The Eyes of a Good Pony
Swift Sweep
“So sorry, Mama,” said Page as she cleaned her desk. Papers floated about in the air, books got tossed this way and that, and the desk's drawers bent and slumped under the weight of tomes stuffed hastily into them. “If I'd known you were coming this early, I'd have cleaned up.”
“It's fine,” Veiled Quill replied. “I'm so proud you've got your own home. That's more than we've ever had.” She walked behind the desk and pulled the curtains open. “But you need to let some light in.”
“You've lived in a mansion, Mama.”
“But it wasn't mine. I still live in Oakbranch's attic back home.” She opened the window, the resulting gust sending papers into the air. “And we need some air in here, too.”
“Yes, Mama,” New Page said as she chased the fleeing papers.
Veiled Quill turned to me. “Are you just going to stand there?”
I shook my head, coming to my senses. “No, I'm sorry, I... I'll help. Page, should I—”
Page skipped over a stack of books on the floor and put her front hooves on my chest, attacking with a rapid-fire “No-no-no-no-no...” and pushing me back. “You're a guest, leave it to me.” She went back to cleaning her desk. “It's just, this place is hardly big enough for me, certainly not for three ponies.”
Clopping her hoof on a now-clear – if a bit dusty – desk, she sighed in relief. “Hokay, that's that.” She looked over the mess on the floor, and her sigh turned into a groan. “Maybe you could help a little bit. Just... just push all that stuff to the side, would you? Let's not trample 'em, most of it is Archives property.”
I obliged, taking the books and scrolls and carefully placing them under the full shelf by the wall.
In the meantime, Veiled Quill watched. “Say, Page, would you happen to have any wine on hoof?”
Page shot her a surprised stare. “Isn't it a bit early for that, Mama?”
Veiled Quill chuckled. “You know the world's gone mad when the student is telling her mother to cut back on the wine. No, but really, don'cha have any?”
“I... might have a bottle back here.” She pulled out a drawer on her desk and began taking out all the parchments she'd just stuffed in there. “It was actually a gift from Storming on my last birthday. I'm not sure if I've opened it...” The drawer got jammed as she tried to pull it out; after some useless budging and muttered cursing, Page decided to just dive in, head, hooves, and all.
The desk echoed with wooden smacks as she pushed things around in there, trying to mine her way to the very back. While she was busy there, Veiled Quill leaned subtly closer to me.
“Don't think I'm not on to you,” she whispered, eyes casting sparks. With every word she spoke, I found myself shrinking a little farther away, and she leaned in ever more. “If you touch her, if I even catch you looking there, I swear on the righteous Sun I'll take a pair of hedge trimmers to your—”
“I can hear you, Mama,” came Page's muffled voice from the drawer.
As Veiled Quill turned back towards her daughter, a smile replaced her murderous frown. “Of course you can, Loony.”
Page bumped her head into the desk before she managed to pull it out, motes of dust in her coat and mane. “Mama!”
Giggling, Veiled Quill turned to me. “Told me she was in love with the Moon when she was just a little filly, she did.”
I was still far too shocked – more by her sudden shift in attitude than the threat – to answer. I just nodded a weak “Uh-huh.”
Page slowly shrunk under the desk. “Mama, I told you not to talk about that.”
“But it was so cute!” Veiled Quill went to pull her from under the desk, and she dusted off her muzzle and mane in the process. “I take it you didn't find that bottle.”
Page brushed off her mother's hooves and fixed her mane. “No. I could, er, get some.”
“If I may chime in,” I began, “Page told me she actually has a lesson to go to.” I knew I came here on my own accord, but the urge to flee rose by the second. Surely Page wouldn't leave me alone with her mother.
“Don't be ridiculous,” Page said, sending her mother a wink. “I think I can miss one lesson, just this once. You two stay here, I'll go get a bottle.”
Veiled Quill and I exchanged a look. I couldn't hold her gaze for long before I turned back to Page. “You know, I really don't think I should—”
“No, no,” she said, grabbing my shoulder with one hoof and pulling her mother closer with her other. “You two work things out while I'm out, you'll have a few minutes.” She turned to Veiled Quill. “He's nice, Mama. Really.” She turned to me. “And she's a gem, trust me, Swift. Just a little protective.”
She released us from her grip, snatched a satchel of bits and went for the door.
“I mean it,” she said before walking out. “Talk.” She cast her mother a glare. “I'm sure it'll be easier if I'm not here.”
With my eyes on the floor, I heard the door open and close; Page left. I stood like that for a short while, not saying anything, afraid to look at Veiled Quill.
Afraid! A new feeling, that.
