//------------------------------// // Chapter Seven: Seeds of Camaraderie // Story: A Compass for a Lost Dreamer // by reflective vagrant //------------------------------// Keen Wit sat in the hospital, staring at his hat that was laying on the far edge of his bed. Doctor Pulse let him keep it nearby on the condition he didn't try to put it on. His horn was hooked up to some monitoring equipment and he could move around in bed with it, but if he tried to put the hat on it would mess up the equipment and the doctor would take it away. He thought about the hat as he stared at it quietly. There wasn't anything special about the hat. It was just a hat. If he lost it he would find another. It had no sentimental value, yet it had been his constant companion ever since he moved to town and started going to school. 'School.' He still remembered his first day of school. It was almost two years ago but he still remembered it like it was yesterday. He had just moved in to town when his family bought the local inn. It was so much easier for dad to get to work without having to fly into town every morning. It was by some bad luck of the draw that his dad was born with below average wing magic and had to put extra effort into long or hard flights. Getting old was making it even harder for his dad. So they moved to town, or that was how his mom explained it at the time. Keen Wit had never met anypony from town before. He was so embarrassed about his horn. Neither his mother nor father had one. He also had heard that most the ponies in Ponyville were earth ponies like his mom, no wings or horns. He didn't want ponies to know he wasn't an earth pony. So he grabbed his dad's old hat and covered his horn with it. His parents said he was being silly but they didn't stop him. They thought that once he saw the other unicorn students at the school having fun he would just take off the hat and have fun with the rest of them. When he got to school early with his mom she explained what was going on to the teacher. Ms. Frizz Lane was understanding, if a bit odd for a grownup. She let Keen Wit keep his hat on without any fuss. Even though it turned out that there was still a fair number of unicorns like him, he was still cautious at first. The first day of school was going smoothly and the other unicorns in the class seemed to be doing fine until recess. They shared recess time with the other class. When he got outside he was about to take his hat off and forget about the worries, but then he saw a pair of fillies from the other class picking on an older unicorn that had trouble using their horn. They were teasing them and calling them all sorts of names. Names that still haunted Keen Wit to that day even though he wasn't the one being teased. Ever since that day he had always been careful to keep that hat on at all times. Even though Keen Wit had practiced hard in private and knew how to do magic beyond what was expected for his age, he still didn't want her knowing about his horn. It was pretty tricky though. She had a way of learning things ponies didn't want anypony to know. The only way to keep it from her was keep it a secret from everypony. Only his parents, Ms. Frizz Lane, his magic tutor Twilight and the doctors had known about his horn. Everypony else thought he was just an earth pony, even his best friend Twist. Only when he was at the library basement with Twilight or when he was shut up in his room with the door locked and a 'do not disturb' sign on the door to practice did he ever dare take it off. His parents knew what he was doing. He didn't keep it a secret from them. His mom could unlock his door anyway, but it wasn't for them. It was for anypony that tried to visit unannounced. He had managed to keep it a secret until now. Hearing the door open he reflexively turned his head away from it to hide his horn from whoever was entering. "Go away!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "Keen Wit, it's us," his father called to him in a very concerned voice. Lightning Dust and Iron Will stood outside Keen Wit's room in the hospital. It was still strange to her, standing next to the thing that was trying to kill her barely even two hours before. Doctor Pulse insisted that only Keen Wit's parents go in at first. He would come get them when they were ready for them. "So... None of that was you?" Lightning Dust asked the minotaur. "Not exactly. From what that Zecora lady was saying, the other zebra was using his magic to try to influence me to-" He swallowed. "-kill you for some sort of graduation test but he couldn't force me. His magic could toy with my mind but not control it. He had to make me want to do it myself. So if I had managed to... kill you... it really would have been me." "But you don't want to now, right?" she asked with a slight worry in her voice that she couldn't quite hide. "No. I don't. I'm ashamed that I wanted to at all," he said as he looked away from her. "So why did he pick you? Your brother is a lot stronger." Looking down, he thought hard on how to explain it. She couldn't help but remember the night Wayside sat next to her on the bench and waited patiently while he listened to her, but now she was the one listening. "My brother was trained. He has mastered his rage and has passed his trials. Any attempts to mess with his head would have been in vain. They probably tried. I, however, am just learning and I have an old habit just letting my rage go where it wants. It's even harder to kick than my habit of speaking in the third person when I'm talking about myself," he said with his cheeks blushing in embarrassment on top of the shame. After a short pause he got his thoughts back on track. "I was a far