Elements. Clever, right?"
"So why the wax?" I asked.
"I'm making molds to cast the reproduction stones." She answered confidently. I wanted to believe her, it was even vaguely plausible, but sadly having been around ponies who had smuggled various illegal substances I knew what I was looking at.
"No, Mom, I can't do anything to help you if you aren't honest with me. You dipped those pointy ones in wax to round them off so you could swallow them safely." I said, reaching the conclusion at the same moment I spoke it aloud.
"If you knew," She demanded, "Why ask? I just need to keep them safe so they don't get found in the meantime."
That infuriated me. She had to know she was caught and yet she just kept throwing stuff out there in hopes that it would stick, "The only reason you would do that is to smuggle them, and the fact that two are missing means you swallowed them because you were leaving tonight."
"Well, duh." She rolled her eyes, "I have to go straight to Canterlot once the Elements are found..."
"I could believe that story if you hadn't torn up the necklaces so much, but you wrecked them pretty thoroughly." I pointed to the mangled necklaces on the floor, and then eyed the one on the desk along with the the big crown thingy that had had it's delicate filigree mare handled and mangled, "So why don't you tell me the truth, because I just don't believe you."
"Believe what you want. I don't have time for it." She said coldly, and returned to her work, humming as she prized the sparkling gem from another of the priceless artifacts, wrapped it tightly in cellophane and swallowed it, dry. She hummed as she deftly started to work the last stone loose, then broke into a verse of song in some dead language for a few moments before dying back down to the humming.
Mom or not, this had to end. These were the actions of a mad mare I had no choice but to intervene. I crossed the room, intent on stopping her, trying to reason with her, but somehow I never made it.
She looked up to me, the tune dying on her lips and said, "Baby, I love you, but this is the life or death of our entire nation we're talking about now and much as it pains me I just can't give you the help you need right now."
I heard Cappy's gruff bark and as I turned my head to look for him my world went dark.
I awoke in a bright white room, my hooves bound across my chest in a restrictive garment. I tried my magic but it was likewise restrained.
"Is...am I in an asylum?" I asked aloud, though by that time it was obvious that I was, when moments before I had been on the reserve base. It was jarring, to say the least, "What the buck?"