“I don't want to lose her,” she said. I looked up; she wasn't looking at me. One of her forelegs nervously scratched the other, and she had her eyes turned to the window, ears pinned back. “I'm terrified of losing her. I think she knows, but by Celestia, I'm too proud to say it in front of her.”
Grey hairs spotted her once-pristine coat. Though the light made her face shine, it could not hide the bags under her eyes or the sagging of her cheeks. The years had not been kind to her toned form and slender legs. Her silky mane had once smelled of ambrosial soaps and glistened with the light of stars; today she had it in a bun behind her head, loose ends sticking sorely out and seeming ready to break and tear at the slightest pull. But her eyes hadn't changed.
She was beautiful. Not in a way a hot-blooded stallion might see her, but in the way of an exquisite painting – a vision on a sleepless night. Something to be admired but never touched, lest you stain its perfect image.
I remembered the way I'd left her so long ago: soggy, sobbing, broken, slack. Yet here she was now, having travelled across the entire country to meet her daughter. Where I still struggled to contain the shaking of my legs, she stood tall on her own four hooves, back straight and eyes shining. She'd risen above.
A stronger pony than I was. Looking at her there, I realised I wasn't the only one to wear a mask in front of New Page.
“You're lucky to have her,” I said, making her turn to me. I flinched under her gaze. “I can tell you love each other very much. There is no shame in wanting to know she's safe.” I looked myself over. “I also understand how I might come off as dangerous.”
She pursed her lips. “Actually, I don't recall hearing your name.”
“Swift Sweep,” I said. “Page just calls me Swift. And you would be...”
“Veiled Quill.” She got on the tips of her hooves and leaned closer to get a good look at me. I resisted the urge to shrink away. She eyed me up and down, finally fixing her stare in my eyes, squinting as though looking for something inside of me. My heart began to beat faster. She can't know who I am. There is no way. She can't, she can't... I did my best to retain my composure.
“Yeah,” she sighed, coming back down. She turned and dropped onto Page's bed.
She sat at first, but quickly decided to lie down, putting her chin on the worn pillow. The thing looked old, and even before Veiled Quill placed her head there you could make out the general shape of Page's head – and her mother's fit squarely within the mould.
“You're alright,” she mumbled. Her eyes shut and her brows furrowed as she let loose a weary, exhausted sigh. Turning to her side, she slightly raised one of her hind legs to tuck her tail in between. “I didn't realise how tired I am.”
“Um...” I muttered. “I can assure you, I would never hurt Page. I care nothing for such pleasures, anyway.”
She flicked her ears, but her eyes stayed shut. “I get it. Like I told you, you're fine.” She threw a limp leg over her eyes. “Let me sleep.”
I took a step back. “Certainly, but...” I bit my lip. “I don't have a key to lock the door.”
She turned the other way, and I heard her scoff. “If a bad pony just barged in, that would reflect terribly on Celestia's perfect little world up here, don'cha think? I'll put my faith in her goons to keep the peace.”
I looked up at the ceiling, to a point where I'd put a surveillance crystal. “Yes, I suppose that's right. Rest well.”
As Veiled Quill mumbled her agreement, I went to close the curtains on the window. I took one last look at the ceiling before walking out the door. You'd better protect her sleep, Lullaby.
New Page
I saw Swift flying away as I returned – and quite swiftly too, so I didn't have a chance to talk to him. Considering how quickly he fled the scene, I feared I might find Mama a rampaging harpy. I certainly didn't expect to see her sleeping peacefully on the bed. My coming in did not wake her.
Her trip to Canterlot must've taken her days, if not over a week. No matter how much she insisted it had been nothing, I could tell it put a toll on her. No wonder. I wished they'd just finish that damn train line already. I cast a glance towards the Palace, its spires covered in scaffolds and swarms of pegasi workers whirling around it. I guess Celestia has other priorities.
I couldn't help looking at Mama with a newfound sense of sadness. She'd always refused to talk about the Longest Night, no matter how much I asked – and now I knew why. The realisation made my stomach clench. All my life, I've been living a false history invented by Mama. But why? For my sake? For her own sanity?
No wonder she drank.
I wasn't too keen on wines, or any sort of alcohol, really. The stallion at the Pristine Pillars said this would be fitting as a gift for somepony who was, though. By the discount price tag, however, I had to question the veracity of the claim. As I placed the bottle onto my desk, Mama's ear flicked, and she woke up with a deep breath.
She opened her eyes briefly, looked at me, then glanced at the bottle. Then she shut them again. “Thank you, Loony.”
I sat down at the foot of the bed, doing my best to leave her space. “So, you and Swift... did you talk?”
