//------------------------------// // 2.7 Someone to Hate // Story: Unforgiven Memories // by Hidden Brony //------------------------------// Disclaimer: I do not own Hasbro, My Little Pony or any characters, places, or events in the extended cannon, although it would be awesome if I did. Flight From Memories Chapter Seven: Someone to Hate “Who the hell are you?” Gil-Throm exclaimed. “The stallion keeping you from making the biggest mistake of your life,” I called out as much to the assembled griffons as to him. “I come bearing wondrous news for the Griffon Empire, nay, the world! What do I arrive to?” I spun to the Emperor. “Some fuck in a crown about to fuck up everything!” “Guards, he’s one of Celestia’s pets!” Gil-Throm exclaimed, seeing my demon nature. “Remove him at once, lest he slay me for his master’s plots!” I started laughing, “That’s rich, you know that, right? That is one of the funniest things I have ever heard! The demons of the Void have not answered Celestia’s call for two years now, instead serving ourselves, like any self-respecting race.” “What proof do you have to this fact?” he accused. “I am the Voidborn Premier. I speak for all the demons created by Celestia and those like her.” He swiped his claw in a dismissive motion. “Irrelevant. Celestia is still in power, and deserves to be slain!” The crowd burst into cheers at his words. They were quickly silenced by mine, “She has been.” He stared at me for a second, before snarling, “This is a trick! Don’t believe him, my brothers!” “I buried a knife in her throat and kicked her off a tower.” “She flies!” “You are desperately grasping at straws as your plans fall apart around you, Gil-Throm.” There was a sound of a scuffle coming from the doorway behind us. Sounds like Custos was on his way. “What is there for you to have your Blood Feud? Give up this folly!” The Emperor growled at me, “By what right do you seek to challenge me?” I sighed. Some people were just so stupid. The Rights were set up by Gil as a method of keeping the throne room from being flooded with petitioners. To petition the Emperor directly, you had to have completed a Right. The Right of Strength is slaying a strong beast or some such, the Right of Birth is one free petition to any noble-born griffon, and the Right of Politica is what allows foreign dignitaries to speak with him. “By the Right of Strength. I have slain Celestia, and therefore am allowed to speak.” “The unproven Right of Strength, you mean. You have no evidence of your claim!” I snapped, not thinking, “I did not spend as long as I did building this damn Empire just to let some fuck in a pointy hat fuck everything up!” He narrowed his eyes at me, “Explain yourself.” I groaned inwardly. Nice move, Streak. I devoured the enchantment keeping the rainbow stripe in my hair disguised. “My name is Streak. One thousand years ago, I assisted Gil in building this great Empire on the ideals of equality and brotherhood. Brotherhood with not only other griffons, but with your neighbor nations! “This nation was formed in the aftermath of Discord’s unprovoked assault on Equestria. The very land you stand on was given to you by the very ponies you now plot to destroy, so that they would have an ally if another being of Discord’s strength, such as Celestia or Luna, were to declare war, knowing full well that if you were to be attacked, they would come to your defense as well. You have betrayed the very ideal your Empire was formed on, Throm. You don’t deserve the title of Emperor, nor do you deserve to have any association with my friend.” Throm was fuming. He slammed his claw on the balcony. “I will not be spoken to as such, not from the likes of you!” “And with that sentence, you attempt to elevate yourself above Gil. Above your very subjects. The Emperor is in power because the people let him, not because he has power.” “The people are still on my side!” he yelled. “Let’s test that. All in favor of keeping Throm in charge, and thus declaring Blood Feud on Equestria, speak up now. Make some noise in support of your Emperor!” I challenged the crowd. Not a single voice cheered. “There it is. You have lost popular support. Hell, you have lost all support.” “I call for a meeting of the Senate!” Custos yelled, jumping onto the balcony. Close behind him was a raggedy-looking Murphy, Star with that look she seems to have perfected, and an annoyed Gilda. Oh, and a pissed off Rainbow Dash. Oops. “Who seconds this?” Gilda asked. “Sure. The hell not?” I said. Throm smirked at me, giving me the feeling I had just made a huge mistake. “The Senate shall meet in a day’s time, at high sun. Don’t be late, Streak.” I smirked back, covering the nervousness I now felt. He was way too confidant for someone in his position. “I look forward to it, Throm.” As I walked back into the room, there was a flash of cyan in front of me. “What the hell?” she shouted. “We’ll talk elsewhere,” I said, stepping around the crippled flier. She stepped right back in front of me. “No, we’re talking here and now. Where the hell were you for the last two years?” “Dead.” I used the moment of surprise to walk around her and head for the landing pad we had landed on. She quickly caught up with me, walking right next to me. I could hear the other four, Star, Gilda, Murphy, and Custos, walking along silently behind us. “What do you mean, ‘dead’?” “I