//------------------------------//
// That Is Why You Fail 
// Story: Urohringr 
// by Imploding Colon 
//------------------------------//

	"It's no use..."  Kera gritted her teeth, sweating as legs wobbled beneath her.  No matter how brightly her horn strobed, the large boulder in front of her barely got a foot off the ground.  Grass and weeds swayed within ten feet of the magical exercise.  An unearthly wind picked up, only to die and then pick up again.  Large bulbs of sweat gathered around the filly's tattooed brow, glistening in the amber sunset.  "Couldn't I-I just... I dunno... try twirling around several coconuts instead?"

"It's a crater, child," Roarke droned from where she stood by the filly's side.  "Not a beach."

"Then h-how about some large twigs or several small t-turtles?"

"Do you really wish to be tossing turtles around so soon?"

"R-Roarke!"

"I know you're strong enough and disciplined enough to tackle this," Roarke said, pointing at the boulder.  "To choose something else would be undermining your true potential."

"Roarke, I-I don't even know what my true potential is!"

"Perhaps you have, but you've simply forgotten it."

Thud!  Kera dropped the boulder altogether.  She turned to glare at Roarke.  "Forgotten it?!  I'm a kid!  I am what I learn!  I'm not some old mare pining for the glory days like you!"

"Just because my past has been bloody doesn't make it glorious," Roarke droned.  "Now stop changing the subject.  We're here to focus on improving your skills, not lambast mine."

"Unnngh..." Kera rolled her eyes.

"Again," Roarke said, pointing at the boulder.  "See if you can make it turn upside down in midair."

"What's th-the point of all this, anyways?!" Kera said, frowning.  "I don't remember anypony making me your apprentice."

Roarke's brow furrowed over her lenses.  "Strange.  Earlier, you were quite excited about doing some magical training."

"Yeah, but I didn't think I'd be putting my brain through a meat grinder!"

"From what Bellesmith has said, you were once able to open complex locking mechanisms from the inside out, even overpowering weighted devices that ran on pure mana."

"Yeah, well, I-I haven't had to do that in a while!"

"So you admit that you're out of practice."

"What I admit is that I shouldn't have come out here if all you wanted to do was make me sweat like a trained dog!"  Kera frowned.  "Let me float around some smaller rocks that I know I can handle, and then let's call it a day."

Roarke took a deep breath.  "Very well."  Nodding, she trotted towards the southern crater wall to gather chunks of debris blown off earlier from her rockets.  "I can see now that having been coddled into a surrogate family by Bellesmith and Pilate has softened you.  It may not exactly be my standard of living, but that's simply me.  I was wrong to assume that you were a mare who wished to push herself and calculate her strengths.  If you wish to lower the difficulty of this exercise, I shall do so.  However, someday, you will be grown, and the likes of Pilate and Bellesmith may depend on you, and I doubt the world will allow itself to be any easier."

Kera clenched her teeth.  She fumed and fumed, shutting her eyes tight.

Roarke was in the middle of gathering some tiny rocks when all of the sudden she felt the wind shift once more.  Her lips curved for the briefest moment.  Then, deadpan, she turned around.  Her lenses rotated upon seeing the rock floating a good four feet off the ground.

"Hmmm... now that's a considerable improvement," the metal mare said.

"Yeah, well, doesn't seem quite so huge now," Kera grumbled.

"Perhaps because you're channeling your emotion into it."

The filly was silent.

Roarke trotted up.  "Very well.  Now... concentrate."  She pointed.  "Turn it upside down..."

"Grnnnnghhhh..." Kera grunted and hissed.





An hour had passed.  The basin of the crater was bathed in crimson.  Soon, the light of the dying day would be past the western sky stabs, casting the tree canopies in soupy darkness.

Somewhere, like dots clinging to the southern wall, Roarke and Kera still lingered, the latter producing a shimmering glow that stood out amidst the darkening shadows of evening.

"Good..."  Roarke trotted around Kera in a wide circle, observing the boulder as it floated fifteen feet above the ground.  "You've gotten good at manipulating its lift."  She turned towards the filly.  "But now you've got to turn it upside down."

"Look... it's up high, okay?" Kera squeaked amidst her strain.  "Isn't that good enough?"

"No, Kera," Roarke muttered.  "Raw strength is one thing.  Controlling it takes true skill.  To exhibit true mastery, one must be able to impart her will in noticeable detail."