“He's alright.”
“So where'd he go?”
“Like I know.” She turned towards me, but kept her eyes shut. “Wherever. Would've been awfully rude of him to stay and watch, don'cha think?”
“Of course.” I fiddled with my hooves for a bit. “Mama?”
“Yes, Loony?”
“Did Papa fight well?”
Her eyelids slowly slid open. She propped up her upper body with a hoof and gradually raised herself, brows furrowing. She looked incredulously at me – her lips weren't closed entirely. “What do you mean?”
“He saved us, didn't he?” I put my hooves in my lap. I didn't want to look at Mama. “He stopped those two monsters, didn't he?”
She scooted over to put her hooves around me. “Of course he did. He's the only reason we're both still alive.” Her voice was growing shaky; I heard her swallow hard before continuing. “Why do you ask?”
“I just...” I looked the other way. It's just that he wasn't my Papa, was he? “It's just that I wish I'd have gotten to know him.”
“Hey now, don't feel sad.” She pretended to brush my tears away, though I had none. She did. “He wouldn't want you to be sad.”
“I'm not sad. Not everypony has a hero for a Papa.”
She hugged me close, resting her chin on my shoulder. “You know, I promised myself I'd be here for you in his place too.” She put her hoof under my chin to turn my face to her. “That's why I come off a little... overzealous sometimes.”
I embraced her, tackling her onto the bed. Because it didn't matter who Papa was, or who he wasn't. He was my Papa, and nopony could ever take his place. Not even if I'd never met him.
As we lay there, Mama petted my back and mane. Used to be that on cold winter nights. When we couldn't afford firewood, we'd sleep like this to help keep warm. Well, that was when I still fit in her lap.
I didn't want to let go. For the first time in my life, I knew she needed these moments far more than I ever had.
The mare in chains strained against the hooks under her skin, tearing flesh and popping joints. She snorted and spat madly through the muzzle that bound her mouth, and she carved the bare, white earth with her hooves. Her wings slipped and slid underneath the binds that circled her chest, her chains rattled, and the weights that hung from her legs pummelled the rocks below with her every jerk.
She never used to be this violent. The night I touched the Soul Gem, she'd lost her composure; she never sang any more. Struggle as she might, however, she could not break loose. My presence, I think, taunted her. For I was free to walk around in her eternal prison, and when I woke up, I'd be free to walk Equestria. The chains that held her neck in place tightened as she leaned forwards.
A snap: a hook tore out her nape and fell slack to the ground, eliciting a muffled scream through her contorted grin. She forced her head forwards, thrusting out her chin and muzzle to a point where they almost touched mine.
From the mist behind her, two more hooks on chains flung themselves at her like a pair of striking snakes, digging into her neck and pulling her back. Her eyes widened with pain, but her grin did not waver.
Her eyes met mine again. Then she looked at my right wing, and I felt it burn under her stare.
The heat rose steadily in my wing. It hurt immensely, but I didn't scream. I did not panic, though as I turned my head I saw flames devouring my feathers and eating my flesh. I looked on with the calmness of reading a book; conscious on some level of what was happening before my eyes, but unable to truly feel the pain.
Nightmare Moon rattled her chains one last time, and laughed past the strap that bound her muzzle. A curtain of mist engulfed her, then me, before everything dissolved.
The first thing I noticed, before even opening my eyes, was the pain in my wing. I'd forfeited my bed to Mama despite all her pleading otherwise, content with sleeping on the carpet for a few days. And, as I came to notice, I'd been using my injured wing as extra padding between me and the floor, sleeping on my right side.
By some miracle or other, I did actually have two blankets at home so that both Mama and I could have one. Looking up, I noted she was still fast asleep.
I arched my chest up to unfurl and stretch my hurting wing under the blanket. Its hollow bones and squashed ligaments popped and cracked painfully, but that wasn't going to make me get up.
I pulled the blanket tighter around me. Oh, the joys of the cold morning air atop the tallest mountain in the land! Sleeping on the floor only added to the experience.
My wing hurt. I flapped it a bit, I threw it one way and another, I folded it and unfurled it again, but I couldn't find a position where I felt comfortable. Every tiny inch of it burned; every time I moved it, I felt the prick of needles. The burn always looked bad, but it hadn't been this consistently painful before. With a sigh, I conceded that I might have to get up and actually take a look.
I threw the blanket off and tip-hoofed to the window, careful not to wake Mama. I pulled the curtains apart just a bit, deliberately avoiding shining light on her eyes.
I raised my wing before me.
And I froze.
I wiggled it a little bit, and I folded it back before spreading it again.
