Thunder Kicker was never off duty. He stared into space, a stern look burning in his eyes, as if he could see through the walls. As if he had his delinquent nephew square in his sights, like a predatory bird swooping down onto an unsuspecting mouse. Mace helped himself to another donut. “So...how are we doing this? Is this a stake out?”
“If it is, fine by me,” Pinion added. “Love the crullers here.”
“This is a break,” Thunder Kicker curtly replied. “We’re just taking a moment to cool our hooves before we canvas the place for Spray.”
The ponies under his command had groaned about their hunger. Thunder had relented, and they dropped by a local and favourite donut shop. It would give Thunder a few more minutes to strategize.
They had been patrolling the area around the train station. It was a cheap area to stay, and the ponies here would turn a blind eye to a young pony looking for somewhere cheap to stay. Thunder hoped Spray found a nice place wincing at the thought of his newphew sprawled out on some cold and damp back alley. Spray was making a terrible, terrible decision, but he didn’t deserve to suffer.
Mace slurped down some coffee. “Works for me.”
“Are we going halfsies on the next dozen?” Pinion asked.
“You wanna?”
“Yeah,” Pinion replied, sounding genuinely insulted. “I chipped in the most for this box.”
“Sprung for the coffee,” Mace replied.
“Probably explaining why we’re drinking the smallest size available,” Pinion replied.
“I needed to save for the cream and sugar.” Mace shrugged.
“You have a very interesting definition of halfsie,” Pinion muttered.
Celestia, the quality of the guards these days. The Kicker family might as well have been Equestria’s sole line of defence. Which meant that Spray’s absence hurt Thunder all the more. Not too long ago he was just a little foal, laughing as he was swallowed up in the depths of Thunder’s helmet. What had happened?
“We’re finishing what we have and then we’re getting back on the trail,” Thunder firmly stated. The other ponies were intelligent enough not to sigh in despair, though by this point Thunder could have easily forgiven them.
“Same strategy as the past three days, right?” Mace asked. Both Mace and Pinion gave exasperated looks to Thunder. He may be their commanding officer, but they were getting tired of chasing their tails.
Thunder sighed. “Look, there’s no evidence he bought another ticket in Fillydelphia or tried to fare jump on another train. Which implies he’s in town. He doesn't have enough money, so that limits our search to cheap lodgings: hostels, boarding houses and the like. He’ll need a job, so that limits us to low-paying entry level work: light retail, fast food, the kind of places that will take a young pony without raising an eyebrow. Being new to the city means he won’t have gone very far from the station.”
And the Kicker family has only a marginal presence in the city, and Fillydelphia was home to the Art Museum he loved. Two facts that pained Thunder to admit, but they were obvious enough to be left unspoken.
Thunder sighed. Spray was such a sweet young colt. Why was he throwing his future away like this? The Academy was tough, he admitted, the first couple of months in particular. Kickers prided themselves on being able to rise through the hard training and high standards.
Maybe he just isn't cut out for this. Every time he thought that it seemed to grow a little louder and his attempts to squelch it grew more hollow. Maybe he just isn't cut out for this.
“We’ll finish the box before we start asking questions,” Thunder ordered. Give him a few more minutes to come to his senses and contact home. Hopefully, that’s all he needs. Just a couple more minutes to think about this.
Mace and Pinion sighed. “Maybe we can check the pizza place on the corner...” Pinion suggested; Mace nodded. Thunder rolled his eyes. The problem with the Guard in urban environments: there were no convenient hydras to thin out the ranks.
Thunder double checked the missing pony report his family placed in the Fillydelphia Tribune. Behind him the door’s chimes jingled. The pony behind the counter growled at the newcomer: “You’re late.”
“Sorry. I got a little turned around on the subway...”
“Just get back here. Coffee break crowd’s a comin’.”
“Yes sir.”
The missing pony advert used Spray’s Academy picture. Pale fur, verdant mane, a messy swirl of colour for a cutie mark---a very handsome pegasus colt. He looked into the camera, Equestrian flag standing proudly to his side, stern look in his eye. The Kicker’s Stare, it was called. Only his was softer at the edges. Thunder could tell that Spray was doing his best to look tough, probably felt a little tough, but it was a weak kind of toughness, the kind that would break if true resistance was offered.
Maybe he just isn’t cut out for this. Every family is going to have at least one.
Thunder sighed. He got up, deciding to refresh his coffee. The past three days had been long ones. It did not look like they would get any shorter. There was only one pony ahead of him, taking his sweet time at the register.
“Three bits is your change. Thank you sir.”
The pony snorted in thanks at the cashier and trotted away, bag in his mouth. Thunder walked up, opened his mouth and froze.
“Can I...help....” The cashier’s eyes went wide.
No way. It was not this easy.
“Well now,” Thunder said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Spray was paralyzed in place, no doubt entertaining fantasies of tearing through the back of the shop, hopping over the dumpster and onto the roofs and racing away, his uncle in hot pursuit. Thunder’s gaze could have melted lead. He turned to face the store’s manager, standing next to Spray, agog.
