”More than machinery: We need humanity.
More than cleverness: We need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent. And all will be lost…”
-From The Great Dictator
Konigsberg, Germany
November 9, 1938
The Night of Broken Glass
Like the rest of them, it was the shouting that got North Star’s attention. The purple unicorn frowned pensively, trying in vain to see its source from the window.
He may have shrugged and gone back to his studies if not for the smoke rising above the buildings. Smoke meant fire, and fire was bad news in the cramped city.
A purple glow encased his horn, and the textbook snapped shut. Studying could wait. If people were in trouble, his magic might help a lot.
After a moment’s hesitation, he called Sparkler to his side. His daughter wasn’t quite old enough that he felt comfortable leaving her alone.
Honestly, he wasn’t too comfortable taking her into the city, either. Things…weren’t going so well, here. There was a lot of poverty, and a lot of crime and pent-up anger. But it was better to keep an eye on her, especially with a fire brewing less than a block away.
Sparkler – a shade lighter than her dark-purple father – smiled up at him as she pulled a scarf on. Dad was leaving to help people, and she would come so he didn’t have to worry about her. Just like when Stauller lost his books, or when the baker’s basement flooded.
North Star’s trepidation diminished a little as he opened the door. Other tenants of the apartment were also coming out, drawn by curiosity and worry. A lot of them were also students, and he swapped books and services with them all the time. The way things were these days, it was much safer to travel in a crowd of friends.
One in particular brought a smile to his face. Sweetie Pie was a close friend, one that both father and daughter had taken quite a shine to. It had been a while since Sparkler had a mother, and North Star was wondering…but such thoughts could wait.
“Any ideas?” He asked.
“No.” Sweetie Pie shook her head, tossing that wonderful candy-cane mane back and forth. She grimaced. “Well, I hope not. I heard a diplomat to France was killed, and some people were saying it was a Jew who shot him. But…that can’t be related, can it?”
Last year, the answer would be ‘Of course not.’ But these days, who could say?
“Of course not,” North Star replied. “It’s just a fire. The police would break up a riot before it even got started.”
Sweetie Pie nodded, and they hurried onward. North Star led the pack. Someone might be in trouble.
A crowd had already gathered, deep and thick enough to block their way. Some of the people were pensive, appraising. Others were…laughing? Clapping?
North Star pushed through the crowd, using a bit of gentle telekinesis to ease the way. Shorter than the humans, he had to work his way to the front to see what was going on.
”Juden raus!”
‘Jews out.’
He grimaced.
The bulk of the crowd was standing well back from where a dozen Nazi “Brownshirts” were at work. Smoke was coming from a few shops and a synagogue, with flames licking out of the open doorways. A few of the brownshirts and some children were tossing rocks at the stained-glass windows, laughing and cheering each other’s hits. Another party thug and two men in dockworkers’ clothes were darting out of a store, braving the flames to loot the cash register, a few vases, and a brass Menorah. The last one out had to roll as his pants caught fire, drawing laughter from the crowd and from himself.
Not everyone was laughing. North Star had emerged next to Otto, the chubby local baker with a fabulous moustache and no other hair. The middle-aged German was rubbing his hands and sweating, glancing from side to side.
“Where are the police?” The man asked, fear growing in his voice.
“Didn’t see them.” North Star glanced back, noting thankfully that Sparkler was right behind him.
“Where are the God-Damned police?” Otto said again, wringing his hands helplessly.
Once he looked down from the rising flames, North Star saw the worst of it. Three men with long beards and a woman, forced to kneel with the brownshirts standing around them. One of the thugs had taken a dagger and was sawing off one of the men’s beard. The older human cried out in pain – there was as much ripping as cutting involved. Another turned his head to look back and received a club to the neck. He doubled over, coughing. The slim brownshirt raised his cudgel to strike again.
North Star wouldn’t – he couldn’t stand by. These were people. Just like the men in brown uniforms. Why couldn’t they understand that?
