The Dark Mare

by MagnetBolt

Crabby Disposition: Father's Shadow

Songbird shoved the other foal, the yellow pegasus falling back into a locker and dropping to the floor. Songbird loomed over her, leering.

“Why don't you just fly away?” Songbird teased. “Oh wait! You can't!” She started laughing. “You can't even fly! Why are you even in flight school if you're afraid to get off the ground?! Maybe you should go live with the dirty little earth ponies if you like staying on the ground so much!”

“Songbird, what are you doing?!” Yelled a mare. Songbird froze and looked down the hall at the approaching teacher. Miss Measure was walking over, looking very unhappy. “You're bullying the other students again?!” She grabbed Songbird's ear.

“W-what are you doing?!” Songbirds asked, at the painful grip, as the teacher dragged her down the hallway.

“We're going right to the principal. This is the third time I've caught you picking on the other students. I don't know why you think this is acceptable, but maybe a little detention will change your mind!”

Songbird threw the saddlebags to the side to land in a heap and slammed the door behind her as she walked into the dark home. She should have been more careful, but she was in a bad mood and wanted to break something.

“There you are.” Her mother was sitting on the couch. She had clearly been there for a while. “What do you have to say for yourself?!”

Songbird rolled her eyes and started towards her room. Her mother got up and stepped in front of her, glaring down at the foal.

“Don't you try and give me the silent treatment, young lady! I want to know right now why I had to get yet another letter from flight school about how you're treating the other students!”

Songbird looked down, not able to meet her mother's gaze. “What does it matter?'

“I didn't raise you to be a little punk! And look at me when I'm talking to you!” She slapped Songbird across the cheek, her hoof leaving a stinging welt. “You obviously don't respect me or your teachers!” She slapped Songbird again, the second hit hurting even more than the first, enough to make Songbird start to tear up. “I said look at me!”

Songbird raised her head to meet her mothers gaze, trying to look defiant but only managing barely hold back tears. Her mother slapped her other cheek.

“You're not getting dinner tonight, and you'll be lucky if you get any for the rest of the week!” She stomped a hoof. “And you're grounded until you learn your lesson about picking on people that are weaker than you.”

Songbird cried into her pillow. She was frustrated and upset and didn't even know why. She just wanted to scream and hurt somepony. Her room was bare except for her bed and an old, torn poster on the wall that showed the wonderbolts, and her father. How he'd been before the accident. It was old and faded, almost as old as Songbird.

Something clattered against her window. Songbird frowned and looked up, wiping her eyes. Another hailstone hit the window, and she walked over, ducking as a third hailstone flew past her and into her room. A small pegasus foal was standing below her on the clouds, smirking.

“Split S? What are you doing here?” Songbird asked.

“Come on! Wingover and me are gonna do some flying practice. She says she has a really awesome trick she wants to show us!”

“I can't. I'm grounded.” Songbird grumbled.

“Grounded? You can't ground a pegasus! Come on. Your mom isn't even gonna know you left. You don't wanna be stuck there all day, right?”

“I guess...” Songbird smiled. She looked back at her door and made sure it was locked, then ran back to the window and flew out, her banded wings a little wobbly in the air. “So tell me about this trick she cooked up.”

Songbird blinked and woke up. Her eye hurt, like a spike was being driven into it. She'd passed out on the bar, spilled cider in a puddle around her head. She groaned and sat up, touching her face. She'd gotten rid of the bandages and immediately replaced it with an eyepatch after an attempt to open her wounded eye had left her in shock from the agony.

“I thought you'd spend all night there,” Said the bartender. The pink earth pony mare smiled at her. “I was thinking about getting you a pillow.”

“Sorry,” Songbird said, unable to keep an edge out of her voice.

“No, no. I'm not saying it's bad. You looked like you needed the rest.” She smiled. “Do you have anywhere to go? If you need to spend the night here, we have a back room you can use.”

“I-” Songbird looked down. “I guess I do need it,” she admitted. She couldn't go back to the makeshift barracks in town hall, not after she'd stormed out of there like she had. After leaving she'd gone almost directly to the bar and drunk herself into a stupor, which she'd apparently only just woken up from.

“Good,” the bartender said, stepping out and hanging a closed sign in the window. “Because I wouldn't want anypony to leave when they were as upset as you are.” She patted Songbird on the shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it? I'm a bartender, so I'm pretty good at lending a sympathetic ear.”

“It's a long story,” Songbird said, quietly.

“We've got all night. How about I make us some tea to help clear your head a bit? It's just the thing after pounding back half a cask of cider.”