easier choice. I have no control over my rage and it was easy for them to push me to hurt you. If it wasn't for the child's efforts, I would have." Tearing up, his thoughts shifted with his weight towards Keen Wit's door. "The child... I almost crushed an innocent child and now because of me he's-" the minotaur lost his voice at the thought. Glancing to his side at the entrance to Keen Wit's room, he gripped his horns and yanked at them, falling to his knees as he did so. "I don't deserve these..." Lightning Dust wasn't sure what the horns meant but it was apparent he was ashamed of himself. Lightning Dust knew shame from being kicked out of the Wonderbolt academy and could relate to what he was going through. She felt compelled to comfort the big guy. "Don't say that. You're just emotional from the experience. I'm sure you were fighting it on some level... somehow." He let go of his horns and turned to look at her skeptically. "How? How was I fighting any of it when the boy holding me by the throat was the only thing that kept me from attacking?" "...Give me a minute on that one," Lightning Dust answered as she drew a blank. Having the whole experience burned into her head to where she couldn't forget for days, even if she wanted to, she went through the incident step by step until she remembered something that now struck her as odd. "You gave him a chance to run." "What!?" he stammered, frustrated. "You gave him a chance to run," she repeated. "You said you didn't have time for him, but you still took the time to let him get out of the way and run. He was hardly even a tenth your size and you yourself said you had no fear of him. You could have forced him out of the way a lot easier and faster than telling him to." He listened but he wasn't convinced. "He would have just used his horn if I tried," he said with melancholy, as he turned back to face the ground. "You didn't know that at the time!" Lightning Dust insisted. "You thought he was an earth pony! Even I thought he was an earth pony." She bent over slightly, since she didn't have to kneel down properly with his massive size, and looked him square in the face. "I think you're stronger than you give yourself credit for. You just need to work at it some more." Iron Will stopped to think on this. After a long moment he looked up at her. "Thank you for your kind words." * * * Steel Will came down the hall from his attempts to search for the missing zebra to check on Iron Will. Recognizing his brother's hoof steps, Iron Will stood up with his head still down in shame. "How are you holding up brother?" Steel Will asked. "I'm... not feeling too good." He looked at Lightning Dust for a brief moment before he returned his attention, if not his face, back to his brother. "But I think I can manage now. What news of the chase brother?" "We have not found him yet," Steel Will answered with a grim face. "His ability to hide himself is far more potent than that of his student. Zecora is having great trouble locating him, but she says the 'scent' of his magic is still thick in the air. He's still in the town, hidden, trying to find an escape route through the guard's watch." Iron Will growled in an undirected frustration at this news. "Earth ponies standing constant watch, unicorns running magical sweeps, pegasi watching from above and we still cannot find this zebra?" "The eyes of the earth pony and pegasi are easy to trick with his deceptive magics," Steel will said as he shook his head lightly for a brief moment. "No one could see his student until Zecora revealed him and as I said before, his abilities are even stronger than his student's. The unicorns don't know exactly what they are looking for. Zecora can fight their magic with hers, but it is a different kind than hers and she can't duplicate it to give them an accurate example to scan. She only has a loose description of it for them to go by. So unless he was right in front of them, it would be easy for his magics to go undetected." "So why can't they scan his student for an example?" Iron Will asked, trying to find any venue he could think of. "It isn't as simple as that," Steel Will explained patiently. "Zebra magic only exists when the wielder makes it happen. They don't have stores of energy like unicorns. They produce it on site from other sources. Unless he volunteered to do some for them to scan their scans of him would be no more productive than if they scanned Zecora." Steel will put his hand on his head and rubbed his hair. Breaking composer he showed frustration matching his brother's for a moment, though far more controlled. "Zecora also says scanning his tools would be useless too. Even if we found something that could be scanned for a signature, odds are the teacher already knows and has gotten rid of anything with the same signature as what his student carried. We already found a doll abandoned not far from the crime scene, matching the one that we found with the student." Placing a hand on his brother's shoulder he tried to comfort him. "I'm sorry brother. He has made this a game of cat and mouse. This will probably go on for several more hours. Despite our best efforts, he might slip through." "Gaa! I wish I could be out there." Iron Will slammed a fist behind him against the wall of the hallway. "His student was able to manipulate you with little trouble. Even without his doll, he could play you like a flute if you were out there searching. In your troubled state you would do more harm than good. He could use you as a distraction to escape if you were out there. You staying here in the hospital where he would have no strategic reason to come is the safest thing for everyone." He let go of his brother and