He glanced to the side. There were women in high-class garb, laughing and pointing. But also people looking upset, even angry. Why don’t they do anything?
Why don’t you? He chastised himself. Good doesn’t start with a herd. It starts with a pony.
He screwed up his courage, and the cudgel came down again on the helpless man. Enough wasting time.
“STOP IT!” He roared, as loud as his lungs could muster. The volume gave him courage – North Star took a bold step forward, even swatting at the club with a bolt of telekinesis. “Stop it! What did they ever do to you?!”
The skinny brownshirt choked up on the club, regaining his grip. He half raised it again, but let the arm hang back down at his side. He seemed to regard the unicorn with something between a snarl and a sneer, but at least the beating had stopped.
Now that he got a better look at the face above the brown shirt…North Star recognized him. Klaus, another student at the university. A compulsive prankster, usually partnering with Fritz and Derek to make their professors rue their careers.
They only talked once…he nicknamed North Star “Merlin” for his ability to use magic. Maybe he called all the unicorns that.
What happened to him?
Klaus nodded just a little bit in recognition. He strode forward, club still dangling at his side.
A few other brownshirts fell into step with him. North Star swallowed, but stood his ground.
He felt the crowd part around him. From the high-class women to Otto, all of them shied away. He was alone.
Klaus stopped within arm’s reach. North Star swallowed again, but didn’t budge. You stood for those who couldn’t stand for themselves. It was what the Equestrians believed. It was what the humans believed, too. Klaus would see it.
The grip on the cudgel tightened. One of Klaus’ lips twisted upwards in a queer, toothy smile.
North Star took a half-step back. Panic rose in his chest. This was all wrong. Where were his friends? The other students, the people who followed him here…why wasn’t anyone standing by him? North Star felt alone. He was alone.
This would never happen in Equestria, but Equestria was very far away.
Where were the police? Where were the good people? Where were his friends? Such a large crowd around them…
The club moved.
He tried to channel a spell, but it was too late. Klaus’ hand whipped out, swinging the club against the side of his head. There was a sharp crack, and North Star groaned and staggered.
Another brownshirt struck the senseless unicorn with his own club, knocking him to the ground. Then a third joined in as Klaus raised his weapon again. The lanky student screamed as he set to it, swinging his club with wild speed.
The man who had been cutting beards laid a hand on Klaus’ shoulder, hoping to stop him before he hurt himself. Instead, Klaus turned and snatched the knife from his hands. He raised the blade over his head, still screaming with wordless bloodlust.
Sparkler saw the whole thing. She saw the hair still on the blade as it came down towards Dad’s neck. She saw Dad exhale and feebly twitch a hoof.
It had been eight years. Mom had died in labor, so he was all she ever had. Always so patient and careful with her, his little Sparkler. He was an intellectual and he was raising her to be one: Always asking her questions, and encouraging her to ask them. Always reading to her – sometimes boring books, but sometimes they were about pirates, alicorns, and sea ponies.
The blade hit the neck. Klaus twisted and ripped it outward, splattering red into the street.
Eight years of loving and reading, of caring and raising…and that was it.
Klaus howled and brought down the knife again. Then again, and two more times before his comrades pulled him off.
One of them gave the fallen father a kick. “Pferdes Raus!” tore from his throat. Many in the brownshirt gang and some in the crowd began echoing the words. Equines out.
The rock-throwing children stopped their game and stared at North Star, at the red pool growing around him. One began to cry. Others looked on with morbid curiosity, like they might watch an insect’s dying twitch.
The oldest of the boys pointed, calling out to the adults. There was another Equestrian, right behind the first. Another damn Merlin, flaunting their magic while Germans went hungry. This one was a lot smaller.
Sparkler hadn’t moved. She was watching the body along with the other children. Tonight, Dad and her were going to finish Treasure Island. That was the plan. She knew he was gone, but…what to do? What COULD she do? She had no idea, so she just stared as the bloody pool finally stopped growing.