"How d-do you know?" Kera's teeth gnashed as leaves and grass blades twirled around her.  "You're... nnnghh... not a unicorn!"

"You think true mastery applies to one race?"  Roarke paced as she spoke.  "You think Props needs magic to know engines like she does?  You think Floydien needs wings to fly the Jury?"

"You c-could really use a cork to shut the b-buck up!" Kera squeaked.

"Cute."  Roarke pointed up at the boulder.  "Now turn it upside down."

"I-I can't... I'm telling ya...!"

"You've already lifted it much higher than you had it earlier," Roarke said.  "What makes you think you can't improve again?"

"Common... s-sense...?"

"You're doing well so far."

"B-because you're pissing m-me off so much!"

"Very well, then."  Roarke's eye-lenses pistoned outward.  "Focus on that anger.  Harness the passion.  If it's what empowers your magic, then flow with it."

"H-how's that going to help anything?!"

"You're a filly who says what she thinks and does what she wants," Roarke said.  "What's more, you're wise beyond your years.  You're a filly that's simultaneously defined by your rebelliousness and your precociousness.  Also, you're quick to anger.  So be it."

"So... b-be it?"

"Stop being s-something that you're not and give in," Roarke said.  "Be yourself.  Feel and act all at once."

"I... I..."  Kera heaved and shivered, her horn pulsating.  "I don't know wh-what you're talking about—"

"Kera..."  Roarke spoke in a hauntingly calm tone.  "Kera, I know what you've been wanting to say.  Now say it."

Kera clamped her jaw shut.  Her nostrils flared.

Roarke's ears folded back as she snarled, "Stop holding back!  You want to be Belle's and Pilate's little coward all your life?!  Now let it out!"

"Rrrrrr-HAAAAAAUGH!"  Kera spun the rock... and sent it hurling straight at Roarke.

Without saying a word, Roarke nimbly leapt back, firing a trio of mini-rockets from her shoulder-braces.  They screamed through the air, impacted the boulder dead-on, and exploded the chunk of earth in mid-air.  The smouldering pebbles parted ways, splattering harmlessly against the crater wall behind Roarke.  The metal-mare landed from her leap, skidding to a reverse stop as she crouched.  She looked across the clearing, catching her breath.

Kera slumped down on her chest, but her horn hadn't stopped glowing.  When she looked up, her tattoos were crawling with magical illuminescence.  "Why did you do it?!" she hollered.  "Why did you talk me into staying at Lerris?!"  Her breath seethed through her teeth.  "Didn't you see I was happy on board the Jury?!  That I was just fine with Belle and Pilate?!"

Roarke stared.  She listened quietly, patiently, not moving a muscle.

"Hrnnngh..." Kera curled her forelimbs to her chin and growled, "I didn't need you messing with my head!  You hear me?!  I didn't need any of that!  I wanted... I-I wanted..."

Slowly, the air grew still across the clearing.  Kera's panting breaths rolled over the dusty rock and stone.

"...I wanted for just once in my life to not have to be running from something all the time.  Once, it was pretty cool to be the only filly on the street who didn't need to be part of some stupid gang in order to feed herself.  But now?  I'm just so friggin' tired of it.  I want... I-I want to chillax, you know?  And then there was Lerris... and then there were the th-things that you said to me at Archer Point.  And I thought... I-I thought I might finally... have..."

Roarke held her breath.

"Grrrrrrrr..."  Kera slapped the earth floor.  "I hate this!  I hate this I hate this I hate this!"  She clenched her skull and grumbled.  "Why can't I friggin' get over what happened, already?!  It's not like I brought that maniac there!  It's not like I wanted so many ponies to die!  I hate it... I hate it so much!"

At last, she slumped against the earth, exhaling heavily.  She closed her eyes and fumed, her face stuck in a permanent frown.

After half a minute, Roarke's hooves shuffled over.  She stood beside the filly.

"I... I never had the courage to kill my mother," Roarke said.

Kera stirred.  Sniffling, she wiped her muzzle and looked up with glossy eyes.  "What...?"