mean I was dead,” I said nonchalantly. “It’s quite simple, actually. Celestia sent an assassin two years ago, and I got my throat slit.” “Then where was the body?” she asked in an accusing tone. “Never technically there. Look, this is a complicated topic, and not for some ears.” I turned my head to look at the four behind us. Murphy started whistling and looking in another direction. Smooth. “You aren’t getting out of speaking about this,” she growled at me. “And I don’t intend to, but in return you have to talk about your past. Nothing major,” I held up my hooves as she snarled, “but something.” “My past is my own,” she said, repeating what seemed like a mantra for her. “And my past is my own.” I smirked. “I’m maintaining the status quo. Tête-à-tête. Nothing you say will leave my confidence, but I’m not giving out handouts.” She groaned, “Fine, fine. When we get to. . . wherever we’re going, I’ll talk.” I smiled, that was easier than I thought it would be. “But you’re talking first.” Damn it. “You’re not weaseling your way out of this, Rainbow Dash.” “Damn it.” —*~*~*— Throm had been kind enough to provide us with rooms in the palace, the cheeky bastard. I was sharing my room with Star, Rainbow Dash and Gilda shared the latter’s room, and the guys had their own rooms around the city. The room was pretty standard for a fancy room. It had a large bed built for two griffons sitting along the middle of one wall. There was a small table on each side of the bed with a candle on it. There was a walk-in closet on the opposite side of the room from the doorway in, and there was a balcony attached to the open wall. “Alright, spill.” Those were the first words I heard when the door was closed. Rainbow Dash had followed me back to my room, dumping Star off on Gilda. Neither of them were happy about it. “I said status quo, Rainbow Dash,” I reminded. “You know my entire history, at least the important parts of it.” “Yeah, I do,” the flier said. “So what? You owe me some answers.” “Yes, I do. However, you owe me some explanations as well,” I said sternly. “What about your past bothers you so much?” She sighed, laying down on the bed. “Look, I don’t like talking about it. It was a painful part of my life.” “So was what I told you,” I reminded softly, laying down next to her. “I won’t ridicule you for it, even—no, especially—if it is worthy of it. How’s that?” She snorted, getting a fleeting miniscule smile on her face. Good enough. It quickly fell, however. “Fine,” she sighed again. “Might as well get into it. We’re going to have a lot of backstory to this, I warn you.” Seeing I wasn’t driven off, she sighed. “So first of all, I never knew who my mom was. Dad never talked about her; I didn’t even know I was supposed to have a mom until I entered school. When I came home and asked him about why I didn’t have a mom, he just smacked me across the face and told me never to bring it up again. I was six.” She saw me tense up at her words, and gave me a grimace. “You sure you want to hear this? You look like you want to hit something.” “I do, on both counts,” I said. “Keep going.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “This was the beginning of something horrible. Dad had been neglectful before. I was commonly living on a meal every other day, and never ate a school since I didn’t have money to buy it with. It wasn’t all bad, though. By that point I was used to it, and didn’t think anything of it. After that night, though, he got worse. Whenever he got mad, he would hit me. If I wasn’t nearby, he’d look for me. If I hid, he’d beat me worse when he found me for hiding from him. After each time, he would threaten to kill me if I told anyone. I went to the hospital about once a year. “The kids at school made fun of me for my hair and lack of a mom. Eventually, it wasn’t just teases and stealing my stuff. I started getting in fights every day, and when I’d come home, Dad would beat me for making him have to deal with the school when they called him. The teachers looked at me, saw the bruises, and went on their way.” She spat on the ground, off the side of the bed. “It wasn’t their job, so they didn’t care. “When I started flying for fun, Dad found something he could use me for. I was pushed into flying fast and often. If I didn’t fly fast enough, he would hit me and tell me to do it again. If I didn’t follow his instructions perfectly, he would hit me. If I did well, he would hit me, just less, saying it helped ‘toughen me up’ to what he wanted me to be. I slowly got faster and faster, but I was never good enough for him. Always just too slow. He was never proud of me, even when I was the fastest flier in the town. That’s all I wanted, in the end. He was an abusive and neglectful ass, but I still wanted him to be proud of me. To not look at me like his biggest mistake. “Then came middle school. There was this boy who was quiet and evaded attention. Really cute, to boot. Well, to make a long story short, he was my first friend. He was the only one to not make fun of me. One day, he covered for me when I got into a fight that wasn’t my fault, taking the blame for it. When I asked him about it later, he only said that it was the right thing to do. “We would hang out at his house, away from my dad. I was never allowed to spend the night, of course, so I still got beat every night. Dad didn’t