Klaus was doubled up, panting after his violent exertion. A brownshirt who had taken the knife leaned in to mutter something at him. The student reached up to wipe his face, grunting in annoyance as unicorn blood smeared over his brows.
Sparkler felt a painful tug on her rump. Sweetie Pie had come up behind her, gripped the little filly’s tail in her teeth, and hoisted her onto her back in one fast motion. The child didn’t resist. Sweetie Pie only hoped she had the presence of mind to hang on.
The sudden motion caused some consternation in the crowd. A few brownshirts stepped forwards, but none were making any move to attack.
Sweetie Pie wasn’t going to give them a chance to change their minds. Around she turned and away she sped. Shouts of dismay came as she tore through the crowd, not slowing down a lick for their sake. The slower humans were simply bowled out of the way with every ounce of strength the panicked earth pony possessed. She felt a hand snap beneath a hoof and she winced in sympathy – but she kept running.
It took scant seconds for Sweetie Pie to clear the crowd, and even then she kept running as fast as her legs could carry her. She passed their apartment and slowed, then stopped.
The instincts faded. The mind took over.
Sparkler had held on, thank the stars.
They had to get out.
Equestrians couldn’t buy boat tickets. That meant leaving by land. They’d need food, money.
She took a few breaths to steady herself and turned around. No angry mob chasing her. Everything was still in the apartment. Had to go back.
At a brisk, paranoid trot she retracted her steps until she arrived at the dirty plaster building. One more nervous glance around – the street was deserted. She dashed inside, even reached a hoof around to pull the door shut quickly.
Sweetie Pie took the steps two at a time, heading up to her own flat. “Just hold on, Sparkler. We’ll only be a moment.”
“I can walk.”
The tiny unicorn dismounted Sweetie Pie, then turned to look up at her. Not a tear in the child’s eye.
But now they came. Before Sweetie’s gaze, Sparkler’s eyes went from dull and dumbstruck to teary and fearful. Her tiny legs buckled, quickly growing so weak that she squatted to the floor.
Her quiet voice was high-pitched, pierced with fear. “What…”
The thought finished at a whisper. “…Do I do without Daddy?”
There was no time. But that didn’t matter. Sweetie Pie crouched down and gripped the filly, pulling her close enough for them to feel each other’s heartbeats.
“You come with me.” Sweetie’s eyes were watering, but she kept the fear from her own voice. “We leave. Honey, I promise – I PROMISE, I won’t leave you. We can talk, we can cry, we can do anything you want. But we have to do it later. We have to leave. I’m getting my stuff right now, just…wait here.”
Sweetie Pie cursed herself as she fumbled with the key in her mouth. Not exactly the best way to handle a kid, but what could she do? The panic speeding her actions had shrunk, but it was still there.
The leather saddlebags were right where she left them on the table. She slammed open the cupboards, throwing in two loaves of bread in one bag and a head of cabbage in the other.
The wallet was in her desk. Sweetie Pie turned and strode up to it.
On the desk sat her typewriter. By its side were the chewed pencils she used to type with the infernal machine and the papers it had spewed out. One painstakingly-typed page after the next. North Star had offered to type it with his magic, but this was the thesis for her doctorate! Of course she had to type it herself. Even if it meant navigating keyboards meant for human hands.
She picked up the wallet in her teeth and turned away, knocking a few of the papers onto the ground. Didn’t even look back. There was no time.
Sparkler was still in the hallway. After a second’s deliberation, Sweetie broke into North Star’s apartment. Students didn’t have much money, and who knows how far she would need to stretch it?
A little extra food. A little extra money. So many books, so much knowledge that would be left to the looters.
A picture. A full-color picture, no less – taken with an Equestrian camera. Him and his little Sparkler, smiling with the sea at their backs.
Sweetie Pie swallowed hard and kissed the image of North Star. It was just a picture, but…
Tears came to her eyes and she nuzzled it, sobbing.
“Why do you have to be so good?” Her cracking voice whispered. “We never should have come here, and now…”
She sniffed hard, forcing the tears back. They had to go.