“Was it really that much?” Songbird asked.

“Pretty close. Don't worry, I'll keep a tab open for you,” she joked. “My name's Tequila Rose. But you can just call me Rose for short.”

“Songbird,” the pegasus said. The earth pony bartender led her into a back room, where there was a couch and a small kitchen. Stairs led upstairs. Songbird looked around. “You live here?”

“It's easier than having to walk home after a long night,” Rose said. “And it means I get to set my own hours!” She giggled at that. “Now come on. Sit down.” She helped Songbird to the old, soft couch. It felt worn and used, but not in a bad way. It was comfortable, and had been made so by years and years of use. It was the kind of thing that marked a place as a home, not just a house.

Tequila Rose got to work boiling water. Songbird sniffled, rubbing her eye. The tears made her covered eye burn.

“Do you take honey?” Rose asked. Songbird nodded quietly. After a few minutes, the mare returned with the mugs, putting one in Songbird's hooves. “Here you go. You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to, but I'm here for you.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Songbird asked, looking at the tea, the steam rising from it forming vague shapes, reminding her of clouds.

“That's a silly question. Nopony needs a reason to be nice to somepony else.” Rose sipped her tea. “I became a bartender because I like to be there for ponies when they don't have somepony else. If they want to talk, I can lend them a shoulder to cry on. If not, I can at least help them drown their sorrows.”

“That's...” Songbird shivered. “Probably more than I deserve.”

“Don't say that,” Rose admonished, quietly. “Whenever a pony says that it means they regret something. And if you regret it it means that you learned from it and have become a better pony, even if it was a hard lesson to learn.”

Songbird smiled a little. “If that's true, I've learned a lot...”

Songbird watched as Wingover flew at high speed, suddenly banking up with a single flap, pulling her wings in tight and slowing as she rose and spinning around, reversing her direction just as her momentum ran out and she began to fall, using her wings to turn the maneuver into a dive.

“Not bad,” Songbird admitted. Her eyes went wide as Wingover went into a roll, changing direction yet again before pulling out of the dive.

“You're just jealous you can't do it,” Split S said, with a grin. Songbird blushed. “You got your cutie mark in singing, after all, not flying.” Songbird looked back at her flank, where her cutie mark, of a flying bird superimposed over music notes, sat mocking her. She was good at singing, sure, but she wanted to be good at flying.

Like her father had been.

“Don't give me that look, I'm just teasing you,” Split S said, nudging her. “You okay?”

“Yeah... I just have a lot on my mind,” Songbird mumbled. There was something besides school and her mother that was bothering her. She just wasn't sure how to bring it up to her friends.

“What is it? Was your mom, you know...?” Split S let the question hang. Wingover landed next to them before Songbird could answer her.

“Aw man did you see that? It was awesome!” Wingover pranced across the clouds. “First time I did that I almost sprained my wing when the wind caught me, but this time it went perfect! I bet I can even use this in cloudball to get around the goalie before he knows what's going on!”

“Cloudball doesn't even have a goalie,” Split S said, raising an eyebrow.

“Well yeah, I guess,” Wingover said, blushing. “You know what I mean. I don't really follow sports. I wanna get into the Wonderbolts, like Songbird's dad was!”

“You and half the fillies in Cloudsdale,” Split S pointed out.

“Hey, I have as much chance as anypony,” Wingover said, with a huff.

“Sure you do. Now come on, Songbird. I wanna know what's bothering you,” Split S said, not willing to let the thread go. Wingover's eyes lit up as she leaned in to listen. She always was a gossip and could never let a little tidbit get away from her.

“...I'll only tell you if you promise... that you won't tell anypony and that... things won't get strange,” Songbird said, looking down. “It's kind of a big thing.”

“Fine, fine,” Split S said. “Wingover promises too.”

“I mean it!” Songbird said, looking up with a scowl.

“Ugh! You're as bad as that idiot filly, what's her name...” Wingover rolled her eyes. “Rainbow Crash.”

“Not as bad,” Split S said. “She ends up in the nurse's office less often.”

“Guys!” Songbird yelled, stomping a hoof. Her friends sighed. “I just... it's something I've been thinking a lot about. I just want to make sure it won't change anything between us, either way.”

“Oh no,” Wingover gasped. “You're going to leave flight school?!”

“What? No!”

“Then it can only be a crush!” Split S said, with a smirk. “I bet it's on that substitute teacher. He's so dreamy! All the girls want to get a piece of that flank.”

“And some of the boys,” Wingover noted. “Probably not Rainbow Crash though.”