care where I was, obviously, but the boy’s parents did. His name was First Down. He was a star on the hoofball team, yet still managed to be unnoticed and very, very single. I couldn’t let that stand, now could I? “We started dating in eighth grade. He was—” she paused, looking at something in the distance only she could see, “—amazing. Kind, intelligent, courteous, everything I thought I wanted in a guy. I felt like I didn’t have to put on a mask of ‘awesome’ around him, just being myself. To top it off, he was one of the best fliers in town. We would race, and sometimes I would let him win. Of course, that ended when Dad found out I was letting someone beat me. A week later, I was out of the hospital. The story was that I crashed while practicing. The doctors knew, of course, but like the town, they just ignored it. The whole town was in collective denial. There couldn’t be an abusive father in Tall Tale, this was a good town to live in. A perfect damn town. “When I got out, First was the one to pick me up. I was thirteen at the time, and I had been into the hospital almost a dozen times. The staff knew me by name, and vice versa. The nearest hospital was the next town over at the time. Back to First, though. He confronted me about my Dad, and I couldn’t admit I was being abused. It was a weakness, and I couldn’t afford to be weak. “However, that was the first night I didn’t return home. I was convinced I was in love, and that it would never end, so I gave him a proposition. We’d race to a nearby hilltop, and whoever won would have the other as a slave for the rest of the night. Obviously, I won. I don’t remember much of that night, just screams, pulls, and moans. The next morning we woke up covered in more than sweat. “We made this a weekly tradition. Every friday, the loser of the last week’s challenge chose that week’s challenge, and whoever lost became the slave for the night. Those nights never ended until the sun came up, and I loved every damn second of them. “Then one month, I missed my period.” She sighed, settling her head on her hooves. “I kept it from both First and my dad, and everything continued as normal. By the end of the month, I knew something was wrong. The next month, I had the same problem. I brought it up with First, and he freaked. We were fourteen, for crying out loud, neither of us were ready to be parents. “We stopped our sessions, and I went to a doctor. By the end of the day, it was positive. I was pregnant. My world seemed to fall apart at that point. The doctor told me that, by law, he had to tell my dad. I freaked out, causing a scene. I couldn’t let him tell my dad, he would kill me. Eventually, the doctor relented. When I got home, Dad had his belt in his hands. That bastard doctor had waited until I had left, and called my dad. “I was beaten severely by my dad, not because I was pregnant, but because my pregnancy was an inconvenience to him. By the end of the day, I was back at the hospital. The baby survived the beating, somehow. Fast forward another seven months, and I had a newborn baby girl. First was nowhere to be found, and had been for four months. Turns out he moved to live with his aunt and uncle in Canterlot. Didn’t have the balls to stay and live with his mistake. “The doctor brought a nice stallion in a suit in, who explained that my dad had filed the paperwork to put my daughter through the adoption system. Since I was a dependant, I wasn’t allowed to appeal their decision. My daughter was taken out of my hooves right as I got her. I didn’t plan for her before hoof, but I still loved her. She was a part of me, and that bastard gave her away because she was an inconvenience to him. “When I got home, Dad told me we were moving to Cloudsdale. Turns out he wanted me nowhere near that baby. He threw me into the Junior Speedsters, the high school form of the premier academy for flying in Equestria. Within a year, I had made friends with Flutters and Gilda, and earned my cutie mark. I went on only one date there. When Dad found out about it, I was back into the hospital. “The second I was eighteen, I dropped out of the academy and moved. Dad had told me that the baby was adopted, he even had the paperwork giving her to some couple in a small town called Ponyville, so I had no reason to go back to Tall Tale. I moved to the town that held my child, hoping to see her. To watch her grow up, even if it was from the outside. I never saw her. "So now you know," she said. "Now you know why I didn't want to tell you. Nopony knows this, not Flutters, not Gilda, not even Chaser. Just you, me, and my dad." When she told her tale, she looked both exhausted and relieved at the same time. Like someone who had just carried a heavy weight for years and was allowed to drop it if they could throw it over a wall. That is actually pretty accurate description. Psychological weight can seem physical at times, and talking about your issues can be very difficult. In the end, however, you felt much better for the effort. That being said, I had none of these thoughts in my head. I was shaking with rage, grinding my teeth hard enough that the flier was looking at me with worry. My vision was red, and a quiet growl burbled out of my throat involuntarily, not that I would have stopped it if I could have. I knew one thing at that point: Rainbow Dash’s dad had to die.