//------------------------------//
// Act 2 | Behavior Modification 
// Story: Daughter of the First Reign 
// by LegionPothIX 
//------------------------------//

"And that's about it," Nurse Clarity said to Sombra. Treeling had been sitting nearby for the entire conversation, though, she was completely lost by what had occurred. The topic had been obfuscated in the way parents often do when they don't want their child to know what's being said. With analogy, innuendo, and the occasional spelling of words that C.C. knew would otherwise invoke the context images in the filly's mind.

They had been discussing the disturbing trend that had developed over the course of the last week. Throughout their observational assignment of the city, the warchild had grown increasingly disconnected to the ponies around her, despite her growing ability to empathize with them. The nurse wanted the filly to have the chance at normal childhood like she once had before they met and before Treeling was to be turned over to the Estate of Magic for study. 

Through her story Sombra said little but gave consideration to her concerns. Now that it had concluded he was ready to give some feedback. "I have a few points to address, but first I have to ask if you have even talked to Treeling about your concerns."  The filly's ears perked up at hearing her name, and the nurse looked insulted at being spoon-fed such a basic line of her medical specialty.

"She poured her entire mind into my head and it isn't going away,"  The statement wasn't a psychiatric assessment, but rather a personal one, and she went on to explain: "I understand her better than you could possibly imagine and better than she can articulate." 

The impassioned speech put Sombra in a state of unease. "You think," he corrected.

"What?" the nurse asked.

Sombra leaned his foreleg on the table that they were sharing breakfast at while Treeling sipped a milkshake. "You think you understand her, because you have some shared context, but you couldn't possibly know for certain without reading her again. And we both know you're not willing to take that risk."

"You have no idea what it's like to inherent another entire life worth of experiences!" Crystal Clarity exclaimed with some indignance.

"Experiential context," Sombra corrected again, "and you're right. As a consequence of me not forcing myself upon a child I have no idea how she thinks." A few moments passed in silence while he let her consider the implications of the statement before going on, "You gave her context for ideas that she didn't have, and in turn you were given context, but those experiences do not exist in isolation. The version of her life that you lived was colored by your perceptions. Your experiences."

C.C. was quiet for a long time before looking back to Sombra. "Since when are you a therapist?" she asked. To which he grew a coy smile.

"My plan—our plan—that of the Crystal Queen, requires us to understand each other and our opponents. So I've taken the last few days to read up on it during my research." Though his plan for their empire differed from that of the Crystal Queen it wasn't mentioned as a factor in his motivations. After he gave Treeling a soft noogie he went on, "She looks like a pony but she's not. Shes a bridge between what is in here, and what is out there."

"Out there?"

Sombra nodded. "Hydras, Chimaira, Dragons and Windigos. She embodies all the traits that the feral creatures that thrive in the Chaos Plains." Treeling smiled as the images of powerful and monstrous hunters filled her mind. She liked being compared to such strong specimens, but Sombra followed them with some comparisons she was less thrilled about. "Similarly, she has the adaptability and the same capacity for reason as the pony breeds. A capacity she must be allowed to develop naturally if we are to succeed." 

"So... Are you saying that I should do nothing about this?" she asked but Sombra shook his head.

"Not nothing. Less than nothing. You're trying to change who she is, and we need her that way if we we're going to defeat Discord." C.C. couldn't believe what she was hearing as Sombra went on, "What is worse is trying to give her a normal-pony life that she can't have. It is only a cruel taunt of what she could never become."

"She could ha–" Nurse Clarity began before Sombra interrupted her with an authoritative slam of his hoof on the table that he made as he stood up and towered over her. 

"No," he forcefully said as the filly imitated the gesture towering over her milkshake that she sipped innocently. "The sad truth is that war can not be won without the sacrifice of brave soldiers. She may not die, but she will never be like us, especially after what she's called upon to do."

An uncomfortable quietism stretched out between the two adults. Sombra tilted his head to subtly indicate to Nurse Clarity that she should look at the filly who was in a stance mirrored his own. Even now she was mimicking their behavior, as to become a Crystal Pony, and both Sombra and Nurse Clarity knew that the crystal ponies would not be not enough to stop Discord. It was in that moment of crystal clarity that the pony whose namesake it was realized: everything that made the filly unique and special was being brow-beaten out of her. On survival instinct alone the filly was conforming to the societal expectations of a civilization that was beneath her.

Sombra slowly returned to his seat as the filly did the same. He turned to Treeling to ask her directly: "Tell me about your time with Nurse Clarity." In a bit of dexterous maneuvering the slate and the milkshake exchanged places. A bit of chocolate ice cream drooled out of her mouth as she tried to manipulate both the chalk and the straw. She wiped the soft serve from her slate with her forehoof and began drawing.

An eclectic image set became a collage as the filly recreated the various emotions she had seen and felt strongly over the last week, and pointed to nearby patrons of the establishment while tapping on certain images. Nurse Clarity translated the emotions from image to words for Sombra as he inspected the targets at the end of her hoof. 

"That's a lot of learning!" Sombra remarked with a playful tone. "Tell me. What does this mean to you?" he asked whilst tapping on the collage as a whole rather than any one part. The filly shrugged at the question before Sombra continued, "Then why did you learn it?" He suspected that he knew the answer but wanted to "hear" it from her lips. She clutched the chalk tightly in her mouth and erased the scene before drawing a new one. A mare and a filly holding the exact same kneeling pose as a Pegasus towered over the two of them on a throne, her wings spread wide, and her eyes filled with rage.

"Oh no..." Nurse Clarity said, "I didn't mean it like that..."

Sombra turned a pointed stare upon the nurse before gently returning his gaze to the filly. "Ok, but what for?" The filly gleefully snapped her jaw at Sombra, whilst the chalk dangled from the corner of her mouth like a cigarette, before resuming her tale. She drew a small pony on the board, being chased by a snow lion found in the mountains of the Crystal Empire. She drew Nurse Clarity's cutiemark on the lion, and then behind it she drew a timber-wolf with Sombra's cutiemark to chase the cat. Behind that still was the visage of a mighty dragon which bore her cutiemark, and was spraying fire at the timber-wolf. 

Behind that still was a compilation of three more images. The sword that the others had talked about her becoming sticking out of the overlapping shadow of two creatures. The first was the draconequus. The second was the Celestial Sisters who were represented as a single four-winged being from both sides of the heavens. She looked up to Sombra with large puppy-dog eyes as she gently tapped on the sword in the ideological representation.

Confused by their appearance Sombra asked the filly: "What about them?" His words came with a tap the representation Celestia and Luna. The filly scribbled a thick, heavy, double-ended arrow between the Celestial Sisters and Discord to show that they were equivalent in idea and power. To her they were two extremes of the same continuum that was tearing the world apart.


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