“It's not on him,” Songbird admitted. She kicked the cloud under her, knocking off an apple-sized wisp that floated away in the breeze.

“Then who is it?” Wingover asked. “Is it on the Coach? He's not bad.”

“No, I bet it's one of the Wonderbolts!” Split S countered.

“It's you!” Songbird blurted out, her cheeks bright red. “I- I have a crush on you, Wingover.”

She thought she'd prepared herself for the worst, and that if nothing else, she'd just cry for a few days after Wingover rejected her, and then things would go back to normal.

She hadn't expected laughter, rumors spread around school, and her two best friends abandoning her.

“You lost your job?” Rose asked.

“It's more like I quit,” Songbird said. “I couldn't really do it anymore because of this...” She touched her eyepatch. “And after everything that happened, my superior stabbed me in the back and decided not to do anything about the- the-” she shook with rage. “The monster who did this to me.”

“I thought that looked recent,” Rose noted. “You keep fiddling with the eyepatch like you're not used to wearing it.”

“I'm not,” Songbird said, with a shrug. “But I'm going to have to get used to it. It's better than the alternative...”

“If you don't mind me asking, what was your job?”

“I asked you a question, Private!” Shouted the drill sergeant in Songbird's face. “I want to know why you're here when you can't even give me enough wingpower to knock a Breezie on her plot!”

“I- I want to improve myself, sir!” Songbird replied, standing up straight. She was drenched. It was almost the end of her first week of boot camp and she was starting to break, physically and mentally. She couldn't even remember what a good night's rest felt like. But that was less time for nightmares. And she was constantly busy. Less time to think about what she had run away from.

“Well that's good Private!” The pegasus laughed. “Because Tartarus knows you can't get any worse! I haven't seen such a useless pegasus since an earth pony with cardboard wings glued to her back tried to join the weather patrol!”

Songbird shivered, from both the cold and a barely contained rage. The drill sergeant smirked.

“What's wrong, Private? You thinking you want to take a swing at me? I ain't like the fillies you pushed around in flight school. You come at me it don't end until one of us is in a bad way. You sure you want to try me?”

“Sir, striking a superior officer is-”

“Don't tell me you're too soft to stand up for yourself, Private!” The bulky pegasus smiled. “I want to see why in Tartarus you think you can handle this! Quoting regulations is just gonna get your liver eaten by a griffon while you try an' explain to him that it's against the rules!”

“Sir...” Songbird grit her teeth.

“Buttercup if you don't hit me right now I'm gonna have you drummed out for bein' unfit for the life of a soldier. There ain't many mares in the guard and its because too many of them are timid little wimps like you. If you can't fight then I'm gonna send you cryin' back to daddy-”

Something about that set Songbird off. She jumped at the sergeant and screamed, punching and kicking. The sergeant was bigger and stronger, but Songbird was riled up and went for a weapon first. In the end, they'd had to help each other walk the miles back to camp and the sergeant spent the rest of the month with a cast on a broken leg. The official records listed it as a training accident, and Songbird's scores quickly improved as she learned to focus her anger.

“You joined the guard?” Rose asked, surprised.

“I wasn't sure what to do after I dropped out of flight school. My dad had been in the Wonderbolts, but I wasn't good enough to even think about getting into Wonderbolt Academy. I ended up in the infantry. It wasn't exactly glamorous, but I needed it.” Songbird swallowed, feeling a lump in her throat. “I needed something in my life to give me direction. It wasn't about helping other ponies.”

“So then why did you leave?”

“Pegasai in the guard have to pass a lot of really strict physical fitness requirements. Because of the Wonderbolts, there are always more recruits than they can handle, so they get to be picky.” Songbird gestured to her eye. “This is... more than enough to disqualify me from service.”

“They'd kick you out just because you got hurt?!” Rose seemed horrified at that. “But from what you said they're like a family to you...”

“They call it an honorable discharge. They pin a stupid medal on your chest and send you home to sit on your flank and collect a pension. I've seen what that does to a pony.” She looked down. “...what it did to my father...”

Staff Seargeant Songbird looked at her new stripes in the mirror. She'd come a long way. She'd officially been promoted a few weeks ago, but mail took a long time to go to and from the border with Griffonia, and bureaucracy was never a fast process to begin with. Her commander, Lieutenant Brass Shield, had been pushing her to become a commissioned officer. It'd mean she'd have to go to Canterlot for part of her cadet training.

She wasn't sure if she wanted to go. Out here she was finally starting to have fun. Being the only authority, so far away from everypony, was an incredible experience. She liked giving orders, making snap decisions, and being able to just do things without having to worry about the consequences. The pay as an officer was better, sure, but it'd drag her away from all of this.