This has to be a nightmare.
It was not my wing, and yet it was: it obeyed my every command. It was featherless and bare, and under the thin layer of veiny skin my bones were plain to see. Spines adorned the joints, and the wing ended in a bony spike at the tip. It resembled a dragon's talons more than any pegasus wing I recognised. The wing of a bat... that of a Night Guard.
I turned to look at my left wing in utter disbelief. That one was fine. I could feel shock overtake me: how it rooted my hooves and gripped my chest so that I could not scream.
With a trembling hoof, I poked the few remaining feathers on my bat wing. They'd gone grey and shrivelled; at the tiniest touch, they came off without sound or pain, crumbling like autumn leaves in my shaking grasp. I'm not dreaming.
As the crumbled flakes of feathers fell from my hoof, I felt the tension rise in me. My heart beat faster and faster; I started hearing my own blood rush in my ears. I breathed in with a deep, sharp gasp, my face contorting with horror. I could not tear my gaze away from my wing, its spiky bones and the veiny film of repuslive grey skin that stretched between them.
I erupted in a scream and fell to the floor, trying to crawl away from the thing that sprouted from my back. I crawled back to where I'd slept – and felt something strange brush my back. Under my blanket I found a pile of feathers and peeled skin, caked in dried blood and clumped together by a night's sleep.
“Loony?” came the panicked voice of Mama.
I turned around to hide my hideous wing behind my back. I flicked the blanket over the pile of lost skin and feathers and put on an innocent smile. “It's nothing! I saw a spider, a spider it was, Mama.” A desperate attempt at pretence; I knew she'd seen.
She hopped out of her bed and pulled the blanket off the floor. With a dawning horror in her eyes, she grabbed me and turned me around. I tried to resist at first, but Mama overpowered me. Or rather, I realised there was no hiding it now and gave in. As she looked at my wing, her jaw dropped and her eyes widened in panic.
Breathing heavily, she took a step back, unable to turn away.
“No,” she mumbled, shaking her head spastically. “No, no, no...”
“Mama...” I tried to put my hoof on her shoulder, but she backed away into the wall like a scared, stray dog. “Mama, it's okay.”
She rushed out of the room, slamming against the wall as she turned for the exit. She ripped the door open and ran outside; I had to stop at the doorstep. With all the ponies outside for the morning rush, I didn't want anypony to see my wing.
“Mama, I know!” I yelled. “I know what happened!”
Mama froze, halfway down the mountainside by now. Slowly, she looked up at me. I raised a hoof, beckoning her back.
“I know,” I said, “and it's alright. Come back, Mama. Please, please come back.”
She made a step upwards, but stopped right away. Turning back, she cast a glance down the mountain.
“Mama...”
I could see her mutter to herself and rapidly shake her head. Her entire body convulsed with heavy breaths; I was afraid she might pass out right there.
“Don't run away again,” I said. Mama froze up, then slowly turned to me. I felt my lips waver as I spoke. “Don't leave me, Mama.”
Finally, she took another step up – and then continued at a slow, cautious pace, and began avoiding my gaze. The closer she came, the more she turned her head away. She walked inside without looking me in the eye.
I stuck my head out and looked around before closing the door. I didn't see any curious eyes looking at us, so that was lucky.
“I know about the Longest Night,” I said, turning the key in the lock. “I know... what I am.”
Mama sniffed, licking her running nose. Her jaw hung agape with shallow, choking gasps. “How?” she mouthed, standing stiff and staring at the wall.
I put a hoof over her shoulder and guided her back to the bed to sit her down. “Mama, it doesn't matter.”
She sat on the bed, head hung, making quiet sobs and sniffles and clopping her hooves together nervously. I settled on the floor before her, taking her hooves into mine. Her gaze wandered to my wing, only for her to jerk her head the other way.
I nuzzled her chest.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“I don't know why my wing... did this.” I took her hooves and placed them on my chest. “But Mama, we're going to find out. I'm sure it can be fixed.” She tried to pull away, still avoiding my eyes, but I didn't let go. “And Papa will always be my Papa.”
She turned to me. Her lips trembled and she took a breath; she ended up bursting with tears and pulling me close, putting her chin on my shoulder to cry into my mane. “I'm so sorry!”
Her words were interspersed with heavy gasps for air, and her voice shook, trailing off into indistinct sobs at the end of every sentence.
“I couldn't live, Loony. I couldn't, I couldn't...” Her embrace tightened. She began rocking me back and forth. “I went mad, Loony. I fell apart. By Celestia, I'm so sorry.”