“I’ll take care of her, I promise!” She kissed the image again and set it in the bag. It didn’t weigh much.
The saddle bags were light enough for her. So was Sparkler. The filly insisted she could walk, but there was no time. Who knows how far these riots had spread, or when they’d end.
Even if they did end…who would die next time? No, this was no place for her. Every instinct screamed at her to leave, and she only hoped the Jews and Communists and Equestrians and whoever else they were killing would get out as well.
Eyes glancing nervously behind her, Sweetie had already dashed halfway down the stairs when she saw them.
Three other students, loitering in the lobby. Quiet, studious Stauller, and his two friends who were anything but. Derek, with a bad habit of trying too hard to be funny, and Fritz, majoring in motorbikes and loose women.
The three of them were smoking, soot-stained, taking a break.
In their brown uniforms.
Silence fell as they turned to her. Sweetie’s face was tear-stained, and her teeth showed in a panicked grimace. Sparkler peered nervously from her back, trying to hide in her benefactor’s mane.
“Uh…hey, Candy Cane.” Fritz weakly waved, giving a confused smile along with his nickname for her.
Derek snorted, squinting at her with befuddlement. “The Hell are you doing with North Star’s kid?”
The panic burst out. “THEY KILLED HIM!” She screamed.
Stunned silence – these men didn’t know how bad things had gotten. A tear came down her face. “YOU killed him!”
Derek staggered back as if punched, holding the side of his head.
“This is insane,” Stauller said quietly.
“You think?!!” Derek wheeled towards him, hand outstretched. “I’m up for paying the Christ-killers back for our embassy, but North Star? Shit. Where are the damn police?”
“Well they’re not helping,” Sweetie Pie snapped. She gestured angrily with her head towards them. “They’re probably out there somewhere, getting blood all over their brown shirts.”
The humans glanced down awkwardly at their uniforms, but not a one addressed the subject. Fritz held a placating hand up. “Okay…just get you and the kid upstairs. We’ll cover for you until this blows over.”
Derek shot him a dirty look. Sweetie Pie stomped a hoof. “What, so they can get us next time, instead? It’s not getting better. It’s getting worse. It’s been getting worse for years, North and I just ignored it.”
“We were too late. But it’s not too late for Sparkler and I, we, just need to leave before it is.”
Fritz shrugged, doing his best to smile comfortingly. He was failing. “Candy Cane, you know they’ve put that hiatus on Equestrian passports. Until that sorts itself out, you’re stuck here. ‘Might as well be stuck with us.”
“No,” Sweetie said, resolute. “No more waiting for it to get worse. I’m running the border, if I have to.”
Fritz threw his arms out, smile fading. “Okay, that is all kinds of illegal. You know people are saying that ponies think they’re above the law. You trying to prove them right?”
“Fritz!” Stauller shot commandingly. The handsome biker caught himself, yielding the floor.
Stauller gestured to the door. “Derek, Fritz. Outside.”
Derek opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. He strode outside, rubbing his hands together like he was washing them. Fritz followed a little slower, fumbling with a cigarette package.
With them gone, the bespectacled man sighed heavily. He matched gazes with Sweetie Pie, seeing the determination in her eyes. The mourning would come later. She had to go.
He was as blunt and business-like as ever. “For real. You’re leaving the country.”
“Yes. For real.”
“Do you have money?” Stauller continued without missing a beat.
“Uh, yes.” The words were there, but the hesitation was noticeable.
“Here.” Stauller fished out his wallet and strode briskly towards her. Eyeing his uniform, Sweetie Pie retreated a few steps.
He didn’t even acknowledge the movement. Stauller just caught up to her with fast, purposeful strides and deposited the wallet in her saddlebag.
Another sigh. Stauller gave her shoulder a companionable slap and rubbed a hand over Sparkler’s head. His hand had no blood on it. His face was locked in a tight frown.
“Go South, to Poland.” He spoke grimly. “West lies Germany. East lies the Baltics, and war will come there soon.”
