//------------------------------//
// 72 
// Story: My Little Fortress: Dawnpick 
// by Paaaad 
//------------------------------//

"...and I'm telling you again, you got it completely wrong about that pony. Please, Glaive, just come and talk to him with me! We can sort this out if we sit our rumps down and discuss it properly instead of flinging barbed insults around left right and centre!" Slightly flustered and sporting a harassed expression, Falcata puts her best pleading tone on, knowing she'd have more luck this way than by shouting at him. Glaive had done more than enough shouting last time, and she had no intention of getting him worked up should she actually succeed in convincing him to talk to Flux down in the dark dungeons beneath the keep.
Already facing towards the door as if the decision were already made, she glances back over her withers at Glaive, swishing her tail with poorly concealed impatience. "I promise you, you'll feel better if you fix this now and don't let it fester."

It had been several days since Glaive fight with Flux, but Falcata would not let him forget about, try as he might. Eventually, he decided that if trying to talk to Flux would make Falcata happy, he would try.
"Okay Falcata, okay, I'll go, but I don't think this will end like you think it will." 
Glaive stands up and grabs his axe (he didn't go anywhere without it anymore), and put his steel boots on three of his legs, the forth wouldn't fit over the cast. Glaive and Falcata then begin to head to the keep. They begin to walk down the stairs to the prison cell, Glaive stops before reaching the bottom, not yet having line of site on the cell or it's prisoner. 
"Flux, are you there? (Stupid question he thinks to himself just as the words leave his mouth) It is Glaive, and Falcata, I... can we talk?" he calls down

Stiletto had Flux safely nestled under her wing when she heard Glaive call out. She nudged him ever so gently and whispered 
"What do I do? Glaive is coming, the last time we spoke he pulled a weapon on me. Should I call out and let him know I am here or just try to ignore him?"
She wanted to stay with here kindest love and comfort him, especially at a time like this, when a jealous military pony with an irrational mind was coming to "Speak" with him.

Kat perks her ears up from hearing the call, she'd recognize that voice anywhere. Quickly getting onto her hooves she takes a few steps away from the cell's door, after all, as much as she cares about the two ponies inside it, she wouldn't want other ponies to think wrong about it. "Oh dear.." she squeaked quietly.

'Uh-oh.  Ok, um, think think think... uh... Stiletto first!'
Flux nervously looks into Stiletto's eyes, hoping what he's about to say wont upset her.
"Um... maybe you should leave the cell for now?  I, uh, really would like to talk to him."

Stiletto looked to the cell door, then the stairs, and finally back at Flux
"I can not get out without going past him, and I want to be here for you. I also do not trust him to not try and take vengeance on you. I could hide, but that would just cause more questions. No I think it is best we face this now. Kat, call him down."

The pegasi mare nodded at that, taking a few steps closer to the stairs just to be sure she could be heard.
"The Prisoners are here, You can come down." she called out. cringing slightly to call them 'Prisoners'.

'Oh gods, was that Kat's voice? She's one of Stiletto's...friends, isn't she, this just got worse. Wait did she say, prisoners? We have more than just Flux locked up?' 
Glaive moves down the stairs nods to Kat and looks toward the cell. He sees Flux and Stiletto curled up on the floor. He really didn't want to talk to her, especially with how she acted the last time they spoke, he looks to Flux hoping for a way out of this, "Is now a bad time? Should I come back later?"

Flux reluctantly stands and leaves Stiletto's side, walking to the bars of the cell.
"Um... I'm not really... going anywhere?"
He winces as his attempted joke flies like a rock.
"I'd, um... really like to talk, if that's... alright?"

"Yes, talk," interjects Falcata, hissing the words into Glaive's ear. "You're not getting away that easily. 'Come back later'; as if! Now go on! With that, she propels him gently towards the cell, rolling her eyes behind his back. Honestly. 
Raising her gaze towards the heavens beyond the stone ceiling, she offers a silent prayer to every god she knows that everything will go smoothly. Even the minor deities whom nopony bothered much with; she wasn't taking any chances after all the "excitement" of last time.

'Why is Stiletto locked up? Is she just visiting Flux, or is it for her behavior at the hospital? She certainly deserved to be locked up, but I'm surprised that Virtue would do it.'
Glaive hesitates a bit before moving right up to the cell door. "Yes Flux, talking is why I am here. Talking, not fighting, not shouting, just talk." Glaive looks to Stiletto and then back to Flux, "But, I'd rather not talk about this in front of her."

"Why not? He will tell me later in any event. There are no falsehoods between us."
Stiletto stands and walks with deliberately nonthreatening movements to Flux's side
"There is also no need to be nervous about my presence here." She bows here head "I am very sorry that I lost my temper with you earlier and scared you. That is why I am here, but also I am here to support meine freundlichsten Liebe."
She raises her head and nods once

'Scared me! Does she think I'm some foal. No Glaive, you don't need to get in another fight. Just ignore the B^!@% and focus on talking to Flux. She's just trying to provoke you.'
Glaive sighs, "Very well Stiletto. Stay if you must." Glaive looks at Flux, thinking very hard about what to say. 
'I don't know what Falcata wants me to tell him, and I'm not going to take back my words about Stiletto from before she knows that, I guess I'll make it up as I go.'
"Flux, I don't apologize for what I said, but that doesn't excuse the way I said it. I apologize for provoking you. I'm sorry."

