012
“Fine, I guess that I will let you off this time because you didn’t hurt anypony, and have agreed to pay for psychological damages, But if you EVER ‘joke’ about killing a pony again, I will lock you up for conspiracy of murder,” Shining Armor said after a long debate.
“Fair enough,” I confirmed that I understood what was being said, and that I wouldn’t repeat anything like this joke again. I couldn’t help think on how fragile the minds of some of the ponies were, and how I would have to be careful.
I turned to Cadance, and bowed so slightly, that it would be difficult to recognize, “Thank you for letting my son retrieve his parachute.”
Jake followed in thanks, except for the bow because he didn’t recognize it, “Thank you Cadance! I hope that you and Shining will be happy.”
“You both are welcome, and thank you Red Wing. You know, this reminded me of something. White Wing, would you like to come to our wedding?” Cadance said.
“Cadance, why did you invite them? I still don’t trust White Wing here,” Shining interjected.
“Well, since it was Red Wing that finally got you to propose to me, I figured that they should be able to come.”
“I don’t like it. How do we know that White Wing won’t attack anypony?”
“Shining,” I stopped the two from arguing about it further, “I swear to you, I am not going to harm a single pony without a good reason to.”
“And what dictates a good reason to you?” Shining obviously didn’t like the exception within my promise.”
“Attack me,” I diverted.
“What?” most everypony there said.
“I said attack me.”
“Why? And stop avoiding my question.”
“Shining, or even one of your guards, attack me.” I continued to stick to my ultimatum.
One of the guards that Shining had brought charged at me. I side stepped his charge, and tried to knock him over, but he was able to avoid my attack. This time, the guard took to the sky and once again charged at me, this time drawing his weapon. Shining Armor called out to put the weapon away, but it was too late. I remained calm and ducked under his advance. As he flew over me, I jumped and wrapped myself around him, causing him to spin as I forced us down. We slid around ten feet, and Shining and the other guards tensed as they got ready to attack.
I got up off him, and he begrudgingly accepted my help when I offered to help him up. I started to explain, “Something like being attacked is a good reason, or if I need to defend something, specifically my son. Of course I won’t actually incite a fight.”
“Couldn’t you have just told us that?” Shining asked, relaxing when he realized that it was a demonstration.
“Yah,” I confirmed, smiling, “But this way is more fun for me. Oh, and Red Wing,” I turned to Jake, “Promise me you won’t physically fight somepony, unless your life is on the line, and you are unable to escape.”
“Okay Daddy,” Jake confirmed.
“And back to my trust issue with this. You say that you won’t harm anypony, but then you go and fight one of my guards. Before that, you threaten to kill my fiancé, and then say that it was a joke. I can understand, now, why Princess Celestia dislikes you,” Shining ranted off.
“Oh, so you picked up on that too. I thought that I was the only one who caught onto that. Anyways, what do I have to do to dispel this distrust? I don’t like not being trusted, because I am usually very trustworthy, as I follow through on most everything I promise. But I know that trust is very difficult to gain, and it takes time, so I’m not asking for you to trust me right away.”
“Join the Royal Guard,” Shining said almost immediately. He had obviously been looking for an opportunity to get me to join.
“I will think about it, as I still have stuff in Ponyville to do, and that will take time,” I explained.
“After you finish that stuff then, you will join.”
“Fine, but it will take about three months to finish. I have lessons to teach, and each day is filled during the correct times of day for the lesson to be effective.”
“Alright, but you will join after that three months. In fact, let’s make my wedding three days after you join,” Shining must have processed this plan quickly. I came to a conclusion that he must have reached. Me being in the Guard means that he has control over me, and having a royal wedding the day after, means that every important and powerful pony will be there to stop me if I get out of hand. Well played Shining Armor.
“I hope you realize this, but even if I join the royal guard, my top priority is my son. Nothing, not even the threat of death of one of the royal ponies, will change this fact,” I informed him, making my intentions clear.
“When you join the royal guard, White Wing, the princesses are your highest priority. If it is a choice between your son and one of the princesses, you will save the princess,” Shining was making his intentions clear as well.
I stepped up to Shining so that my face was centimeters away from his, “Then I guess I will have to live with not being trusted by you,” I barked at him before turning and starting to leave.
“White Wind,” I heard Cadance call out. I turned to her and she continued, “I know this is a bad time, but I would like to ask you something important.”