Sweetie Pie gave a bitter laugh. “I had to learn three human languages, but no Polish.”
Stauller smiled tightly. “They’re Poles, Miss Pie. You’ll be the smartest one there.”
The casual bigotry struck a bad chord in Sweetie…but she was in no position to argue.
“Thanks,” she said, a bit more sharply than intended.
Bitterness made her finish the thought as she brushed past him. “Thanks for not stabbing me. I guess that’s become a thing to be grateful for.”
Crueler than he deserved, she knew. Stauller winced, fighting with himself for the right words.
Finally, he came out with the best he could manage. “Let’s meet again, when this is all over.”
“Once you’re done with the ‘Christ-killers,’ you mean?” she shot back.
And then she was gone. Sweetie Pie shouldered the door open and was outside without a backwards glance. Fritz and Derek were there, pointedly on the other side of the street. They smoked in silence, avoiding eye contact with her. That was fine. She passed them by, briskly, but not too fast. She was going for endurance. The more ground she could cover, the better.
She was out of the city when she felt a wetness in her mane. Sparkler was crying again.
They had made good time that day. Sweetie Pie crept into a barn and settled them into the cow stalls. None of the heifers seemed to mind. She laid back into the hay and hugged Sparkler tightly to herself, murmuring gently into her ear.
“It’s okay, kiddo. It’ll be okay. I’m here, I’ve got you.”
“I’m not going to leave you…”
----------
But she did leave. And Sparkler was alone.
It wasn’t Aunt Sweetie’s fault. She tried to keep them together. Even after the Nazis conquered Warsaw. Even after they were arrested and contained in a prison camp.
When the guards began separating the unicorns, Sweetie wouldn’t let them take Sparkler. First she asked to go with her. When they refused, she begged. Then, desperate and wild, Sweetie tried to push them back.
So they shot her. Right in front of Sparkler.
And she was alone.
Sparkler didn’t cry. There was no one left to cry for. Tears only emerged when they came to take her horn, and that was just a physical reaction. When the pain dulled, the eyes dried. She didn’t talk, either. The other prisoners wondered if she was touched in the head.
She ate. She slept. She stared off into space, wondering what to do, what to do, what to do.
When the Americans came, Sparkler followed their orders just as she had the guards’. She didn’t really notice the difference, not even when they herded her outside.
----------
“That’s Sparkler. She’s…always been like that.”
The human woman shrugged, accepting the blanket Derpy wrapped around her. She was very ugly – or maybe not, just molded that way by hunger and hardship. Her name was Antoinette, and she didn’t answer when Derpy asked why she was imprisoned here.
Derpy had gently set the blanket around Sparkler. The hornless little unicorn just stared into space, unmoving as it slowly slid off her.
Antoinette shrugged again, looking away. “Too much for her. Too much. My Mariel, not much older. Where is she, I wonder?”
The woman pulled the blanket a little tighter around herself, gratefully smiling at Derpy. The pegasus smiled back, brushing a hoof against her shoulder.
Derpy’s heart broke for all of them. She cried, both with them and for them.
But it felt so right, to be here.
Stupid, klutzy Derpy who was no good at anything. But they didn’t need someone who was smart or coordinated. They didn’t need someone to herd and count them the way the soldiers did, keeping them at arm’s length. They needed someone who could hug without care for the lice. Who could listen, even if she didn’t understand the language. Someone with a heart big enough to fit them all in it.
All the teasing Derpy had endured, good-natured and otherwise…none of it would ever faze her again. She could love, even filthy, ugly strangers. What talent, what skill, could be greater than that?
She turned, striding purposefully back to Sparkler. The filly wasn’t oblivious or anything, she just…didn’t seem to care. Expressionless, she gave Derpy a little nod as she approached.
Fillies weren’t supposed to be like this. Derpy’s smile shrunk. “Um, you’re losing your blanket, there.”
“Hm,” Sparkler returned flatly, not even opening her lips.
A second passed, and Sparkler broke eye contact. That seemed to be the end of it. To anyone else, that would have been the end of it.