Those were her last words for a good while; I let her cry herself out. Her hold on me did not loosen for a second. As her neck brushed against mine, I felt her gulp.
“I love you so much, Loony.”
“I love you too, Mama.”
Swift Sweep
I heard the door budge. Somepony knocked. They knocked and knocked again. I didn't get up to see who it was, leaning instead into the mirror. Page had just got up, and her wing... I could not make it out. It looked strange. Almost like...
There came some frustrated grumbles and metallic clanging as they put a key into the lock.
“I know I'm late,” said Lullaby, kicking the door in. “But don't you think you could get off your fat rump just once? I just spent my entire night talking with River, you should know.” A soft smack; she threw her bag into the corner, like she always did. “Celestia's up in his ass about the Star Swirl Wing. He came to me asking about our surveillance of the 'little filly', desperate for info. But of course I could not tell him a thing. I hate you, Swift, I hate you so much.”
Her hooves clopped as she paced up to me. “They brought in another suspicious kid last night. You know what he told 'em? That the time was nigh. I read this in the interrogation log and I'm going to quote it for you, you thick slop-for-brains. 'On the longest day of the twentieth year, the Progeny will pave the way for the Mother's return'.”
She put her hooves on my shoulder and shook me. “Are you listening to me? The longest day of the year, the Summer Sun Celebration, that's tomorrow, and we've got their Progeny right here. What are you even looking at, haven't you been going out with her e... en-nough...”
Her words trailed off. Finally, she'd looked at the mirror.
Page screamed, falling to her haunches, kicking and flailing her hooves at her own, transformed wing. Veiled Quill quickly woke up as well.
“What in the...” Lullaby turned to me, then the mirror, and back to me. “What?”
“I don't know,” I replied, too enraptured by the scene to look at Lullaby. “I genuinely have no idea. She threw off her covers, and there it was.”
“We need to—”
Veiled Quill took off running, and Page followed.
“Damn it!” Lullaby rushed to the window.
I hopped to my hooves. “Are they—”
“Yes! No, actually, no.” She pressed her forehead against the glass. “No, she's coming back. Alright.” She looked back at me. “Okay, just so we're both on the same page, Page here has a Night Guard's wing.”
“Looks like it.”
“And we don't know why.”
“Not a clue.”
She stormed up to me, grabbing the skin of my neck. “What aren't you telling me? I've played along, I've protected you, but you—”
“I really don't know!” I tore her hooves off and shoved her away. “I don't know.” I turned the other way and rubbed my forehead. “I can only assume they did something to her. What was it they stole, again? Luna's soul fragment? Who knows what they used that for.”
“Th-they did something? She, Swift. She.”
“She would never do something like this to herself.”
“You haven't known her for a week.”
“I've known her ever since we set up this cursed mirror.”
Lullaby chewed her lip, breathing sharply out her nose. She forcibly pressed her forehead against mine. “She is a member of the Children of the Night.”
I pressed right back. “No, she isn't.”
She held her ground for a moment. Then, scoffing, she whipped around and flicked her tail under my nose. “So you're going to do this, huh? I can't believe you, Swift.”
“I can't give up an innocent, ignorant filly to the EBSS.” Good thing she wasn't turned my way. I couldn't have said that to her eye.
She whipped around again – slapping the back of a hoof across my face. “You've done it before.” She did not raise her voice at all, but her tone made me want to sink into the ground in shame. “I'm going back to HQ,” she continued, “and I'll tell River everything. Including how you withheld information because of your own petty conscience.”
I licked my lower lip. I tasted blood. “And you helped me.”
She ground her teeth under a twitching eye. “Only because—”
“Do you think Celestia is going to care?”
She took a deep breath, closing her eyes. When she exhaled, she looked calm again. “Okay, small boy. I'm listening to your plan.”
“I... I don't have a plan.”
“You got me into this.”
“Look, I told you, I don't know. I need time.”
“I don't think you were listening.” She knocked a hoof on my head. “Even if I wanted to give you time, even if your precious daughter is pure and clean, we simply don't. Have. Time. The Children will want her tomorrow. Nichts could barge in their door this very instant and take her away. You think they'd be able to stop Nichts? We couldn't stop her.”
“So what's your plan?” I asked.
“My plan...” She danced her gaze across the other wall, nodding and chewing her lip. “My plan is for you to think of something, and fast. In the meantime, I'll schedule a hanging for you. It'll have to be sometime when I'm working so I have an excuse to not be there.”
“So you just want to save your own skin, huh? You don't care about me, or Page, you just—”
She swung her hoof at me again, but this time I caught her hoof. Our legs stayed up there, hers pushing, mine keeping it at bay. “I've had your back, Swift,” she admonished. “I've had it for decades.”