“Go ahead,” I gave her permission, slightly curious as to what it was that a princess thought was important.
“Well, you see, days ago, when you were first imprisoned, Red Wing visited our house. I asked him about his mother, and he got very angry,” She explained.
“And what does this have to do with anything?” I asked, wanting to get to the point.
“He ended up going on a rampage and took out six of the royal guards.” I looked at Jake, who looked ashamed. “I was wondering what could have made him act this way, and about his mother.”
“Red Wing,” Jake looked up at me, “Is this true?” He nodded solemnly, “And you didn’t get hurt?” He shook his head, “Then good job,” Cadance, Jake, and Shining, as well as his guards, all looked at me, not expecting this response. My voice started to shrink a decibel with almost each sentence. “I’m glad that you are unharmed, but like you just promised, no more fighting unless you are in danger, and there is no escape. As for his mother, she died when he was two, so I doubt that he has many memories of her, if any at all. She died right in front of me, and I couldn’t stop it. I still have nightmares of that day. Red’s reaction to you mentioning her, is probably based off of my night screaming.”
I looked at Shining Armor once more, and I was able to regain the volume I lacked, "Shining, I will never, I repeat: never, idly watch someone I love get hurt because of me, ever again.”
“Wait, because of you. What do you mean by that?” Cadance asked.
I looked down, not wanting to make eye contact with anypony, as I remembered that she had followed me when I stormed off. My voice dropped again, and the sentence came out as a barely audible whisper, “Exactly what I said. Come on Jake, let’s go.”
Now the party was confused as to who I called Jake, and when they realized that it was my son, they wondered why. After all, I had only called him Jake once before, in front of other ponies, and out of this group, only Shining Armor was there.
I dredged off, my head still down, and Jake in pursuit. “White Wind,” I heard one of them call out. I think Jake looked back but I just continued on, so Jake ran to catch up with me.
“Daddy,” Jake said in a questioning tone.
I realized that it wasn’t fair for me to act like this with Jake, so I changed my outwards appearance. Straitening up, I said in a more cheerful, full tone, “Let’s get home and eat the rest of that cake.”
“But weren’t we going to save it?”
“Call it my treat for you not getting hurt.” I made up that excuse. Truth be told, I wanted it to drown my sorrows a bit. “But first, let’s get something to eat before we head home, it’s starting to get to high noon.”
We ate our meal at the cheapest place we could find, and we still ended up paying 60 of the 68 bits we had. We set out almost immediately after we ate, and I persuaded Jake to be on my back for at least half of the journey home. It helped me focus off of the memories that were dragged up. Yah, I know that the dreams drag them up every night, but they never last as I don’t consciously focus on them.
Jake and I ended up having to stop once again within the cave at the mountain half way between the two towns. I wasn’t expecting the number of ponies around the mountain. There must have been an entire village worth surrounding the base, moving all the debris, and replacing all the dirt and plants that were pulled up.
Getting our camping material setup, I found that we still had food for dinner, and I didn’t have to go gather food. We ate dinner peacefully, and it wasn’t until around sunset that a group of ponies showed up, four to be exact. An earth pony, a unicorn, and two pegasi.
“Hello,” one of them said, drawing our attention to them.
“Hi,” I called back, “And what pleasure do we owe this company?”
The ‘we’ was not lost on them, and they looked around, and spotted Jake. The pony smirked, and I started listening intently to my surroundings. “Well, we were sent to see if you would mind joining us in our efforts to clean up the surrounding area.”
“Daddy,” Jake said, “I hear something like flapping from further in the cave.” The leader, or the one who was smirking, lost his smirk.
Jake had done what I was alert for, and I quickly picked him up, and placed him on my back. “All things considered, I made a promise not to Shining Armor not to hurt anypony. However, if I am unable to leave, then I will fight my way out.”
“Oh, is that right?” The pony that was talking was definitely the leader. “Then I guess this makes it a bit easier. Just give us everything you have, and we will be on our way.”
“I have a better plan. No.” As I said this, three pegasi landed behind me, and on both sides of me. One of the original pegasi landed in front of me and the other hovered above me. The unicorn and earth pony stood back. “You should have just left.”
“Still thinking of refusing us?” the earth pony shouted out.
“I’m trying to raise a good, strong son that won’t easily give in. Of course I refuse.”
“THEN GET BEATEN!” The earth pony shouted.