backed up, as if to leave again. "Don't worry about the search. Instead, focus on the task you can do. Make amends with the boy and his family. Now that I have seen you are holding up alright, I must rejoin the search, but one more thing before I go. Iron Will, my brother." He stopped for a moment, and corrected himself. "No, my student. Do you know why a minotaur always fails his first rite of passage?" "We succumb to our rage in our impaired state," he answered as if it was obvious. "That is only half of the truth. The real reason that we fail when we go through the trials for the first time is because we don't understand the pain of guilt. It is the understanding of the pain knowing we could have hurt someone that drives us to never do it again. As painful as our suffering of the trials are, it is nothing compared to the guilt we remember from our past trials. It is from those memories we are able to dig deeper within ourselves to find the willpower to overcome our rage and become its master. Once we do this, we are able to draw from its strength without losing ourselves in it. This is what made our ancestors true warriors and why our family name in minotaur means both 'will' and 'self control'. "I tell you this now because I believe you finally understand why control is so important. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you this family secret before. You had to experience it for yourself." He briefly looked at Lightning Dust apologetically. "Though the circumstances weren't the best, I am glad you have learned this before we have to go home for your rite of passage." Steel Will's eyes lost a portion of their sorrow to be replaced with a bitter joy. "I truly believe you now have a real chance to pass the trials." Iron will look up at his brother for the first time since he came to check on him. Steel Will gave him a small, reassuring nod then went off to rejoin the search. * * * A few minutes after Steel Will left, Doctor Pulse came out to fetch them. "It took some time but he's willing to see you now, barely." As they come in the door they saw Keen Wit in bed, facing away from them with his head down and several monitoring cords coming from what must have been his horn. "Close the door," Keen Wit called to them softly. After Iron Will closed the door behind him, Wayside spoke up, "Doctor Pulse said that you were here before any of the rest of us. He said you were ranting about how you wanted all the bills sent to you. He even said you were in tears, saying you wouldn't fight any charges we pressed. Is this true?" Iron Will answered him with as much respect as he could muster under the pegasus's stare, "I said I would plead guilty to everything I have done today when the time came. I have already filled out the paperwork with the hospital to charge the bills to my estate in Los Pegasus and have called my estate manager telling him to approve it." "..." Iron Will stood there waiting for Wayside to respond. Lightning Dust could feel the tension in the air. If it was moisture it would have been thick enough for her pegasus hooves to stand on. Wayside finally broke the silence. "You caused a big mess the last time you came to town," he spoke more coldly than before. "My wildlife management team had a hard time cleaning up the filth left from your stage to get the area suitable for the wildlife again. My best wildlife worker locked herself up in her cottage for days, thinking she had become a monster from the lessons you gave her. It made it even harder for the rest of my crew to get their jobs done on top of cleaning up your mess. "After all that you shamelessly tried to collect your bill from her. Without even counting all the ponies you scared the living daylights out of while being 'assertive', that alone was despicable enough." His eyes furrow in anger and his voice shifted to match while still remaining just as cold. "Now you've returned, putting my only son in the hospital." Iron Will Just stood there, letting them finish. Lightning Dust could see him just listening and waiting. He didn't show any outward signs of fear save his hands being clenched. "I think you should rot in a jail cell for what you've done," Wayside said as he looked at the minotaur square in the face, "if not Tartarus, but this is a family matter. It isn't my choice alone to make." Wayside turned to his wife and let her speak her thoughts in turn. "You caused a lot of trouble for everypony in this town back when you came as an assertiveness trainer. When you came to the inn asking for a room so politely, I was shocked at what a turn around you had done. "It was strange how you were asking for a room with four beds when you came to the inn alone. It was stranger still when you asked for permission to put them together into two beds. I only had one room that would accommodate what you were looking for, my most expensive room. You didn't hesitate to pay the high price for the room or put down the deposit for the beds when I insisted on it for permission to move them. You were taking responsibility for your actions long before you did them. After you found out what you had done to our son you came to the hospital, telling the hospital to bill you before we even got here. Even now you're trying to be responsible and do everything you can to help whether you were to blame or not." Lightning Dust felt a pang as she listened to Serra. Something in the back of her mind made her feel like this is relevant to her but she couldn't quite place it. She shirked off the feeling and continued to listen. "It's like you're a whole new minotaur. I want to believe you are sorry for what you did." Turning back to her husband she let him finish. "My wife and