//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 
// Story: Broken 
// by Sinful Pickle 
//------------------------------//

	Lyra crept pushed the door open with a hoof. She took a few cautious steps inside, shutting the door with a click.
“Where were you?”
She didn’t need to look to see who it was. She could smell the liquor on his breath, didn’t want to see his angry, bloodshot eyes.
“I was at a friend’s house,” she said nervously.
“You said you’d be home in an hour or two. Please tell me why it’s ten o’clock and you’ve just gotten home.”
“I... uhh...”
“I’m waiting.”
“Umm..”
He stepped towards her until he was practically on top of her, yelling.
“You’ve been gone for hours! HOURS!”
“I’m sorry.”
“SORRY ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH!” he screamed with a blow to her chin. She whimpered in response. He punched her again, and again, and again, and again, until his anger subsided. She limped to her bed, not noticing as he flopped on the couch and drowned his remorse in another bottle, then another, finally passing out.

~

Colgate crept into the apartment, exhausted.
Vinyl's methods had been... strange, to say the least. Colgate had seen no reason why she had needed to know what all that silverware was for, she and Time Turner were only going to go to a movie. The kissing practice as weird, but effective: out of the several hours they spent "preparing" Colgate for her date, they only spent fifteen minutes with her locking lips with a mannequin while Lyra turned blue in the face from laughing and Vinyl told her what she was doing wrong. They had raided Fleur's makeup drawers and experimented with them, and after an hour of that they had come up with a look that Vinyl was certain would dazzle the colt. At one point Pipsqueak snuck in, and lasted a good five seconds until his sister kicked him out.
Colgate flopped down on the couch. There were dirty dishes to be washed, she needed to vacuum, she should probably check up on her mother, there was so much to do. But for once, it could wait. For once, Colgate would just sleep.

~

Solar Strokes tossed and turned in his sleep.
The eyes, they watched. They were so clear, so enormous. 
“Come here...”
He tried to run, but couldn’t move. 
He tried to scream, but couldn’t even whisper.
“I paid quite a few bits for you...”
They followed him, chased him. Those bright red eyes burned with lust, with hunger, with silent fury.
“Just trust me...”
He tried to run, but couldn’t even move. 
He tried to scream, but couldn’t even whisper.
Nothing else existed, nothing but the eyes.
They held him paralyzed.
His fear of what was to come grew immense.
Finally, he found he could move. He tried to run, but the eyes were right there again.
Everywhere he turned, the eyes were always there.
He collapsed on the ground, tears falling down his face.
“There’s a good boy...”
The eyes came closer, ever closer, until they were upon him.
As the eyes approached, they became more.
A sky blue body came forth, with a midnight blue mane from which a long horn emerged.
The stallion was tall, so very tall, and skinny, like a piece of paper. 
He was strong, strong enough to pin the colt to the floor.
The colt cried out as the stallion thrust himself deep inside, moaning in pleasure.
He sobbed as he found out just how cruel life was. 
At only the age of seven, Solar Strokes lost all innocence he might have had.

~

Gentle Harmony looked at the stallion crying in his sleep on the couch. Why had she ever thought she loved him? This mess of a man, this emotional wreck. She’d thought she’d be able to save him, once. But over time, she found him to be unsaveable. 
But by then it was too late.
When she found out she was pregnant, she had cried herself to sleep. Abortion was not an option, she considered it murder. 
So there were only two options.
The first would be to have the child, then just give it up for adoption and continue her life as before.
The second would be to keep the child, and put her dreams on hold to raise it.
Over time, she found that she developed feelings for this thing inside of her.
She grew to love the baby.
So she put her career on hold, and decided to keep the child.
The day her daughter was born was the happiest day of Gentle’s life.
Holding Lyra in her arms, she knew that adoption was never an option.
So for the next fifteen years, she took care of a child, and ran her late parents’ flower shop.
There was just one problem.
Solar Strokes.
He had insisted on being a part of Lyra’s life. Gentle Harmony had relented and let him stay, thinking his intentions were pure. And at the time, they were.
But over time, he became completely dependent on Gentle. His drinking got even more out of control than it already was; he couldn’t hold down a job for more than a week or two.
Gentle Harmony could barely stand him, but she didn’t want him out on the streets. So she had to take care of him as well.
Then she saw the bruises.
Lyra was only five; five-year-olds don’t get in serious fights. Five-year-olds shouldn’t be getting bruises like this.
So she asked her.
Lyra told Gentle that she had tripped. Gentle had believed her.
The bruises continued for months to appear in various places around Lyra's body, until things seemed to start to become better. They were getting smaller, they were healing faster. Lyra also seemed to be getting better at healing spells, and at illusion spells. Gentle Harmony didn't think anything of it, until she saw.
Gentle had gotten home early, gotten home to see Solar Strokes strike ten-year-old Lyra.
She ran inside to stop him, but the damage was done. Everything fell into place in her mind.
The bruises.
Lyra’s magic.
Everything.
It was like she had been seeing through a warped window, a window that was now broken.
She had still had a small shred of hope that he might change. That there was still good in him.
That little shred disintegrated as soon as she saw his hoof collide with his own daughter’s face. 
She dashed between them faster than Rainbow Dash herself, giving Solar a black eye.
“What are you doing! Why did I ever let you stay! Why did I ever think you’d be anything but terrible! Why? Your own daughter! You BASTARD!” She practically screamed that last word, spittle flying out of her mouth.
He sat on the floor, dumbstruck and speechless.
“I...”
“Get. Out!”
He streaked out the door, leaving Gentle to her daughter.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Lyra looked at her hooves, ashamed.
She put a hoof under her daughter's chin.
“Lyra, please tell me.” she asked again, in the gentle, soothing tone that so many ponies knew her for.
Lyra mumbled something unintelligible as tears filled her eyes and she hung her head, not looking her mother in he eye.
"Lyra, please. Why?"
Lyra's tears spilled from her eyes, falling down her face to the floor.
"I...I...I..." She stopped trying to speak, collapsing into her mother as sobs shook her body. 

