Broken Blossom

by BronyWriter


Able or Willing

The Princesses and Working Mind stared at Blossom who was weakly trying to say something as she blinked away tears. "You forgot your hat," Blossom mumbled finally. She levitated the hat onto Working Mind's head and slowly stood up.

"Blossom," said Working Mind softly but Blossom cut him off with a shake of her head.

"If you don't mind, I wanna talk to somepony else from now on," she whispered. She weakly turned around and began limping away.

"Blossom, can you stay for a moment, please?" asked Princess Celestia. "The three of us need to talk to you."

Blossom stopped and hung her head. "What's there to talk about? You all think that if you let me out of your sight I'll start killing ponies because I can't help myself. You think I murdered Miss Tiara, you probably think that I'm on my way to murder your secretary, Dr. Mind. What do we need to talk about?"

Working Mind shook his head. "Blossom we don't think that you're--"

"You don't have to lie to me, I heard every word," Blossom muttered. "As far as you three are concerned I am my aunt. Do you want to talk to me about how I'm getting a padded cell next to my mother or are you just going to preemptively give me the needle? I assume my horn is coming off in either case?"

Princess Celestia shook her head sadly and began slowly walking up to Blossom. "Blossom, we just want to help you. You are not the pony that your aunt was, nor do I think that you will be."

Blossom chuckled weakly. "Well, then what do you want to do right now? I assume you're not just gonna let me walk out of here; I might butcher the entire town square. According to Dr. Mind I'm fully capable." Blossom slowly turned around and glared at them. "But capable and willing are kinda different things, right?"

"Blossom at the very least let us take you to the hospital to get your leg fixed!" Celestia pleaded.

Blossom glanced down at her leg which by this point was stained with her blood. "You sure? If I bleed out then pretty much every problem that keeps you up at night goes away. You just gotta do a little cleanup and try not to think about Mom and every single thing my aunt did will just fade away."

Luna glared at Blossom and stepped forward. "Thou art being foolish, Joyous Blossom!" she growled. "We do not wish you harm!"

"Well you still haven't answered my question!" Blossom snarled. "Let's say I go back to the hospital and my leg gets stitched back up. Then what? I am not letting you take me anywhere until I get an answer! My leg means that I can't run away so just answer me!"

The princesses exchanged a look and Celestia sighed sadly. "Once your leg is repaired we think it is best to put you in a mental health hold. We would not send you to an institution, it would take place at the hospital."

Blossom tightened her jaw and glanced down at the ground. "Well then lead the way," she muttered. "It's not like I have any choice in the matter. I mean, if you're all so scared that I'm gonna make my own kill basement that all it took was the hunch of my shrink then we'd better get this all over with right now shouldn't we? The sooner we stuff me in a padded cell, the sooner Equestria can move on."

* * * *

A few hours later, Blossom was lying in a hospital bed, fresh stitches in her leg. She was idly toying with her mane which, with time and a little help from Zecora, had grown back enough that it could be cut so that the style hid what had happened to her. She mused that it still felt weird, not being able to feel her mane on her neck.

She sighed heavily and leaned forward to fluff up her pillow with her magic. "You think I'd be high on my new shrink's 'to do' list but I guess not," she grumbled to herself.

She shook her head and glanced over at a book on her bedside table. Daring Do. Again. When the nurse had come by with the book cart she had picked out the only one that looked remotely interesting. Sure she had read it three times already, but it was that or stare at a wall.

Grunting irritatedly, she picked up the book and flipped it open to a good chapter. No reason to not skip anything she found boring. "Go get that sapphire stone, Daring," she muttered sarcastically.

"Ah, reading Daring Do, hmm? It's one of my daughter's favorite books."

Blossom's eyes flickered up and she saw a tan earth pony mare trot into the room. The mare smiled at her and pulled a chair next to Blossom's bed and sat down. "Good evening, Blossom," said the mare, "my name is Nevitt." She extended her hoof and Blossom half-heartedly shook it. "I'd like to ask you a few questions if that's okay."

"I'm not leaving until you've asked them so don't let me stop you," Blossom grumbled.

Nevitt's smile faltered slightly and she reached into her saddlebag to take out a notebook. She flipped it open and scanned something written on the page in front of her before looking back up at Blossom. "So, I'm just going to ask a few basic questions first, okay?" Blossom nodded. "Good. Question one, who raises the sun and who raises the moon?"

"Princess Celestia and Princess Luna," Blossom replied blankly.

"What is today?"

"Thursday."

"What is your name?"

"Joyous Blossom."

Nevitt nodded and jotted down a few more things in her notebook. "Okay, who is the mayor of Ponyville?"

"Blossomforth."

"The names of your parents?"