But Derpy was a bit more persistent. Sparkler drifted her gaze back to the front, realizing the adult wasn’t just going away.
Derpy shuffled and coughed, giving another weak little smile. What could she say? She was never good with words.
So…maybe just skip the words for now.
She leaned down and hugged the little filly. Sparkler gasped in surprise, stiffening against the foreign gesture. She looked up, seeing the odd-eyed pegasus looking down at her with a smile. And tears in her eyes.
“I wanna tell you something. It’s okay for you to feel again.”
Derpy went on, hoping to get the message across. “It’s okay. Feelings are hard. They make you sad. But you need them! You just do, or nothing’s worth it. They can make you weak, but you don’t need to be strong anymore. You don’t need to be a wall the feelings break on. You can be you. You can be weak, because you’re safe now. The humans who did this…they hurt you, didn’t they?”
For a moment, Derpy wondered if the filly had even listened. But then came a nearly imperceptible nod. So she soldiered on. “And they took things from you? Things and…people?”
Sparkler bit her lower lip. Again a nod, this one a little shaky.
Derpy grabbed her, pulling her in all the tighter. The resistance softened as Sparkler let herself be embraced. Derpy cried as she went on, and soon the little unicorn was as well. “Well they’re GONE, Sparkler. Those men, those monsters, they’re gone forever. They’re never coming back, never going to hurt you or anyone again. I don’t know why they ever did it, but they’re gone.”
“I don’t care.” The bitter words came from the filly’s mouth. “Dad’s gone. Sweetie’s gone. I might as well have stayed inside.”
“NO!” Derpy’s eyes widened. Those grounds…bodies in the mud…bodies in the ditches…
She gripped Sparkler to her with trembling hooves, for a moment lost in her own horror. Derpy finally pushed her away a little bit to lock eyes. “No. No, you can’t. You’ve got to live. Live for them, live for you. You can’t just leave yourself here. There’s nothing here! I can’t bring back your family – I wish I could, but I just can’t! If they’re dead, Sparkler, then you’re everything they have left. All of their hope, all of their love, it’s towards you now. You have to live and laugh again, Sparkler. You have to come home.”
“WHY?!!” Sparkler’s wall finally shattered. The purple unicorn shoved her away, eyes crying beneath the sad little nub of a horn. “They’re GONE! They don’t HAVE any hope or love anymore! Who am I going to go home to?!!”
Derpy took a sharp breath inward. The barest of seconds, and she made her decision.
“Me.”
Perhaps she was a fool. No one ever accused her of having too much common sense.
But perhaps the world needs a little more of this particular brand of foolishness.
Sparkler gave a start, blinking, not believing what she just heard. She was sniffling. So was Derpy, leaning down to smile shyly at her with watery eyes. “There’s room for you in my home. In my heart. My daughter, too – she’ll understand.”
A hoof slipped slowly backwards. “W-why?” Sparkler asked in a breathless whisper.
“Because you’re worth it.”
Derpy embraced Sparkler again, and the two of them slowly slid down to lie on the grass. They lay there through the evening. Sparkler blubbered and cried, blowing her nose wetly and screaming the questions that had no answer.
Why?
Why?
Derpy didn’t have an answer. But she did have a warm wing, nestled gently over the little unicorn as she talked about Dad’s stories and Sweetie Pie’s crush.
They laid there as dusk turned to night. Sparkler’s sobs softened to quiet breaths, the back of her head settled on a grey-furred arm. Her odd-eyed guardian smiled down at her.
Face stained by dirt and tears, Sparkler offered the tiniest of smiles back.
As the filly’s eyes began to flutter closed, Derpy softly sang a lullaby. She didn’t have a good voice and she couldn’t remember all the words. But oh, how beautiful her mother sounded when she sang it so many years ago…
“Now cry all your tears
And show me your sorrow
And all will be well
By this time tomorrow.
For I am here
And I’ll never forget you.
I’ve been in love
Since the day that I met you…”