She did indeed. I could barely stand to look at her – not out of hate but because she was right.
I lowered my hoof and closed my eyes, bracing for a rightfully deserved slap. It never came.
“There has to be another way,” I said.
“I'm all ears, Swift.”
I sat down onto the bare floor. The world began spinning, my stomach churned, and my head was splitting. In my eyes, I felt the tears swell, and I did my best to rub them away. If only Page hadn't grown that wing. I could've tipped her off, helped her flee. But she could not hide for long with this. If only I'd have turned her in before I got to know her. If only I had never spoken to her.
My hind legs went limp. I fell to my haunches and tore at my mane.
If only I hadn't forced myself on Veiled Quill. I should never have joined the Night Guard. If only I hadn't been a useless blight on Equestria. If only I'd have become a painter like I'd dreamt.
If only I'd never been born.
“Get up,” Lullaby said, anger barely contained in her voice. “Get. Up.”
So I did.
“You know my plan?” I asked. Lullaby cocked her head and raised a brow. “My plan is I'll go down to the Pristine Pillars and get very, very drunk. I haven't done that in twenty years.”
With that, I walked for the door.
“Don't you dare,” Lullaby said, voice shaking. “You open that door, I swear...”
“Swear what? You'll tell River? Celestia?” Putting my hoof on the handle, I chuckled, out of desperation and because I had nothing else left to do. There comes a point where one can only laugh. “Hey, maybe we'll get to be cell mates in the crystal mines.”
As I closed the door behind me, I heard Lullaby bellow her anger and a desk crack under the impact of a hoof.
I bet Veiled Quill and Page heard, too.
The thing about getting drunk is that if you don't do it for twenty years, you tend to severely overestimate just how much you can take.
I asked for the strongest thing they had, and promptly downed a glass on the spot. I asked for another, but by the time the barkeep brought it out, I had decided to just share the table with it and peacefully coexist. I spent an hour staring at that weird, greenish liquid he said to be from the borderlands between Equestria and the Donkey Principality. All I knew was that it had the kick of a mule.
After about half an hour – or maybe two, memory's hazy – of staring at the thing, I mustered the courage to take another sip. If this is my last drink on Celestia's money, I'm damn well going to get its worth.
Just as I touched the glass to my lips, I heard the door swing open behind me. Please tell me that's not Page. She wouldn't be insane enough to just come here looking like that.
“Huh, nice place,” said Veiled Quill.
“What can I get ya'?” asked the barkeep. And I sunk a little deeper into my seat, pulling my neck in.
“I don't know, what do you... oh, is that you, Swift?”
For the Moon's sake.
She threw herself into the seat across the table. “I just got thrown out of some uppity bar the other way.” She burped, flicking a stray lock of mane away that had escaped her bun. “Said I was a nuisance. They had some good stuff, too, so that's a shame. How are you? What's that in your hooves?” She leaned across the table, practically climbing on it, to take a smell. “Ugh, it's revolting.”
“Dear lady,” the barkeep called out. “You gonna order?”
She drooped back into her chair, waving a slack hoof in my general direction. “Oh, I'll have what he's having.”
The barkeep muttered something under his breath about how he bets she can take it.
The best thing about Veiled Quill's arrival was that it gave me the mental strength to down the entire glass in one go.
“So what's got you so down?” she asked.
I slammed the glass down. “Stuff.”
“Yeah, I've got a lot of stuff on my mind too.”
“I can tell.”
Her bun was coming undone, stray mane hairs covering the redness of her cheeks and sticking to the corners of her lips. A soaked pattern on her coat down her chest and belly spoke of all the drinks she'd spilled that day. So much for that picture of beauty and strength. I couldn't help but laugh. “Look at us, two old fools drowning in alcohol.”
“Well, you don't seem to be drowning yet,” she chortled. “Trust me, I know what that's like.”
The barkeep brought out a glass for her with the same green atrocity inside. “Here you go.”
“Thank you, lovely.” She grinned. I caught the stench of her mouth all the way from here. She smelled the drink and licked her lips. “Hey, what's with that look?”
“What look?”
“That's the 'I have nowhere to go' look. I know that one.”
“You've been there,” I said. My tongue worked faster than my brain. Perhaps I should've phrased that as a question.
“Oh, I have...” She chuckled, drinking the entire glass in one go. Shivers rocked her body and she nearly dropped the glass. “Brr! Oh, have I been there. You know what I like about hitting rock bottom, looking back?”
“The taste of cheap drinks?”
“That too, but that's not what I meant. The thing about rock bottom is you have nowhere to go but up.”