I are split on this matter and neither of us are willing to budge. So we have agreed to leave your fate in the hooves of our last family member." As he turned to Keen Wit, everypony else did as well. All eyes rested on him. He still sat there facing the other way. Wayside came around the bed then knelt down a little to look his son in the face. "Keen Wit. Your mom and I have always let you make your own choices and you have always made us proud of you. So we are letting you make the call. You're the tiebreaker today. There is no wrong answer and we will still love you either way." He brought up his hoof to his son's chin to make sure he had his full attention. "Do you want us to punish him for what he did?" Keen Wit did nothing but sit there on the bed. Upon hearing the choice come to him he became very still for a moment. He then began to breathe a bit more rapidly than normal. His heart was probably beating hard but Lightning Dust couldn't tell since only his horn was hooked up to the monitor. Lightning Dust could only imagine what was going through the colt's mind. He was given the responsibility of deciding the fate of the minotaur that attacked them. This went on for almost two minutes before he suddenly stopped. He had made his call. Iron Will swallowed the lump in his throat. Keen Wit took a breath to steady himself then spoke up, "Peppers don't hold grudges. I say let him go." His father silently closed his eyes in frustration as if he was upset, but a smile crept in at the corner of his mouth with approval of Keen Wit's choice. His mother was beaming with pride. Lightning Dust could swear she saw her mouth 'That's my boy'. "But..." Keen Wit asked while still turned away from the rest of them, "Could I ask you, both of you, a favor?" "Of course," Iron Will responded in relief. Lightning Dust was a bit slower in her response. "Um. Sure, you can ask." Turning towards them finally, Keen Wit looked both of them in the face with frightened eyes. The monitor cords twisted around the side of his head as he pulled them along with his horn. "Could you not tell anypony I have a horn?" Cinnamon was walking back to town from Cranky's house. Cranky had been planning on a special surprise for Matilda on their anniversary. He had placed an order special for some sweets from the shop to be delivered to his house long enough before the anniversary to keep from raising suspicion. He was also the last order she delivered for the day. After talking with cranky on how annoying little colts and fillies could be, Cinnamon felt a little better. She paused for a moment to think about how to approach Twist on being late when she got back. All of a sudden there was a sharp pain in her neck as if she had been stung. She felt the spot and she felt some sort of wooden splinter with a bit of feather at the end. Whatever it was, it was getting her annoyed. She was surprised when she saw a pony—no, a zebra—in a travel cloak running at her from the direction of town. She didn't need much time to put two and two together and figure out where the little wooden spike had come from. If he wanted to scare her he should have known better. Sweetie Drops, Mint, Fruity and maybe even Almond might cower or flee from a fight, but Cinnamon's fiery spirit didn't know fear. An Ursa Major could roar in her face point blank showing teeth that were taller than she could reach while reaching up on her hind legs and she probably wouldn't even flinch. He came closer and tried to dart to the side to get around her. By the time he did this she had already turned with him, ready. She put all her anger into one strong shot from her front hoof and knocked the zebra off his hooves. He skidded limp across ground from the momentum of his running. He was out cold. She stood over her would be assailant with her hoof still raised. "Whoever you are, you picked the wrong day to mess with me." "We found him!" a pegasus called to some ponies on the ground before she came down to the scene. When the local pegasus volunteer saw the zebra on the ground unconscious, with a bump forming on his head, she looked up at the earth pony standing over him and asked, "What happened here BonBon?" "So you are not pressing any charges on me either?" Iron Will asked Lightning Dust, making sure he heard her right. "I can't exactly take you to court without breaking my promise to the little twerp now can I?" Lightning Dust answered the minotaur with a weak smile. The memories from the last time she was in the hospital rang through her mind. "She recognized me from when I nearly killed her then she just walked out of the room saying welcome to town.", "It's called being forgiven." "Besides. You aren't the only one that has ever made a choice they regretted," she added sheepishly. Iron Will stared at her with curiosity for a moment. "Lightning Dust. I thank you again for looking out for my well being when I was at my lowest. You had nothing to gain from comforting me and you had good reason not to. Though we have not known each other long and I doubt we will ever meet again after my brother and I move on, I would be proud to call you a friend if you would let me." Lightning Dust was taken back at this. She never had thought of a friend this way. Usually a friend would mean somepony to just hang out with. Back in Manehattan she hadn't thought a friendship could be something this meaningful, but with her experiences in this town it wasn't such a strange idea to her anymore. Even Keen Wit had demonstrated this for her without expecting anything back for it or her even asking for it. "Let... Let me think on it and get back to me later," was all she managed to say. She suddenly needed to do a lot of thinking.