Having previously planted a forehoof firmly on her face at Glaive's clumsy objection to Stiletto's presence, Falcata now dares to peek out from behind it. 
I hadn't expected him to agree to her staying. Maybe somepony up high really is listening after all. Or maybe Glaive is finished being so damned stubborn.
Then, Glaive comes out with one of the worst attempts at starting an apology speech she's ever heard, and her confidence drops like a stone.
He doesn't apologise for wha- only how- but- that's not even...so his fillyfriend is still a, what was it, vile, perverted whore? Except he should have said that more nicely?
Containing a huge sigh and a rising desire to fly very far away very quickly, Falcata decides that it must have been divine intervention after all. Her love was still more unyielding than an oak tree rooted to the spot, it seemed.
Just lie, just lie...tell him you've had a gods-damned epiphany or something and you think she's a splendid mare! Normally Falcata found Glaive's gentlecoltly truthfulness sweet and charming, but now she just wishes whichever god made him agree to Stiletto staying would come back again before he got another leg broken.

Kat Watched. but stepping away from the group to give some breathing ground and towards her little table with a bottle of drink on it.
'well.. looks like they decide to sit down and talk about things.. oh I hope they'll work something out.' she thought hopefully, sitting there at her table ears up at attention. pulling her wings closer to herself to feel the things she kept in there to reassure herself. 'Hopefully..'

Flux glares at Glaive for a moment, then shakes his head to try to clear his rising anger.
'He's entitled to his opinion, no matter how wrong it is.'
He look back to Glaive after taking a few calming breaths.
"...Alright.  Um, I'm sorry for, uh, breaking your leg..."

'What does a pony say to that?' Glaive is quiet for just long enough for it to feel awkward, before he speaks again. 

"Its...Its okay Flux. I understand. If you had said the things I had said about Stiletto, about Falcata, I probably would have done at least the same. I think I can forgive you." 

The words tasted a half-lie to Glaive. Truth was he still felt like he was in the right with everything he had said, and he hadn't fully forgiven Flux for initiating the violence, but he knew that accepting his apology was the right thing to do, and if he was going to keep the moral high ground, he couldn't turn this into a personal grudge, as much as he might like too.

'Well... thinking he can forgive me is better than I feel about me, so...'
Flux reaches his right hoof through the bars to offer a shake, then sheepishly changes to his left.  After all, Glaive probably isn't capable of shaking with his broken leg...
"Um... peace?"

Glaive watches as Flux hastily changed hooves, slightly amused by his actions. Glaive reaches out to shake Flux's hoof and says, "Peace."

Speechless, Falcata looks on with delight at the two ponies shaking hooves. 
Oh, wow. He did it. I think he just did it. A silent, mental fanfare erupts in her head, and she breaks out into a shaky, relieved smile. Glaive hadn't let her down by refusing the shake or by doing anything else stupid.
Okay, maybe they weren't exactly best friends just yet, but with luck maybe they were just beginning to set foot on the path to proper friendship. A pony could dream, right?

After his talk with Flux, Glaive walks back up the stairs. He pauses for a moment outside Virtue's office. He thinks to himself for a moment, but before Falcata can ask him why he stopped, he turns and knocks on Virtue's office door.

Virtue looks over from the cabinet of books she was fussing over and says: "Come in."

Glaive reaches out a hoof and opens the door. It creaks a bit as he pushes it aside as he walks in. "Miss Virtue, It's Glaive. I'd like to speak with you, if you have a moment. It is about your prisoners."

Virtue feels a knot form in her stomach at the statement. "Alright, what's on your mind?" she says, moving back to her desk and motioning for him to take a seat across from her.

Falcata hovers uncertainly at the door, both worried and curious as to what Glaive is up to.

Glaive takes his seat across from Virtue. "Uh, well, first I'd like to ask you a question. How much time is left on Flux's sentence?"

Virtue frowns slightly and does some math in her head. "Let's see... fifty-eight days, I think..."

Glaive frowns as well. "I see, uh, since I was the wronged party, could I request that he be let out sooner than that? I... I just talked to him, and I don't think you need to worry about us getting into another fight. And I did provoke him a bit. I don't think the full two months is required."

"Oh... I, um, yes... you can do that." Virtue looks a bit surprised, but her expression quickly changes to relief. "Th-the law says that he gets two months for assaulting somepony of your station... although the offended can increase or decrease that sentence to a degree if desired... What did you have in mind?"

Falcata wordlessly moves forwards to place a hoof on Glaive in a gesture of affection, smiling in joyful disbelief. Glaive was full of surprises today, none of them bad ones either.

Glaive thinks as he looks out the window and sees the sun still high in the sky. He turns back to Virtue. "Let him stay here tonight.  Give him time to think over our talk, but let him out in the morning in time for him to get back to work. Dawnpick needs it's smelters running."

Virtue perks up and a small smile forms on her face. "Oh... that's... that's very generous of you! Alright, I'll do that." In truth, once the charges had been filed she shouldn't be able to reduce them to less than two weeks, but for this she'd make origami out of the rule-book.

Falcata beams at her love.  "Glaive, I- I'm so proud of you. You-" Unable to articulate her delight and pride fully, Falcata just hugs the bearded unicorn instead, letting the gesture convey her feelings better than any words ever could.

Virtue feels her smile form into a small grin at the gesture.

Glaive, deep down, wasn't sure that this was the right thing to do, but Falcata's hug and show of support strengthened his resolve. "Thank you Falcata." Glaive turns to Virtue, "Thank you for this Baroness.  I'm sorry that our disagreements have caused you this much work, but it should be over, for now." The ponies bid their farewells and Glaive and Falcata leave.