“Inspiring.” I raised my glass and tilted it above my mouth to gather a few missed drops.
“Well if you won't start, then I will.” She put her hoof up, waving to the barkeep. “Hey, another one of these!” She glanced at me, then back to him. “Actually, make it two.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks.”
“So you know, before Page was born...” She belched. “You know, I actually considered, you know... getting rid of her. You know.”
“I believe I do.”
“Yeah. 'Cause you know, kids. You're always afraid they turn out to be little monsters.” Her tipsy smile dissolved, and soon enough her tears were rolling. “I almost did it,” she sobbed. “I was gonna use a... a watchamacallit, a poking stick, like you know, for a fireplace. I had it in my hooves.” She stopped for a moment to wipe her eyes. “But I couldn't. I couldn't do it.” She took a deep breath, flicking her mane back. “Say, you got any loinspawn?”
The barkeep came over with our pair of drinks. I took one, and seeing Quill with her face buried in her hooves, I took hers too and placed it out of her reach.
“I don't.”
She lifted her head up. A smile overcame her lips again, though the tears hadn't stopped. “You don't know what you're missing.”
“I've got enough problems without them.”
“Longest Night?” she asked.
“Longest Night,” I replied.
“Who died?”
“My father. And my hopes for a future.”
“Yet you're still kicking around all these years later.” She straightened herself. “I think you're doing pretty well.”
I took a sip from my drink, and pushed Quill's over to her. “Suppose you knew Page was going to die tomorrow.”
She'd lifted her glass, but put it back down when I said Page's name.
“And you could stop it,” I went on, “but you'd have to go in her place.”
“Then I would in a heartbeat.”
I scoffed. “You see? That. That's why I don't have kids.” I downed the drink. “I'm a bitter, selfish monster.”
She splashed her drink all over me – I couldn't even respond with anything but a look.
“Oh, quit it!” she said. “You're not a monster.”
I didn't even care for getting soaked like that – I only minded the drink burning my eyes. I blinked away as much as I could, rubbing out the rest. “You have no idea who I am.”
“Actually, I do have an idea.”
That hit me harder than the drink. No, you can't know... no, she doesn't know. I dismissed the thought quickly.
“You do realise I'm a mare, right?” she asked.
I looked her over. “I've been getting that feeling.”
“You know what happened to the mares during the Longest Night.”
“I might have read about it.”
She leaned forward. The haze of alcohol seemed to evaporate from her sight, and in her gaze settled a clarity possessed only by the most illuminated drunkards and the wisest of philosophers. I found myself pinned into my seat by her glare.
“I've seen the eyes of a monster, Swift. I've felt its hot breath on my neck. I've had its fangs rake my skin. I've listened to its debased grunts, and I've heard its perverted laughter as it violated my being.” She crossed her hooves and squinted her eyes, looking deep into mine. “I know monsters. I look at you, and you... you are not one.”
I'm not a monster.
It took me a moment to process.
Veiled Quill told me I was not a monster.
My forehead shivered with sweat, and my throat ran dry. My stomach turned.
I stumbled out of my chair, nearly falling over as I rushed for the door. I rammed it open and turned into the alley beside the Pristine Pillars. And out they came, all the drinks I'd had, all over the wall and my hooves.
I felt a hoof pat my shoulder.
“Wow,” said Quill. “You really can't hold your liquor, can you?”
I dignified her words with another go over the wall. This time it had little bits in it.
No matter how long I ran from it, I could not escape the fact. I was a monster. And hunched in that alley between the cheap tavern and a bordello, you know what I realised? It was something I'd actually known for a long, long time, only I never thought to turn it back on myself.
Monsters, no matter the shape, needed to be put down.
New Page
Mama stumbled through the door late into the afternoon, smelling as bad as she looked. I knew I shouldn't have let her out, but what was I supposed to do – keep her by force? I couldn't possibly go after her looking like this. She muttered something about meeting Swift and what a weird pony he was, vowing three times in the meantime to never drink again.
I helped her into bed, then into sleep; I used a few stray papers to gently fan her face and nodded along to her drunken, incoherent rambling. The dreams took her soon enough; I was again left to my own devices. Checking that I'd locked the door, I returned to the bathroom.
I'd been trying to hide my wing by patching it up with bandages and hoisting it in a makeshift sling as though it were broken. However, I did not have anywhere near the amount of gauze to cover the whole thing, and the spikes that marked every joint would stubbornly pierce through them at the slightest movement.