“Ma'am?” A corporal asked, standing at her open door. Songbird looked over.

“Mail duty again, Wicker Weaver?” She asked. The stallion blushed and nodded. “I thought it was Kicker's turn- let me guess, that crash last night was him.”

“He'll be fine,” Weaver said. “Just managed to have a nightmare and break a bunkbed. Wouldn't have been so bad except he was lying on the bottom bunk at the time. Whole thing came right down on him and near flattened him like a sandwich.”

“I'll have to remember to give him a kick in the head for being so clumsy once he's feeling better,” Songbird said. “So what've you got for me? More paperwork to sign?”

“Personal letter, Ma'am.” He passed over the envelope. Songbird took it and frowned, waving a hoof to dismiss him. There were stamps all over it. It had been passed from one post office to another trying to find her. Whomever had sent it hadn't known where she was stationed. Songbird opened the letter and started reading. It was short and to the point.

Songbird,

I know I haven't written much since you left home. I thought you should know from me before you found out some other way. Your father died this morning. He was never the same after the accident that broke his back, and when the nurse went to check on him, he'd decided he didn't want to live the way he had been. He didn't leave a note, so we can only imagine what he was thinking.

I don't know when or if you'll even get this letter. I hope you can remember your father as the brave pony he was. If you can get some leave, please try and come home so we can talk. I know he was proud of you, and so am I.

- Your Mother, Chandelle

Songbird stared at the letter for a few minutes, digesting the contents. She could feel it, a turning point in her life. A chance to go home and see her mother and build a better relationship than they'd had before.

Then she remembered the sting of being slapped. The screaming. Being practically a prisoner in her room. If he mother was alone, it was because she deserved it. One letter saying she was proud wasn't enough to make up for years of neglect and abuse. Nothing ever would be. She crumpled the paper and threw it in the garbage.

She marched out of her room to go talk to Brass Shield. Not about getting leave. She was going to become an officer. This was her real family now, and she wasn't going to let them down.

***Present Time***

“He broke his back in an accident, in front of a crowd.” Songbird swirled the remaining tea in her cup. “The captain of the Wonderbolts at the time was Thunder Hunter. He thought that it was important that they push the limits and really put on a show. There are a couple of maneuvers that were banned because they were too dangerous. One was called the Enchanted Starburst.”

“I've never heard of that,” Rose said.

“Even most pegasai wouldn't know it. It's a stupid and dangerous maneuver.” Songbird put her mug down. “It takes five pegasai. You all start out equidistant from each other in a wide circle, and fly right towards the middle...” She used her hooves to try and show the motion. “Right before you'd hit each other, you bank straight up into a climb, with your wings almost touching. Then you complete the maneuver by finishing the loop and flying inverted away from the others along the same path you used to come in on, but at a higher altitude. If it's done right, your flight trails join up and a shockwave forms that makes it all take the shape of a star.”

“So it's basically five pegasai trying really hard to not quite have an accident. That's really dangerous.”

“There's a reason it was banned in the first place. A hundred years ago, there were two deaths when they collided with each other and then the stadium floor. When my dad did it...” Songbird looked down. “He told me that there were a lot of places where it could have gone wrong. If they weren't at the right angles, if they didn't match speeds correctly... once you start climbing, it's too late to pull out of the maneuver, and you can't see what everypony else is going. There was some kind of turbulence and they lost alignment during the climb. The whole formation broke apart, but my dad hit into wind shear from the updraft because he fell in instead of out. He landed flat on his back on marble stairs.”

“I'm so sorry...” Rose said, tears in her eyes.

“I was too young to even remember it. My mom blamed me for it because it happened on my birthday, like he was just doing it to show off for me and it was my fault he got hurt. Thunder Hunter took full responsibility and left the Wonderbolts. My mom and dad separated and I barely saw him once a year. Being crippled like that, not even being able to walk, much less fly, even I could see how it just wore him down over time. After a few years he stopped even having hope that he might get better. Then he just...” She shrugged. “He decided he couldn't live like that anymore. I can't blame him too much.”

“And you're worried you'll end up like him,” Rose said, quietly.

“I don't know what to do...” Songbird said, rubbing her eye. “I can't go back to the guard. I don't even have real friends. All I've ever been good at is hurting ponies and running away from my problems...”

Canterlot. The royal city. It was all glitz and glitter, nearly all of the cadets more worried about concourse than CQC. They were expected to look good, here, more like extras on a set than soldiers. Songbird felt out of place among them. None of them had ever had to spill blood or spent a night sleeping in the mud and rain in the field. They were almost all prissy unicorns who thought this was a good way to get girls.