"In Searonese culture," Roarke explained.  "There comes a time in every young mare's life where they must prove their resilient warrior's blood.  The most common rite of passage is to slay one's own maternal bearer in combat.  A lot of grown mares give birth several times just so they can prove themselves against thick-headed daughters who are a third of their age, to show that they still have the tenacity to spill blood for the Goddess Searo.  As for the daughter—if she can overcome her superior, then she is considered a strong warrior, and she gets to sit and feast on the spoils of war in the Great Hall for the rest of her days, until she's slain by another mare, of course."

"That's..."  Kera gulped, lips quivering.  "Really really sucky."

"For me, it was life.  My life.  And I failed at it."  Roarke's nostrils flared.  "Even worse.  I never even tried."

"But... h-how could you?"

"That's what my mother thought, and she tried several times to engage the attack in hopes that she would get something out of me.  I suffered many broken bones before the age of ten.  There are some winters I don't remember, because I had endured so much head trauma.  Eventually, though, my mother discovered that I didn't have the guile to try striking her down."

"What... wh-what did she do?"

"She fled towards a bounty hunter station in the south, far from Searo's Hold.  It was the only way she could manage the shame.  I wasn't the only one who was cowardly... I suppose..."

Kera bit her lip.

Roarke sighed as she squatted beside the filly.  "For years, I carried my weakness as a burden.  Nopony wanted to train me, and most mares who so much as saw me out in the field tried their best to eliminate me as soon as they spotted the colors of my ship.  It took over a decade and constant struggle, but I soon became a professional bounty hunter, with a list of victories and spoils that made every warrior around me green with envy.  At some point, Lady Pestiferous took note of my accomplishments, and she granted me entry into the Great Hall.  I was one of a very small group of warriors who made it that far without enduring a traditional rite of passage.  That made me something of an oddity... a rarity." 

"And... what happened to your mother?"

Roarke shook her head.  "I can only guess.  Odds are she died in combat, which is what she would have wanted.  But it doesn't matter.  All my life, I saw myself as a coward for refusing to do what I did.  I had nopony to turn to and share my feelings.  Then Imre entered my life.  And after that, Rainbow Dash liberated me from a prison that I didn't even know I was stuck in.  Looking back, do you know what I realized?"

Kera simply gazed at her.

Roarke said, "I realized that, the whole time, I was stronger than all of the ponies around me.  When Searo's Hold collapsed, they were all confused and witless.  And yet I carried on.  Even with my ship destroyed and my former armor stripped, I still feel as strong as ever—maybe more so.  And I know now that all of my life I have been preparing for a future that I'm only now starting to grasp, and I wouldn't have it any other way.  With the Noble Jury—with Rainbow's friends—I am discovering more and more to be proud of... to be thankful of..."

The filly blinked rapidly, staring down at the stone floor—at least until Roarke's metal-laced hoof tilted her chin back up.

Roarke's lenses reflected Kera's face.  "You have such... such immense strength, Kera.  Beneath all of the confusion and the jocularity and the anger, there lies a powerful grown mare just waiting to burst out of her shell."  She let her hoof rest on the filly's shoulder.  "What happened at Lerris is going to weigh on you for a long... long... very long time.  It may even stay with you for the rest of your life.  But I am convinced that the inner strength that you possess—the very tenacity that allowed you to live on the streets—will make you more than capable of bearing that weight.  I've seen evidence of it myself.  Deep sleep or not, you've bounced back, and much of the pain that you find detestable will one day serve to be your greatest ally.  That will be a time when the lives of ponies will depend on you, and you will accomplish such heroics that right now you can't even fathom them."

Kera's eyes watered.  "But... b-but it's just so much... so terribly much to d-deal with..."

"Kera, listen to me.  You must never... ever doubt yourself.  Your life is so fresh and young that the last thing you need right now is blindness.  Don't blind yourself, Kera.  We all deserve to bear full witnesses to our own strengths.  Don't waste decades until you can finally look back and realize that you were strong when you thought you were weak... even for just being a loving daughter."

The filly sniffed.  She leaned aside, nuzzling Roarke's forelimb as she smiled tearfully into the mare's face.

Roarke fidgeted.  "You should know," she grunted, her lenses retracting.  "I don't do hugs."

"Too bad."  Kera flung herself forward and wrapped her forelimbs around the mare's neck.  She buried her warm face in Roarke's shoulder.  "Thank you, Roarke most Rare..."

The bounty hunter sighed hard.  "...I think I preferred you throwing boulders at me."

And Kera giggled.