~

Solar Strokes had left them alone for a while after that. In fact, Gentle Harmony and Lyra didn't see him again at all, until almost two years later. 
He showed up on the doorstep, begging for forgiveness.
He'd changed, he said. He'd stopped drinking, he said. He'd never hurt one hair on Lyra's head again, he said.
And that's what he did, for almost a whole year.
For almost a whole year, he played the part of the loving father. For almost a whole year, he didn't drink a drop of booze. For almost a whole year, he was the father Lyra and Gentle Harmony had always wanted him to be.
But old habits die hard.
He was watching the Wonderbolts with a bunch of his buddies.
"What happened to the old Solar Strokes? I wanna party with that guy, not this weirdo you are now."
"C'mon, Sol, one beer won't hurt."
Solar Strokes had finally relented, and had a drink. 
And another.
And another.
And another.
He'd ended up crashing on his friend's  couch, walking home the next morning with a cup of coffee in his magical grasp.
As soon as he walked through the door, Gentle Harmony knew. The bloodshot eyes, the morning breath with a twinge of liquor.
He dismissed Gentle's barrage of questions, saying it was "just a one time thing, I'll never do it again, don't worry."
Gentle believed him. And, true to his word, Solar Strokes didn't drink again for weeks.
But then again, he got drunk. Again, he crashed on someone else's couch. Again, he didn't come home till morning.
Then, a week or two after that, it happened again. And again. And again. 
Until, once again, he was getting drunk every night. Whether with his buddies, or at home, or a a freaking parent teacher conference, he had booze in his blood. Alcohol was constantly coursing through his veins, keeping Solar Strokes in an obnoxious, aggresive, often violent state 24/7. 
There were holes in the walls from them being found by his angry hooves.
It was only a matter of time before his angry hooves found Lyra once again.

~

"Jitter, it's been two years."
"I don't care. I'm not leaving."
"If you don't, then I will."
"You'll come back. You've left us too many times to count, and you've always come back. You're a coward. Always have been, always will be."
"Says the mare who won't even leave the house."
"You wouldn't leave either if you knew what it was like."
"They found the guys months ago, Jitter. You're safe now."
"There's more of them, Sunny! Those two aren't the only ones in this Celestia-forsaken city!"
"Can't you see you need help! You haven't left the house in two years!"
Colgate didn't understand why her parents fought so much. But her mother said she would understand when she was older, and why would she lie? Mothers don't lie to their children. Right?
Colgate treated every word that came out of her mother's mouth like it was gospel.
"Never trust a man, you'll get nothing but heartbreak."
"Don't go outside, it's dangerous."
“Watch out for strangers, they'll hurt you."
Sometimes Colgate didn’t understand, but it was okay. Her mother told her she’d understand when she was older.
Colgate's train of thought was disturbed by a door slamming. Her mother was sitting on the couch, crying. Colgate jumped up on the couch, nuzzling her mother. Jitterbug embraced her daughter, crying into her mane.
"It'll be okay, Collie. It'll be okay. He'll come back. He always comes back…"
But that time, he didn't. 
It was the last time Colgate saw her her father for ten years. 

~

Over the next decade, Colgate learned to adapt without Sunny Rain.
By the time she was six, she had resigned herself to a fatherless existence. By the time she was eight, she had figured out how to balance a budget on the small alimony that was sent by Sunny Rain monthly.
By the time her tenth birthday came around, she was fully capable of taking care of herself and her mother, who had gotten a little better. But not much. 
Jitterbug was still a nervous wreck who could barely take care of herself, let alone a child. Colgate knew her mother needed help, but she didn't want to end up in a foster home. She wanted to be in control. She needed to be in control. 
So she was left to fend for herself.
Colgate didn't even think about her father anymore. She never daydreamed about how different things would be if he was still there. She never wished she had a real family, with a loving father and a mother who could take care of herself. She never woke up in a cold sweat because she had dreamt about someone finding out her secret. She never cried herself to sleep.
No, she never did those things. Ever.
She would never let herself.