"Sweetie Belle and Rolling Thunder."

"Good." Nevitt shifted in her seat and turned a page in her notebook. "Now, these next questions are going to be a little more... emotional, but if you don't want to answer something just--"

"Say so and we'll move on to another topic," Blossom recited. "I've seen more than my fair share of shrinks in my life."

"So I understand," said Nevitt stiffly. "But you know that it's my job to say things like that."

Blossom snorted and put the book down. "Yeah I know," she grumbled. "But you can imagine that it would be tiring to hear so many times."

Nevitt shrugged. "I suppose so, but that's not important right now. We need to move on to my questions if that's okay." Blossom spun her hoof in a 'go on' gesture. "Okay, do you know why the princesses thought it would be best to put you in an M1 hold?"

"Because they think that if they take their eyes off of me for two seconds they'll turn around to see half of Ponyville slaughtered in pools of their own blood," Blossom deadpanned.

Nevitt shifted uncomfortably. "Er... that's not quite--"

"Save it," Blossom snarled. "It may not be how you put it but let's not beat around the bush here: you all think I am my aunt!"

"Blossom we don't think that!" Nevitt insisted.

"Spare me! I heard every word!" Blossom's expression hardened into a glare. "Dr. Mind told the princesses that he thinks that I'm capable of first-degree murder. My aunt was a serial killer, it doesn't take a genius to connect the two! You're all scared that I'm going to be Equestria's next murderer!"

"Blossom, that isn't true at all!" Nevitt insisted. "We just--"

"Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," Blossom growled. "We just want to help you. I've heard it all before, despite the fact that it stopped being true when I was eight. You think that the princesses took me up to Canterlot to 'help' me? No, they took me to make sure bodies weren't gonna start turning up in Ponyville! What, did they think that my aunts would just let me run around, killing willy-nilly without so much as a second thought? Did they really need to take me to Canterlot to keep an eye on me?!"

Nevitt uneasily cleared her throat. "Blossom I assure you that the princesses motives are pure. They just want to make sure that you don't hurt yourself or anypony around you."

Blossom let out a joyless cackle. "Oh don't make me laugh!" she cried. "They want to know that they don't have Rarity 2.0 on their hooves and that's all. But did they, or anypony else stop to consider the one big question that seems to come up the least?"

"What question is that?"

"You all ask whether or not I'm capable of murder as if it's some disease! Of course I'm capable of murder!" Blossom pointed a hoof at Nevitt. "You're capable of murder! Everypony you meet on the street, everypony you meet for a meal, everypony you give a glancing nod to is capable of murder!" Blossom deflated slightly and lowered her gaze to the ground. "It just depends on how far you're pushed." her eyes snapped back up. "But nopony ever thinks about the fact that I have continuously said that I don't want to hurt anypony. You all whisper about whether or not I will you don't even take a second to consider whether or not I want to hurt anypony at all!"

"Do you?" said Nevitt quietly.

Blossom sadly shook her head. "No. I don't. I didn't even want to hurt Miss Tiara and I wish that I could take it back. I really want to take it back, even though she hurt me. I know I hurt her too much when I killed her, but I was scared that if she got back up she'd keep trying to hurt me. She had cut off my ear and was gonna cut off my cutie marks." Blossom flattened her ears and a tear dripped from her eye. "If I was another pony, the princesses would look down on my situation with pity, not fear. I'm here just because of who my aunt was. How is that fair? It isn't, is it?" Blossom leaned her head back on her pillow. "I just want them to leave me alone."

Nevitt silently observed Blossom for a minute before putting her notebook and pencil back in her saddlebag. "I think that's enough for today," she said. "I'll come back to talk to you tomorrow." Nevitt stood up and walked out of the room.

After closing the door behind her, she walked down the hall for a few paces and met up with the two princesses who were waiting for her. "How is she?" asked Celestia.

Nevitt glanced back towards Blossom's room with a sigh. "You want to know how I view this, Princess?" she said. "Blossom is like an open wound that you're worried will get infected, despite the fact that it's bandaged up. If you leave it alone it'll heal, if you keep gnawing at it it's just gonna get worse." She shook her head sadly. "And even though today is the first time I've met Blossom, I've read a lot about her. If you want my honest opinion based on everything that I know about her, you two have been gnawing at that wound for ten years if you'll pardon me for saying so."

Nevitt bowed to the princesses and began walking down the hall. After a few feet she stopped and turned back around. "If you just leave her alone, that mare will not be a danger to anypony. The only confirmed kill she has is of a mare who was physically and psychologically torturing her. She has two families who love her and will do anything to support her. She's bandaged up. Stop tearing off the bandages to see if the wound got infected."

The two princesses watched the psychologist walk away, neither quite sure of what to say.