“There a problem?” the pony weakly asked.
“No,” Thunder said, “but we are borrowing this pony for a moment. We need to have a little chat.”
“Go right ahead,” the manager said, smiling broadly and backing away from his employee. It was his partner who had hired him. Yeah. His partner.
Spray crept back from behind the counter. He hung his apron up on a peg along the wall. Thunder kept a respectable but short distance behind his nephew as they navigated back to Thunder’s table.
“Okay, guys, show’s over.”
Pinion and Mace looked stunned. Spray, head lowered, stood there. It was as if Celestia herself had dropped him off.
“Holy crow...we actually found him?” Mace asked.
Pinion, apparently, was trying to say something, trying to upbraid Spray for the trouble he caused his family and the disgrace he brought to the guard. Trying to do so with half a donut in his mouth proved difficult.
“Chew,” Thunder ordered. “Swallow.”
With two large bites Pinion chomped down the pastry and swallowed. Like a little, helpless baby bird Thunder thought.
“Where have you been?” Pinion demanded. “After three days of looking...”
“Ah, the efficiency and dedication of the royal guard, leaving no stone unturned,” Spray muttered. Thunder rolled his eyes, resolving to get a handle on the situation.
“Hang out front for a second,” Thunder ordered the other two ponies. “I need a minute to talk to him.”
“Can we just grab a couple more to go?” Mace asked.
“Go.” Thunder’s tone was light and polite, which in his experience was often preferable to an angry scream. Mace and Pinion bolted for the door as quickly as politeness allowed.
Spray slid onto the rough plastic seat, gaze lowered and directed onto the scuffed blue table. Thunder took off his helmet and placed it to one side. His gaze had been withering, but he softened it into a look of concern and sadness. Thunder had been so worried about his nephew. He ran his hoof over the scar on his face left by a berserk griffon.
“What are we going to do about you?”
Spray did not reply.
“Do you have any idea how many ponies are out looking for you? Times like this, it’s amazing to be reminded how many Kickers we have. We’re only short of the princesses themselves.”
Spray continued to say nothing. Thunder nudged a coffee and the donut box over.
“Talk to me,” Thunder said. “That’s an order.”
Spray sighed. “What do you want me to say?”
“I’d like to have some idea of what has gotten into you. You think you could just walk away from all of us, from school?”
“It’s a worth a shot,” Spray said.
“Three days ago you stuffed your uniform into the garbage slot of a train lavatory and got off. You’ve made no attempt to write your parents, who, I should inform you, have justifiably flipped their lids.”
“I didn’t see the point, after how the discussion with my parents went,” Spray replied. “Brick walls are more receptive.”
His family had gone all out in welcoming Spray home for his first leave from West Hoof. Banner over the house welcoming him back, inviting every Kicker within a fifty mile radius for a family shindig. By all accounts he had not appreciated the fuss very much.
Thunder nodded. “I know you’re having a hard time, I understand. Celestia knows it’s hard, and even I’ve thought of running away...”
“It’s not that!” Spray snapped. Thunder was surprised: his nephew had always been a gentle soul, and it was a relief to know he learned at least something from the academy. “I never wanted to be there in the first place.”
“So what was the plan after you walked away from it all?”
“Write home for my portfolio, get my application for the Fillydelphia School of Visual Arts together...” Spray trailed off when he realized how absurd it sounded to him. Step one and the whole scheme would instantly collapse in on itself.
“Foresight was never your strong suit. I had been looking forwards to you learning some at school.”
Spray sighed, nosing open the box and helping himself to the only donut left untouched.
“Okay,” Thunder admitted, “this was not your first choice. I realize that. But you went to the academy anyway, with little fuss, and the meaning to that was what?”
Spray swallowed. “I guess I bought into it for just a second. All that talk of family tradition. Destiny.” Spray spat the word out. “But it didn't take.”
“You’re doing swell, at least academically,” Thunder said. “Formations and physical exercise need work, but you get into a rhythm with those. It takes time, and some adapt faster than others, but once you get into it you don’t mind.”
Spray growled. Maybe he just isn't cut out for this.
“My parents think I am not taking my time at the academy seriously at all,” Spray said. He rolled his emerald eyes. “They said I need to straighten up. They completely ignored the part when I said that I had preferred never to have gone in the first place. Said that it was just defeatist talk.”
“Your family has been under a lot of stress from the Kicker clan to produce another crop of Guard cadets,” Thunder explained. “And it isn't fair, and I know that you've been subject to a lot of stress...”
After Cloud...did what she done, the family had unofficially entered a siege mentality, parents eyeing each other like they were involved in an invisible poker game with the family’s reputation as the stakes. Who could become the one they would all have to make excuses about?
Spray laughed. “You know how many showings I won as a foal? Eight. How many they attended? Two---barely.”