On a desperate whim, I managed to find an old hammer I'd kept stashed somewhere; one hard hit in the right place, I figured, and the largest spike would snap right off. I put the wing onto the edge of the washtub, and with flicked the hammer in position between my jaws. I cracked my neck, readying to strike.
What followed was a scream, a chipped tooth, a cracked spike that refused to fall off, a broken washtub, a lot of blood, and even more regret. I ended up wasting even more bandages on cleaning myself up.
“Oh, it's nothing, Mrs Pinegreens,” I muttered to myself as I scrubbed my wing. “I just tripped and fell down the cliff, that's all. No, no, Miss Mercy, it's really fine. Turns out I'm one-sixteenth dragon on Papa's side, who would'a thunk? Gah!”
Why? I kept asking myself. Was it the Soul Gem? Did Nie do something to me while I was out?
It'll be alright. I just needed time to think. I knew I could come up with something. I always did. I've survived too much to be stopped now. The fates loved me, I knew it. It's all gonna be fine.
I heard voices outside the door.
Before I could put my bloody towel down, the doorframe cracked inwards and the door came flying off its hinges.
From the bathroom, I had a clear view of the entrance – and the heavily armoured ponies rushing in. I barely had time to react. There were three of them, all huge, and their every galloping step tore into the floor, cracking wood and grinding the stone underneath. I could barely see their eyes under their heavy helmets.
I had nowhere to go. A stallion grabbed me by the mane and threw me out of the bathroom, right into the hooves of another. My cry for Mama was cut short by a jagged horseshoe slamming into the pit of my stomach, knocking the air out of me.
“What are you doing?” Mama shrieked, jumping one of them – only to be sent to the floor with one shove.
While that one held Mama at bay, the other two pushed me to the floor and bound my legs together.
Mama beat the pony blocking her with all her might, but he did not so much as flinch. “Not again, not again!” she wailed. When Mama proved persistent, the stallion twisted her hooves and threw her to the floor.
“For her crimes against Equestria,” said the stallion as he stepped off her, “the Equestrian Bureau for State Security is placing your daughter under arrest.”
“What are you talking about?” Mama asked, getting up and skipping back a safe distance.
The stallion reached to his belt and took off a set of cuffs, making a calm step towards her. “For your own protection, you are also coming with us.” He held the cuffs out between them. “You have no reason to make this difficult.”
As one stallion stood me up, the other got my towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around my bat wing. They shoved me towards the door, giving me one second to see my mother being cuffed.
“Mama, I'm sorry!”
I'd been afraid that one day the EBSS would knock on my door. But as I realised, that was just crazy. The EBSS doesn't knock.
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i.imgur.com/qQLkgXg.gif
Well, that was... frightening.
6440366 It's certainly a very different chapter.
If only she knew... Quill would hedge trimmer Sweep right now.
Well, fuck Sweep with a broom handle.
Lullaby is probably laughing her ass off.
Oh no, it's a bat wing. Why is this happening now?!
New Page's real name?
Hmmm, if Page never got involved with The Children of the Night, would her body still have started changing on her? And if so, would EBSS still have treated her so roughly despite being completely innocent? Celestia turned the EBSS into governmental thugs to keep the populous in line.
Now, on to the story as a whole. What the hell is up with this 6k, 7k updates? I... I want more. I want to spend all day being a lazy slob and only reading this story.
Do you understand me JawJoe?
I scream like a little girl when a new chapter comes out. I wouldn't mind screaming like a little girl everyday. *wink wink nudge nudge*
6440343
Ok, that was pretty funny.
Edit: I guess I'll go back to reading trash like Fallout: Equestria - Project Horizons.
Shit's really hit the fan now and then leaving us with this gigantic cliff hanger
6440716
i.imgur.com/oVWOe5t.jpg
6440803
I feel this is you at the moment.
cdn.meme.am/instances/55160257.jpg
6440893 It is him, and it's pretty shameless.
6440996
Can I inflate the ego so much it explodes?
A choice is coming upon our poor ol' monsters. Apparently monsters also weep.
Well... This happened quicker than I had anticipated... Unless we just got Red Herring'd by a tactical extraction by the Children.
Is there an Audio Drama of this? it would be awesome if it is.
6445086
Unfortunately no. Although I've had some people express interest in making one... but nothing will come of it for like a year or so. These things take a long time, if they happen at all.
6445086 Man, imagine how long it would take to work on all of this as an audio drama. You would likely need voice tons of actors and stuff, just because of how many notable characters there are.
Also, nice avatar. The PBY was such a cool aircraft.
6440343
I have no idea what to make of that.
Damn. Houston, the shit has officially made first contact with the fan.
6440716
You take that back. Nobody insults the Bible of Blackjack.