She hated them.

She hated the city, too. Everything was so prim and proper, so clean that the cobblestones looked hoof-polished.

She hated the officers training them. She had expected drill sergeants. Instead she got teachers. She was forced to relearn things she hadn't used since she dropped out of Flight School. Once again, she was at the bottom of her class. What good was algebra or history to a soldier?

When the city had gone on lockdown for the royal wedding she had been happy about it. She might have only been a cadet in school, but on duty, with her armor strapped on, she outranked nearly everypony here. Except the real officers, and the Princesses. It felt nice to be the one giving orders, though.

She was patrolling the eastern part of the city, flying over a small neighborhood with two wingmen, when it happened. She shield spell shattered, and monsters flew in. Horrible chitinous things with dead eyes and buzzing wings. Songbird had for the first time in her life been paralyzed with fear.

Songbird woke up in the hospital after it was all over. Her squad had been captured. The others had been drained of their love. They were never the same after that, just automatons, barely alive, being herded gently by nurses who would have to take care of them until, if, they recovered. Songbird had barely escaped the same fate.

“I still have nightmares about it,” Songbird whispered.

“A lot of people in town do,” Rose agreed. “It wasn't as big as the invasion in Canterlot, but when the changelings attacked here, we were totally helpless. Then Mare Do Well appeared and fought them off, all on her own.”

Songbird scowled at that. “She's a menace. She attacked us!”

“I don't presume to know what happened,” Rose said, evenly.

“She's the one who did this to me!” Songbird touched her eye, which was starting to hurt again. “I was trying to bring her in for questioning and she-” Songbird grit her teeth. “I'm going to find some way to get even with her...”

“You know, I met Mare Do Well once,” Rose said. Songbird looked up. “It's true. It was a little while after the guards cleaned up the mess from the changelings. I was walking back to the bar one night from the docks and some stallion jumped me with a knife.”

“What were you doing down there?” Songbird asked, frowning. “That place is-”

“Dangerous, I know.” Rose sighed. “I was out there visiting a friend. He helps me get rare vintages. Mostly for me, but sometimes I get a discerning customer or two. I was really able to surprise this unicorn once when I pulled out a bottle of Royal Moonshine. He didn't think there was any left outside of the palace.”

“Isn't that illegal to possess?” Songbird asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well it's a good thing you aren't a Guard, then. Otherwise you'd have to fine me.” Rose smiled. “Anyway, I was going home and he jumps me. I've never been so scared in my life. I screamed and she swooped down like some kind of... giant bat or something. She was so graceful, like she was just dancing around his knife, and then she knocks him out with the lid from a trash can!”

“If she was really brave she'd join the Guard instead of just-” Songbird bit her lip.

“You want to find her, right?” Rose asked. Songbird nodded.

“After what she did I'm going to-”

“You should find her and talk to her. I don't know why she did that to you, but you seem like a good pony. And I think she's a good pony too. Instead of being mad at each other you should talk to each other and work things out.” Rose smiled.

“I don't think that's going to work,” Songbird said. There was a distant rumble like thunder. Rose frowned.

“There wasn't supposed to be any rain today...” She pulled back a curtain and gasped. The city was illuminated by a bright orange light, pillars of smoke rising into the air. Rose stumbled back as the building next door suddenly exploded into flames, the window shattering.

“Stay down!” Songbird yelled, jumping on top of Rose protectively.

“What's happening?!” Rose screamed.

“I don't know,” Songbird said. “Get outside. Do you have a fire brigade in town?”

“The pegasai are supposed to go and get a rainstorm going, a-and earth ponies and unicorns are supposed to evacuate a-and help stop any fires from spreading.”

“Okay. You do that. I'm going to figure out what's going on. I'll come back to check on you once things are under control. I still need that couch to sleep on later!” Songbird opened the window and flew out.

Half of the city seemed to be on fire. As Songbird flew up to get a look, she saw another building burst into flames, and a dark shape silhouetted against the glow of the burning structures. A black, winged shape. Songbird's eye widened. She recognized the shape of those wings, and they didn't belong to any pony.

“A griffon?” She whispered. She hadn't seen one since she was deployed to the border. What was one doing here? Then she was distracted as a loud crack split the air, a blossom of flame erupting in town hall. Two more followed, blasting debris out into the night. “No!”

Songbird started flying for town hall. She had to do something. Even if she'd turned her back on them, it was the only family she had left. If she didn't at least try, it would be one more thing to regret.

And she wasn't sure she could handle that.