One of Spray’s drawings from when he was eight was used as the cover for Royal Guard Quarterly. Granted, not the most refined work, but it was praised in the letters section. And just think of how wonderful his time in the guard will be!
“You’re a very talented pony,” Thunder admitted. Which, naturally, would reinforce Spray’s position. That was the problem with this discussion: everything Thunder said would be fuel for his nephew’s point. Thunder was in the uncomfortable position of being in a strictly reactionary state, a dreaded one for a Guard.
“I can wallpaper my room with every blue ribbon I have, every certificate of excellence, all the praise from my teachers, and as far as my parents were concerned I’m just pointlessly doodling!”
Maybe he just isn’t cut out for this.
Spray’s family had made one trip to Fillydelphia, when Spray was very small, and, of course, the Art Museum was the first stop. One of the city’s finest attractions, and home to the excellent painting of Shadow Kicker standing resolute over the smouldering ruins of the Lunar rebel’s stronghold. Spray had spent nearly an hour staring at it while his parents beamed pride. They thought he was learning about dedication and pride.
For hours all the foal could talk about was the use of light and shadow in the painting. Like he was a little art professor. Thunder probably still had the crumpled drawing made in crayon that Spray laboured on, trying to replicate the technique.
Maybe he just isn’t cut out for this.
Time to at least try and salvage his military career. “So why did you just bolt? What set you off?”
Spray sighed. “My fellow passenger on the train was an older pony. Former Guard. He said he was proud of me. Another Kicker in the service, another proud and storied career added to my family’s glories and the guard. He said he couldn’t wait to hear about me, and that he couldn’t wait for me to feel the pride my parents felt. If I was a little bit older he said he’d treat me to a cider.”
Spray had a slurp from the cooling coffee cup. “He just didn’t see me. He saw a Kicker. Just another Kicker going through the motions. He probably didn’t even care that I was Spray Kicker---just a Kicker. I might as well have not existed.”
Thunder admitted than in a family with a centuries long tradition individual members tended to blur together after awhile. Within the family it was an informal competition to see who measured up, both in appearance and character, to their most illustrious forebears. At the academy Kickers had a tendency to be singled out, as an example for cadets to emulate and to reproach Kickers if they didn’t measure up. That probably drove Spray insane.
Kickers came to West Hoof in one of two varieties: the copacetic, can-do pony eager to prove himself or herself to their family legacy; or cocky and arrogant, as if they had already graduated and the next four years was just a waste of their time. A creative, sensitive Kicker was not something they knew how to handle.
“And that’s when it all boiled over for you?”
“I felt...so mad. So very mad. I got up, went into the bathroom and had a good look at myself. I could have screamed, and before I knew it...” Spray nodded. “I had to get off and get away. Away from every Kicker in Equestria.”
“I figure it was just a matter of time before something like that would set you off. Your cousin, Cloud, the one who ran away from her graduation? Same thing, and I guess you were just quicker on the draw.”
Spray shrugged. “I've been thinking about that. If I’d accept my commission, or just resign it on the spot. Or if I’d dutifully go along with events until I couldn't take it anymore, and how acrimonious those circumstances would be.”
He really isn't cut out for this, and you know it. Defeat was a new experience for such a dedicated Guard pony. With his deep sigh all the energy left his chest and his limbs and went out his nose, leaving only a stringy feeling as if his limbs were dangling from thin chords.
“You’re going to make a lot of ponies very, very sad. All they wanted was for you to stand tall and proud and keep on the family name,” Thunder said. “They just wanted you to feel as proud for yourself as we do for you.”
Spray looked like he was going to droop all over the table. Oh, for Celestia’s sake! Poor colt’s been through so much. Don’t twist the knife, Thunder.
“But if this is your destiny, I have your back. We need the odd deviant in the mix. It’ll just make things a touch more interesting.”
Spray brightened up a little. The beginnings of a smile was creeping onto his face.
“Alright,” Thunder said. “You can crash at my place. A step up from the brig. And you are writing your parents. I will help.”
“What will we say?” Spray asked.
“He’s here, he’s safe, I’ve found him, but we need to talk.”
“I’d like that.”
Cloud Kicker had been the family’s biggest problem for a long time. Every generation of Kicker had one pony who just didn’t measure up, or washed out. Some quarters of the Kicker clan would consider themselves cursed to be born with two. Sometimes, the family was just so self-absorbed it was intolerable.
The two ponies got up. The walked up and past the two ponies outside on unofficial guard duty. Mace and Pinion snapped to attention, then looked puzzled as Thunder and Spray walked past them.
“Where are we taking him?” Mace asked.
“Home,” Thunder replied. “You two are relieved.”
Mace and Pinion stared at each other. They shrugged.
“Halfsies?”
“You’re springing for coffee, then. Extra-large.”
Mace frowned. “You’re springing for cream then.”
“It’s called halfsies, not quartersies. Cheapskate.”